Fans of the fight game all around the world are super excited for the return of Fight Island after it was announced that Abu Dhabi will be hosting a second series of events after the mega-success of the first series. Fight Island that takes place in Abu Dhabi is UFC’s way to host events with international fighters since the logistics these days make it hard for them to travel to the United States amid the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first series of events took place in July and the second series will begin later this month. The first event, UFC 253, will be on the 27th of September and the last event, UFC 254, will take place on the 24th of October, and there will be three fight nights in between.
Although the first Fight Island had its fair share of interesting fights, there is no debate that this time everything is bigger and much more exciting. To begin with, it will take place over a span of five weeks instead of four, so much more action!
Three titles will be on the line, the Lightweight, Middleweight, and Light Heavyweight Championships. The first series had four title matches but it was not half as anticipated as these three. Among the hundreds of active fighters in the UFC, only a handful of them are undefeated, and three of them will be in the main events of Fight Island.
The main event of UFC 253 will be between two undefeated fighters, The UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya (18-0) from New Zealand and Paulo Costa (13-0) from Brazil. The competition is heated as the two have been exchanging insults and trash talk for a while and because their fighting styles complement each other in a way that guarantees an intense match.
The co-main will see American Dominick Reyes and Polish Jan Blachowicz who’ll fight for the vacant Light Heavyweight Championship. The title was vacated by Jon Jones as he decided to move up to the Heavyweight division because he’s unable to find competition in his weight class. The match is exciting because this will be the first time for over ten years that someone other than Jon Jones or Daniel Cormier will hold the title.
The main event of the UFC 254 event will feature the most popular fighter in the Arab World, and probably the most dominating fighter in UFC history, Khabib Nurmagomedov (28-0). The Russian Eagle will go up against Justin Gaethje to defend the lightweight and his status as undefeated.
The match that the fans hoped for was Khabib against Tony Ferguson, who was on a huge winning streak before losing to Justin in his last match. Tony was supposed to fight in the co-main event with The Diamond Dustin Poirier, but the latter wants more money for the fight. Dana White said that they will be finding another opponent for Tony while the fans are pushing for the fight to happen.
Another very anticipated match is the featherweight bout between Brian Ortega and the Korean Zombie, a match that was supposed to take place last year while the two were friendly and on good terms. Now after Ortega had a clash with the Korean Zombie’s best friend, their match is expected to be very intense.