Mackenzie Dern vs Angela Hill poster
UFC Fight Night: Dern vs. Hill Odds, Prediction and Fight Preview
The UFC APEX will host one final event in the final week of May before taking a week off to prepare for the hectic summer schedule.
Before things heat up in the Octagon in June and July, this Saturday’s programme should be entertaining, featuring a variety of competitive pairings and promising names to monitor, and highlighted by an intriguing clash of styles between ranked strawweights Mackenzie Dern and Angela Hill.
This main event bout between Mackenzie Dern and Angela Hill to open their respective 2023 campaigns could cast a great deal of light on their respective strawweight standings.
After a powerful start to her career that saw her win 11 of her first 12 fights, Dern has lost two of her last three due to her inability to effectively utilise her dynamic grappling game. While she has improved on her feet, the Brazilian jiu jitsu champion truly excels when initiating grappling sequences and tie-ups, where she demonstrates incredible control and the ability to strike from a variety of positions.
Hill arrives in Las Vegas aiming to build on her victories over Loopy Godinez and Emily Ducote in late 2017. To maintain her standing against Dern on Saturday, “Overkill” will need to utilise her agility and mobility, but she remains a consistent presence in the rankings and a tenacious, risky opponent for anyone in the category.
Odds: Mackenzie Dern (-185) vs. Angela Hill (+155)
Our prediction: Dern needs to initiate the clinch early on and get inside distance to dominate Hill. This is a classic grappler vs. striker matchup, although we feel Dern’s grappling prowess might prove too much for Hill. We expect Dern to emerge victorious via submission.
Edmen Shahbazyan and Anthony Hernandez, both middleweights and alumni of Dana White’s Contender Series (DWCS), meet in the Octagon for the co-main event with the hopes of adding to their respective victory totals.
Shahbazyan eventually won a fight again in December at UFC 282, stopping Dalcha Lungiambula in the second round after a one-year layoff and three consecutive losses. A victory tonight would place him squarely on the path back to the rankings, and at age 25, he still has plenty of time to regain the excitement that surrounded his 4-0 start in the UFC and 11-0 career record.
Two of Hernandez’s first three Octagon bouts ended in defeat, but he has now won three consecutive matches, including two remarkable submission victories. He began his 2023 campaign with a second-round submission win over Marc-Andre Barriault and a tapout victory over multiple-time BJJ world champion Rodrigo Vieira. In the interim, he defeated Josh Fremd at UFC 273 by unanimous decision.
It remains to be seen which of these two rising middleweight talents will be able to set the pace and depart the APEX victorious on Saturday.
Emily Ducote and Loopy Godinez will fight on Saturday’s main card at a catchweight of 120 pounds after Ducote’s original opponent, Polyana Viana, was forced to withdraw last month.
Former Invicta FC champion Ducote has divided her first two Octagon appearances, defeating Jessica Penne in her Octagon debut but losing to Hill in December. If she applies the lessons she learned from her loss to one of this weekend’s marquee events, she should be able to return to victory swiftly.
The substitution of Godinez for Viana shouldn’t come as a surprise, as the Mexican-Canadian has been one of the most active fighters since joining the UFC. She has also shared the Octagon with Penne and Hill, losing to both, but arrives in Las Vegas with a split-decision victory over Cynthia Calvillo.
It will be intriguing to see if one or both of the women decide to incorporate more grappling into their recent striking-heavy games.
All four of Andre Fialho’s subsequent contests have ended inside the distance, with the first two ending in victories and the last two in bitter defeats. After an extremely active 2022 campaign, he attempts to return to the winner’s circle in his first start of 2023.
Joaquin Buckley, meanwhile, makes his UFC welterweight division debut in the midst of a two-fight losing streak, having been struck out by Chris Curtis at UFC 282. It will be enthralling to see how the St. Louis native’s dynamic middleweight offence translates to the lightweight division.
This fight will likely end in a TKO, and the elimination process should be highly entertaining for as long as it lasts.
In the opening bout of the main programme, veteran lightweights Diego Ferreira and Michael Johnson, who are headed in opposite directions, square off.
Ferreira, a former member of the Top 15, returns to Las Vegas with a three-fight losing streak, having not competed since losing to Mateusz Gamrot at the end of 2021. It is not inconceivable for the Fortis MMA representative to regain the form that allowed him to defeat Anthony Pettis, Jared Gordon, and Olivier Aubin-Mercier in the past, given that he has lost to exceptional opponents in his most recent bouts.
Johnson recently defeated Marc Diakiese by unanimous decision, and he has won two of his last three fights. One could contend that he deserved the victory in his loss to Jamie Mullarkey by split decision. “The Menace” has had one of the most demanding schedules of anyone on the active roster, and that trend continues here.
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