Sports

Time zone differences mean an extra-long main card for the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s next pay-per-view.

Taking place Feb. 26 in Saitama, Japan – UFC 144 will include seven fights and a broadcast window of four hours, the promotion said Tuesday. UFC pay-per-view broadcasts normally cover five bouts with up to three hours of TV time.

EDGAR:  ‘It’s not about who can fight the hardest’

Rather than ask the audience in Japan to show up at an unusually early time for a sports event, UFC opted to shorten the preliminary card and lengthen the pay-per-view portion instead, said Anthony Evans, a spokesman for Zuffa.

The seven fights for UFC 144′s main card will include:

• Main event: Edgar vs. Henderson

• Co-main: Ryan “Darth” Bader vs. Quinton “Rampage” Jackson

• Mark Hunt vs. Cheick Kongo

• Yoshihiro “Sexyama” Akiyama vs. Jake Shields

• Joe Lauzon vs. Anthony “Showtime” Pettis

• Tim “The Barbarian” Boetsch vs. Yushin “Thunder” Okami

• Hatsu Hioki vs. Bart Palaszewski

 

Although a seven-fight card will be long for a UFC broadcast, it’s short by the broadcast standards for Japanese organizations. Promoters such as Dream typically have their shows air almost in their entirety, often requiring an intermission for events such as an annual New Year’s Eve extravaganza that can last more than eight hours.

UFC 144 will be the second of back-to-back longer main cards for the organization. Wednesday’s UFC on Fuel 1 event (8 p.m. ET, Fuel TV) in Omaha features six fights for a three-hour broadcast.