Less than three days left before the unusual numbered Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) tournament in Salt Lake -City. A year later, the promotion returned to the capital of the 2002 Olympics with a big revenge: American Dustin Poirier will again share the cage with compatriot Justin Gaethje. The title will be at stake … But not the championship, but the «Most Dangerous Bastard» belt.
Sports talk about the strange reward and announce other fights on the intense card.
UFC 291
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- Where< /strong>: Delta Center, Salt Lake City (USA);
- Tournament Start: 02:00 AM PT (main card starts at 05:00 PT);
- Stream: UFC Fight Pass/public TV.< /li>
When: Sunday night in Moscow;
Poirier-Gati II
The main event of the evening. Fight for vacant BMF title
Title «Most Dangerous Bastard» (BMF) surprised even more four years ago. In November 2019, Jorge Masvidal, who jumped on the wave of hype, fought with Nate Diaz. To give New York cabin a special status, the promotion made a great marketing ploy and created a special belt. It was presented to the victor by Dwayne «The Rock» Johnson himself.
The duel, by the way, ended with the victory of Masvidal: due to a cut near the eye, the doctor did not allow Diaz Jr. to continue the fight. For Jorge, the title of the main gangster in the UFC was fixed. The first, but, as it turned out, not the only one. Although the league itself then claimed that the BMF belt was a one-time promotion, we will not see such a show again.
In the summer of 2023, the UFC decided to refresh the July numbered tournament, devoid of titles, and again played the card with BMF. The measure is forced. However, this did not cause any enthusiasm among MMA fans. With all due respect to Porrier and Gati (they already met in the octagon in 2018, then Dustin inflicted the second defeat on Highlight in his career), both Americans are not at all worthy of the title of a gangster. Yes, and the background of the 34-year-old lightweights has been pretty spoiled in recent years. Both owned interim titles, but, being contenders No. 1, they lost ahead of schedule to Khabib Nurmagomedov and Charles Oliveira. — the title of Islam Makhachev. The champion went over both the former contenders for the “incomprehensible” belt and the current ones, urging the league leadership to stop engaging in such confrontations.
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"I don't need this shit. What is this? Just a belt for the homeless. Who first fought for him? Masvidal and Diaz. Both could never become champions, here is some incomprehensible title for them — rejoice! Dana White needs to stop this. Tell him to stop… Honestly, if they decide to give me this title tomorrow, he won't give up. I will easily beat these guys,” Islam said in a MMA Junkie commentary.It's important to note that Poirier and Gaethje didn't just fight the undefeated Khabib. They are the last rivals of the famous Russian. In September 2019, in the third round, Nurmagomedov forced Dustin to “knock” after a choke hold, and already in October 2020 he “lulled” Gati with an exemplary “triangle”, after which he announced his retirement.
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It will not be possible to get even with Khabib — the former UFC champion will not refuse this word from his mother. But there is a chance to prick the ex-opponent by taking gold from the Eagle's successor. With the highest probability, it is the winner of the Poirier vs Gaethje fight that will be next in the contender's queue. Of course, if in October Islam breaks Oliveira's resistance for the second time and defends the belt.
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«The duel with Makhachev will help to avenge the loss to Khabib? Of course. Khabib beat me, and Islam is his protégé «So it's important for me to win against him. And Makhachev defeated Oliveira. It turns out that by defeating Islam, I will close two defeats at once,» TMZ Sports quotes Gatji.
Odds: Poirier predictably opened with a slight favorite — 1.6 to 2.2. But one thing is certain: this fight is unlikely to last 25 minutes.
Three unmissable fights
- UFC 291 co-main event featuring two former champions. Alex Pereira still lost to Israel Adesanya and, having lost the middleweight title, he moved up to the light heavyweight division. There, the Brazilian, who had a hard time with the weight race, will be greeted by Jan Blachowicz. This is the same Pole with whom (according to the judges) Russian Magomed Ankalaev made peace in the scandalous December fight for the vacant belt.
- Let's take a look at the preview card. Our Roman Kopylov scored a crazy move: two defeats at the start of his performance in the UFC were replaced by two knockout victories. The Russian now goes behind Brazil's Claudio Ribeiro, who has a 1-1 league record.
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In the prelims, right after Kopylov's bout, Derrick Lewis will perform. There is no trace of the former aura of the Black Beast: now the UFC knockout record holder (shares the first line with Matt Brown) has three early defeats in a row, and one of them is a knockout from our Sergey Pavlovich.
UPD: Thompson vs. Perreira bout canceled because Michel failed weight race.