{"id":798345,"date":"2026-07-13T21:26:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798345\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T21:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:26:09","slug":"magomed-ankalaev-fights-bogdan-guskov-in-new-ufc-abu-dhabi-main-event-with-khalil-rountree-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/798345\/","title":{"rendered":"Magomed Ankalaev fights Bogdan Guskov in new UFC Abu Dhabi main event with Khalil Rountree out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Magomed Ankalaev has a new opponent for his UFC Abu Dhabi headlining bout.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The UFC <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ufc\/status\/2076751649113362670\" rel=\"nofollow\">announced<\/a> Monday that Ankalaev (20-2-1, 1 NC) is now set to fight Bogdan Guskov (18-3-1), who steps in for Khalil Rountree in the July 25 main event, which takes place at Etihad Arena. The reason for Rountree\u2019s withdrawal was not disclosed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Guskov was previously scheduled to rematch Jan Blachowicz at UFC Belgrade on Aug. 1, but that fight appears to be off the schedule once again after previously being postponed from UFC 328 due to a Blachowicz injury. It is not yet known if Blachowicz will remain on the UFC Belgrade card with a new opponent or be booked for another event.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Ankalaev is currently No. 3 in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/rankings\/495469\/mma-divisional-rankings-justin-gaethje-finally-reigns-as-lightweight-king\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMA Fighting Global Rankings<\/a> after dropping the UFC light heavyweight title back to Alex Pereira at UFC 320 this past October. It was Ankalaev who ended Pereira\u2019s reign as 205-pound champion, but \u201cPoatan\u201d gained his revenge in their immediate rematch. It was Ankalaev\u2019s first loss since his UFC debut in March 2018.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The new UFC Abu Dhabi headliner gives Guskov (No. 12) a chance to jump into the top 5 of the rankings with a win. After fighting Blachowicz to a majority draw at UFC 323, the two have twice been booked to settle the score, but for now both men move on to fresh matchups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magomed Ankalaev has a new opponent for his UFC Abu Dhabi headlining bout. The UFC announced Monday that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798346,"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-798345","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\/798345","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=798345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}