No matter what happens in the coming weeks, someone is gonna fight for the UFC women’s bantamweight title at UFC 334 on November 12th.
Sources have confirmed that No. 1 ranked women’s 135 pounder Joselyne Edwards will travel to New York City and weigh in as the official backup to the Kayla Harrison vs. Amanda Nunes title shot set to take place at Madison Square Garden. The news was first reported by MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz and Damon Martin.
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“La Pantera” is 9-4 in the UFC and currently on a five fight win streak, four of which came via finish. Her last win came at UFC Vegas 116 in April where she took a unanimous decision win over Norma Dumont.
For a hot minute, the UFC was booking backup fighters for many of their title fights. These days its less often with the promotion only putting someone on the scale as insurance three times in 2026. Michael Morales weighed in as Islam Makhachev vs. Ian Machado Garry backup, Diego Lopes weighed in as Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje backup, and Mauricio Ruffy weighed in for Max Holloway vs. Conor McGregor backup.
Now Edwards will weigh in as backup for Kayla Harrison vs. Amanda Nunes, and it’s not too hard to imagine a scenario where she could step in and fight. Harrison cuts an insane amount of weight to get down to women’s bantamweight. She’s never missed weight before, but the cut is clearly getting harder. Nunes has never missed weight in 21 bouts at 135 pounds.
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Joselyne can’t say the same: she’s actually missed weight three times in nine bantamweight fights, once by three whole pounds. She’ll have to make championship weight of 135 on the nose with no pound allowance if she wants to step in should something happen to Kayla or Amanda. Let’s hope she doesn’t mess it up.
