Featherweights
Josh Emmett (14-2) vs. Mirsad Bektic (13-1)
Odds: Bektic (-165), Emmett (+145)
With six wins in seven bouts, Bektic's UFC career has certainly been a success, but there's still the sense that he has yet to meet expectations. That's mostly due to the sheer amount of hype that followed Bektic into the promotion; circa 2014, Bektic topped just about every list of the best prospects in the sport, and dominant wins over Chas Skelly, Paul Redmond and Lucas Martins only added fuel to that fire. But Bektic ended 2015 with a torn ACL that kept him out of action for nearly a year, and long injury layoffs have unfortunately become a part of Bektic's narrative. A 2017 loss to Darren Elkins also raised some concerns about Bektic's chin and gas tank; he absolutely mauled Elkins for the better part of two rounds but slowed down considerably come the third, allowing Elkins to turn things around and score one of the biggest upsets in recent memory. 2018 saw Bektic rebound nicely, absolutely crushing Godofredo Castro before getting a much-needed win over Ricardo Lamas, but another injury layoff has slowed Bektic's momentum yet again. Still, there's been enough improvement from fight to fight to suggest that Bektic is arriving at his championship upside, just a bit behind schedule, and Emmett is a solid next opponent for the Bosnian-American to work his way up the ladder.
Emmett's had a strange UFC career with a sudden rise. The Team Alpha Male product was a nondescript lightweight but looked good in his featherweight debut back in 2017; Emmett was fighting a converted bantamweight in Felipe Arantes, but showed some surprising power, taking his talents down a weight class. When an injury to Frankie Edgar caused some reshuffling in the title picture later that year, Ricardo Lamas was left without an opponent and Emmett surprisingly got the call, and even more surprisingly starched Lamas for a first-round knockout to become an unlikely contender at 145. But things didn't go nearly as well against Jeremy Stephens a few months later, with Stephens ending the bout with a particularly violent combination of strikes that left Emmett with a ton of facial damage including a fractured orbital bone. That obviously led to a long layoff, and left Emmett with a bunch of questions to answer in his comeback fight against Michael Johnson this past March. That fight was a mixed bag; Emmett looked cautious in an interminable affair, but came out of the bout with two major pluses: one, he still looked relatively durable despite suffering such a hellacious list of injuries, and two, he absolutely annihilated Johnson with an overhand right to bring the fight to a screeching halt. With that win, it looks like Emmett's a growing concern at featherweight rather than someone who got a big fluke victory, and he'll look to further prove that here by beating Bektic.
This is the proper test for both men. As a prospect, Bektic is the A-side, but his hard-charging style on straight lines means he's constantly walking a fine line between overwhelming his opponents and putting himself in a ton of danger if they can survive and adjust. And at this point, Emmett's a proven commodity to have one-shot power that can knock out almost any foe at 145. So if this fight mostly takes place on the feet, it's an interesting chess match that should be filled with tension, even if Emmett starts to dictate things to slow the pace down. But Emmett's defensive wrestling is still relatively unproven, and Bektic's shown a willingness to take things to the mat as needed. Again, if Emmett can keep this standing if things get fascinating quickly, but the pick is for Bektic to rely on grinding this one out and pouring on some offense from top position en route to a decision victory.
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