UFC 251: Usman vs. Masvidal - Predictions and Picks

#6 UFC 251 Prelims: ESPN card

Former UFC title challenger Volkan Oezdemir headlines this weekend's prelims

It would appear that all of UFC 251’s prelims are being shown on both ESPN and the ESPN+ streaming service. And as you’d imagine from a stacked card, they’re all pretty excellent.

Heading the portion is a Light-Heavyweight clash between Volkan Oezdemir and newcomer Jiri Prochazka. A native of the Czech Republic, Prochazka certainly isn’t short on experience. He’s 26-3 overall and is coming off wins in Japan’s Rizin promotion over CB Dollaway, Fabio Maldonado, and ‘King Mo’ Lawal.

This should be a battle of strikers. Prochazka has extremely heavy hands and of his 26 wins, 23 have come by KO or TKO. However, Oezdemir is incredibly tough, has heavy strikes himself, and of course, has much more UFC experience. If he can take Prochazka into the deeper waters of this fight, he could drown the newcomer. My pick is Oezdemir, either by decision or a latter-round TKO.

We could be in for a treat at Welterweight, as flashy strikers collide in a fascinating match. Brazil’s Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos – a rare practitioner of Capoeira – takes on Dagestan’s ‘King of Kung Fu’, Muslim Salikhov. However, I actually don’t suspect we’ll see a wild striking battle here.

In his past fights with fellow dangerous strikers, Zaleski has instead unleashed his ground game. A Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, he has three submission wins on his ledger and choked Curtis Millender out in the UFC in 2019. Salikhov, meanwhile, appeared to struggle with the ground game of Alex Garcia in their fight, succumbing to a choke in the second round. My pick then is Zaleski via submission.

At Featherweight, wild Finnish brawler Makwan Amirkhani returns to take on Scotland’s Danny Henry. A tough grappler, Henry does have two UFC wins to his name, but I think he’s a little overmatched here.

Amirkhani is incredibly aggressive in all areas and has finishing skills both standing and on the ground. In fact, he’s probably a superior grappler to the Scot. I feel like the two will hit the ground at some point – and Amirkhani will come out on top via tap-out.

In the Lightweight division, longtime veteran Leonardo Santos is back for the first time since June 2019. He takes on unbeaten newcomer Roman Bogatov. This should depend on how much Santos has left in the tank. At 40 years old he’s surely past his athletic prime, and yet he’s unbeaten in the UFC at 6-0-1 and has even knocked out Kevin Lee.

This also appears to be a favorable fight for him as Bogatov primarily relies on his grappling. And while Santos has two TKO’s to his name in the UFC, he’s more well-known as a legitimate world-class grappler. With that in mind, Santos via TKO is my pick.