UFC 326 lineup faces criticism from former fighter Dan Hardy: ‘It’s an odd one’

March 2, 2026
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UFC 326 is facing criticism for its lackluster lineup at the start of fight week.

Everyone is excited about the BMF title rematch between Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira.

However, the 12 bouts before the headliner are not at the standard you would expect to see at a numbered UFC event

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Tell us your thoughts on the often-criticized UFC 326 line-up

  • Max Holloway vs. Charles Oliveira
  • Caio Borralho vs. Reinier de Ridder
  • Rob Font vs. Raul Rosas Jr
  • Drew Dober vs. Michael Johnson
  • Gregory Rodrigues vs. Brunno Ferreira
  • Cody Garbrandt vs. Xiao Long
  • Ricky Turcios vs. Alberto Montes
  • Cody Durden vs. Nyamjargal Tumendembere
  • Donte Johnson vs. Cody Brundage
  • Su Mudaerji vs. Jesús Santos Aguilar 
  • Luke Fernandez vs. Rodolfo Bellato
  • Lee Jeong-yeong vs. Gaston Bolaños
  • Rafael Tobias vs. Diyar Nurgozhay

Dan Hardy breaks down UFC 326

Former UFC fighter-turned-commentator Dan Hardy isn’t overly excited about UFC 326.

‘The Outlaw’ lives and breathes MMA, so he’ll be tuning into the card on Saturday evening, despite believing it is inferior to the events that were available on pay-per-view before the UFC’s $7.7 billion move to Paramount.

“It definitely doesn’t look like a pay-per-view card, absolutely,” Hardy told Submission Radio.

“I think there’s some fun fights on it. For me, I think the most interesting one, the most probably well-balanced and well-matched one, is the Drew Dober-[Michael] Johnson fight. As soon as I saw that, I thought to myself that is just a fireworks fight because they both take a lot of chances and sometimes make bad decisions, and that could backfire. But for me, that’s a really interesting matchup.

“Some of the other ones, I’m interested to watch them, but it’s an odd one for a pay-per-view.

“Really interesting. And a couple of fights where, like, Rob Font finds himself in that situation again, where he’s holding off another one of the young ones and kind of playing the gatekeeper role again.

“I don’t know, it’s an interesting card. I’ll be watching, of course, but I won’t be quite as pay-per-view excited as normal.”

Who wins Max Holloway vs Charles Oliveira 2?

Tell us how the UFC 326 main event plays out.

Dan Hardy dismisses Max Holloway vs. Charles Oliveira 1

Max Holloway TKO’d Charles Oliveira in just 99 seconds when they first fought as featherweight contenders in August 2015.

The Brazilian fan favorite suffered a mid-fight neck injury that he feared could paralyze him.

11 years later, Oliveira gets a chance at revenge in the division where he became a legend.

“I don’t even think Charles Oliveira is the same person psychologically as he was in that fight,” Hardy added. “There was something, and I’m a big fan of Charles Oliveira, but he’s never been the force that he is at lightweight.

“When he was at featherweight, there was something kind of flimsy and brittle about him. That was my memory of that fight. Nothing massively significant happened, and I feel like they were both very young versions of themselves.”





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