On the night of December 14, 2019, one of, if not the biggest cards of the year will be taking place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The UFC is looking to close out an amazing 2019 with another fantastic card with hopefully a lot of great fights. The main card will consist of five fights, three of which are title fights.
Lineup
The first fight in the main card will be at the Bantamweight Division, 135 lbs. This fight is between the #4 ranked Petr Yan and the #12 ranked Urijah Faber. The following fight will also be at Bantamweight, with the #1 ranked Marlon Moraes and the #3 ranked Featherweight Jose Aldo. After this fight will be the first of three championship fights, for the Women’s Bantamweight belt. This will consist of the Champ, Amanda Nunes, fighting against the #1 ranked Germaine de Randamie. The Co-Main event is for the Featherweight, 145 lbs, belt with Max Holloway defending it against Alexander Volkanovski. Your main event of the evening will be at Welterweight, 170 lbs, with champ Kamaru Usman defending his belt for the first time against bitter rival “Interim Champion” Colby Covington.
Previews and Predictions
“The California Kid,” Urijah Faber, is the former WEC Featherweight champion, holding a 35-10 record. The 40 year old is making his second octagon appearance since his retirement in 2016. Faber is already in the UFC Hall Of Fame, and is looking to add UFC champion to his résumé.
A win this fight will put him in great contention to fight for the title in mid-late 2020. His opponent is 26 year old Petr “No Mercy” Yan. Yan is yet to lose in the UFC, with 5-0 record, 13-1 overall, and a win tonight will give him a great opportunity to face Henry Cejudo for Bantamweight gold. I feel that the 14 year age gap will be a huge benefit towards Yan. I believe that Yan gets the victory by Unanimous Decision.
The fight after that is between Jose Aldo and “Magic” Marlon Moraes. Former featherweight Champion, Aldo, will be making his bantamweight debut on Saturday. In Moraes’ last fight he lost to Henry Cejudo, for the vacant bantamweight title. Moraes looked flawless during the first two rounds, but was no match for Cejudo, an olympic gold medal winning wrestler, on the ground, thus losing by TKO.
The weight cut to 135 will be too much for Aldo to handle, and I feel it will greatly hurt his performance. I see Moraes winning by way of knockout in the 2rd round; putting him in the contention for a rematch to win the Bantamweight belt.
For the first Championship belt, we have Amanda Nunes fighting Germaine de Randamie. Amanda Nunes is currently the womans champ at both 135 and 145 lbs. de Randamie will be trying to win gold, at 135 lbs, and avenge her previous loss to Nunes in 2013.
Both fighters prefer to keep the fight standing, so don’t expect this fight to take place on the ground. Amanda Nunes is the G.O.A.T. for women’s MMA, and I see her gaining third first round KO in a row.
The Co-Main Event has Max “Blessed” Holloway defending his featherweight belt against Alexander “The Great” Volkonovski. Holloway is looking to make his 4th title defense. Holloway is the longer and taller fighter and he will try to keep his range, like he does in most of his fights.
Like the previous fight I see this spending most of its time on the feet. In order for Volkanovski to win he will need to get close to Holloway and try and land some powerful shots to the body, hopefully putting Holloway down. I see Holloway retaining the belt in a Unanimous Decision win over Volkanovski.
The Main-Event has Kamaru “The Nigerian Nightmare” Usman against Colby “Chaos” Covington. This fight has potential to be one of the greatest fights in the history of the UFC. Both men have been talking a big game to each other for several years now, and the hate towards each other is huge.
Colby is a heel, who doesn’t care if you like him or not, never backing down from talking trash to anyone and everyone. He is always seen in his MAGA hat and posts pictures with attractive women, wearing little clothing, on his Instagram. Usman seems to be fed up with all that Colby has been talking and it’s time for them to settle their beef in the octagon.
Both have very similar fighting styles, great wrestlers with amazing cardio and the ability to apply the pressure all five rounds. Who ever is able to apply the pressure and out wrestle their opponent will be the champ at the end of the fight. I see Covington’s trash talk getting into the head of Usman, and ultimately making Usman not fight to his full potential. I can see this being an all time classic, but Covington winning by Split Decision.
You can watch UFC 245 on ESPN+, but it is still Pay-Per-View. This is an amazing card to start watching the UFC to, and I highly recommend watching it. 2020 has some amazing fights in store so get ready for the new year.
(P/C: UFC)
