Preview: UFC 318 Prelims

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship on Saturday will return to New Orleans for the first time in more than a decade, and the UFC 318 prelims at the Smoothie King Center have a few points of interest. The most important bouts of the bunch sit atop the undercard.

Kyler Phillips takes on Vinicius Oliveira in a matchup of top-tier bantamweight talents looking for a breakout win, while middleweights Marvin Vettori and Brendan Allen each look to stay on the fringes of contender status with a victory. Further down the draw are some intriguing prospects, led by middleweight Ateba Abega Gautier and welterweight newcomer Islam Dulatov.

For good measure, the UFC has thrown in some potentially entertaining fights involving the big boys, as Jimmy Crute’s light heavyweight clash against Marcin Prachnio and Ryan Spann’s heavyweight tilt with Lukasz Brzeski should provide plenty of excitement.

Now to the preview for the UFC 318 “Poirier vs. Holloway 3” prelims:

Bantamweights

Vinicius Oliveira (22-3, 3-0 UFC) vs. Kyler Phillips (12-3, 6-2 UFC)

BETTING ODDS: Oliveira (-175), Phillips (+145)

Some fun matchmaking sees two of the bantamweight division’s better athletes square off here. The UFC was obviously high on Kyler Phillips from the jump. He appeared on Dana White’s Contender Series just four fights into his professional career, wound up on “The Ultimate Fighter” shortly thereafter and got signed almost immediately after picking up his first post-reality show win on the regional scene. Given that background, it wasn’t a shock that the promotion quickly rushed him into a fight against Yadong Song in 2021. The more surprising thing was that Phillips actually wound up winning the fight.

Song proved to be a matchup where Phillips could show off all the things that make him a talent to watch. His elite speed proved to be too much for Song to track down at range, and Phillips also showed the solid wrestling and grappling game he usually has in his back pocket as a switch-up. That has remained the high-water mark for Phillips in terms of him being locked in for the entire balance of a fight, but he has continued to win a whole lot more often than he has lost despite the inefficiencies in his approach. Those issues did finally come back home to roost in his last performance, which saw him tire out against stout veteran Rob Font after the former CES MMA champion was able to adjust to Phillips’ initial success. Perhaps that will prompt “The Matrix” to finally tighten some things up, especially since he will need to do so against quick riser in Oliveira, who has shot up the ladder over the past year.



Oliveira has been a professional for nearly a decade, but Brazil’s “Lok Dog” still very much has a young man’s game held together by his high-level athleticism. Oliveira can be a technical mess and doesn’t have much in the way of defense, but the speed and power that he brings with his wild offense can either catch his opponents off-guard or wear them out in the long run. Oliveira’s UFC debut against Bernardo Sopai went about as expected given his regional career, with Oliveira having some rough patches up until he obliterated the Albanian with a flying knee.

He has greatly overachieved since then, freezing out Ricky Simon before staying ahead of Said Nurmagomedov in February. This could, like the Nurmagomedov fight, wind up being a bout where Oliveira’s gas tank proves to be his best advantage against a similarly long fighter, but the read is that Phillips—for all his issues—is still technically sound and athletic enough to stave off the Sombra Team product, even if he’s still likely to tire in the process. The pick is Phillips via decision.

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Oliveira vs. Phillips
Allen vs. Vettori
Prado vs. Veretennikov
Gautier vs. Valentin
Dulatov vs. Fugitt
Crute vs. Prachnio
Spann vs. Brzeski
Ferreira vs. McVey
Judice vs. Caliari