UFC 300 is two months away and Chinese fighters Weili Zhang and Yan Xiaonan look set to headline. There are currently 11 fights on the card with the strawweight title match serving as the main event.
There have been rumours that Conor McGregor might face Michael Chandler in the main event on April 13th but that fight doesn’t appear to be happening. The only UFC title on the line will be Zhang’s strawweight strap.
In the co-main event Justin Gaethje faces Max Holloway in a lightweight fight that will have something called the ‘BMF title’ on the line. This belt is largely symbolic and has no linear status.
View this post on Instagram
Centenary events
The event is set for the T-Mobile Centre in Las Vegas and follows in the footsteps of two huge centenary events. UFC 100 was headlined by a heavyweight unification fight between Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir.
That 2009 event also featured Georges St Pierre, Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson and generated 1.6 million pay per views. A crowd of 10,871 was in attendance at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
UFC 200 took place at the much larger T-Mobile Arena and was attended by 18,202 fans. Once again Lesnar was on the crowd but it was headlined by a women’s bantamweight title fight with Amanda Nunes facing Miesha Tate.
That card also contained stellar names like Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, Daniel Cormier, Cain Velasquez and Frankie Edgar as well as Lesnar. That event generated just over a million pay per views.
#OnThisDay in 2009: Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir headlined the historic UFC 100!
📺 Watch again on @UFCFightPass now! pic.twitter.com/v7mQOOA2Kp
— UFC Europe (@UFCEurope) July 11, 2022
High expectations
With so much history there were clearly high expectations surrounding this fight card. Dana White and co still have time to put together more title fights but at present the headliner will be an all Chinese affair.
It will be a huge fight in China. But very few fans would have predicted that a strawweight title bout between Weili Zhang and Yan Xiaonan headlined UFC 300
UFC 300, Las Vegas, April 13th
Zhang Weili (c) vs. Yan Xiaonan (Strawweight)
Justin Gaethje vs. Max Holloway (Lightweight)
Charles Oliveira vs. Arman Tsarukyan (Lightweight)
Jiří Procházka vs. Aleksandar Rakić Light (Heavyweight)
Calvin Kattar vs. Aljamain Sterling (Featherweight)
Bo Nickal vs. Cody Brundage (Middleweight)
Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Cody Garbrandt (Bantamweight)
Holly Holm vs. Kayla Harrison (Bantamweight)
Sodiq Yusuff vs. Diego Lopes (Featherweight)
Jéssica Andrade vs. Marina Rodriguez (Strawweight)
Bobby Green vs. Jim Miller (Lightweight)
