It’s finally Fight Day for UFC 316 and we have a really good lineup on the way with this one. Merab Dvalishvili and Sean O’Malley meet in a rematch for the UFC Bantamweight Championship in the main event, while Julianna Pena will attempt to defend her UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship against Kayla Harrison in the co-main. The lineup features 13 bouts in total and will take place in Newark, New Jersey.

There was only one weight issue yesterday at the weigh-in, with Ariane de Silva coming in six pounds over the flyweight limit. Her matchup with Wang Cong remains on for the moment, but de Silva’s coach gave an interview yesterday with MMA Fighting saying the miss is related to a benign tumor and bad advice, so we’ll see if the fight actually ends up taking place or if it will be scratched for medical reasons later in the day before walkouts.

My favorite picks on this card are Kayla Harrison, Joshua Van, Azamat Murzakanov and Patchy Mix. My favorite potential betting upset is Sean O’Malley in the main event.

Despite the big odds, I love Kayla Harrison heading into this matchup with Julianna Pena and expect her to fully justify them. Harrison made weight with seemingly little to no issue yesterday and already got the hard part over with in my opinion. Pena doesn’t have good takedown defense at all and won’t be enough of a threat on the feet to keep Kayla off of her. I expect Harrison to get this one on the ground early and look to start wearing out Pena. I think Harrison will be able to find a finish in the middle rounds via ground and pound TKO or submission.

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I’m also really high on Sean O’Malley coming into his rematch and here’s why: Merab absolutely dominated the first meeting outstriking O’Malley by roughly 150 total strikes (35 significant), landed 6 takedowns to none and had over 10 minutes of control time and there were still two 48-47 scorecards. Guess which two judges from that fight worked both UFC events in New Jersey last year too by the way? It’s hard to see Dvalishvili looking better than he did in the first matchup without finding a stoppage somehow and O’Malley was one big moment from stealing that one.

As dominant and suffocating as Merab can be in the cage with his relentless cardio and takedown attempts, he often doesn’t create a ton of damage and rarely has as much success controlling his opponents on the ground as he did vs Sean. While I don’t buy a lot of the “excuses” from the O’Malley camp on why he lost, I do think his hip was compromised enough to keep him from scrambling well and getting back to his feet last time. I think O’Malley will have a much better time getting back up from takedowns in this fight and be more active with his own striking to regain his title in a pretty tight decision on the cards via bigger moments on the feet.

I also really like Patchy Mix heading into his UFC debut against Mario Bautista. Mix has been waiting for this moment for a long time, and I fully expect him to come out and make a statement against a seasoned and veteran UFC opponent in Bautista, who is very underrated in his own right. I think Mix will look to pressure immediately and begin to try getting this one on the ground to chase submissions. I expect Patchy to find one at some point or squeeze out a decision.

For the tracked bets this weekend, I have a few straight plays out on the title fights and a pair of parlays. The straight bets are O’Malley ML (+240 for 1 unit), O’Malley by Decision (+600 for .5 units), Harrison by KO/TKO (+330 for .5 units) and Harrison by KO/TKO in R2/3/4 (+650 for .25 units). The parlays are Sergei Spivac ML + Patchy Mix ML + O’Malley ML (+781 for .5 units) and Yoo to Win Inside the Distance + Joshua Van by KO/TKO + Mix ML + Harrison ITD (+833 for .5 units). That’s a total of six tracked bets for 3.25 units.

If you use any sportsbooks that are offering parlay promos, be sure to run them for the above plays. I recorded them under their original odds for the tracked bets but played both with 15% boosts on BetMGM. Ultimately, I passed on running anything for Murzakanov since the betting lines were pretty cooked on his props, but that’s another spot I considered targeting. On a card with a ton of chalked money lines and props, I tried to find some better value elsewhere.

We’re one week out from UFC Atlanta and we can’t wait! Huge thank you to everyone who has ordered from our merch collabs with Miranda Maverick and Cody Durden and shown them some love heading into their respective matchups. We also have recent interviews up with both of them, as well as Andre Petroski, so be sure to check out our YouTube channel if you want some added insight heading into next weekend.

We’ve been teasing some more exciting things in the pipeline, and we’re very happy to announce that we’ll be in Nashville this upcoming week for the 2025 PFL Semifinals featuring the welterweights and featherweights. Kala was approved for a media pass for the event, so be sure to keep an eye out on our YouTube and social media accounts for some extra content next week from the PFL media day and weigh-in, as well as the event itself next Thursday night.

PFL announced some really awesome news this week with lower pricing to get into events, as well as a new app available for fans in the US to watch overseas PFL events for free, so we’re extremely excited to be getting involved with them and look forward to having more PFL related content in the future.

Under the new pricing plan, you can get into PFL events for less than a majority of regional MMA cards, so I definitely recommend checking them out if they’re nearby later this year. With the current landscape of ticket prices soaring in most sports and particularly for UFC events, I hope they see some added attendance in return for making this move.

As I said, this should be a really entertaining lineup tonight as it’s one of the best of the year so far on paper. The bets have been less than stellar on the last couple of cards, especially with all of the late changes to last week’s lineup, so hopefully we can get back on track a bit with this one. Also, reminder to subscribe on our YouTube channel if you want earlier access to the picks and betting cards each week, they’ve been up since last night over there. Best of luck to everyone on the bets tonight and hope everyone enjoys the fights!

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