Both the main and co-main events of UFC 322 will feature a champion facing a former champion jumping a division.
UFC CEO Dana White announced Thursday that the event, scheduled for Nov. 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York, will feature welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena taking on former lightweight champ Islam Makhachev in a long-anticipated bout.
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Meanwhile, women’s strawweight champion Zhang Weili is vacating her title to jump to flyweight and take on current champ Valentina Shevchenko in a clash of the top two women on the UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings.
UFC 321 on Oct. 25 will now feature Virna Jandiroba against Mackenzie Dern for the vacant strawweight title.
White also announced a Leon Edwards-Carlos Prates fight at welterweight.
Makhachev’s welterweight debut has been anticipated since abdicating his lightweight title in May, which Ilia Topuria later took with force. With wins over Dustin Poirier, Alexander Volkanovski (twice) and Charles Oliveira, Makhachev ruled the lightweight division for two years and remains among the promotion’s top pound-for-pound fighters.
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A win over Makhachev would immediately vault Della Maddalena into the elite of the UFC. He took the welterweight title from Belal Muhammad in May and is now getting quite possibly one of the biggest challenges for his first defense, in an already deep division.
Unsurprisingly, he likes his chances:
“I think I can take him out,” Della Maddalena said of Makhachev. “Belal really just walks forward and changes stance a lot, but I think if I can have someone that just stays in the same stance, I don’t think Islam’s a very good striker. I think I could land a lot of shots and take him out. Stuff the takedowns; if I get taken down, get right back to my feet.”
Zhang, meanwhile, is setting up a super-fight against Shevchenko by moving from strawweight. Since the (first) retirement of Amanda Nunes, those two have been the top fighters in the UFC’s women’s side.
