UFC’s nine-year-old association with Madison Square Garden, the ‘world’s most famous arena,’ enters a new chapter tonight. After Conor McGregor’s double championship, Alex Pereira’s debut, and Jon Jones’ heavyweight title defense, the venue is gearing up for yet another memorable night. For the first time in UFC’s stellar history, two fighters will try to become champ-champs on the same card. In the co-main, former strawweight champion Zhang Weili will try to grab Valentino Shevchenko’s flyweight belt. Then the headliner features Islam Makhachev, who will try to wrestle away Jack Della Maddalena’s welterweight title.

The most befitting narrative as the year winds down. To ensure the event stays fresh in fans’ memories, UFC touched up the pre-fight event with a slice of bygone days. Whenever Madison Square Garden’s name comes up, more often than not, diehards go back to 1971, the year when Muhammad Ali came back from a three-year suspension to face heavyweight champion Joe Frazier. In the annals of sporting history, “The Fight of the Century,” where Ali suffered his first professional loss, remains one of the greatest events. So as UFC 322 reached the final leg, a piece of epic unfolded most dramatically.

UFC 322: Makhachev vs. JDM steps into the Muhammad Ali era

Fans were pleasantly surprised when they came across a hard-to-ignore trivia question. Yesterday, UFC concluded the final weigh-ins of the event. Most intriguingly, the scale fighters, including Islam Makhachev and others, used was the same the great Muhammad Ali used when he challenged Joe Frazier.

“🫡🔥 The entire UFC 322 card weighed in on the EXACT same scales that Muhammad Ali weighed in on before his fight vs. Joe Frazier at MSG in 1971,” the Instagram post of Home of Fight read. And fans were plainly stupefied by this facelift.

One should note, however, that the Ali scale appeared during ceremonial weigh-ins. As one of the users pointed out in the comments, Islam Makhachev was fully dressed up in the photo. Otherwise, the official weigh-ins used digital scales.

“I think it’s good to mention this was for ceremonial weigh-ins (as you can see, Islam is fully dressed). Funny enough, the actual weigh-ins were special in its own way too; they used digital scales,” the user said.

UFC 322 weigh-ins hit a few snags

Going back in time, fans may recall how the face of Ali’s grandson, Nico Ali Walsh, beamed up when he came across the weighing machine his grandfather once used during a visit to Madison Square Garden. “Oh my God! I mean, this looks ancient. I can’t believe,” he responded when someone asked how he felt watching this unique piece of history.

Barring the exception of Beneil Dariush coming in overweight, the final weigh-ins of UFC 322 otherwise followed the standard pattern.

Dariush, who comes off a win over Renato Moicano, tipped the scale at 157.2 pounds. It was roughly 1.2 pounds over the limit for a UFC lightweight non-title bout. As a result, he received a fine. His opponent, Benoît Saint Denis, will get 20 percent of his fight purse now.

For the main event, while Islam Makhachev registered 170 pounds, his rival, champion Jack Della Maddalena, weighed 169.8. The co-main event saw both the title holder and the challenger officially weigh in at 124.6 pounds.

Among all the fights at UFC 322, which one are you looking forward to the most?