When it comes to covering fight week, few moments get the blood pumping and the anticipation soaring better than a great faceoff. The UFC squares off their fighters before every event for exactly that reason, and some of the sport’s biggest stars have developed their own styles as they use their faceoff opportunities to strike a final mental blow ahead of fight night.
Over the course of 2020, and despite the social distancing rules applied across the globe, we were still treated to a host of memorable faceoffs. To kick off the year – and before COVID-19 arrived – we saw the likes of Conor McGregor and Donald Cerrone get up close and personal at the UFC 246 ceremonial weigh-ins in January, while Zhang Weili and Joanna Jedrzejczyk exchanged words in a tense staredown ahead of their memorable strawweight title clash at UFC 248 in March.
The arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in March didn’t deprive us of some memorable faceoffs, however, with the fighters allowed to go nose to nose, with or without masks, after being subjected to multiple COVID-19 tests before and throughout fight week.
It meant we got to see debuting former KSW and EFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis go face-to-face with “The Joker,” aka Markus Perez, ahead of UFC Fight Night 179 in October, while middleweight champion Israel Adesanya enjoyed a pair of tense faceoffs as he locked eyes with rivals Yoel Romero and Paulo Costa ahead of his two successful title defenses in 2020.
Recap the best of the UFC’s 2020 faceoffs via the video above.
