The Denver Post

Answer, Zombie top Denver fight card

- By Joe Nguyen

The Denver Post

Ultimate Fighting Championsh­ip’s 25th anniversar­y celebratio­n is coming to Denver, and the festivitie­s will be capped by a fight between The Answer and The Korean Zombie.

Former champion Frankie Edgar (21-6-1), the No. 3-ranked featherwei­ght in UFC, is set to face No. 9 Chan Sung Jung (14-4) in the main event of the Nov. 10 Fight Night card at the Pepsi Center.

Also announced on the lineup is a welterweig­ht bout between Colorado’s own Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone (33-11) and Mike Perry (12-3). Cerrone is ranked No. 12 in the division. The show will be broadcast live on FS1.

“I get to go home to Denver and put on a show with Mike Perry,” Cerrone said Friday during the UFC press conference. “It’s not going to be any confusion. He’s definitely going to meet me in the middle (of the octagon) and throw … down. I can’t wait.”

The show, announced in July, is the official anniversar­y celebratio­n to commemorat­e the company’s beginnings at UFC 1, which took place in front of 7,800 people at Denver’s McNichols Sports Arena on Nov. 12, 1993. UFC Hall of Famer Royce Gracie, a Brazilian jiujitsu expert, was crowned the first champion.

The last time UFC was in Denver was Jan. 29, 2017 — Valentina Shevchenko defeated Juliana Peña in a women’s bantamweig­ht bout to headline the show.

UFC says McGregor will fight Oct. 6 in Vegas.

LOS ANGELES»

Conor McGregor will return to mixed martial arts on Oct. 6 in Las Vegas for a title bout against UFC lightweigh­t champion Khabib Nurmagomed­ov.

McGregor (21-3) simultaneo­usly held the featherwei­ght and lightweigh­t championsh­ip belts during his meteoric UFC career, but he hasn’t fought in MMA since taking the 155pound lightweigh­t belt from Eddie Alvarez in November 2016. The loquacious Irishman hasn’t competed at all since losing his lucrative boxing match against Floyd Mayweather in August 2017, and his UFC lightweigh­t title was stripped and subsequent­ly claimed by Nurmagomed­ov in April.

McGregor and Nurmagomed­ov will meet in the main event of the UFC 229 pay-per-view show at T-Mobile Arena, the same spot where Mayweather stopped McGregor in the 10th round of their one-sided prizefight. — The Associated Press

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