Fans invited to UFC on FOX 16 workouts, weigh-ins, CM Punk Q&A in Chicago

T.J. Dillashaw and Renan Barao

Fans headed to the “Windy City” for this week’s UFC on FOX 16 event have some opportunities to get up close and personal with fighters on the card.

Fans are invited to Thursday’s open workouts and Friday’s official fighter weigh-ins.

UFC on FOX 16 takes place Saturday at United Center in Chicago, and the main card airs on FOX following prelims on FOX and UFC Fight Pass. It’s the fourth straight year the UFC has paid a visit to Chicago for a FOX show, but the first to take place in the summer. UFC on FOX 2, 6 and 10 all took place in January.

Thursday’s open workouts take place at the UFC Gym’s River North location at 644 N. Orleans St. in Chicago. Doors open to the public at 12:30 p.m. CT (local time). Starting at 1 p.m., the main and co-main event fighters will work out for the fans and media.

Scheduled to attend are headliners T.J. Dillashaw (11-2 MMA, 7-2 UFC) and Renan Barao (33-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC), as well as co-feature fighters Jessica Eye (11-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) and Miesha Tate (16-5 MMA, 3-2 UFC).

Dillashaw and Barao meet in a rematch from their UFC 173 fight, at which Dillashaw dominated Barao to win the bantamweight title. Their rematch was booked for this past fall at UFC 177, but Barao fell ill cutting weight and was pulled from the fight the day before. Then they were matched up at UFC 186 in April, but a Dillashaw rib injury took him out of the fight. Eye and Tate meet in what is expected to be a women’s bantamweight title eliminator.

On Friday, the weigh-ins take place at United Center. Doors open to the public at 3 p.m. CT, and the first fighter is on the scale at 4 p.m. Following the weigh-ins (instead of the traditional pre-festivities slot), a guest fighter Q&A session will take place with Chicago native Phil “CM Punk” Brooks (0-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC), a former WWE superstar and recent UFC signee who is training at Roufusport in nearby Milwaukee for his first MMA fight.

MMAjunkie will have full coverage of the fan and media events throughout the week.

The full UFC on FOX 16 lineup includes:

MAIN CARD (FOX, 8 p.m. ET)

• Champ T.J. Dillashaw vs. Renan Barao – for bantamweight title
• Jessica Eye vs. Miesha Tate
• Edson Barboza vs. Paul Felder
• Takanori Gomi vs. Joe Lauzon

PRELIMINARY CARD (FOX, 6 p.m. ET)

• Tom Lawlor vs. Gian Villante
• Danny Castillo vs. Jim Miller
• Kenny Robertson vs. Ben Saunders
• Bryan Caraway vs. Eddie Wineland

PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass, 4:15 p.m. ET)

• Daron Cruickshank vs. James Krause
• Andrew Holbrook vs. Ramsey Nijem
• Jessamyn Duke vs. Elizabeth Phillips
• Zak Cummings vs. Antonio Braga Neto

For more on UFC on FOX 16, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.