🥊 The UFC Info and Prediction Thread

[Kagaru]

Maybe they would really give Paddy vs Topuria a chance if the two can agree to do it. Just need to hype it more or until Dana hates Paddy. As for now Paddy still can gather a crowd for the right audience. It would be a waste to kill the career of the guy as he just started to mature in his skills.

iirc Topuria wanted to move up as well to WW, both Islam and him in this division would race up, they both wipe out the ranked ones to meet on top.

A fight between Paddy and Topuria would certainly be very popular should both of them be willing to accept the challenge. The potential is still there with paddy and it would be such a shame to see his career dead end at a time he is in the process of gaining momentum. The jump in weight could stir things up and due to the fact that he alongside Islam are mixing things around at that weight. In case they continue to win then a clash of the titans at the top would be quite an amazing event to witness.

[TopTort777]

UFC 319



Date: August 16, 2025

Early Prelims: Sun, Aug 17 / 1:00 AM GMT+3
Preliminary Sat, Sun, Aug 17 / 3:00 AM GMT+3
Main Card: Sun, Aug 17 / 5:00 AM GMT+3

Venue: United Center

Main card (ESPN)
Middleweight: Dricus du Plessis vs. Khamzat Chimaev
Featherweight: Lerone Murphy vs. Aaron Pico            
Welterweight: Geoff Neal vs. Carlos Prates            
Middleweight: Jared Cannonier vs. Michael Page            
Flyweight: Tim Elliott vs. Kai Asakura

Preliminary card (ESPN)
Lightweight: King Green vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira            
Middleweight: Gerald Meerschaert vs. Michał Oleksiejczuk            
Women's Strawweight: Jéssica Andrade vs. Loopy Godinez            
Lightweight: Chase Hooper vs. Alexander Hernandez

Early preliminary card (ESPN+ / Disney+ / UFC Fight Pass)
Lightweight: Edson Barboza vs. Drakkar Klose            
Middleweight: Bryan Battle vs. Nursulton Ruziboev   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFC_319

[tokeweed]

^  Love that main event but the co main is weak.  So is the fight before the co main.  But I like to see both Murphy and Prates in the cage.  A parlay for both of them could be a good spot.

Cannonier vs MVP will be an interesting match up.  Bet will be for the underdog whoever it will be.  Haven't checked the odds yet.  

If Elliot is in good shape, he'll wrestle fck Asakura for all three rounds imho.  But we never know with him these days.

All the matches in the prelims are solid and could be good enough for a Fight Night main card.  The early prelims are decent too.  Overall a good event even if some of the match ups in the main card are kinda weak.

UFC 319:  Countdown - Full Episode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daMgKfsXHNI

https://www.sportscasting.com/uk/news/topuria-vs-gaethje-confirmed-ufc-323/

Justin Gaethje confirmed as Ilia Topuria's next rival. The two will fight at the UFC 323 on December 13.
So it's good to see Topuria maintaining his 2 fights a year career pace. I'm glad the UFC decided not to keep him idle for too long, like they did with some of top fighters in the past.
Justin hasn't been very active. He only had one fight in 2024 (a loss to Holloway) but defeated Fiziev in March 2025.

On paper it looks like an easy fight for Ilia and probably another KO win. Justin is a brawler that keeps pushing forward, which is something Topuria like to capitalise on. Then again, Fiziev was considered one of the best strikers in the division, but Justin kept it standing and still got a decision win.

What are your thoughts on it? Do you think Gaethje deserves the shot? He's currently ranked 5th.

Oof...  Damn, really?  Lmao.  Looks like we're gonna see another guy sleeping in the cage.  There's no amount of trash talk from Gaethje that would make me believe that he could win this match up.  He'll be sleeping at R1 or R2.

[TopTort777]

Indeed the level of coolness of main event does not match level of coolness of rest of the card Indeed co-main event could be bigger stars.

Have you heard that UFC has signed 7.7 billion deal with Paramaunt+ ? Here is link about it https://www.ufc.com/news/dana-white-new-ufc-deal-paramount. What does it means for us? There will be no PPV anymore. If you want to watch UFC live - subscribe for Paramount+. Dont know if I want to have another subscription in addition to netflix, youtube and spotify... On the other hand its 10-15 bucks per month only.

[jakelyson]

UFC 319



Date: August 16, 2025

Main card (ESPN)
Middleweight: Dricus du Plessis vs. Khamzat Chimaev

Whoa! Khamzat Chimaev is back, and I never expected him to face Du Plessis. This is going to be an interesting bout for sure. I was out and never saw any UFC action for a couple of months, but I am sure it's back, and I thought that Khamzat was still out of commission, but upon seeing that he already fought Robert Whittaker last year, I was really hype to see him again, because right now he is taking a yearly fight maybe becuase of his condition but that is alright.

^  Love that main event but the co main is weak.

I don't know if I would agree with you, but Lerone Murphy seems strong, but his opponent may be an average but Aaron Pico had a good amount of knockout wins in his record while having 2 submission wins is not also, bad but Lerone Murphy for sure is a great fighter for me not a weak co main but not a great one either I would surely go in the middle with this out but the Main Event is a must see for sure.

[TopTort777]

Whoa! Khamzat Chimaev is back, and I never expected him to face Du Plessis. This is going to be an interesting bout for sure. I was out and never saw any UFC action for a couple of months

Dont want to ask where have you been those 3 months, but during them far more interesting and exiting things have happened besides Chimaev vs DDP fight Cant imagine how can I form a list of better matchups and events I think it will be easier just to go through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_in_UFC list and see what is new to you. Biggest news most probably is Jon Jones has finally retired

[tokeweed]

^  Love that main event but the co main is weak.

I don't know if I would agree with you, but Lerone Murphy seems strong, but his opponent may be an average but Aaron Pico had a good amount of knockout wins in his record while having 2 submission wins is not also, bad but Lerone Murphy for sure is a great fighter for me not a weak co main but not a great one either I would surely go in the middle with this out but the Main Event is a must see for sure.

^  What I mean with 'weak' is the guys fighting aren't really known guys.  If it were up to me, I'd make Cannonier vs MVP the co main just because of name value.

Anyway, here are a couple of replays for the guys involved in the main event.  This gonna be goood.    Who are you guys picking?  DDP is very tempting at 2.90.

Dricus Du Plessis vs Israel Adesanya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clIOR9_gu4g

Khamzat Chimaev vs Robert Whittaker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlAuBhsCHyI

Indeed the level of coolness of main event does not match level of coolness of rest of the card Indeed co-main event could be bigger stars.

Have you heard that UFC has signed 7.7 billion deal with Paramaunt+ ? Here is link about it https://www.ufc.com/news/dana-white-new-ufc-deal-paramount. What does it means for us? There will be no PPV anymore. If you want to watch UFC live - subscribe for Paramount+. Dont know if I want to have another subscription in addition to netflix, youtube and spotify... On the other hand its 10-15 bucks per month only.

So it starts next year...  But what does that mean for people who use the UFC's subscription service?  Are they gonna cancel that?  And if not, does that mean it's gonna be as cheap as the Paramount one?  

[Pumared]

Indeed the level of coolness of main event does not match level of coolness of rest of the card Indeed co-main event could be bigger stars.

Have you heard that UFC has signed 7.7 billion deal with Paramaunt+ ? Here is link about it https://www.ufc.com/news/dana-white-new-ufc-deal-paramount. What does it means for us? There will be no PPV anymore. If you want to watch UFC live - subscribe for Paramount+. Dont know if I want to have another subscription in addition to netflix, youtube and spotify... On the other hand its 10-15 bucks per month only.

It was an interesting move for the UFC, and it should promote fights for Americans. There should be more cards in the US. They'll basically centralize the event there; anyone who wants to take the cards from there will have to pay a lot.

[pawel7777]

Indeed the level of coolness of main event does not match level of coolness of rest of the card Indeed co-main event could be bigger stars.

Have you heard that UFC has signed 7.7 billion deal with Paramaunt+ ? Here is link about it https://www.ufc.com/news/dana-white-new-ufc-deal-paramount. What does it means for us? There will be no PPV anymore. If you want to watch UFC live - subscribe for Paramount+. Dont know if I want to have another subscription in addition to netflix, youtube and spotify... On the other hand its 10-15 bucks per month only.

That's big news indeed. I wonder how will that affect the PPV stars, who were getting their cuts from PPV sales.
There's a risk the top fighters who draw in the most views would not be getting as much as they did with the PPV system, which could take away the incentive for them doing their part in hyping up fights. That's unless the UFC/Paramount come up with other way of measuring fighters' popularity.

But it sounds like a win for the UFC, especially considering previous rumours about their low PPV sales. They wouldn't have to worry about that for a while now.

[bbc.reporter]

Indeed the level of coolness of main event does not match level of coolness of rest of the card Indeed co-main event could be bigger stars.

Have you heard that UFC has signed 7.7 billion deal with Paramaunt+ ? Here is link about it https://www.ufc.com/news/dana-white-new-ufc-deal-paramount. What does it means for us? There will be no PPV anymore. If you want to watch UFC live - subscribe for Paramount+. Dont know if I want to have another subscription in addition to netflix, youtube and spotify... On the other hand its 10-15 bucks per month only.

It was an interesting move for the UFC, and it should promote fights for Americans. There should be more cards in the US. They'll basically centralize the event there; anyone who wants to take the cards from there will have to pay a lot.

I am not very certain on what you are implying. The UFC is very much centralized already with uncle Dana having the power to decide where they will hold events and also his matchmakers creating the list of fighters and who they will fight.

Also, the only importance for the fans is if this new deal with Paramount Pictures will give us a cheaper choice to watch the UFC hehehe. However, I am quite certain many fans do not care because they can stream this freely without payment hehehehehee.

[OgNasty]

Looking forward to seeing Khamzat Chimaev vs Robert Whittaker this weekend. I feel like Khamzat is still the guy to beat in the UFC right now. He’s had some pretty vicious wins. I think his competition is getting better so it will be more of a challenge this time, but I think he is still the guy to beat in his weight class.

[TopTort777]

Looking forward to seeing Khamzat Chimaev vs Robert Whittaker this weekend. I feel like Khamzat is still the guy to beat in the UFC right now. He’s had some pretty vicious wins. I think his competition is getting better so it will be more of a challenge this time, but I think he is still the guy to beat in his weight class.

Khamzat if fighting Dricus du Plessis this weekend He as already fought Whittaker. Or you want to rewatch/watch for the first time their fight? Btw, Chimaev already met DDP backstage https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0cnC0AmRa1o. Either it a bad camera angle, but Chimaev looks bigger than DDP, while DDP always seems big for middleweight. Glad that Chimaev transformed from "Smesh and kill everibadi!!" in to such calm and respectful fighter.

[tokeweed]

^  Not that big imho.  He def looks taller but 'size' over all, let's wait for the face offs.  And I can't wait for the pre fight press conference of this one as we've seen in the past of DPP broke Strickland and Adesanya with the mind games and the trash talk.

Anyway, nobody has posted their picks for the main event...  Who you guys got?  DDP as the underdog or Chim?  As said before DDP as the decent underdog is tempting.

UFC 319:  Pre Fight Press Conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G4_q7ekIkE

[TopTort777]

I am only interested in two fights; main event where I would go with Chimaev. I feel like wrestling would the thing that will end this fight, rear naked choke with high probability. Just dont know in which round, second or third. Chimaev has been focusing on cardio a lot this time. Second fight I am interested is Cannonier vs MVP. Jared is a fighter in age already. It looks like he is sent to slaughter. 100% MVP would outstrike him.

Some suspicious x-files drama. In the media started to hype news about Caio Borralho will back up main event. Not always such news sneak, but when it does I start to build theories. Why such news appear?  He is having his own fight in beginning of September. If this fake? Because going through 2 weigh cuts is stupid. Why back up info appeared? Because either Chimaev or DDP have troubles? Once again Chimaev has health issues? Or UFC dont want to lose title fight? Chimaev seems to be relax these days and give lots if interviews and flash in media, then problems might be with DDP? I think Chimaev wont agree for a non-title fight.

[Pumared]

I am only interested in two fights; main event where I would go with Chimaev. I feel like wrestling would the thing that will end this fight, rear naked choke with high probability. Just dont know in which round, second or third. Chimaev has been focusing on cardio a lot this time. Second fight I am interested is Cannonier vs MVP. Jared is a fighter in age already. It looks like he is sent to slaughter. 100% MVP would outstrike him.

Some suspicious x-files drama. In the media started to hype news about Caio Borralho will back up main event. Not always such news sneak, but when it does I start to build theories. Why such news appear?  He is having his own fight in beginning of September. If this fake? Because going through 2 weigh cuts is stupid. Why back up info appeared? Because either Chimaev or DDP have troubles? Once again Chimaev has health issues? Or UFC dont want to lose title fight? Chimaev seems to be relax these days and give lots if interviews and flash in media, then problems might be with DDP? I think Chimaev wont agree for a non-title fight.

I'd add one more fight, which I also think is interesting: the Geoff vs. Prates fight. Regarding the main event, I want Chimaev to win. I believe he'll be able to defend his belt for longer, and it would be interesting to see him prove himself. And he deserves it, too. Another interesting fact I saw is that both fighters have never lost since joining the UFC.

[pawel7777]

(...) Either it a bad camera angle, but Chimaev looks bigger than DDP, while DDP always seems big for middleweight. (...)

I was genuinely flabbergasted when I first saw that video. DDP looked like he was one weight class below Chim. There must've been something up with the camera angle.
The 'official' height per Wikipedia is 188cm for Chimaev and 183cm for Du Plessis, but I have my doubts on whether they are reliable.
Face off will tell the truth (unless one of them uses high-soles shoes etc).

As for betting on that fight, I'm sitting this one out.

[Pumared]

(...) Either it a bad camera angle, but Chimaev looks bigger than DDP, while DDP always seems big for middleweight. (...)

I was genuinely flabbergasted when I first saw that video. DDP looked like he was one weight class below Chim. There must've been something up with the camera angle.
The 'official' height per Wikipedia is 188cm for Chimaev and 183cm for Du Plessis, but I have my doubts on whether they are reliable.
Face off will tell the truth (unless one of them uses high-soles shoes etc).

As for betting on that fight, I'm sitting this one out.

It's wise not to bet on this fight, really; it will be an excellent fight to watch. But if I had to bet, I would go with Chimaev because I believe he is more complete and in every fight he manages to impose himself well.

[TopTort777]

Regarding the main event, I want Chimaev to win. I believe he'll be able to defend his belt for longer, and it would be interesting to see him prove himself.

With his rare fights due to health issues no wonder he will keep belt for a long time Also I dont see many fighters in middleweight who can compete with him on same level and give him a tough fight. Maybe only few guys only, like DDP or de Ridder. The rest are either old and demotivated or wont be able to survive wrestling However I hardly see his future in middleweight. It seems more that he loves routine of training and killing himself in gym, than fighting.

[tokeweed]

I am only interested in two fights; main event where I would go with Chimaev. I feel like wrestling would the thing that will end this fight, rear naked choke with high probability. Just dont know in which round, second or third. Chimaev has been focusing on cardio a lot this time. Second fight I am interested is Cannonier vs MVP. Jared is a fighter in age already. It looks like he is sent to slaughter. 100% MVP would outstrike him.

Some suspicious x-files drama. In the media started to hype news about Caio Borralho will back up main event. Not always such news sneak, but when it does I start to build theories. Why such news appear?  He is having his own fight in beginning of September. If this fake? Because going through 2 weigh cuts is stupid. Why back up info appeared? Because either Chimaev or DDP have troubles? Once again Chimaev has health issues? Or UFC dont want to lose title fight? Chimaev seems to be relax these days and give lots if interviews and flash in media, then problems might be with DDP? I think Chimaev wont agree for a non-title fight.

I think if Chimaev doesn't finish DDP within the first couple of rounds, it's prolly a good live bet for DDP esp if we see Chim fading a bit and DDP holding on.  Between the two DDP has 5 round experience and has obv better cardio.

And a spot that Chim is winning the first couple of rounds should give DDP really good odds by then. 

Anyway, it looks like Murphy, Cannonier and Neal all look good as underdogs.  Might as well throw in Elliott in there.  Lol. 

[TopTort777]

Btw in recent interview to Russian Youtube channel, Chimaev told that he is not planning for early stoppage but rather preparing for fight to go full distance. He has been training cardio more than for previous fights, and bigger part of him camp went with Tsarukyan.

For some reason Chimaev vs Burns fight came to my mind. Chimaev took first round, lost second, became duff and totally forgot gameplan his coach was shouting. That is why he went in punch exchange so much in third round, what really disappointed his coach. Conclusion - if he did not win in the start, he becomes pissed off and makes mistakes Gonna DM that to DDP in twitter rn