Sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream the UFC live on
your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the
ESPN app. Two Ultimate Fighting Championship belts will now
be on the line at the tentpole event in June. Per UFC President Dana White on Friday in an interview with
Bill Simmons, the promotion is looking to set up a rematch for
the middleweight throne. Instead of Robert
Whittaker taking on champ Israel
Adesanya (20-1) again, however, Marvin
Vettori (17-4-1) will get his crack at the title on June 12.
Adesanya and Vettori will toe the line atop
UFC 263, according to
Combate, which does not currently have a location booked. The
destination could be the UFC Apex in Las Vegas unless another venue
opens up, but White did state at the UFC 261 press conference that
the organization was looking at staging the card in Arizona.
The originally intended billing for this card was indeed Adesanya
vs. Whittaker 2, but Whittaker was unable to make the turnaround,
per ESPN,
as he headlined an event on April 17 and would have been competing
less than two months later. Willing to fight just over two months
after he last prevailed is Vettori, who defeated Kevin
Holland in the headliner of UFC on ABC 2. The win advanced the
Italian’s streak to five, with victories over Holland, Jack
Hermansson and Andrew
Sanchez bolstering his claim to the top spot. Vettori and
Adesanya first met in 2018, and Vettori fought to a close split
decision loss.
Adesanya will be making his return to the middleweight division
after an unsuccessful jaunt up a weight class to become a
two-division champ. “The Last Stylebender” suffered his first
career defeat at the hands of Jan
Blachowicz, ending a 20-fight victorious stretch and rebuffing
him from champ-champ aspirations. The Nigerian still holds the
middleweight crown, wresting it from Whittaker in 2019 and
defending it against Yoel Romero
and Paulo Costa
since then. When knocking out Costa, he because the first man to
defeat the burly Brazilian, thereby lifting his career knockout
rate to 75 percent.
UFC 263 goes down at a currently undetermined location on June 12,
with two championship affairs topping the pay-per-view card. The
headliner spot will go to Adesanya vs. Vettori 2 at middleweight,
while the co-main assignment falls to a flyweight title rematch
between Deiveson
Figueiredo and Brandon
Moreno. Additional major fights on the card include a
welterweight tilt between Demian Maia
and Belal
Muhammad, as well as a featherweight clash pitting Hakeem
Dawodu against Movsar
Evloev.
