Cortes-Acosta and Blaydes set to clash in top-10 heavyweight bout at Noche UFC 4 on Sept. 19

Waldo Cortes-Acosta and Curtis Blaydes will meet in a top-10 heavyweight contest at Noche UFC 4 on September 19, per multiple outlets. The venue remains unconfirmed, with early reports pointing to the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. The card is also being reported under the UFC 331 banner, and the UFC has yet to clarify the scheduling overlap.

The September 19 date carries some administrative uncertainty. A separate UFC event is already slated for September 12 in Arizona, and bouts across both cards could shift depending on how the Noche UFC 4 celebration is structured. Charles Jourdain versus Marlon Vera in a bantamweight contest is the only other confirmed fight on the bill so far.

Cortes-Acosta arrives on the back of a productive stretch that saw him compete five times in 2025, going 4-1 with three knockouts. The Dominican opened this year by stopping Derrick Lewis at UFC 324, extending his win streak to three before dropping a decision to Alexander Volkov in a de facto title eliminator in May. Despite the loss, “Salsa Boy” has already cracked the top 10 in significant strikes landed in modern heavyweight history across just 13 UFC appearances.

Blaydes sits directly above Cortes-Acosta on that same leaderboard, holding a 50-strike advantage over his upcoming opponent. The former baseball pitcher is also the UFC heavyweight division’s all-time leader in takedowns landed, with 66 — more than double the total of the next active contender, Serghei Spivac, who has 32. Blaydes is coming off a loss of his own, a widely praised “Fight of the Year” contender against Josh Hokit in April.

With both men ranked inside the top 10 and each carrying momentum-disrupting recent defeats, the matchup carries genuine title-picture implications in a heavyweight division that remains wide open below the champion.