Five Former and Current Champions, Two Belts, One Night: The UFC at MSG Finally Revealed

Less than 24 hours after I wrote my last article, which went over the rumors of who would be fighting at Madison Square Garden, the UFC has gone on to announce the main, co-main, and one of the preceding fights. As suspected, the Garden is chock-full of the best possible fights the year has to offer. In line with my predictions, Islam Makhachev and Jack Della Maddalena will face off in the former’s debut at Welterweight. This fight has arguably the most at stake of any match within the last three years. If Islam wins, a super fight with lightweight champion Ilia Topuria is inevitable. If he loses, the chances of what could be the best mixed martial arts fight of the last decade falls by the wayside. This in no way is said to discount the effort JDM must also display. Being a newly crowned champion at 170 means he has much more to prove than his already impressive predecessors. He has the chance to stop one of the top two best fighters pound-for-pound in his tracks and send him crawling back to a lighter division. No other match would’ve made sense to headline the biggest night of the year.

Continuing my list of accurate guesses, we are being graced with a striking match-up almost guaranteed not to see the final bell. Leon Edwards and Carlos Prates meet in a war of heavy-handed attrition as both men struggle for their spot in the limelight. Edwards is on a two-fight losing skid, and Prates is hot off the heels of a KO victory over Geoff Neal. If Leon loses, his chance of dropping to a gatekeeper at Welterweight rises exponentially. If Carlos loses, his title aspirations are put on ice twice in the same year. This is a do-or-die situation for both men. With so much movement at 170 happening in a single evening, it’s hard to know the state of the division after this star-studded November. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that no matter what happens that evening, when the tide settles and the results of the fights are revealed, the landscape of Welterweight will look vastly different.

Now, for the fight that completely blindsided me. Another champ versus champ super fight, this time in the women’s Flyweight division. The champion, Valentina “Bullet” Shevchenko, will defend her title against Strawweight champion Zhang “Magnum” Weili in what may be the highest level of women’s mixed martial arts the world has ever seen. Both fighters are absolute killers. Completely stacked records against the most ruthless women the promotion has ever seen. Neither has ever ducked or ran from a fight, and both have experienced losses only to come back stronger and more technical than before. We may not see a WMMA fight at this level again in the next decade. It is unmissable if you are a fan of high-level mixed martial arts. In my own opinion, though I did not predict this to be on the card, I may be more excited for this than I am for Islam versus JDM. With three magnificent fights already announced, I cannot wait to see the other two that cap off the main card. November is shaping up to be the best MMA the fans have seen in years, if not ever.