UFC on ESPN: Covington vs. Lawler - Predictions and Picks

#7 The Prelims: ESPN card

Mickey Gall will look to get back on track with a win on Saturday

All of Saturday’s preliminary fights will be shown on ESPN, meaning it’ll be a long night for anyone who wants to watch the full card. If anything though, some of the prelims seem stronger on paper than a lot of the main card.

Headlining the prelims will be prospect Mickey Gall, who faces Salim Touahri. The bloom may be off the rose of Gall after his loss earlier this year to Diego Sanchez – but he’s still an excellent grappler particularly from the top position. I like him to win here purely because we’ve seen Touahri outgrappled in both of his previous UFC fights, so I’ll go with Gall by submission.

We’ve also got an excellent Flyweight fight here between Antonina Shevchenko and Lucie Pudilova. Shevchenko struggled massively in her last fight – a loss to a much-improved Roxanne Modafferi – but I like her to take this one as despite Pudilova looking good in her last fight against Liz Carmouche, she’s still a step behind ‘Pantera’ in a pure striking sense and I’m not sure that the Czech fighter is good enough to ground her. Shevchenko by decision is my pick.

Also at Flyweight, Jordan Espinosa takes on Matt Schnell, and in an extremely thin division, a win for either man could catapult them into title contention. Espinosa looked strong in his UFC debut, a win over Eric Shelton, but Schnell has been a pleasant surprise over the last few years and for me is one of the most improved fighters on the roster. Assuming his re-drop to 125lbs goes fine I’ll take him to win a decision.

Another Flyweight fight sees Lauren Murphy face Mara Romero Borella. Murphy is a real veteran who’s been fighting since 2010, and she’s solid in all areas with a big experience advantage, but Borella has perhaps been the more impressive of the two as of late, and given Murphy has appeared to be slowing down in her recent fights, I’m going with a mild upset and taking the Italian Borella to win by decision.

Finally in yet another Flyweight encounter (!) newcomers Miranda Granger and Hannah Goldy face off. I won’t lie – I know next to nothing about both of these women and I’ve never seen either fight outside of clips. Given Goldy came from Dana White’s Contender Series and looks like an exciting striker you’d have to suspect the UFC want her to win, but Granger appears to be a dangerous grappler. With that said her takedowns don’t look too great, and Goldy appears to be the superior athlete. I’ll take Goldy by decision but this could go either way.