On the main card of UFC 325 tomorrow night we are going to see a really fun matchup between two elite strikers in the lightweight division. 9th ranked Rafael Fiziev (13-4) is putting his spot in the top ten on the line as he takes on Mauricio Ruffy (12-2).
Ruffy is changing things up ahead of tomorrow night’s fight as he won’t have The Fighting Nerds in his corner. Ruffy clarified this week that he hasn’t fully left the gym, but due to Jean Silva’s fight last week and Caio Borralho’s fight in March, he wanted to have a corner completely focused on his camp.
He’s been training with UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski ahead of this matchup with Fiziev. In his last fight, Ruffy suffered his first loss inside the octagon when he was submitted by Benoit Saint-Denis. In that fight, he just had no answer for the grappling of BSD.
Now, he’ll face a fellow elite striker in Rafael Fiziev. Fiziev last fought in June where he had a beautiful performance against Ignacio Bahamondes. In that fight, Fiziev showed real progression as an MMA fighter and he picked up his first win since July 2022.
UFC 325 Prediction
The potential striking matchup on paper makes this fight so incredibly exciting. Both Fiziev and Ruffy are decorated strikers and they go about it in different ways. Ruffy will reminder you a lot of Conor McGregor with his more wide stance, timing and the way he throws creative shots.
Fiziev is more like a traditional elite muy thai fighter with a tight guard and very explosive striking with a lot of speed. However, there is one thing that I think separates these two at UFC 325 and that’s their progression as mixed martial artists.
In his last couple of fights, we’ve seen Fiziev mix in takedowns. He took down Justin Gaethje and he took down Ignacio Bahamondes. We are coming off a fight where Mauricio Ruffy showed no ability to defend takedowns. I expect to see Fiziev use takedowns and not only will those be effective. However, I think the takedown threat will also open up his striking.
In a pure striking matchup, I think it’s a coin flip. But, this isn’t striking, this is MMA. With that being the case, I am going with Rafael Fiziev to hand Mauricio Ruffy his second straight loss at UFC 325.
Prediction: Rafael Fiziev by Decision
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