Islam Makhachev relinquished his gold earlier this year in pursuit of some more.
The former UFC lightweight champion may find it at Madison Square Garden.
Makhachev will challenge welterweight titleholder Jack Della Maddalena in the UFC 322 main event on Nov. 15, when the promotion makes its annual visit to Manhattan, CEO Dana White announced Thursday night via Instagram.
The bout comes after Makhachev, a dominant champion at 155 pounds, made his final defense of that crown in January before vacating the title to pursue the 170-pound crown.
That decision followed Della Maddalena’s impressive victory against Belal Muhammad, a friend of Makhachev, to take the belt off the Chicago native in May.
The co-main event White announced mirrors Della Maddalena vs. Makhachev as champion vs. recently vacated champion — even more recently, in this case.
Valentina Shevchenko will put her women’s flyweight title on the line against Zhang Weili, who will vacate her women’s strawweight crown to go up from 115 pounds to 125.
Both women had successfully cleaned out their respective divisions, with Shevchenko defending against Manon Fiorot in May and Zhang adding a win over Tatiana Suarez in February to mark three consecutive title defenses.
Zhang relinquished the opportunity to match Amanda Nunes’ unique feat of becoming a simultaneous two-division champion — and the only women in UFC history to do so — but she could join the Hall of Famer as only the second woman to capture a UFC belt at two separate weights.
White announced that a new strawweight champion would be crowned at UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Oct. 25, as top contenders with grappling-centric skill sets Virna Jandiroba and Mackenzie Dern face off for the vacant title.
The only other UFC 322 bout revealed by White during his live transmission pits former welterweight champion Leon Edwards against Carlos Prates.
A previously reported women’s flyweight rematch between Erin Blanchfield, a native of Elmwood Park, N.J., and Tracy Cortez was not yet confirmed during the six-minute social media live cast.
The Garden has been a tent pole of the UFC’s calendar since New York became the final state to sanction professional MMA in 2016, with the promotion staging perhaps one of its most stacked events ever that November as Conor McGregor made history by becoming the UFC’s first simultaneous two-division champion.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
