Two of Manchester's finest from the red and blue sides of the city will look to become PFL champions in consecutive fights at this Friday's PFL 2024 Championships.
For as much as they have in common, Brendan Loughnane and Dakota Ditcheva find themselves at totally different points in their careers.
The night's featherweight main event sees the English veteran taking on an undefeated rising star who can take his career to new heights by earning his biggest victory to date.
Riyadh's co-main event offering is largely the same narrative but in this match-up, it's the English fighter that is the undefeated phenom that will be taking on her toughest challenge.
For the 35-fight veteran Loughnane, he's been here before having won the PFL featherweight tournament in 2022, defeating Bubba Jenkins to change his life forever.
Having contemplated retirement after suffering the first knockout loss of his career last year to be eliminated from the bracket by Jesus Pinedo, he's come back this year with a vengeance but his storybook 2024 season is not of interest to Timur Khizriev.
Loughnane has faced his fair share of dominating grapplers and similarly to his loss in the 2021 semi-finals to Movlid Khaybulaev, no one has been able to solve the Russian's puzzle as of yet.
Though Khizriev has been able to smother or nullify all of his opponents, Ditcheva is an undefeated competitor that decimates opponents with her elite striking skills.
At 13-0, the 26-year old has only ever been to the scorecards on one occasion and all but one of her PFL opponents have fallen in the opening round.
Ever since the brackets were announced, fight fans wanted to see the former PFL Europe champion collide with the promotion's big new signing, Taila Santos.
At 22-3, the Brazilian has got legitimate high-level experience with many believing that at UFC 275 in 2022, she did enough to dethrone the UFC flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko though she instead came out on the wrong side of a split decision.
To have both Loughnane and Ditcheva at the top of this card is a special moment for UK MMA.
On one hand, you have Loughnane likely competing in his last season-format bout after he has been an incredible signing and advocate for the PFL during his tenure.
Going out by winning the championship once again after the difficult period he went through in 2023 would be exactly the story of tenacity that has defined his career.
In Ditcheva, you have the star that can carry the torch for the UK long after Loughnane decides to hang up his gloves.
This could be the first of many huge moments for her in the PFL and if she's able to get past a widely recognised world class talent like Santos, than the sky truly is the limit.
Manchester's red and blue sides come together in Riyadh this Friday night for a special moment in the history of UK MMA.
