January 18 is going to be a busy night for Khabib Nurmagomedov.
On Wednesday, Dana White announced that the promotion’s first pay-per-view of the new year will be headlined by a lightweight title clash between reigning and defending champion Islam Makhachev and the division’s top-ranked contender Arman Tsarukyan.
On top of that, Merab Dvalishvili will make his first defense of the bantamweight crown when he meets undefeated sensation Umar Nurmagomedov in the co-main event.
Those two title fights join the already-announced light heavyweight banger between former titleholders Jamahal Hill and Jiri Prochazka.
Considering that both Makhachev and Umar Nurmagomedov are famously a part of Khabib’s team in Dagestan, the UFC Hall of Famer is already stressing about having to corner his fighters in back-to-back championship bouts next month.
“I think it’s never happened before, or hasn’t happened until now,” Nurmagomedov wrote in a translated post on his Instagram story. “What a night is waiting for me, I hope I’ll survive.”
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For Islam Makhachev, it will be his third time putting his 155-pound crown on the line after securing two straight wins over Alexander Volkanovski before submitting Dustin Poirier in the fifth round of their UFC 302 main event in June.
Makhachev’s fight with Tsarukyan will be the second-ever meeting between the two. The first came back in 2019 when Makahchev defeated ‘Ahalkalakets’ via unanimous decision at UFC on ESPN 7. Since then, Tsarukyan has gone 9-1 inside the Octagon, his only other loss coming against Mateusz Gamrot. Tsarukyan earned his spot at the top of the lightweight ladder via a quartet of wins, including Ws against Beneil Dariush and ex-champion Charles Oliveira.
Meanwhile, Umar Nurmagomedov — the cousin of Khabib — will compete in his first title fight at UFC 311. Despite being a perfect 18-0 in his mixed martial arts career with six of those victories coming inside the Octagon, Nurmagomedov is sorely lacking any noteworthy wins outside of a dominant performance against Cory Sandhagen in August that skyrocketed him toward the top of the rankings.
Before that, his UFC wins came against Sergey Morozov, Brian Kelleher, Nate Maness, Raoni Barcelos, and Bekzat Almakhan. Still, Nurmagomedov opened as a 2-to-1 favorite to defeat Dvalishvili and bring the bantamweight belt back home to Russia.
