It looks like the UFC is all set to open 2023 with a top flight welterweight contest. Shavkat Rakhmonov and Geoff Neal have been circling one another for several weeks now stretching back to early August, when the Kazakh fighter issued a callout via Twitter. Something that apparently irked the longtime Fortis MMA fighter.
“Right now, I’m not really worried about him,” Neal said of Rakhmonov at the time. “I’m kinda irritated that he just wanted to jump right in. I was like, ‘No, I called somebody out, I’m not talking to you right now.’ But we’ll see.