Middleweights
Julian Marquez (9-3, 3-2 UFC) vs. Deron Winn (7-3, 2-3 UFC)This should be another entertaining war involving Marquez, even if it is now a bit unclear where his career is headed. “The Cuban Missile Crisis” set a tone immediately upon his UFC debut—a back-and-forth battle with Darren Stewart in 2017 that was the best fight of the night. Marquez is not always the technically deepest fighter, but he is willing to leverage his durability into aggression and eat plenty of damage in the hopes of finishing his opponent. However, Alessio Di Chirico neutralized Marquez enough to take an uninspiring split decision, and then Marquez suffered a cascade of injuries that kept him out of action for two and a half years. Upon Marquez’s return, he was once again able to turn violence into victories over Maki Pitolo and Sam Alvey but fought a much smarter fight than usual in terms of picking his spots. That gave way to another year-plus injury layoff, this time taking Marquez out of action until his June fight against Gregory Rodrigues. That figured to be a fight where Marquez could leverage his durability once again, but instead, it turned out to be a flat performance that saw Rodrigues quickly damage and knock out the Dana White’s Contender Series graduate with shocking ease. If that was a sign that Marquez’s career has caught up with him sooner than expected, it could be a worrying sign going forward, even in this matchup. Winn is an obvious talent, a standout wrestler who has put in plenty of work to build out a solid striking game that can bring an impressive amount of volume. However, the issue for Winn will always be that he is a 5-foot-6 middleweight, roughly the height of a typical bantamweight but so thickly built that a cut down to welterweight or lower appears entirely out of the question; Winn has even had issues making it down to 185 pounds. That has left Winn stuck when it comes to mounting an effective level of offense against most opponents. Striking is difficult given his typical reach disadvantage, and while Winn can usually find some early success with his wrestling, that process is laborious enough to leave him gassed by the later rounds. There is a chance he could thread the needle here, particularly with Marquez being more willing than ever to cede initiative to his opponent and having some potential durability issues. With that said, this is another matchup where it is hard to favor Winn and his size deficit in a war of attrition. The pick is Marquez via second-round submission.
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