UFC Abu Dhabi is beginning to take form.
This previous weekend, the UFC introduced its return to Etihad Area in Abu Dhabi with a middleweight matchup between former champion Robert Whittaker and former ONE two-division champion Reinier de Ridder serving as the primary occasion. And now the remainder of the cardboard is beginning to fill out, as nicely.
Common middleweight Shara “Bullet” Magomedov makes his return to motion when he faces Marc-Andre Barriault in Abu Dhabi.
Magomedov is coming off the primary lack of his UFC profession after he fell to extremely touted striker Michael “Venom” Web page and now he’s seeking to get again on monitor when he returns in July. As for Barriault, he’s recent from a devastating knockout win over Bruno Silva from this previous weekend at UFC 315.
Along with Magomedov vs. Barriault, the UFC additionally introduced three extra bouts for the Abu Dhabi struggle card: a struggle between ranked gentle heavyweights Nikita Krylov (30-10) and Bogdan Guskov (17-3), a ranked flyweight scrap between Asu Almabayev (21-3) and Ramazan Temirov (19-3), and a lightweight heavyweight contest between Ibo Aslan (14-2) and Billy Elekana (7-2).
At present ranked No. 10 within the UFC gentle heavyweight division, Krylov is coming off a first-round knockout loss to Dominick Reyes at UFC 314 in April. Guskov, in the meantime, is ranked No. 14 within the division and driving a three-fight successful streak since dropping his UFC debut to Volkan Oezdemir. Most just lately, Guskov submitted Billy Elekena at UFC 311 in January.
Each Almabayev and Temirov final competed at UFC Vegas 103 in March, although to very totally different outcomes. The No. 8-ranked Almabayev was stopped by Manel Kape in the primary occasion, ending his four-fight UFC successful streak. In the meantime, Temirov picked up a unanimous resolution win over Charles Johnson within the first struggle of the night, incomes him the No. 13 spot within the UFC’s flyweight rankings.
A Contender Sequence signee from 2023, Aslan impressed in his first two bouts within the UFC, scoring knockouts of Anton Turkalj and Raffael Cerqueira; nonetheless, issues didn’t go so nicely in his most up-to-date journey to the octagon as Aslan was submitted by Ion Cutelaba at UFC Seattle in February. A former PFL fighter, Elekana misplaced his UFC debut to Bogdan Guskov at UFC 311.
UFC Abu Dhabi takes place July 26 at Etihad Area.
