Rams star Puka Nacua Rams into Vegas for UFC 326 action

LAS VEGAS — One week after the Los Angeles Rams saw their 2025 season end in a 31-27 heart-breaker to the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship, All-Pro receiver Puka Nacua traded shoulder pads for sweat suits and touched down in his hometown for UFC 326.

Nacua, 23, confirmed his arrival Friday with a simple Instagram post: “UFC weekend!!!!” The accompanying photo showed the league’s second-leading receiver lounging in a luxury Strip hotel bathroom, dressed head-to-toe in Rams-blue sweats and ready for Sunday morning’s championship card at T-Mobile Arena.

The Pro Bowl wideout finished the 2025 campaign with 129 receptions for 1,715 yards and 10 touchdowns, numbers that placed him second in the NFL in receiving yardage and tied for sixth in touchdown catches. His rookie season a year earlier was equally historic—105 catches for 1,486 yards broke a 63-year-old league record once held by Bill Groman.

While Nacua will be a spectator this weekend, the main event carries personal resonance. Max Holloway and Charles Oliveira meet in a long-awaited rematch that harkens back to their 99-second 2015 bout, which ended abruptly when Oliveira suffered a freak esophagus injury. Holloway enters on the heels of a unanimous-decision victory over Dustin Poirier at UFC 318.

For Nacua, the trip is more than an off-season diversion—it’s a homecoming. Born in Las Vegas on May 29, 2001, he first made waves in the Nevada Youth Football League before starring for the Little Cowboys, a powerhouse program bankrolled by UFC CEO Dana White and former co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta. White’s son, Dana White III, played in the same backfield, forging a friendship that still links the two families.

“My kids grew up with Puka. He grew up in our house,” White told reporters. “To see Puka doing what he’s doing now…it could not happen to a better human being.”

The Little Cowboys squad that featured Nacua and White III showcased its dominance in Las Vegas before advancing to the Pop Warner Super Bowl in Orlando, providing an NFL-caliber environment that helped shape the receiver’s competitive edge.

With the Rams set to open the 2026 regular season in historic fashion against an opponent to be determined at Australia’s Melbourne Cricket Ground—the first NFL game ever staged there—Nacua will eventually shift his focus back to football. For now, he is savoring an off-season respite in the city where his athletic journey began, taking in championship-level mixed-martial-arts action just a few blocks from his childhood fields.