Preview: UFC on ABC 1 Prelims

Welterweights

NR | Ramazan Emeev (19-4, 4-1 UFC) vs. NR | David Zawada (17-5, 1-2 UFC)

ODDS: Emeev (-255), Zawada (+215)

This fight is certainly a contrast in terms of approaches. Zawada has not gained much prominence in his UFC career to date, but he has quietly been one of the most consistently exciting fighters on the roster, owing to his constant willingness to try and make something happen. Whether on the feet or on the ground, Zawada throws out offense and makes things tough for his opponents. He fell just short in his first two UFC bouts—he took Danny Roberts to a split decision and suffered a late finish against Jingliang Li—but a surprising submission win over Abubakar Nurmagomedov in late 2019 has set up Zawada to find his footing on the UFC roster. Up next for “Sagat” is Emeev, whose UFC career has essentially been the inverse. While Emeev has been quite successful in winning four of his five Octagon bouts, the Russian is a dedicated grinder. A surprisingly flat performance against Anthony Rocco Martin in a fight where Emeev was unable to get much going raised some concerns about his ceiling, but he at least rebounded with a one-sided win over Niklas Stolze in his lone fight of 2020. It will be interesting to see if Emeev can stifle an opponent as consistently active as Zawada, so if this goes the expected 15 minutes, this could wind up a close fight where the judges are left to weigh Emeev’s control against Zawada’s activity. Zawada has enough in terms of grappling chops and physicality to hold his own, so the pick is for the German to take the decision, but it may take the ugliest fight of his UFC career to get the job done.

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