Ilia
Topuria will make his first featherweight title defense against
former champ Max
Holloway in the main event of UFC
308.
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UFC CEO Dana White announced the booking on Saturday morning. In
the evening’s co-headliner, Robert
Whittaker will square off against Khamzat
Chimaev in a rebooked middleweight showdown. Other featured
bouts on the card include Magomed
Ankalaev vs. Aleksandar
Rakic at light heavyweight and a previously reported
heavyweight bout pitting Ciryl Gane
against Alexander
Volkov. UFC 308 takes place at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi on
Oct. 26.
Topuria claimed featherweight gold with a second-round knockout of
Alexander
Volkanovski at UFC 298 on Feb. 17. The Spainard is undefeated
in 15 professional outings, a run that includes victories in his
first seven Octagon appearances and other notable triumphs against
the likes of Josh Emmett
and Bryce
Mitchell.
Holloway, 32, hasn’t held the featherweight belt since 2019, when
he relinquished the crown in a five-round defeat to Volkanovski at
UFC 245. Despite an 0-3 mark against his Aussie rival, Holloway has
remained among the top 145-pound contenders, besting the likes of
Calvin
Kattar, Yair
Rodriguez, Arnold
Allen and Chan Sung
Jung in recent years. In his last outing, the popular Hawaiian
scored a memorable fifth-round KO of Justin
Gaethje to claim the BMF belt at UFC 300.
Whittaker was originally scheduled to meet Chimaev in the UFC Saudi
Arabia main event on June 22 before Chimaev withdrew from the event
due to illness. The ex-middleweight king has won three of his last
four within the Las Vegas-based promotion and is coming off a
first-round KO of Ikram Alliskerov in the UFC on ABC 6
headliner.
Chimaev holds a 13-0 career mark, but his momentum has slowed
somewhat due to inactivity in recent years. “Borz” fought just once
in 2023, taking a majority decision over Kamaru
Usman in his 185-pound debut at UFC 294.
Ankalaev kicked off his 2024 campaign with a second-round KO of
Johnny
Walker in a rematch at UFC Fight Night 234 on Jan. 13. The
32-year-old Dagestani owns an 18-1-1 career record that includes
wins over the likes of Anthony
Smith, Thiago
Santos, Volkan
Oezdemir and Nikita
Krylov.
After injuring his knee in a loss to Jan
Blachowicz in May 2022, Rakic returned to action at UFC 300,
where he suffered a second-round TKO defeat to Jiri
Prochazka. Prior to that, “Rocket” had been victorious in six
of his first seven Octagon appearances.
Gane and Volkov initially squared off in the main event of UFC
Fight Night 190 in June 2021, with the Frenchman winning a
five-round unanimous decision. A former interim heavyweight king,
Gane has twice come up short in bids for the undisputed belt,
falling to Francis
Ngannou via unanimous decision at UFC 270 and to Jon Jones via
first-round submission at UFC 285. “Bon Gamin” rebounded from the
loss to Jones by scoring a second-round TKO triumph against
Sergey
Spivak at UFC Fight Night 226 this past September.
A former Bellator
MMA and M-1 Global
champion, Volkov has yet to challenge for UFC gold since joining
the promotion in 2016. The 35-year-old Russian has won his last
four outings, including a three-round verdict over former training
partner Sergei
Pavlovich at
UFC on ABC 6 on June 22.