Preview: UFC 302 ‘Makhachev vs. Poirier’

Order Now! UFC 302 "Makhachev vs. Poirier" Saturday at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+

Welterweights

Randy Brown (18-5, 12-5 UFC) vs. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos (24-7-1, 10-3-1 UFC)

ODDS: Brown (-175), Zaleski dos Santos (+145)

This figures to be an entertaining welterweight bout between two fighters who have seemingly been on the verge of a breakthrough for the last decade. Brown came into the UFC as a 6-foot-3 prospect with a tantalizing array of skills, and while “Rude Boy” is a much better fighter in 2024, that general outline remains the same. Brown has one of the highest ceilings in the division but is still consistently inconsistent, as he almost seems worse off for the variety of options that his talent allows. Even when there are matchups where Brown can lean on one or two techniques, he’d rather cycle through ideas that are just as likely to fail as end the fight. Brown’s last three fights just about tell the tale. He got blown out of the water against Jack Della Maddalena, won a needlessly ugly decision over Wellington Turman and then looked possibly the sharpest he has in his entire career with a quick knockout of Muslim Salikhov in February. That last version of Brown could quickly find himself in the title mix if he keeps things up, but that’s always the concern for him. That’s especially true against a perennial tough out in Zaleski dos Santos.

Order Now! UFC 302 "Makhachev vs. Poirier" Saturday at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+

Zaleski dos Santos narrowly dropped his UFC debut to Nicolas Dalby in 2015, then chugged along as one of the promotion’s best-kept secrets for the next few years, providing entertaining violence on the prelims and even knocking out Sean Strickland as part of a seven-fight winning streak. A 2019 win over Curtis Millender in a co-main event looked like the start of a long-overdue promotional push for “Capoeira,” but he then followed that up with the worst performance of his UFC career in a loss to Jingliang Li, after which he has struggled to regain his lost momentum. A 2021 win over Benoit St. Denis has aged well, though Zaleski dos Santos subsequently missed over a year of action due to a drug test failure. He has looked since his return. He’s obviously lost a step now that he has entered his late-30s, but he’s strung together a hard-fought win over Abubakar Nurmagomedov and a huge comeback to score a draw over Rinat Fakhretdinov. It will be nice to see Zaleski dos Santos get an action matchup after facing two grinders, and he should be able to make some hay here. Brown might be able to pour things on early and score a quick finish if he’s on the ball, but given the trendline of his UFC career, it seems likely that Zaleski dos Santos can overcome a rough start and find some success pressing some violent ideas. The pick is Zaleski dos Santos via third-round stoppage.

Jump To »
Makhachev vs. Poirier
Strickland vs. Costa
Holland vs. Oleksiejczuk
Almeida vs. Romanov
Brown vs. dos Santos
The Prelims