UFC 317: Topuria vs. Oliveira picks and predictions
See who we think will win in Vegas this weekend.
The UFC has a home game this weekend, setting up shop at the T-Mobile Arena for UFC 317. We’ve got two title fights set for that event, each of which is pretty darn good on paper. The main event has Ilia Topuria looking to claim the vacant lightweight title. Charles Oliveira will be the man hoping to stop him.
The co-main sees Alexandre Pantoja attempt to defend his flyweight crown for a fourth time. Kai Kara-France is his latest challenger.
The rest of the main card is decent, too. We’ve got Brandon Royval vs. Joshua Van, Beneil Dariush vs. Renato Moicano and Payton Talbott vs. Felipe Lima.
The prelims have some action, as well. The pick among those fights are Jack Hermansson vs. Gregory Rodrigues, Hyder Amil vs. Jose Delgado and Terrance McKinney vs. Vladislav Borshchev.
We’ve done our best to pick winners and we’re a pretty reliable bunch when it comes to that. As a team we are right 65 percent of the time. Individually, MMA Draw founder Kid Nate leads the way, sporting over a 70 percent success rate on picking fights.
In our standings I remain on top, despite one of my worst performances last week. I went just 9-9 and lost on my lock pick! That was Melissa Mullins. That dropped me to 17-3 on the year for my lock picks. Miguel did the best last week, going 12-6 and hitting on his lock (Tagir Ulanbekov). Scroll down for our locks of the week (and all our other picks).
If you’re making bets this weekend, please do so responsibly.
Leader board
Ilia Topuria (-455) vs. Charles Oliveira (+350)
Miguel Class: The temptation to write a full length preview of this match is very strong, but I’ll try to keep it brief here. I’m picking Topuria with a good deal of confidence. Oliveira is defensively void in the pocket and has basically never fought a committed pressure fighter, let alone perhaps the best modern iteration of the archetype. Oliveira desperately needs the front foot for his game to work and Topuria not only has the footwork and power to stop his opponent from coming forward, but he's also getting much better at fighting off the back foot in spurts. That means that even if Oliveira gets to come forward for a bit, he’ll likely run into counters that quickly give him pause.