yeah, I said it!<\/a>).<\/p>\nSo how do we pick here? I don\u2019t expect either man to finish early or fade late, which means this will be a back-and-forth war of attrition. It also means whoever manufactures the most significant bursts of offense will win the fight. And I think that\u2019s going to be the defending champion.<\/p>\n
Della Maddalena has a tad more pop on the feet and I could see him catching Makhachev a couple of times and either knocking him down or forcing him to retreat to the fence. It\u2019s not much, but it might be enough to sway the judges in what will be an exceedingly close contest. Outside of that, Della Maddalena just has to stuff a few takedowns (easy, right?) and win some scrambles and victory\u2014and immortality\u2014is well within reach.<\/p>\n
Valentina Shevchenko (1, P4P-2) vs. Zhang Weili (P4P-1)<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t decide. You can\u2019t make me.<\/p>\n
There is virtually nothing to separate Valentina Shevchenko and Zhang Weili outside of a few inches of height and reach. Strength? Maybe slight edge to Shevchenko. Speed? Maybe slight edge to Zhang. Striking, grappling, wrestling, defense, both women grade as an A-plus in every category. These are the two best female fighters ever and on Saturday, they\u2019ll remind everyone why this has been the fight to make for some time.<\/p>\n
Even slightly past their prime, 85 percent of Shevchenko and Zhang is still better than 95 percent of the women to have competed in MMA, so expect both women to show out. Shevchenko will look to establish the range early and test whether she can tie up Zhang and outmuscle her, while Zhang will scout for openings for power punches and work to establish her own wrestling game. The full range of their technical abilities will be on display, so on the surface, there could be plenty of uneventful moments featuring subtle feints and exhausting grappling against the fence.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sticking with Shevchenko to retain, with my main reason being I see Shevchenko as having a knack for winning close rounds that are light on volume. I haven\u2019t seen that from Zhang yet, and a lack of action could lead to frustration. Like the main event, I favor this fight to go the distance and for the winner to have their hand raised in convincing\u2014though not definitive\u2014fashion.<\/p>\n
Sean Brady (4) vs. Michael Morales (T8)<\/p>\n
Sean Brady and Michael Morales should both end up fighting for the welterweight title someday. At UFC 322, though, it will be Brady\u2019s moment.<\/p>\n
You won\u2019t find too many bigger Morales stans than me as I\u2019ve had the Ecuadorian pegged as a future champion for a while. And even though I\u2019m picking him to lose tonight, I stand by it. Morales is a high-level athlete, a wicked striker, and he has enough wrestling to keep the fight standing against most of his opposition. Just not Brady. Not yet.<\/p>\n
Brady has always been a strong MMA wrestler, which is to say he knows how to practically implement his wrestling in an actual fight. That sounds incredibly obvious, but how many D1 wrestlers or Brazilian jiu-jitsu stars have we seen fail to turn their grappling expertise into effective offense? Too many to count. Brady has that skill down and has worked hard to round out his game over the years. Hey, sounds like a guy who will eventually win a UFC belt!<\/p>\n
Morales is dangerous, but I\u2019m not confident he has the experience to stifle Brady\u2019s wrestling attack. So give me Brady by decision or late ground-and-pound finish this time. However, Morales will learn a ton from this loss (just like Brady did after losing to Belal Muhammad) and you can bet it will be a long time before I pick against him again.<\/p>\n
Leon Edwards (5) vs. Carlos Prates (10)<\/p>\n
Is it really over for Leon Edwards?<\/p>\n
Back-to-back dispiriting losses to Belal Muhammad and Sean Brady emptied the Edwards bandwagon in a hurry (was it ever that packed?), and it\u2019s easy to picture the UFC matchmakers rubbing their hands together at the thought of Carlos Prates beating Edwards and removing that particular headache from the championship picture for them. Harsh, I know, but even when \u201cRocky\u201d had a belt, he wasn\u2019t exactly Uncle Dana\u2019s favorite.<\/p>\n
One thing is for sure and that\u2019s that Prates will take the fight to Edwards. The smoking striker has dreams of KO\u2019ing Edwards and vaulting himself into the middle of the welterweight title conversation, hopefully erasing the memory of his recent loss to Ian Machado Garry. The Fighting Nerds representative is an electrifying fight finisher and if Edwards is truly cooked, Prates will gladly dust off the leftovers.<\/p>\n
Inexplicably, I still have confidence in Edwards. His standup is as sharp as ever, so he won\u2019t shy away from a back-and-forth battle with Prates. If anything, the matchmakers might have done Edwards a huge favor by not booking him against yet another wrestler. All he has to do is show up\u2026 something he\u2019s failed to do in his past two fights.<\/p>\n
*sigh* Edwards by decision. Don\u2019t let me down, Rocky.<\/p>\n
Beneil Dariush (8) vs. Benoit Saint Denis (14)<\/p>\n
Benoit Saint Denis\u2019 berserker style might be too much for the venerable Beneil Dariush at this stage of his career.<\/p>\n
In the battle of Benny vs. Benny, I\u2019m going with French Benny. Whatever wires got crossed in Saint Denis\u2019 disappointing 2024 campaign appear to have been set straight and he is back to his full force, sans juges ways. Perhaps not coincidentally, he\u2019s also back to facing less experienced opposition, which is the one twist here.<\/p>\n
Dariush has fought the best of the best at 155 pounds, and even has MMAth on his side having just beaten Renato Moicano, who beat Benoit Saint Denis last year. The 16-year veteran is also capable of bouncing back from adversity, though that\u2019s been a less consistent trait as his fight time piles. I\u2019m curious to see how he deals with Saint Denis\u2019 opening rush, whether he meets Saint Denis blow for blow or focuses on defense in Round 1 to gather data.<\/p>\n
The clock is ticking on Dariush and a fight with Saint Denis will only accelerate it. Dariush missing weight also makes me like Saint Denis\u2019 chances more and I have him overwhelming Dariush for an early finish.<\/p>\n
Bo Nickal def. Rodolfo Vieira<\/p>\n
Gregory Rodrigues def. Roman Kopylov<\/p>\n
Erin Blanchfield (4, P4P-9) def. Tracy Cortez (12)<\/p>\n
Malcolm Wellmaker def. Ethyn Ewing<\/p>\n
Kyle Daukaus def. Gerald Meerschaert<\/p>\n
Chepe Mariscal def. Pat Sabatini<\/p>\n
Angela Hill (T12) def. Fatima Kline<\/p>\n
Baisangur Susurkaev def. Eric McConico<\/p>\n
Matheus Camilo def. Viacheslav Borshchev<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not exactly the most scintillating tagline and the fighters at the top of the marquee aren\u2019t known for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284735,"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-284734","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\/284734","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=284734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}