Ryan Hall will finally make his long-awaited return to the cage at UFC 264 according to recent reports. The news was originally broken by Adjara Sport’s MMA Social Media Manager, Giorgi Kokiashvili, in a tweet from his official Twitter account. The fight announcement will be music to the ears of any fans of BJJ as the American leglock specialist has long been a favorite despite the fact that his MMA career has been very stop-start, with several breaks of over a year or more between fights.
That isn’t to say it’s Hall’s fault of course, as he’s been desperate to compete and has been seen calling out fighters left and right for years, with many of the top-ranked competitors turning down fights with him. This recent fight announcement against undefeated Georgian prospect Ilia Topuria represents a change of pace from the last two fights that Hall has been linked with as Topuria is unranked and only ten fights deep into his professional career. Before UFC 264, Ryan Hall was scheduled to fight ex-title contender Ricardo Lamas before the fight was postponed due to Coronavirus, and then Hall was forced to withdraw from the fight due to undisclosed reasons.
It didn’t take long for him to get another fight announcement after this however, and was soon matched up with Dan Ige for UFC Vegas 21. Bad luck struck again however when Hall suffered an injury to his hip flexor in training that meant he could no longer compete. It’s this culmination of events that has meant that Hall has only managed to make it to the cage for three more fights since winning the Ultimate Fighter 22 all the way back in 2015.
🚨 FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨
Per https://t.co/KlC5MfWL40 and my sources, the undefeated Georgian Ilia Topuria will face Ryan Hall at UFC event on July 10 !!! 🔥#UFC #IliaTopuria #RyanHall #adjarasport #adjarasporttv #ufconadjarasport pic.twitter.com/FWkrdzcB2V
— Giorgi Kokiashvili 🇬🇪 (@iHeartGeorgius1) March 23, 2021