This year’s Noche UFC event and the Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn boxing superfight will not go head-to-head on Mexican Independence Day weekend. Instead, Noche UFC will start extra early to avoid stepping on the toes of the Zuffa Boxing event.
On Saturday night, the UFC officially announced 2026’s Noche UFC event, set for Saturday September 12th at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona. Six fights were also revealed, including the returns of former Mexican flyweight champions Brandon Moreno
and Alexa Grasso. The main event for the card will reportedly be released later this week.
In a press release put out on Monday, the UFC added this important news: “The prelims will air at 1 pm ET / 10 am PT, followed by the main card airing at 5 pm ET / 2 pm PT. All bouts will stream live on Paramount+.” That’s right, the card is going to kick off at 10 am local time in Arizona.
The reason? UFC sister company Zuffa Boxing’s big Ryan Garcia vs. Conor Benn fight, which is set to go down on the same day at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. UFC CEO Dana White is already getting pulled in all directions due to his double duties with the two combat sports promotions. He was in New York City to lead the Garcia vs. Benn press conference on Saturday and then jetted out to Oklahoma City for UFC Fight Night: Du Plessis vs. Usman.
Both Noche UFC 2026 and Garcia vs. Benn will air on Paramount+, so it makes sense that the streamer wouldn’t want any major overlap when it comes to drawing in viewers. And hey, we loves ourselves an afternoon card here on the East coast — although many fans online were definitely upset that the UFC is being treated like the red-headed stepchild of the weekend.
There’s a certain level of irony that Noche UFC, which literally translates to ‘UFC Night,’ will not be at night but in the morning. After pulling out all the stops when Noche UFC 2024 ended up being the UFC Sphere event, the UFC has been a bit negligent with its Mexican Independence Day cards since. It’s an established, massive weekend for boxing, and now that the UFC is in the boxing business with Zuffa, they’re more interested in riding that wave than further developing their own thing in MMA.
Last year Dana White focused on Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford. This year it’s Garcia vs. Benn getting the Canelo treatment, despite Garcia being American, both his parents being American, and Garcia not even speaking Spanish. Conor Benn is a British star and having him fight outside of the U.K. is like having Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury in America … in other words, completely on brand for Zuffa Boxing.
Let us know what you think of the official Noche UFC start time in the comments below, Maniacs!
