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#6 The Prelims: ESPN card
The upper half of UFC 241’s prelim card will be shown on ESPN, and well, we have a truly baffling headliner, especially when you consider what’s underneath it.
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Devonte Smith returns at Lightweight to face Clay Collard, who is taking the fight on late notice and has gone 4-1 on the regional scene since being released by the UFC in 2015. A bit of a crude brawler in his first UFC stint, his lone memorable outing came in a loss to Max Holloway in which he showed incredible toughness.
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Will that be enough to let him survive Smith? I’m actually going to say no. ‘King Kage’ showed insane punching power in both of his UFC fights thus far and with 9 KO wins on his 11 fight ledger, I think he can take out a former Featherweight here. Smith via KO is my pick.
The most notable prelim comes at Bantamweight, as former top contender Raphael Assuncao takes on surging prospect Cory Sandhagen. Quite how this isn’t headlining is beyond me!
Anyhow, Assuncao lost his last fight to Marlon Moraes but outside of that he’s looked excellent for years now; he’s not the fastest or most explosive fighter but his fundamentals are tremendous and he doesn’t really have any genuine weaknesses.
Sandhagen meanwhile has looked great in his UFC tenure thus far and picked up a huge win over John Lineker in April. For me this all depends on whether Sandhagen can hurt Assuncao on the feet and also avoid his takedown, and really it could go either way given his ceiling hasn’t really been seen yet.
Assuncao via decision seems like the smart pick but a Sandhagen win would be great for the division as a whole.
In another Bantamweight clash, Manny Bermudez faces Casey Kenney. I won’t beat around the bush here; Kenney looked strong in his UFC debut win over Ray Borg and is clearly a talented fighter, but to me Bermudez has elite-level potential – his submission game has looked phenomenal throughout his UFC tenure and he’s made tapping out his opponents look scarily easy. I think he’s on the fast track to the top ten and Kenney will end up tapping in short order here.
Finally, Drakkar Klose faces Christos Giagos in a Lightweight match that will likely be decided on the ground somehow. Essentially, Giagos lacks the athleticism to really reach the top level of the UFC, but his grappling is good enough to take out lower-level opponents all day long.
Klose is a grade-A athlete however and he’s a powerful wrestler and striker to boot. If Giagos can put him on his back then it’s a winnable fight, but I’m not convinced he can and if Klose gets the takedown then I could see him beating on Giagos from the top. He could also keep the fight standing to punish him, too. Klose by TKO is my pick here.
