Preview: UFC Fight Night 224 Prelims

Lightweights

Marc Diakiese (16-6) vs. Joel Alvarez (19-3)
Odds: Alvarez (-190), Diakiese (+160)

Diakiese is still keeping his head above water, but his UFC career has been a frustrating ride. He was one of the top prospects in Europe and advertised as an electric knockout artist when he made it to the UFC in 2016, though it took "Bonecrusher" a bit to get going—his first two wins in the UFC saw him mostly lean on his physicality in the form of his wrestling, but a 30-second destruction of Teemu Packalen raised the hopes that Diakiese would be ready for a step up in competition. Frankly, he wasn’t. Losses to Drakkar Klose, Dan Hooker and Nasrat Haqparast all look better in hindsight, but at the time were frustrating affairs that saw Diakiese unable to either scare off his opponents on the feet or control them on the mat. But Diakiese has plugged along in the years since then with roughly an even record, mixing moments of impressive athleticism with fights where he's technically outclassed and eventually settling into a wrestling-heavy approach in his last few wins. Add in that Diakiese does seem to slowly be improving, and things could be a lot worse, even if his December loss to Michael Johnson might have been his most vexing performance yet; Diakiese's defeats have usually either seen him get caught out of nowhere or simply try to stay competitive in a losing battle from the jump, but his fight against Johnson was a bout that seemed winnable, only for Diakiese to never kick into second gear and instead coast to a decision loss. It's hard to say exactly where Diakiese is at nowadays, which is a bad time to get a dangerous opponent in Spain's Alvarez.

Alvarez was an afterthought when the UFC signed him in 2019, as he had racked up a big record against weak competition and then promptly got nothing done in his UFC debut against Damir Ismagulov. But from there, "El Fenomeno" went on a shockingly successful run by taking advantage of his frame; a massive lightweight at 6-foot-3, Alvarez is able to weaponize his length and frustrate his opponent into pursuing takedowns, at which point he's proven to be a venomous submission artist from his back, scoring quick taps of Joe Duffy and Alexander Yakovlev before running through Thiago Moises. Admittedly, Arman Tsarukyan blew Alvarez's game wide open, but if it takes that level of wrestler to make it through what Alvarez brings to the table, the Spaniard is in a solid spot. As seemingly always, Diakiese has the physical tools to win this, but it's unclear if he can actually ride this one out— even if he finds some success with his wrestling, Alvarez has proven to be difficult to control, and Diakiese doesn't seem in a particularly great spot to deal with the type of chaos that Alvarez figures to consistently create. The pick is Alvarez via second-round submission.

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