Alexander Volkanovski will defend his featherweight championship against undefeated Ilia Topuria in the main event of UFC 298 on Saturday in Anaheim, California.
The main card at Honda 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 ESPN+ at 6:30 p.m.
Volkanovski (26-3) has lost two of his last three fights, but both losses came in challenges for the UFC lightweight title. At featherweight, Volkanovski has won 12 in a row, including five defenses of the 145-pound title he won in 2019. He is No. 3 in the ESPN pound-for-pound men's rankings.
Topuria (14-0) is 6-0 in the Octagon, most recently a unanimous decision win over Josh Emmett in June. Topuria is No. 5 in the ESPN men's featherweight rankings.
What are the storylines behind the top fights at UFC 298? 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 298 essentials.
UFC 298 fight card
ESPN+ PPV, 10 p.m. ET
Men's featherweight championship: Alexander Volkanovski (c) vs. Ilia Topuria
Middleweight: Robert Whittaker vs. Paulo Costa
Welterweight: Geoff Neal vs. Ian Machado Garry
Men's bantamweight: Merab Dvalishvili vs. Henry Cejudo
Middleweight: Anthony Hernandez vs. Roman Kopylov
ESPN/ESPN+, 8 p.m.
Strawweight: Amanda Lemos vs. Mackenzie Dern
Heavyweight: Marcos Rogerio de Lima vs. Justin Tafa
Bantamweight: Rinya Nakamura vs. Carlos Vera
Light heavyweight: Zhang Mingyang vs. Brendson Ribeiro
ESPN+, 6:30 p.m.
Welterweight: Danny Barlow vs. Josh Quinlan
Welterweight: Oban Elliott vs. Val Woodburn
Women's flyweight: Andrea Lee vs. Miranda Maverick
(c) = defending champion
How to watch the fights
Watch the PPV and all other fights on ESPN+: Get ESPN+ here.
Watch the prelims on ESPN and ESPN+. Download the ESPN App | WatchESPN | TV schedule
Don't have ESPN? 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.
UFC 298 storylines: Can Topuria end Volkanovski's title run?
Alexander Volkanovski is by far the longest-reigning champion in the UFC. He won the men's featherweight title in 2019, and none of the other 10 current champs claimed their strap before 2022. Volkanovski has made five title defenses, more than twice as many as the next-most-accomplished champion. He will put his belt up for grabs for a sixth time on Saturday when he faces undefeated Ilia Topuria.
Another number adds to the intrigue of this weekend's title defense. That number is 35 -- Volkanovski's age. No one in any of the UFC's lower-weight men's divisions has ever won a title fight at that age or older. And for all of his success -- 12 straight wins at featherweight -- Volkanovski has recently become well acquainted with losing. He has dropped two of his last three fights, both in challenges of lightweight champ Islam Makhachev. Volkanovski's loss to Makhachev in October came via first-round knockout. That's tough to bounce back from.
UFC title matchup projections: What does our model say about Volkanovski-Topuria?
What do the analytics say about the championship fights in 2024? Using predictive models agnostic of betting lines, we examined how each champion's matchup appears from a favorability view.
Essentially, is this a good matchup for the champion or the challenger? The inputs consider each fighter's performance metrics inside the Octagon and select factors about the fighter outside the cage. The higher the score, the more favorable the incumbent champ matches.
Volkanovski has a UFC exit strategy -- but a loss to Topuria isn't a part of it
Alexander Volkanovski will put the belt he has held since December 2019, when he defeated Max Holloway by unanimous decision, on the line in Anaheim just five months after he saw his dreams of dual-champion status snatched away in brutal fashion by Islam Makhachev.
Immediately after that crushing defeat, Volkanovski gave an emotional insight into his psyche, which left many questioning whether, after such a dominant run, cracks were suddenly starting to emerge within the usually unflappable Australian.