The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is scheduled to return to mainland China, marking its first event there since 2017. The promotion will hold a Fight Night card at the Shanghai Indoor Stadium on August 23rd.
While specific matchups for the event have yet to be officially announced, the media event confirming the return featured prominent Chinese athletes such as UFC champion Zhang Weili, along with Song Yadong and Zhang Mingyang.
In addition to the main Fight Night card, the semifinals of the Road to UFC tournament are also planned to take place in Shanghai on the preceding day, August 22nd.
The UFC`s only previous visit to Shanghai was on November 25, 2017. The main event of that historical card saw Kelvin Gastelum defeat former champion Michael Bisping via knockout, a bout that also served as Bisping`s retirement fight. The event drew an attendance of just over 15,000 fans.
Originally, Gastelum was slated to compete against Anderson Silva in the 2017 Shanghai headliner. However, Silva was removed from the card after failing a drug test for methyltestosterone metabolites and hydrochlorothiazide. USADA later concluded that the positive result stemmed from contaminated supplements.
Following a multi-year hiatus from holding events in China due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UFC made a return to the greater region in November 2023 with a Fight Night event held in Macau. That card featured a main event between former champions Petr Yan and Deiveson Figueiredo, and included victories on the main portion for Chinese contenders Yan Xiaonan and Zhang Mingyang.
