The summer months can be tough on sports fans. The excitement of playoff season comes to an abrupt end. Stadiums empty out. The highlights and soundbites we've all become addicted to disappear from our social media feeds. Life just gets a little more boring.

Thankfully, there are a few sporting attractions to keep us going through the summer. Chief among them is the UFC.

The promotion has announced a host of exciting matchups for the coming weeks. The best and biggest of them have landed on the four pay-per-view cards it has scheduled between now and September: UFC 289 on June 10 in Vancouver, UFC 290 on July 8 in Las Vegas, UFC 291 on July 29 in Salt Lake City, and UFC 292 on August 19 in Boston.

Of those four cards, only UFC 290 and 291 are finalised, but there's already good reason to be excited for all of them.

Keep scrolling for the best fights that the UFC has announced for its next few PPV cards.

UFC 289: Charles Oliveira vs. Beneil Dariush

UFC 289 is not a great card. Sure, that statement runs contrary to the very premise of this article—that there are some good fights coming up—but it needs to be said.

The main event, which will see women's MMA GOAT Amanda Nunes defend her belt against a huge underdog in Irene Aldana, will most likely be a shutout.

Most of the remaining card is composed of unproven prospects and fringe contenders who should probably be fighting on free Fight Night cards, not pay-per-views that cost more than a load of groceries.

Thankfully—one can only imagine how grateful fans in Vancouver must be—the card features one fight that ticks all the boxes. It's meaningful, it should be competitive, and it will probably be entertaining for as long as it lasts.

We're talking, of course, about the co-main event, which will pit former lightweight champ Charles Oliveira against surging contender Beneil Dariush.

Oliveira, who holds the record for most finishes in UFC history, will be looking to rebound from a tough submission loss to Islam Makhachev that ended his impressive two-fight reign as champion.

Dariush—who many believe should have fought for the title by now—has won seven straight, including triumphs over Tony Ferguson and Mateusz Gamrot.

This is a big fight that could go either way, and the winner might just get the next crack at Makhachev, who is fresh off a razor-close win over Alexander Volkanovski—a victory that may have laid some of his weaknesses bare.

Both men will be looking to make a huge statement and then succeed where Volkanovski so narrowly failed.

UFC 290: Alexander Volkanovski vs. Yair Rodríguez

The UFC's early July pay-per-view is supposed to be its biggest card of the year. It definitely falls a bit flat this year, but not enough that it needs to be criticized like UFC 289.

It's still a solid bill containing some PPV-worthy fights, none more so than the main event.

Headlining honors will go to a featherweight title fight in which undisputed champion Alexander Volkanovski defends his belt against interim titleholder Yair Rodríguez.

Volkanovski, as mentioned, narrowly failed to become a two-division champ in his last fight, losing a tight decision to the lightweight titleholder Makhachev. However, he has looked unbeatable at featherweight and remains the sport's pound-for-pound king in the eyes of many fans and pundits.

The 34-year-old Australian has been so dominant that it's difficult to give many featherweights a fighting chance against him, but Rodríguez is a serious threat.

The Mexican striker was last in action on the same night Volkanovski lost to Makhachev, submitting Josh Emmett to win the interim featherweight belt. There was really no need for the UFC to create an interim belt so soon—Volkanovski had said he'd be right back—but the win ensured Rodríguez was the next man in line for the undisputed king, which is great.

The 30-year-old deserves the chance, and as the owner of some of the most unpredictable and dangerous striking in the game—and, apparently, an underappreciated ground game—it's a chance he might just capitalize upon.

UFC 290: Robert Whittaker vs. Dricus Du Plessis

It would be easy to focus exclusively on title fights in this article, but that would be a bit predictable. So, while the UFC 290 co-main event, a flyweight title fight between champ Brandon Moreno and Alexandre Pantoja, looks great, we're going to skip over it and turn to a fight that has the potential to be even better...and just as meaningful.

Before Moreno and Pantoja get into the Octagon together, we'll be treated to an incredible middleweight scrap between No. 2-ranked contender Robert Whittaker and No. 6-ranked Dricus Du Plessis.

Whittaker, 32, is the former champ at 185 pounds and one of the greatest fighters in the history of the weight class. He has proved he can beat anybody in the division outside of Israel Adesanya, and there's plenty of reason he can do that, too, despite two losses to the New Zealander.

Du Plessis is a newer face in the division but is on a serious hot streak, having rattled off eight-straight wins, including defeats of Derek Brunson and Darren Till.

Whittaker's the favourite for a reason, but this is a competitive matchup that either guy could win in a blink.

What really makes this fight compelling, though, are the stakes. The victor could well get the next crack at Adesanya—most likely in Australia this September—and both outcomes would lead to intriguing matchups.

If Whittaker wins, we get a trilogy between two of the division's greatest fighters and one of the biggest bouts in the history of Australia or New Zealand.

If Du Plessis, 29, pulls off the upset, Adesanya gets a fresh challenge from a dangerous contender—and as of recently, one heck of a grudge match.

UFC 291: Dustin Poirier vs. Justin Gaethje II

Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje have already given us one of the best fights in lightweight history. That was in 2018, when the former powered through some early adversity to knock the latter out in Round 4.

In the main event of UFC 291, they will finally write the sequel, and it's going to be great.

In the years since their first meeting, Poirier and Gaethje have only gotten better. In fact, both went on to enjoy brief reigns as interim lightweight champions until they ran into the great Khabib Nurmagomedov.

Just look at what they've done since their first meeting.

Poirier has beaten the likes of Eddie Alvarez, Max Holloway, Conor McGregor (twice) and Michael Chandler. Gaethje, meanwhile, has thwarted the likes of Edson Barboza, Donald Cerrone, Tony Ferguson, Chandler, and Rafael Fiziev.

Both men have beaten a murderer's row of contenders and former champions, and neither has failed to entertain for an instant in the process.

There is ample reason to believe this could be one of the best fights of the year, and it also happens to be rife with title implications, as both men remain in the Top 5, and neither has challenged Makhachev yet.

You'll notice that we haven't mentioned the BMF title that the winner of this fight will receive. There's a reason for that. The BMF title was cringe, as the kids say, back in 2019 when Jorge Masvidal won it with a beatdown of Nate Diaz. In 2023, it's...cringier? More cringe?

We don't need trinkets like this to sell fights such as Poirier vs. Gaethje II.

UFC 292: Aljamain Sterling vs. Sean O'Malley

The intention of this article is to cover the best fights the UFC has officially announced for its summer PPVs. Let's just add a little asterisk to this one.

While UFC President Dana White recently announced bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling will defend his belt against rising star Sean O'Malley at UFC 292, Sterling quickly asserted that he needs more time to heal up from a five-round scrap with Henry Cejudo earlier in May.

We'll see if this fight actually happens as planned, but hopefully it will.

Sterling, while infamously underappreciated by fans and seemingly by White, has become one of the sport's top pound-for-pound fighters and most successful champions.

His title reign might have opened with disaster, as he won the belt by DQ after getting hit with an illegal knee in a fight with Petr Yan. But he then defended in a rematch with Yan, and again against a pair of former champs in TJ Dillashaw and Cejudo.

Dillashaw was injured heading into the fight, and the Cejudo win was close—we've heard it all—but there's no knocking Sterling's credentials at this point.

Next up the 33-year-old faces, arguably, the toughest challenge of his reign in O'Malley, who is a rangy and clever striker with serious KO power. That the 28-year-old is probably the division's most popular fighter only adds to the stakes of their title fight.

It's a matchup that will seemingly go one of two ways—unless one man totally ignores their surest path to victory. Either Sterling, a decorated collegiate wrestler and BJJ black belt, grapples O'Malley into a fine powder, or O'Malley does what he often does and finds the chin with fight-ending consequences.

Either way it will be good.

Zhang Weili vs. Amanda Lemos

The Sterling-O'Malley bantamweight title fight isn't all that's on offer at UFC 292. The card will also feature a women's strawweight title fight, with Chinese champion Zhang Weili defending her belt against Brazilian challenger Amanda Lemos.

Zhang, 33, won the title with an impressive submission win over Carla Esparza last fall, kickstarting her second reign as the division's champion. She is considered one of the top female fighters in the sports and has looked just about unbeatable as a strawweight barring two losses to Rose Namajunas, one of which was very close.

Challenger Lemos, 36, has been plenty impressive in her own right. Although she suffered a submission loss to former champ Jessica Andrade last year, she quickly rebounded with back-to-back finishes against Michelle Waterson-Gomez and Marina Rodriguez—the first being a choke, and the second a vicious knockout.

This is a really good fight based on the skill and momentum of the two women alone, but one of its main selling points is that it's fresh.

The strawweight division, easily the UFC's best women's weight class, has spent most of its existence under the rule of just a few women: Zhang, Namajunas, Esparza, Andrade and Joanna Jedrzejczyk. While those fighters gave us some unforgettable contests as they played hot potato with the belt, it is nice to see somebody else getting a shot.

There are some great contenders in this weight class, and some of them have had to wait a while for a crack at the belt. Lemos, who has lost just twice in 10 UFC appearances, is one of them.