After the ESPN era ended for the UFC, a deal which they’d had since 2019, Dana White’s promotion has signed a new seven year deal with Paramount as the new broadcast partner. The first ‘Paramount’ event consists of fan favourite and Liverpool’s own Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett fight for the interim lightweight title against Justin Gaethje.

Pimblett returns to the Octagon on the back of an impressive third round TKO victory over Michael Chandler in Miami on April 12th 2025. The win took his record in the UFC to 7-0, and now has the shot at the interim title.

The title is vacant due to champion Ilia Topuria stepping aside momentarily due to personal reasons, but he is expected to be back and ready to fight the winner of Pimblett and Gaethje. Paddy and Ilia already have some history, already clashing at the UFC 314 press conference in April 2025, and then again  after Topuria defeated Charles Oliveira to win the belt at UFC 317 in June 2025.

On the other hand Justin Gaethje comes into the fight as one of the biggest names in the sports history to never become an undisputed champion, and at 37 years old, this is his final chance to claim undisputed UFC gold.

Gaethje beat 8th ranked Rafael Fiziez at UFC 313 in March 2025 to earn the title shot, however Gaethje has lost his last two title fights to Charles Oliveria and Khabib Nurmagomedov.

The co-main event was originally meant to be for the Women’s Bantamweight title between champion Kayla Harrison and the returning Amanda Nunes, but due to a neck injury to Harrison, the fight was pulled from the card and replaced as the co-main by Sean O’Malley vs Song Yadong.

Another Englishman is returning to the Octagon this weekend too, with Ipswich’s Arnold ‘Almighty’ Allen fighting for the first time since his victory over Giga Chikadze in the Featherweight division in July 2024. He’s facing off with the dangerous Brazilian Jean Silva who is coming off a TKO loss to Diego Lopes.

Here’s the card in full:

Main Card

Justin Gaethje vs Paddy Pimblett

Sean O’Malley vs Song Yadong

Waldo Cortes-Acosta vs Derrick Lewis

Natalia Silva vs Rose Namajunas

Arnold Allen vs Jean Silva

Preliminary Card

Umar Nurmagomedov vs Deiveson Figeiredo

Ateba Gautier vs Andrey Pulyaev

Nikita Krylov vs Modestas Bukauskas

Alex Perez vs Charles Johnson

The card takes place in the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, with the Prelims kicking off at midnight on Saturday night and the main card starting at 2am on Sunday.