Top UFC middleweight contender Marvin Vettori has just stepped in to replace Belal Muhammad in the co-main event of ADXC 1 on October 20th, 2023. He will be facing another MMA veteran, Tarek Suleiman, on the very first card that Abu Dhabi Extreme Championship have ever put together. There’s a whole host of excellent matches booked for the event, and there will be a mixture of gi and no gi bouts featuring both MMA fighters and top BJJ competitors. Seeing as both Vettori and Suleiman are MMA fighters, they will be competing in a no gi match.
Although Muhammad was originally booked to take on Suleiman, he decided to withdraw from the match due to undisclosed reasons. The promotion has put in some great work at the last minute in order to find a good replacement though, and Vettori is a fantastic choice. Both men are sitting within the top five of their respective divisions, although Muhammad competes at welterweight and Vettori competes at middleweight. While Muhammad has been building up towards a title-shot with a winning streak that goes back a few years, Vettori has already had an opportunity at gold when he faced Israel Adesanya at UFC 263.
Marvin Vettori won’t be the only UFC veteran competing at ADXC 1 either, as Benson Henderson will actually be competing in the main event against Neiman Gracie. There are plenty of other great matches booked prior to that though, and the promotion has also arranged for a gi main event as well. Isaque Bahiense and Gustavo Batista will be battling it out for the sixth time in that match and it should prove to be a fantastic way to end a night of high level grappling action.
Abu Dhabi Extreme Championship announced that Marvin Vettori was replacing Belal Muhammad against Tarek Suleiman at ADXC 1 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
