Shara Bullet booked for return at UFC Abu Dhabi in July plus 3 more fights announced
UFC Abu Dhabi is starting to take shape.
This past weekend, the UFC announced its return to Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi with a middleweight matchup between former champion Robert Whittaker and former ONE two-division champion Reinier de Ridder serving as the main event. And now the rest of the card is starting to fill out, as well.
Popular middleweight Shara “Bullet” Magomedov makes his return to action when he faces Marc-Andre Barriault in Abu Dhabi.
Magomedov is coming off the first loss of his UFC career after he fell to highly touted striker Michael “Venom” Page and now he’s looking to get back on track when he returns in July. As for Barriault, he’s fresh from a devastating knockout win over Bruno Silva from this past weekend at UFC 315.
In addition to Magomedov vs. Barriault, the UFC also announced three more bouts for the Abu Dhabi fight card: a fight between ranked light heavyweights Nikita Krylov (30-10) and Bogdan Guskov (17-3), a ranked flyweight scrap between Asu Almabayev (21-3) and Ramazan Temirov (19-3), and a light heavyweight contest between Ibo Aslan (14-2) and Billy Elekana (7-2).
Currently ranked No. 10 in the UFC light heavyweight division, Krylov is coming off a first-round knockout loss to Dominick Reyes at UFC 314 in April. Guskov, meanwhile, is ranked No. 14 in the division and riding a three-fight winning streak since losing his UFC debut to Volkan Oezdemir. Most recently, Guskov submitted Billy Elekena at UFC 311 in January.
Both Almabayev and Temirov last competed at UFC Vegas 103 in March, though to very different outcomes. The No. 8-ranked Almabayev was stopped by Manel Kape in the main event, ending his four-fight UFC winning streak. Meanwhile, Temirov picked up a unanimous decision win over Charles Johnson in the first fight of the evening, earning him the No. 13 spot in the UFC’s flyweight rankings.
A Contender Series signee from 2023, Aslan impressed in his first two bouts in the UFC, scoring knockouts of Anton Turkalj and Raffael Cerqueira; however, things didn’t go so well in his most recent trip to the octagon as Aslan was submitted by Ion Cutelaba at UFC Seattle in February. A former PFL fighter, Elekana lost his UFC debut to Bogdan Guskov at UFC 311.
UFC Abu Dhabi takes place July 26 at Etihad Arena.