This is a highly anticipated bout between ex-Featherweight champ Ilia Topuria and Lightweight veteran and ex Lightweight champion Charles Oliveira, and boy do I have a lot to say about this one! 

Topuria is on a hot streak at the moment, coming off back to back wins against the greatest Featherweights of this era in Holloway and Volkanovski, and I know that you may see the bet and think that Round 3 starting could be quite a challenging leg, but I genuinely believe that the first round is going to be a bit of a back and forth fight, likely resulting in what might look like a sparring session. This is mainly due to both fighters knowing the weight behind this fight, that belt. I do think that Topuria has a higher propensity to finish fights on the feet compared to Oliveira who is going to be more submission heavy during this fight, so any stand up moment early on could be a long feeling out process whilst Topuria finds the proper entries to find that inevitable fight ending combination.

That’s the highlight for me at the moment, the massive striking differential between both fighters, Topuria hits hard, fast, and is ridiculously technical, and we know that Oliveira’s chin isn’t the greatest, so that has led me to a firm belief that Topuria is going to find that knockout during this highly touted bout.

Pantoja, the current champion at Flyweight, is an absolute king at taking the fight to the distance, his ability to utilise his high pace wrestling and excellent cardio for 5 rounds has been a recipe for success for him and I believe we are just going to see him do what he always does, and that’s press on the gas for four plus rounds. Kai Kara-France is a tough opponent to deal with and whilst his takedown defence is relatively good I do think that the sheer volume of activity coming his way from the defending champ is going to eventually break him.

With that said though, it is a general rule of thumb that any championship fight that Pantoja is involved with, always take the overs because that’s how he fights and where he thrives, he goes for the distance and for dominance at the same time and whilst I do think that there is some threat from Kara-France due to his excellent kickboxing, it’s not the first time that Pantoja has fought someone with savage striking and it certainly won’t be the last. As long as Pantoja is constantly moving forward, looking for those takedowns and asserting himself on the ground, he should be able to take this fight into the championship rounds with perhaps some chance of a late round submission, but frankly since Kara-France is so scrappy on the ground I expect this fight to hit the scorecards.

This is a fight that is going to be as advertised, a technical chess match between two of the most talented strikers in the division. Van is taking this fight on short notice but he’s also taking this coming off a clean win over Bruno Silva, so momentum is on his side but he’s also somewhat fresh, not having taken any time off or gained any substantial weight so his weight cuts should be relatively fine. The only concern about this bet not hitting stems from Royval landing something at range and stunning Van badly, but since Van is typically defensively sound, I expect this to frankly be a bit of a tit for tat on the feet with Van trying to figure out a proper entry into the pocket in which he can deal his best damage with a thunderous right hand to add emphasis to his combinations. 

Royval likely has plans to disrupt that chance of Van hitting cleanly though, and that’s going to be through his left high kick or left knee, anything that can be used to intercept the blitz and flurries of Van, I expect Royval to throw over and over again. I don’t think that many of those strikes will land cleanly, but I do expect Royval to use his length as a barrier for entry for Van, something that Van needs to penetrate in order to land his strikes. The first round should be the slowest in terms of action as both fighters are by no means quick starters or fighters who hunt for finishes within the first round, they’re patient and get all the reads they can get in the first round before starting to throw strikes with incentive in later rounds. So, yeah, over 2.5 rounds is my recommendation for this one!

Alright, this is one of the most interesting fights on the entire card, so it had to be a part of this post! 

Talbott is one of the most dangerous finishers and prospects in the division, and that may raise a few alarms already because I did say the fight goes the distance, but I do think that both fighters will take their time in this fight. Talbott was never a high pace fighter, he is a single shot boxer who strikes at distance and Lima is someone who is somewhat the opposite, he’s more sporadic with his movement and his stance switches and level changes, he’s a hard to track target and what I believe that translate to when the fight happens is that Talbott will not have as much success on the feet as he has previously had with his other opponents. 

Lima is very defensively sound, he’s very quick and he also has quite a well rounded game, he has the ability to use his speed and agility to go for the level change and tie up his opponent in the clinch, all whilst moving towards a takedown. Either way, I do believe that Lima is going to likely present Talbott with a few things to think about, and considering that Talbott lost his last fight by Barcelos who used his wrestling, I do think that Lima will try and test out any new takedown defence and counter wrestling that Talbott learnt during this fight camp. 

Ultimately, I expect the scorecards to be read out after this brilliant fight is over, this should be a good one!