Official weigh-ins for UFC 333 opened at 12 a.m. ET in Abu Dhabi, which works out to 9 p.m. PT on Thursday night for anyone watching from the West Coast. The window runs until 2 a.m. ET. Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and undefeated challenger Movsar Evloev headline a group of 28 fighters who have to step on the scale before Saturday’s 14-fight card. Uncrowned and MMA Fighting are both carrying live results and video. Neither had posted official numbers for the main event pair at the time of writing, so treat any number you see floating around social media as unconfirmed until it shows up on an official results sheet.
The main event is a featherweight title fight, which means Volkanovski and Evloev each have to come in at 145 pounds or lighter. For Volkanovski, this is a defense of the belt. For Evloev, it’s the first title shot of a career that hasn’t produced a loss yet. That unbeaten record is the whole story of his side of the fight. Saturday decides whether it holds up against the best featherweight of his era.
The co-main event is the one plenty of people circled first. Bantamweight champion Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili meet for a third time, and the series is tied at one win apiece. Yan took the rematch last December at UFC 323, a decision win that made him a two-time champion. Both men need to make 135 pounds. Trilogies at the top of a division tend to come with two cuts’ worth of history behind them, and these two know each other’s bodies and habits about as well as two fighters can.
The rest of the main card features Lone’er Kavanagh vs. Ramazan Temirov at flyweight, Alexander Volkov vs. Rizvan Kuniev at heavyweight and Aaron Pico vs. Losene Keita at featherweight. On the prelims, Azamat Murzakanov meets Dominick Reyes and Nikita Krylov faces Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev, both at light heavyweight. Abus Magomedov takes on Cam Rowston at middleweight, and Grant Dawson meets Nurullo Aliev at lightweight. The early prelims run Colby Thicknesse vs. Asaf Chopurov, Abubakar Vagaev vs. Jacob Malkoun, Bolaji Oki vs. Daniel Santos, Kody Steele vs. Noah Gugnon and Iasmin Lucindo vs. Nicolle Caliari in women’s strawweight.
Ceremonial weigh-ins follow on Friday at 10 a.m. ET, where the fighters face off for the cameras. Saturday’s broadcast runs on Paramount+. Early prelims start at 10 a.m. ET, with UFC Fight Pass carrying them as well. The prelims follow at 12 p.m. ET and the main card at 2 p.m. ET.
My take: the official scale is the quietest and most honest part of fight week. It’s a room with no crowd, a towel held up for modesty and a number read aloud. Everything Evloev has built with that unbeaten record depends on a clean cut tonight and a sharp body on Saturday. Volkanovski has stood on that scale before title fights more times than I can easily count. Still, the fight I can’t stop thinking about is Yan vs. Dvalishvili III. One rematch decision in December settled nothing, and those two have given us two fights’ worth of reasons to expect a third that goes the full distance.
