UFC 270 | Prelim Preview
Saturday, January 22nd (10:00 PM EST Main Card, 8:00 PM EST Prelims, 6:00 PM EST Early Prelims)
Rodolfo Vieira vs. Wellington Turman
WATCH - This fight is actually going to be on the main card. UFC took forever to release the full card order for this one and we guessed wrong over the weekend and assumed this fight would be on the prelims. If you want our stats and write-up for Topuria vs Jourdain go check out the main card preview because that is the fight that we thought would be on the main card instead. With that out of the way, Vieira fights always deliver on the entertainment side. He's a bjj specialist who either gets a submission early on or gasses hard allowing him to be finished quite easily. There aren't many 7-minute men who finish fights on the ground, and it is something truly crazy to watch.
Raoni Barcelos vs. Victor Henry
WATCH - Out of his 6 fights in the UFC, only one of those wasn't a finish win for Raoni or a fight of the night! And that outlier fight was a decision win against Said Nurmagomedov. Raoni is one of the many amazingly entertaining and high-paced fighters that make the bantamweight division the best division in the UFC. Victor Henry is a bit old to be debuting in the UFC but had some really fun wins in Rizin so this fight should be a banger!
Michael Morales vs. Trevin Giles
WATCH - Trevin Giles's first 5 fights in the UFC were all bangers. Win or lose he was bringing it and the damage was flowing in both directions. But his last 2 fights have been uncharacteristically awful for him. An absolute snoozer and then an absolute whooping by Dricus Du Plessis. Yes, it's important for fighters to turn things around after going on losing streaks. But even more important, is to turn things around after snoozer streaks. No one wants to be seen as a boring fighter, and it can seriously limit their ability to get favorable card-placement and matchups, and to survive in the UFC at all. Luckily for Giles, Morales is the perfect matchup for him. A 22-year-old undefeated fighter debuting in the UFC. Giles can steal the spotlight by shutting down this hype train with his veteran experience before Morales can even get started.
Jack Della Maddalena vs. Pete Rodriguez
WATCH - Kind of a fun toss-up fight because they are both debuting so it is anyone's guess on how exciting or talented either of them will be. Might as well sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Tony Gravely vs. Saimon Oliveira
WATCH - Saimon Oliveira is one of the least interesting of the debuters. But this fight is worth the watch purely out of respect for the energy that Gravely brings to the UFC. The man is a kill or be killed bantamweight and we cannot stress enough how much these violent tiny men can completely carry UFC cards all on their backs.
Silvana Gomez Juarez vs. Vanessa Demopoulos
BATHROOM BREAK - Alright it's finally time to get completely honest about this card. It has some really really great title fights. It has some really interesting unranked fights. But it has no good, ranked contender fights when it really should have at least 2 or 3. And because of that, all of the unranked fights have been shifted 2 to 3 spots higher up on the card than they should be. Which means when you get down to these lowest 2 or 3 fights on the card, it is really hard to pretend to care about them. Wayyyy too many unranked fights to not get fight fatigued which you don't want to cause it's a long night of fight action.
Matt Frevola vs. Genaro Valdez
WATCH - Oh man is there a lot of debuting fighters on this card. And unfortunately, one of the most interesting ones, with a stellar record of all wins, all by finish, finds himself at the bottom of the early prelims and against a terrible and uninteresting opponent. In fact, it seems that Frevola's only use to the UFC lately is to get destroyed by exciting fighters making their debuts like how he recently was KOd by Terrance McKinney.
Kay Hansen vs. Jasmine Jasudavicius
BATHROOM BREAK - A UFC debuting fighter against a journeyman. Where have we seen this before? Although this one does come with a spicy twist as the debuting fighter is 10 years older than the future journeyman she is facing. If this card had 2 or 3 less fights with bottom of the roster fighters, I'd probably pretend to care about this one.
*Nothing contained in this post is financial advice, please bet at your own risk