Ahead of their return to Singapore in June, the UFC will host a number of eight-man tournament.
Promotion officials announced Thursday that a tournament featuring top MMA prospects from Japan, Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, India, and the UFC Academy in China across four divisions will take place, with the winners in each division receiving a UFC contract.
The tournament will consist of eight mixed martial artists fighting in four men’s weight classes: flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight and lightweight. The opening round of “ROAD to UFC” will take place on June 9 and 10 at Singapore Indoor Stadium, ahead of UFC 275 on June 11. The semifinals and finals are tentatively scheduled for later this year.
Each card will feature one non-tournament bout making a total of five fights on each event. The tournament will take place in front of a live audience, with the location and venue details expected to be announced prior to each event.
The current UFC 275 lineup includes:
- Champ Glover Teixeira vs. Jiri Prochazka – for light heavyweight title
- Champ Valentina Shevchenko vs. Taila Santos – for women’s flyweight title
- Marvin Vettori vs. opponent TBA
- Silvana Gomez Juarez vs. Na Liang
- Brendan Allen vs. Jacob Malkoun
- Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs. Zhang Weili
- Kyung Ho Kang vs. Saimon Oliveira
- Orion Cosce vs. Blood Diamond
