{"id":453129,"date":"2026-02-02T06:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T06:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453129\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T06:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T06:53:09","slug":"matches-to-make-after-ufc-325","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453129\/","title":{"rendered":"Matches To Make After UFC 325"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC 325<\/a> went down last night (Sat., Jan. 31, 2026) inside Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney, Australia, which saw Alexander Volkanovski defeat Diego Lopes once again via unanimous decision (recap here<\/a>). In the co-main event of the evening Benoit Saint Denis won his fourth in a row with a second-round technical knockout (TKO) win over Dan Hooker (video replay here<\/a>), while Mauricio Ruffy got back into the win column after stopping Rafael Fiziev via TKO in the second round (highlights<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Winner: Alexander Volkanovski<\/p>\n

There are rumblings of a possible booking between Evloev and Murphy for a March event in London, England, and should that bout come to pass the winner should get the next title fight against \u201cThe Great.\u201d Evloev is ranked No. 1 in the division and is undefeated at 19-0, while Murphy is holding down the No. 4 spot, and is also unbeaten with a 17-0-1 record. Volkanovski has already stated<\/a> that is who he is eying, so Jean Silva will have to go pick a fight elsewhere. <\/a><\/p>\n

Winner: Benoit Saint Denis<\/p>\n

Who He Should Face Next: Oliveira vs. Holloway winner<\/p>\n

Charles Oliveira and Max Holloway are set to throw down at UFC 326 in a \u201cBMF\u201d title fight,<\/a> but I don\u2019t foresee the winner of that fight to be considered for a title fight straight away. Justin Gaethje and Ilia Topuria are in line for a title unification bout later this year and Arman Tsarukyan is waiting in the wings for his shot. I would like to see \u201cGod of War\u201d get a chance to face the winner of Oliveira and Holloway, and it doesn\u2019t have to be for the \u201cBMF\u201d title.<\/p>\n

Who He Should Face Next: Michael Chandler<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, Chandler is still holding out hope that he is going to face Conor McGregor, despite Dana White saying that is not in the plans.<\/a> \u201cIron\u201d has not competed in nearly a year just waiting around, and it\u2019s about time gets back into the swing of things. I get that he is on a three-fight skid, but he has the name value for Ruffy, and if he can stop the up-and-coming contender Chandler can get his momentum back again. For Ruffy, getting a win over Chandler puts him in the Top 10.<\/p>\n

Winner: Tallison Teixeira<\/p>\n

Who He Should Face Next: Mick Parkin<\/p>\n

Teixeira got back into the win column with an uninspiring win over Tai Tuivasa, which likely won\u2019t help him in getting a huge bump in the rankings. He is still going to be facing fighters outside of the Top 10 until he gets at least another impressive win. A bout against Parkin sounds about right because the British brawler is currently sitting in the No. 13 spot. He suffered the first loss of his pro career in his last outing at the hands of Marcin Tybura, so this would be a good bounce back challenge for him.<\/p>\n

Who He Should Face Next: Kyle Nelson<\/p>\n

Salkilld won his fourth straight fight inside the Octagon \u2014 eleventh in a row overall \u2014 after he submitted Jamie Mullarkey via face crank <\/a>\u201cDown Under.\u201d The Australian-born slugger is making all the right moves and showing that he is one to keep an eye on.<\/a> If he keeps racking up wins like last night he will be in the Top 15 in no time. For now, slow and steady is the pace and a fight against Nelson seems fitting. Nelson is 4-1 in his last five fights inside the Octagon and is coming off a big win over Matt Frevola in Oct. 2025.<\/p>\n

For complete UFC 325 results, coverage, and highlights click HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC 325 went down last night (Sat., Jan. 31, 2026) inside Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney, Australia, which saw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,188424,1396,6656],"class_list":["post-453129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-325","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}