UFC 299 is this weekend, March 9, 2024 and there's a title up for grabs and so much more: grudges to settle, losses to avenge, revenge, redemption, ambition—these are the deeper motivations that will energize the action this Saturday, with the prelims kicking off at 8 p.m. ET, followed by the main card at 10 p.m. ET, available for streaming exclusively on ESPN+. If you still need to sign up for ESPN+, you can take advantage of a bundled deal for a 1-year ESPN+ subscription and UFC 299 for only $119.98.
How to Watch UFC 299: O’Malley vs. Vera
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UFC 299: Full Event Details
Sean O’Malley and Marlon Vera will battle it out for the title in the bantamweight division, a rematch that will finally settle the score between these two strikers who first met back at UFC 252. Since then, O’Malley has become champ, and Vera has racked up a number of impressive victories, including brutal KO wins over UFC legends like Dominick Cruz and Frankie Edgar. In the second fight slot is French phenom Benoît Saint Denis, fresh off a spectacular finish against Matt Frevola, and he’ll face his biggest test to date in former interim champion and two-time title challenger Dustin Poirier.
Here is the full list of fights on Saturday (the matches are subject to change):
UFC 299 FIGHT CARD
- Sean O’Malley vs. Marlon Vera (Bantamweight Title Bout)
- Dustin Poirier vs. Benoît Saint Denis (Lightweight Bout)
- Kevin Holland vs. Michael Page (Welterweight Bout)
- Gilbert Burns vs. Jack Della Maddalena (Welterweight Bout)
- Petr Yan vs. Song Yadong (Bantamweight Bout)
- Curtis Blaydes vs. Jailton Almeida (Heavyweight Bout)
- Katlyn Cerminara vs. Maycee Barber (Flyweight Bout)
- Mateusz Gamrot vs. Rafael Dos Anjos (Lightweight Bout)
- Pedro Munhoz vs. Kyler Phillips (Bantamweight Bout)
Annnnnnnd Nowwwww.....How to Watch UFC 299
In the main event, we have Sean O’Malley, who is the bantamweight champ and one of the most promising prospects for UFC superstardom. If you’ve been watching the UFC for any amount of time, you know that the sport is built like No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em. As Mikey McDermott says in Rounders, quoting poker deity Doyle Brunson: “The key to no-limit is to put a man to a decision for all his chips.” This Saturday, O’Malley puts all he has achieved on the line against the one man who has defeated him in the Octagon—Marlon “Chito” Vera. For O’Malley, then, a win in this rematch will settle the score, avenge the loss, bring him the closest he’ll ever come to erasing the tarnish on his once-perfect record.
In addition to the main event, UFC 299 is full of high-stakes fights between fierce veterans and rising stars, which is what makes this such a fantastic card. Perennial contender and former interim champ Dustin Poirier takes on the fearsome Benoît Saint Denis, who served in the French special forces before bringing his talents to MMA. The ex-Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion Gilbert Burns squares off against Australian bruiser Jack Della Maddalena. Both are ridiculously tough, and there’s real potential for a Fourth of July-level fireworks show in that matchup. In the third slot, we have Kevin Holland facing a very high-profile addition to the UFC roster, Michael “Venom” Page. Holland’s demeanor defies what I’ve said about high stakes, as he nearly never seems to take his fights very seriously. He is a seriously talented martial artist, though. The power he generates in his long, almost whispy limbs is astounding—see his knockout of Brazilian legend “Jacare” Souza with punches thrown while lying on his back.
On the prelims, one fight to watch out for is Maycee Barber vs. Katlyn Cerminara (formerly Chookagian). The 25-year old Barber is coming off an impressive TKO victory over Amanda Ribas, where she earned a performance of the night bonus. Barber hit Ribas with a couple headkicks, then followed them up with a mixed bag of relentless ground and pound until Keith “No Nonsense” Peterson stepped in (You gotta love it—in the UFC, even some of the refs have nicknames!). Other highlights on the prelims are the cardio machine and takedown specialist Mateusz Gamrot, as well the widely touted, and very talented prospect Jailton Almeida. On the early prelims, Michel Pereira appears in the featured bout, and while he seems to have calmed down a bit as of late, I imagine we’ll still see him do a few acrobatic moves. Kicking off the cage into a superman punch, followed by several flying knees? A moment of capoeira ginga into an axe kick? Who knows?!
This Card is a Banger—Top to Bottom
It's a testament to the strength of this main event, and to the depth of a UFC roster that has never been better, that a martial artist of Holland’s pedigree is fighting third. He’s a second-degree black belt in Kung Fu, and also holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. An unpredictable, diverse striker, he brings tons of experience into the octagon, being one of only three fighters in UFC history to win five fights in a single calendar year. He’s a hilarious and quirky trash talker, , which also adds to the sense that maybe this is more of a game than a life-or-death profession to him.
But I imagine this matchup against Michael Page may bring out a different kind of dog in Holland. A decorated British kickboxer, Page set the record for most stoppage wins at welterweight in the Bellator fight promotion. He is a serious threat. And because this is his UFC debut, there is a way in which this first fight puts him to a decision for all his chips. For men like Page, who don’t simply dream of being a pro fighter, but dream of being the best fighter, a win in his UFC debut allows him to continue to tell a story of destiny to himself. It is this story that fuels him with a sense of purpose, truly, of predestination, as if he is a train that just needs to stay on tracks already laid out for him by the gods of violence.
All fighters say they want to be the best, of course, but most know that they can’t be, will never be. Then there are fighters like Page who say they want to be, and believe they can be, the best. Even when they get to a point in their career where every fight reveals a new facet of their decline, the gargantuan ego that propelled them in the beginning remains present in the end, against all evidence to the contrary. But that shift has not yet happened to Sean O’Malley, or Benoît Saint Denis, or Michael Page. Each is still a young runaway train, and there is an alignment between the outsized self-image each has built in his own mind and the devastating performances that certify his self-belief before the entire world. His destiny remains unshakably true for now. And it is this truth, this seemingly cosmic alignment between performance and promise, that Vera might head kick into oblivion, that Burns might choke into nonexistence, that Holland could, well, with Holland, anything is possible.
The main event is a perfect example of this kind of cosmic contest, because Sean O’Malley’s ego is the biggest of all. O’Malley has pretended that he is undefeated, denying the loss on his record even though he did indeed lose to Chito Vera back at UFC 252. Recently, O’Malley has deepened his denial by admitting the loss, but saying that he lost “on purpose.” Their rematch this Saturday will dispel all the smoke. If O’Malley loses, he will no longer be able to say that the first loss doesn’t count, that Chito got lucky. On The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, O’Malley finally said that if he loses, he’ll have to say, “Alright, I lost twice.”
I’ll believe it when I see it.
If Vera wins, the newly crowned champion will be able to say, “See, I’ve always been better than this O’Malley character, and now there’s no doubt, and everyone will forget this lanky flash-in-the-pan from Montana.” Vera will begin to write a myth for himself, just as O’Malley did after his unacknowledged loss.
But then the UFC will tip the balance the other way, start up the promotional machinery for a trilogy fight, and then finally, finally we will have the answer about who is the better fighter. Kind of. If O’Malley wins the trilogy, he’ll say “See, this is what should have happened all along.” And if Vera wins, he’ll remind fans that he won two out of three, and so even though he lost the third fight, he still won the rivalry.
We are getting ahead of ourselves, though, in talking about a trilogy when the rematch hasn’t even happened yet. But this is what happens in the world of the UFC. No less than a comic book villain with a fantastic gadget or a magical stone, the UFC plays with time. A win here for Sean O’Malley will open a portal for rewriting history, not for editing tape of past fights, but of changing forever how we perceive those recordings. A win for Vera would be even more profound, as every highlight reel, every hype segment composed of O’Malley KOs and no-look punch combinations would dim that footage a little, steal some of the glisten from the gold belt wrapped around his waist at the conclusion of UFC 292. We’d begin to question—was O’Malley really ever that good? His early wins could be atttributed to the fact that his opponents weren’t high-level fighters. His win over Yan could be diminished by the idea that Yan was already past-prime, a claim that will have additional support if Yan loses his fourth fight in a row this Saturday.
But O’Malley can’t yet get wrapped up in all that, either way. He has to win this weekend. He has to watch out for the kicks of Chito Vera, including the leg kicks that likely caused the nerve injury that led to his only loss. He has to watch out for Vera’s head kicks, one of which sent bantamweight legend Dominick Cruz to the shadowlands. And he has to watch out for threats unknown, weapons that Vera may have developed since their previous meeting. Vera’s cardio is always clutch, and combined with a possibly much-expanded arsenal, O’Malley could be in for a very long night.
Back Against the Octagon Wall
On each UFC PPV, for every champ at the top of his division, for every debut fighter trying to make his name in the promotion, there is a battered but still brilliant scrapper who is nearly down to the felt of his UFC run. He’s all-in and won’t be extended any more credit, so if he loses this hand—he’s done. A loss on Saturday and he’ll fall into the abyss under the Octagon, from the bright lights and wide exposure of the PPV broadcast down to a lesser promotion, or to full-time coaching in a suburban gym, or to a brief stint flailing and failing to become an MMA “influencer” on YouTube or Spotify. Or perhaps to an even darker fate that sometimes afflicts ex-fighters who struggle to find an outlet for all that energy, who succumb to their own undisciplined violence.
This weekend, the only fighter whose star threatens to immediately and perhaps permanently darken after a loss is Petr Yan. Once widely seen as fearsome, this Russian striker’s two losses to former champion Aljamain Sterling, current champion Sean O’Malley, not to mention Merab “The Machine” Devalishvili, have bolstered his opponents’ confidence. Yan is still dangerous, but he seems much more human than ever before. In his first meeting with Aljo, the commentators compared him again and again to a computer, explaining to viewers that his minimal activity in the early rounds was a symptom of him building his reads, feinting and observing reactions, and using it all to draw up a schematic of his opponent’s vulnerabilities. Then in the third and fourth rounds, once the attack plan is complete, he unleashes laser vision and heat-seeking missiles that crumple his opponent. That used to be true enough, before this string of defeats. Now, when he’s off to a slow start, the commentators tell us that it’s just a slow start. And in his most recent fights, the activated cyborg that supposedly lurks inside him simply never showed up.
But you can’t count Yan out—he’s still extremely skilled, very experienced, and demonstrates, even in his losses, flashes of brilliance. And in mixed martial arts, a fight can easily end in a flash. Hell, a career can end in a flash. Yan’s promise of brilliance is going to face fierce opposition, however, in the rock-solid hands of Song Yadong, who is quite flashy in his own right. Yadong punches with crazy power, exceptional speed, long combinations, and a willingness, at any time, to step into a point-blank firefight. The announcers often call this “stepping into the phone booth,” for obvious reasons, but it’s more like a fight in a phone booth where each fighter has six pistols and six trigger fingers—two fists, a pair of elbows, and knees that can land a liver shot and end the fight, fly up to the chin under a Muay Thai clinch and end the fight, or simply serve as one strike in a barrage of several, like a scatterbomb, and end the fight.
As always, there’s only one way to find out which way it will all go: Count down the days. Then the hours. Press the “Get Now” button, and watch each pair of fighters push their bodies like towers of chips to the center of the Octagon. Then sit back, then move to the edge of your seat, then leap to your feet, and marvel as a few fighters become masters of their destiny, as they rewrite history, as they destroy futures.
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How to Watch ESPN+
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Bonus Material: UFC Nicknames Sound Like a F*cked Up Crossword Puzzle’s Answer Key
If you’re new to UFC, you’ll soon learn that one of the best parts of being a fan is hearing the litany of nicknames on every fight card. For UFC 299 alone, stepping into the Octagon, we have: Suga, Chito, The Diamond, God of War, The Trailblazer, Durinho, Venom, Kung Fu Kid, No Mercy, Razor, Blonde Fighter, Malhadinho, The Future, Gamer, Matrix, The Young Punisher, The Hulk, Monstro, Demolidor, Lord (No, really, someone’s nickname is Lord).
Matter fact.....Enjoy!!!
