It has been a while since our last UFC preview, but we’re back with another for one of the next big events in the MMA promotion. Saturday, 9th March (or Sunday, 10th March if you’re in the UK!) will bring about the next big UFC main card, UFC 299, Suga Sean O’Malley Vs Marlon ‘Chito’ Vera 2.
This fight is shaping up to be a doozy, given everything that is on the line this time around. The UFC 299 main event isn’t the only good fight on the card, however! First, we’ll take a look at the card itself before looking into a couple of my most anticipated fights from the event, including a special mention from the prelims.
UFC 299 Main Card
(C) Sean O’Malley Vs Marlon Vera #5
Bantamweight Title Fight
#3 Dustin Poirier Vs BenoÎt Saint Denis #12
Welterweight Bout
#13 Kevin Holland Vs Michael Page
Welterweight Bout
#4 Gilbert Burns Vs Jack Della Maddalena #11
Welterweight Bout
#4 Petr Yan Vs Song Yadong #7
Bantamweight Bout
UFC 299 Main Event: Sean O’Malley Vs Marlon Vera
Starting at the top of the UFC 299 main card, Suga Sean Vs Chito Vera. This is the second time these two will have met in the octagon and there is a LOT at stake here. First and foremost is UFC Gold. This is a Bantamweight title fight with Suga Sean being the defending champion. This will be his first first defence and it’s going to be a huge task for him.
What makes this so big is, if you look at his record he’s got 17 wins and 1 loss (plus 1 no contest), that loss? It came against Chito Vera at UFC 252 in August 2020. Since that loss however Sean has been on a bit of a tear beating anyone and everyone. Including both Petr Yan and Aljamain Sterling. Chito hasn’t quite had the same luck, but he has beaten Pedro Munhoz, Dominick Cruz, and Rob Font on his way to this title shot.
This is guaranteed to be an exciting fight, with both fighters racking up an abundance of fight of the night and performance of the night awards in their careers and both have absolutely stacked highlight reels. Unfortunately, only one man can hold the strap at the end of all of this and it’s a tough one to call. Chito has the edge since he has already beaten Sean once, but since then Sean has grown a lot as a fighter, will he prove too much for Chito in the rematch at UFC 299?
Kevin Holland Vs Michael Page
The next UFC 299 fight I want to talk about is the Welterweight bout between Kevin Holland and Michael Page. I think Kevin Holland is fantastic, his fights are entertaining, he is hilarious and talks to his opponents during his fights and honestly, he just comes across as a genuinely likeable dude. But his UFC record is nothing short of a mixed bag.
He has wins over the fantastic Michael Chiesa and Santiago Ponzinibbio recently but he also has losses against Jack Della Maddalena, Stephen Thompson and Khamzat Chimaev, he’s not afraid of a big name and his record shows it. So, for Michael Page, this is a crazy initiation to the UFC.
Michael Page has been in Bellator since 2014 and has made headlines across the world, including winning knockout of the year in 2016 for his flying knee against Evangelista Santos. But his record isn’t flawless, he has losses to Logan Storley and Douglas Lima, which aren’t devastating but people do regard Bellator as a tier below UFC. How will ‘Venom’ fare on his proverbial step up to the big stage at UFC 299? Is Kevin Holland going to prove too tough a fight for his UFC debut? Or will he prove to everyone that he truly does belong in the UFC?
Curtis Blaydes Vs Jailton Almeida
Now this one isn’t on the UFC 299 main card, it’s the headliner of the prelims, but there are a few reasons why I’m excited about this one. Firstly, it’s a heavyweight bout, who doesn’t love a heavyweight bout? Then there’s the fact that Curtis Blaydes‘ fights are always full of fireworks, apart from his win against Tom Aspinall which even he doesn’t accept, then there’s the chance to view Jailton Almeida in action.
Almeida is on a tear through the Heavyweight division right now and since getting through Nasrudin Nasrudinov in DWCS 39, he is on a 6 fight win streak in the UFC, including wins against Derrick Lewis and a first-round submission of Jairzinho Rozenstruik who at one point was considered the next big contender.
This will be an incredibly interesting clash of styles, you have Curtis Blaydes, the brawler who has 12 wins by knockout to his name, and the versatile Jailton Almeida who is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with a background in boxing that began at 6 years old, in his 20 professional fights he has 7 knockout wins and 12 submission wins. He is capable of it all. I am seriously excited about this fight and I think that, even though there are a lot of big names on the main event, many people will share the same opinion as me that this fight arguably should be on the main card too!
So that’s my brief look at UFC 299, it’s safe to say that UFC 300 has taken the limelight a lot recently given you have two title fights as well as a lot of contenders fighting for their chance at a belt, like Gaethje Vs Holloway, Oliveira Vs Tsarukyan, Prochazka Vs Rakic and many more.
But there is no reason why people shouldn’t be excited for UFC 299. Does it have as many big names as 300? No, but for an event happening just before 300, it is still absolutely stacked and at any other time of the year people would be losing their minds over this card!
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