Preview: UFC 325 Prelims

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship will return to Sydney this Saturday at Qudos Bank Arena, and while UFC 325 lacks depth, its undercard should provide a decent amount of entertainment. In terms of prospects, welterweight Jonathan Micallef looks like the clear standout, particularly since he draws an interesting assignment against Oban Elliott, aka “The Welsh Gangster,” at 170 pounds. Meanwhile, Kaan Ofli-Zha Yi figures to supply some fireworks at featherweight, and while a clash between middleweight wrestlers Jacob Malkoun and Torrez Finney might not offer the most action, it looks intriguingly well-matched on paper. The company wraps up Season 4 of its Road to UFC tournament to kick off festivities, buoyed by some Oceanic representation in all four finals.

Now to the preview for the UFC 325 “Volkanovski vs. Lopes 2” prelims:

Light Heavyweights

Billy Elekana vs. Junior Tafa

BETTING ODDS: Elekana (-250), Tafa (+205)



Two light heavyweights look for a big performance in this confrontation. Tafa (6-4, 2-4 UFC) was worth the flier when the UFC picked him up in 2023. He was quite unproven as a mixed martial artist, but the same could be said of his older brother, Justin Tafa, who at least turned into a solid heavyweight gatekeeper. The younger Tafa is faster and more athletic than his sibling, but he couldn’t leverage that into much consistent success as a UFC-level heavyweight. As a fairly one-dimensional striker, he had few answers against wrestling-heavy opponents and didn’t show much of the requisite power or durability to take apart opponents on the feet. Tafa cut down to light heavyweight last year, typically a risky gambit. A lot of smaller heavyweights find that even less of their game works against an opponent who can also match them in the speed department. It’s hard to say Tafa looked much worse down at 205 pounds, but his fight against Tuco Tokkos still wasn’t promising. Tokkos is a subpar athlete for the division and still outwrestled Tafa handily before scoring a second-round submission. Tafa looks for his first win at light heavyweight against Elekana, who had a quietly successful back half of 2025 after losing his UFC debut to Bogdan Guskov earlier in the year.

Elekana (9-2, 2-1 UFC) was a decent enough pickup, but it would be nice to see him turn some sort of corner if he wants to achieve a consistent level of success. Elekana’s approach mostly consists of two ideas at the moment, as he either fights with a low-output striking style from range or just looks to outwrestle his opponent. That has worked surprisingly well against some of the lowest levels of the UFC’s light heavyweight roster, but the Guskov fight—as well as some of Elekana’s regional bouts—does suggest that his game is a bit thin at the moment, falling apart against opponents who consistently try to test him. Tafa has the mentality to potentially put a scare into Elekana. However, Tafa’s glaring weaknesses on the mat give Elekana a reliable escape hatch, whether he pursues his wrestling immediately or in response to some potential danger. The pick is Elekana via first-round submission.

Continue Reading »
Elekana vs. Tafa
Rowston vs. Brundage
Malkoun vs. Finney
Micallef vs. Elliott
Yi vs. Ofli
Mar Fan vs. Kim
Szalay vs. Nakamura
Sulang vs. Lui
Batbayar vs. Tau