UFC CEO Dana White made a massive announcement Wednesday evening, sharing the news that UFC 311 had secured a championship doubleheader to serve as the main and co-main bouts slightly more than one month out from the event. In the main event, UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev will defend his title against top contender Arman Tsarukyan while Merab Dvalishvili will defend his bantamweight championship against Umar Nurmagomedov in the co-main event.
Makhachev occupies the top spot in the UFC’s pound-for-pound rankings. The fight with Tsarukyan marks the fourth defense of the title he won by submitting Charles Oliveira in October 2022. After that win, he picked up back-to-back wins over then-featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski, first taking a narrow decision before scoring a violent first-round knockout in the rematch. In his most recent fight, Makhachev submitted Dustin Poirier in the fifth round of an entertaining scrap. The Poirier fight was Makhachev’s only trip to the Octagon in 2024.
Tsarukyan enters his first title shot riding a four-fight winning streak. Since a decision loss to Mateusz Gamrot in June 2022, he took a decision over Damir Ismagulov, knockouts of Joaquim Silva and Beneil Dariush, and most recently, edged out a split decision victory over Oliveira in a title eliminator.
That fight will be a rematch of an April 2019 meeting that Makhachev won by unanimous decision and won Fight of the Night.
Dvalishvili, meanwhile, won the bantamweight title in September, taking a lopsided decision over Sean O’Malley. That victory ran Dvalishvili’s winning streak to 11, dating back to when he suffered back-to-back losses in his first two UFC bouts.
Nurmagomedov has been seen as one of the best up-and-coming fighters in the sport for years. Now sporting an 18-0 record, Nurmagomedov has won six fights in the UFC Octagon, most recently defeating Cory Sandhagen in August.
UFC 311 is set to take place Jan. 18 from Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.
