Who could have seen this coming?
Last night (Sat., July 20, 2024), during the UFC Vegas 94 broadcast, the promotion announced that UFC Abu Dhabi’s five-round co-main event featuring UFC legend Nick Diaz and Vicente Luque, which was supposed to go down in two weeks on Aug. 3,- is being postponed to a later date because of travel issues.
The new co-main event will feature Sharabutdin Magomedov against Michal Oleksiejczuk.
As expected, Nick Diaz will not be fighting in Abu Dhabi on August 3rd pic.twitter.com/2DeBeIl3KN
— MMA Mania (@mmamania) July 21, 2024
When Diaz vs. Luque was initially announced this year in May, anyone with half a brain questioned if Diaz would actually make it to the Middle East. Whether it be marijuana being completely illegal in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or maybe the leader of the Diaz Army didn’t know where Abu Dhabi was.
Regardless of the circumstances, the Diaz vs. Luque fight is scheduled to take place later this year, possibly in Salt Lake City.
Since his victory over B.J. Penn in UFC 137 in 2011, Diaz has been unable to secure a win in any of his fights. Similarly, Luque’s most recent fight resulted in his defeat at the hands of Joaquin Buckley.
Here is the rest of UFC Abu Dhabi, which goes down Aug. 3 from inside Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, UAE
135 lbs.: Cory Sandhagen vs. Umar Nurmagomedov
185 lbs.: Sharabutdin Magomedov vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk
135 lbs.: Marlon Vera vs. Deiveson Figueiredo
170 lbs.: Tony Ferguson vs. Michael Chiesa
115 lbs.: Mackenzie Dern vs. Loopy Godinez
155 lbs.: Joel Alvarez vs. Elves Brenner
155 lbs.: Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady vs. Guram Kutateladze
205 lbs.: Alonzo Menifield vs. Azamat Murzakanov
115 lbs.: Victoria Dudakova vs. Sam Hughes
125 lbs.: Azat Maksum vs. CJ Vergara
