UFC 333 Abu Dhabi 2026: Volkanovski vs Evloev and Yan vs Dvalishvili 3

UFC 333 lands on Saturday 24 October 2026 at Etihad Arena on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, with two title fights at the top of the card. Alexander Volkanovski defends the featherweight belt against the unbeaten Movsar Evloev, and Petr Yan defends the bantamweight belt against Merab Dvalishvili in a trilogy that stands at one win each.

The UFC lists 14 bouts across three parts of the night. Early prelims start at 3pm UK time, the prelims at 5pm and the main card at 7pm, with UFC.com listing TNT Sports for the main card in the UK. In Abu Dhabi that's 6pm, 8pm and 10pm, because the UAE is three hours ahead of the UK on fight night. British clocks go back early the next morning, so if your group has anything planned for Sunday, check the times twice.

Volkanovski vs Evloev: the featherweight title

Volkanovski has been confident in the build-up. “No one in my division can beat me in a decision,” he told Main Event in August, adding that he is so confident in his takedown defence that Evloev's real route is a knockout. That is a notable claim, given that Evloev has built an unbeaten record mostly on the scorecards.

Evloev sees it differently. “Even if I'm not able to finish him, I will control all the time, and it's not going to be a boring fight,” he told MMA Junkie in September. In other words, he expects to win the kind of fight Volkanovski says cannot be won against him.

Volkanovski is 38, fights out of Wollongong in Australia and comes in at 28-4. He first won the featherweight title by beating Max Holloway at UFC 245 in December 2019 and defended it five times before Ilia Topuria knocked him out at UFC 298 in February 2024. He then won the vacant title back with a decision over Diego Lopes at UFC 314 in April 2025, and beat Lopes again over five rounds at UFC 325 at the start of 2026.

Evloev is 32, from Ingushetia, trains at American Top Team and is 20-0. This is his first UFC title fight. He earned it with a majority decision over Lerone Murphy in March 2026, after unanimous decisions over Aljamain Sterling at UFC 310 in December 2024 and Arnold Allen at UFC 297 in January 2024. He wins most of his fights on the scorecards, and he has never lost.

My read is that this is the harder of the two title fights to call. Volkanovski has the five-round title experience that Evloev has not had yet, while Evloev has never been beaten. One of those records has to change.

Yan vs Dvalishvili 3: the bantamweight title

Dvalishvili won the first meeting in March 2023, then took the bantamweight title from Sean O'Malley at UFC 306 in September 2024 and defended it three times, against Umar Nurmagomedov, O'Malley again and Cory Sandhagen. Yan, nicknamed No Mercy and from Krasnoyarsk Krai in Russia, ended that run with a unanimous decision at UFC 323 in December 2025. UFC 333 is his first defence.

Dvalishvili, The Machine, from Tbilisi in Georgia, is 21-5. Yan is 20-5. “I'm ready for a 25-minute war,” Dvalishvili told Arab News on 10 October, calling Yan “the most dangerous guy in my weight class right now” before adding: “If not, then I'm ready to take a decision win because I'm the decision machine.” It will be his first fight in Abu Dhabi, according to the same interview.

A trilogy fight with a title on the line does not come along often, and for my money this one is a good reason to watch the whole main card rather than just the last fight.

A London fighter on the main card

Lone'er Kavanagh, from London and training with GB Top Team, meets Ramazan Temirov at flyweight. Kavanagh is 10-2 and has had a strong year: a five-round decision over former flyweight champion Brandon Moreno, then a third-round submission of Brandon Royval on the UFC 329 card in Las Vegas in July. For a UK group, he is the fighter on the card with the closest link to home.

The rest of the main card has heavyweights Alexander Volkov and Rizvan Kuniev, and Aaron Pico against Losene Keita at featherweight. Keita, from Belgium, took the fight on short notice after Arnold Allen dropped out. The prelims are headed by Azamat Murzakanov against Dominick Reyes at light heavyweight.

The four prelim bouts from 5pm UK time are Murzakanov vs Reyes, Nikita Krylov vs Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev, Abus Magomedov vs Cam Rowston and Grant Dawson vs Nurullo Aliev. The five early prelims from 3pm are headed by Colby Thicknesse vs Asaf Chopurov at bantamweight and include Iasmin Lucindo vs Nicolle Caliari at women's strawweight.

On commentary, Joe Rogan is not part of the broadcast team. MMA Junkie reported on 20 October that Paul Felder joins Jon Anik and Daniel Cormier cageside in Abu Dhabi.

Etihad Arena and fight week on Yas Island

Etihad Arena holds 18,000 and opened in January 2021 on the Yas Bay Waterfront. UFC 333 is the 12th UFC event in the building and the 24th UFC show in Abu Dhabi, so the city is well used to staging a fight week.

The schedule around the fight reflects that. The free UFC Fan Experience runs at Yas Mall from Monday to Saturday and at Yas Bay Plaza from Wednesday to Sunday. The press conference is on Thursday afternoon at the arena and fans can attend for free, and the ceremonial weigh-ins are at the arena on Friday from 4pm to 6.30pm, also open to the public. If you are flying a group out, arriving by Thursday covers most of it, including the press conference and the weigh-ins.

If you want more MMA on the calendar, our UFC hub and UFC numbered events page list what's coming. For the night that set up a lot of this year's talk, see the UFC 329 event page and our UFC 329 preview, and for the rematch everyone keeps asking about, read whether Mayweather and McGregor will fight again.

Hospitality at Etihad Arena

The arena has three premium options of its own. Aldar Club Seats are cinema-style seats in the middle of the arena, just off the main concourse, and access to the Aldar Club Lounge comes either in the package or as an add-on. The arena calls the lounge a premium space for before, during and after the event, and says some event profiles include an open bar. The Hospitality Box is a semi-private area for a smaller group, close to the action. The Luxury Suites are a small number of private suites on their own floor, with catering arranged for the suite.

For a small client group, the Hospitality Box keeps everyone together and near the cage without the formality of a full suite. For a bigger team, or a night where the conversation matters as much as the fights, a Luxury Suite makes more sense. To talk through how each option works on a UFC night in Abu Dhabi, register your interest with Prestige Corporate Events.

Photo credits: Yas Bay Waterfront by Oleg Yunakov, CC BY-SA 4.0. Etihad Arena interior by JmKissme, CC0 1.0. Octagon lights at UFC Freedom 250 by Staff Sgt. Tianna Wilson, U.S. Army National Guard, public domain. Portrait photo: Alexander Volkanovski by MMAnytt, CC BY 3.0.