UFC 298 A Lock For Anaheim, California

For the first time in two years, California will host a UFC pay-per-view. UFC 298 goes down at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

UFC is finally giving “The Golden State” some more California Lovin’.

We haven’t seen a UFC event in California since a UFC on ESPN event in August 2022. The last UFC pay-per-view was UFC 270 featuring Francis Ngannou vs. Ciryl Gane in January 2022. It’s been a long while since the state has gotten a big deal event. But good things come to those who wait.

UFC 298, headlined by a featherweight title fight between Alexander Volkanovski and Ilia Topuria, will go down at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. Originally, the 145 pound battle was looking to happen in January at UFC 297 in Toronto, Canada. But that was before Volkanovski lost a last-minute lightweight title fight to Islam Makhachev, taking a nasty head kick KO in the process.

“Yeah obviously it was scheduled for January,” Volkanovski said earlier in November. “We just thought that would be a little bit too soon, you know what I mean? We want to follow all protocols and do everything right, obviously, after the last one and I’m lucky enough to have a great team around me, who’ve dealt with a lot of concussions in football and what-not.”

“We thought that January was a little too soon and I was lucky enough to have UFC and other guys there make that happen and move things around for me, which I’m grateful for. I think the timing will be perfect. I’ll be back in there soon, but not too soon.”

As for Topuria, he’s become a sports star in his home of Spain, and there’s discussion regarding the UFC coming to the country sooner rather than later. We assume those will only be accelerated should Ilia manage to defeat Alex in Anaheim. Currently Volkanovski is a -180 favorite to +150 Topuria. Narrow odds for “The Great!”