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UFC 261: Highlights, Date, Location, Fight Card, and Odds

UFC 261: Highlights, Date, Location, Fight Card, and Odds

April 24 will mark the return of crowds to UFC events as the next Championship bout headlined by the rematch between Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal.

I’d probably have a different life if it weren’t for just everything in that documentary, how Lithuanians had to struggle with communism oppression. The reason that I brought it up”
— Rose Namajunas

TORONTO , ONTARIO , CANADA , April 20, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- UFC 261: Highlights, Date, Location, Fight Card, and Odds

April 24 will mark the return of crowds to UFC events as the next Ultimate Fighting Championship bout headlined by the rematch between Welterweight Champion Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal.

The event will be taking place on April 24 in the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena of Jacksonville, Florida. It was initially meant to take place in Singapore, but COVID-19 restrictions led to a change to the UFC 260 location, first moved to the company’s Las Vegas home base, then to the Jacksonville venue with a full capacity of 15 000 UFC tickets sold. This makes marks the first event since UFC 248 last March to have a live crowd of UFC fans cheering on the fighters. The tickets for the event include a COVID-19 waiver.

The biggest fight of the night is undoubtedly the headline event, a rematch between Kamaru Usman and Jorge Masvidal for the UFC Welterweight Championship title, with the challenger looking to make amends for his unanimous defeat at UFC 251 last July in Abu Dhabi. Should he pull it off, it’d mean the end of Kamaru’s impressive 17-0 streak, 13 of which came in the UFC.

The Usman vs. Masvidal matchup had already generated controversy even before the players weighed in, as Masvidal called his opponent a coward, a quote which manager Ali Abdelaziz seized on, calling the notion “absurd.”

I don’t think any of these guys are cowards. I don’t think Masvidal is a coward; I don’t think Usman is a coward; none of these guys are cowards. How are you gonna call a guy a coward who gave you an opportunity on six days’ notice and now giving you a second opportunity? If he’s a coward, he should run away from you, right? But realistically, people say things to promote fights. It is what it is, but Kamaru is the furthest thing from being a coward. He’s a real man.”

It was just one of the controversial statements made recently by the night’s participants. Former UFC Women’s Strawweight Champion Rose Namajunas, who will have a chance to return to the summit should she be able to defeat current champion Zhang Weili, got involved in a war of words over her use of the Cold War anti-communist phrase “better dead than red” when discussing her Chinese opponent.

Namajunas, who is of Lithuanian origin, defended her decision to bring political matters into the fight, saying, “I’d probably have a different life if it weren’t for just everything in that documentary, how Lithuanians had to struggle with communism oppression. The reason that I brought it up”, adding that “this is not directed at Weili as a person.”

The main card also includes a showdown between Valentina Shevchenko and Jéssica Andrade for the Women’s Flyweight title alongside Uriah Hall and Chris Weidmen’s middleweight bout clash between Anthony Smith and Jimmy Crute in the heavyweight category. A plethora of UFC betting odds is available for the event, including odds for the preliminary and early preliminary cards (which will be broadcast on ESPN and ESPN2, respectively).

Odds suggest the “Nigerian Nightmare” is the runaway favorite for the welterweight title fight, with the big betting sites offering somewhere between -380 and -460 for a successful title defense at the time of writing. Weili Zhang is also expected to defend her title, though the bookies expect it to be a closer-run affair, with odds hovering around the -200 mark. We’ve seen the most significant line movement on the Patrick Sabatini versus Tristan Connelly featherweight fight from the preliminary card, with a change of -59%. With this change, Sabatini’s victory is offered around -230 at this time.

Gerardo Fonseca
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