During the UFC 258 broadcast on Saturday, the promotion officially released the top eight fights at UFC 259. The event takes place March 6 at UFC APEX in Las Vegas.
In the main event, Jan Blachowicz makes his first defense of his newly won light heavyweight title as he takes on the current middleweight champ Israel Adesanya. Blachowicz captured gold when he stopped Dominick Reyes in the second round at UFC 253 in September.
“The Last Stylebender” headlined that card and put on a near perfect performance in finishing Paulo Costa via strikes in the second round of his second title defense.
In the co-main event, two-division champion Amanda Nunes defends her featherweight title against Megan Anderson, while Petr Yan and Aljamain Sterling battle it out for the bantamweight strap to kick off the championship triple header.
Rounding out the main card is a lightweight battle between Islam Makhachev and Drew Dober, and a 205-pound tilt between Thiago Santos and Aleksandar Rakic.
The ESPN preliminary card will be headlined by former bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz as he takes on surging contender Casey Kenney, while Joseph Benavidez looks to bounce back from consecutive losses to current flyweight titleholder Deiveson Figueiredo as he takes on the unbeaten Askar Askarov.
Here is how the current UFC 259 fight card currently shapes up:
Main card (ESPN+ PPV at 10 p.m. ET)
Jan Blachowicz vs. Israel Adesanya — light heavyweight title fight
Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson — featherweight title fight
Petr Yan vs. Aljamain Sterling — bantamweight title fight
Islam Makhachev vs. Drew Dober
Thiago Santos vs. Aleksandar Rakic
Preliminary card (ESPN at 8 p.m. ET)
Dominick Cruz vs. Casey Kenney
Song Yadong vs. Kyler Phillips
Joseph Benavidez vs. Askar Askarov
Livinha Souza vs. Amanda Lemos
This is how the final four fights look at this moment:
Early prelims (ESPN+ at 6 p.m. ET)
Sean Brady vs. Jake Matthews
Tim Elliott vs. Jordan Espinosa
Kai Kara-France vs. Rogerio Bontorin
Carlos Ulberg vs. Kennedy Nzechukwu
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