Dominick Cruz
Bantamweight champ Cruz hosts Fight Club Q&A
The weigh-ins for next week’s UFC on Fox: Evans vs. Davis event in Chicago will take place at the historic downtown Chicago Theatre on Jan. 27, the day before the event.
The news was first reported Thursday night by The Times of Northwest Indiana. The official weigh-in event will begin at 4 p.m. local (Central) time, with doors opening for the general public at 3 p.m. The event is free for fans. In addition, members of the UFC’s Fight Club can gain early entrance for a 2 p.m. question-and-answer session with UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz.
Fans are also invited to attend the pre-fight press conference, which will take place at the W Hotel in Chicago on Thursday at 1 p.m. Central. Expected to attend the press conference are UFC president Dana White; main card fighters Rashad Evans, Phil Davis, Chael Sonnen, Michael Bisping, Demian Maia and Chris Weidman; and preliminary card heavyweights Mike Russow, a Chicago police officer, and Jon Olav-Einemo.
The UFC last visited the Chicago area for UFC 90, which took place at the Allstate Arena in the northwest suburb of Rosemont, Ill. The weigh-in event for UFC 90 also took place at the Chicago Theatre. Zuffa has also visited Chicagoland for WEC 40 in April 2009 at the UIC Pavilion and a Strikeforce event between Fedor Emelianenko and Dan Henderson in July, which took place at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates.
UFC on Fox: Evans vs. Davis will be the promotion’s first event in Chicago proper, and will take place at the United Center, home of the NBA’s Chicago Bulls and NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks. The card will be headlined by a light heavyweight contenders fight between former champion Evans and Davis. An Evans win would get him a title shot with Jon Jones, his former friend and training partner. The co-main event changed on Tuesday when Mark Munoz was injured. It will now be a middleweight top contenders fight between Sonnen and Bisping, with the winner fighting Anderson Silva for the title this summer. And the third bout in the Fox-televised “tripleheader” is a middleweight bout between Maia and Weidman, who stepped into Bisping’s spot when Bisping moved up to face Sonnen.
HeavyMMA will be on the scene all next week in Chicago for live coverage of the fight card and the events leading up to it.