Alessandro Costa is fighting twice in five weeks. The Brazilian flyweight has agreed to face Cody Durden on the UFC 329 prelims on July 11 at T-Mobile Arena, stepping in on two weeks’ notice for the injured Ode Osbourne.
Costa (16-5) is coming off a first-round TKO of Matt Schnell at UFC Vegas 118 on June 7, a finish he took on nine days’ notice and parlayed into a $25,000 bonus. The Schnell stoppage came at 2:32 of round one. The 30-year-old from Manaus, Brazil, has won both of his 2026 outings by TKO, putting his UFC win column at four straight stoppages, all of them by knockout. He came through Dana White’s Contender Series in 2022, wasn’t signed at the time despite winning his audition fight, and got into the promotion later that year on a short-notice booking against Amir Albazi that he lost in the third round. Three years on, he is back in the late-replacement role that defined his entry.
There is a circular wrinkle in the booking. In September 2024, Durden took a short-notice bantamweight bout against Matt Schnell as a replacement for an injured Alessandro Costa, winning by anaconda choke in the second round for his first Performance of the Night bonus. Two years later, Costa is the late-replacement opponent, and Durden is on the other side of the swap. The same two corners, in different order, on the same dance card.
Durden has reason to take the new matchup in stride. Alongside accepting Costa, the 35-year-old signed a fresh four-fight contract with the promotion. The new deal arrives after a stretch in which he has won two of his last eight fights, including a heavy-underdog unanimous decision over Jafel Filho earlier this year that ended a four-fight losing streak. That win is what earned him the new paperwork. The Costa booking is the first cash-in.
The card around them is less settled than the original announcement suggested. Osbourne’s withdrawal was the first late shuffle. A second has followed: bantamweight Farid Basharat is currently without an opponent after his original matchup with Ethyn Ewing fell through, and the UFC’s matchmakers are still searching for a replacement with under two weeks until fight night. UFC 329 will be set when both of those slots are filled. For now, one is.
UFC 329 streams on Paramount+ during International Fight Week, with no pay-per-view attached, the distribution setup the promotion has been running since the Paramount deal took effect earlier this year. Weigh-ins are scheduled for July 10. The broadcast goes live the following night.
The main event is the reason anyone is talking about this card. Conor McGregor (22-6) returns to MMA for the first time since fracturing his tibia against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 in July 2021. His last win remains the 40-second TKO of Donald Cerrone at UFC 246 in January 2020, a result now closing in on six and a half years old by the time he walks to the cage.
Max Holloway is the opponent on the other side of that long absence. The two first met in the featherweight division at UFC Fight Night: Shogun vs. Sonnen on August 17, 2013, with McGregor taking a unanimous decision in what was then a prospect fight. McGregor also tore his ACL during the bout, an injury he competed through and only had diagnosed afterward. The rematch is contested under different stakes, in a different weight class (welterweight, marking Holloway’s debut at 170 pounds), with both men carrying considerably more mileage.
For Costa, the booking continues a stretch of opportunism that has defined his recent run. Short notice, travel, weight cuts on compressed timelines: he has said yes to most of it, and the 2026 results suggest the formula is finally working. A win over Durden would put him on the cusp of the ranked conversation at 125 pounds, a division where activity tends to be rewarded as much as resume.
Durden, for his part, has built a record as a grinder with a wrestling-first approach. The new four-fight deal suggests the promotion sees runway, even with the recent ledger reading the way it does. A finish over a fighter coming off a short turnaround would be the kind of statement Durden has not yet had on his record, and the kind of result that justifies the contract on day one.
The Costa-Durden bout is now slotted into the preliminary portion. Whether McGregor’s return holds up to the runway it has been given is the question that will define the week. The Basharat opponent search is the smaller logistical question Las Vegas needs to answer before Friday.
