It’s Fight Day for UFC 322 and this might be the best lineup we’ve seen in 2025. The card features a pair of title fights with Islam Makhachev moving up to challenge Jack Della Maddalena for the UFC Welterweight title and Weili Zhang going up to challenge Valentina Shevchenko for the UFC Women’s Flyweight belt.
There was only one weight miss for the event with Beneil Dariush coming in 1.2 pounds over the lightweight limit (157.2). Dariush will be fined 20% of his fight purse and his matchup with Benoit Saint Denis will proceed.
My favorite picks for this card are Baisangur Susurkaev, Malcolm Wellmaker, Fatima Kline and Islam Makhachev. My favorite potential betting upsets are Leon Edwards and Michael Morales.
Susurkaev looks to continue his solid start with the promotion with another great matchup on paper against Eric McConico. Susurkaev is well-rounded, and while he still has plenty of room to improve, he should have more than enough to get through McConico. Susurkaev should land big and be able to find a KO/TKO win at some point.
Wellmaker went through several opponent swaps for this one before ultimately landing on Ethyn Ewing, who took the fight on two days’ notice after an apparent Cody Haddon foot injury. Wellmaker has shown to have elite power in the bantamweight division and think he’ll pick up another win here via decision or KO/TKO down the stretch.
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Kline enters her matchup with Angela Hill off back-to-back finishes and looks to continue her rise in the strawweight division against the longtime vet. Kline should land the bigger shots for more damage in this one and think she can overwhelm Hill for a clear division or stoppage win.
Makhachev is moving up and chasing history against JDM and I love his chances in this one. Unless Jack can land early and put out Makhachev, I don’t think he’ll be able to fend off the wrestling and grappling of Islam. We’ve seen much lower-level grapplers have success troubling Della Maddalena and I think Makhachev can put him away down there.
For the betting card this weekend, I’m taking a wide range of prop shots. The bets are Kline to Win Inside the Distance (+275 for .5 units), Daukaus by Submission (+300 for .5 units), Daukaus by D’Arce Choke (+650 for .25 units), Morales by KO/TKO (+380 for .5 units), Edwards by Decision (+300 for .5 units), Shevchenko/Zhang to End by Split/Majority Decision (+450 for .25 units) and Makhachev ML + By Sub + Under 3.5 Rounds (+245 SGP for .5 units).
While Hill has been hard to stop historically, she’s almost 41 now and Kline can likely put a pace on her to get a stoppage if she wants it. Daukaus is a big favorite in his second matchup back with promotion and love the spot against GM3. Daukaus should be the better striker and think he can snatch a sub of his own when GM3 looks to grapple.
Morales/Brady likely plays out one of two ways, with Brady dominating in the grappling or Morales landing some big shots, and I felt like +380 on the Morales KO was off enough to take a shot. Same situation with Edwards, either Prates will land something big, or I feel like Leon can get a three round decision win here and felt +300 was too good to pass up.
Valentina Shevchenko and Weili Zhang are two of the best women’s mixed martial artists of all-time and their matchup tonight should be an absolute classic. Barring a stoppage, it’s hard to see either of these women getting dominated and think there’s a good chance we see a split on the cards if it’s close.
That’s a total of seven bets for 3 units for the tracked bets. I’m also heavily invested on Makhachev ML on a few futures parlays I have open on the untracked side. Those include Tsarukyan next weekend at UFC Qatar and proceed to Jonathan Taylor for NFL MVP before his odds plummeted this past weekend into the Top 3 at the moment.
We’ve had some pretty good luck on the bets the past two weekends in the Apex, so we’ll see if we can keep things rolling with this card taking place in New York City. Always keep in mind the different officials/commissions used for various locations and reminder we might actually start seeing more point deductions and fouls called.
In my opinion, this is easily one of the best matched cards of the year and a pretty tough one overall for the picks/bets, so really excited to see how it all plays out tonight from MSG. Be sure to let us know in the comments who you’re liking to leave with gold tonight and who you’re going with on the bets!
Be sure to check back next weekend for UFC Qatar capping off the month before a pair of December events will round things out for the year on UFC events. As always, best of luck on the bets and hope everyone enjoys the fights!
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