UFC 322: Jack Della Maddalena vs. Makhachev picks and predictions
See who we think will win in NYC this weekend.
The penultimate pay-per-view of the year is on tap and, you know what? It’s pretty darn good. UFC 322 has two stellar title fights up top and a ton of compelling and exciting match-ups below.
The main event is Jack Della Maddalena vs. Islam Makhachev for the UFC welterweight title. And the co-main is Valentina Shevchenko vs. Zhang Weili for the UFC flyweight title. Both challengers are looking to join the exclusive two division champ club.
The main card also boasts Sean Brady vs. Michael Morales, Leon Edwards vs. Carlos Prates and Beneil Dariush vs. Benoit Saint Denis. Those are awesome fights.
And the prelims have some gems, too.
There’s Bo Nickal vs. Rodolfo Vieira, Erin Blanchfield vs. Tracy Cortez and Pat Sabatini vs. Chepe Marsical to name a few.
We’ve done our best to pick the winners on this card and you can check out what we think below.
I am clinging on to the top spot in the leader board for dear life. I sucked at UFC 321 and was very lucky not to have Kristen pass me with her 10-6 record. We all struck out on lock picks last month thanks to Mizuki Inoue’s upset over Jaqueline Amorim and the no contest in the main event.
Leader board
Jack Della Maddalena (+240) vs. Islam Makhachev (-300)
Miguel: I’ll say this up front: this feels like a 50/50 fight. There are too many unknowns for anyone to feel very confident about it. Do you favor Makhachev because he is the more proven pound-for-pound talent and also brings a complete package that skillwise exceeds JDM’s previous opponents? Or do you favor JDM because he’s the natural welterweight, has less miles on him, and seems to be getting better every fight?I think this comes down to the specifics of the matchup. On the one hand, the Belal fight was much closer than many people remembered for JDM. He was a lot more competitive on the feet and found increasing success as he upped his pressure. He also had decent success from southpaw (Makhachev’s fighting stance), especially with open-side body kicks to cut off JDM when he was trying to circle off the cage. What Belal lacked was the ability to compete with the firepower of JDM, especially in longer pocket exchanges.