UFC 281 takes place in the hallowed halls of Madison Square Garden in the main event that features middleweight champion Israel Adesanya vs. Alex Pereira.
The already stacked main card spills over into the prelims, where there are several excellent UFC bouts that can serve as standalone solid bets or excellent parlays.
Here are our free picks and predictions for the UFC 281 preliminaries on November 12.
UFC 281 prelim picks and predictions
Fight 1
• Prediction: Dominic Reyes ML (-215)
• Best Bet: Dominic Reyes to win by KO/TKO/DQ in Round 1 (+200)
Fight 2
• Prediction: Seung Woo Choi ML (-170)
• Best Bet: Seung Woo Choi to win by decision (+165)
Fight 3
• Prediction: Silvana Gómez Juárez ML (-110)
• Best Bet: Silvana Gómez Juárez to win by KO/TKO/DQ in Round 1 (+550)
Click on each fight to jump to the full analysis.
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Reyes has been out of action for a year and has lost his last three fights, but he should get back on track here. Those losses came to Jon Jones, Jan Blachowicz, and Jiri Prochaka, which is the modern-day equivalent of Murderer’s Row at light heavyweight. Spann’s vulnerabilities and his own struggles breaking out against mid-tier fighters should give Reyes a chance to pick up a much-needed win.
This doesn’t figure to be a long-lasting bout with a solid striker and submission specialist. Reyes lands 4.77 significant strikes per minute and has seven knockouts in 12 wins, and Spann’s grappling is efficient with 1.50 takedowns per 15 minutes with 1.8 submission attempts in the same time frame. More than half of Spann’s losses have been finishes, and all three knockout losses happened in the first round.
Reyes should be refreshed from both the time off and step down in competition. Spann won’t be able to get inside without catching heat, and a renewed Reyes should put enough on him to stop him early. Take Reyes to get it done in the first round at +200.
Prediction: Reyes ML (-215 at DraftKings)
Best Bet: Reyes to win by KO/TKO/DQ in Round 1 (+200 at DraftKings)
Former Ultimate Fighter winner Trizano and South Korea’s Choi need to snap their two fight skids in this critical featherweight clash. Desperation should be setting in for Triziano, who is seeing all his momentum taken away. Choi might be predictable with his strikes, but Trizano hasn’t shown the variety in his own performances to suggest he can exploit that.
Choi is a busy striker who lands 3.32 significant strikes per minute at 37% accuracy, which isn’t that spectacular, but considering Trizano absorbs more strikes (4.34 per minute) than he actually lands (3.45 per minute), he shouldn’t have much trouble driving him back and outworking him. Busy fighters often sacrifice power for activity.
Choi isn’t going to stop Trizano and should pick up the victory on the scorecards for a nice +165 score.
Prediction: Choi moneyline (-170 at DraftKings)
Best Bet: Choi To win by decision (+165 at DraftKings)
We’re saving our most bountiful picks for last here for this strawweight clash. Kowalkiewicz is just one fight removed from a five-fight skid where she faces the hyper-aggressive Juarez in a 50/50 fight. This bout doesn’t have a major impact on the division, and both fighters are as good as they are going to be, but this could get violent in a hurry.
Juarez is a heavy-handed striker who does not need a lot of time to do damage, landing 2.62 significant strikes per minute at 48% accuracy with an average fight time of 2:40, and Kowalkiewicz absorbs almost twice that many shots on average. Even more troubling is that Kowalkiewicz has been outworked badly in that long losing stretch, but never against a punisher striker like Juarez. Her chin has held up, but we feel that betting against it is too good to pass up.
Juarez is going to bring the heat right away, and if the fight goes in line from what we’ve seen out of Kowalkiewicz lately, she’ll drop and stop her inside the first round. Take Juarez to end things in the first for a huge +550 score.
Prediction: Juárez moneyline (-110 at DraftKings)
Best Bet: Juarez to win by KO/TKO/DQ in Round 1 (+550 at DraftKings)
