Breaking: Dana White reveals thrilling main-events for UFC 297, UFC 298 and UFC 299 to kick-off 2024 with a bang
It appears as though the UFC is looking to kick-off 2024 with a bang as Dana White officially revealed thrilling main-events for UFC 297, UFC 298, and UFC 299.
The UFC CEO took to his X account, where he made a big announcement regarding the 2024 pay-per-view lineup. He announced that UFC 297, which is slated for Toronto, Canada, will be headlined by a middleweight championship bout between Sean Strickland and challenger Dricus du Plessis. The event will mark Strickland's first title defence since defeating Israel Adesanya to become the new middleweight champion, while 'Stillknocks' returns for the first time since his impressive win over Robert Whittaker.
Dana White then announced that reigning featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski will defend his title against surging contender Ilia Topuria at UFC 298. It will be interesting to see how 'Volk' performs as it will be a relatively quick turnaround following his first-round knockout loss to lightweight champion Islam Makhachev at UFC 294.
Ilia Topuria has ascended the featherweight rankings since returning to 145lbs last December as he has earned back-to-back wins over Bryce Mitchell and Josh Emmett. Alexander Volkanovski has successfully retained his featherweight championship on 5 occasions and will look to inch closer to Jose Aldo's legendary reign.
One of the more surprising headliners was saved for last as Dana White revealed that UFC 299 will be headlined by a bantamweight title fight as Marlon Vera challenges new champion Sean O'Malley. The bout is a rematch of their 2020 encounter, which saw 'Chito' earning a first-round TKO win and handing 'Sugar' his first and only career loss.
Notably absent from Dana White's main event headliners was Michael Chandler vs. the returning Conor McGregor, which has been discussed since they coached The Ultimate Fighter. Based on the headliners being announced for UFC 297-299, it will be interesting to see whether the highly anticipated bout is saved for the promotion's milestone UFC 300.