Dana White Announces Three New UFC Events For 2024
In some MMA news, Dana White has confirmed the first three fights that will occur in January 2024.
The announcement was made on November 7th, 2023, for the following three events: UFC 297, UFC 298, and UFC 299.
Starting with 297, Sean Strickland will make the first defense of his middleweight title against Dricus Du Plessis on January 20th, 2024, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
This is after the American beat Israel Adesanya to claim the title via a unanimous decision. Meanwhile, Du Plessis secured a stoppage win over Robert Whittaker to put himself in line for the title shot.
As for the UFC 298 event in February, White confirmed that Alexander Volkanovski will make a defense of his featherweight title against Ilia Topuria.
The champion will be hoping to bounce back after suffering a first-round-stoppage loss to Islam Makhachev after taking the bout at lightweight on short notice. In contrast, Topuria became the number-one-ranked contender after defeating Josh Emmett.
Finally, Sean O’Malley will make a defense of the bantamweight title against Marlon Vera at UFC 299 in March. The pair’s only meeting occurred in 2020 as Vera won via a first-round stoppage, which happens to be the champion’s only loss.
O’Malley secured the belt after stopping Aljamain Sterling, while Vera arrives into the fight with a decision win over Pedro Munhoz.
UFC’s New Events
BREAKING…… pic.twitter.com/eW9Q23FVmI
— danawhite (@danawhite) November 6, 2023
“In January, we’re doing Sean Strickland v Dricus Du Plessis. In February, we’re doing Volkanovski v Topuria, and in March we’re doing O’Malley v Vera. Busting into the new year with some fun fights. I’ll see you guys in New York City,” White
Makhachev vs. Oliveira Rematch
Meanwhile, Charles Oliveira is keen on running things back with Islam Makhachev after reports that a fight could happen at UFC 297 on January 20th, 2023.
In their first fight, Oliveira lost via a second-round submission in what was a bout for the vacant lightweight title at UFC 280. Thereafter, the pair were set to face each other at UFC 294 only for Oliveira to withdraw after suffering an injury in sparring.
The MMA fighter shared pictures showing that he had suffered cuts near the eyebrow, which required extensive stitching. And since the turnaround time was not enough for it to heal, Makhachev faced Alexander Volkanovski.
The former stopped the latter in the first round. In the aftermath, there were suggestions that Justin Gaethje could face Oliveira in a title eliminator for the right to face Makhachev.
While Oliveira’s name has cropped up again, the fighter was surprised over the potential fight date being mentioned.
“It was quite a deep cut. I don’t have any planned, scheduled fights at the moment. We get to take our time to get a good recovery, so I might go back into training in about a week or so. We just heard this from the locker room. People were asking us on the messages about getting it. This is the first time we heard about it. That’s the timeline, January maybe. So who knows?”
Nevertheless, reports indicate that Makhachev will not be ready to defend his title until March 2024. His manager, Ali Abdelaziz, confirmed as much.
“Islam Makhachev vs. Charles Oliveira 2 will not headline UFC 297 next month in Toronto, per Dana White. As of now, Oliveira does appear to be the most likely 155 challenger, although White tells ESPN, ‘Anything is possible, it’s whenever both are ready’. Makhachev’s manager @AliAdbelaziz00 tells ESPN he has informed the UFC the earliest Makhachev will be ready to defend his title is March 9.”
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