UFC News & FeaturesUFC 304 may not be the deepest pay-per-view card, but a healthy set of prelims matched for action—accompanied by a typically raucous British crowd—should make for an enjoyable top-to-bottom experience on Saturday at Co-op Live in Manchester, England. The featured fight serves as the clear standout of the batch, as Muhammad Mokaev looks to announce himself as the Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight division’s No. 1 contender against Manel Kape, who could make the same case with a victory. Meanwhile, local favorites Nathaniel Wood and Molly McCann each get willing dance partners in terms of throwing out offense. Beyond that, the usual mix of entertaining fighters should be buoyed by the atmosphere.
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Flyweights
#6 FLW | Muhammad Mokaev (12-0, 6-0 UFC) vs. #8 FLW | Manel Kape (19-6, 4-2 UFC)ODDS: Mokaev (-130), Kape (+110)
The push for a Mokaev title shot begins in earnest here. England’s “Punisher” came to the UFC early in 2022 with a rare level of heightened expectations, owing to a years-long decorated career as an amateur that seemingly had Mokaev—then still just 21 years old—ready to compete immediately. Mokaev has lived up to that hype, winning all six of his UFC fights to stay undefeated as a professional, though it has been an interesting story to try and calibrate exactly how far he can take his game as currently constructed. Owing to that amateur career, Mokaev seems to check every box in terms of intangibles. He has a rare level of comfort and poise within his fights for someone so young, and his most impressive ability thus far might be his willingness to gut through pain and exhaustion to keep working his way to a win. In terms of skills, Mokaev is primarily and mostly only effective as a wrestler, which makes his future such an interesting proposition. He’s technically sound and extremely poised in knowing exactly what he wants to do, but he’s not yet the type of standout athlete to get by as an effective bully—something that might or might not change as he gets older and fills out physically. That wasn’t much of a concern, as Mokaev initially worked his way up the ladder, but upon working his way into the rankings against Tim Elliott and Alex Perez, it has suddenly stuck out as an issue. He gutted his way to a late submission victory over Elliott, but the Perez fight went much more sideways. Perez had the wrestling skill and physicality to neutralize Mokaev, leaving him to go for some unsuccessful takedowns without much burst or momentum. Mokaev still got a win over the finish line, and now he might be a victory away from a title shot. However, if athleticism is going to be an issue for Mokaev, in general, it’s definitely going to be a liability against Kape. Angola’s Kape has taken somewhat of the opposite route as Mokaev. After a highly decorated career in Japan that saw him make his mark as a knockout artist, Kape has been trying to build out a game that depends on more than just his explosive athleticism. Kape made his UFC debut in 2021, and it quickly became apparent that the approach he used in Japan wouldn’t work. He was usually able to stay patient and wait for his moment to strike and quickly end the fight, but he never found that opening against either Alexandre Pantoja or Matheus Nicolau, both of whom were able to outpace Kape for a decision victory. To his credit, Kape has picked up the pace from there, which resulted in a few knockouts before some clear decision wins in each of his past two fights. Even then, Kape did give back a ton of his offensive gains on defense against David Dvorak and Felipe dos Santos; it was just a blessing that Kape had enough horsepower that he was clearly the one landing the more effective offense. That dynamic is fascinating against Mokaev. Even if Mokaev is tough enough to withstand whatever comes his way, Kape is going to be leaps and bounds more effective on the feet. With that said, Kape should also be wide open for Mokaev to hunt for some takedowns for the majority of the fight. The question is what Mokaev is able to do once he gets the fight to the ground. Even beyond any grappling or striking success, it’s seemingly imperative that he banks plenty of control time if only to outweigh the damage that Kape causes whenever the fight is on the feet. Kape is so potent that he might be able to make up for minutes of control time with one or two hard blows. Mokaev certainly has the bona fides to get this done, but the read is that this is where his issues come home to roost, at least in the short term. The pick is Kape via decision.
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Mokaev vs. Kape
Wood vs. Pineda
McCann vs. Brasil
Loughran vs. Hadley
Parkin vs. Brzeski
Parsons vs. Elliott
Patterson vs. Crosbie
Bannon vs. Ardelean
Bukauskas vs. Prachnio
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