Word has emerged of the first fight officially booked for the UFC’s 2026 campaign, with Nikita Krylov set to fight Modestas Bukauskas at UFC 324 on January 24th in Las Vegas.
The 33-year-old Krylov will be heading into the new year hoping to fare better than he has in 2025, having suffered back-to-back 1st-round KO losses against Dominick Reyes and Bogdan Guskov.
Krylov had actually been on a three-fight winning streak prior to that, but then suffered a bad shoulder injury that kept him out of action for two years, and things have gone poorly since his return to action.
Now he’ll be going up against an in-form fighter in the 31-year-old Bukauskas, who has won his last four fights in the Octagon.
That includes three wins this year, having KO’d Raffael Cerqueira, beaten Ion Cutelaba by split-decision and then most recently KO’d Paul Craig back in September.
Krylov vs. Bukauskas is the first fight to be booked for what’s set to be a landmark event given that not only will it be the first numbered event of the UFC’s new Paramount+ broadcasting deal, but it’ll also be first to not be airing on pay-per-view in the United States, with all the promotions events now being available for the price of the subscription service.
There have been some concerns that this new PPV-less business model could make it easier for the UFC not to stack their numbered events, but Dana White has insisted that won’t be the case, so it’ll be interesting to see how the UFC 324 fight card shapes up as more bookings get announced in coming weeks.
