5 Fights We're Looking Forward to at UFC 304

UFC 304 is still almost three weeks away, but anticipation for the July 27 pay-per-view in Manchester, England is already mounting.

That's not just because it will be the UFC's first card in the city since 2016, but also because the promotion has put together a seriously stacked line-up of fights to mark the occasion.

The card will feature two championship rematches — one at welterweight and another at heavyweight — both of which look like they could be quite competitive. Outside of the championship attractions, the lineup also includes appearances from several top contenders and big stars, all of whom will be looking to make big statements on the night.

Keep scrolling for the five fights we're most looking forward to when the UFC returns to Manchester later this month.

The UFC 304 undercard leaves a lot to be desired. There are some solid fights on the early broadcast, but many of the fighters involved are riding losses and are nowhere near title contention.

Thankfully, most of those fights could make up for their lack of relevance with sheer action — and there's no better example of that than a featherweight fight between England's Nathaniel Wood and American Daniel Pineda.

Wood, a former bantamweight, took a tough loss to Muhammad Naimov in his last fight, but before that, je had won his first three fights as a featherweight, including victories over Charles Jourdain and Andre Fili.

Pineda, who is in the midst of his second run with the UFC, was beaten by Alex Caceres last time out, but has kept himself afloat with recent wins over Tucker Lutz and Herbert Burns.

The winner of this Wood vs. Pineda fight will still be several wins away from the featherweight top 15, but the pair have 41 finishes combined, which suggests that this one should be fun for as long as it lasts, and that it may not last long.

Call it an early contender for Fight of the Night honors.

Liverpool's Paddy Pimblett is one of the most popular fighters in the UFC right now, but the British welterweight still has plenty of doubters — and it's easy to see why.

So far, the two best wins of his perfect, 5-0 UFC runs have been an extremely debatable decision win over Jared Gordon, and a second decision win over Tony Ferguson, who had lost six consecutive fights heading into their clash.

Needless to say, he still has a lot to prove on the sport's biggest stage.

He'll have a chance to silence a lot of his naysayers on the UFC 304 main card when he takes on popular lightweight veteran Bobby "King" Green — who has legally changed his name to King Green.

Green has been hovering around the edge of the lightweight top-15 for a few years. Heading into UFC 304, he is 3-1 in his last four, having submitted Ferguson, knocked out Dwight Grant, been knocked out by Jalin Turner, and defeated Jim Miller by decision. While we may never see him fight for the lightweight belt, he is quite possibly the toughest opponent Pimblett has ever fought and the kind of fighter who is fully capable of derailing the Brit's hype on home soil — potentially in violent fashion.

It wasn't all that long ago that the UFC was considering getting rid of its men's flyweight division.

Thank heavens the promotion's decision-makers opted to refrain.

Today, the flyweight division is one of the best in the UFC, and the quality of the weight class is perfectly exemplified by a UFC 304 main-card scrap between England's Mohammad Mokaev and Portugal's Manel Kape.

Mokaev, who was born in Dagestan, is currently a perfect 11-0 as a pro, And after wins over former title challengers like Tim Elliott and Alex Perez, is ranked No. 6 at flyweight.

Kape, an Angola-born former Rizin Fighting Federation champion, is riding four straight wins and is currently ranked No. 8 in the weight class.

This would be a great matchup under any circumstances, but it's all the more compelling given the grudge between the two flyweights, who allegedly came to blows outside the UFC Performance Institute in Las Vegas not long ago.

The winner of this Manchester scrap is also going to be one of the top contenders for a crack at flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja.

UFC 304 will be headlined by a welterweight title fight between English champion Leon Edwards, and Palestinian-American challenger Belal Muhammad.

It's the title fight the welterweight division has needed for some time.

Edwards won the title with a shocking knockout of welterweight legend Kamaru Usman in 2022. After defending the belt in a justifiable rematch with Usman, he was booked for a second title defense against Colby Covington, who did not deserve the opportunity nearly as much as other contenders like Muhammad and Shavkat Rakhmonov.

Mercifully, Edwards won the fight with Covington in emphatic fashion, allowing himself to shift his focus to the contenders who actually deserve title shots — namely Muhammad.

Muhammad is unbeaten in 10 straight fights. The only hiccup in that span was a no-contest in a 2021 fight with Edwards, which ended after he suffered an inadvertent eye poke at the hands — or more fittingly, fingers — of the Brit.

A little over three years later, the pair will run it back in search of a more decisive outcome, and this time, with the undisputed belt on the line.

For Edwards, it's a chance to cement himself as one of the top pound-for-pound fighters on earth in front of his legions of English fans. For Muhammad, it's an opportunity to make good on an opportunity he's been calling for for years and to turn the welterweight division upside down in the process.

One way or the other, it's a hugely important fight for the division and one that could seemingly end in any number of ways.

Jon Jones may still be the undisputed champion of the UFC heavyweight division, but those in the know recognize that interim champ Tom Aspinall is the present and future of the division.

Shortly after Jones was forced out of a planned title defense opposite former champ Stipe Miocic, England's Aspinall was booked for an interim title fight opposite Sergei Pavlovich. Aspinall won the fight by first-round knockout, and with Jones still out of action — and seemingly still fixated on a fight with the aging Miocic — the Brit now booked to defend his interim belt in the co-main event of UFC 304.

His opponent will be Curtis Blaydes.

Blaydes has been one of the top heavyweights in the UFC for years, but was never quite consistent enough to fight for the belt — until recently. In his last fight, the wrestling specialist scored an upset stoppage win over the streaking Jailton Almeida, bringing him to 4-1 in his last five. That run includes a win over Aspinall — though it came under dubious circumstances.

Blaydes and Aspinall first met in London in July 2022. It was a hotly anticipated matchup, but it ended in just 15 seconds after Aspinall injured his leg off a kick.

The pair will now run it back with the interim title on the line — and you can bet Jones will be watching. If either man wins in impressive style, he'll face more pressure than ever to give up on his plans for a fight with the 41-year-old Miocic, and unify his belt with that of the interim champion.