The UFC will kick 2025 off with a bang with two titles on the line in the promotion’s first PPV of the year.
UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev will defend his title in a rematch against #1 contender Arman Tsarukyan. In the co-main event newly crowned bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili will defend his belt against Umar Nurmagomedov.
UFC CEO Dana White broke the news on Wednesday.
Makhachev vs Tsarukyan and Dvalishvili vs Nurmagomedov is LIVE January 18th from @intuitdome, California! #UFC311 pic.twitter.com/XZuAFUYAyC
— danawhite (@danawhite) December 5, 2024
Makhachev (26-1) last fought in June when he submitted Dustin Poirier at UFC 302. Outside of his lone loss coming at the hands of Adriano Martins in 2015 the Dagestan product hasn’t faced too much adversity leading into and during his title run.
Makhachev likely would have defended against Tsarukyan in late 2024, but a
Tsarukyan (22-3) will ride a 4-fight win streak into the fight. The Armenian fighter holds victories over Charles Oliveira, Beneil Dariush, Joaquim Silva, Matt Frevola and Olivier Aubin-Mercier to name a few.
This will be the second time the two will meet in the octagon having last fought in 2019. Makhachev emerged victorious by decision.
In the co-main event Dvalishvili will stage his first title defense agains the #1 contender Nurmagomedov. Dvalishvili has been hounded on social media by fans calling for him to defend against Nurmagomedov. Dvalishvili preferred matchups with Petr Yan or a second dance with Sean O’Malley.
It seem he’s grown tired of the criticism.
“Merab came into the office late last night. Told us that he is tired of listening to Umar disrespect him and wanted to make this fight happen as soon as possible,” White said in the announcement video on social media.
“We called Umar. He was sleeping in Dagestan. He said hell yes anywhere, anytime.”
Dvalishvili (18-4) is coming off his first title victory having taken the belt off of O’Malley at UFC 306, also known as Noche UFC, in September. He had to put together an 8-fight win streak to finally get the shot at the belt.
Nurmagomedov (18-0) is yet to be defeated in his professional MMA career and is coming off a win over Cory Sandhagen in August. He holds wins over Sandhagen, Bezkat Almakhan, Raoni Barcelos, and Brian Kelleher to name a few.
UFC 311 takes place on Jan 18 at the Intuin Dome in Los Angeles, CA.
