By:  | July 7, 2022 10:25 am

Heili Alateng will be making his pay per view debut in September. The Chinese bantamweight has been booked to face Chad Anheliger at UFC 279.

The event is set for September 10th and does not currently have a venue confirmed. Alateng (15-8-2) has won three out of his five UFC fights.

Alateng is coming off the most impressive win of his career. At UFC Vegas 51 he stopped Kevin Croom in just 47 seconds, the first time he had finished a fight inside the distance since his Road FC days.

Anheliger (12-5) scored a split decision win over ONE Championship veteran Muin Gafurov on Dana White’s Contender Series to earn a spot on the roster. The Canadian stopped Jesse Strader on his UFC debut to take his winning streak to ten.

Best of the rest

The event will be headlined by a bantamweight title bout. Aljamain Sterling (21-3) is defending his title against former champion T.J. Dillashaw (17-4).

Sterling is coming off a controversial split decision win over Petr Yan at UFC 273. The Russian appeared to have done enough to win three rounds but two of the three judges awarded the fight to the champion.

There was also controversy about the way Sterling won the belt. He was unable to continue after Yan landed an illegal knee in the fourth round of their fight at UFC 259.

Checkered past

Dillashaw has something of a checkered past himself. He won the UFC bantamweight belt in 2014 by stopping Renan Barao, who was seen as being absolutely unstoppable at that time.

He would eventually lose that belt but went on to recapture it in 2017 and also challenged unsuccessfully for the flyweight title two years later. But the American would end up being sidelined for a long period after falling foul of USADA.

Dillashaw tested positive for EPO and was handed a two year ban. But he made a successful comeback last year, beating Cory Sandhagen by split decision, and has been rewarded with a title shot.

UFC 279, TBA, September 10th
Aljamain Sterling (c) vs. T.J. Dillashaw (For bantamweight title)
Trey Ogden vs. Daniel Zellhuber (Lightweight bout)
Nikolas Motta vs. Cameron VanCamp (Lightweight bout)
Danyelle Wolf vs. Norma Dumont (Featherweight)
Louis Cosce vs. Trevin Giles (Welterweight)
Daniel da Silva vs. Victor Altamirano (Flyweight)
Irene Aldana vs. Macy Chiasson (Bantamweight)
Elise Reed vs. Mellisa Martinez (Strawweight)
Jamie Pickett vs. Denis Tiuliulin (Middleweight)
Heili Alateng vs. Chad Anheliger (Bantamweight)