UFC 295 touched down inside the hallowed halls of Madison Square Garden in New York, NY on Saturday, set to crown two new champions for the promotion.
With the loss of Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic, the night’s originally planned co-main event had been bumped up to headliner as Jiri Prochazka looked to reclaim his old light heavyweight title. A nasty shoulder injury had forced the Czech star and modern day Samurai to vacate the belt; he was returning to action for the first time in well over a year.
Opposite the returning ex-champ was another former UFC champion, Alex Pereira. After losing his middleweight title back to Israel Adesanya, Pereira had pulled the trigger on a move to light heavyweight, and defeated Jan Blachowicz to earn a shot at gold in a second weight class.
The night’s co-main event, meanwhile, saw Sergei Pavlovich face Tom Aspinall with interim gold on the line. The winner might be waiting a while for Jones vs. Miocic to play out, but they’d essentially have a golden ticket in hand.
Our picks for UFC 295 are in! Here’s how we see the main card playing out on Saturday night!
| Writer / Fight | Lopes vs. Sabatini | Frevola vs. Saint-Denis | Andrade vs. Dern | Pavlovich vs. Aspinall | Prochazka vs. Pereira |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jamie Theodosi (119-71) |  |  |  |  |  |
| Alex Behunin (122-74) | | | | | |
| Val Dewar (120-73) | |  | | | |
| Chris Prawdzik (123-75) | | | | |  |
| Jay Anderson (111-91) |  | |  |  | |
| Cade Morehouse (62-49) | | | | | |
| Dylan Rush (97-89) | | | | | |
| Eddie Law (92-97) | | | | | |
Somewhat surprisingly, there wasn’t a unanimous selection in the bunch among our writers. The closest thing to a lock turned out to be Diego Lopes, with all but one writer picking him to get the win over Pat Sabatini.
That said, a number of other fights were considerably one sided in the opinion of our staff. Among them, the night’s main event, where it seems many have taken Jiri Prochazka’s long layoff and serious injury to heart. Only two writers responding selected the Czech to reclaim gold. A similar margin, perhaps even more surprisingly, picked against Sergei Pavlovich in the co-main event, instead siding with England’s Tom Aspinall.
The bulk of our staff also sided with local star Matt Frevola against Benoit Saint-Denis, while Jessica Andrade vs. Mackenzie Dern was the closest call, favoring Dern 5-3.
