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#2 Heavyweight: Blagoy Ivanov vs. Augusto Sakai

Augusto Sakai has yet to taste defeat inside the UFC's Octagon

On the one hand, this co-main event makes perfect sense. The thin nature of the UFC's Heavyweight division means that a big win for either of these two would vault them into title contention, or in the very least, a fight with someone like Alistair Overeem that could lead to title contention. Augusto Sakai is 14-1-1 in his career and already has three wins in the UFC, while Blagoy Ivanov is 18-3 with two wins in the Octagon.

However, the nature and style of both men means that there's every chance we end up with a dull, plodding affair with both fighters looking exhausted before the final buzzer. If that's the case, then this will undoubtedly be a fight to forget. Hopefully, it won't end that way, but their previous fights don't bode too well.

Ivanov – the former Heavyweight champion in the WSOF, now PFL promotion – debuted in the UFC with little fanfare back in 2018. The world-renowned Sambo champion was outpointed in that fight by Junior Dos Santos but was able to edge decisions over Ben Rothwell and Tai Tuivasa before being edged himself back in November by Derrick Lewis.

The Bulgarian has a lot to like in terms of his game; he hits hard, has some solid striking fundamentals and can use a decent jab, and while he hasn't really shown it in the UFC yet, he's definitely a powerful grappler. However, the fact that he stands at just 5'11" means that he's a smaller Heavyweight even with his fireplug-like physique.

That's meant that he's struggled to get into range to land his strikes at times – particularly against Dos Santos – and that he hasn't really been able to put his opponents on the ground that often despite that strong grappling background.

Brazil's Sakai meanwhile is definitely a bigger Heavyweight. Standing at 6'3" and needing to cut weight to make the 265lbs limit, he's not jacked up like Francis Ngannou, for instance, but is just a huge guy – similar to former UFC favorite 'Bigfoot' Silva, in fact.

Like Bigfoot, he's surprisingly quick for a big man and carries huge power in his strikes. Of his 14 wins, 11 have come by KO or TKO – including his UFC victories over Chase Sherman and Marcin Tybura. Perhaps his most impressive win came against Andrei Arlovski, though.

In that fight, Sakai didn't KO the former UFC champ, but he was largely able to land the better strikes than him across 15 minutes, something that was beyond more proven fighters like Ben Rothwell and Stefan Struve. Arlovski's not a contender these days, but to outpoint him standing is still relatively impressive.

The issues for Sakai largely stand around his penchant for winging punches without too much in the way of defense. He hits extremely hard, but is clearly open to taking a hard counterpunch – not that anyone in the UFC has done that yet – and as we saw in his lone career loss to Cheick Kongo in Bellator, if he's put on the ground, he isn't really that great.

With that in mind, he's going to have to keep Ivanov at a distance to win this fight. If the Bulgarian can get inside his reach (Sakai has a 4" advantage), then there's no doubt that he can probably drag him down from the clinch and work him over from there, perhaps even latching onto a submission.

If he can keep Ivanov at the end of his punches though, he's more than capable of outpointing him to a decision – even if another KO looks unlikely due to the strength of the Bulgarian's chin.

Despite Sakai being on the better run, I'm going with Ivanov here. To really outpoint him, Sakai will need to keep him at the end of a ramrod jab – as Dos Santos largely did – and needs to avoid the clinch at all costs. I'm just not sure that he can do that, as the striking we've seen him use for the most part isn't measured or technical, it's more a lot of power strikes thrown with surprising speed.

Given that Ivanov isn't slow himself – especially early in the fight – I can definitely see a scenario where he can get inside Sakai's strikes and use the clinch to bully him around, and perhaps even get a takedown or two. Will he finish the Brazilian? I'm going to guess no, but I do think he's got enough to grind out a decision win.

The Pick: Ivanov via unanimous decision