UFC Fight Night 233 is slated to move to the promotion’s home base, away from its original location. It seems that the premier event, due for the 9th of December, will not take place in Shanghai, China as initially planned but will change venues to the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The reason for this shift remains unknown. This surprising news comes in the wake of multiple outlets corroborating the original announcement made by MMA manager Shu Hirata on social media.
The change in venue has brought with it significant ramifications for the fight card. According to a report by MMAjunkie.com, the four ‘Road to UFC’ bouts scheduled for UFC Fight Night 233 will no longer be part of the event. Also, a light heavyweight bout between Brendon Ribeiro and Mingyang Zhang has been cancelled due to travel issues caused by the change of location.
The event in Shanghai was destined to be a significant milestone for China, marking the first event in the country since 2019. That year, Weili Zhang triumphed over Jessica Andrade to claim the strawweight crown in the UFC Fight Night 157 main event. Despite these significant disruptions, UFC Fight Night 233 is still on course, provided there are no more changes. It is anticipated that the headline event could feature a bantamweight clash between Yadong Song and Chris Gutierrez.