Alexander Volkov will fight Tom Aspinall in the main event of UFC Fight Night London at The O2 Arena later this year, UFC president Dana White has revealed.
The heavyweight bout will take place on March 19 in the capital city of England at the top of the bill which will also include the highly-anticipated returns of Molly McCann, Jack Shore and Paddy Pimblett, per reports.
It will be the first time the UFC has held an event in the UK since March 2019 when Jorge Masvidal knocked out Darren Till in front of 20,000 fans at the Millennium Dome three years ago.
Russian Volkov, 33, will enter the contest on the back of a three-round unanimous decision victory over Marcin Tybura - a win which extended his UFC record to 8-3.
Team Kaobon's Aspinall, meanwhile, is widely regarded as one of the best prospects in the blue-riband division and has even caught the eye of interim champion Ciryl Gane.
Gane told GIVEMESPORT earlier this week the British MMA fighter is already on his radar as one to watch out for for the future.
But first he must get past Francis Ngannou, which will be no easy task.
Gane said: "I love my generation. I think just behind me there are a lot of future stars. Like, I like to say his name, but Tom Aspinall is a really good fighter.
"I really appreciate his style, he's really, really well-rounded. Daukaus as well, but unfortunately he just lost to Derrick Lewis, I don't know how Derrick does this, but every time he does.
"We have a lot of names when we talk about the new generation just behind me and I think they are the future of the division."
Aspinall, 28, has gone 4-0 in the promotion since making his debut on the prelim card of his Liverpool teammate Till's clash with Robert Whittaker in Abu Dhabi in July 2020.
The versatile striker picked up his first win at UFC Fight Island 1, scoring a brutal first-round TKO of Jake Collier courtesy of some beautiful combinations.
Another first-round finish of French veteran Alan Baudot followed later that same year, but the best win of his MMA career was to come four months later at UFC Fight Night 185.
Aspinall passed the toughest test of his career against Andre Arlovski with flying colours before following that up with yet ANOTHER first-round stoppage of Sergey Spivak.
Speaking to MMA Fighting about his viral KO of Moldova's Polar Bear, Aspinall said: “The reason why I always talk about taking it slow and stuff like that is a lot of people get it confused and think I’m not very confident. I think it’s completely the opposite.
"The fact is I’m very confident in myself and my own ability. I’m just aware enough to know I need more experience to compete with these guys who have had multiple five round fights.
“None of my fights have gone past like a round and a half yet. This experience, you cannot buy this stuff. This is very valuable and I’m completely aware that I need that stuff to compete with these guys.
"That’s what they’ve got over me. I feel like I’ve got a lot of other stuff over them — speed, power, skill, all this kind of stuff.
"I feel I’ve got that over most of the guys but one thing I’ve not got, which is also very important, is the experience. I want to build that up.”