A pair of rematches headlined UFC 304 in Manchester on Saturday, a card that was primed to show the evolution of U.K. MMA.
Since their first meeting roughly three years ago, both Belal Muhammad and welterweight champ Leon Edwards had done nothing but win. For Edwards, that meant claiming his first world championship, and defending the belt twice, in a rematch with Kamaru Usman, then against noted heel Colby Covington.
With their first meeting ending in a No Contest when an eye poke rendered Muhammad unable to continue, a lot of question marks were still on the table heading into UFC 304, with the slate essentially clean.
The second rematch atop the UFC 304 card was also a do-over, after Tom Aspinall injured his knee early against Curtis Blaydes in their original go-round. A year off for surgery and rehab, and Aspinall had returned and worked his way to an interim title. The winner of the UFC 304 co-main event would go on to either face the winner of Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic, or be promoted to undisputed champ should those stars retire.
UFC 304 has a late start local time to accommodate the North American PPV audience, with the main event going down in the wee hours of the morning in Manchester. How that factors in remains to be seen, but our picks for the card are in! Check those out below.
| Writer / Fight | Allen vs. Chikadze | CLD vs. Rodrigues | Green vs. Pimblett | Aspinall vs. Blaydes | Edwards vs. Muhammad |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jay Anderson (87-46) |  |  |  |  |  |
| Jamie Theodosi (64-42) | |  |  | | |
| Eddie Law (78-54) | | | |  | |
| Chris Prawdzik (74-52) | | | | |  |
| Alex Behunin (74-54) | | | | | |
| Dylan Rush (37-29) | | | | | |
| Cade Morehouse (52-42) | | | | | |
| Patrick McCorry (66-56) | | | | | |
| Val Dewar (62-55) | | | | | |
Just one clean sweep on the card from our crew, perhaps surprisingly, with Arnold Allen getting the nod over the returning Giga Chikadze, who has been out of action for 11 months. Allen comes in off two losses, but was in action in January.
Only two writers responding see Belal Muhammad capturing gold against Leon Edwards, while a similar margin (three to six) sees Curtis Blaydes being successful in his rematch with Tom Aspinall.
