Fight Week’s 5 Fights to Watch This Week: November 2–8

Joshua Buatsi and Willy Hutchinson settle unfinished business with a world title at stake, Alycia Baumgardner moves up in search of another championship, and a last-minute UFC heavyweight shakeup gives Saturday night an entirely different look.

November starts with the kind of fight weekend that rewards fans willing to move between cards.

England will be the center of the boxing world Saturday, with major shows taking place in Manchester and London. Joshua Buatsi and Willy Hutchinson meet again more than two years after their first fight, this time with the WBC light-heavyweight championship attached to the rematch. In London, former cruiserweight champion Chris Billam-Smith finally gets a professional opportunity to settle an old amateur rivalry with Cheavon Clarke.

The UFC card in Las Vegas looks very different than it did a week ago. Sean Brady’s injury removed the originally scheduled Brady-Gabriel Bonfim main event, forcing the promotion to elevate a heavyweight matchup between Waldo Cortes-Acosta and Johnny Walker. Sunday then gives women’s boxing the spotlight in Texas, where Alycia Baumgardner attempts to become a two-division world champion against unbeaten lightweight champion Elif Nur Turhan.

Here are Fight Week’s 5 Fights to Watch This Week.

1. Joshua Buatsi vs. Willy Hutchinson II

Boxing — WBC Light Heavyweight World Championship
Saturday, November 7 — AO Arena, Manchester, England
DAZN

There are rematches created because the first fight made money, and there are rematches created because the first fight left enough unanswered questions that doing it again simply makes sense.

Buatsi-Hutchinson belongs in the second category.

Their first meeting came at Wembley Stadium in September 2024, where Buatsi dropped Hutchinson twice and eventually escaped with a split-decision victory. The scorecards were unusually wide in different directions, but the fight itself was much more competitive than simply looking at the knockdowns might suggest. Hutchinson survived both trips to the canvas and continued fighting hard enough that one judge actually scored the contest in his favor.

Two years later, the circumstances have changed considerably.

Buatsi has since experienced the first defeat of his professional career, losing a competitive decision to Callum Smith before rebounding against Zach Parker. Hutchinson has continued pushing for another opportunity against the man who handed him one of his two professional losses. Now the WBC championship is attached to the rivalry, giving both men something much larger than revenge to pursue.

What makes the rematch compelling is that neither fighter needs to imagine how he can hurt the other. Hutchinson knows what Buatsi’s physical pressure feels like and knows he cannot afford the same lapses that led to the two knockdowns. Buatsi knows Hutchinson is capable of making the fight uncomfortable over 12 rounds and cannot simply assume the first result guarantees the second.

There is also a sense that this may be a defining night for both careers. Buatsi has spent years being discussed as a future world champion. Hutchinson has spent the last two years insisting the first fight did not tell the entire story.

Saturday gives both men the opportunity to end those conversations with a belt around the waist.

2. Elif Nur Turhan vs. Alycia Baumgardner

Boxing — IBF Lightweight World Championship
Sunday, November 8 — College Park Center, Arlington, Texas
ESPN

Alycia Baumgardner has already reached the top at super featherweight. Sunday night, she tries to prove that her championship success travels with her.

Baumgardner moves to 135 pounds to challenge undefeated IBF lightweight champion Elif Nur Turhan, who enters at 14-0 with eight knockouts. Baumgardner is 18-1 with seven stoppages and has spent several years established among the elite at 130 pounds. A victory in Texas would make her a champion in a second weight class.

That sounds straightforward until you look at the champion.

Turhan is not simply holding a belt while waiting for a bigger name to arrive. She captured the IBF championship by stopping previously unbeaten Olympic gold medalist Beatriz Ferreira and enters this matchup making another defense against the most accomplished opponent of her career. MVP has positioned the bout as the centerpiece of a four-title-fight card, which makes Sunday one of the most significant women’s boxing events of the fall.

The intrigue comes from the change in weight.

Baumgardner has built much of her success around athleticism, timing and enough power to make opponents respect her counters. Moving up means finding out how those advantages translate against a natural lightweight who has already demonstrated the ability to hurt world-class opposition.

Turhan, meanwhile, has the chance to make the kind of victory that dramatically changes how the wider boxing audience views her. Beating Baumgardner would not simply preserve an undefeated record. It would establish her as one of the most important fighters in women’s boxing.

That combination makes this much more than a champion defending against a famous challenger. It is a fight between one woman trying to expand an already impressive résumé and another trying to build one of her own.

3. Chris Billam-Smith vs. Cheavon Clarke

Boxing — Cruiserweight Bout
Saturday, November 7 — Copper Box Arena, London
Paramount+ / Sky Sports

Chris Billam-Smith has already been a world champion.

Cheavon Clarke has already beaten him twice.

Those two facts explain most of what makes Saturday’s London main event worth watching.

Clarke defeated Billam-Smith twice during their amateur careers, including in the 2016 national elite championship final. A decade later, their careers have taken very different paths. Billam-Smith went on to capture the WBO cruiserweight championship and became one of Britain’s most dependable action fighters, while Clarke turned professional later and has spent the last several years trying to accelerate his way toward the same level.

Both arrive after exactly the type of fights that make this matchup appealing.

Billam-Smith returned from losing his world title to Gilberto Ramirez and stopped Ryan Rozicki after a rugged battle in June. On the same Bournemouth card, Clarke was dropped twice by Jack Massey before recovering and scoring his own seventh-round stoppage. Neither performance was particularly easy, but both demonstrated why these two remain compelling cruiserweights.

For Billam-Smith, the amateur losses clearly still matter. He has spoken openly about wanting to settle that part of his history and prove that the professional version of himself is not the same fighter Clarke defeated years ago.

Clarke gets to approach the night from the opposite direction. He already knows he can beat Billam-Smith. The question is whether that knowledge remains relevant after ten years of development, bigger gloves, longer rounds and an entirely different style of competition.

There is no world championship attached to this one, but the winner should leave London positioned for a significant cruiserweight opportunity in 2027.

Sometimes history is enough to make a fight matter.

4. Waldo Cortes-Acosta vs. Johnny Walker

MMA — UFC Heavyweight Main Event
Saturday, November 7 — Meta APEX, Las Vegas
Paramount+

This fight was not supposed to headline Saturday’s UFC card.

That might actually make it more interesting.

The UFC originally booked Gabriel Bonfim against Sean Brady in the main event, but Brady was removed because of injury and the entire bout was canceled. In its place, the promotion elevated No. 6-ranked heavyweight Waldo Cortes-Acosta against No. 12 Johnny Walker.

Cortes-Acosta gets his first UFC main event after an uneven stretch near the top of the heavyweight division. He had built considerable momentum before consecutive decision losses to Curtis Blaydes and Alexander Volkov slowed his climb. A victory Saturday would immediately put him back into the conversation among the division’s most relevant contenders.

Walker may be the more intriguing story.

For years he was one of the UFC light-heavyweight division’s most unpredictable fighters, capable of spectacular finishes but equally capable of seeing fights change instantly in the other direction. In October, he moved to heavyweight and knocked out Mick Parkin in the first round.

Now he returns barely a month later.

That quick turnaround adds another element to a fight already thrown together under unusual circumstances. Walker is attempting to prove that heavyweight is not simply a temporary experiment, while Cortes-Acosta is trying to prevent someone from jumping directly into his part of the rankings after one divisional victory.

Heavyweight fights do not always require complicated storytelling. Sometimes two large men with legitimate finishing ability are enough.

The circumstances surrounding this one make it even better.

5. Tatiana Suarez vs. Virna Jandiroba

MMA — UFC Women’s Strawweight Co-Main Event
Saturday, November 7 — Meta APEX, Las Vegas
Paramount+

If rankings determined placement on this list by themselves, Suarez-Jandiroba might be even higher.

Tatiana Suarez is ranked No. 2 at strawweight and Virna Jandiroba is No. 3, putting two of the division’s most accomplished grapplers across from one another in a fight that should carry genuine championship implications.

Suarez has spent much of her career as one of MMA’s biggest “what if?” stories. Her wrestling has always looked championship-caliber, but injuries repeatedly interrupted her momentum. When healthy, she has been one of the most difficult fighters in the division to deal with because opponents know where she wants the fight and still struggle to stop her from taking it there.

Jandiroba presents a fascinating answer to that problem.

The former Invicta champion has built her UFC career around elite Brazilian jiu-jitsu and enters with 14 submission victories among her 23 professional wins. She has openly described the matchup with Suarez as a collision between two elite grappling styles and is hoping another victory puts her back into position for a championship opportunity.

That makes this one much more interesting than simply asking who has the better ground game.

Suarez’s wrestling is built around takedowns, control and forcing opponents to work from bad positions. Jandiroba is comfortable when fights become complicated on the mat and may be one of the few strawweights willing to engage Suarez there rather than spending the entire night trying to escape.

The winner should have a very strong argument for one of the next major fights in the division.

And stylistically, this could become one of the most technical MMA fights of the weekend.

Fight Week’s Must-Watch Fight

Joshua Buatsi vs. Willy Hutchinson II gets the top spot this week.

The reason goes beyond the championship.

The first fight gave both men evidence that they can beat the other.

Buatsi can point to two knockdowns and a victory on the official scorecards. Hutchinson can point to the rounds where his movement, combinations and toughness made the fight much closer than either knockdown suggested.

Now there is no prospect label, no “next step” and no need to speculate about whether either man is ready for a world championship.

They are fighting for one.

That changes everything.

Turhan vs. Baumgardner may ultimately be the most historically significant fight of the weekend if Baumgardner successfully moves up and becomes a two-division champion. Billam-Smith and Clarke bring a rivalry that started long before either man became a professional. The UFC main event has been rebuilt at the last minute around a volatile heavyweight matchup, while Suarez-Jandiroba could quietly determine the next direction of the strawweight title picture.

Manchester. London. Las Vegas. Arlington.

November opens with one of the most varied Fight Week schedules we have had in several weeks.

Fight Week will be following the biggest boxing and MMA stories throughout the week.