Fight Roundup: Topuria’s Early 2027 Return, and a Rebuilt Vegas 124

LAS VEGAS

The lightweight division’s most dangerous man is going to have to wait — and so is everybody chasing him. Ilia Topuria will return in early 2027, UFC CEO Dana White said Wednesday on The Jim Rome Show. “In 2027. He’ll come back in early 2027,” White said, per MMA Junkie. “We’re working on that, too. That entire lightweight division, you’ve got Gaethje, Topuria, Arman Tsarukyan, Oliveira, Paddy Pimblett, Holloway. The whole top 10 is straight killers and the most badass division we have right now.”

Topuria, 29, has not fought since June, when Justin Gaethje stopped him in the UFC Freedom 250 main event at the White House — Topuria quit on his stool after the fourth round of a war, suffering fractures to both orbital bones, and lost the lightweight title and his unbeaten record in the same night. He is 17-1, still ranked No. 1 in the division, and has moved back home to Georgia to rebuild; the photograph at the top of this story shows him at the Orbeliani Palace in Tbilisi. His trainer, Jesus Gallo, has said he will be ready to fight from February, Sportskeeda reported.

What White would not do is name that opponent. “I’m not gonna give you a name,” he said, per MMA Mania. “Then all of these Instagram frigging things out there say, ‘Oh, he said he’s fighting him.’ It drives me mental.” Topuria wants an immediate rematch with Gaethje, Bloody Elbow reported — but Gaethje is recovering from injury and targeting 2027 himself, and Arman Tsarukyan, who knocked out Mauricio Ruffy at UFC 331 in September, expects to fight for the belt in the first quarter of 2027, per Sportskeeda. However the UFC sequences it, the best division in the sport spends the winter on hold.

Saturday: the card that refused to die

UFC Vegas 124 — officially UFC Fight Night 293 — goes ahead Saturday at the Meta APEX on Paramount+, prelims at 5 p.m. ET and the main card at 8 p.m. ET, with heavyweights Waldo Cortes-Acosta (17-4) and Johnny Walker (23-10, 1 NC) in the main event and strawweights Tatiana Suarez and Virna Jandiroba in the co-main event. It is not the card that was booked. Sean Brady’s own account of the staph infection that killed his welterweight main event against Gabriel Bonfim is grim reading: he woke up on October 21 with a swollen left knee, could barely walk, and spent three days in hospital on IV antibiotics having the knee drained. Brady asked the UFC to move the fight to December and was told the December 5 card in Saudi Arabia and the December 12 card were already full; he is now targeting the January 16 card in Texas.

The reshuffles did not stop there. Featherweight Lucas Brennan tore his ACL less than a week out, and Fury FC featherweight champion Carlos Calderon will make his UFC debut against Austin Bashi on four days’ notice, MMA Fighting reported. Bonfim is off the card entirely. Our full preview of the rebuilt card has the tale of the tape on the new main event and the title stakes in the co-main.

The winner says the referee got it wrong

Last Saturday’s UFC Vegas 123 main event is still being argued about, and the most interesting voice in the argument belongs to the man who won it. Tom Nolan finished Renato Moicano at 1:28 of the third round, after referee Dan Miragliotta stood the fighters up in the second round while Moicano had Nolan’s back with a body triangle locked in. On The Ariel Helwani Show this week, Nolan sided with Moicano — the stand-up was wrong — and offered him a rematch “in a heartbeat,” MMA Sucka reported. It will have to wait: Moicano plans to take at least six months off, and has three fights left on his UFC contract. White also addressed the stand-up this week, EssentiallySports reported, siding with the rulebook over the crowd — a referee can restart fighters he judges inactive, even from a position that looks decisive from the cheap seats. Both things can be true. The rule allows it. It still changed the fight.

The weekend’s boxing

Boxing’s weekend belongs to Texas. On Sunday, November 8 in Arlington, Australia’s Skye Nicolson defends the WBC super bantamweight title against Japan’s Miyo Yoshida, the WBC announced. On Saturday in Istanbul, Murad Aliyev meets unbeaten Umut Camkiran for the vacant WBC Silver heavyweight title at the Ülker Arena. And the heavyweight division’s biggest date got bigger this week: Wilder vs. Opetaia is official as the co-main event for Fury vs. Joshua on December 11 in Cardiff.