One of the most thrilling Encounter in Ultimate Fighting Championship history will reach its conclusion on Saturday.
In the co-main event, Robert Whittaker vs. Jared Cannonier will battle for the vacant middleweight title. Darren Till recently vacated the title as he plans his move up to the middleweight division, leaving the top contenders to square off to crown a new champion. Reyes is coming off a controversial decision loss to Jones, suffering the first defeat of his career in the process. Whittaker is on a three-fight winning streak, most recently knocking out Cannonier .
Below are the confirmed bouts for the fight card that is still yet to announce a location less than a month out. Among the most interesting bouts is Jake Matthews vs. Diego Sanchez as Sanchez nears the end of his career. He won his most recent outing by disqualification after Michel Pereira landed an illegal knee. Because of that, he's won three of his last four fights.
Event: UFC 257: “Poirier vs. McGregor 2”
Date: Sat., Jan. 23, 2021
Location: Fight Island in Abu Dhabi
UFC continues its live events schedule from Fight Island in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 23 with its “Poirier vs. McGregor 2” pay-per-view event available to stream RIGHT HERE — don’t miss a single second of face-punching action!
STREAM UFC 257 LIVE RIGHT HERE!
155 lbs.: Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor
125 lbs.: Joanne Calderwood vs. Jessica Eye
115 lbs.: Amanda Ribas vs. Michelle Waterson
155 lbs.: Ottman Azaitar vs. Matt Frevola
185 lbs.: Antonio Carlos Junior vs. Brad Tavares
155 lbs.: Nasrat Haqparast vs. Arman Tsarukyan
What channel is UFC 257 on tonight?
TV channel: ESPN, ESPN Deportes
Live stream: UFC Fight Pass, ESPN+
Viewers have several options to watch UFC 252, at least in the early preliminary and preliminary bouts. ESPN and ESPN Deportes will carry coverage of the early preliminary bouts starting at 7 p.m.; viewers can also stream those fights with UFC Fight Pass and ESPN+. Once the event moves to the preliminaries, viewers can watch via ESPN, ESPN Deportes and ESPN+. The main card will stream exclusively on ESPN+.
Early prelims: 7 p.m. ET
Prelims: 8 p.m. ET
Main card: 10 p.m. ET
The main card at UFC 252 is scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. ET, though Miocic and Cormier will likely not fight until much later; the main card consists of five events, the last of which will be Miocic-Cormier.
Price (for current subscribers): $64.99
Price (with annual subscription bundle): $84.98
The UFC 252 pay-per-view amount is $64.99 for current subscribers to ESPN+, which requires a pre-existing subscription. Anyone else who wants to watch Miocic vs. Cormier must also pay for a subscription to ESPN+, which offers several bundling options, including $84.98 to view the fight and year-long access to ESPN+ — a 25 percent decrease for normal ESPN+ subscriptions.
Click here to learn about the different pricing and bundling options with the ESPN+ platform.
Pricing worldwide varies by region and platform.
Two weeks ago, the UFC offered Poirier to McGregor for UFC 257 on Jan. 23, but McGregor countered with those respective dates.
The date of Nov. 21 is scheduled to be UFC 255. But the show no longer has a viable main event as Cody Garbrandt pulled out of his flyweight title bout against champion Deiveson Figueiredo due to a torn biceps and was replaced by Alex Perez. The fight card on Dec. 12 is UFC 256, which also doesn't have a headliner as the proposed welterweight title bout featuring Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns will be taking place in 2021.
Sources tell ESPN that the UFC is contemplating McGregor's counteroffer and that Poirier accepted the fight for Nov. 21 or Dec. 12.
Talk of a McGregor-Poirier sequel began when the former had leaked private messages almost two weeks ago on social media after being frustrated with UFC President Dana White and the promotion, which led to him tweeting that he retired from the sport in June. McGregor went on to propose a charity event to Poirier, who quickly agreed to the offer. Shortly after that, the UFC reached out to McGregor and Poirier to gauge their interest in meeting up once again.
McGregor and Poirier fought at UFC 178 in September 2014, but as featherweights. The former two-division world champion starched Poirier in the first round.
The 32-year-old last competed in January at UFC 246, knocking out Donald Cerrone in 40 seconds. Meanwhile, Poirier defeated Dan Hooker in June by unanimous decision in one of the year's best fights.