UFC 240: Holloway vs. Edgar - Predictions and Picks

#6 The Prelims: ESPN 2 card

Canadian veteran Alexis Davis headlines Saturday's prelim card

The prelim fights for UFC 240 are in two parts, with the top half of the card being shown on the ESPN 2 channel.

We’ve got four fights on tap there, the highest of which is a Women’s Flyweight battle between former Bantamweight title challenger Alexis Davis and Flyweight newcomer Viviane Araujo.

Araujo made her debut in May, beating Talita Bernardo in a bit of an upset given the huge size difference; Araujo had previously fought at 115lbs and moved to 135lbs for the fight. Overall, she showed excellent skills in all areas, outgrappling Bernardo before turning her lights out with a violent right hand.

Davis is quite the step up in terms of experience alone, and I worry for her against another larger foe who’s a far better grappler than Bernardo was, too. But then Davis has been fighting for 12 years now and has never been an A+ athlete, even in her prime.

She’s also much slower than Araujo appears to be. It’s a tough fight to pick to be fair but I’ll go with Davis taking a razor-close decision, with the caveat that if there’s a finish, it’ll likely come from Araujo.

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At Featherweight, explosive Canadian striker Hakeem Dawodu returns to face newcomer Yoshinori Horie. Dawodu garnered a lot of hype prior to his UFC debut, but his shock loss to Danny Henry – a fight that saw him dropped and choked out – put an end to a lot of that.

He has looked good in two decision wins since, though. Horie to me looks like a tailor-made opponent, though; he’s inexperienced, footage on him is sparse and he’s got a KO loss on his record to noted non-striker Issei Tamura. Dawodu via first-round KO is my pick.

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Canadian Featherweight Gavin Tucker returns next to take on Seung Woo Choi. This should be a striking battle; Tucker’s largely known for his kickboxing while Choi was blanketed by Movsar Evloev in his UFC debut after coming in with a bunch of knockouts on the Korean regional scene.

Despite Tucker’s long layoff – he hasn’t fought since September 2017 – I like his chances here as he’s got more experience and appears to be the better, cleaner striker. Tucker via decision is my pick.

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Finally, we’ve got a high-level Flyweight clash between Alexandre Pantoja and Deiveson Figueiredo. Both men have looked fantastic at points in their UFC runs – Pantoja turned out the lights on Wilson Reis earlier in the year for instance while Figueiredo destroyed John Moraga last year – and this is a super-close fight to pick.

Figueiredo is perhaps the better striker while Pantoja might have the advantage on the ground, but I’m leaning slightly towards Figueiredo due to his more explosive style. I’ll take Figueiredo via decision but this could go either way.