Following one of the most successful and engrossing years in the history of the UFC, the mixed martial arts promotion has looked to keep building in 2022.
2021 saw Conor McGregor fight twice, marking his most active year since 2016. The Irishman lost to Dustin Poirier in each outing, suffering a horrific broken leg in the most recent, and his planned summer return to the Octagon this year did not come to fruition.
Elsewhere, newer stars like Israel Adesanya, Khamzat Chimaev and Sean O’Malley were looking to further enhance their legacies and profiles – and had mixed success – while featherweight queen Amanda Nunes regained her bantamweight belt after losing it to Julianna Pena in a major upset last December.
Islam Makhachev achieved his goal of becoming lightweight champion to follow in the footsteps of his close friend and cornerman Khabib Nurmagomedov, while the men’s bantamweight division saw Aljamain Sterling unify its titles – with the heavyweight title having been unified in January when Francis Ngannou outpointed Ciryl Gane.
Here are all the UFC fights left this year (cards subject to change):
Saturday 17 December – UFC Fight Night – UFC Apex, Las Vegas
Main card
Jared Cannonier vs Sean Strickland (middleweight)
Arman Tsarukyan vs Damir Ismagulov (lightweight)
Amir Albazi vs Alessandro Costa (flyweight)
Alex Caceres vs Julian Erosa (featherweight)
Drew Dober vs Bobby Green (lightweight)
Cody Brundage vs Michal Oleksiejczuk (middleweight)
Prelims
Cheyanne Vlismas vs Cory McKenna (women’s strawweight)
Jake Matthews vs Matthew Semelsberger (welterweight)
Julian Marquez vs Deron Winn (middleweight)
Said Nurmagomedov vs Saidyokub Kakhramonov (bantamweight)
Rafa Garcia vs Maheshate (lightweight)
Bryan Battle vs Rinat Fakhretdinov (welterweight)
David Dvorak vs Manel Kape (flyweight)
Sergey Morozov vs Journey Newson (bantamweight)
