UFC has made their year-end card a tradition, and this year's just added two former UFC Champions to its slate.
#1 Dominick Cruz will make his first appearance since last December at UFC 207 when he lost his UFC Bantamweight Championship to Cody Garbrandt. He'll take on the surging #3 Jimmie Rivera (21-1).
Rivera is undefeated during his five fight UFC run, which includes big wins over Thomas Almeida, Urijah Faber and Iuri Alcantara. Outside of an exhibition loss on The Ultimate Fighter, Rivera will enter the cage unbeaten in over nine years. He also had two runs in Bellator and another in WSOF.
Also added to the show is former UFC Strawweight Champion #8 Carla Esparza facing #7 Cynthia Calvillo.
Esparza was the UFC's first ever Strawweight Champion, but lost the title in March 2015 to Joanna Jedrzejczyk. Since then she's went 2-1. Calvillo has only been a pro fighter since August 2016, but has went 6-0, including 3-0 in the UFC.
The UFC made the announcements via their Twitter accounts Wednesday night.
UFC 219 takes place December 30 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fightful.com will have full, live coverage of the event, and a live post-show podcast.
