Rodolfo Vieira has just been booked to compete against Armen Petrosyan at UFC On ESPN+ 88 on November 4th, 2023 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The elite BJJ competitor has been making a run at glory in professional MMA for quite some time now and he’s currently finding his footing in the middleweight division. Vieira won gold medals at the IBJJF world championship five times and even added an ADCC world championship to his collection back in 2015, long before he ever made the move to MMA. With an incredible grappling pedigree like that, he looked like he might do big things when he made his professional debut in 2017.
Things went very well for Vieira at first, as he finished five opponents in a row and signed a UFC contract with a perfect 5-0 professional record. He won his first two fights for the promotion in a similar fashion before he ended up registering a shocking submission loss to Anthony Hernandez at UFC 258. Rodolfo Vieira has alternated wins and losses since then and his record currently stands at 9-2, although he will be coming into the fight with Armen Petrosyan off the back of a win in his last fight. He isn’t currently ranked in the middleweight division but a win over Petrosyan might be enough to see him squeeze into the top 15 or at least get an opportunity to do so in his next fight.
Rodolfo Vieira announced the news that he would be facing Armen Petrosyan at UFC On ESPN+ 88 in a recent post to his official Instagram account. The original statement he made was in Portuguese and a translation can be found below:
“It is with great joy that I share this news with you. After 5 years without fighting in Brazil, in my country. We have the date and place set, I count on everyone’s support”