UFC makes its way back to St. Louis for the first time since 2018! 13 fights are featured with heavyweights Derrick Lewis and Rodrigo Nascimento squaring off on top.
Check our best bet for the main event and 3 other fights before the action begins at 4 PM EST this Saturday.
The featured prelim will be a classic striker vs. grappler matchup, as kickboxer Borshchev will try to fend off Jiu-Jitsu specialist Hooper.
It would be in Hooper's best interest to grapple early with Borshchev in an attempt to drain his opponent for the later rounds. He may very well be successful with this strategy, as Borshchev has been taken down 13 times in his last 3 fights.
To counter, Borshchev will look to sprawl and brawl in hopes of catching Hooper on the feet. The Russian has 6 TKOs and prefers a stand-up fight. That will be our major concern early, but I think Hooper has success with his grappling to begin the fight, with Borshchev working well enough on his back to survive past the 1.5 mark.
Borshchev has yet to be subbed, and 4 out of his 5 UFC fights have gone over 1.5. Additionally, 5 of Hooper's 8 have seen the third. I think we have more than a playable number for the over here.
If you haven't bought stock in the next big thing at heavyweight, then this week may be the last time to do so. The former Olympic bronze medalist in Taekwondo will make his second appearance in the Octagon when he takes on former boxer Waldo Cortes-Acosta.
If you're unfamiliar with Despaigne, all of his wins have come from first-round TKOs. His last three fights have gone a total of 25 seconds, with his UFC debut being the longest at 18 seconds.
He draws another favorable matchup with Cortes-Acosta having no wrestling background to take advantage of the only hole in Despaigne's game. Instead, Cortes-Acosta is a boxer who prefers to brawl in his fights. For that reason, this feels like another showcase matchup to push Despaigne to greater things. Expect another quick finish for the Cuban.
For our parlay this week, we're going to go with two of the best strikers on the card, Trey Waters and Carlos Ulberg.
Waters will face Billy Goff in the prelims. I'll admit that Goff is a tough, durable fighter who can eat shots and push forward. However, I can't get over the fact that he's been hit hard in the majority of his fights. He likes to get inside boxing range while he also looks for takedowns. When doing so, he usually eats a couple of shots and has been dropped because of it.
Meanwhile, Waters will have a 5-inch read advantage and has shown that he's dangerous when fighting at range. 6 of his 8 wins have been stoppages, and Goff has looked too hittable to pass on an accurate striker like Waters here.
Carlos Ulberg is also a dangerous striker. 8 of his 10 wins have come from stoppages, and 3 of his last 4 have been TKO wins. He'll take on a powerful Alonzo Menifield in what could be his toughest test yet.
Menifield is an all-around good fighter, but he doesn't do one thing great. His cardio holds his wrestling back, and his power punches should be able to be countered by the cleaner striker Ulberg. I see the Australian catching Menifield once he times Menifield's big looping hooks. Ulberg is also more than capable of working in and out for three rounds. I think we see his best work yet to make it 6 wins in a row for the up-and-coming light heavyweight.
The main event will feature the heavyweight division, with the returning vet Derrick Lewis taking on Rodrigo Nascimento to cap the night off.
Lewis is the betting favorite and holds the record for most knockouts in UFC history, but I think Nascimento will attempt to grapple with him early in hopes of slowing the power puncher down.
It's well known that Lewis is a one-dimensional fighter who lacks takedown defense, so I would be shocked if Nascimento failed to shoot at least once on him.
Although we haven't seen much of Nascimento's grappling lately, he has shown that he can level change when needed in previous fights. I'm not 100% confident that he'll succeed in grappling with Lewis, but the attempts should be enough to slow the first five minutes down to get us to round 2.
If not, it's more than possible Nascimento survives the first on the feet, or we see a more cautious fight to start round 1, with 4 other possible rounds in mind.