2026 UFC event schedule: Uros Medic vs. Daniel Rodriguez, Islam Makhachev vs. Ian Machado Garry on tap
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- UFC makes its first-ever trip to Serbia, headlining the Belgrade card with local fighter Uros Medic against veteran Daniel Rodriguez
- Medic has won three straight fights by knockout — including a finish of Geoff Neal in February — and has never reached the judges' scorecards in 16 pro fights
- Rodriguez enters on a three-fight win streak in his first fight since July 2025, after spending eight months in a Mexican prison on marijuana possession charges
- Islam Makhachev, Khabib Nurmagomedov's protégé, defends the welterweight title against Ian Machado Garry on Aug. 15 in Philadelphia
- The Philadelphia card also features a women's strawweight title fight between champion Mackenzie Dern and Gillian Robertson
- The Aug. 15 event closes a stretch from UFC Freedom 250 to UFC 330 across the promotion's 2026 calendar
Why it matters: The Aug. 15 Philadelphia card stacks two title fights — Makhachev's welterweight defense and the Dern-Robertson strawweight bout — giving UFC a marquee doubleheader on a numbered event. Pairing that with the promotion's first-ever Serbian card headlined by a native knockout specialist signals an aggressive 2026 push into both international markets and domestic pay-per-view windows.
