UFC 333 goes off Saturday, Oct. 24, from Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, and for anyone in the States it’s a coffee-and-cereal kind of fight day. Alexander Volkanovski (28-4) defends the featherweight title against unbeaten Movsar Evloev (20-0) in the five-round main event. Bantamweight champion Petr Yan defends against Merab Dvalishvili in the co-main, the third chapter of their rivalry.
Start times and how to watch
In the U.S., the entire card streams on Paramount+. The Sporting News notes there’s no pay-per-view charge on top of the subscription, which runs $8.99 a month for the ad-supported Essential tier or $13.99 a month for Premium.
- Early prelims: 10 a.m. ET / 7 a.m. PT
- Prelims: 12 p.m. ET / 9 a.m. PT
- Main card: 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT
The walkout estimates don’t agree. Athlon has Volkanovski and Evloev heading to the Octagon around 4 p.m. ET, while The Sporting News puts the main event closer to 5:15 p.m. ET. Either way it depends on how many of the earlier fights go the distance. In Europe, UFC Europe posted on X that prelims start at 3 p.m. BST / 4 p.m. CET on UFC Fight Pass.
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The title fights
Volkanovski is 38 and has been fighting for belts for a long time. Per MMA Mania, every one of his 11 fights since 2019 has been a title fight at featherweight or lightweight. After losing the belt to Ilia Topuria, he beat Diego Lopes to reclaim it and then beat Lopes again to defend it. He has a message for the wrestler across from him. “You can try and take me down all day,” Volkanovski said to Evloev via The Associated Press. “Even if you get it down, I’m gonna be smiling as I get back up, and be back in your face.”
Evloev, a former M-1 Global bantamweight champion, is 10-0 in the UFC with wins over Lopes, Arnold Allen, Aljamain Sterling and, most recently, Lerone Murphy, the victory that earned him this shot. All 10 of those UFC wins came on the scorecards, and Athlon points out he hasn’t scored a stoppage in more than eight years.
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The co-main has real history. Dvalishvili dominated Yan in 2023, then Yan took the belt from him in December 2025, with body shots that Athlon wrote left Dvalishvili audibly screaming. Dvalishvili had fought four times in 2025 and admitted afterward that taking the Yan fight on a short turnaround was a mistake. He’s coming back off a long layoff this time.
Further down the card
Arnold Allen withdrew from his fight with Aaron Pico because of an injury, and Losene Keita, a former two-division OKTAGON champion who knocked out Muhammad Naimov in the first round in September, steps in. Lone’er Kavanagh meets Ramazan Temirov (12 straight wins) at flyweight. Alexander Volkov, ranked No. 4 at heavyweight, showed up at the press conference to pitch Dana White on a title shot. He still has to get past Rizvan Kuniev first, and MMA Mania figures a convincing win sets him up for the winner of Ciryl Gane vs. Josh Hokit at UFC 334. On the early prelims, Nicolle Caliari came in nearly five pounds heavy for Iasmin Lucindo and forfeits 30 percent of her purse.
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Evloev catches grief for winning 10 straight UFC fights on the cards, which is a strange thing to hold against a man nobody has figured out. Volkanovski has been stopped only twice in the UFC, and he can make any round miserable for anyone. If Evloev puts him on the mat as often as Volkanovski is daring him to, though, that smile is going to get a long workout.
