There is a busy slate of MMA this weekend with three big fight cards in three countries between the UFC and Bellator.
The action kicks off Friday with Bellator 227 and Bellator Europe 4 in Dublin. On Saturday, UFC on ESPN+ 18 takes place in Copenhagen, Denmark, followed by Bellator 228 in California.
Thanks to the no contest between Jeremy Stephens and Yair Rodriguez this past Saturday at UFC on ESPN+ 17, there was no movement that could happen at featherweight this week. But Saturday at Bellator 228, that might be a different story.
There, Patricio Freire (29-4 MMA, 17-4 BMMA) puts his title on the line against Juan Archuleta (23-1 MMA, 5-0 BMMA) in a fight that also is part of the Bellator grand prix opening round. At No. 7, Freire has room to climb. So does honorable mention selection A.J. McKee (14-0 MMA, 14-0 BMMA), who has an opening-round tournament fight against Georgi Karakhanyan (28-9-1 MMA, 6-7 BMMA).
At middleweight, No. 4 Jack Hermansson (20-4 MMA, 7-2 UFC) doesn’t have much room to climb if he wins his UFC on ESPN+ 18 headliner against Jared Cannonier (12-4 MMA, 5-4 UFC) consider No. 1 and 2 are UFC champ Robert Whittaker and interim champ Israel Adesanya, who fight in a title unification fight next week. But he certainly can’t climb much without a win, so a victory seems of the utmost importance.
Ahead of this weekend’s trio of major events, get caught up with the latest USA Today Sports/MMA Junkie rankings in all the divisions.
