From an airplane in Washington, D.C., where the UFC is planning to put on an event next summer, UFC CEO Dana White announced the three fights that with culminate UFC 322 at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Nov. 15. Five current and past champions will be in action on those three bouts.
Zhang Weili, the strawweight champion, is vacating her belt to move up to women’s flyweight and challenge reigning champion Valentina Shevchenko in the co-main. Then ESPN’s No. 2 pound-for-pound fighter, Islam Makhachev, who vacated his lightweight belt earlier this year, makes his highly anticipated bid for the welterweight title against champion Jack Della Maddalena.
As if two superfights weren’t enough, White also announced that former welterweight champion Leon Edwards would get his opportunity to break a two-fight losing streak against Carlos Prates, who has knocked out 11 of his past 12 opponents.
On paper, this card looks to be fit for Madison Square Garden, one of the most legendary venues in combat sports, but is there still reason to be disappointed because it’s not the superfight fans were initially promised? Let’s take a look at the topic and more questions for the UFC 322 card.
Is this three-fight mega card better than if we’d gotten Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall at MSG?
No. Not even close. This lineup is amazing, but Jones vs. Aspinall would have legitimately been one of the biggest fights in UFC history. As good as these fights are, none of them come remotely close to that.
Jones is the greatest of all time, but his heavyweight “reign” was a bit disappointing. Had he fought an English challenger as dangerous as Aspinall to crown an undisputed champion in Jones’ home state of New York? That’s the kind of fight that would have summoned the A-listers on their private jets from around the country. That would have been a spectacle.
Not to keep crying over spilled milk, but this is another reminder why Jones’ decision to retire is so utterly disappointing. A smart decision? Yes, probably. Why would Jones take the risk to fight Aspinall when his legacy and bank were already set? He made a business move — a rarity in MMA — and it should be admired in some ways. But the way he dragged it out as long as he did set the stage for a lot of displeasure.
Credit the UFC for putting together a quality UFC 322 card that the sport is buzzing over. This will undoubtedly be a monster event, but if we’re just answering truthfully, of course the global excitement level for this doesn’t come close to what it would have been for Jones vs. Aspinall.
Is it a good thing for MMA that champions must vacate their UFC belts to move weight classes?
I’m in the minority on this one — big time — but in these situations, interim titles don’t bother me. In other words, if Makhachev were to remain the undisputed lightweight champion as he attempted this challenge of moving up in weight, I’d find that completely appropriate.
The argument to vacate is to keep a division moving — but the real issue is money. With the creation of an interim belt, the UFC could still book fights that need to be made and pay the challengers championship money. If a division stagnates, all its fighters are prevented from getting paid championship money, but an interim title rectifies that.
Another reason I’d be in favor of allowing a champion like Makhachev (or Zhang) to keep the belt is that if he loses, he can return to his division and fight the interim champion in a unification bout. Think about it: If Makhachev loses and returns to 155 pounds, will it feel right for him to be the challenger to Ilia Topuria? The UFC should let a champion move up, and if the champion successfully secures a second belt, only then should they be forced to decide which division to continue in. In 2023, Alexander Volkanovski moved up as the featherweight champion and the UFC booked an interim featherweight championship in his absence. Volkanovski came up short at lightweight, and he returned to featherweight for a unification bout. That’s how it should happen.
Should title challengers Zhang and Makhachev be the favorites over the champions Shevchenko and Della Maddalena?
Yes. Starting with the co-main event, Shevchenko is one of the best fighters in women’s MMA history, but she’s 37 years old, and she has been less dominant — even in victory — in recent years. Zhang is almost the same age, at 36, but she seems to have less physical wear and tear than Shevchenko, who has been competing in martial arts more than half her life. In her past two fights, Shevchenko has returned to her championship pedigree with impressive performances against Alexa Grasso and Manon Fiorot. But she identified and took advantages of holes in both those contenders’ games. Against Zhang, Shevchenko will have a harder time finding a specific weakness to dominate.
When you compare the résumés of the fighters in the main event, it’s just impossible to not list Makhachev as the favorite. I think the feeling is that Makhachev, who has traditionally fought at 155 pounds, won’t be significantly smaller than Della Maddalena by the night of the fight, and Mahkachev’s world-class grappling helps offset any size disadvantage he might have. That said, I would not feel comfortable laying any kind of odds against Della Maddalena. Makhachev almost has to be favored for a variety of reasons, but in practice, this is a 50-50 fight to me.
