Roberto Soldic vs. Daniel Rodriguez reportedly set for UFC Dallas on Jan. 16

Roberto Soldic is set to face No. 14-ranked welterweight Daniel Rodriguez at the UFC Fight Night in Dallas on Saturday, Jan. 16, according to MMA Fighting. It confirmed the fight on Monday, in an SB Nation story carried by Yahoo Sports. The UFC has not announced it, and UFC.com still lists the event's bout as "TBD vs TBD".

The pairing isn't new: on Nov. 1, AgentMMA reported it was targeted for UFC 336 in Toronto on Jan. 30. On Sunday, AgentMMA reported that Soldic had been pulled from that card and moved to Dallas, but said it was unclear whether Rodriguez would follow. On Monday, X user @realkevink posted the Rodriguez fight for Jan. 16, MMA.pl reported. SB Nation credits The Starch.

The Dallas card is the UFC's first of 2027 and its first in the city since UFC 277 in July 2022, AgentMMA reported. No other fight on it has been announced, and tickets are expected to go on sale in November, according to Cageside Press.

Soldic's second UFC fight

Soldic, a 31-year-old Croatian, is 22-4 with one no contest, according to Wikipedia. He held KSW titles in two divisions. He went 1-1 with future UFC champion Dricus du Plessis at welterweight, then won the middleweight belt by knocking out Mamed Khalidov in December 2021. He went 1-1 with a no contest in ONE Championship, and his UFC signing was reported on Sept. 4.

Khaos Williams dropped him twice in the first round of his debut at UFC 332 in Salt Lake City on Oct. 3. Soldic came back, and two judges scored the second round 10-8 for him. He won a unanimous decision (29-28, 29-27, 29-27), Cageside Press reported. He closed as a −210 favourite that night, a 65% chance, according to our fighter page.

He is unranked, and SB Nation calls this fight his chance to break into the welterweight top 15.

Rodriguez's road back

Rodriguez is 20-6, and 10-5 in the UFC. He turns 40 on Dec. 31. Uros Medic finished him with ground-and-pound 30 seconds into the UFC Belgrade main event on Aug. 1, theScore reported. That ended a three-fight win streak that included a decision over Kevin Holland, now No. 15, in July 2025.

Before the Medic fight, Rodriguez spent about eight months in a Tijuana jail. He told Ariel Helwani in April that he was stopped at the border going into Mexico with 27 grams of marijuana, Cageside Press reported. Reports differ on the charge. Wrestling Inc said drug smuggling, while theScore described an eight-month sentence for marijuana possession.

Rodriguez said his legal team "were able to work some things out," with conditions he has to meet, according to Wrestling Inc. In the same interview, he said:

"I made an honest mistake, and I ended up paying some time for it."

As a bet, he has done better than his prices suggested. One unit on his closing price in each of his 11 UFC fights with odds would have returned +5.02 units, according to our fighter page. He won seven of them, when the prices expected about five. He beat Holland at +450 and lost to Medic at +305. That is past results over a small sample.

Our view

Neither of our pages has odds for this fight yet. Polish site Lowking.pl quoted an early price of 1.30 on Soldic (about −333) and 3.00 on Rodriguez (+200), without naming the bookmaker.

We think Soldic should be favoured. He is eight years younger, and Rodriguez has fought once since July 2025 and was stopped almost immediately. But we'd be wary of a price that steep. Williams put Soldic down twice in his only UFC fight, and Rodriguez has beaten the market as an underdog before.

UFC 336 follows two weeks later. Carlos Prates and Michael Morales fight for the interim welterweight title there, because champion Islam Makhachev couldn't make the date, Cageside Press reported.