Preview: UFC 327 prelims

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The strength of UFC 327 can be found in its depth, and there’s a lot to like about the latest Ultimate Fighting Championship undercard on Saturday at the Kasey Center in Miami. Bellator MMA lives on in the featured slot, where Patricio “Pitbull” Freire and Aaron Pico square off in a cross-generation featherweight scrap. Meanwhile, a welterweight clash between Kevin Holland and Randy Brown should be a wild one. Deeper into the prelims, wrestlers Mateusz Gamrot and Tatiana Suarez draw interesting tests against more violent opponents. Plus, Chris Padilla and MarQuel Mederos should make for a neat scrap between two quietly successful lightweights, and Charles Radtke has emerged as a reliable knockout threat at 170 pounds.

Now to the preview for the UFC 327 “Prochazka vs. Ulberg” prelims:

Featherweights

Aaron Pico vs. Patricio “Pitbull” Freire

BETTING ODDS: Pico (-345), Freire (+275)

Few UFC bouts will ever be as Bellator-coded as this one, particularly now that the promotion is under the Paramount banner. Freire (37-8, 1-1 UFC) looks like he won’t get his due as a historical great, winding up in the UFC just a little too late. A former lightweight and featherweight champion for Bellator and the promotion’s consensus greatest fighter of all-time, Freire did well to survive in the first place at a stocky 5-foot-6 and adapted even more impressively over time. Late-career Jose Aldo is an obvious comparison, with Freire showing an elite level of ability in terms of picking his spots and landing hard offense to continue neutralizing his opponents. However, the UFC threw him into the deep end with a debut against Yair Rodriguez about a year ago. Rodriguez’s combination of size and speed left little for Freire and his counter-heavy approach with which to work. His sophomore effort against Dan Ige was a bit softer of a touch, even if it showed the struggles that Freire and other Bellator alumni have had to navigate. Even if there’s not much of a skill gap, the UFC has a much higher baseline of athleticism that even Freire struggled to contain against someone his own size in Ige. Freire looks for his second UFC win against Pico, whose high expectations continue to weigh down his professional career.



Pico’s on the shortlist of most hyped prospects in mixed martial arts history—an elite high school wrestler and talented boxer who was signed by Bellator at 18 years old and given over two years to develop ahead of his promotional debut. Naturally, Pico’s career started with his getting submitted in just 27 seconds, but he was still knocking out talented veterans like Leandro Higo just four fights later, emblematic of both the highs and lows that the Californian is capable of. Pico (13-5, 0-1 UFC) has as much natural talent as anyone in the sport, particularly when things get humming offensively, as he can string together some brutal combinations to lead into his wrestling. However, he has far from elite durability, an issue exacerbated by Pico’s inability to balance offense with defense. When Pico gets flowing, he abandons all thought of what his opponent might bring back in return, resulting in his eating some brutal knockouts. That’s exactly what happened in his UFC debut against Lerone Murphy in August. Pico put together three minutes and change of strong work against one of the UFC’s best featherweights, only to charge into a spinning elbow that immediately put his lights out. There’s a fairly clear dynamic here, as Pico figures to storm Freire early, either finding a quick finish or getting shredded apart once the Brazilian starts to settle in. At this point, the lean is that Pico is enough of a powerhouse to get the jump on a now 38-year-old former champion. The pick is Pico via first-round knockout.

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Pico vs. Freire
Brown vs. Holland
Gamrot vs. Ribovics
Suarez vs. Godinez
Padilla vs. Mederos
Gastelum vs. Luque
Radtke vs. Prado