{"id":722093,"date":"2026-06-08T01:30:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T01:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/722093\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T01:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T01:30:13","slug":"matches-to-make-after-ufc-vegas-118","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/722093\/","title":{"rendered":"Matches To Make After UFC Vegas 118"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC Vegas 118<\/a> went down last night (Sat., June 6, 2026) inside Meta Apex<\/a> in Las Vegas, Nevada, which saw Gabriel Bonfim defeat former Welterweight champion, Belal Muhammad, via unanimous decision for his fifth straight win (recap here<\/a>). In the co-main event, Brendan Allen decisioned Edmen Shahbazyan after a back-and-forth war<\/a>, while Bryce Mitchell locked down his second straight win after submitting Santiago Luna (see it again here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Winner: Gabriel Bonfim
Who He Should Face Next: Sean Brady<\/p>\n

After his big win, Bonfim called out former division kingpin, Jack Della Maddalena; however, I don\u2019t like that fight because \u201cJDM\u201d is on a two-fight losing streak. One that makes more sense is a showdown against Brady, who is coming off a big win over Joaquin Buckley and is 4-1 in his last five fights. Brady is currently ranked No.6<\/a>, and Bonfim could be No. 5<\/a> after taking out \u201cRemember the Name.\u201d This fight gets the winner perhaps one more win away from a title shot.<\/p>\n

Now that Allen has secured his third straight win, he has his eyes set on a title fight. It likely won\u2019t come next because he will have to win at least one more to get him to the big dance. I wouldn\u2019t mind seeing him face off against the winner of the rumored bout<\/a> between Dricus du Plessis vs. Kamaru Usman. That fight is being targeted to go down on July 18, and if Usman can take out \u201cDDP,\u201d he could crash the Top 5<\/a>. For du Plessis, a win keeps him in his No. 2 spot<\/a>. I like either matchup for Allen, next \u2026 barring anymore \u201cfinesse,<\/a>\u201d of course.<\/p>\n

Winner: Tom Nolan
Who He Should Face Next: Quillan Salkilld<\/p>\n

Nolan extended his UFC win streak to five in a row after defeating Fares Ziam, which means he could be looking at a spot in the Top 15<\/a> come next week. A fight against Salkilld could be on the horizon, as well. When you look at the rankings, Salkilld is the one who makes the most sense since he is currently ranked No. 12<\/a> and, like Nolan, is on a hot streak, going undefeated (5-0) inside the Octagon to improve to 12-1 overall as a professional.<\/p>\n

Winner: Bryce Mitchell
Who He Should Face Next: Victor Henry<\/p>\n

Since moving back down to Bantamweight, \u201cThug Nasty\u201d has gone 2-0 with his most recent win coming in the waning seconds of the fight against Luna (see it again here<\/a>). That said, his win may not be enough to get him into the Top 15<\/a>, so perhaps re-booking his matchup against Victor Henry is in order. The two were set to throw down at this event before Henry bowed out.<\/p>\n

Winner: Iwo Baraniewski
Who He Should Face Next: Jacoby vs. Satybaldiev winner<\/p>\n

Baraniewski remained scorching hot and kept his first round win streak alive, securing his ninth straight opening round stoppage win by demolishing Junior Tafa with vicious leg kicks (see it again here<\/a>). In the process, the Polish bruiser locked down his third straight post-fight bonus award<\/a>. The vicious striker is proving to be a legitimate rising contender with all the tools to make a splash in the Light Heavyweight division. Up next, a showdown against the winner of the upcoming bout between Dustin Jacoby vs. Uran Satybaldiev could be in order. A Top 15<\/a> foe may be on Baraniewski\u2019s wish list, but facing the victor of that bout \u2014 set to go down on July 25, 2026 \u2014 is more realistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC Vegas 118 went down last night (Sat., June 6, 2026) inside Meta Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396,179146,6656],"class_list":["post-722093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722093","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=722093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}