The UFC 317 main event bouts have been made official, featuring Ilia Topuria up against Charles Oliveira, and Alexandre Pantoja versus Kai Kara-France. The fight card takes place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on June 28, during the 13th annual International Fight Week.
The contest between Topuria (16-0) and Oliveira is expected to crown a new UFC champion at lightweight. The division’s current champion, Islam Makhachev, is set to vacate the belt and move up to welterweight to challenge newly crowned 170-pound champion Jack Della Maddalena (18-2) at a future event.
Unbeaten Georgian-Spanish Topuria looks to conquer his new division following his reign at featherweight that saw him stopping both former champions Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway last February and October, respectively. Oliveira of Brazil looks to regain the 155-pound title following a unanimous decision victory over Michael Chandler last November.
Riding a seven-fight winning streak, Pantoja (29-5) of Brazil makes the fourth defense of his 125-pound title following a second-round technical submission of Kai Asakura in late 2024. Kara-France (25-11, 1 NC) of New Zealand knocked out former title challenger Steve Erceg last August and rebounded from two straight defeats.
The promotion also confirmed the previously reported heavyweight bout between Justin Tafa (7-5, 1 NC) of New Zealand and Jhonata Diniz (8-1) of Brazil, as well as five other matchups featured on the UFC 317 fight card.
The current UFC 317 lineup is as follows:
- Ilia Topuria vs. Charles Oliveira – vacant UFC lightweight title
- Alexandre Pantoja vs. Kai Kara-France – Pantoja’s UFC flyweight title
- Paulo Costa vs. Roman Kopylov
- Beneil Dariush vs. Renato Moicano
- Justin Tafa vs. Jhonata Diniz
- Brandon Royval vs. Manel Kape
- Jack Hermansson vs. Gregory Rodrigues
- Viviane Araujo vs. Tracy Cortez
- Daniel Zellhuber vs. Michael Johnson