Jason Floyd - The MMA Report

Ross Pearson moves up to welterweight, replaces Siyar Bahadurzada against Jorge Masvidal at UFC 201

Siyar Bahadurzada has pulled out of UFC 201 due to an illness and stepping up to meet Jorge Masvidal on the July 30 fight card in Atlanta, Georgia will be Ross Pearson.

The fight change was recently announced by the UFC.

UFC 201 will come from the Phillips Arena and the event will be headlined by a welterweight title fight as Robbie Lawler defends the UFC 170 pound title against Tyron Woodley.

Pearson (19-11, 1NC) is coming off a lost last Friday night at The Ultimate Fighter 23 Finale against Will Brooks and is stepping up a weight class to face Masvidal. He is 4-5, 1NC in his last nine fights and four of those defeats have come by decision. Masvidal (29-11) enters this fight with back to back defeats and has gone 1-2 since returning to welterweight. Both of his recent defeats have come by split decision and the most recent defeat came last month against Lorenz Larkin.

The current UFC 201: Lawler vs. Woodley fight card is below.

Robbie Lawler (27-10, 1NC) vs. Tyron Woodley (15-3)
Matt Brown (20-14) vs. Jake Ellenberger (30-11)
Rose Namajunas (5-2) vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz (9-0)
Francisco Rivera (11-6, 1NC) vs. Erik Perez (15-6)
Nikita Krylov (20-4) vs. Ed Herman (23-11, 1NC)
Anthony Hamilton (14-5) vs. Damian Grabowski (20-3)
Michael Graves (6-0) vs. Bojan Velickovic (14-3)
Jorge Masvidal (29-11) vs. Ross Pearson (19-11, 1NC)
Cesar Arzamendia (7-2) vs. Damien Brown (15-9)
Ian McCall (13-5-1) vs. Justin Scoggins (11-2)