The UFC's second straight week in the Apex comes with six prelims, led by one of the better fights on the card; fresh off dropping a main event in April, Matheus Nicolau finds himself holding down the featured spot against top flyweight prospect Asu Almabaev . Past that, there are some points of intrigue; bantamweight Jean Matsumoto looks to continue proving that he's a prospect to watch with a win over Brad Katona , former strawweight title challenger Jessica Penne is back in action, and heavyweight prospect Robelis Despaigne looks to get his hype train back on track after a disheartening performance in his last bout.
Matheus Nicolau is coming off his first UFC main event, but the Brazilian's career has as little momentum as it's had in a while. A surprising cut back in 2018 as the UFC was tearing down its flyweight division, Nicolau eventually made his return to the promotion in 2021 and immediately looked like a dark horse contender. His return win over Manel Kape was a fairly complete picture as far as Nicolau's approach; he can be patient to a fault in waiting to counter his opponents, but he's typically been able to bank on his combination of size, speed and accuracy to keep opponents at bay and cause them a ton of frustration while winning rounds - if not finding a knockout blow. Nicolau was firmly in the championship picture heading into 2023, but his style has greatly worked against him in his last two fights, knockout losses to Brandon Royval and Alex Perez ; Royval's size and Perez's consistent pressure were each enough to blow through Nicolau's defenses, catching him before he settled into the fight and making him pay for handing his opponents the initiative. Nicolau looks to rebound with a win over Asu Almabaev , who's certainly earned the biggest shot of his career thus far through his performances, if not his level of competition. Kazakhstan has been sending some high-level talent to the UFC in recent years, and that certainly includes Almabaev, an athletic wrestler that's been able to overpower and outpace his opponents for the better part of half a decade, which includes his three wins in the UFC thus far. That makes this an interesting test for both men; Nicolau is clearly the most capable neutralizer that Almabaev has faced to date, but the Brazilian also hasn't faced much in the way of dedicated wrestlers in recent years. Almabaev's striking is purely a means to an end at this level, so there's a decent chance that Nicolau can frustrate him on the feet enough to keep him at bay more often than not, but the lean is that the Kazakh can get in on enough takedowns to bank two rounds, even if this might be far from a dominant win; the pick is Almabaev via decision.
For better or for worse, Brad Katona 's second UFC stint seems headed the same way as the first. The UFC first parted ways with Katona in 2019, which was a bit of a surprise; he had won his season of TUF the year prior and had put together a solid four-fight campaign, and his lone definitive loss came against eventual champ Merab Dvalishvili . But the promotion's always been hit-or-miss when it comes to their enthusiasm for unexciting technicians, and so Katona was shown the door after dropping a controversial decision to Hunter Azure . As expected, Katona chugged along and had a successful career on the regional scene, then got the call for a TUF return last year, eventually becoming the first two-time TUF winner after beating Cody Gibson in a fun scrap. But now "Superman" has settled into much the same spot he was in when he left; he's a solid athlete and it's hard to say he has any weaknesses, but his patience and complete lack of surprise in his well-structured game has made him a decision machine that doesn't have much of a margin for error. He dropped a narrow loss to Garrett Armfield to kick off the year before rebounding with a win over Jesse Butler , and now he serves as a solid test for rising prospect Jean Matsumoto . Matsumoto's had about the ideal rise up the ranks, starting as a professional in his late teens and putting in a few years of work against a solidly increasing level of competition, to the point that he's now quite poised for a young talent as he hits the big stage. He's a good athlete that can do a little bit of everything, and he's found a solid balance between patience and activity; he's always throwing out ideas, but his UFC debut win over Dan Argueta saw him keep fighting back and picking his spots against an aggressive wrestler until he was able to hop on a fight-ending submission. There's not many holes for Matsumoto to exploit here against Katona, so the end result should be a go-everywhere fight that sees both men get their licks in without separating themselves from the other; Matsumoto reads as a more dynamic athlete, so the Brazilian gets the nod here in what should be a close one. The pick is Matsumoto via decision.
Two bantamweights look to snap their losing streaks here. Joselyne Edwards has been a frustrating talent during her time in the UFC, given that she has some high upside due to her athleticism but has found little success in terms of putting everything together. Initially a fairly aimless striker, Edwards has done well to add some wrestling to her game, so she's well-rounded in a sense; she tries a lot of things offensively but doesn't string things together consistently enough to control her opponents, which then typically leads to them exposing her clear defensive liabilities, particularly when it comes to her wrestling. It's an overall package that leads to a lot of close fights, and a recent three-fight winning streak was cause for some hope that Edwards could keep skating by until things finally click; but her luck has now corrected with two close losses, and it's also hard to say there's been much in the way of evolution. At any rate, she still seems to have more going for her than Tamires Vidal at the moment. Brazil's Vidal was a decent enough flier for the UFC to take - given the state of the division, it's worth signing anyone with athleticism and finishing potential - but she hasn't done much since debuting with a knockout win over Tamires Vidal in 2022, looking flat in losses to Montserrat Rendon and Melissa Gatto . Vidal could find some success bullying Edwards as the more physical fighter, but Edwards is much faster and might actually be able to consistently out-wrestle the Brazilian, so she gets the nod here in what could be a messy bout; the pick is Edwards via decision.
Jessica Penne is doing a solid job of chugging along, even as she nears her 42nd birthday. Penne wasn't necessarily a guarantee to stick around when the UFC launched their strawweight division in 2014; she had a more decorated career than many of her peers under her belt, but did so as an atomweight whose reedy frame had a questionable translation up to 115 pounds. Penne's high-water mark is probably still her first post-TUF fight, a win over Randa Markos that earned her a title shot against then-champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk in 2015, as the next half-decade was essentially a wash for the Californian; she suffered two frustrating losses, then had her career derailed due to injuries and issues with the drug testers. But she looked surprisingly sharp in winning her first two fights after returning from a four-year layoff, refocusing on her grappling and going undefeated in 2021 with wins over Lupita Godinez and Karolina Kowalkiewicz . Unfortunately, Penne hasn't found much success since then, as Emily Ducote and Tabatha Ricci were both able to handle with her with consistent aggression, and there is some question as to how well she can fare going forward; she's in far from the worst form of her career, but she does feel a bit anachronistic in a division that's improved greatly in terms of athleticism from her heyday. At any rate, she at least gets a forgivable matchup here athletically against Elise Reed , who also started her career as an atomweight. Given time and space to work, Reed's a fun fighter that can flit around and outpace her opponents with a lot of striking volume, but she's also run into a clear athletic ceiling; there's a consistent thread of her losing to fighters willing to pressure and out-wrestle her, provided they have the speed to catch her. There is some intrigue here given that Reed's faced a lot of compact fighters throughout her UFC career, whereas Penne is still somewhat lanky, but it's also hard to see Penne in her current form pressing the issue enough to send things south for Reed in any sort of consistent fashion. The pick is Reed via decision.
Melissa Martinez gets a second chance to make a first impression here."Super Melly" came into the UFC in 2022 with a decent amount of hype, but a loss to Elise Reed immediately drove home a lot of the issues with Martinez's game; she's a 5-foot-2 striker who's most comfortable at range, and while she can wrestle well enough, opponents have historically been able to eat up time controlling her against the fence or on the mat. All of that added up to a performance where she never truly got things going against Reed, and a subsequent string of injuries has made her a forgotten woman over the last two years. She finally returns here against Alice Ardelean , who also looks to rebound from an unsuccessful UFC debut. Ardelean did well to get here, as she had a rough start to her professional career that included three losses to eventual UFC signees - one of which was Zhang Weili - but she eventually put together enough of a winning streak to get the UFC's notice, albeit one on the back of weak competition. She narrowly dropped her UFC debut to Shauna Bannon in July, finding success through her scrappiness and willingness to wrestle, and that could pay some dividends here; but the read is that Martinez can land enough effective striking volume to win rounds, even if Ardelean may succeed in making this a bit of a grind. The pick is Martinez via decision.
Well, consider the Robelis Despaigne hype train derailed. The Cuban was a worthy flier for the UFC to take and remains fascinating; a former Olympic bronze medalist in taekwondo, Despaigne is an absolutely massive human that ran through the regional scene by quickly hitting opponents hard from strange angles. That was also the case in his UFC debut, which saw him fall over while throwing a kick and then knock out Josh Parisian while moving backwards, but things went extremely south in his sophomore effort against Waldo Cortes-Acosta , who quickly embraced the grind and proved that Despaigne has little answer for a dedicated wrestler. To that end, the gameplan for Austen Lane should be obvious, though it remains to be seen if he can pull it off. A former NFL defensive end, Lane's clearly a standout athlete even at 36 years old. But as you'd expect from a late comer, Lane doesn't have a ton of technical depth; to his credit, he can do a lot of different things, but unfortunately he also tends to cycle through a lot of those ideas, often leaving himself open to eating a knockout in the process. Lane can capably wrestle by the standards of heavyweight, so he has a decent shot at a win here, but the lean is that Despaigne comes out fast and wild enough to catch Lane before things get that far. The pick is Despaigne via first-round knockout.
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