Namajunas-Zhang title rematch added to UFC 268

UFC 268 will be a night of title fight rematches at Madison Square Garden.

On Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night broadcast the UFC announced that Rose Namajunas will make the first defense of her second reign at strawweight against the woman she beat for the title in April, Zhang Weili. The card, which features Kamaru Usman–Colby Covington as the main event, will take place in New York on November 6.

Namajunas defeated Zhang just 1:18 into the first round of their fight. She dropped Zhang with a head kick, then pounced on her opponent until referee Keith Peterson stopped the fight.

She previously won the strawweight title on Nov. 4, 2017, with a win over Joanna Jedrzejczyk, then after one successful title defense (against Jedrzejczyk), she lost the title to Jessica Andrade when she was dropped on her head and knocked out in the second round. Namajunas also lost another strawweight title bout to Carla Esparza in 2014, which was the UFC’s first title bout at that weight.

Zhang defeated Andrade by TKO just 42 seconds into their bout in August 2019 to become the UFC’s first Chinese champion. She made one successful title defense before losing to Namajunas.