The UFC doesn’t often miss when they put together pay-per-view cards, but they had a bit of a whiff recently at UFC 321 when a highly-anticipated heavyweight championship bout between Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane was ruled a no contest after an accidental eye poke rendered Aspinall unable to continue.
And now, UFC fans have to sit through a couple of weeks of subpar Fight Nights before we get to our next PPV on November 15. Thankfully, UFC 322 promises to live up to the hype: it’s going to take place at the sports Mecca of America, Madison Square Garden in New York City. And it will feature a pair of intriguing championship fights as well as a bevy of other ranked fighters on the preliminary and main cards.
Fan Favorite Islam Makhachev Returns To The Octagon For First Time Since January
The main event of the night at MSG on November 15 will feature one of the most popular fighters in MMA right now in former lightweight champion Islam Makhachev (27-1). The last time we saw him back in January, he was submitting Renato Moicano in the first round to give himself a UFC-record four straight lightweight title defenses.
At that point, he’d beaten everyone he needed to at 155, so he decided to move up to welterweight and challenge the current champ at 170 pounds, Jack Della Maddalena (18-2). That also vacated the lightweight belt that Makhachev had had since October 2022.
Moving up 15 pounds is tough, but Makhachev definitely has a body built for it. And Maddalena is far from a stamped champion, having earned the belt in a five-round slog against Belal Muhammad back in May.
One would have to think that the Dagestani fighter is going to be favored here, and for good reason. He has beaten legends like Charles Oliveira, Dustin Poirier, and Alexander Volkanovski (twice). Maddalena’s resume is much less impressive, with his biggest victory (apart from his title win) likely being his triumph over a 38-year-old Gilbert Burns a couple of years ago. Either way, it will be fun to have Islam back in the octagon for the first time in nearly a year.
Shevchenko & Weili Battle For The Title Of Top Fighter In Women’s Game
However, the better and more exciting matchup might just be the co-main event, which features another champion moving up in weight class to take on the champ there. Valentina Shevchenko (25-4-1) has re-established herself as the queen of women’s flyweight after avenging her defeat to Alexa Grasso and following that up with another dominant win over Manon Fiorot.
That gives Shevchenko a whopping 10 title defenses at women’s flyweight (125 pounds), which is a women’s flyweight record and an overall women’s record she shares with Amanda Nunes. If she wants to push past the Lioness to 11 title wins, she will have to put on one of the best performances of her late career.
The two-time flyweight champ will now have to take on another two-time champ in Zhang Weili (26-3). Apart from a pair of losses to Rose Namajunas, the Chinese fighter has been perfect since first claiming the strawweight strap back in 2019, winning her other seven fights. Jessica Andrade, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Amanda Lemos, and Yan Xiaonan are just a few names on Weili’s hit list.
Both of these resumes are as burnished as can be, so this is likely to come down to the tale of the tape and fighting style. Valentina is 37, Zhang is 36. Shevchenko is 5’5”, Zhang is 5’4”. The big advantage for the Kyrgyzstani fighter, however, will be her reach, which sits at 66 inches, while Zhang is a little more compact at 63 inches.
If there was going to be a fight to bet on for this UFC 322 main card, this would be the one. The best betting sites for UFC already have odds up for this battle. And as we suspected, it’s being billed as a toss-up, which is always the most fun to wager on. Shevchenko is a slight -125 favorite, though Zhang’s odds sit at just +100 as well.
Zhang’s fights are often characterized by fireworks (see: her epic two-fight battle with Jedrzejczyk), and this one should be no different. She will be more confident going up against Shevchenko than perhaps any opponent before her, which should make the matchup even more intriguing.
10 Other Fights Confirmed With A Bevy Of Ranked Fighters Coming To MSG
But Dana White and company didn’t just stop there. They stacked this MSG PPV to the gills with big-name and ranked UFC fighters. Also set to square off on the main card are No. 2 welterweight contender Sean Brady and No. 8 contender Michael Morales (who is also undefeated).
Other fights confirmed for the card include a middleweight clash between Bo Nickal and Rodolfo Vieira and another ranked welterweight matchup between former champ and current No. 4 Leon Edwards and No. 9 Carlos Prates.
At lightweight, No. 9 contender Beneil Dariush will battle No. 13 Benoit Saint-Denis. Middleweight veterans Roman Kopylov and Gregory Rodrigues will also go toe-to-toe at MSG. In the women’s realm, No. 4 flyweight contender Erin Blanchfield and No. 8 Tracy Cortez will scrap. The winner of that could very well take on whoever wins that co-main event between Shevchenko and Zhang.
Buckle up, UFC fans, this is gonna be a good one.