Outside Source
As part of the early international slate of 2026, the promotion will travel to Sydney, Australia, along with Houston, London, Seattle and Mexico City in the first quarter of the year. The headliners for the first seven events are official, with the organization confirming a recent report on Friday about the UFC Mexico main event. In the Mexico City Arena on Feb. 28, home country fighter Brandon Moreno (23-9-2) will face Asu Almabayev (23-3) in a pivotal five-round flyweight tilt. This news was first broken on Thursday by Russian outlet VestnikMMA.
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This will be the third year in a row that the UFC has taken to the capital city of Mexico, with Moreno headlining those last two cards against Brandon Royval and Steve Erceg, respectively. The league first went to the city with an elevation of around 7,350 feet in 2014, when Fabricio Werdum battled Mark Hunt for the interim heavyweight belt. Of the eight total Mexico City shows—including the upcoming one—Moreno will have been part of four of their main attractions.
A Yearly Pilgrimage
Tijuana-born Moreno has competed four times in Mexico City thus far in his career, with all four coming inside the Octagon. The former champ holds a record of one win opposite two defeats and a draw when in “La Ciudad de Los Palacios,” with his only victory coming in his last time out in the city this past March. Winner of two out of his last five, Moreno has maintained his status as a top-five fighter but has not been able to scale the mountain again. Two decision wins against Amir Albazi and the aforementioned Erceg kept him in the good graces of the promotion, although a knockout setback in December to Tatsuro Taira tampered his stock a bit.
Since joining the promotion in 2023 out of Brave CF, Kazakhstan’s Almabayev has scarcely looked back. He introduced himself that year by tapping Ode Osbourne with a rear-naked choke, and his 2024 campaign also went swimmingly as he earned three decision triumphs along the way. He ran into a wall in March when Manel Kape ran him ragged and Almabayev physically surrendered due to exhaustion. Since then, he bounced back by beating Jose Ochoa, and most recently, snatching up a flying guillotine choke of Alex Perez at the end of November.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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