Dominick Cruz vs. Casey Kenney Fight Reportedly Set for UFC 259

Dominick Cruz and Casey Kenney will fight at UFC 259 on March 6, according to ESPN's Ariel Helwani.

MMA Junkie's Mike Bohn and Farah Hannoun first reported the necessary agreements had been made between the two fighters. This will be Cruz's first non-title bout since September 2014.

After an initial reign with the belt was cut short by injury Cruz captured the UFC Bantamweight Championship for the second time by split decision over T.J. Dillashaw in January 2016 and successfully defended the belt against Urijah Faber at UFC 199 that June. He lost to Cody Garbrandt at UFC 207 in December 2016 before multiple injuries prevented him from getting back inside the Octagon.

The 35-year-old made his long awaited return in May at UFC 249 but suffered a defeat by TKO to Henry Cejudo.

Cejudo promptly retired, which forced UFC to find a new bantamweight champion. Petr Yan took down Jose Aldo at UFC 251 to put himself atop the division.

Cruz is the No. 10 bantamweight contender in UFC's official rankings, so a win over Kenney will go some way toward earning him a crack at Yan.

Kenney, on the other hand, will be looking to make a statement and capture the biggest victory of his UFC career. The 29-year-old owns a 16-2-1 career record and is 5-1 since debuting with UFC in March 2019. Four of those fights were in 2020, and he beat Heili Alateng and Nathaniel Wood over a three-week stretch in October.