Jimmie Rivera vs Marlon Moraes on tap for June 1 in Utica

This has been a long time coming.

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) looks to finally settle the bantamweight bad blood between Jimmie Rivera and Marlon Moraes by putting together a main card grudge match for the upcoming “Fight Night” event on FOX Sports 1, scheduled for June 1, 2018 inside Adirondack Bank Center in Utica, New York.

That’s according to a report from MMA Fighting.

Rivera (21-1) is undefeated under the UFC banner, landing at No. 4 in the official rankings (see them here) after wins over Urijah Faber and Thomas Almeida, just to name a few. “El Terror” was expected to throw down against Dominick Cruz — then John Lineker — as part of the UFC 219 festivities last December, but separate injuries put an end to those respective bouts.

Which could have been saved by Moraes, based on this.

Moraes (20-5-1) was imported from the now-defunct World Series of Fighting (WSOF) promotion and came up short — just barely — in his Octagon debut opposite top contender Raphael Assuncao. “Magic” rebounded with back-to-back wins over John Dodson and Aljamain Sterling, the latter of which caused this.

No other bouts have been announced for the upcoming fight card in Utica; however, you can expect that to change in the coming weeks, if not days.

Stay tuned.