- Alexander Volkanovski will defend his featherweight belt against Brian Ortega.
- Valentina Shevchenko meets Lauren Murphy in the women’s flyweight title clash.
- Jairzinho Rozenstruik meets with Curtis Blaydes in the heavyweight bout.
- Nick Diaz and Robbie Lawler face 17 years after their first meeting.
The UFC 266 will be very interesting, with super matches popping out from every corner of this event. The main event is the featherweight title encounter between Volkanovski and Ortega, but apart from that, several other bouts are going to be equally attractive.
UFC 266 Schedule
- Where: T-Mobile, Paradise, Nevada
- When: Saturday, September 25, 10 pm
- How to Watch: ESPN+
UFC 266 Picks and Predictions
Volkanovski vs. Ortega
The champion did retain his belt with a highly questionable split decision win over Max Holloway. From our point of view, he didn’t deserve it. But, that is just our perspective of things. He now faces a guy who was one of the most promising fighters in the entire UFC, but who had a long pause following a 2018 defeat against Holloway. Yes, Ortega did dominate against Chung, but overall, we seriously doubt his current abilities and side with Volkanovski in this event.
Pick: Volkanovski -195
Shevchenko vs. Murphy
With all due respect to Lauren, she doesn’t have much to hope for in this event. The odds on her win, +1100, are saying everything. Shevchenko is better than her in almost all aspects of the fight, and we won’t waste too much of your time further explaining our pick.
Pick: Shevchenko -1300
Nick Diaz vs. Robbie Lawler
Some 17 years have passed since Diaz defeated Lawler, knocking out the later welterweight champion. Now, both fighters are much older, and the situation changed a lot. Lawler had his last fight one year ago, while on the other side, the older of Diaz brothers didn’t enter the cage in six years. We assume that he had some fights on the streets, but that isn’t the same thing.
Additionally, he did confess that there were some problems with cutting the weight and the odds changed massively since the opening. Diaz is now a big underdog, while at the beginning, the odds on both fighters were the same -110. We’ll just follow the bookies here.
Pick: Lawler -125
Blaydes vs. Rozenstruik
This is a must-win bout for both guys. The respective recent losses have hurt their reputation, and losing this one as well would be a big minus for the future. We can hardly imagine that the UFC would award a main event in the next 12 months to the loser here. On the other end, the winner will probably enter the title-eliminator, which is one step away from the belt fight.
Blaydes is an excellent wrestler and his cardio is impressive, but his chin is fragile. And that is how he lost all of his fights. The latest defeat vs. Derrick Lewis, who is probably the person with the worst cardio of all the top 10 big guys, exposed so many weaknesses in Blaydes’s performances.
Meanwhile, Rozenstruik had his ups and downs, but appears to be much stronger than Blaydes. He will wait for that one hit to take down the Razor, and sooner or later, that chance will come. It is the reason why our money is on the Bigi Boy.
Pick: Rozenstriuk +280
