UFC Fight Night 125 - Machida vs. Anders --- UFC Fight Night 126 - Cowboy vs. Medeiros
UFC 221: Romero vs. Rockhold is an upcoming mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that will be held on February 10, 2018 at Perth Arena in Perth, Australia.
Fight card
Main Card
Middleweight Yoel Romero vs. Luke Rockhold For the interim UFC Middleweight Championship.
Heavyweight Mark Hunt vs. Curtis Blaydes
Heavyweight Tai Tuivasa vs. Cyril Asker
Welterweight Jake Matthews vs. Li Jingliang
Light Heavyweight Tyson Pedro vs. Saparbek Safarov
Preliminary Card (Fox Sports 1)
Lightweight Damien Brown vs. Dong Hyun Kim
Middleweight Rob Wilkinson vs. Israel Adesanya
Lightweight Jeremy Kennedy vs. Alexander Volkanovski
Flyweight Jussier Formiga vs. Ben Nguyen
Preliminary Card (UFC Fight Pass)
Lightweight Ross Pearson vs. Mizuto Hirota
Bantamweight Teruto Ishihara vs. José Alberto Quiñónez
Welterweight Luke Jumeau vs. Daichi Abe
Background
While the UFC has hosted 11 previous events across the country, the event will mark the promotion's first visit to Perth, in the Western Australia.
In order for the event to be broadcast live during prime time hours on the east coast of North America, the main card is expected to begin at 11:00 am local time in Perth WST, with a full preliminary card beginning at approximately 07:00 am local time.
While not officially announced by the UFC, the promotion was initially targeting a UFC Middleweight Championship unification bout between then champion Georges St-Pierre (who is also a former two time UFC Welterweight Champion) and interim champion Robert Whittaker (also The Ultimate Fighter: The Smashes welterweight winner), to serve as the event headliner. However, St-Pierre later indicated that he is currently mulling his future in the division and announced that he expected to be out indefinitely after being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Subsequently, St-Pierre vacated the championship on December 7 and Whittaker was promoted to undisputed champion. Whittaker was then expected to defend the championship against former Strikeforce and UFC Middleweight Champion Luke Rockhold in the main event. However on January 13, it was announced that Whittaker pulled out of the bout and was replaced by former middleweight interim title challenger (as well as 2000 Olympic silver medalist and former world champion in freestyle wrestling) Yoel Romero, who was scheduled to face former WSOF Middleweight and Light Heavyweight Champion David Branch at UFC on Fox 28. The bout is now expected to take place as an interim title contest.
A lightweight bout between Jeremy Kennedy and Alexander Volkanovski was originally scheduled for UFC Fight Night: Werdum vs. Tybura. However, Kennedy pulled out due to a back injury. The pairing was later rescheduled for this event.