The UFC crammed two pay-per-view-caliber cards onto one dais Friday in New York, putting the headliners of UFC 335 and UFC 336 in front of the media before the UFC 334 ceremonial weigh-ins. Eight fighters were booked for the session at the Infosys Theater inside Madison Square Garden: flyweight champion Joshua Van, “BMF” titleholder Charles Oliveira, former two-division champ Alex Pereira, Manel Kape, Diego Lopes, Sergei Pavlovich, and interim title contenders Carlos Prates and Michael Morales.
MMA Junkie carried a live stream from the venue with a 4:30 p.m. ET start, while MMA Fighting listed the stream as beginning at 4 p.m. ET. The UFC promoted the event on X with a mic-drop emoji, which is about as subtle as this company gets.
UFC 335: Oliveira vs. Lopes, Pereira vs. Pavlovich
UFC 335 goes Dec. 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Oliveira puts the symbolic BMF belt up against Lopes, who MMA Fighting described as “popular,” and that undersells it. Two Brazilians who both fight like they’re late for dinner is a main event that sells itself.
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The co-main is the one I’d pay for, though. Pereira, who already held belts in two divisions, faces Pavlovich in a matchup of top heavyweight contenders. MMA Fighting framed it as Pereira’s chance to get back on track and chase a third title. A win over Pavlovich, a guy whose entire résumé is built on making large men fall down early, would put Pereira in the heavyweight title conversation in a hurry. A loss would make that third-belt dream look like a bridge too far.
UFC 336: Van vs. Kape opens 2027
The UFC’s 2027 schedule kicks off Jan. 30 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Van defends the flyweight title against Kape in the main event. In the co-main, Prates and Morales fight for an interim belt, and per MMA Fighting the winner gets pointed at undisputed champion Islam Makhachev. An interim title with Makhachev waiting at the end is about as high-stakes as interim belts get, since you win the thing and your reward is the hardest night of your career.
Both UFC 335 and UFC 336 stream entirely on Paramount+, per MMA Junkie.
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MMA Fighting called Friday’s presser a chance for all eight fighters to test their opponents’ mental toughness and set the stakes for the shows ahead. That’s the polite version. The real reason you put Pereira, Pavlovich, Oliveira, Lopes, Van, Kape, Prates and Morales in one room is to get eight sets of highlights out of one afternoon and sell two cards for the price of one microphone setup.
My take: the UFC built Dec. 12 around the BMF belt, but Pereira walking into heavyweight against a knockout artist is the fight that decides how 2027 looks at the top of the sport. I love a fighter who calls his shot at a third title, and I love it more when the matchmakers hand him the scariest available puncher instead of a soft landing. If Pereira gets Pavlovich out of there on Dec. 12, the heavyweight title picture rearranges itself around him by New Year’s, and Toronto on Jan. 30 becomes the undercard to that conversation.
