A long-anticipated lightweight title fight will finally be happening and in Southern California’s newest crown jewel.
UFC CEO Dana White announced on social media Wednesday that 155-pound champion Islam Makhachev will defend his title against top-ranked contender Arman Tsarukyan in the UFC 311 main event on Jan. 18 at Intuit Dome in Inglewood.
White also revealed the co-main event, which will pit bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili against Umar Nurmgomedov. Tickets for UFC 311, which will be the fight promotion’s first pay-per-view of 2025, go on sale Friday.
Considered one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world, the 33-year-old Makhachev (26-1) has won 14 consecutive fights in the UFC, including three title defenses – two against Alexander Volkanovski, in a tight decision at UFC 284 and via knockout at UFC 294, and his last against Dustin Poirier at UFC 302 in June.
The Dagestani champ, who has former UFC lightweight legend Khabib Nurmagomedov among his coaches and closest friends, won the belt from Charles Oliveira via second-round submission at UFC 280 in October 2022.
Makhachev and Tsarukyan (23-3) have fought before, with Makhachev earning a unanimous decision in a Fight of the Night performance in April 2019.
Tsarukyan, 28, won nine of his next 10 fights, the only hiccup being a unanimous-decision loss to Mateusz Gamrot in June 2022, which was also a Fight of the Night.
After that, the Georgian won four in a row, the last via split decision over Oliveira at UFC 300 in April.
In the co-main, Dvalishvili (18-4) will make is first title defense since winning the 135-pound championship from Sean O’Malley via unanimous decision in September. The victory was the 11th in a row for the 33-year-old Georgian fighter, who trains in New York.
Umar Nurmagomedov, the cousin of Khabib Nurmagomedov, comes in with a pristine 18-0 record, having won all six of his UFC bouts. The 28-year-old Dagestani, who trains in his home country as well as in San Jose, is coming off a unanimous-decision victory over Cory Sandhagen in a bantamweight title eliminator fight in August.
UFC 311 is the first combat sports event to be held at the $2 billion Intuit Dome, the 18,000-capacity home of the Clippers and the brainchild of Clippers owner Steve Ballmer that opened in August.
This will be the UFC’s first return to Southern California since UFC 298 on Feb. 17, when Ilia Topuria knocked out and dethroned featherweight champion Volkanovski at Honda Center, which White raved about after a record-setting night.
The UFC is no stranger to Inglewood, with The Kia Forum the site for UFC 199 in June 2016 and UFC 232, which was forced to move from Las Vegas on six days’ notice, at the end of 2018.
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