Who could have seen this coming?
Last night (Sat., July 20, 2024), during the UFC Vegas 94 broadcast, the promotion announced that UFC Abu Dhabi’s five-round co-main event featuring UFC legend Nick Diaz and Vicente Luque, which was supposed to go down in two weeks on Aug. 3,- is being postponed to a later date because of travel issues.
Sharabutdin Magomedov vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk will now be the new co-main event.
As expected, Nick Diaz will not be fighting in Abu Dhabi on August 3rd pic.twitter.com/2DeBeIl3KN
— MMA Mania (@mmamania) July 21, 2024
When Diaz vs. Luque was initially announced this year in May, anyone with half a brain questioned if Diaz would actually make it to the Middle East. Whether it be marijuana being completely illegal in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or maybe the leader of the Diaz Army didn’t know where Abu Dhabi was.
Whatever the case, Diaz vs. Luque will go down later this year. Salt Lake City, maybe?
Diaz has not won a fight since UFC 137 in 2011, where he beat down B.J. Penn. Luque was finished by Joaquin Buckley in his last fight.
Here is the rest of UFC Abu Dhabi, which goes down Aug. 3 from inside Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, UAE
135 lbs.: Cory Sandhagen vs. Umar Nurmagomedov
185 lbs.: Sharabutdin Magomedov vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk
135 lbs.: Marlon Vera vs. Deiveson Figueiredo
170 lbs.: Tony Ferguson vs. Michael Chiesa
115 lbs.: Mackenzie Dern vs. Loopy Godinez
155 lbs.: Joel Alvarez vs. Elves Brenner
155 lbs.: Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady vs. Guram Kutateladze
205 lbs.: Alonzo Menifield vs. Azamat Murzakanov
115 lbs.: Victoria Dudakova vs. Sam Hughes
125 lbs.: Azat Maksum vs. CJ Vergara