Preview: UFC 323 Prelims

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UFC 323 marks the last numbered event of 2025 for the Ultimate Fighting Championship and comes with a stacked slate of prelims attached on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It looks like a big night for the lightweight division. Prospects and veterans are in action, led by Grant Dawson and Manuel Torres fighting for a ranking in a wrestler-versus-striker battle. Further down the undercard, Terrance McKinney figures to bring his usual level of action against surging Scotsman Chris Duncan, Nazim Sadykhov looks to continue his streak of violence against Fares Ziam and Edson Barboza faces Jalin Turner in an interesting fight to see who has more left in the tank. Meanwhile, young women’s flyweight contender Maycee Barber tries to make her return against Karine Silva after some health issues, and middleweight mainstay Marvin Vettori attempts to stop his recent skid against dangerous finisher Brunno Ferreira. Even some interesting prospects like Mansur Abdul-Malik and Mairon Santos fly under the radar, which marks the clear depth of this lineup.

Now to the preview for the UFC 323 “Dvalishvili vs. Yan 2” prelims:

Lightweights

Grant Dawson (23-2-1, 11-1-1 UFC) vs. Manuel Torres (16-3, 4-1 UFC)

BETTING ODDS: Dawson (-218), Torres (+180)

The slow climb continues for Dawson. He came to the UFC in 2019 and hit the ground running as a featherweight prospect. Big for the division, he was effectively able to bully and outwrestle his opponents and usually found a submission before things got too dull. However, Dawson’s frame eventually forced him up to lightweight, where things were mostly the same if less exciting. Dawson was still dogged enough to outwrestle his opponents most of the time, but facing larger opposition meant that his fights more often turned into extended grinds. Dawson’s lack of sizzle meant that he had a slow rise relative to his level of success, which made it quite damaging when his first UFC main event went disastrously. Dawson tried to get off to a hot start against Bobby Green, only to eat a knockout blow in what wound up as a 33-second fight. Dawson has essentially picked up where he left off since. Save for an impressive ground-and-pound win over Rafa Garcia, “KGD” is once again a pure grinder who’s more effective than entertaining. It’s easy to see the UFC trying to derail Dawson’s momentum in favor of the much more exciting Torres with this matchup.



Torres has reined in his talents a bit relative to his messier form on the regional scene, but Mexico’s “El Loco” is still very much an action fighter who looks to swing for the knockout and figure out the rest later. Only one of Torres’ fights has gone past the first round in his entire career, so it does often feel like his fights are violent coinflips that he has been a bit lucky to keep winning. As a result, it wasn’t necessarily a shock when he ran into a knockout against Ignacio Bahamondes in 2024. However, Torres rebounded with a brutal finish of Drew Dober in March, and this figures to once again be a matchup that ends in one-sided fashion, even if it’s unclear if it will be Torres’ striking or Dawson’s grappling that gets the job done. Torres does seem to have some grappling in his back pocket that he only implements when forced, so the lean is that he can keep this fight standing better than Dawson can keep this on the mat. The pick is Torres via first-round knockout.

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Dawson vs. Torres
Duncan vs. McKinney
Barber vs. Silva
Ziam vs. Sadykhov
Vettori vs. Ferreira
Turner vs. Barboza
Baraniewski vs. Aslan
Abdul-Malik vs. Trocoli
Santos vs. Naimov