The UFC’s run of 11 straight weeks of events ends in April 2025. However, that break will only last one week before the fight promotion returns to business. A stacked UFC 314 pay-per-view card anchors this month. In addition to that event in Florida, the UFC will be in Las Vegas and Kansas City this month. We look at the UFC schedule for April 2025

The first fight card of April takes place on Saturday, April 5 when Josh Emmett and Lerone Murphy headline UFC Vegas 105 from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, NV.

Josh Emmett (19-4) ended a two-fight losing skid in December 2023 with a brutal knockout win over Bryce Mitchell at UFC 296. The stoppage, which came at the 1:57 mark of the first round, earned Emmett his fifth UFC fight-night bonus in his past seven outings.

The 40-year-old Emmett has not fought since that memorable knockout victory.

Emmett put together a five-fight winning streak between March 2019 and June 2022. That run earned him an opportunity to face Yair Rodriguez for the interim UFC featherweight title in February 2023. Rodriguez won that contest via submission. Emmett followed that setback with a June 2023 decision loss to Ilia Topuria. He defeated Mitchell in his next outing.

Lerone Murphy (15-0-1) has been busy while Emmett was inactive. Murphy, who fought Zubaira Tukhugov to a draw in his UFC debut in September 2019, extended his unbeaten streak to 16 fights when he defeated Edson Barboza and Dan Ige by decision in 2024.

I wrote of Murphy after his win over Barboza, "Lerone Murphy put on a masterful performance in picking up a unanimous decision victory over UFC veteran Edson Barboza in the main event of UFC Vegas 92.

"Murphy, who had never fought in a UFC main event before Saturday night, moved to 14-0-1 in his career with the victory over Barboza.

"The 32-year-old English fighter did a phenomenal job of mixing up his striking and wrestling throughout the fight. His movement and speed allowed him to fight at a boxing distance, which largely negated Barboza’s most dangerous strikes, his kicks. Murphy also did a nice job of connecting with elbows when he fought in close.

“Any questions about Murphy’s ability to hang with ranked UFC welterweights were answered on Saturday when he fought his most complete contest as a UFC competitor.”

Josh Emmett vs. Lerone Murphy
Pat Sabatini vs. Joanderson Brito
Cortavious Romious vs. Lee Chang-ho
Kennedy Nzechukwu vs. Martin Buday
Brad Tavares vs. Gerald Meerschaert
Torrez Finney vs. Robert Valentin

Ode’ Osbourne vs. Luis Gurule
Davey Grant vs. Daniel Santos
Diana Belbita vs. Dione Barbosa
Rhys McKee vs. Daniel Frunza
Loma Lookboonmee vs. Istela Nunes
Victor Henry vs. Pedro Falcão
Vanessa Demopoulos vs. Talita Alencar

The winner of the UFC 314 main event will walk away from the Kaseya Center in Miami, Florida with the UFC featherweight title over their shoulder.

In announcing Volkanovski vs. Lopes, UFC CEO Dana White said of the soon to be former UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria, “Topuria has felt like he’s done all he can in that division, and he feels like he’s cemented his legacy, and his body cannot make the weight anymore. So Topuria will be moving up to 155 pounds and will be vacating the featherweight title. … As soon as the first punch is thrown in (Volkanovski vs. Lopes), the title is vacated. We will announce what Topuria’s next fight will be when we get it done.”

Volkanovski (26-4) is a former UFC featherweight champion. He held the title from December 2019 through February 2024, defending the belt five times over that time. His reign began with a unanimous decision win over Max Holloway and ended in a knockout loss to Topuria in February 2024.

During his run with the 145-pound belt, Volkanovski twice fought for the UFC lightweight belt, losing to Islam Makhachev in February and October 2023. Makhachev won the first meeting by decision. He followed that with a knockout victory.

Volkanovski has not stepped into the Octagon since his loss to Topuria. He is the No. 1 fighter in the official UFC featherweight rankings.

Lopes (26-6) is the No. 3 fighter in the UFC’s 145-pound weight class. Lopes joined the UFC in May 2023, dropping his promotional debut to Movsar Evloev via decision. Since then, Lopes is unbeaten in five fights. His most recent victory was a UFC 306 decision win over two-time UFC title challenger Brian Ortega.

One of the PPV card fights, Carlos Prates vs. Geoff Neal, recently fell off the card. That fight has not been replaced on the schedule, but likely will be.

Alexander Volkanovski vs. Diego Lopes

Michael Chandler vs. Paddy Pimblett

Bryce Mitchell vs. Jean Silva

Yair Rodriguez vs. Patricio “Pitbull” Freire

Nikita Krylov vs. Dominick Reyes

Dan Ige vs. Sean Woodson

Yan Xiaonan vs. Virna Jandiroba

Jim Miller vs. Chase Hooper

Sedriques Dumas vs. Michał Oleksiejczuk

Darren Elkins vs. Julian Erosa

Sumudaerji vs. Mitch Raposo

Tresean Gore vs. Marco Tulio

Nora Cornolle vs. Hailey Cowan

Two light heavyweights coming off knockout losses headline the UFC Kansas City fight card on April 26 from T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. In that fight, former UFC light heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill faces Khalil Rountree Jr. Hill and Rountree had been booked for UFC 303, but that fight was scrapped after Rountree self-reported ingesting a banned substance.

Hill (12-3-0-1) is riding a two-fight losing skid. He lost the UFC light heavyweight title to Alex Pereira at UFC 300 and followed that with a loss at the hands of former champ Jiri Prochazka at UFC 311. Both setbacks came via knockout.

Rountree (13-6-0-1) saw his five-fight winning streak end at UFC 307 when Pereira knocked him out in the fourth round in a title fight.

Hill enters the UFC Kansas City card as the No. 4 fighter in the official UFC light heavyweight rankings, while Rountree checks in at No. 7.

Jamahal Hill vs. Khalil Rountree Jr.
Anthony Smith vs. Zhang Mingyang
Giga Chikadze vs. David Onama
Michel Pereira vs. Abus Magomedov
Ikram Aliskerov vs. André Muniz
Randy Brown vs. Nicolas Dalby

UFC Kansas City Preliminary Card

Matt Schnell vs. Jimmy Flick
Evan Elder vs. Ahmad Sohail Hassanzada
Jaqueline Amorim vs. Polyana Viana
Malcolm Wellmaker vs. Cameron Saaiman
Chelsea Chandler vs. Joselyne Edwards

*All fight cards subject to change

We will have more news and stories on the UFC schedule and UFC fight cards for April 2025 throughout the month.