{"id":735157,"date":"2026-06-14T02:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T02:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/735157\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T02:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T02:17:09","slug":"ufc-freedom-250-staredowns-topuria-vs-gaethje-weigh-ins-complete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/735157\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC Freedom 250 staredowns: Topuria vs Gaethje weigh-ins complete"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC Freedom 250<\/a> fighters completed ceremonial weigh-ins Saturday at the White House ahead of Sunday’s historic card on the South Lawn.<\/p>\n

As MMA Mania first reported, the staredowns featured featherweight<\/a> champion Ilia Topuria squaring off against Justin Gaethje<\/a> in a 155-pound title fight, with Alex Pereira facing Ciryl Gane for an interim heavyweight<\/a> belt in the co-main. Per Sherdog’s coverage, Pereira weighed 251 pounds, Gane 248, while both lightweight<\/a> title challengers hit 155 on the nose.<\/p>\n

The card streams live on Paramount+ starting at 8 p.m. ET Sunday from Washington, D.C. Sean O’Malley<\/a> defends his bantamweight<\/a> strap against Aiemann Zahabi earlier in the evening, with Derrick Lewis, Michael Chandler, Bo Nickal and Diego Lopes filling out the seven-bout card.<\/p>\n

Weather concerns linger for White House outdoor event<\/p>\n

UFC CEO Dana White acknowledged potential weather issues for Sunday’s outdoor show. The updated forecast calls for 100-degree heat and scattered thunderstorms in the nation’s capital, according to MMA Mania’s report, though White said he’s willing to deal with that problem if it becomes necessary.<\/p>\n

The ceremonial faceoffs proceeded without incident Saturday. Topuria and Gaethje closed as a -600 favourite and +450 underdog respectively, with Pereira a narrow pick’em against Gane at -115 to +100. First bell for the prelims is 8 p.m. Eastern on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Reported via:<\/p>\n

MMA Mania<\/a> \u2014 Staredowns! Check out the final White House faceoffs ahead of historic UFC Freedom 250<\/a> card | VideoSherdog<\/a> \u2014 UFC White House \u2018Freedom 250\u2019 play-by-play, results & round scoring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC Freedom 250 fighters completed ceremonial weigh-ins Saturday at the White House ahead of Sunday’s historic card on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-735157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735157","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=735157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}