{"id":407745,"date":"2026-01-14T03:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/407745\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T03:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:02:09","slug":"israel-adesanya-joe-pyfer-to-headline-ufc-fight-night-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/407745\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Adesanya-Joe Pyfer to headline UFC Fight Night card"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Brett OkamotoJan 14, 2026, 12:37 PM<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Brett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN since 2010. He has covered all of the biggest events in combat sports during that time, including in-depth interviews and features with names such as Dana White, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz, Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao and Georges St-Pierre. He was also a producer on the 30 for 30 film: “Chuck and Tito,” which looked back at the careers and rivalry of Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz. He lives in Las Vegas, and is an avid, below-average golfer in his spare time.<\/p>\n

Former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya<\/a> will look to snap a three-fight skid when he faces Joe Pyfer<\/a> on March 28 in Seattle, UFC CEO Dana White announced Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The 185-pound matchup will headline UFC Fight Night at Climate Pledge Arena.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/p>\n

Adesanya (24-5) is widely recognized as one of the greatest middleweights of all time, but he will be seeking his first win since a thrilling knockout of Alex Pereira<\/a> in a 2023 title fight. He is amid the longest skid of his MMA career, with losses to Sean Strickland<\/a>, Dricus Du Plessis<\/a> and Nassourdine Imavov<\/a>. Adesanya, 36, has not fought since a knockout loss to Imavov in February 2025.<\/p>\n

Pyfer (15-3), of Pennsylvania, is on a three-fight win streak after suffering the first loss of his UFC career to Jack Hermansson<\/a> in 2024. He is coming off a submission win over Abus Magomedov<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

A women’s flyweight bout between former champion Alexa Grasso<\/a> (16-5-1) and Maycee Barber<\/a> (15-2) was also announced for the March 28 event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brett OkamotoJan 14, 2026, 12:37 PM CloseBrett Okamoto has reported on mixed martial arts and boxing at ESPN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-407745","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\/407745","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=407745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}