Manuel Torres enters UFC Baku with 16 of his 17 wins ending in the first round, and that finishing rate is the first thing hanging over the main event with Rafael Fiziev. UFC Fight Night: Fiziev vs Torres is scheduled for June 27, 2026, at National Gymnastics Arena in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Fiziev brings a 13-5 record and the No. 11 spot in the lightweight division into a card set on his home side of the matchup, while Torres arrives at 17-3. The pairing gives the event a clear stylistic edge: a ranked lightweight fighting in Baku against a contender who has made a habit of ending bouts early.
Rafael Fiziev in Baku
Fiziev is fighting out of Baku, Azerbaijan, by way of Phuket, Thailand, and the main event puts him in front of a crowd that will not need help recognizing the setting. UFC Baku is more than a routine Fight Night stop because it places a local fighter at the top of the card in his own city.
The card is set to stream live on Paramount+, with prelims starting at 9am ET / 6am PT and the main card following at 12pm ET / 9am PT. For fans planning around the schedule, the timing is unusually early in North America and places the main card squarely at midday Eastern Time.
Manuel Torres finishing rate
Torres, who fights out of Ciudad Madera, Chihuahua, Mexico, is not a cautious opponent. Sixteen first-round wins in 17 victories is the number that frames his place at the top of the card, and it gives the matchup a different kind of pressure than a standard five-round headliner.
That profile also explains why UFC Fight Night: Fiziev vs Torres sits at the center of UFC Baku. When one headliner is ranked in the lightweight division and the other has stopped nearly everything he has won, the margin for a slow start gets small fast.
The rest of the card includes Abus Magomedov, Michal Oleksiejczuk, Ikram Aliskerov, Brunno Ferreira, Asu Almabayev, Charles Johnson, Nazim Sadykhov, Matheus Camilo, Shara Magomedov and Michel Pereira, but the main event still carries the biggest stakes. Will Rafael Fiziev’s home-soil advantage be enough against Manuel Torres’ first-round finishing rate?
