Updated card – UFC 230 at Madison Square Garden

Peter Knox

October 22, 2018

UFC 230 will take place on Saturday 3^rd November 2018 at Madison Square Garden in New York, USA.

Double champion Daniel ‘DC’ Cormier will defend his newly acquired Heavyweight strap against #1 contender Derrick ‘The Black Beast’ Lewis. The Black Beast secured a shot at the title after just managing to secure victories against Russian Alexander ‘Drago’ Volkov and the man who had the division shaking for a while, Francis ‘The Predator’ Ngannou.

This is the third UFC event to be held at the iconic venue – UFC 205: McGregor vs Alvarez in 2016 and UFC 217: Bisping vs St Pierre in 2017 both took place at MSG – and after several pull-outs and changes of opponent, organisers have their fingers crossed that no more drastic changes to the bout order will occur between now and fight day.

Former Middleweight champion Luke Rockhold has suffered a leg injury and therefore been forced to pull out of his fight against the All-American Chris Weidman, also a former champ.

Brazilian veteran Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza has stepped in to save that fight and will now face Weidman as the co-main event of the evening. ‘Jacare’ was due to fight David Branch on the same card, but Jared Cannonier has offered to step in to fight Branch to accommodate for the shuffling of opponents.

After more than two years away from the sport, Nate Diaz was due to make his highly anticipated comeback against Dustin ‘The Diamond’ Poirier in a lightweight fight. Unfortunately, Poirier has pulled out due to an injury and it looks unlikely that a replacement opponent will be found for Diaz.

Yoel Romero vs Paulo Costa has also been cancelled with Romero claiming an orbital injury will keep him out of action for several months. Costa refused to fight a replacement opponent, instead opting to wait for Romero to heal.

For a short time, TUF runner-up Sijara Eubanks versus Valentina ‘Bullet’ Shevchenko for the Flyweight belt was pegged to be the main event of the evening. Eubanks will now face Roxanne Modafferi in the FS1 prelims – Shevchenko has been rescheduled to fight for the title against former Strawweight queen Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 231 in Toronto, Canada.

Here is the line up as it currently stands:

Main Card:

Daniel Cormier (21-1-0-1) vs Derrick Lewis (21-5-0-1) / Heavyweight Title Fight

Chris Weidman (14-3-0) vs Ronaldo Souza (25-6-0-1) / Middleweight

Jared Cannonier (10-4-0) vs David Branch (22-4-0) / Middleweight

Karl Roberson (6-1-0) vs Jack Marshman (22-7-0) / Middleweight

Derek Brunson (18-6-0) vs Israel Adesanya (14-0-0) / Middleweight

FS1 Prelims:

Jason Knight (20-4-0) vs Jordan Rinaldi (13-6-0) / Featherweight

Sijara Eubanks (3-2-0) vs Roxanne Modafferi (22-14-0)/ Flyweight

Julio Arce (14-2-0) vs Sheymon Moraes (10-2-0) / Featherweight

Lyman Good (19-4-0-1) vs Sultan Aliev (14-3-0) / Welterweight