Everything you need to know for UFC Fight Island

After months of speculation, chatter, and Dana White hype, Fight Island is upon us. UFC is headed to Yas Island in Abu Dhabi to put on four events across 16 days. It opens with UFC 251 on July 11th, and follows with three Fight Night cards. ESPN will be broadcasting the events, with the main card of UFC 251 under the PPV brand, and everything else using ESPN and/or ESPN+.

The PPV card is the big one, with three title fights and some key contender bouts. The welterweight (Kamaru Usman) and featherweight (Alexander Volkanovski) title-holders are defending their belts on the main card of UFC 251 against the No. 1 contenders. Additionally, Petr Yan and Jose Aldo face off for the the vacant bantamweight title, and we get a women’s strawweight contenders bout between Jessica Andrade and Rose Namajunas.

The PPV is followed by three Fight Night cards on July 15th, 18th, and 25th. Calvin Kattar and Dan Ige main event the 15th in a featherweight contenders bout. The main card of that event also includes Pedro Munhoz and Frankie Edgar in a bantamweight contenders bout, and Carla Esparza and Marina Rodriguez in a women’s strawweight contenders bout.

The event on July 18th features a main event of Deiveson Figueiredo and Joseph Benavidez facing off for the vacant flyweight title. The penultimate fight of that evening is a middleweight contenders bout between Jack Hermansson and Kelvin Gastelum.

The final event, on July 25th, features the No. 1 middleweight contender, Robert Whittaker, facing the #5 contender, Darren Till in the main event. The penultimate fight that night is a light heavyweight bout between No. 15 Mauricio Rua and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

Four of the top ten fighters in UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings will be facing off on Fight Island. Here are full cards for the four UFC events in Abu Dhabi. All times listed are ET.

UFC 251

Main card (10 p.m., ESPN+ PPV)

Main event: Kamaru Usman vs. Gilbert Burns (welterweight title)
Alexander Volkanovski vs. Max Holloway (featherweight title)
Petr Yan vs. Jose Aldo (vacant bantamweight title)
Jessica Andrade vs. Rose Namajunas
Paige VanZant vs. Amanda Ribas

Preliminary card (8 p.m., ESPN/ESPN+)

Volkan Oezdemir vs. Jiri Prochazka
Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos vs. Muslim Salikhov
Markwan Amirkhani vs. Danny Henry
Leonardo Santos vs. Roman Bogatov

Early preliminary card (6 p.m., ESPN/ESPN+)

Marcin Tybura vs. Alexander Romanov
Zhalgas Zhumagulov vs. Raulian Paiva
Karol Rosa vs. Vanessa Melo
Martin Day vs. Davey Grant

UFC Fight Night July 15th

Main card (10 p.m., ESPN+)

Main event: Calvin Kattar vs. Dan Ige
Frankie Edgar vs. Pedtro Munhoz
Carla Esparza vs. Marina Rodriguez
Abdul Razak Alhassan vs. Mounir Lazzez
Jared Gordon vs. Chris Fishgold

Preliminary card (7 p.m., ESPN+)

Modestas Bukauskas vs. Vinicius Moreira Castro
Molly McCann vs. Taila Santos
Ricardo Ramos vs. Lerone Murphy
John Phillips vs. Dusko Todorovic
Tim Elliott vs. Ryan Benoit
Liana Jojua vs. Diana Belbita

UFC Fight Night July 18th

Main card (9 p.m., ESPN+)

Main event: Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Joseph Benavidez (vacant flyweight title)
Kelvin Gastelum vs. Jack Hermansson
Marc Diakiese vs. Rafael Fiziev
Ariane Lipski vs. Luana Carolina
Alexandre Pantoja vs. Askar Askarov

Preliminary card (6 p.m., ESPN+)

Khadis Ibragimov vs. Roman Dolidze
Grant Dawson vs. Nad Narimani
Joe Duffy vs. Joel Alvarez
Brett Johns vs. Montel Jackson
Tagir Ulanbekov vs. Aleksander Doskalchuk
Davi Ramos vs. Arman Tsarukyan
Serghei Spivak vs. Carlos Felipe

UFC Fight Night July 25th

Main card (11 p.m., ESPN+)

Main event: Robert Whittaker vs. Darren Till
Mauricio Rua vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
Alex Oliveira vs. Peter Sobotta
Alexander Gustafsson vs. Fabricio Werdum
Danny Roberts vs. Nicolas Dalby

Preliminary card (8 p.m., ESPN+)

Tom Aspinall vs. Jake Collier
Justin Tafa vs. Raphael Pessoa
Mike Grundy vs. Movsar Evloev
Bethe Correia vs. Pannie Kianzad
Nathaniel Wood vs. Umar Nurmagomedov
Ramazan Emeev vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov