The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s one-week stop at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas on Saturday sees a surprisingly strong preliminary card per the usual standards. The return of Kevin Lee has seemingly slid under the radar, but the former lightweight interim title challenger gets an intriguing matchup against Rinat Fakhretdinov in the featured spot at UFC on ESPN 48. Add in the long-awaited return of top lightweight prospect Guram Kutateladze and two fights between ranked fighters—albeit at women’s bantamweight and heavyweight—and there is some solid depth to a card that might otherwise appear to be an afterthought.
Welterweights
Rinat Fakhretdinov (20-1, 2-0 UFC) vs. Kevin Lee (19-7, 11-7 UFC)ODDS: Fakhretdinov (-200), Lee (+170)
It may be good to have Lee back in the UFC, but “The Motown Phenom” still has a lot left to prove. Lee came to the UFC in 2014 as an extremely raw prospect but eventually established himself as one of the promotion’s best young lightweights. He tripped up against the tricky Leonardo Santos, but Lee otherwise was able to handle opponents with a crushing wrestling and grappling game while developing enough striking to get by. A 2017 win over Michael Chiesa firmly put Lee in the lightweight title picture, but rather than take the final step up to championship glory, the wheels seem to have fallen off his career. An interim title fight against Tony Ferguson started a run of five losses in seven fights for Lee, which all came against strong competition but came back to some common issues. Lee could typically march out to a hot start but would eventually hit some combination of tiring out and running out of ideas, resulting in a bit of a spiral that would see hime try harder and harder to find less and less success. Weight class and camp changes did not prove to be fixes, so Lee felt quite aimless when he and the UFC cut ties in 2021—a move that was still surprising despite all the recent frustration. Lee’s lone fight in the two years since was a decision win over Diego Sanchez that was a mixed bag. It was nice to see Lee put together a dominant three-round win for once, but it was also a worry that he could not put away this late-career version of Sanchez at some point. At any rate, perhaps Lee has figured things out in a return that seems to be all risk and no reward. Fakhretdinov can slug it out a bit, but his two-fight UFC career thus far has seen him do little outside of grind out wins, as he shut down Andreas Michailidis and Bryan Battle with his wrestling. Fakhretdinov is not likely to provide enough striking output to wear Lee out and make him uncomfortable. As such, this basically comes down to whether Lee can outwrestle Fakhretdinov from the jump and bank at least two rounds on the scorecards before things potentially go south. It would be nice to see for someone who has had such a frustrating career, but Lee will have to prove it first. The pick is Fakhretdinov via decision.
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Fakhretdinov vs. Lee
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Rosa vs. Santos
Kutateladze vs. Brener
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