{"id":708460,"date":"2026-06-01T14:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T14:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/708460\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T14:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T14:59:08","slug":"magomed-ankalaev-umar-nurmagomedov-get-opponents-for-ufc-abu-dhabi-headliners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/708460\/","title":{"rendered":"Magomed Ankalaev, Umar Nurmagomedov get opponents for UFC Abu Dhabi headliners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">UFC\u2019s upcoming trip to Abu Dhabi on July 25 will have former light heavyweight champion Magomed Ankalaev battling Khalil Rountree Jr. in the main event, while top-ranked bantamweights Umar Nurmagomedov and David Mart\u00ednez clash in the second-to-last bout of the night. The UFC announced the news Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">That will mark Ankalaev\u2019s first fight back from a title loss to Alex Pereira in October, when he was stopped in just 80 seconds. Ankalaev, now 21-2-1 as a professional, went unbeaten in his previous 14 UFC fights, a run that includes a decision win over \u201cPoatan\u201d seven months prior.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Rountree Jr. is also trying to get back to the winning column after suffering a defeat to former champion Jiri Prochazka on that same night. The one-time title challenger won six of his past eight in the octagon, collecting bonuses in five of those appearances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Nurmagomedov and Martinez are looking to earn a shot at the 135-pound belt in the co-main event. The Russian talent won back-to-back fights over Deiveson Figueiredo and Mario Bautista since challenging Merab Dvalishvili for UFC gold in 2025, the sole loss of his 21-fight career, while Martinez enters the cage with a pro record of 14-1 with a trio of octagon victories over Marlon Vera, Rob Font and Saimon Oliveira.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Check the updated UFC Abu Dhabi line-up below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC\u2019s upcoming trip to Abu Dhabi on July 25 will have former light heavyweight champion Magomed Ankalaev battling&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-708460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}