6 burning questions heading into UFC 248
A pair of newly crowned champions will make their first title defenses Saturday night at UFC 248 against challengers who are no strangers to main-event spotlights.
There will be an international flavor in Las Vegas as New Zealand’s Israel Adesanya puts his UFC middleweight title up for grabs against Cuban native Yoel Romero in the main event, and China’s Zhang Weili makes her first defense of the strawweight title against former titleholder Joanna Jedrzejczyk of Poland.
Beyond that, there’s the usual potpourri of interesting items that you’ll find up and down a card of this magnitude.
UFC 248 takes place at T-Mobile Arena. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.
Without further ado, then, here are six burning questions heading into UFC 248.
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Can Israel Adesanya finish Yoel Romero?
Yes, it’s true, granting Romero (13-4 MMA, 9-3 UFC) a title fight was questionable. He’s coming off two straight losses and three in his past four fights, and that’s supposed to merit if there are merit-based title shots.
Adesanya (18-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC), however, was the one who requested this fight after it became apparent the next in line, Paulo Costa, would be on the shelf with a bicep injury.
And that leads us to why this is still very much an intriguing fight despite the rankings optics: All three of those Romero losses were decisions. In all three, you could make a case for a Romero victory. And never once in his 17-fight career has Romero been stopped.
Adesanya doesn’t just want to defeat Romero. He wants to be the first to finish him. That’s a bold and brash goal – and exactly the sort of thing which would help elevate Adesanya, who gets closer and closer to becoming the next MMA megastar with each fight.
