With three title fights, UFC 251 promises to live up to the standards long since set by International Fight Week — even with the traditional major July event moving away from Las Vegas and becoming, well international, and even if they’re not actually using the IFW designation this time around.
The welterweight, featherweight, and vacant bantamweight titles are all up for grabs on July 11 in Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, one of a slew of July fight cards to be held in the Middle Eastern nation.
And, as is is tradition by now, the event’s fight poster has dropped in advance of the big show.
Check out the poster below, and beneath that, the full fight card for what promises to be an evening to remember.
MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET)
- Champ Kamaru Usman vs. Gilbert Burns – for welterweight title
- Champ Alexander Volkanovski vs. Max Holloway – for featherweight title
- Petr Yan vs. Jose Aldo – for vacant bantamweight title
- Jessica Andrade vs. Rose Namajunas
- Amanda Ribas vs. Paige VanZant
PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN, ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET)
- Volkan Oezdemir vs. Jiri Prochazka
- Muslim Salikhov vs. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos
- Makwan Amirkhani vs. Danny Henry
- Roman Bogatov vs. Leonardo Santos
PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN, ESPN+, 6:15 p.m. ET)
- Alexander Romanov vs. Marcin Tybura
- Raulian Paiva vs. Zhalgas Zhumagulov
- Vanessa Melo vs. Karol Rosa
- Martin Day vs. Davey Grant
The Blue Corner is MMA Junkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly serious, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.
