FanDuel<\/a> and parlaying Makhachev and Zhang together, which results in odds of +153, or 39.5% implied odds.<\/p>\nBut if you\u2019re asking for a more vibes-based answer, I\u2019m going with fairly low. I\u2019ve been on the \u201cIslam Makhachev is the best non-Khabib lightweight in the world\u201d train forever at this point, and I will be picking him to win on Saturday, but I have real concerns about it. You never know how a fighter will look in a new weight class until they are there, for one, and for another, Makhachev is sneaky old. He just turned 34, and while that\u2019s not quite \u201cput him out to pasture\u201d age, his fall off could come at any moment at this point. Furthermore, JDM is still on the upswing, so while Saturday could still end up being the best version of Islam we\u2019ve ever seen, it will be the best version of JDM.<\/p>\n
And then we still have the Shevchenko-Zhang bout to consider, which, on paper, is the greatest women\u2019s MMA fight ever booked. This is the flyweight GOAT vs. the strawweight GOAT at the relative peak of their powers. All due respect to Cris Cyborg vs. Amanda Nunes, but women\u2019s featherweight is not a real weight class. This is a truly one-in-a-lifetime booking, and people don\u2019t seem to realize that.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I have an immense amount of respect for Zhang, and I\u2019m very interested to see how she fares at 125, but this is the hardest possible fight. Shevchenko is on the decline, but she\u2019s still, at worst, the third greatest female fighter ever. Plus, Zhang isn\u2019t a spring chicken either.<\/p>\n
While not impossible, it seems unlikely to me that both challengers leave with gold on Saturday. But I bet one does.<\/p>\n
2. Which welterweight contender on the card has the most to gain?<\/p>\n
Meshew: Is this a trick question? The answer is obviously Islam Makhachev. If Makhachev wins on Saturday, not only does he win the title and become the 11th two-division champion in UFC history, but he also silences some of the few criticisms about his (odd) reign, does something Khabib Nurmagomedov never did, and cements himself as one of the 20 greatest fighters of all time. He has more to gain on this card than any person other than Zhang Weili.<\/p>\n
BUT, I guess if you\u2019re talking about the non-title fight, I\u2019ll go with Prates. There are arguments against this being a huge boost for him, but I think those arguments fail to consider the most important part of fight promotion: vibes. Sure, Carlos Prates lost to Ian Machado Garry. But IMG lost to Shavkat Rakhmonov and right now seems ahead of him in the mix. Prates is incredibly over with the fanbase, and a big, sexy KO win over the former champion gets him right in the thick of things for the title conversation again.<\/p>\n
Lee: Michael Morales, let\u2019s do this!<\/p>\n
I say this in all seriousness: Morales can position himself as the No. 1 contender if he smokes Brady. Now, does that mean he\u2019s guaranteed to fight for the title next year? Ha ha ha ha ha, of course not, silly.<\/p>\n
If the UFC was capable of even the slightest promotion when it comes to up-and-coming contenders, Morales would already be touted as the next big thing. Just 26 years old, he\u2019s done nothing but impress since his first octagon appearance in 2022, and he\u2019s made a habit of beating much more experienced competition. There isn\u2019t much more he has to do if he makes it look easy against Brady.<\/p>\n
Of course, if Makhachev wins Saturday, you know we\u2019re in for all kinds of matchmaking shenanigans, and that\u2019s going to keep Morales waiting. But I can see him establishing himself as The People\u2019s Champion at UFC 322, and that\u2019s no small thing.<\/p>\n
Heck: I\u2019ll tell you who it isn\u2019t: Leon Edwards or Carlos Prates.<\/p>\n
Edwards couldn\u2019t be more out of the championship picture right now. But we\u2019re also living in a world where Kamaru Usman could leapfrog all of these contenders who have been putting in the work the past few years after beating Joaquin Buckley for his first win in almost FOUR YEARS, so maybe I\u2019m wrong here. I just don\u2019t think I am. And Prates winning would certainly be a feather in the cap, but it doesn\u2019t mean the same as it did even a year ago.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll go with Sean Brady because he\u2019s taking a huge risk, and the UFC usually rewards guys in Brady\u2019s position who say yes to every name thrown in his direction. If he runs over Michael Morales and calls out the winner, Brady could get that cage-side seat to watch the main event. However, Brady \u2014 and, quite frankly, every other welterweight in contention \u2014 needs Jack Della Maddalena to beat Islam Makhachev, badly! Otherwise, we\u2019re getting Makhachev vs. Usman, and my head might actually explode.<\/p>\n
3. What\u2019s the most intriguing preliminary fight?<\/p>\n
Heck: Erin Blanchfield vs. Tracy Cortez 2. I am one of the millions and millions of people who scored their first fight for Blanchfield, but Cortez has come on strong as of late, and a win here could put her in a very good position in the flyweight division.<\/p>\n
Blanchfield is obviously talented, but she\u2019s, at least, two to three wins away from getting a title shot \u2014 maybe more if Zhang Weili wins, and if Maycee Barber wins at UFC 323, she\u2019s in even more trouble. It\u2019s just the nature of the sport and the organization. If Cortez wins, they will push her to a title fight as fast as possible, although she\u2019ll need a win over one more top-five fighter to get there, and a loss for Blanchfield is catastrophic.<\/p>\n
Meshew: I\u2019m going with a dark horse, here. Well, perhaps not a total dark horse, but a deeper cut. The ones who know, know; Malcolm Wellmaker vs. Cody Haddon.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Jed! Why would you pick a fight between two men who don\u2019t even have Wikipedia pages?! Are you insane?!\u201d<\/p>\n
No, dear reader, I am not. I am the most sane. But you know what is insane? This fight.<\/p>\n
By this time, most of you probably remember who Wellmaker is, the former pipefitter-turned-Contender Series signee who has two KOs wins (and two bonuses) this year already. But you may have forgotten about Haddon, who was also on Contender Series in 2024, and won his UFC debut, but has not fought in a year. You\u2019re about to be reminded.<\/p>\n
Haddon is 27 and very talented, with his lone career loss coming to Steve Erceg. He doesn\u2019t have the same high-end offense Wellmaker does, but he\u2019s got many more tools, and he\u2019s game. This is a great test for Wellmaker (who was originally getting another showcase bout lined up), and we\u2019re going to learn a lot about both men and their futures in the sport. I\u2019m pumped.<\/p>\n
Lee: I still have no clue what to make of Bo Nickal. And I\u2019m not sure the UFC does either.<\/p>\n
Jamie Pickett, Val Woodburn, and Cody Brundage all made sense for early Nickal opposition, but Paul Craig seemed like a desperate attempt to get a number next to Nickal\u2019s name, and then throwing him in there with Reinier de Ridder was ill-advised, especially in retrospect. Now he gets Rodolfo Vieira, a grappling specialist whom Nickal should be able to just out-athlete. Maybe?<\/p>\n
What\u2019s intriguing to me is that I\u2019m not sure what Nickal even needs to do to rebuild his hype. First-round finish? Convincing three-round win? Mid-match breakdance? It\u2019s not like Vieira is a household name, so a workmanlike win ain\u2019t gonna do it.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s plenty of time for Nickal to fulfill his potential, but it also doesn\u2019t take long for a red-hot prospect to go ice cold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC 322 takes place this Saturday with not one, but two opportunities for decorated champions to jump up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-272362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}