UFC 310 picks and predictions

Who will win in the Octagon this weekend?

Mano a mano. Art by Chris Rini.

The UFC’s last pay-per-view of 2024 is upon us. And it’s a pretty darn good one, too.

The UFC 310 main event has Alexandre Pantoja defending his UFC flyweight title against promotional newcomer, and former RIZIN bantamweight champion, Kai Asakura. The co-main event will almost certainly determine the next UFC welterweight title contender with Shavkat Rakhmonov meeting Ian Machado Garry. Rakhmonov was due to have his title shot on this card, before Belal Muhammad pulled out due to injury.

In addition to those two five rounders, there’s lots of great fights across this card. We’ve got Ciryl Gane vs. Alexander Volkov, Nate Landwehr vs. Doo Ho Choi and Aljamain Sterling vs. Movsar Evloev.

There’s even Chris Weidman. Michael Chiesa and Clay Guida sightings on this card.

We’ve looked over all these match-ups and picked our winners. It was a lot easier (and fun) to do this week, given that pretty much every fighter on the card has some name value to them.

You can see those picks below. If you’re using these to make wagers… don’t blame us if you lose! That being said, I hope you win big. And you can credit us if you do. Either way, please bet responsibly.

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Alexandre Pantoja (-250) vs. Kai Asakura (+205)

Miguel Class: Pantoja has been a really difficult fighter to make picks for. I chose Erceg against him, and while that one was certainly close, Pantoja had just enough grit, determination, and veteran experience to stick around and capitalize on his less experienced opponent’s mistakes. Like Erceg, Asakura is quite big for flyweight and represents a similar counter threat but is a much more thunderous puncher, making it a real possibility that he becomes the one to finally crack the seemingly impenetrable chin of the champion.

Having just seen another legendary chin get cracked this year with Max Holloway, I’m tempted to pick the UFC newcomer to get a shocking victory. He’s been fighting professionally for 17 years and is 34 years old, which means we’ve all been waiting for a sudden dropoff that hasn’t quite materialized yet.