The Ultimate Fighting Championship had a great year in 2016 thanks to the rise of Conor McGregor and other stars in Michael Bisping, Amanda Nunes, Cody Garbrandt, Stipe Miocic among the likes. Heading into 2017, the UFC is starting the year with a bang with eight events in the first three months.
To start 2017, veteran mixed martial artist BJ Penn will face Yair Rodriguez in a welterweight at UFC Fight Night Phoenix on Jan. 15. 13 days after, Valentina Schevchenko and Julianna Pena will face each other at UFC Fight Night Denver on Jan. 28, CBS Sports reported.
'Korean Zombie' Chan Jun Sung will see action for the first time in more than three years after serving the mandatory Korean military service. He will try to bounce back from his loss against Jose Aldo in 2013 against Dennis Bermudez in Houston on Feb. 4.
In the first pay per view UFC event of the year, Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie will dispute over the UFC women's featherweight title on Feb. 11 at UFC 208. In the co-main event, Travis Browne will try to get back to the winning column after losing his last two against Derrick Lewis.
Former heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos will clash with Stefan Struve at UFC Fight Night Halifax on Feb. 19. UFC 209's and UFC Fight Night London's fight card, meanwhile, are yet to be determined. On March 11, veteran Vitor Belfort will try to beat up and coming middleweight fighter Kevin Gastellum at UFC Fight Night Brazil.
While UFC's biggest star Conor McGregor not in president Dana White's plans for the next 10 months due to the Irish fighter's MMA hiatus in preparation for his first baby, according to MMA Junkie, the UFC will try to ride on the momentum from last year's success to make each of these events big hits for the promotion's first quarter of 2017.
Watch the video below for the details of UFC's first pay per view event of 2017: