|
Fight By Fight Preview | UFC Fight Night: Moicano vs Duncan
Setting The Stage For Saturday’s Return To Meta APEX In Las Vegas
By E. Spencer Kyte
Back at Meta APEX for the third time this year, UFC follows up last weekend’s electric event at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle with a prospect-heavy fight card at home, headlined by lightweight finishers Renato Moicano and Chris Duncan, with a crucial strawweight pairing between Virna Jandiroba and Tabatha Ricci serving as the co-main event.
A tight 12-fight card that promises plenty of excitement that sets the table for next Saturday’s UFC 327 blockbuster in Miami feels like a nice way to kick off the month of action inside the Octagon.
Let’s get into it.
Main Event: Renato Moicano vs Chris Duncan
Lightweights with a penchant for finishing fights that train alongside one another in South Florida clash in the main event as Renato Moicano faces off with Chris Duncan on Saturday night.
Stationed at No. 10 in the rankings, Moicano returns for the first time since landing on the wrong side of things in a bout with Beneil Dariush last June at UFC 317. He was penciled in to face Brian Ortega at UFC 326, but the former featherweight title challenger withdrew, pushing the Brazilian back a few weeks and into his fourth main event assignment.
Duncan arrives having won four straight and six of seven since earning a contract in his second Contender Series appearance back in Season 6. “The Problem” has earned finishes in three of his last four, with the lone exception being his absolute brawl with Mateusz Rebecki last August at the APEX.
With American Top Team having such a loaded room of lightweights, it’s inevitable that two are going to get paired up from time to time, but this is the second time in three fights that Duncan has faced this challenge, and it’ll be interesting to see if that factors into things at all in this one. While Duncan is in the best form of his career, Moicano enters his 2026 debut on a two-fight slide, not all that far removed from battering Benoît Saint Denis, but still in need of a similar type of effort here to avoid a three-fight skid and losing his place in the rankings to the ascending Scotsman.
Co-Main Event: Virna Jandiroba vs Tabatha Ricci
Top 10 strawweights occupy the penultimate position on Saturday’s fight card as Brazilians Virna Jandiroba and Tabatha Ricci battle it out for a place in the championship queue.
Jandiroba faced Mackenzie Dern in a battle for the vacant strawweight title last time out at UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi, dropping a unanimous decision to the Brazilian jiu-jitsu standout in a fight that was closer than that result usually indicates. She’d won five straight before that by blending her sneaky striking with outstanding grappling abilities and will look to maintain her place in the Top 5 with a hasty return to the win column here.
Ricci fought just once in 2025, but she made it count, collecting an emphatic second-round stoppage win over Amanda Ribas in a tremendous performance last July. She’s now 7-2 in the UFC’s 115-pound weight class and continually making strides with her striking, which makes her increasingly dangerous and capable of climbing the ranks and into title contention.
Will it be Jandiroba that holds her ground and gets moving in the right direction again, or can Ricci manifest a significant shift in the hierarchy as we kick off Q2 in the UFC?
Abdul-Rakhman Yakhyaev vs Brendson Ribeiro
It’s Season 9 versus Season 7 in this light heavyweight clash between Dana White’s Contender Series grads Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev and Brendson Ribeiro.
Yakhyaev is one of the most fascinating prospects in the sport at the moment: an undefeated Chechen-born standout who represents Turkey, possessing menacing power, and who has spent 63 seconds combined earning his contract and first UFC win. While maintaining that incredible quick average fight time is nigh on impossible, the fact that he’s earned finishes in seven of his eight career wins and only been beyond the 3:05 mark of the second round once suggests he could very well continue posting stoppages as he starts to work his way deeper into the talent pool in the 205-pound weight class.
Ribeiro, who earned his spot on the roster with a first-round knockout win over Bruno Lopes, has posted results in sets of two thus far in his UFC career, losing his first two before winning a pair of contests, and dropping two more. His second of those two victories came at the outset of last year when he faced another undefeated Contender Series grad, Diyar Nurgozhay, which is an interesting little wrinkle to this one.
A lot of people are understandably high on Yakhyaev, with good reason, but it’s important to remember that he just turned 25 in January, has made all of eight professional appearances, and he’s yet to face any truly established competition. His upside is immense, and the excitement is justified, but neither his last outing nor this one should be held out as anything more than early career challenges for a promising young talent.
Ethyn Ewing vs Rafael Estevam
One of last year’s surprise breakout fighters returns to welcome an undefeated Brazilian to the bantamweight division as Ethyn Ewing faces off with DWCS alum Rafael Estevam.
Ewing showed out on incredibly short notice last November in New York City, rolling into UFC 322 and earning a unanimous decision win over Malcolm Wellmaker that made everyone immediately sit up and take notice of the now 9-2 Californian. But now comes the hard part: trying to follow up on that performance and build into a genuine emerging threat in the talent-rich 135-pound weight class.
Unbeaten in 14 professional bouts, Nova Uniao’s Estevam heads up a division after missing weight in two of his three UFC appearances and showing a sharp decline in his gas tank in the final round each time out. Unquestionably talented and particularly skilled on the ground, the questions that need to be answered heading into this one are how the 29-year-old will manage up a weight class, and what kind of impact an easier (hopefully) weight-cut has on his ability to push hard for 15 minutes?
This feels like a sneaky good matchup between a couple of ascending talents with something to prove, so don’t be surprised if Ewing and Estevam team up to steal the show on Saturday night.
Tommy McMillen vs Manolo Zecchini
The second of two undefeated members of Dana White’s Contender Series Class of ’25 to step into the Octagon this weekend, Tommy McMillen makes his promotional debut opposite returning Italian Manolo Zecchini.
Perfect through nine professional bouts and having won 16 straight dating back to his amateur days, McMillen is a 28-year-old featherweight who is the third link in the “Montana-to-Arizona” chain that started with Tim Welch and “Suga” Sean O’Malley. He earned his contract with a gritty majority decision win last September at the APEX and returns looking to maintain his unblemished record through his promotional debut this weekend.
Now 29, Zecchini hasn’t fought since losing his debut to Morgan Charriere in Paris in September 2023. He was a question mark because of the level of competition he’d faced heading into that one, and remains one here after a couple of years away. Anything is possible when a relatively young and inexperienced athlete logs multiple years honing their skills with the team at Jackson-Wink, which makes Zecchini a wild card heading into the weekend.
Will “Gun” continue his unbeaten run, or can the returning Zecchini spoil his debut?
Preliminary Card Pairings
Guilherme Pat vs Thomas Petersen
Brazilian Guilherme Pat and American Thomas Petersen meet in Saturday’s lone heavyweight pairing at the Meta APEX.
Pat picked up a unanimous decision win in his debut last December to advance to 6-0 as a professional, establishing himself as a long-range prospect to watch in the division. A member of the DWCS Class of ’23, Petersen has gone 2-3 over his first five UFC appearances, alternating results each time out.
José Delano vs Robert Ruchala
One of the most interesting battles on Saturday’s fight card pits newcomer Jose Delano against former KSW standout Robert Ruchala in a featherweight pairing.
The 30-year-old Delano looked solid in earning a contract last season on the Contender Series and has the experience to hit the ground running in the UFC. Ruchala landed on the wrong side of the results in his debut in Paris opposite William Gomis, but was 11-1 before that with a collection of good wins over game opponents.
Alessandro Costa vs Stewart Nicoll
Alessandro Costa and Stewart Nicoll clash in a meeting of flyweights looking to start the year off on a positive note.
Costa has shown flashes of upside during his first five UFC appearances, but has failed to find consistency, resulting in his toggling results the whole way along. Nicoll was unbeaten before getting the call to the Octagon, but he makes his first business trip to Las Vegas still searching for his first UFC win.
Lando Vannata vs Darrius Flowers
Returning lightweight share the Octagon midway through Saturday’s prelims as “Groovy” Lando Vannata takes on DWCS alum Darrius Flowers.
Fighting for the first time in nearly three years, Vannata always flashed potential and bagged bonuses in each of his first four starts, but ultimately amassed a 4-7-2 record in 13 UFC appearances before hitting pause on his career. Flowers earned a contract with a slam finish on Season 6 of the Contender Series, but touches down for his fourth appearance, looking to halt a three-fight skid.
Alice Pereira vs Hailey Cowan
Alice Pereira and Hailey Cowan clash in a bantamweight pairing of relative newcomers looking to start making headway in the division.
Pereira arrived with some buzz last year, but struggled to get going before ultimately dropping a decision to Montse Rendon in her promotional debut. Injuries have been the main factor that has limited Cowan to just two starts since claiming a contract on Season 6 of the Contender Series. Now fighting out of Las Vegas, she aims to leave this home game with her first UFC win.
Azamat Bekoev vs Tresean Gore
Middleweights with a combined 20 finishes in 25 career wins meet early in the night on Saturday as Azamat Bekoev faces off with Tresean Gore.
After a pair of stoppage wins to start his rookie campaign last year, Bekoev ran afoul of Yousri Belgaroui last October in Vancouver, suffering a loss that looks a little different a week after the Dutch kickboxer stopped Mansur Abdul-Malik last weekend as an encore. A finalist on Season 29 of The Ultimate Fighter, Gore has operated in sets of two so far in his UFC career, losing two, then winning two, before losing each of his two appearances last year.
Dione Barbosa vs Melissa Gatto
Talented Brazilian flyweights open the show as Dione Barbosa welcomes Melissa Gatto back to the division and back to action.
Barbosa has gone 2-2 since claiming a spot on the roster with a win on Season 7 of the Contender Series, beating a pair of unranked opponents while dropping competitive decisions to Miranda Maverick and Karine Silva. Despite being on the roster since 2019, this will only be Gatto’s sixth appearance inside the Octagon and her first since snapping a two-fight skid with a third-round stoppage win over Tamires Vidal in May 2024.
_________________
So you wanna be a [bleeping] member? => Get access to the community <=
Looking for a seedbox? RuTorrent, qbitTorrent, Deluge and Transmission included in all packages! Unlimited torrents, unlimited transfers!
Perfect for both beginners and professionals. Watch the files directly in your browser without downloading or download to your device, up to you!
Really Fast 1 Gbit seedboxes - Professional support 24/7/365 - Click to learn more
To get a recurring 10% discount on all seedbox packages use the PROMO CODE: mmatorrents
|
UFC Fight Night 271 - Adesanya vs. Pyfer
