UFC preliminary bouts in Baku

The early card is where a fight city tells on itself.

UFC Baku does not ease into the day for American viewers. It arrives in the morning, with prelims at 9am ET and 6am PT on June 27, then hands the afternoon slot to a lightweight main event between Rafael Fiziev and Manuel Torres. Strange hour. Useful card.

That is the thing about these international Fight Night stops: the poster usually sells one collision, while the first half quietly decides which regional names are real UFC inventory and which unbeaten records are only clean on paper. In Baku, the prelims come with local weight, newcomer nerves, Contender Series residue, Ultimate Fighter labels, and one home fighter placed exactly where everyone will notice him.

UFC Baku Prelims Spotlight

Farman Hasanov gets the loudest assignment before the main card. The 5-0 fighter from Nakhchivan meets Eric Nolan, an 8-4 opponent from Edison, New Jersey, in the featured prelim. That placement is not accidental. The UFC could have hidden Hasanov earlier in the running order if it wanted a soft landing. Instead, he is sitting at the edge of the main card, asked to carry the local feeling into the bigger broadcast window.

Nolan’s record does not have the same shine, but that can be an advantage in this kind of room. The home fighter has the walk, the noise, the spotless number, and the burden of being treated like a symbol. The visitor has a much cleaner job. He only has to make the arena uncomfortable. In my experience, that is often the better corner to stand in unless the favorite is mature enough to fight the opponent and not the applause.

Hasanov Faces the Home-Cage Test

A perfect 5-0 mark sounds tidy until the UFC lights turn it into a question. Hasanov is not just protecting a record; he is being measured for composure. Does he force exchanges because the crowd reacts to every step? Does he stay disciplined if Nolan survives the first surge? Those are not dramatic details. They are the difference between a hometown showcase and a hard lesson before the main card even starts.

• UFC Baku is set for June 27 at National Gymnastics Arena in Azerbaijan.
• The prelim portion starts at 9am ET and 6am PT, with the main card following at 12pm ET and 9am PT.
• Farman Hasanov, unbeaten at 5-0, meets Eric Nolan, who enters at 8-4, in the featured prelim.
• The top bout on the card is Rafael Fiziev against Manuel Torres at lightweight.

Fiziev vs Torres Undercard Stakes

Before Fiziev and Torres take over the night, the welterweight opener gives Baku another local thread. Tahir Abdullayev, 19-3 and based in Baku, draws Jefferson Nascimento, a 13-0 Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro. That is a hard bit of matchmaking for two new arrivals. Abdullayev brings the deeper professional ledger and the home setting; Nascimento brings the unbeaten tag and the problem of not knowing yet how his game translates inside this particular machine.

The rest of the prelim slate has the same sorting-bin feel. Bekzat Almakhan, a 12-3 bantamweight from Kazakhstan, fights Brazil’s Jean Matsumoto, who is listed at 17-2. Daniil Donchenko, the Season 33 welterweight winner from The Ultimate Fighter, gets Theodor Berggren, an 8-3 Swedish newcomer taking the fight on short notice. Kaan Ofli, who reached the featherweight final on TUF 32, tries to stretch his current run to three wins against Javier Reyes, a 23-5 Colombian who came through Dana White’s Contender Series. None of that guarantees rankings movement, and it should not be sold that way. It does tell you who the company wants to evaluate under awkward conditions: travel, odd timing, unfamiliar opponents, and a crowd with its own loyalties.

Nursulton Ruziboev belongs in a separate mental file because his record is already enormous by modern UFC standards. The middleweight from Tashkent is listed at 36-9-2 with two no contests, and he is matched with Andrey Pulyaev, a 10-4 fighter from Novosibirsk who also entered the UFC picture through DWCS. When a fighter with Ruziboev’s mileage is still described around finishes, the result alone is not the whole read. A sharp stoppage keeps him useful in matchmaking right away; a labored win leaves less urgency. For the younger or less familiar names on this undercard, the same rule applies in a smaller font: the UFC is not only counting wins here, it is watching how those wins travel.

The prelim lineup also includes Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev, undefeated at 9-0, against Julius Walker, 7-2, along with Abdullayev versus Nascimento, Almakhan versus Matsumoto, Donchenko versus Berggren, Ofli versus Reyes, Ruziboev versus Pulyaev, and Hasanov versus Nolan before the lightweight headliner.