California plays host to the first pay-per-view card of 2025 this weekend with two titles on the line in Inglewood.
The pound-for-pound king of the UFC Islam Makhachev will defend his Featherweight belt yet again in another rematch, this time against Armen Tsarukyan in the main event.
Merab Dvalishvili won UFC gold late last year with a dominant performance over Sean O’Malley and his first defence will be against the undefeated Umar Numragomedov in the co main event in the Bantamweight division.
The number two ranked UFC Light Heavyweight Jiri Prochozka will go head to head with former champion Jamahal Hill along with a string of mouth-watering fights on the card.
Our thoughts and betting suggestions can be found below.
Khabib’s prodigal son Islam Makhachev has risen to the top of the UFC pound-for-pound rankings and headlines another UFC card and attempts to defend his Lightweight title for a fourth time.
And if he’s not careful he may just go past his mentor and coach in the all time lists that fans insist on doing.
This won’t be the first time that Armen Tsarukyan has fought Islam.
The two clashed in 2019 with the now champion Makhachev winning a unanimous decision.
A more than competent wrestler himself, Tsarukyan was the first person to complete a takedown against Makhachev in that match up and not too many people hold the weapons to be able to consider that an option against the Dagestani champion.
Both men are better fighters now and this will be a cracking main event.
The penultimate fight on the card and another belt goes on the line.
Neither man is familiar with defeat, as The Bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili has not lost a fight since 2018 while his challenger has a zero in that column on his record.
Merab comes into this fight on the back of 11 wins in a row, 10 of which have been by decision.
It is one thing to dominant your opponent’s with wrestling but this is mixed martial arts and if you are not a submission threat, you will eventually get found out when the right opponent comes along.
That opponent is Umar Nurmagomedov
Two former champions of the division and both men were robbed of their belt by Alex Pereira via knockout.
Jiri Prochazka is a former RIZIN kickboxing champion who won UFC gold against Glover Teixeira in a brutal fight and both of his losses in the promotion have been to Pereira.
Jamahal Hill also beat Texeira to win the Light Heavyweight title before succumbing to a Pereira left hook that not only physically affected him, but the rhetoric in the aftermath also suggests he has some mental scarring from the loss.
It has been excuse after excuse for Hill but we can’t forget his impressive wins over Johnny Walker and Thiago Santos on his pathway to the top.
Both of these men pose a huge threat on the feet and have awkward styles with a tonne of power and I’m predicting someone goes to sleep.