UFC 316 Main Card Preview & Prediction

UFC 316 will take place on June 7, 2025, at the Prudential Center, in Newark, New Jersey.  Th event has had several shakeups to its card already, but is still scheduled to be headlined with an UFC Bantamweight Championship rematch between current champion Merab Dvalishvili and former champion Sean O’Malley.  It was Merab taking the title off the popular O’Malley back at UFC 306 when he won by UD.

It is not the only title on the line Saturday night as an UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship bout between current two-time champion Julian Pena and her top challenger Kayla Harrison will go down.

Kelvin Gastelum will take another crack at resurrecting his once promising but currently struggling career as he takes on Joe Pyfer.  Before getting a win in June of last year, Gastelum has lost 6 of 8 before that win.  He will fight for only the second time in 350 days as the takes up the cage with Pyfer.

The other two matches that have now been promoted to the main card after several mishaps and cancellations are Mario Bautista vs Patchy Mix as well as Vicente Luque vs Kevin Holland. Overall, this card looks rock solid and well worth the PPV price tag.  With 5 matches on the main card, and 8 on the undercard, fans are in a for a long but great night of action!

Let’s get to the picks.

Main Card Predictions

Merab Dvalishvili defends the UFC Bantamweight Championship vs Sean O’Malley

Prediction – Merab Dvalishvili by submission

Reason for pick – Not only is Merab Dvalishvili going to retain the belt from the man he took it from, but this around, he is going to finish him.  In 21 career fights, O’Malley’s fights have only heard the final buzzer 5 times, he likes to finish the action early.  But this time around, I simply feel as though Merab wants the finish and he saw enough from O’Malley over 5 rounds last time around, that he will have enough of a game plan put together to put him away.  As great as it would be for the UFC to have an Irish American, showman style champion in O’Malley, Merab is simply too good to lose the strap in his first defense against the man he handled easily to win it.  O’Malley will be down big going into the fifth and get desperate, that is when Merab will catch him and submit him.  A rare feat for a guy like Merab who only has 4 finishes in his 23 fight career, but I have a hunch he gets one here.

Women’s Bantamweight Champion Julianna Pena vs Kayla Harrison

Prediction – Kayla Harrison becomes your new champ

Reason for pick -Harrison won two gold medals in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Judo and never looked back!  She is 18-1 in MMA and 2-0 in the UFC with dominant wins over Holly Holm and Ketelen Vieira.  She has every talent to be the “next big thing” in women’s MMA, but clearly has to win on Saturday night. I feel she does with 5 lopsided rounds to win the decision.

The 12-5 Pena got a fluke title shot against Raquel Pennington back in October of 2024 and was lucky enough to get a controversial split decision win.  Pena to me, has made her career on one shocking and monumental win against Amanda Nunes in December of 2021, a win that Nunes got back in their rematch in dominant fashion.  I’ll say it again, all signs point to a Harrison win and long title run to follow.

Kelvin Gastelum vs Joe Pyfer

Pick – Pyfer by KO

Reason for pick – As mentioned before, Gastelum has fought once in the last year, and before that, had lost 6 of 8.  I simply feel that Gastelum is a far cry from the guy who won The Ultimate Fighter Season 17 all the way back in 2013.  His best days are far behind him and he only has 3 wins since 2018.  Not a good stat!

On the other side of the cage is the opposite path as Pyfer has won 6 of h slat 7 fights by finish, with 5 of those 6 finished coming via KO.  I predict he knocks out Gastelum and does it in the very first round.

Gastelum vs. Pyfer Betting Odds

Patchy Mix vs Mario Bautista

Prediction – Mix by SD

Reason for Pick – Patchy Mix is 20-1, but none of those wins came inside the Octagon while competing in the UFC. In fact, this is his UFC debut.  Either he is a MMA phenom that will finally get a chance to show it on the big stage, or a total flash in the pan that stock piled a record against mainly a bunch of nobody’s.  Now, I will say this however, he does have two wins over Magomed Magomedov and one over Sergio Pettis, so those do give him a bit of credit atleast.

His opponent Bautista has been with the UFC for quite awhile, already going 9-2 in the promotion since arriving in January of 2019 with a loss versus Cory Sandhagen. Bautista comes in red hot with wins in his last 7 straight fights.

I just feel like Patchy Mix has a ton to prove here, and winning 20 of 21 fights in hard to overlook, no matter what promotion they came in.

Kevin Holland vs Vicente Luque

Prediction – Luque by UD

Reason for Pick – Holland won 5 fights in a 2020 to run his record to an impressive 21-5, since then however he has gone crashing back to reality with only 6 wins in his last 15 fights at 6-8-1 in that stretch.  Holland, much like I said about Gastelum, has been figured out and is on the heavy downside of his career.

Vicente Luque hasn’t exactly been a world beater as o f late either quite frankly, with only a 2-3 record in his last 5.  The reason I like Luque however is because he has wins over some sizable names, the likes of Belal Huhammad, Niko Price, Mike Perry, Tyron Woodley, Michel Chiesa and Rafeal dos Anjos.  So, while Holland has a 6 inch reach advantage, I feel as though Luque has enough mentally to figure out a game plan to overcome that.