All you need to know about UFC 304 in Manchester

Britons Leon Edwards and Tom Aspinall defend their UFC titles connected location soil connected Saturday, 27 July successful Manchester.

UFC 304 is simply a stacked card, pinch Paddy Pimblett and Molly McCann besides successful action.

The 23,000-seat Co-op Live arena hosts its first sporting event. However, nan conflict nighttime is catering to a US audience, meaning nan arena will beryllium overnight successful nan UK.

Just arsenic Michael Bisping did successful 2016, welterweight Edwards and heavyweight Aspinall will conflict successful nan early hours of Sunday morning.

Live matter commentary connected nan BBC Sport website and app will commencement astatine 04:00 BST connected Sunday, 28 July.

UFC champion Edwards headlines against Belal Muhammad, while Aspinall defends his interim title against Curtis Blaydes.

Doors unfastened astatine nan Co-op Live arena astatine 22:00 successful Manchester pinch nan first conflict expected astatine 23:00.

The main paper will commencement astatine 03:00.

There are 14 fights successful full and Edwards says he does not expect to compete earlier 05:00. That tracks pinch what Bisping knowledgeable successful his triumph complete Dan Henderson 8 years ago, emerging for his conflict astatine 04:46 section time.

It intends Aspinall v Blaydes should beryllium earlier 04:30.

Main card

Leon Edwards (c) v Belal Muhammad 2 – welterweight title bout (5x5min rounds)

Tom Aspinall (ic) v Curtis Blaydes 2 – heavyweight interim title bout (5x5min rounds)

Bobby Green v Paddy Pimblett – lightweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Muhammad Mokaev v Manel Kape – flyweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Arnold Allen v Giga Chikadze – featherweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Nathaniel Wood v Daniel Pineda - featherweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Preliminary card

Molly McCann v Bruna Brasil – strawweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Caolan Loughran v Ramon Taveras – bantamweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Mick Parkin v Lukasz Brzeski – heavyweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Oban Elliott v Preston Parsons – welterweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Christian Leroy Duncan v Robert Bryczek – middleweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Sam Patterson v Kiefer Crosbie - welterweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Shauna Bannon v Ravena Oliveira - strawweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Modestas Bukauskas v Marcin Prachnio - light-heavyweight bout (3x5min rounds)

Edwards, 32, is arguably nan champion welterweight connected nan satellite correct now. The champion goes into his 3rd defence of nan title he won successful 2022 and is connected a 13-fight unbeaten streak.

The only flimsy blemish successful that clip is nan March 2021 brushwood pinch Muhammad, which ended successful a no-contest because of an accidental eye-poke. It makes nan main arena a rematch - Muhammad has won 5 fights successful a statement since then.

Muhammad, 36, has sizeable stamina pinch only 2 of his 17 UFC fights, not including nan no-contest against Edwards, not going nan distance.

Aspinall, 31, is successful nan different position of defending an interim title against a challenger alternatively than fighting for nan undisputed title.

But arsenic nan MMA world waits for Jon Jones to recover from injury, Aspinall has a changeable astatine revenge against American Blaydes.

Blaydes, 33, has a triumph complete nan Manchester fighter, but only because Aspinall suffered a terrible knee wounded wrong 15 seconds of their first brushwood successful July 2022.

Aspinall has secured 2 first-round knockouts since then, including his title triumph past November. He presently boasts eleven stoppages successful 14 wins and conscionable 3 defeats.

Blaydes' caller grounds has been hit-and-miss, losing to Sergei Pavlovich successful his only conflict successful 2023 earlier stopping Jailton Almeida successful March.

He has 18 wins, 4 losses and 1 no-contest successful 23 fights.