Dana White announces stacked UFC 322 card with Leon Edwards return as another champion vacates title ...Middle East

Dana White has officially announced UFC 322 with three epic fights already confirmed for the card.

UFC 322 takes place on November 15 at Madison Square Garden as part of the organisation’s annual trip to New York City.

White’s promotion last appeared in the Big Apple for UFC 309 last November, when Jon Jones defended the heavyweight title by stopping Stipe Miocic with a sickening body kick in the main event.

UFC 322 is set for another huge title fight at the top of the bill, with gold also on the line in the co-main event.

White announced on Thursday that welterweight champion Jack Della Maddalena will make his first defence of the 170lbs strap against Islam Makhachev in the main event of UFC 322.

Makhachev was a dominant champion at lightweight, but decided to vacate the title and move up a division to contest at welterweight after making his fourth title defence at UFC 311 in January.

The Russian great started a trend of champions vacating their title to move up a weight class in 2025, as also shown by Ilia Topuria‘s lightweight title win over Charles Oliveira at UFC 317.

This trend has continued for the co-main event of UFC 322, with Zhang Weili taking the step up to fight Valentina Shevchenko for the women’s flyweight title.

China’s Weili has held the women’s strawweight title for three years, but she will drop the belt as soon as her UFC 322 co-main event against Shevchenko gets underway.

Shevchenko has been the No. 1 in the women’s flyweight division for most of seven years now, and her fight against Weili will be her 14th title fight.

White also announced that former welterweight champion Leon Edwards will make his fighting return on the main card of UFC 322.

The Birmingham native has been matched up against Brazilian fan-favourite Carlos Prates for a mouthwatering clash at 170lbs.

UFC 322 (card so far)

November 15, Madison Square Garden

Edwards said last week that he was ‘locking in’ ahead of an anticipated UFC return at Madison Square Garden in November.

“I’ve waited for the division to settle a little bit, and now I’m ready to go,” he said.

‘Rocky’ hasn’t fought since being dominated by Sean Brady in the main event of UFC London in March.

That fight came eight months after Edwards had lost the welterweight title to Belal Muhammad, who was then defeated by Della Maddalena, at UFC 304 in Manchester.

The 34-year-old won his first UFC title by scoring a dramatic head kick knockout win over Kamaru Usman at UFC 278 in August 2022.

Edwards kept the belt in a rematch with Usman seven months later, before defeating Colby Covington at UFC 296 in his second defence of the welterweight strap.

UFC Welterweight Rankings

Champion – Jack Della Maddalena

‘Rocky’ was then outpointed by Muhammad at UFC 304 and failed to put his name back in the title picture in his last fight against Brady in March.

Prates, meanwhile, is five spots below Edwards as the No. 9-ranked UFC welterweight.

‘The Nightmare’ suffered the first defeat of his UFC career to Ian Machado Garry in April, but bounced back by knocking out Geoff Neal with an incredible spinning back elbow at UFC 319 this month.

He is expected to make a quick turnaround and get straight back to camp to fight Edwards at UFC 322 in November.

UFC 322 comes just a few weeks after Tom Aspinall makes his first heavyweight title defence against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi.

Those cards are part of a loaded end-of-year schedule for White and UFC bosses, with Magomed Ankalaev vs Alex Pereira 2, Charles Oliveira vs Rafael Fiziev, and Reinier de Ridder vs Anthony Hernandez all set to headline main events in the remainder of 2025.

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