Sean Strickland will make UFC history when he steps into the octagon on Saturday.

Just a month ago, Strickland was standing across Jared Cannonier in the main event of UFC Vegas 66 to close out 2022, and now he’s set to fight Nassourdine Imavov in the light heavyweight main event of UFC Vegas 67 to open 2023 (up from both man’s usual class of middleweight due to Strickland replacing Kelvin Gastelum on less than a week’s notice). This marks just the second time ever that a fighter has headlined consecutive UFC shows — and no one has done it in as short a span as Strickland.

Tito Ortiz was the first as he defended the light heavyweight title UFC 32 and UFC 33 back when UFC events were far less frequent. There was a three-month gap between Ortiz’s back-to-back headliners as opposed to 28 days for Strickland. The only other fighter to come close to matching this achievement is Deiveson Figueiredo, who headlined consecutive pay-per-views with flyweight title defenses at UFC 255 and UFC 256 to close out 2020, but there were a pair of Fight Night events in between.

Strickland’s willingness to jump on this opportunity shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone given his “punch first, ask questions later” approach to his career, and it could turn out to be a smart move if he can slow down the surging Imavov. Fights against ranked opponents aren’t easy to get when you’re on a losing streak, so Strickland simply stepped up and snagged one.

In other main card action, featherweight veterans Dan Ige and Damon Jackson collide in the penultimate bout of the evening, Punahele Soriano fights Roman Kopylov in a potential middleweight slugfest, Ketlen Vieira looks to cement herself as the No. 1 contender at bantamweight with a win over Raquel Pennington, and bantamweight blue-chipper Umar Nurmagomedov opens the show against Raoni Barcelos.