(L-R) UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and UFC interim lightweight champion Dustin Poirier face off during the UFC seasonal press conference at T-Mobile Arena on July 5, 2019 in Las Vegas. (Getty Images)

ANAHEIM, California — The preliminary fights for UFC 242 on Sept. 7 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, will begin much earlier than usual. But they can be found on a familiar network.

Because of a conflict with the first major weekend of college football on ESPN and ESPN2, the network made the decision for this card only to put the prelims on FX. The UFC put fights on FX, as well as its reality series, “The Ultimate Fighter,” when the network was owned by Fox.

FX is now in the Disney family after having been acquired in a deal with Fox. The decision was made to put the preliminaries for UFC 242 on FX because of the conflicts with college football and because of MMA fans’ familiarity with the network.

The preliminaries will be on much earlier than usual, going from 12-2 p.m. ET on Sept. 7.

The pay-per-view portion of the card, which is headlined by a lightweight title unification bout between champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and interim champion Dustin Poirier, will be on ESPN+, as has been the case for all pay-per-view events since the ESPN-UFC partnership that began this year.

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