Preview: UFC on ESPN 63 Prelims

Featherweights

Felipe Lima (13-1, 1-0 UFC) vs. Miles Johns (15-2, 6-2 UFC)

ODDS: Lima (-275), Johns (+225)

Johns looks to continue a quietly successful streak in this assignment. A 2019 alum of Dana White’s Contender Series, Johns fit a familiar mold as a prospect—a former wrestler looking to develop some comfort on the feet to round out his game. For the first few years of his UFC career, “Chapo” would take two steps forward and one step back, suffering losses to opponents aggressive enough to blow through his defenses. While those issues still persist to an extent, Johns has patched things up enough that he’s now riding a four-fight undefeated streak. Initially matched with Cody Garbrandt in November in what was a clear opportunity at a breakthrough, Johns instead gets a pairing that’s much more risk than reward against Lima, who looks to cap off his own breakout 2024 campaign.

A Brazilian training out of Sweden, Lima was a standout on the European scene and a particularly strong signing by the UFC in a late-notice spot in June. “Jungle Boy” proved worth the hype, at least one fight into his UFC career. As an undersized bantamweight, Lima’s aggressive and chaotic approach figured to have some difficulty translating against bigger competition, but he instead managed to outlast and eventually submit a physical featherweight in Muhammad Naimov. That also bodes well here in another late-notice spot up at 145 pounds. With the proof of concept that Lima can hang with bigger fighters, his approach should cause a lot of problems for Johns’ preference to keep things at a slow pace. Johns could still win this, as he’s in the best form of his career. He has still been able to skate by some more aggressive opponents even when the situation gets uncomfortable, and Lima did slow down at points trying to keep up his own high pace against Naimov. Given the stylistic matchup, the pick is Lima via decision.

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