According to UFC CEO Dana White, the promotion has three pay-per-view main events lined up for the first quarter of 2024.
White on Monday posted a video on social media to announce three title fights that will headline three separate pay-per-views to open the new year: Sean Strickland will defend his middleweight title vs. Dricus Du Plessis in January; Alexander Volkanovski will put his featherweight title on the line against Ilia Topuria in February; and bantamweight champ Sean O'Malley will face Marlon Vera in March.
BREAKING…… pic.twitter.com/eW9Q23FVmI
— danawhite (@danawhite) November 6, 2023
Only Strickland vs. Du Plessis has an official date of Jan. 20 at UFC 297, with Toronto as the location, according to ESPN. White did not include specific dates or locations for Volkanovski vs. Topuria or O’Malley vs. Vera in his video announcement.
Du Plessis (20-2 MMA, 6-0 UFC) getting the title shot at 185 pounds is a break for the South African as the announcement comes on the heels of Khamzat Chimaev suffering a torn hand ligament in his fight with Kamaru Usman last month at UFC 294. White said prior to UFC 294 that the Usman-Chimaev winner would be next in line to challenge Strickland (28-5 MMA, 15-5 UFC). Chimaev won by majority decision.
Du Plessis was set up to challenge then-middleweight champion Israel Adesanya after he finished ex-champ Rober Whittaker this past July, but he couldn’t make an eight-week turnaround because of injury. As a result, Strickland got the title shot instead at UFC 293 and dominated Adesanya for five rounds to dethrone the two-time champ.
Volkanovski (26-3 MMA, 13-2 UFC) will return to featherweight after a second failed attempt at claiming the lightweight title with another loss to Islam Makhachev last month. Volkanovski took the rematch with Makhachev on less than two weeks’ notice and was knocked out with a head kick in the first round at UFC 294. His only two losses in the UFC are to Makhachev at lightweight. Volkanovski will aim to make his sixth consecutive defense of his featherweight belt when he faces undefeated Topuria (14-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC), who is coming off a five-round unanimous decision win over Josh Emmett this past June in the UFC on ABC 5 headliner.
O’Malley (17-1 MMA, 9-1 UFC) vs. Vera (23-8-1 MMA, 15-7 UFC) is a rematch of their August 2020 fight that “Chito” won by first-round TKO. It’s the only blemish on O’Malley’s career, which he’s always disputed as being legit because he was injured during the finishing sequence. O’Malley is looking to defend his belt for the first time after claiming it from Aljamain Sterling this past August at UFC 292. That same night, Vera defeated Pedro Munhoz by unanimous decision for his fifth victory in his past six fights.
