UFC 295 Fight Card: PPV Schedule, Odds and Predictions for Procházka vs. Pereira
UFC 295 comes to Madison Square Garden with a championship double-header featuring Jiří Procházka and Alex Pereira in a light heavyweight title fight.
Procházka actually never lost his 205-pound championship in the cage. After claiming the belt from Glover Teixeira he vacated the belt while he healed from a shoulder injury that has kept him out of action since June 2022.
Now, he's ready to pick up the belt that he dropped and resume his role as the best light heavyweight in the world.
Alex Pereira will attempt to stake that claim. The Brazilian former middleweight champion moved up to light heavyweight after losing a rematch against Israel Adesanya and will look to add a second belt to his resume.
An interim heavyweight championship bout between Tom Aspinall and Sergei Pavlovich is set to be the co-main event. It takes the spot of Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic which was canceled due to a torn pectoral muscle for Jones.
Here's a look at the complete card with the latest odds and predictions for the biggest bouts.
- Jiri Prochazka (+102) vs. Alex Pereira (-122) – for vacant light heavyweight title
- Sergei Pavlovich (-105) vs. Tom Aspinall (-115) – for interim heavyweight title
- Jessica Andrade (+170) vs. Mackenzie Dern (-205)
- Matt Frevola (+185) vs. Benoit Saint-Denis (-225)
- Diego Lopes (-102) vs. Pat Sabatini (-118)
- Alessandro Costa (+160) vs. Stephen Erceg (-192)
- Loopy Godinez (-175) vs. Tabatha Ricci (+145)
- Mateusz Rebecki (-625) vs. Roosevelt Roberts (+470)
- Viacheslav Borshchev (+120) vs. Nazim Sadykhov (-142)
- Jared Gordon (-205) vs. Mark Madsen (+170)
- John Castaneda (-130) vs. Kyung Ho Kang (+110)
- Kevin Borjas (+200) vs. Joshua Van (-245)
- Dennis Buzukja (+220) vs. Jamall Emmers (-270)
Main Card (ESPN+ PPV, 10 p.m. ET)
Prelims (ESPNews, 8 p.m. ET)
Early Prelims (ESPN+, 6 p.m. ET)
Pitting Alex Pereira and Jiri Procházka against each other is like debating the merits of a hammer and a Swiss army knife.
Pereira, owner of one of the scariest left hooks in the game, is a knockout artist and likely carries that power with him from the middleweight division to his new home at 205. He has a long track record of knockouts in both kickboxing and MMA. The power is real and it's able to change a fight.
Procházka, on the other hand, is a prodigious striker himself who is able to win with a little more versatile approach. He's not more technical than Pereira, but he's just a little harder to nail down. His use of movement and range will generate a difficult puzzle for Pereira to solve.
Predicting the fight is a challenge because if Pereira finds a home for the left hook or gets a beat on his opponent's triggers, then he'll find the knockout punch.
But it also works the other way. If Procházka's movement and awkward style vex Pereira he could pick him apart.
Ultimately, Procházka has just been too dominant to pick against. He submitted Glover Teixeira to win the title and won 10 consecutive fights by knockout before that.
Predicition: Procházka via fourth-round TKO
The co-main event doesn't have the star power of Jones vs. Miocic, but the interim title fight they've put together has everything you'd want in a heavyweight matchup.
Sergei Pavlovich has been a buzzsaw to this point. The 31-year-old has six consecutive wins by first-round knockout. His power is a real issue and it doesn't even seem to have to connect cleanly to alter a fight.
On the other side of the cage, Aspinall's only loss under the UFC banner came 15 seconds into his fight with Curtis Blaydes due to a knee injury. He has picked up five of his six UFC wins within the first five minutes as well, including a submission win over Alexander Volkov.
Aspinall is the more well-rounded fighter with the grappling chops to potentially negate Pavlovich's power and turn this into a submission contest. Aspinall does some of his best striking in the clinch and he can probably have success there.
The problem is that all of the areas where Aspinall can succeed involve closing the distance safely. And there's the rub.
Pavlovich is a more heavy-handed striker than Aspinall has seen in the cage. This is still a heavyweight fight and every round starts at distance standing up. That's a problem that he might not be able to get around.
Prediction: Pavlovich via second-round TKO
Before we find out who the two new champions will be on Saturday night, the women's strawweight division will have a crucial fight between Mackenzie Dern and Jessica Andrade.
Dern, who remains a constant in the rankings but has never fought for a title, will get the chance to really improve her resume in a fight against a former champion in Andrade. The last time we saw Dern she earned a unanimous decision win over veteran Angela Hill. However, she was coming off a majority decision loss to Yan Xiaonan.
Andrade suffered a knockout loss to Xiaonan by first-round knockout in May 2023 and followed it up with a second-round submission loss to Tatiana Suarez. She is now on a three-fight skid.
That losing streak is deceptive, though. All three of her losses have come to powerful fighters who are near the top of the food chain in their division. That doesn't really describe Dern.
Andrade is stll a strong fighter who is only likely to get bullied by the best of the best wrestlers in the division. Dern has slick submissions, but we'll see if she has the takedown game to control the fight.
Prediction: Andrade via decision
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