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A welterweight bout between Darren Till and Jorge Masvidal headlines UFC Fight Night inside London’s O2 Arena on Saturday.
In the United States, the prelims start at 1 p.m. ET, and the main card begins at 4 p.m. ET. Neither will be on regular cable TV anywhere in the US, but you can watch a live stream of both cards on your computer, phone, or streaming device via ESPN+, the new digital streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage to dozens of sporting events, including UFC, every week.
You can start a free seven-day trial of ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of both the prelims and the main card on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
UFC Fight Night London Preview
Though the main event features two fighters who both lost their last time inside the Octagon, that doesn’t mean they aren’t a part of the welterweight title picture.
Till, following wins over Wendell de Oliveira, Jessin Ayari, Bojan Veličković, Donald Cerrone and Stephen Thompson (and a draw vs. Nicolas Dalby) to start his UFC career, got a title shot against Tyron Woodley in September but lost via second-round submission.
Nevertheless, he was on a fast track to stardom with those wins over Cerrone and Thompson, and one defeat doesn’t fully derail that. In fact, if he puts in an impressive performance against Masvidal, he believes he may get the first shot at new champion Kamaru Usman.
“I think [Covington] wants to fight Woodley,” Till said. “I think in his mind, he can beat Woodley, but he doesn’t think he can beat Usman.”
As for Masvidal, his most recent trip to the Octagon resulted in a unanimous-decision defeat at Stephen Thompson at UFC 217 nearly a year-and-a-half ago. Following that loss, he took some time off to get healthy, and then when he had trouble getting anyone to fight him, he went on the reality show, Exatlón Estados Unidos.
Finally, he found someone in Till who was willing to take the fight.
“This social media, new age rap crap that all these fighters are doing now to get their title shots, saying that they’ll fight everybody, but getting amnesia and forgetting how to sign when that contract is in their face; that s*** ain’t cool, man,” said Masvidal. “All these people acting like they’re the toughest dudes, but when they see you backstage, they want to take a picture with you and then they’re talking s*** — it’s a damn joke, man.
“Now when I asked [Till] to scrap, he actually made this fight happen. He retweeted it, talked to the UFC people and said he was interested in the bout and that’s how it came about.”
Masvidal hasn’t actually won a fight since a second-round TKO of Cerrone in January 2017, but the fact that he’s immediately in a main event upon his return is indicative of how the company views him. He remains very dangerous, and if he can beat Till, he may not be far away from a title shot himself.
“I only wanted the toughest, biggest fights out there,” said Masvidal. “My management, my handlers, my trainers were like, ‘Maybe we’ll ease into it’ and I was like, ‘Naw — I want the hardest, best, highest-ranked opponent I can get.’ I wanted the biggest fight I could get and this is it, so let’s do it. It’s rock ’n’ roll time. I’m going to get on that rollercoaster, put my mouthpiece in and enjoy the f****** show.”
Here’s the rest of the main card: Leon Edwards vs Gunnar Nelson, Volkan Oezdemir vs Dominick Reyes, Nathaniel Wood vs Jose Albert Quinonez, Danny Roberts vs Claudio Silva and Jack Marshman vs John Phillips.
Here’s the preliminary card fights: Arnold Allen vs Jordan Rinaldi, Marc Diakiese vs Joseph Duffy, Nicole Negurmereanu vs Saparbek Safarov, Tom Breese vs Ian Heinisch, Danny Henry vs Dan Ige, Molly McCann vs Priscila Cachoeira and Mike Grundy vs Nad Narimani.