The UFC’s return to The APEX on January 11 just got a little bigger.
On Tuesday, the promotion announced two fights for the company’s first event of 2025, one of them being a middleweight showdown between Chris ‘Action Man’ Curtis and Roman Kopylov.
Alternating wins and losses in his last five fights, Curtis will look to climb back into the win column after coming up short against Brendan Allen via split decision in April. Before that, Curtis came out on the right side of another split decision against Marc-André Barriault at the beginning of 2024.
Overall, Curtis is 5-3 under the UFC banner with one no contest.
Standing in Curtis’ way of a 32nd career victory will Kopylov — a Russian standout who despite his lackluster 5-3 record, has looked very impressive inside the Octagon over the last couple of years.
Kopylov kickstarted his UFC run with back-to-back losses against Karl Roberson and Albert Duraev before winning five of his last six fights, all but …