The UFC has officially announced that the lightweight title fight between champion Islam Makhachev and featherweight title holder Alexander Volkanovski will take place at UFC 284 in Perth, Australia.
The LW belt & P4P status are 𝙊𝙁𝙁𝙄𝘾𝙄𝘼𝙇𝙇𝙔 on the line 👑@MakhachevMMA takes on @AlexVolkanovski in the #UFC284 main event!
[ Feb. 11 | Get your tickets early at https://t.co/UocfFo1z8h 🎟 ] pic.twitter.com/U1jZDEsnlw
— UFC (@ufc) November 12, 2022
The UFC has announced that the expected bout between lightweight champion Islam Makhachev and featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski is official for UFC 284 on February 11 (February 12 locally) in Perth, Australia. The bout will see Australian native Volkanovski headline the first UFC event held in his home country since 2020. The fight will see Volkanovski move up in weight to try to become a two-division champion.
The fight has a priority since Makhachev won the title against Charles Oliveira three weeks ago and Volkanovski was there to face-off with him inside the cage following the fight. Despite strong options from Beneil Dariush and the winner of the UFC 281 bout between Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler, UFC President Dana White said that he was favoring the bout between the two champions.
Makhachev enters the bout riding an eleven fight win-streak dating back to 2015. The American Kickboxing Academy product has also scored finishes in his past five bouts. Volkanovski is currently ranked as the number one ranked fighter in the world today after riding a 21 fight win-streak dating back to his time before competing in the UFC and has defended the featherweight title four times. A former rugby player who once weighed over 200 pounds, Volkanovski has competed as high as welterweight as a professional and last fought as a lightweight in 2016.
The event is scheduled to take place at the RAC Arena. Several bouts have been announced for the undercard, with the most notable being former champion Robert Whittaker taking on former title challenger Paulo Costa.
Currently, the UFC 284 line-up consists of:
- Islam Makhachev (c) vs. Alexander Volkanovski – for the UFC lightweight championship
- Robert Whittaker vs. Paulo Costa
- Justin Tafa vs. Parker Porter
- Tyson Pedro vs. Zhang Mingyang
- Joshua Culibao vs. Melsik Baghdasaryan
- Jack Jenkins vs. Don Shainis
