UFC Fight Night: Burns vs. Morales Predictions

UFC Fight Night 256: Burns vs. Morales takes place on Sunday (AEDT) at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, United States. – and we’ve got our UFC predictions for all the fights below, and you can place your bets with the best betting sites Australia has to offer!

UFC Fight Night 256 Predictions

Gilbert Burns vs. Michael Morales

Former welterweight title contender Gilbert Burns is coming off three losses in a row as he now heads into a main event fight against the undefeated Michael Morales, who is a perfect 17-0 in his career to date, which includes five wins since joining the UFC in 2022.

Burns recent losing slump doesn’t seem quite so bad when you consider that he was going up against former champion Belal Muhammad, newly crowned champ Jack Della Maddalena and current No.1 contender Sean Brady. And he took two of them to the scorecards, while he has on his way to victory against JDM before being KO’d in the final round. So Burns is still a tough fight for anyone, even if time is starting to catch up with him as he approaches his 39th birthday in a couple of months time. Burns is on the small side for the welterweight division, but he’s a strong, durable fighter who throws with enough power to earn respect and is not afraid to apply pressure. Burns benefits from being a well-rounded fighter with respectable wrestling, which brings into play his very assured grappling ability, and despite his age he still has solid cardio.

Morales is still only 25-years-old, but he’s already got the better of experienced veterans like Neil Magny, Jake Matthews and Max Griffin in the Octagon. Morales is a big welterweight who will have a 2″ height and large 8″ reach advantage over Burns on Saturday night. He has a good mix of physical strength, power and speed too, which enables him to strike with authority on the feet, and also feeds into his good wrestling ability and potent ground-and-pound. When combined that’s led to 12 of his 17 career victories so far coming via strikes, but he’s also a patient, well conditioned fighter who can go the distance too. That being said, this will be his first ever five round fight.

Morales will have to be wary of Burns crafty grappling ability here, but his wrestling can help dictate where the fight goes, and there’s a lot of other factors in his favor here as the much younger, bigger, and more powerful fighter, and I think he’ll be able to steadily pick apart the veteran from range here to emerge with a decision win.

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Paul Craig vs. Rodolfo Bellato Prediction

With just one win in his last six fights, Paul Craig is under pressure to turn things around this weekend against Rodolfo Bellato, who has earned a win and a draw since joining from the Contender Series in 2023.

The 37-year-old Craig has put together an eight-year run in the UFC despite being a bit of an old-school single-discipline specialist who relies heavily on his dangerous submission ability to win fights. His triangle-choke in particular has become a well-recognised lethal weapon that’s proven to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for him at times, as current 205lb champ Magomed Ankalaev found out in his UFC debut back in 2018 when he was submitted in the final second of their fight. Ex-champs Jamahal Hill and Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua have also been bested by Craig over the years, but those who have been able to exploit Craig’s glaring weaknesses have fared much better. That’s because Craig has a poor wrestling game, which means it’s relatively easy to just shut down his opportunities to get the fight to the floor, and meanwhile on the feet his striking game is very underwhelming, and held back further by his lack of athleticism and power. As such, in recent years his durability has suffered as the likes of Caio Borralho and Johnny Walker have finished him, while even Bo Nickal’s work-in-progress striking got the better of him last time out.

The 29-year-old Bellato’s UFC run started well with a TKO victory against Ihor Poteira, but he then had a lengthy layoff due to kidney issues, before settling for a majority draw against Jimmy Crute upon his return to action this past February. Bellato is a battling striker who possesses the physicality and power than Craig lacks. Bellato is happy to slug it out on the feet and has respectable enough wrestling to help ensure the fight stays there if he wants it, though he does also have a few submission wins on his record too.

Favorable stylistic match-ups for Craig are becoming hard to find and this certainly doesn’t look like one of them as I’d expect Bellato to force this one to be fought upright, where his heavy handed aggression is likely to lead to a first round TKO Finish.

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Sodiq Yusuff vs. Mairon Santos Prediction

Sodiq Yusuff is coming off back-to-back defeats for the first time in his career as he now gets ready to fight Mairon Santos, who is 2-0 in the Octagon so far.

The 31-year-old Yusuff is 6-3 overall in the UFC, with his recent two losses coming against highly regarded opposition in Edson Barboza and Diego Lopes, in addition to a prior decision loss to Arnold Allen back in 2021. Yusuff is a composed striker who moves well and has good speed and respectable power in his punches, as well as solid kicks. He’s not as big of a finisher as his athletic, muscular physique might suggest though, having only clocked up two TKO finishes in the UFC so far, but he can hurt his opponents and he stays active offensively. The ground game isn’t his strongest suit, but he’s a capable offensive wrestler and can hold his own on the mat if required.

The 24-year-old Santos wields an impressive overall 15-1 record, having previously been active on the Brazilian regional circuit and then a brief stint in the LFA promotion prior to making his way to the UFC via The Ultimate Fighter show. His opposition so far hasn’t been at the level of Yusuff’s though, and while he did KO Kaan Ofli in his UFC debut to win TUF Season 32, he only narrowly edged past Francis Marshall by split-decision last time out. Santos is a speedy striker with solid power and can land nicely on the counter. He prefers to keep the action standing, but his takedown defense and ability to work back to his feet isn’t the finished article at this stage.

This is easily Santos’ toughest fight to date and while Yusuff was TKO’d by Diego Lopes last time out, I think he still has the skill-set and higher-level experience to get the better of a competitive fight to claim a decision win here.

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Dustin Stoltzfus vs. Nursulton Ruziboev Prediction

Dustin Stoltzfus comes off a first round KO win to fight Nursulton Ruziboev, who is 3-1 in his UFC run so far.

The 31-year-old Stoltzfus’ early finished against Marc-Andre Barriault in November was much needed as his overall record in the Octagon stands at just 3-5 since joining from the Contender Series in 2020. Though he is a capable kickboxer, Stoltzfus isn’t typically known as much of a finisher on the feet. In fact, heading into that fight there were concerns about his own durability, having been KO’d late in the opening round of his previous fight, and also having been TKO’d in just 19 seconds a couple of years earlier. However, Stoltzfus makes up for not being the quickest or hardest-hitting striker by mixing things up with solid wrestling and providing a capable submission threat, although he has also been finished by submission twice in the UFC.

The 31-year-old Ruziboev had a vast amount of experience prior to arriving in the UFC a couple of years ago, with well over 40 fights to his name, but with so much of that coming against unknowns in random promotions, including a few losses along the way, it was difficult to know for sure how he was going to fare. However, Ruziboev hit the ground running with back-to-back 1st round victories in the Octagon by KO and TKO. He did then lose by unanimous decision to Joaquin Buckley last year after a curious decision to have a one-off fight at 170lbs, but has since moved back up to 185lbs and picked up another TKO win. Ruziboev stands tall at 6ft 5″, giving him a 6″ height advantage here, though having just an extra inch in reach. He’ll a well-rounded fighter who has good speed and timing with his punches and kicks, and has proven to be durable throughout his career, with only one defeat coming via strikes. he’s also a capable wrestler and managed to rack up 20 submission finishes on the regional scene. In total 33 of his 35 career wins inside the distance, but it’s worth noting he’s also lost 7 and drawn 2 of his 11 fights that went to the scorecards.

Despite his very patchy record Stoltzfus is the better of the two at coming out on top when he’s able to take fights to the judges, but given that he has been vulnerable to both strikes and submissions at times and his opponent has a knack for finding a finish I’ll take Ruziboev to emerge with a 2nd round TKO victory here.

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Julian Erosa vs. Melquizael Costa Prediction

Julian Erosa is on a three-fight winning streak heading into this event, and so is his opponent Melquizael Costa.

The 35-year-old Erosa’s time in the UFC has been something of a roller-coaster ride, having had three separate stints in the promotion, including an initial 1-1 run, followed by a disappointing return to the fold that compromised of three consecutive defeats. However, his latest run has been his most productive, going 8-3. Erosa is an aggressive, all-action fighter who is always in search of a finish, whether it’s on the feet or on the mat. He’s very lanky for the 145lb division at 6ft 1″ and that’ll give him an extra 3″ in height and reach to work with here. While he can use that to strike from range, Erosa is also just as willing to slug it out at close quarters with a high-volume approach. The problem with that is that while he is capable of ending the fight, his battling mentality isn’t matched by the quality of his chin, and that’s led to him being finished 7 times via strikes over the years (and once on TUF), including some clean KO’s. However, Erosa doesn’t just rely on his striking as he’s also a crafty grappler if the action goes to the mat, with over half his 26 career finishes coming via submission.

The 28-year-old Costa is cut from a similar cloth as Erosa as he too likes to aggressively press the action and carries a threat via both strikes and submissions. Costa hasn’t yet full ran into the kind of chin issues that have haunted Erosa over the years, but he has been stopped both on the feet and on the mat at times over the years and at other times has had to dig deep to battle out of adversity to emerge victorious. Thought he can be reckless he does have solid striking technique, particularly with his kicks, and he’s also a decent wrestler and is comfortable scrambling and looking for submission opportunities.

These are two fighters who are both ready to go out on their shield and so a finish seems likely, and with Costa having the better chin and being a bit more technical I’ll say he’s the one who lands a 1st round TKO finish here.

UFC Fight Night 256 Prelims

(Predicted winners in bold)

Gabriel Green vs. Matheus Camilo
Jared Gordon vs. Thiago Moisés
Luana Santos vs. Tainara Lisboa
Yadier Del Valle vs. Connor Matthews
Elise Reed vs. Denise Gomes
Park Hyun-sung vs. Carlos Hernandez
Tecia Pennington vs. Luana Pinheiro