The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s appetite for live action means that the fights continue to come thick and fast featuring the best MMA athletes.

This weekend, top welterweights Tyron Woodley and Brazilian Gilbert Burns headline the UFC Fight Night card in Las Vegas, although it will be away from the famous strip – at the UFC headquarters behind closed doors. This follows three shows in Jacksonville, Florida, earlier this month.

The televised part of the card will be broadcast live on SuperSport 1 and 11, with the preliminary bouts beginning at midnight on Saturday and the main card live from 3am on Sunday (CAT).

Woodley has not competed since losing the welterweight title to Nigeria’s Kamaru Usman last March in a contest that brought his  two-and-a-half-year reign as champion to a shuddering halt. It was the American’s first loss in five years.

Burns has been on a tear through the division since last year, knocking out unbeaten Aleksei Kunchenko, dominating Gunnar Nelson and belting former title challenger Demian Maia inside a round.

At 38, Woodley might be nearing the end, but this weekend’s showdown is an opportunity to remind fans that he remains an elite-level fighter worthy of another run at the championship.

For the Brazilian bomber, the chance to claim the scalp of a former champion like Woodley is all the incentive he needs to deliver the goods as he chases down a sixth straight win.

The co-main event promises to be explosive as heavyweight bangers Blagoy Ivanov and Augusto Sakai fight for a top-15 ranking.

Ivanov, from Bulgaria, has a 2-2 record in the UFC with wins over tough Ben Rothwell and Tai Tuivasa against setbacks to Junior Dos Santos and Derrick Lewis, two of the division’s top contenders.

Brazil’s Sakai is unbeaten in three UFC starts and looms as the dark horse of the heavyweights given his overall MMA record of 14 wins with a lone defeat.