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UFC 253: Adesanya vs. Costa is an upcoming mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that will take place on September 26, 2020 at the Flash Forum on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.


Fight card

Main card

Middleweight Israel Adesanya (c) vs. Paulo Costa Middleweight Championship
Light Heavyweight Dominick Reyes vs. Jan Błachowicz Vacant Light Heavyweight Championship
Flyweight Kai Kara-France vs. Brandon Royval
Women's Bantamweight Ketlen Vieira vs. Sijara Eubanks
Featherweight Hakeem Dawodu vs. Zubaira Tukhugov

Preliminary Card (ESPN2 / ESPN+)

Lightweight Brad Riddell vs. Alex Da Silva
Welterweight Diego Sanchez vs. Jake Matthews
Featherweight Shane Young vs. L'udovít Klein
Light Heavyweight William Knight vs. Aleksa Camur

Early Preliminary card (ESPN 2 / ESPN+ / UFC Fight Pass)

Heavyweight Juan Espino vs. Jeff Hughes
Light Heavyweight Khadis Ibragimov vs. Danilo Marques


Background

The event was originally expected to take place on September 19, but it was moved to September 26. UFC Fight Night: Covington vs. Woodley is now expected to take place on the former date.

While not officially announced by the organization, a UFC Lightweight Championship unification bout between current champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and interim champion Justin Gaethje (also former WSOF Lightweight Champion) was briefly linked to the event. However, the date did not materialize and their manager, Ali Abdelaziz, indicated that his clients would still face each other before the end of the year. The pairing has now been scheduled for UFC 254.

Without fans in attendance, the promotion does not have to worry about the local timing of the event, so the plan is to proceed with normal timing for prime time hours on the east coast of North America. The main card is scheduled to begin at 6:00 am (September 26) local time in Abu Dhabi, with a full preliminary card beginning at approximately 2:30 am Gulf Standard Time.

A UFC Middleweight Championship bout between current champion Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa is expected to serve as the event headliner. The bout was originally targeted for UFC 248, but Costa was unable to compete on that card due to injury. In turn, Adesanya defended his title against former title challenger (as well as 2000 Olympic silver medalist and former world champion in freestyle wrestling) Yoel Romero.

A UFC Light Heavyweight Championship bout for the vacant title between former title challenger Dominick Reyes and former KSW Light Heavyweight Champion Jan Błachowicz has been scheduled for the event. Former two-time champion Jon Jones vacated the belt on August 17, citing issues with the UFC over salary negotiation and the desire to compete at heavyweight.

A heavyweight bout between Ciryl Gane and Shamil Abdurakhimov was expected to take place at this event. The pairing was originally scheduled for UFC 249, but Gane was forced to pull out of the event after he was struck by a pneumothorax in training. Subsequently, the pairing was rescheduled for UFC 251 and cancelled a second time as Abdurakhimov was removed from the bout for undisclosed reasons. In late August, the bout was shifted from this event to UFC Fight Night: Covington vs. Woodley a week earlier.

A strawweight bout between former UFC Women's Strawweight Championship challenger Cláudia Gadelha and Yan Xiaonan was expected to take place at this event, but a knee injury sustained by Gadelha ruled her out of the bout. The pairing was rescheduled for UFC Fight Night 182 instead.

A flyweight bout between Jordan Espinosa and David Dvořák was expected to take place at this event, but was later rebooked for UFC Fight Night: Covington vs. Woodley due to undisclosed reasons.

A women's bantamweight bout between Marion Reneau and Ketlen Vieira was scheduled for the event. However, Reneau was pulled from the bout on September 16 citing an undisclosed injury and was replaced by Sijara Eubanks.

Nate Landwehr was expected to face Shane Young in a featherweight bout at this event. However, Landwehr was pulled from the event after testing positive for COVID-19 and replaced by promotional newcomer Ludovit Klein.

A bantamweight bout between Heili Alateng and Casey Kenney was originally expected to take place at this event. However, it was moved to UFC on ESPN: Holm vs. Aldana a week later due to undisclosed reasons.

Hey Mate. I have seen you do it a few times. But, do you think there is anyway you can constantly put up the choices of who we picked for the fights for the competition, so that we can watch and see if we got the choices right or wrong? I use to copy and paste my choices, but got tired of having to correct the shit out of paste from here to Word. I know its nothing super important, but it would be an awesome feature to have constantly. Appreciate the return of the competitions btw. Cheers Dent!

-DarkCast

They should be visible on he competition page for you. Are they not?

No, It says, "The Competition is live..." such and such... It's weird. Maybe I need to try it on a different browser. But hey... I won the competition... So that's freaking awesome. That's two so far this year! I am on a roll. Been really doing my research on all the fighters, that's why. The only one I really wasn't sure was the Ryvall vs. France fight. Both are amazing fighters in their own right, both have fought crazy good competition. So, in my eyes it was really a who's pick em, and I went with who I thought was going to bring the stronger fight. Boy, was I wrong on that one. And the first fight of the night was an absolute fluke. Not sure what happen there. Everyone has their day. hahaha.

Because the competition system works so that while the event is live you cant see your picks, but once its over you can. I can try and set the competition to complete sooner so its only non-visible for the first hour or two of the event in the future.

That would be dope. Thank you good sir. I am not trying to be lazy or anything. It is just copying and pasting from here is literally copying and pasting code into Word. So its a bit weird trying to sort it out, as you have to delete some of the code first and then change it around to format the font. It's a bit wonky. hahaha. I appreciate anything. It's just nice having your picks in front of you when you are watching it, ya know? Sometimes you forget who you picked, cause you have picked them days in advance.

Cheers Dent

- Darkcast

Dont copy to word, copy to notepad, or paste without formatting in word.

Fight picks will still be visible short after the event started now in all cases.