The top line of the UFC 331 marquee is still blank. The rest of the poster is filling in fast.

With the promotion's Sept. 19 return to Los Angeles roughly two months out, matchmakers have stacked reported bouts onto the card faster than they have named a headliner. The latest addition is a featherweight fight, and it is the one piece confirmed rather than whispered: Patricio Pitbull against Doo Ho Choi.

MMA Fighting's Guilherme Cruz reported the booking Friday, writing that "multiple people with knowledge of the situation confirmed the news." The event lands at Crypto.com Arena, Cruz reported, with the main event still unannounced.

A former Bellator champion still finding his footing

Pitbull arrives at UFC 331 in an unfamiliar spot: unproven. The Brazilian went 24-6 across a run as a two-division champion in Bellator, according to MMA Fighting, and he is ranked No. 15 on the outlet's Global Rankings. Inside the UFC, the resume is thinner. He is 1-2, per the promotion's records.

The one win is verifiable and recent. Pitbull beat Dan Ige by unanimous decision on July 19, 2025. On either side of it sit losses: a unanimous-decision defeat to Yair Rodriguez in April 2025, and a unanimous-decision loss to Aaron Pico this April.

Bloody Elbow, citing Cruz's report, added detail on how the Pico fight went. "Pitbull started strong," the site wrote, before "suffering a broken orbital bone and nose in the Miami fight." Whether that damage lingers is the kind of question the octagon answers.

Choi, the Hall of Famer nobody has solved lately

Choi presents a live test. The South Korean, nicknamed "The Korean Superboy," is 17-4-1 overall and, by Cruz's count, has cashed six bonus checks in 10 UFC appearances.

His signature night is already enshrined. Choi's 2016 brawl with Cub Swanson earned both men induction into the UFC Hall of Fame in 2022, Bloody Elbow noted. Swanson won that fight by unanimous decision on Dec. 10, 2016, per UFC records.

What matters for September is Choi's current form. He has won three straight since returning from a long layoff. He stopped Bill Algeo by second-round knockout in July 2024, finished Nate Landwehr in the third round that December, and knocked out Daniel Santos in the second round in May, a performance that earned a $50,000 Fight of the Night bonus, Cruz reported. All three finishes check out against UFC records. Bloody Elbow flagged the obvious risk for Pitbull, calling Choi "violent" and noting that "brutal damage is a strong possibility."

The headline the UFC hasn't confirmed

The fight everyone expects to top the card remains unofficial. Bloody Elbow reported July 23 that a rematch between Arman Tsarukyan and Charles Oliveira, for Oliveira's symbolic BMF title, is "pencilled in" to headline. The site attributed the report to Russian outlet Red Fury MMA and framed it as a claim, not an announcement.

The two men have history. Tsarukyan beat Oliveira by split decision at UFC 300 in April 2024, a result Bloody Elbow described as "surrounded in controversy" after Tsarukyan was suspended and fined for a physical altercation with a fan during his walkout. A rematch would give Tsarukyan the marquee return he has been chasing after injury cost him past title opportunities.

Until the UFC confirms it, that fight stays in the rumor column. The promotion has not announced the main or co-main event.

Moicano vs. Ortega, a rematch nine years later

A third bout is reportedly close. Cruz confirmed that Brian Ortega is targeted to make his lightweight debut against Renato Moicano at UFC 331, with Brazilian journalist Leo Guimaraes first reporting the matchup and Bloody Elbow describing it as being in "advanced negotiations."

The pairing is a rematch nine years in the making. Ortega submitted Moicano at UFC 214 in July 2017, per UFC records. Both careers have moved since. Moicano, now ranked No. 10 at lightweight per the UFC, challenged Islam Makhachev for the title on short notice at UFC 311 in January 2025, lost that fight by submission, then dropped a decision to Beneil Dariush in June 2025. He rebounded with a submission win over Chris Duncan in April.

Ortega, a two-time featherweight title challenger, is making the move up after a rough stretch at 145 pounds. He lost a decision to Diego Lopes in September 2024 and a unanimous decision to Aljamain Sterling in August 2025, back-to-back defeats that UFC records confirm. Cruz noted that Ortega's weight-cutting problems have "coincided with a drop in performance." The rematch was originally slated for UFC 326 in March before Ortega withdrew.

What's built, and what isn't

Add it up and UFC 331 already reads like a real card: a confirmed featherweight fight in Pitbull-Choi, a reported lightweight rematch in Moicano-Ortega, and a headline both outlets expect but neither the UFC nor its fighters have made official.

That is the honest state of the poster on July 25. Sept. 19 is a long runway, and reported fights sometimes come apart before ink dries, as the first version of Moicano-Ortega already showed. For now, the building is happening from the bottom up. The name at the top is the one everybody is still waiting on.