Preview: UFC 317 Prelims

Women’s Flyweights

Tracy Cortez (11-2, 5-1 UFC) vs. Viviane Araujo (13-6, 7-5 UFC)

ODDS: Cortez (-250), Araujo (+205)

Where exactly does Cortez stand in 2025? Cortez came to the UFC through the Contender Series in 2019, when her signing seemed like a lock with a victory. Cortez was a solid prospect and was coming off a win against Erin Blanchfield that has aged quite well. Add in her marketable look and inspirational life story, and she figured to quickly become a promotional favorite. Surprisingly, Cortez has since spent most of her UFC career being underrated, if anything. She has yet to have more than one UFC fight in a calendar year, which has often kept her from having much momentum. She has also made a habit of overperforming her expectations. Initially, she simply proved to be a much stronger wrestler than most would have expected—she even found some success up at bantamweight—but a complete victory over Jasmine Jasudavicius in 2023 raised some hope she had turned a major corner. Jasudavicius applied her usual pressure game and Cortez shut her down at every turn, both on the mat and on the feet. That breakthrough showing earned Cortez a main event against Rose Namajunas in July 2024, which was the first real underperformance of her UFC career and to a surprising degree. Cortez simply didn’t get much done, as Namajunas held onto an early lead and even managed to outwrestle her at points. Given the varying degrees of success in Cortez’s two high-level fights against Jasudavicius and Namajunas, it’s unclear exactly where she stands in terms of the flyweight Top 10, particularly after another long layoff. Araujo steps in as the benchmark, which seems to eternally be the Brazilian’s role in the flyweight division. Araujo was a particularly pleasant surprise in 2019. A career strawweight, Araujo made her UFC debut on short notice at bantamweight, scored an impressive knockout and then moved down to 125 pounds and settled there. At that time, Araujo’s athleticism clearly stood out among the 125-pound ranks, but she has come back to earth a bit as the division has filled up with younger and more athletic talent. As a generalist with a wide but not deep game, Araujo can still cause a lot of problems just by hanging tough. It usually takes either a clear athletic advantage or a specialist’s approach to get past her to any real degree. That’s why this fight mostly serves as a referendum on Cortez, and her ability to press the action seems particularly important. Jasudavicius brought the fight to her and was worse off for it, but the Namajunas fight raised the concern that Cortez might not be the most dedicated in terms of initiating things, particularly against a faster fighter like Araujo. The call is that Cortez can still grind this out, particularly since she looks to have an extremely clear wrestling advantage whenever the fight gets there, but there’s the obvious risk of a flat performance. The pick is Cortez via decision.


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