Coming up, June 1st we have the pleasure of watching an extremely stacked UFC 302 card. These fights include Kevin Holland vs. Michal Olesiejczuk, Jailton Almeida vs. Alexander Romanov, Sean Strickland vs. Paulo Costa, and finally Islam Makhachev vs. Dustin Poirer.
Starting off the Main card we have Jailton Almeida vs Alexander Romanov. I predict that Almeida will go home with the victory . Almeida is the heavy favorite in the fight as he is a battle hardened UFC veteran with incredible striking. Romanov is still a very solid fighter but I believe Almeida will outperform him in every aspect. The only way I could see Romanov winning is if he maybe gets Almeida to the ground and is able to submit him because Almeida isn’t the best grappler in the UFC. Therefore I think Almeida will win by TKO in the second round.
The next fight of the night we have Kevin Holland moving up to 185 to take on Michal Olesiejczuk. I predict that Kevin Holland will win this fight. Kevin Holland is coming off of two hard losses to Michael Venom Page and Jack Della Maddalena. These two fighters however are very different than Michal. MVP and Jack Della were both very good strikers who were able to catch Holland with solid kicks and punches. Michal is also coming off of huge loss where he was submitted in 61 seconds by Michel Pereira. Therefore I think that Kevin Holland will win by split decision after a very intense fight.
In our next fight of the night we have Sean Strickland taking on Paulo Costa. This fight usually should be a 3 round fight but both fighters have signed up for a 25 minute 5 round fight. I think that Sean Strickland will win this fight. Strickland is a very efficient stand and bang fighter with very good hands and mediocre kicks. However Costa is also a very solid striker and a powerhouse with very powerful hands. Strickland usually struggles against powerful hitters such as Alex Periera and Dricus Du Plesis, but I think through his training camp with Alex Periera Strickland has learned how to beat strong and powerful fighters. I think this fight can very much go either way but I think that Sean Strickland will pull off the close victory by split decision.
For the Main fight of the night we have Islam Makhachev fighting Dustin Poirer. It saddens me to say this but I think that Islam Makhachev will take home the win. It saddens me because I love Dustin Poirer and hate ground fighters like Islam and Khabib. However Islam Makhachev is one of the best lightweights we have ever seen in the UFC. We see visions of Khabib in his fighting as Khabib is one of his coaches and one of his best friends since they were kids. Dustin Poirer also has lost to Khabib by submission and dosent have a very good record against grapplers and wrestlers. However if Dustin Poirer does somehow pull off the win it will be because of an early round knockout. This is the only way I see Poirer winning this fight. I predict that Islam will win by a round 2 or 3 submission.
