Nov 12, 2025, 07:47 PM ET<\/p>\n
The UFC returns to Madison Square Garden on Saturday for UFC 322<\/a>, its ninth event at “The World’s Most Famous Arena.” After New York became the final state in the country to legalize mixed martial arts in 2016, the UFC has run an event at MSG every year since except for 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n This year’s event features two title fights at the top of the card: Jack Della Maddalena<\/a> will look to defend his welterweight title against former lightweight champ Islam Makhachev<\/a>, and Valentina Shevchenko<\/a> will look to defend her flyweight title against former strawweight champ Zhang Weili<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here’s a look at some of the biggest moments for the promotion at Madison Square Garden:<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 12, 2016 (UFC 205): After New York ended its ban on professional MMA events earlier in 2016, the UFC holds its first event at MSG. In the main event, Conor McGregor defeats Eddie Alvarez by second-round knockout to win the lightweight title and become the first UFC fighter to hold two titles simultaneously.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 4, 2017 (UFC 217): Georges St-Pierre returns from a near four-year layoff and defeats Michael Bisping with a third-round rear naked choke<\/a> to win the middleweight title. At the time, St-Pierre became the fourth fighter to win a title in multiple divisions.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 4, 2017 (UFC 217): Rose Namajunas becomes the first to defeat Joanna J\u0119drzejczyk, when she knocks out<\/a> the strawweight champion just over three minutes into their title fight.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 2, 2019 (UFC 244): Kevin Lee submits a knockout of the year candidate<\/a> when he puts away previously undefeated Gregor Gillespie with a head kick.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 2, 2019 (UFC 244): In the main event, Jorge Masvidal becomes the first fighter to be awarded the BMF belt when the cageside doctor stops the fight in between the third and fourth rounds because of a worsening cut around Nate Diaz’s right eye.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 6, 2021 (UFC 268): In the main card opener, Michael Chandler and Justin Gaethje throw down for 15 minutes in what is widely regarded as the fight of the year<\/a> in the promotion. Gaethje won the fight by unanimous decision.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 12, 2022 (UFC 281): Alex Pereira wins his first UFC title by defeating Israel Adesanya for the middleweight title via fifth-round knockout. Pereira ends Adesanya’s 12-fight win streak at middleweight, the second longest win streak in that division’s history.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 11, 2023 (UFC 295): Alex Pereira wins a title in the MSG main event for the second straight year, this time defeating Ji\u0159\u00ed Proch\u00e1zka for the light heavyweight title. Pereira becomes the ninth fighter in promotion history to win titles in multiple weight classes.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 11, 2023 (UFC 295): Tom Aspinall wins the interim heavyweight title by knocking out<\/a> Sergei Pavlovich in 69 seconds in the co-main event. Aspinall would be promoted to undisputed heavyweight champion in 2025.<\/p>\n \u2022 Nov. 16, 2024 (UFC 309): Jon Jones defends the heavyweight title in the main event against a retiring Stipe Miocic. Jones finishes Miocic late in the third round with a spinning kick to the body<\/a>.<\/p>\n For more UFC coverage, check out the ESPN MMA hub page<\/a> for Fightcenter<\/a>, schedules<\/a>, rankings<\/a> and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nov 12, 2025, 07:47 PM ET The UFC returns to Madison Square Garden on Saturday for UFC 322,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-280250","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}