UFC CEO announces three pay-per-view title fights including Sean O’Malley vs. Marlon Vera 2

UFC CEO Dana White has announced the first three pay-per-view headliners of 2024.

BREAKING…… pic.twitter.com/eW9Q23FVmI

— danawhite (@danawhite) November 6, 2023

White took to his social media on Monday afternoon to announce the main events of UFC 297, UFC 298, and UFC 299. In the main event of UFC 297, which is expected to go down on Jan. 20 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Sean Strickland will be defending his middleweight title against Dricus Du Plessis.

Strickland won the UFC middleweight title back in September when he beat Israel Adesanya by decision. Du Plessis, meanwhile, is coming off a TKO win over Robert Whittaker to become the number one contender at middleweight.

RELATED: Raquel Pennington vs. Mayra Bueno Silva for vacant 135lbs title set for UFC 297.

In the main event of UFC 298 in February, Dana White announced that featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski will be defending his title against Ilia Topuria. This fight was targeted to happen in January before Volkanovski stepped up on short notice and fought Islam Makhachev in October for the lightweight bout, in a scrap he lost by first-round KO. To earn the featherweight title shot, Topuria beat Josh Emmett by a one-sided decision back in June. He’s currently 15-0 and a perfect 6-0 inside the Octagon.

The biggest fight that Dana White announced was Sean O’Malley defending his bantamweight title in the main event of UFC 299 in March against Marlon Vera. The two fought back in August of 2020 and Vera won by first-round TKO in a fight that ‘Suga’ hurt his ankle in.

Since then, O’Malley went 5-0 with one No Contest including knocking out Aljamain Sterling back in August to become the new bantamweight champion. Vera, meanwhile, is on just a one-fight win streak and coming off a decision win over Pedro Munhoz on the same card O’Malley became the champ. Since defeating ‘Suga’, Vera is 5-2.

Currently, UFC 298 and UFC 299 do not have dates or locations, but those should be announced soon.