UFC Launching ‘Road to UFC’ Tourney in Singapore, Featuring 4 Brackets in June

The @UFC makes history in Singapore this June with the launch of 'Road To UFC'

Read more about the ground-breaking “win and advance” tournament here:

— UFC News (@UFCNews) April 22, 2022

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is finally bringing back the tournament format for an event series other than “The Ultimate Fighter.”

Back in the beginning of April, reporter John Hyon Ko broke the news that the UFC was putting on a series of eight-man tournaments spread across four divisions in June. The UFC then announced on Thursday night its plan of this series, titled “Road to UFC.” The four events on the books will be held on June 9 and June 10 during the fight week of UFC 275 that goes down June 11. All of these fight cards will go on at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore.

The four divisions include flyweight, bantamweight, featherweight and lightweight, while the competitors hail all across Asia from Japan and Korea to Indonesia and China. Each fight card will feature exactly four tournament bouts, and it will include one non-tourney match for other fighters in the region that hope to earn a spot on the roster in a similar vein to Dana White's Contender Series. Semifinals and finals will be held later on in 2022, and the winners of each weight category will earn a UFC contract.

This specific tournament series is not the first of its kind, as the promotion staged “Road to UFC: Japan” back in 2015 to crown a contender at the featherweight division. A reality series similar to TUF, the quarterfinals and semifinals were prerecorded exhibition bouts, while the final was set as a live battle at UFC Fight Night 75. That tournament did not provide a satisfying conclusion, as Mizuto Hirota fought Teruto Ishihara to a draw; even with the provisions that a “sudden victory” fourth round take place to crown a victor, the UFC neglected to implement it and the draw stood. Instead, the UFC awarded both fighters contracts – Hirota went 1-3 after the draw and was released in 2018, while Ishihara concluded his run after three wins opposite five defeats in 2019.