Bantamweights
Montel Jackson (12-2, 6-2 UFC) vs. Rani Yahya (28-10-1, 13-4-1 UFC)It is unclear where he stands at 38 years of age, but Yahya has a case as one of the most underrated fighters in the UFC. Yahya has had an old man’s game going back even further than 2011, when the Brazilian came over to the UFC as one of the standouts in World Extreme Cagefighting. He has fallen in love with his striking at times, but he has always been at his best as an unathletic but crafty wrestling and grappling specialist. That has led Yahya to some impressive streaks of success—he has enjoyed four separate runs under the UFC banner where he has gone undefeated in three straight fights—but he has never gotten over the hump to any sort of grand success. His ugly style already puts him at a matchmaking disadvantage, and he has had a knack for suffering an ill-timed loss or stretch of inactivity. To that end, Yahya finally got a big-name pairing against Cody Garbrandt in 2022, only for that booking to repeatedly fall through due to injuries on his side. Instead, he now gets a tough test against a top prospect. Jackson is a bit hard to parse, owing in part to his own stretches of inactivity and bad matchmaking luck. “Quik” came to the UFC as a high-end physical talent with only a year of pro experience under his belt, and while he has had some flashes of brilliance in the years since, his game still feels like less than the sum of its parts even as he keeps winning. Things click a lot less for Jackson when he is forced to react and particularly when his opponent looks to wrestle. Despite his size and wrestling background, Jackson has consistently been kept on his toes and even outwrestled at points in fights that he should seemingly win handily, which is the main concern here. Yahya is skilled enough to blow open that apparent hole in Jackson’s game, but the bet is that the younger prospect can still come out ahead in an ugly fight. Jackson does usually manage to regroup from losing moments, and it is also hard to imagine him getting thrown off at all by Yahya’s striking; it is well-practiced but does not present enough of a threat to get in Jackson’s head. Even if Yahya outwrestles the Dana White’s Contender Series graduate at will, he will still probably need an outright submission win since it is hard not to see Jackson separating himself on the scorecards as a much more effective hitter. The pick is Jackson in an ugly decision.
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