How do I watch MMA fights
Posted on 26 March, 2022
UFC
Fight Cards
A fight card is all the fights during the event. Each fight card has a Main Card (the 5ish biggest fights of the night), the Prelims (another 5ish fights), and some events also have Early Prelims (another 5-8 fights). Generally, the further away the fight is from the Main Event (the final fight of the Main Card) the lower ranking the fighters are. That doesn't mean that the Early Prelims and the Prelims are bad or boring, but those fighters are probably not going to be champions anytime soon.
How to Watch Upcoming UFC Events (Legally)
UFC has 3 tiers of fight cards.
ESPN
Some fight cards are free on ESPN. This means that as long as you have ESPN, you can watch the entire fight card for free. Sometimes only the prelims are free on ESPN and the Main Card is on ESPN+ or PPV.
ESPN+
Some fight cards are only on ESPN+ ($69.99 annually). ESPN+ is a separate subscription from ESPN. If you pay for an ESPN+ subscription, you can see all free on ESPN fights as well as ESPN+ exclusive fights.
Here are UFC's instructions on how to watch ESPN+ on any of your devices.
PPV
Pay-per-views are events that require you to pay an additional cost to watch ($74.99 per event). The PPVs are not included in the base ESPN+ subscription. The PPVs are generally the best cards, and are almost always headlined by a championship fight. A PPV's Prelims and the Early Prelims are usually on ESPN or ESPN+ and don't require you to pay the PPV.
Go to the UFC website or google UFC events to see which of the above the upcoming fights fall under.
Bellator
Bellator has fights available on the Showtime network. Recently they have been showing their prelims for free on Youtube. If you are in Canada, they stream their main cards on Youtube as well.
One Championship
One Championship will stream their undercards on youtube. Otherwise you can go to their website onefc.com and buy the PPV.