Petr Yan and Merab Dvalishvili will square off for the men's bantamweight championship in the UFC 333 co-main event on Saturday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It will be their third meeting, completing the promotion's 20th trilogy bout.
The headliners, featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and undefeated challenger Movsar Evloev, will meet for the first time. Volkanovski has previously been part of a UFC trilogy, his threepeat with Max Holloway, which played out far differently from what will unfold at UFC 333.
Trilogies come in all shapes and sizes. Many of the sport's biggest stars have been involved in one or more, and some have carried championship stakes in every fight, while others have been driven by pure rivalry. A few have been one-sided, and a couple have ended without settling who is better.
The article revisits notable UFC trilogies, including Chuck Liddell vs. Randy Couture, whose three fights helped catapult MMA toward the sports mainstream, and Georges St-Pierre vs. Matt Hughes, the only UFC trilogy to feature multiple submission finishes. Cain Velasquez vs. Junior Dos Santos began with a stunning knockout that lasted barely a minute before the rematch swung dramatically the other way.
Source: ESPN General · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing