Aljamain Sterling defends his bantamweight championship against out-of-retirement former two-division champ Henry Cejudo in the main event of UFC 288 on Saturday in Newark, New Jersey.
The main card at the Prudential Center will be on ESPN+ pay-per-view starting at 10 p.m. ET, with prelims on ESPN and ESPN+ at 8 p.m. and early prelims on the same outlets at 6 p.m.
Sterling (22-3) won the title in 2021 and has defended it twice, most recently in a second-round TKO of TJ Dillashaw in October. He is No. 9 in the ESPN pound-for-poound rankings.
Cejudo (16-2) has not fought since May 2020, when he made his only defense of the bantamweight title, against ex-champ Dominick Cruz, and retired in the cage. He previously held the flyweight belt.
What are the storylines behind the UFC 288 main event and other fights? How are experts breaking them down? What do the fighters have to say? Here is the fight card, how to watch it and a collection of all of the UFC 288 essentials.
UFC 288 fight card
ESPN+ PPV, 10 p.m. ET
Men's bantamweight: Aljamain Sterling (c) vs. Henry Cejudo
Welterweight: Belal Muhammad vs. Gilbert Burns
Strawweight: Jessica Andrade vs. Yan Xiaonan
Men's featherweight: Movsar Evloev vs. Diego Lopes
Men's featherweight: Kron Gracie vs. Charles Jourdain
ESPN/ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET
Lightweight: Drew Dober vs. Matt Frevola
Light heavyweight: Kennedy Nzechukwu vs. Devin Clark
Welterweight: Khaos Williams vs. Rolando Bedoya
Strawweight: Marina Rodriguez vs. Virna Jandiroba
ESPN/ESPN+, 6:30 p.m.
Heavyweight: Braxton Smith vs. Parker Porter
Middleweight: Phil Hawes vs. Ikram Aliskerov
Middleweight: Joseph Holmes vs. Claudio Ribeiro
(c) = defending champion
How to watch the fights
Watch the PPV and all other fights on ESPN+: Get ESPN+ here.
Watch the prelims and early prelims on ESPN, ESPN Deportes and ESPN+. Download the ESPN App | WatchESPN | TV schedule
Don't have ESPN and ESPN Deportes? Get instant access.
Purchased the fight on your phone and want to stream on your TV? Find out how here.
There's also FightCenter, which offers live updates for every UFC card.
Ranking the fights at UFC 288: Why Henry Cejudo's return tops the list
A UFC 288 pay-per-view event is set to go down this weekend in Newark -- and if we're being honest, this one is vulnerable to being overlooked.
The UFC promoted two PPV events in March, and both felt like signature events. UFC 285 featured the long-anticipated heavyweight debut of Jon Jones, while UFC 286 saw the third chapter of a rivalry between Leon Edwards and Kamaru Usman (in the perfect setting of London, no less).
Last month, the UFC returned to Miami for the first time in 20 years and brought along the King of Miami, Jorge Masvidal, and one of the biggest stars of the sport in Israel Adesanya, for UFC 287.
There's no question at all that UFC 288 brings a solid main card lineup -- but it might lack the obvious storylines of its three predecessors. At least on the surface. This card is immensely important to multiple divisions. A few months or a few years from now, we might look back and say this card played a critical role in several narratives.
So, let's have a bit of fun and rank the five main card bouts in terms of anticipation going into UFC 288.
Why Gilbert Burns and Belal Muhammad are taking the biggest fight of their careers on short notice at UFC 288
Gilbert Burns will face Belal Muhammad in the co-main event of UFC 288 on May 6 inside Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The 170-pound five-round bout was hastily thrown together last week, after the UFC 288 card lost a high-profile bout between Charles Oliveira and Beneil Dariush. The UFC was in need of a splashy matchup to add to that pay-per-view, and Burns and Muhammad, who were both already in strong position for a title fight, chose to accept the risk.
Why did they do it?