UFC tonight: Undercard, live stream, TV channel, fight time for Makhachev vs Volkanovski
Express Sport gives you everything you need to know about UFC 284: Alexander Volkanovski vs Islam Makhachev.
The UFC’s pound-for-pound No1 and No2 Alexander Volkanovski and Islam Makhachev square off tonight to decide who is the best fighter in the sport. Volkanovski, the current featherweight champion, moves up to lightweight to challenge Makhachev for his 155lb strap.
In doing so, he will be bidding to become only the fifth champ-champ in UFC history behind Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Amanda Nunes and Henry Cejudo. But it won’t come easily.
Makhachev, a protégé of the great Khabib Nurmagomedov, recently defeated long-time champion Charles Oliveira in a dominant showing that established him as an elite-level talent and comes in as the odds-on favourite.
Fight time/venue
Tonight’s event is set to take place at the RAC Arena in Perth, Australia. Prelims get underway from midnight in the UK with the main card following from 3am and the main event at 6am.
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— UFC (@ufc) February 10, 2023
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[ #UFC284 | Saturday | Live on ESPN+ PPV: https://t.co/xFq6ldwHKy ]i pic.twitter.com/lo3BD2hpy4
TV Channel/live stream
As always BT Sport 1 will be the only place to watch the blockbuster UFC card with coverage starting from 1AM. The card can be live-streamed all on all good internet-connected devices via the broadcaster’s app and website.
Undercard
Main card
Islam Makhachev vs Alexander Volkanovski – UFC Lightweight title fight
Yair Rodriguez vs Josh Emmett – interim UFC Featherweight title fight
Jack Della Maddalena vs Randy Brown
Justin Tafa vs Parker Porter
Jimmy Crute vs Alonzo Menifield
Preliminary card
Tyson Pedro vs Modestas Bukauskas
Joshua Culibao vs Melsik Baghdasaryan
Shannon Ross vs Kleydson Rodrigues
Jamie Mullarkey vs Francisco Prado
Early preliminary card
Jack Jenkins vs Don Shainis
Loma Lookboonmee vs Elise Reed
Shane Young vs Blake Bilder
Zubaira Tukhugov vs Elves Brenner
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Quotes
Makhachev: “It’s not possible [for Volkanovski to win] because I’m the champion and we fight 155. This is not his area, this other power, other division. I’m gonna beat him. Easy ... He bring some guys from the jiu-jitsu, but this is not the same. This is not going to be jiu-jitsu, this is gonna be MMA pressure on the ground. He feels that Craig Jones cannot control him on the ground, but this is a different.”
Volkanovski: “We studied him. Obviously, again, you gotta respect your opponent to really know what they’re good at. Supposedly, he doesn’t really respect me as an opponent, he’s thinking I’m going to be easy. Hopefully, he did his research like we did, because you need to with fights like this. This is two of the best going at it, and I want to prove I’m the best and I’m going to show you why I deserve that number one pound-for-pound.”