How UFC 292 Paces Exciting Stretch Of Championship Fights

Boston welcomes the Ultimate Fighting Championship back to TD Garden with UFC 292 on Saturday night.

With two titles in the women’s strawweight division and the men’s bantamweight division on the line, the card kicks off a stretch of four straight months with major championship cards.

Aljamain Sterling and Sean O’Malley square off for the 135-pound title while Weili Zhang defends the strawweight belt against Amanda Lemos. The bouts come in a marathon of high-level competition for the UFC.

Play-by-play broadcaster Jon Anik notes how high the energy remains around the company with a string of must-see fights after an already entertaining year of pay-per-view events.

“The pay-per-views have consistently delivered,” Anik said in an interview with NESN.com on Tuesday. “One thing I will say about the UFC is that the sport and the athletes are set up so that our sport does deliver more often. We don’t have a lot of stinkers and I hope I don’t jinx UFC 292. We’ve got a lot of big fights coming up.”

After UFC 292 wraps up in Boston, the promotion goes back across the world to Australia with UFC 293 in Sydney as Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland meet for the middleweight title.

One month later, Charles Oliveira and reigning champion Islam Makhachev rematch for the lightweight title at the same location in Abu Dhabi nearly one year to the day of their first bout. This time around, Anik believes that Oliveira can offer a “different challenge” in an attempt to regain his belt.

On the final currently announced event, heavyweight champion Jon Jones makes a title defense at Madison Square Garden in November against Stipe Miocic.

Anik expanded on how special the next few months can be with potential changes of the guard among champions.

“It’s interesting because the UFC cuts my paycheck,” Anik explained. “Sometimes when I get all energetic about this, people think it’s just promotional hyperbole, but our pay-per-views have just been absolutely phenomenal.”

Plenty of intrigue lies ahead for the landscape of the UFC in the second half of the calendar year.