Rounding out a stacked night of fights is UFC 224, which contains five solid main card bouts for Cageside Press to predict.
| Staff Writers | Belfort vs. Machida | Kelleher vs. Lineker | Dern vs. Cooper | Souza vs. Gastelum | Nunes vs. Pennington |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heath Harshman (40-20) |  |  |  |  |  |
| Paarth Pande (38-22) | | | | | |
| Eddie Law (38-22) | | | |  |  |
| Mike Straus (36-24) | | |  | | |
| Dan Doherty (35-25) | |  | | | |
| Jesse Gillette (34-26) | | | | | |
| Gabriel Gonzalez (32-28) | | | | | |
| Jay Anderson (29-31) | | | | | |
| Mike McClory (28-32) |  | | | | |
| Josh Evanoff (0-0) | | | | | |
UFC 224 features a bantamweight title fight in its main event along with other Brazilian standouts throughout the card.
The headliner is between UFC bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes and Raquel Pennington. Nunes has defended her belt twice since winning it against Meisha Tate at UFC 200, defeating Ronda Rousey and Valentina Shevchenko. Pennington has quietly put together a four-fight win streak, notably taking down Jessica Andrade and Meisha Tate along the way. All but one of the 10 writers side with the champion.
The co-main event is an intriguing middleweight bout between Jacare Souza and Kelvin Gastelum. Gastelum is looking to string together wins at 185 after knocking out former champion Michael Bisping in under 90 seconds in November. Souza got back in the win column himself with a dominant first-round KO of Derek Brunson in his last appearance. Seven of 10 writers believe the Brazilian gets it done on home turf.
Mackenzie Dern will fight Amanda Cooper with a seven-pound weight advantage after missing weight by a mile. Dern is a jiu-jitsu phenom looking to stay undefeated in MMA against Cooper. Cooper is an even 2-2 in the Octagon and is coming off a TKO of Angela Magana. Just two writers believe ABC will defeat Dern.
No fight card is complete nowadays without a wild bantamweight scrap, and this one has it in the form of Brian Kelleher vs. John Lineker. Kelleher is 3-1 in the UFC on a two-fight win streak, most recently defeating former champion Renan Barao. Since returning to the bantamweight division, John Lineker is 5-1, only losing to champion TJ Dillashaw. The brawler has four post-fight bonuses to his name, and all but one writer picked him to defeat Kelleher.
Legends will open up the main card, as Lyoto Machida fights Vitor Belfort. Machida stopped a three-fight losing streak by defeating prospect Eryk Anders in his last bout. Belfort achieved the same feat by earning a decision of Nate Marquardt. All but two writers selected Lyoto Machida.
