Preview: UFC Kansas City ‘Garry vs. Prates’

Middleweights

Ikram Aliskerov (15-2, 2-1 UFC) vs. Andre Muniz (24-6, 6-2 UFC)

ODDS: Aliskerov (-650), Muniz (+470)

Aliskerov looks to rebound from a rush up the ladder that didn;t quite take. Heading into 2024, Aliskerov was both proven and unproven. The Russian figured to be close to a finished product given that he started his career in earnest about a decade prior, and while he had shown an ability to run over outmatched competition, most of that came against a questionable level of opposition—outside of his own blowout loss to Khamzat Chimaev. After another quick knockout win over Phil Hawes in his UFC debut, the promotion tried to rush Aliskerov immediately into contention with matchups against Paulo Costa and Nassourdine Imavov that eventually fell through, resulting in Aliskerov instead quickly dismantling Warlley Alves. It was much the same story come 2024, with steps up the ladder against Anthony Hernandez and Andre Muniz also falling through. However, an injury to Chimaev was a bit of luck that finally went Aliskerov's way, opening up a main event spot against Robert Whittaker in June. That quickly resulted in a Whittaker knockout victory, forcing Aliskerov to have to take the slow route up the ranks. The UFC has been able to rebook the Muniz fight here, as the pairing remains an interesting test of both men just outside of the middleweight rankings.

Muniz has been out of action for over a year, but he did well to salvage a rough 2023 campaign with a win in his last fight. “Sergipano” didn’t look particularly impressive when he hit the UFC in 2019, as the Brazilian seemed like a one-dimensional grappler who was too stiff athletically to get things done. However, it was eventually hard to argue with the results. Muniz swung with enough power to keep opponents on their toes and proved to be a lethal armbar specialist capable of racking up submission wins. Muniz entered 2023 as a bit of a divisional dark horse, but he then hit the wall hard with one-sided losses to Brendan Allen and Paul Craig, raising questions about his ability to handle opponents capable of hanging with him on the mat and aggressive enough to walk through his strikes. Fortunately for Muniz’s sake, he was able to eke out a decision win over Jun Yong Park that proved pressure isn’t an automatic path to victory against him. However, those concerns do come up once again against Aliskerov. The Russian is a consistently aggressive fighter who might be messy but hits with power, and he has shown the ability to pivot to an impressive power grappling game when needed. There are a lot of ways this fight could go sideways for either fighter, particularly if neither man can score a quick finish, but Aliskerov being able to storm Muniz and cause significant damage seems like the safest bet. The pick is Aliskerov via first-round stoppage.

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Garry vs. Prates
Zhang vs. Smith
Onama vs. Chikadze
Pereira vs. Magomedov
Brown vs. Dalby
Aliskerov vs. Muniz
The Prelims