Preview: UFC Fight Night 242 Prelims

Featherweights

Gabriel Santos (10-2, 0-2 UFC) vs. Zha Yi (25-4, 0-1 UFC)

ODDS: Santos (-278), Yi (+225)

It has taken two years, but Yi has finally made his way onto the UFC roster. Yi participated in the last two editions of the “Road to UFC” tournament, losing the final fight of the featherweight bracket in 2023 before winning the most recent event in February. Yi showed some progress along the way, even if the outlines of his game have mostly remained the same. He’s at his best hunting for submissions, and failing that, he’s content to wrestle his way to winning a low-output grind. Yi opened up a lot more as a striker and proved even more potent as a grappler in his second run through the tournament. Hopefully those skills serve him well here, as he gets a sneakily tough matchup against Santos.

Santos looked like a fighter who could hit the ground running in the UFC when he was picked up as an injury replacement early last year, and “Mosquitinho” impressed greatly in his promotional debut, even in a loss. His dogged dedication to pressure and offense led to a lot of success against Lerone Murphy, and consensus was that Santos deserved to win what wound up as a split decision defeat. After that performance, it was a bit disappointing that Santos also lost his follow-up, as he was doing well against David Onama in a fun scrap. Onama then suddenly landed a knockout blow. This figures to line up as a bounce-back win for Santos, even if there are some potential pitfalls. Santos’ approach is still mostly defense-optional at this point, and the Brazilian’s willingness to wrestle might leave him open for some submission attempts from Yi. However, this is also a big step up in competition for Yi that he might not be ready for. The pick is Santos via second-round knockout.

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