UFC 247 Jones vs Reyes Pick Three

UFC 247 is this weekend from Houston Texas. The headliner, Jon Bones Jones defends his UFC Light Heavyweight Championship against Dominick Reyes in the main event. There are a few other fights that stood out to us as well. Here is the “Pick Three” for Saturday night.

Derrick Lewis vs Ilir Latifi

Lewis bounced back from a two-fight losing streak to JDS and Daniel Cormier to narrowly defeat Blagoy Ivanov at UFC 244 with a razor thin split decision. Lewis has knockout power but his gas tank has been pulled into question at time, as has his motivation and focus.

Latifi is trying to comeback from a two-fight losing streak to Corey Anderson & Volkan Oezdemir. In both fights he looked shaky. He lost to Anderson with a unanimous decision, and Oezdemir knocked him out cold.

I believe Latifi’s bad luck will continue as Lewis is a very dangerous man when he wants to be. Latifi has been knocked out four times in his career and I believe number five is on the way Saturday night.

Womens Flyweight Champion Valentina Shevchenko defends against Katlyn Chookagian

While Amanda Nunes may be the most dangerous woman in the world, there is no second place when it comes to Shevchenko. She is every bit as good and pushed Nunes to the limit twice. Two of her three losses are against Nunes and she is fresh off avenging her only other loss to Liz Carmouche.

Shevchenko is incredible on her feet with her striking and had proven that countless times. Few will ever forget her powerful head kick that knocked Jessica Eye out cold last year.

With wins over Eye, Carmouche, Jedrzejczyk, Pena and Holm, she truly is at the top of her game and fears no women. Chookigian shouldn’t provide much of a problem.

UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones defends against Dominick Reyes

At 12-0 with 9 finishes, Reyes appears to be the next big thing. This matchup with Jones is by far his toughest test yet. His last victory was a dominating knockout over Chris Weidman this past October in Boston that lasted less than two minutes. He is at the top of his game but will need to be even better to hang with Jones.

Back in July Jon Bones Jones was awarded a split decision victory over Thiago Santos. A fight that I personally feel he lost. Time will only tell if that was a wakeup call for the champ.

This has been indicated to be his last fight at Light Heavyweight as all signs point towards a move to heavyweight. I believe Jones will finish strong and defeat Reyes by fourth round stoppage.