Vucevic Heads to UFC Belgrade, Fighters Visit Zvezda
NBA center Nikola Vucevic and Codi Miller-McIntyre will watch UFC Belgrade from the stands on August 1, days after three Serbian fighters stopped by Crvena Zvezda's club offices.
Nikola Vucevic is watching UFC Belgrade from a seat, not a screen. Serbian daily Kurir reported on July 28 that the NBA center is coming to Belgrade Arena for the August 1 card, and that Codi Miller-McIntyre, a former Crvena Zvezda point guard, will be there too.
Until now the Belgrade card has been a story about the fighters and the press conference. This is the first time two basketball names have been confirmed on the other side of the cage, and it lands in the same week the fighters walked into the Zvezda club offices themselves.
Vucevic’s contract with the Boston Celtics expired, and this summer he accepted an offer from the Orlando Magic, the team where he spent most of his career. He debuted in the NBA in 2011/12 and has played fifteen seasons through 2025/26, which makes the one about to start his sixteenth. Kurir describes him as a committed Crvena Zvezda fan.
Why is Miller-McIntyre coming to the Arena?
Because of one fighter. The American is coming to back Milos Janicic, his training partner through the spring of 2026. Meridiansport, which covered his trip on July 28, reports that Miller-McIntyre is now on the roster of Olympiacos.
That detail pulls the story out of the usual celebrity-guest routine. Miller-McIntyre is not a name off a VIP list. He shared a gym with the fighter for months before anyone set up a cage in Belgrade.
Djurisic hosted the fighters at the club
On the same day, July 28, MMA fighters Milos Janicic, Marina Spasic and Dusko Todorovic visited the offices of KK Crvena Zvezda. Zvezda player Nikola Djurisic showed them around and posed for photographs with them.
Two Power Slap competitors, scheduled to compete on Thursday, joined the same gathering.
The UFC then shared a photograph from the visit on its official Instagram account, with a short caption:
Stepping away from the Octagon to meet up with @crvenazvezdakk, Belgrade’s professional basketball club!
The post carries the #UFCBelgrade tag and a reminder that the event airs on August 1. Telegraf reported on the post the same day at 8.26 p.m., Kurir at 9.35 p.m. For a promotion arriving in Serbia for the first time, the choice of club is no accident: Crvena Zvezda plays its EuroLeague home games in the very hall where the cage goes up on Saturday.
What happens on Saturday
The Arena card is sold out. Janicic, Spasic and Todorovic are not travelling to Belgrade as guests, all three of them fight, and the club visit was one of their last public appearances before fight night.
We wrote earlier about the card itself, with nine Serbian representatives on it, Aleksandar Rakic as the best known name and five fighters making their UFC debut in front of a home crowd. What gets added now is the audience. Vucevic and Miller-McIntyre are the first two basketball names to be confirmed, and the list is unlikely to stop at two by Saturday.
The direction of traffic is worth a look. For years Serbian basketball players were the decoration other sports booked for their events. This time the biggest MMA promotion in the world came to Belgrade, and it is the basketball players announcing their seats and posing with fighters at the club. Djurisic picked up a ball for the photo, the fighter raised a fist, and that was enough for the UFC to push it out worldwide.
