A featherweight title fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Movsar Evloev will headline UFC 333 in Abu Dhabi on October 24th, and will be joined by a trilogy bantamweight title clash between Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili in the co-main event.

The 37-year-old Volkanovski has been keen to fight Evloev for a while now, but the UFC had other plans and so he’s coming off back-to-back decision victories over Diego Lopes, the first of which saw him reclaiming the vacant 145lb title, and then successfully defending it.

The 32-year-old Evloev can feel hard-done-by that he’s had to wait this long to get a shot at the title given that he holds a perfect 20-0 career record and has won all 10 of his UFC fights over the past 7 years.

However, the well-rounded Evloev has never won a fight by either strikes or submission in the Octagon, which appears to have hindered his rise to the top until now.

Meanwhile, in the co-main event there’s a third clash between current champion Yan and former kingpin Dvalishvili, with both holding win over the other so far.

The 33-year-old Yan lost to Dvalishvili their first clash back in 2023 by unanimous decision, but then went on to win three fights in a row to set up a title fight between them last year, which we convincingly won by unanimous decision to reclaim the undisputed belt for the first time in over five years.

As for Dvalishvili, he was already in the midst of a long winning streak when he first defeated Yan, and not longer afterwards would go on to seize the 135lb title.

The 35-year-old Dvalishvili then defended the belt three times before losing the rematch to Yan last year, setting up this winner-takes-all third encounter between them.