Welterweights
Bryan Battle (7-1, 2-0 UFC) vs. Takashi Sato (15-5, 2-3 UFC)It is still a bit difficult to know what to make of Battle, as he essentially enters his post-“Ultimate Fighter” era in this spot. Battle won the 2021 middleweight bracket and was an interesting but still clearly raw prospect. He is definitely a natural scrapper willing to throw out volume, but a lot of his fights relied on his absorbing his opponents’ offense before taking over and outlasting them in the end. That was the story in Battle’s season-winning performance against Gilbert Urbina and to a lesser extent his three-round outpacing of castmate Tresean Gore, but it is still hard to tell exactly how far he can take that approach before digging himself too deep of a hole to get out of. To his credit, Battle has been improving along the way, particularly getting into much better shape once he was able to focus on mixed martial arts full-time. As part of that, he cuts down to welterweight for the first time to take on Sato. Japan’s Sato is a frustrating fighter, as he is an obvious talent who offers much-too-low output to maximize his physical gifts. When Sato actually throws a counter, he has shown some stunning accuracy and power, but against all but the most fragile UFC welterweights, he has mostly just ended up coasting to a loss. Things could line up perfectly for Sato here. Battle provides a lot of defensive openings, and it remains unclear how well his chin holds up with a larger weight cut or against a hard hitter. However, the likelier bet is that Battle can just swamp Sato in volume on the feet and find some success with his wrestling over three rounds. The pick is Battle via decision.
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Oleksiejczuk vs. Alvey
McKinney vs. Gonzalez
Battle vs. Sato
Quinlan vs. Witt
McKenna vs. Granger
Silva vs. Egger