One day removed from UFC 315, in spite of promises made in the days leading up to the event, there is still no announced main event for UFC 317 on June 28 in Las Vegas — as part of the UFC’s annual International Fight Week.
The expectation had been (and still is) that Ilia Topuria would be involved in the main event for a lightweight title fight — either against Islam Makhachev or Charles Oliveira.
But on X (formerly Twitter) on May 11, one champion spoke up about supposedly receiving an opportunity to headline the card — UFC light heavyweight champion Magomed Ankalaev.
Ankalaev’s next fight is expected to be a rematch with former champion Alex Pereira, and Ankalaev claims that such a rematch was offered to him for one of the UFC’s biggest annual events. Ankalaev defeated Pereira to win the UFC’s 205-pound title at UFC 313 in March.
Ankalaev says he is still up for competing at the event — even if he suggests Pereira might not be.
Magomed Ankalaev Suggests He’s Ready, Was Offered To Fight At UFC 317
This comes just a couple of days after Pereira’s own account had a post that claimed he was being mistreated by the promotion — only for Pereira to make another post hours later claiming his account was hacked.
Dana White, UFC’s CEO, seemed to confirm earlier this week that the plan for UFC 317’s headline bout would have been Topuria vs. Makachev (with a win for Belal Muhammad at UFC 315) or Topuria vs. Oliveira (with a win by Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 315).
JDM won the welterweight title this weekend, with people subsequently assuming that the result would be Makhachev moving up to welterweight and Topuria and Oliveira fighting for a vacant title next month.
But White did not show up to the UFC 315 post-fight press conference, and UFC executive David Shaw claims the main event should be announced within the coming days.
What might not be helping this would-have-been-simple layout — Makhachev insisting he’s moving up to challenge JDM and be a double champion, not desiring to vacate the lightweight title.
