UFC 294: Makahachev vs. Volkanovski 2 will take place from the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Saturday, October 21. The main event will be a rematch for the lightweight title between defending champion Islam Makhachev and current featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovksi. The co-main event is a middleweight title eliminator bout between former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman and No. 4 welterweight Khamzat Chimaev.
The eight-match preliminary card will begin at 10 a.m. ET on ESPN+. The big show gets started at 2 p.m. ET on ESPN+ PPV.
Both of the top fights have changed over the past week. Makhachev was originally supposed to take on No. 1 lightweight contender and former lightweight champion Charles Oliveira in a rematch of the main event of UFC 280. Volkanovski took the fight on 11 days notice.
Volkanovski (26-2) and Makhachev (24-1) met for the first time at UFC 284 when Makhachev won a disputed, close unanimous decision. Since then Volkanovski made a successful title defense against Yair Rodriguez at UFC 290 with a third-round TKO and has relatively cleaned out the featherweight divisions with wins over Max Holloway (three times), Brian Ortega, Jose Aldo, and “The Korean Zombie” Jung Chan-Sung. This will be Makhachev’s first fight since UFC 284.
Makhachev is a -250 favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook while Volkanovski is a +205 underdog.
Chimaev (12-0) was supposed to fight No. 6 middleweight Paulo Costa, but Costa had to pull out after surgery to take care of a bursa sac infection. Usman took the fight on 10 days’ notice. UFC President Dana White announced that the winner of this fight would receive the next title shot against current middleweight champion Shawn Strickland. Chimaev hasn’t fought since UFC 279 when he scored a first-round stoppage after he was pulled from a main event fight with Nate Diaz for missing weight.
Usman (20-3) was one of the most dominant welterweight champions ever with five consecutive title defenses. At UFC 278 it appeared that “The Nigerian Nightmare” was on his way to a sixth when he was comfortably leading on the scorecards against Leon Edwards through four rounds. But with 56 seconds left in the fight Edwards hit a perfect high kick on Usman to knock him out. Usman was favored in the rematch at UFC 286, but Edwards won a majority decision. This is Usman’s debut at middleweight.
Chimaev is a -290 favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook while Usman is the underdog at +235.
UFC 294: Islam Makhachev vs. Alexander Volkanovski 2 main card, 2 p.m. ET, ESPN+
- Main event: (C) Islam Makhachev vs. Alexander Volkanovski, for Makhachev’s lightweight title
- #1 Kamaru Usman vs. #4 Khamzat Chimaev, middleweight
- #2 Magomed Ankalaev vs. #7 Johnny Walker, light heavyweight
- #11 Ikram Aliskerov vs. Warlley Alves, middleweight
- Said Nurmagomedov vs. Muin Gafurov, bantamweight
Preliminary card, 10 a.m. ET, ESPN+
- #10 Tim Elliot vs. #11 Muhammad Mokaev, flyweight
- Mohammad Yahya vs. Trevor Peek, lightweight
- Javid Basharat vs. Victor Henry, bantamweight
- Abu Azaitar vs. Sedriques Dumas, middleweight
- Mike Breeden vs. Anshul Jubli, lightweight
- Nathaniel Wood vs. Muhammad Naimov, featherweight
Early preliminary card, 8 a.m. ET, UFC Fight Pass
- Viktoriia Dudakova vs. Jinh Yu Frey, women’s strawweight
- Sharabutdin Magomedov vs. Bruno Silva, middleweight