Originally, the promotion’s much-ballyhooed trip to The Sphere in Las Vegas was to have been UFC 306. However, in a recent press release, promotion officials announced that the event will now be known as Riyadh Season Noche UFC.

Noche UFC was launched in 2023 to mark Mexican Independence Day; last year’s show took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. UFC 306 was set to mark the date this year, making the Noche UFC naming convention rather practical.

As for Riyadh Season, the festival has been put on annually since 2019 by Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority. The promotion debuted in the Kingdom just last weekend, and are expected to return for a show that Turki Alalshikh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the General Entertainment Authority, has stated will be even bigger.

Robert Whittaker downed Ikram Aliskerov in the main event of the inaugural UFC Saudi Arabia on June 22.

As for this year’s Noche UFC, women’s flyweight champ Alexa Grasso is expected to take part, with TUF 32 rival Valentina Shevchenko the obvious opponent, barring injury or illness. The card is set for September 14, 2024.

“This will be one of the biggest sporting events of all time,” said UFC President and CEO Dana White, quoted in the press release announcing the news. “What we’re going to pull off at Sphere will never be done again. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for sports fans. At the same time, this is going to be an incredible tribute to the Mexican people for their extraordinary contributions to combat sports.  We’re thrilled that Turki Alalshikh and the Saudi General Entertainment Authority have stepped up to partner with us to make this the greatest event in the history of combat sports.  Their participation shows just how massive the interest is from all over the world. Riyadh Season Noche UFC will be unforgettable.”

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The UFC made its debut in the Kingdom in Riyadh on June 22, with a card headlined by Robert Whittaker vs. Ikram Aliskerov (stepping in to replace Khamzat Chimaev). The end came swiftly, with Whittaker finding the finish inside of the round.

No women fighting, however, is a rarity for the UFC these days, but with no female broadcasters either- nary a Megan Olivi or Laura Sanko in sight – many pointed to Saudi Arabia’s abysmal record on women’s equality as the culprit.

Per a report by Human Rights Watch, in Saudi Arabia “Women face systematic discrimination and are left exposed to domestic violence under the male guardianship system” which leaves them under the control of men from birth until death.

That said, Saudi Minister and Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority, Turki Al-Shaikh, says he’s looking for women to compete the next time the promotion comes to down.

Speaking on the UFC Saudi Arabia broadcast on Saturday (h/t MMA Junkie), Al-Shaikh stated that “I know the UFC here has a lot of fans, but you see now, it’s changing my mind. I don’t think there’s a lot of fans like this, 12,000 until 1 a.m., and now I am asking Dana for the next card. We want to make it 30,000 here. We are waiting, and we want women also in the next fight.”

Women in action in Saudi Arabia would not be unprecedented – WWE, now a sibling of the UFC under the TKO Group banner, has frequented the Kingdom in recent years. In 2019, Natalya and Lacey Evans performed at that year’s Crown Jewel event, albeit while wearing bodysuits and t-shirts rather than traditional ring gear, as Saudi law dictates dressing “modestly.”

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Cain Velasquez had the first professional wrestling match of his WWE career last week against Brock Lesnar in Saudi Arabia at the propagandized Crown Jewel event. It was passable as a wrestling match but left a lot to be desired in terms of storyline development and building up the Cain Velasquez brand.

In short, Cain Velasquez is a great wrestler but his problems are two-fold — he’s currently injured and WWE wants Cain to wrestle a style where he pretends to ‘shoot’ on his opponents and really fight them, or at least appear to do so to the untrained eye.

Outside of WWE, Velasquez was an agile luchador and in the confines of most world’s most famous squared circle — he’s just MMA Cain, but a much worse version of who he is in reality. Wrestling is supposed to build-up its stars to be bigger versions of the real-life men that play ‘Superstars,’ yet WWE managed to botch their version of Cain Velasquez in his very first match, even after being billed as a credible threat to Brock Lesnar — who’s untouchable outside of the three times a decade he needs to drop a championship for storyline convenience.

Cain Velasquez was supposed to be a ghost from Brock Lesnar’s past that was capable of humanizing ‘The Beast.’ He was supposed to be the man capable of prying the WWE Championship from the hands of Brock Lesnar.

We were sold wolf tickets.

WWE’s version of Cain Velasquez is not as good as the Cain Velasquez you remember from last week, last month, his entire MMA career, or even in his professional wrestling career to date outside of WWE. WWE Brock Lesnar is better than UFC Cain Velasquez. It’s that simple.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the match itself, but it wouldn’t make sense while trying to suspend disbelief — the ingredient that makes pro wrestling work. It didn’t make sense from a pro wrestling ‘kayfabe’ perspective or in a worked-fight sense.

In the final seconds of the 2:10 spectacle, Cain Velasquez got under-hooks on Brock, hit him with a knee to the abdomen, hit him with a left punch, then dropped him with a left high kick that connected to the skull, followed up with some ground-and-pound — only to have Brock Lesnar of all people lock in a Kimura to submit a flailing, non-defending Velasquez.

It started off well, it ended poorly. It would also get worse.

Instead of Brock Lesnar losing to Cain Velasquez and Cain getting justice for the things Lesnar did to Rey Mysterio and his son, Brock gets beaten down easily at first only to throw up a Hail Mary kimura on Velasquez to make Cain submit.

Afterwards Rey Mysterio came into the ring with a steel chair, leading to Lesnar further brutalizing Cain with the chair, presumably to write him off of television mere weeks after his company debut so he can get surgery to take care of lingering injuries. Rey Mysterio then mounts a comeback and fends off Lesnar with another steel chair.

Cain did not come off looking well, Brock did not come off looking well, and even Mysterio, who ended up looking the best, looked like an idiot because introducing the chair led to his friend getting “hurt” worse than if the chair had never been introduced in the first place.

The outcome of the match only makes sense if you blend reality, the world of pro wrestling, and completely neglect the sports histories of Cain Velasquez and Brock Lesnar. Assuming you know Cain Velasquez has nagging injuries and requires surgery, this all makes sense, though terrible business sense if the plan is to have Cain be a long-term fixture in WWE.

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