UFC Ottawa brings us plenty of action from Canada topped by a great lightweight main event and Cageside Press has their picks set.
| Staff Writers | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jason Payne (70-27) |  |  |  |  |  |  |
| Drake Riggs (69-28) | |  |  | |  |  |
| Heath Harshman (69-28) | | | | | | |
| Joe McDonagh (69-28) | | | |  | | |
| Paarth Pande (67-30) |  | | | | | |
| Steve King (61-30) | | | | | | |
| Dan Doherty (62-35) | | | | | | |
| Jay Anderson (62-35) | | | | | | |
| Josh Evanoff (61-36) | | | | | | |
| Gabriel Gonzalez (61-36) | | | | | | |
| Shawn Bitter (61-36) | | | | | | |
| Mike Straus (61-36) | | | | | | |
| Ryan Fortune (23-15) | | | | | | |
| Keith Shillan (22-16) | | | | | | |
| Alex Scaffidi (49-36) | | | | | | |
| Jesse Gillette (52-39) | | | | | | |
The main event of UFC Ottawa pits Ragin’ Al Iaquinta against the veteran Donald Cerrone. Iaquinta has won six of his last seven fights with the one loss being a short-notice title fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov. Iaquinta is coming off a great victory over former title contender Kevin Lee. Cerrone recently moved back down to lightweight after submitting Mike Perry and put on a spectacular performance against Alexander Hernandez. Cerrone was slightly favored by the staff, with nine picks to Iaquinta’s seven.
The co-main event is between Elias Theodorou and Derek Brunson. Theodorou has won three straight fights and five of his last six, while Brunson has just two wins in his last six fights (albeit against much better competition). The Cageside Press staff was split on this one with eight picks apiece.
Cub Swanson looks to turn things around against Shane Burgos. Swanson was on a four-fight win streak before falling to top featherweights Brian Ortega, Frankie Edgar, and Renato Moicano. Burgos is 4-1 in the UFC and 11-1 in his career. Burgos received 10 of 16 picks.
Prospects Brad Katona and Merab Dvalishvili square off on the main card. Katona, the winner of The Ultimate Fighter 27, is 8-0 in his career with two of those fights coming in the UFC. Dvalishvili had an unfortunate start to his Octagon career after going 7-2 on the regional scene. He was on the wrong side of a controversial split decision in his promotional debut and was “submitted” at the final bell by Ricky Simon in a fight he was winning. Merab is coming off a victory against Terrion Ware. All but four writers picked Katona.
Walt Harris will welcome Sergey Spivak to the Octagon. Harris has a subpar record of 4-6 in the UFC and had his most recent win overturned due to a failed drug test. Spivak is 9-0 with only one of his fights reaching the second round. Only three writers sided with the Ukrainian.
Opening up the main card will be Andrew Sanchez and Marc-Andre Barriault. Sanchez, a TUF 23 winner, dropped to middleweight after debuting at light heavyweight and has since gone 2-2. Barriault will be making his promotional debut at UFC Ottawa and comes in at 11-1 and a champion for TKO at both middleweight and light heavyweight. 12 of 16 writers picked Sanchez.
