The lone pay-per-view for the month of July is upon us as we are less than two weeks away from UFC 304. There’s no doubt that fans will be armed with all the necessary information about the Leon Edwards and Belal Muhammad welterweight championship headliner. But for those who are still in the dark about UFC 304, we have brought to you all the details about the PPV timings.

UFC is going international and UFC 304 will be taking place in Manchester, more than 5000 miles away from Las Vegas where the promotion is based. Hence, the fans at home will have to deal with a slightly different timezone this time. The prelims will begin at 6 pm ET (11 pm BST) and the main event’s timing will be 10 pm ET which means it will start way past midnight, at 3 am BST, in the UK.

Why is UFC 304 starting at 3 am?

The UFC 304 on 27th July will be a stressful one for the local viewers in Manchester, with the main event getting pushed to 3 am BST. But it has been frustrating even for the American fans to find out the PPV timings. Play-by-play commentator Jon Anik explained why Dana White and Co. opted for the 3 am time slot in the UK. He claims that broadcasting the events walkways poses a challenge whenever the UFC goes international, and it often gets “tricky.”

“There’s a lot of different broadcasting challenges whether we’re in Australia, Brazil, or England… lots of masters to serve and pacify and feed… but this is a tricky thing,” said Jon Anik on the ‘Anik & Florian Podcast’.

Even Leon Edwards spoke about the situation, revealing that the initial plan was to organize the event in Utah, and the PPV timings were booked keeping that in mind. But Utah has now been reported to be hosting UFC 307 and UFC 304 has been shifted to Manchester. Since the desired PPV time slot of 10 pm ET for the UFC 304 main event was already booked, the event had to start accordingly in Manchester, which led to it getting pushed to 3 am BST.

“I don’t know. I think they said the pay-per-view was already booked for Utah, right? And then they – so the slot was already booked in so when they changed it to Manchester, they couldn’t change also the time with the TV station and that’s the reason why it’s staying [at] that time, I think, so yeah,” Leon Edwards stated on ‘The MMA Hour’. Meanwhile, UFC 304 co-main eventer, Tom Aspinall appeared irritated about the timing of the Manchester event.

UFC 304 star complains about start time, gets called out by Jon Jones

The interim heavyweight champion, who’ll square off against Curtis Blaydes, will compete for the first time as a title holder in front of his home crowd. It’s certainly a special moment for him, which he believes has been ruined by the timing of UFC 304. Aspinall understood the 3 am start time in the UK so that the PPV timings for the American viewers remained at 10 pm ET, given that more Americans watch UFC than any other country in the world. But he urged Dana White to consider setting up fights according to the country’s time where the UFC event takes place.

On his YouTube channel, the self-proclaimed ‘Honey Badger’ stated, “As a fan who wants to watch it [UFC 304] live, I think it is absolutely terrible. Yeah, it’s just not fair on the fans. …. Why can’t they sell to them [the American audience] in the afternoon which is our evening time?”

These comments inevitably landed under Jon Jones‘s radar, who decided to take a jibe at Tom Aspinall by offering a reality check. “When will this man realize that he doesn’t call any shots,” Jon Jones commented in an Instagram post. Now, let’s have a look into what the UFC has planned for UFC 304’s ticket prices at the 20,500-seater Co-op Live arena.

How much are UFC 304 tickets?

According to Ticketmaster, the ticket prices for UFC 304 range between three-figure amounts to four-figure amounts. The cheapest ticket for the Manchester PPV has been priced at £241.50 ($313.64), and in turn, the costliest ticket reaches up to a total of £3,272.70 ($4,250.34). It’s substantially lower than what the prices were for UFC 303. Additionally, there are also VIP ticket packages, which help fans have a better experience with more perks.

The cheapest UFC 304 VIP ticket package has been priced at $750 (£577.49). This package includes a hassle-free VIP entrance to the arena and reserved seats for the weigh-in event. In comparison, the most expensive package, which has been priced at $5,200 (£4,003.92), contains all the perks included in the cheapest one and a few more to go along with those.

What do you make of UFC 304’s timing and pricing decision? Drop your comments below.