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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 [autotag]Israel Adesanya[/autotag] puts his UFC middleweight title up for grabs against Cuban native [autotag]Yoel Romero[/autotag] in the main event, and China’s [autotag]Zhang Weili[/autotag] makes her first defense of the strawweight title against former titleholder [autotag]Joanna Jedrzejczyk[/autotag] 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.
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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.
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