Preview: UFC Fight Night 207 Prelims

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The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns after an off week with UFC Fight Night 207 on Saturday at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas and features an eight-bout undercard. In the featured spot, lightweight prospects Joe Solecki and Alex da Silva Coelho match up in one of the more interesting fights on this slate, but the clear highlight is the opener, where blue-chip prospect Erin Blanchfield gets a difficult test against the underrated and consistent J.J. Aldrich. Beyond that, there is the potential for some highs and lows; there are a few fights that figure to be neutralizing grinds, but a flyweight pairing between Jeff Molina and Zhalgas Zhumagulov early on the card stands out as likely turning into 15 minutes of non-stop action.

Now to the preview for the UFC Fight Night “Volkanovski vs. Rozenstruik” prelims:

Lightweights

Joe Solecki (11-3, 3-1 UFC) vs. Alex da Silva Coelho (21-3, 1-2 UFC)

ODDS: Solecki (-170), da Silva (+150)

After nearly two years on the shelf, it will be interesting to see what Coelho brings to the table, particularly coming off of a bit of a breakout performance, even in a loss. “Leko” came up the ranks in much the same way as many of his Astra Fight Team stablemates. He racked up wins against a particularly weak level of competition before the UFC but learned some solid fundamentals along the way that should serve him well down the road. As expected, Coelho is now in the phase of learning to deal with opponents who can actually respond to his offense, and it has been a bumpy process. Coelho has leaned on his wrestling in the face of adversity, which got him tapped by Alexander Yakovlev and led to a control-heavy performance in his lone UFC win against Rodrigo Vargas. However, Coelho’s last bout, a September 2020 loss to Brad Riddell, served as a promising sign. Coelho managed to succeed greatly in a hot start against one of the lightweight division’s top rising talents, then hung tough for the last two rounds. If Coelho suddenly turns a corner, he should start rocketing up the lightweight ladder. We will soon see if that process starts against Joe Solecki. Through four UFC fights, Solecki has done well to get right to his strengths, looking to outwrestle and outgrapple his opponents. That has obviously paid dividends. Even when Solecki has not been able to find a submission, he is capable of controlling entire rounds on the mat when he can take the initiative. That has become a tougher needle to thread against better competition. The Gym-O product and Jim Miller essentially took turns locking each other down in a Solecki win; and once Jared Gordon started neutralizing Solecki, he quickly ran out of ideas and suffered a split decision loss. This figures to be an ugly fight, as Coelho does not look to be the type of opponent that Solecki can blow through. However, while Coelho has the type of talent to make this a long night for the New Jersey native if everything clicks, he will still likely give Solecki an early advantage he should be able to exploit, even if things are much more even down the stretch. The pick is Solecki via decision.

Jump To »
Solecki vs. Coelho
Jackson vs. Argueta
Osbourne vs. Adashev
St. Denis vs. Stolze
Gravely vs. Munoz Jr.
Molina vs. Zhumagulov
Fakhretdinov vs. Michailidis
Blanchfield vs. Aldrich