The full fight schedule for UFC's Fight Island has been announced

The first rule of Fight Island is, get excited for Fight Island…

UFC Fight Island will treat UFC fans to a two-week-long fiesta of big-name fights.

On June 9, we received confirmation that Abu Dhabi would be the host of UFC’s Fight Island. And the excitement has been building ever since.

It begins with UFC 251 on July 11, with three follow-up Fight Nights taking place on July 15, July 18 and July 25. Mixed martial art (MMA) bouts will take place inside the octagon of a spectator-less ‘safe zone’ on Yas Island.

And now following a live video conversation with ESPN and UFC boss, Dana White — we have the final details of the fight card series.

UFC 251 – July 11

The big one.

Entering the octagon with much swagger will be a headline fight between Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns, with the winner earning the welterweight championship crown.

There’ll also be a featherweight title contention match between Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway and a bantamweight title bout between Petr Yan and UFC legend Jose Aldo.

Other fights that night include Jessica Andrade vs Rose Namajunas and Amanda Ribas vs Paige VanZant.

With prelims in the form of Volkan Oezdemir vs Jiri Prochazka; Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos vs Muslim Salikhov; Makwan Amirkhani vs Dan Henry; and Leonardo Santos vs Roman Bogatov.

Early Prelims include Marcin Tybura vs Alexander Romanov; Raulian Paiva vs Zhalgas Zhumagulov; Karol Rosa vs Vanessa Melo; and Martin Day vs Davey Grant.

Fight Night July 15

The main card includes a featherweight battle between Calvin Kattar and Dan Ige.

Also facing each other in the octagon that night are Frankie Edgar and Pedro Munhoz; Carla Esparza and Marina Rodriguez; Abdul Razak Alhassan and Mounir Lazzez; and Jared Gordon and Chris Fishgold.

Thre’ll also be prelim bouts in the form of Modestas Bukauskas vs Vinicius Moreira; Molly McCann vs Taila Santos; Ricardo Ramos vs Lerone Murphy; John Phillips vs Dusko Todorovic; Tim Elliott vs Ryan Benoit; and Diana Belbita vs Liana Jojua.

Fight Night July 18

Headlining the night is a flyweight title fight between Deiveson Figueiredo and Joseph Benavidez.

There’ll also be pro action in bouts of Jack Hermansson vs Kelvin Gastelum; Marc Diakiese vs Rafael Fiziev; Ariane Lipski vs Luana Carolina; and Alexandre Pantoja vs Askar Askarov.

Prelims include Roman Dolidze vs Khadis Ibragimov; Grant Dawson vs Nad Narimani; Joe Duffy vs Joel Alvarez; Brett Johns vs Montel Jackson; Tagir Ulanbekov vs Alexander Doskalchuk; Davi Ramos vs Arman Tsarukyan; and Carlos Felipe vs Serghei Spivac.

Fight Night July 25

Topping the bill for that engagement is a middleweight fight between former champion Robert Whittaker and Brit contender Darren Till.

Further fight action will be supplied by Shogun Rua vs Antonio Rogerio Nogueira; Alex Oliveira vs Peter Sobotta; Fabricio Werdum vs Alexander Gustafsson; and Danny Roberts vs Nicolas Dalby.

July 25 prelims include Tom Aspinall vs Jake Collier; Justin Tafa vs Raphael Pessoa; Movsar Evloev vs Mike Grundy; Bethe Correia vs Pannie Kianzad; and Ramazan Emeev vs Shavkat Rakhmonov.

Another Nurmagomedov

Although we didn’t get the Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Justin Gaethje fight that we were dreaming of (and is now set to take place in September at UFC 253), we will be able to see one of the Nurmagomedov clan flex their fighting muscle.

On the Fight Night scheduled for Saturday July 25 Umar Nurmagomedov, Khabib’s cousin, will take on Nathaniel Wood in a prelim bout. And we’re very excited to see how that turns out.

Images: Supplied/Getty