Preview: UFC Fight Night 242 ‘Burns vs. Brady’

Featherweights

Steve Garcia (16-5, 5-2 UFC) vs. Kyle Nelson (16-5-1, 4-4-1 UFC)

ODDS: Garcia (-192), Nelson (+160)

Two featherweights on surprising winning streaks clash for what should be an entertaining battle. Nelson made his UFC debut on late notice in 2018, and his performance set the tone for the next few years, as Canada’s “Monster” looked surprisingly sharp early in an upset bid against Diego Ferreira before fading and getting finished. So it continued to go for Nelson, who seemingly had all the tools to excel but none of the composure. Save for a quick knockout of Marco Polo Reyes, Nelson would consistently fire on all cylinders for about a round until a combination of exhaustion and anxiety took hold during the back half of the fight. It was a bit of a surprise that Nelson was even still around for his fight against Blake Bilder in June 2023, so he picked an excellent moment to have things suddenly click, as he put in three rounds of strong work to coast to an unexpected decision win. After looking similarly composed in a win over Fernando Padilla to cap off 2023, it looked like Nelson’s momentum wouldn’t carry over into 2024, as he drew a tough pairing against Bill Algeo, a historically durable pressure fighter who figured to force him back into his old habits. That was true to an extent—Nelson didn’t look particularly comfortable against Algeo compared to his previous few performances—but the Canadian showed off that he has made some other improvements, as he sat on his power enough to score an unexpected knockout late in the first round. This was initially slated to serve as Nelson’s attempt to break into the rankings against Calvin Kattar, but an injury means that he will once again have to steel himself in the face of aggression, this time against a knockout artist in Garcia.

Garcia’s all-out style figured to run him into trouble when he signed with the UFC in 2020, and indeed, “Mean Machine” had a rough start to his Octagon campaign, getting outwrestled by Luis Pena, rebounding with a win in an all-out war against Charlie Ontiveros and then getting quickly finished by Maheshate Hayisaer. If Garcia’s fights are essentially coinflips, he’s now on a run of good luck with four straight knockouts, even if he has had to stage some comebacks along the way. Garcia’s aggression could turn this into quick work, especially if he can get to his particularly vicious ground-and-pound, but the read is that this could look like Nelson’s fight against Algeo. Nelson might not be having a good time for most of this fight, but he has learned to throw hard enough that he should be able to find the chin of an opponent who’s much more defensively flammable than Algeo historically. The pick is Nelson via first-round knockout.

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Burns vs. Brady
Silva vs. Andrade
Garcia vs. Nelson
Schnell vs. Durden
Peek vs. Ashmoz
Rong vs. Padilla
The Prelims