Ikram Aliskerov is 4-1 in the UFC and four of those five fights ended in the first round, three of them knockouts by him and one by Robert Whittaker. His most recent was the exception, a unanimous decision over JunYong Park in October. Brunno Ferreira is 6-3 across nine UFC fights, with two submission wins among his last five, a submission loss to Abus Magomedov in that run, and a first-round knockout loss to Gregory Rodrigues in March. The model's strongest read of the card is Aliskerov, by knockout.
The read
Nothing in either record suggests a long fight. Aliskerov's path is the first round, where he has ended three UFC fights and lost one. Ferreira's is the ground, where he submitted Armen Petrosyan and Jackson McVey, and his decision win over Marvin Vettori shows he can hold a fight together for 15 minutes when he has to. The model is weighting Aliskerov heavily while picking the method that has already beaten him, so the confidence and the risk sit in the same place.
What decides it
- Aliskerov's early knockouts against Ferreira's submission work
- Both men were stopped in the first round in their most recent losses
- Ferreira's path is dragging it to the mat and finding a finish there
- Middleweight over three rounds, and four of Aliskerov's five UFC fights never reached the second
- The model's firmest number on the card, with an obvious way it goes wrong