We come down from the high of yet another title defence from Australia’s greatest ever athlete last weekend in Sydney, when Alexander Volkanosvski entertained a massive local crowd, to the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
A Bantamweight main event between Mario Bautista and Vinicius Oliveira headline the card but there are plenty of opportunities to build a bank on the card.
Our thoughts and insider MMA betting plays can be read below.
Mario Bautista entered the UFC in 2019 and won two of his first four fights before going on an eight fight winning streak.
During that sequence of wins he beat Jose Aldo, Ricky Simon and Patchy Mix but it was ultimately ended in October by Umar Nurmagomedov.
Oliveira started his professional MMA career in 2015 in Brazil but made his way into the UFC in late 2023 via Dana White’s Contender Series thanks to a first round knock out win.
He’s won all four fights in the octagon since making his debut including decision wins over Said Nurmagomedov and Kyler Phillips during 2025.
This is the toughest challenge of his career so far and he takes on a man who is in the prime of his career with a fair amount more experience at the top level.
In saying that, he has genuine power in his striking and a plethora of weapons at his disposal, and at the price point I’m happy to have a small play on the outsider.
Amir Albazi was born in Iraq and he jumped from promotion to promotion in his early professional MMA career.
He won 16 of his first 17 pro MMA fights including his first five in the UFC but lost his last fight in 2024 via decision against former champion Brandon Moreno.
Kyoji Horiguchi has some sort of resume.
He was a champion of two divisions in RIZIN in the flyweight and bantamweight divisions as well as the bantamweight champ in Bellator.
His first stint in the UFC started in 2015 and he managed seven wins from eight fights with the only loss coming against the GOAT of the division Demetrious Johnson.
More recently he has losses to Kai Asakura and Patchy Mix, both of whom have had issues at this level of competition, and that form doesn’t look good on paper.
He is a more than competent grappler but that threat will be somewhat nullified against Albazi and the 35 year old Japanese fighter has come up way too short in this head to head market in this co-main event.
For a fighter that competes in the most dangerous division in the sport, Jailton Almeida has a pretty incredible record.
The Brazilian heavyweight has only lost twice in his last 19 pro fights and one of those was a split decision against Alexander Volkov late last year.
His ability to take his opponents to the canvas is a massive advantage in a division where your lights can be shut off in an instant.
This is no easy task against Russian Rizvan Kuniev who has built a pretty impressive fighting CV himself.
He is a former Eagle FC champion and after just one win in Dana White’s Contender Series he was thrown to the wolves against Curtis Blaydes.
The judges were split on their decision in that fight which was awarded to Blaydes but 11 of 13 media sources scored the fight in the favour of the Russian.
It doesn’t get any easier for Rizvan Kuniev in this fight and he will need to lay hands on his opponent early.
Almeieda’s overall record is just too hard to ignore and if he can get this fight to the ground, he will go a long way to securing another win.