Weekend Fights Preview

UFC Fight Night: Blachowicz vs Rakić

On Saturday, the UFC heads back to the empty apex for another fight night. Former light heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz returns to face Aleksandar Rakić in which the winner may very well be next in line for a shot at the belt.

No other fight on the card carries title implications like the main event does, but there are some exciting fights and names to tune in for.

• Katlyn Chookagian faces Amanda Ribas in Amanda's first fight moving up to flyweight. Look for Katlyn to try to pick Amanda apart from distance in an attempt to avoid Amanda's high level submission game.

• Undefeated Nick Maximov, best known for being a training partner of the Diaz brothers, faces Andre Petroski who is 2-0 in the UFC with two finishes

• Two all action fighters Michael Johnson and Angela Hill are on the prelims of the card

All in all, don't cancel your Saturday night plans this is probably a card you can catch next morning.

Fight Schedule

UFC Fight Night: Blachowicz vs Rakic on Saturday 5/14/2022

Prelims - 7:30 EST - ESPN2 / ESPN +

Main Card -10:00 EST - ESPN2 / ESPN +

Bellator 281 on Friday 5/13/2022

Prelims - 1:30 EST - MMA Junkie

Main Card - 4:30 EST - Showtime

Lock of the Week

Parlay (+102): Chookagian vs Ribas fight to go the distance (-225) WITH Camacho vs Torres fight to not go the distance (-250)

We're going with a 2 leg parlay this weekend. I don't like to give you guys anything over -200 because 1. You probably won't make much money on that and 2. Anyone can tell you a -400 person is going to win and be right. A parlay is great here on this card because frankly, this is one of those cards where you're betting on fights to make them more interesting.

Some stats behind the reasoning for these picks:

• This will be Chookagian's 15th UFC fight... none of which she has come away with a finish (she has been finished though) That's 10 wins, all by decision.

• Chookagian should be able to stay at range where she excels having a 6 inch height advantage over Ribas who is moving up a weight class for this fight

• Camacho has been KO'd in his last three loses. including a 41 second KO in his last fight.

• Torres has only gone to the scorecards in 1 of his 14 fights

Storyline to Watch

The Nate Diaz Saga

Nate Diaz has been going against the UFC for months now. His latest show of displeasure with them seen here in this tweet where he claims to be urinating on the UFC PI building and says the UFC wont release him. He has not had a fight in almost over a year but if you go on his twitter he is calling out people for fights left and right. So what's the catch?

It's Nate's last fight on his contract and he is rumored to be planning on leaving the UFC to go box against, you guessed it, none other than Jake Paul. On the other hand, the UFC is rumored to be trying to stall and keep Nate around until McGregor is ready to return so they can get one last massive PPV out of him. This is getting ugly as Nate is getting more and more vocal on twitter essentially begging for a fight so he can finish up his UFC contract on move on to boxing money 🤑

Clip of the Week

Watch the Rocks live reaction of Michael Chandler's viral knock out from last weekend.