The Big Apple gets two massive title fights for UFC 322 on Nov. 15 at Madison Square Garden as Jack Della Maddalena defends his welterweight title against Islam Makhachev in the main event.
The co-main event will see Valentina Shevchenko defend her flyweight title against Weili Zhang in New York.
UFC CEO Dana White made the announcement on social media on Thursday.
Makhachev (27-1) dropped his lightweight title when he announced he’d be moving up to welterweight. He steps right into a world title fight against Maddalena for his first UFC bout at 170 pounds.
Maddalena (18-2) is coming off taking the title off Belal Muhammad at UFC 315 in May. He takes on Makhachev who dominated the lightweight division defending his belt 4 times before moving up to welterweight.
The co-main event sets up the current flyweight champion against the former strawweight champ in a fight fans have been wanting to see for some time now.
Shevchenko (25-4-1), the two-time UFC flyweight champion, defends her title for the second time in her second stint at queen of the 125ers. She defended her title 7 times in her first run at champ before dropping the title against Alexa Grasso at UFC 285.
She regained the throne at UFC 306 by defeating Grasso in the rematch. Manon Fiorot challenged her for the belt at UFC 315, but fell short.
Weili (26-3) has vacated her title to challenge Shevchenko at flyweight. She’s coming off her third title defense in her second run as strawweight champion making it 4 title defenses in total.
With both Makhachev and Weili vacating their titles before moving up it looks as though the UFC wants to move away from double champs and get back to fully active divisions.
Also added to UFC 322 is a welterweight bout between Carlos Prates and former welterweight champion Leon Edwards. Prates, who’s coming off a win at UFC 319 in Chicago, had been hoping for that bout in Brazil but gets to go to NYC instead.
