Fedor vs Bader II
Eblen vs Tokov
Teixeira vs Hill
Figueiredo vs Moreno IV
Lineker vs Andrade II
Makhachev vs Volkanovski
Rodriguez vs Emmett
Amosov vs Storley II
Jones vs Gane
Nurmagomedov vs Henderson
Edwards vs Usman III
Johnson vs Moraes III
Stots vs Mix
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I’ll be at this one live in Denver. For any OG’ers who want to go, ticket sales went live this morning.
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Stots vs Mix is another upcoming title fight that happens to be a GP final as well.
If you asked me two years ago if Fedor, Glover, Volk (at LW), Bendo and Edwards would be in title fights in 2023 I would have said no, not very likely.
Would love to see Fedor and Glover capture gold one more time despite being 46 and 43.
Sometimes a champ vs champ fight gets rushed where one of the fighters really didn’t do enough in their division yet to get a champ vs champ fight.
Kinda like when Rory MacDonald lost to Lawler and then Thompson in the UFC and jumped over to Bellator and beat Daley and then Lima for the WW title… there was no reason to instantly give him a title shot vs Mousasi the MW champ but they did and he got destroyed.
But here with Jones, you got a guy who yes has had legal issues and taken some time off but has still gone undefeated for 15 years in the UFC in his weight class and he is finally moving up in weight to fight the best possible HW the UFC can put in front of him for the title. Its really incredible. Given the HW title situation, its not a champ vs champ fight but still Jones attempt to win the title in the division above his.
With Volkanovski you got a FW who has been undefeated for 10 years and has defended the UFC FW title 4x. He is moving up to fight one of the best LW champs the UFC has ever seen. The newly crowned LW champ has himself been undefeated for the past 7 years.
Having these two epic title fights coming up with the legendary champs going up in weight plus the aging legends like Fedor and Glover also attempting to defeat Father Time and capture another title themselves is a great.
Even more than the Bendo title fight, the next ones in the semis and finals are going to be very interesting for 24 year old Nurmagomedov as well. Everyone wants to see if former FW champ McKee can capture the LW title in this tournament but you can’t forget about the darkhorses like the RIZIN and ROAD GP champs or Shabliy.
Overall I think 2023 will be one of the best years of major org title fights that we have seen in a long time.