The referees and judges have now been assigned for the UFC 285 main and co-main events for the card taking place on March 4 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
The card will be headlined by Jon Jones long awaited return as he makes his heavyweight debut against Ciryl Gane to crown a new champion in the wake of Francis Ngannou leaving the UFC. The co-main event will feature Valentina Shevchenko defending her flyweight title against Alexa Grasso.
The assignments were made during a monthly meeting at the Nevada Athletic Commission on Wednesday.
Referee Marc Goddard will serve as the third man in the cage when Jones battles Gane in the main event. The fight will serve as Jones’ return for the first time in over three years after he last defended his UFC light heavyweight title and then relinquished the belt with plans to move to a new division.
The judges for the fight will be Mike Bell, Sal D’Amato and Ron McCarthy.
Meanwhile in the co-main event, Jason Herzog will serve as the referee for Shevchenko vs. Grasso with the 125-pound title going up for grabs.
The judges scoring the fight will be Ben Cartlidge, Derek Cleary and Chris Lee.
Shevchenko already holds the record for the most title defenses in the history of the UFC women’s division with seven and now she’ll go for an eighth straight defense when she faces Grasso, who is looking to pull off the upset after going 4-0 since moving up to the flyweight division after previously competing at 115 pounds.
The rest of the referee and judging assignments for the remainder of the card will be announced on the night of UFC 285 in March.