Bantamweights
Raulian Paiva (21-4) vs. Sergey Morozov (17-5)Odds: Morozov (-140), Paiva (+120)
Through six fights, Raulian Paiva's UFC career has been an interesting journey. Paiva won a contract via the Brazilian edition of the Contender Series in 2018, but seemingly had the bad fortune to hit the promotion as a flyweight prospect just as the UFC was looking to shut the division down. But the UFC kept Paiva around, even after losing two exciting fights to kick off his career, and he's put together a solid run since. Issues with the scale eventually moved Paiva up to 135 pounds around this time last year, at which point the Brazilian scored the biggest win of his career over Kyler Phillips. Paiva was much the same fighter he was as a flyweight, an all-around scrapper with some impressive wrestling ability, but Phillips essentially nullified his own speed and athleticism advantages with an inefficient gameplan that allowed Paiva to walk away with the narrow win. That led Paiva to a blowout loss against Sean O'Malley, who was able to avoid a brawl and tag up Paiva without much effort, so now he looks to remain relevant and rebound here against Morozov. Kazakhstan's Morozov is a fascinating fighter, who cobbled together an unorthodox style after years of a successful regional career. He can hold his own just about anywhere, albeit with a weird approach focused a lot on power more than fundamentals, but all his success hasn't bred much confidence; Morozov looks excellent when he can find some early momentum, but he's quick to get thrown off his game against any type of effective resistance. That will probably be his undoing here; it wouldn't be a shock to see Morozov find some of that early success, but he doesn't look capable of putting Paiva out. In turn, Paiva should wind up repeatedly dragging Morozov into a brawl, and history has shown the latter is not at his best when taken into deep waters; the pick is Paiva via third-round stoppage.
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