UFC 334 takes place tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden in New York City and we’ve got our predictions for all the fights below.
Main Card
Ciryl Gane vs. Josh Hokit
Ciryl Gane was upgraded to undisputed champ after Tom Aspinall’s eye-poke injuries from their previous fight forced him to vacate the belt. Now Gane makes his first title defense against the unbeaten Josh Hokit, who has won all four of his UFC bouts.
The whole eye-poke saga was very unfortunate and does take some of the shine off his title win, but the 36-year-old had clearly got the better of the opening round striking exchanges with Aspinall prior to the stoppage, and then went on to convincingly beat Alex Pereira. Gane is a big but chiselled physical specimen at 6ft 5″ with an 81″ reach and moves extremely well for a heavyweight. He’s calculated, technical and measured in his approach to striking, making good use of the jab and kicks from range, while picking his moments to get in and out of range quickly with more explosive bursts of offense without taking damage in return. He’s not the kind of fighter to try to force a finish and is perfectly happy to just outpoint an opponent to a decision win, but he does have power when he chooses to use it, with half of his wins coming via strikes. Early in his UFC run he also showed some respectable offensive wrestling and grappling, but both Francis Ngannou and Jon Jones have since exposed clear weaknesses in those areas defensively. The latter of those losses was three years ago though, so he’s had a good amount of time to try to shore up that side of his game.
A former undrafted free agent with the San Francisco 49’ers back in 2020, Hokit wasn’t able to stick around there for long and so became the latest ex-NFL drop-out to try his luck in MMA. And he’s done better than most of the others so far, going 10-0, and aided by a loud-mouthed, attention-grabbing persona that’s helped him get fast-tracked to title contention. Hokit is only 6ft 1″ with a 73″ reach, but an unexpectedly wild brawl with the much bigger Curtis Blaydes back in April showed just how tough and determined Hokit is as he took the fight to the veteran and battled through the pain and exhaustion barrier to win by decision. He then easily blasted through a well-past-his-best Derrick Lewis on the lawn of the White House to add another big name to his resume. Hokit’s striking is still quite rough-and-ready and so leans on his speed, athleticism and durability to make up the difference, but he was also an all-American wrestler in college that gives him another potential angle of attack.
Hokit has done well to get to this stage, but unless he can get his wrestling game going here I think he’s going to find himself out of his depth on the feet against the much bigger and far more technical Gane. Hokit’s natural toughness might keep him in the fight for longer than is healthy for his own good, but in the end I’m taking Gane to stop him by TKO in the 4th round.
Pick: Ciryl Gane wins by TKO In Rd4
Kayla Harrison vs. Amanda Nunes
Kayla Harrison won the bantamweight title in June of 2025 and now undertakes her biggest fight yet as she faces off against former two-division champion Amanda Nunes, who is making a comeback after vacating both belts and retiring in 2023.
The 36-year-old Harrison was already a former two-time Olympic judo gold medalist and two-time PFL lightweight tournament champion before she arrived in the UFC back in 2024 and went on a three-fight winning run to win the bantamweight belt. Having fought two divisions above in the past, Harrison is a huge, muscular 135lb’er and her physical strength is a major asset. That’s evident in her powerful clinch-work, leading to judo throws and wrestling takedowns, while she also has good wrestling control on top, along with being a proven submission threat and having hard ground-and-pound. Harrison’s stand-up game isn’t ripping up trees though as she’s not a natural striker and lacks speed and fluidity to her work. Harrison also had to undergo neck surgery back in January for a serious injury and didn’t return to full training until late August, so it remains to be seen if that will have an impact on her performance.
Widely acknowledged as the greatest female fighter of all-time, the 38-year-old Nunes has an unmatched MMA record that’s seen her beat a long-list of stars like Ronda Rousey, Cris Cyborg, Valentina Shevchenko, Miesha Tate and many more during a long reign as a two-division titleholder in the Octagon. Nunes is an elite striker whose natural speed and power have combined with polished technique and a killer instinct to rack up 13 finishes via strikes from 23 career victories. While her punches, kicks and elbows are all potential fight-enders, Nunes is also a slick grappler too and could certainly have racked up more than her current four submission finishes if she didn’t prefer to focus on implementing her stand-up game. Nunes had looked a bit jaded in her last few fights before retiring though, particularly in her shock title loss to Julianna Pena, and three years is a long time to spend out of fighting at this late stage in her career.
It’s hard to say how much of an impact Harrison’s neck injury and tough weight cut will have on her in this fight, or how Nunes will perform after a three year hiatus. I do feel confident however that Nunes is still the vastly superior striker and will be significantly faster and more mobile than Kayla even at 38-years-old. At the same time, Harrison is certainly stronger and could stifle her in the clinch and on the mat to grind out a win. While it’s been a long time since they trained together, Nunes still seems confident that she knows how to beat Harrison though, and having had experience beating fighters bigger than her in the past, I’m taking her to be fast, evasive and clinical on her way to a 2nd round TKO finish.
Pick: Amanda Nunes wins by TKO in Rd2.
Caio Borralho vs. Yousri Belgaroui
Caio Borralho comes off a win over Reiner de Ridder earlier in the year to fight Yousri Belgaroui, who has won all three of his UFC fights since joining last year.
Borralho has fought a consistently solid level of competition during his time in the UFC and has managed to compile an 8-1 record along the way. The 33-year-old is a very good athlete who is at his best when he’s using his strong wrestling and assured grappling to control opponents on the mat. He’s fast and explosive on the feet too, but there are limitations to his striking game as he tends to rely on single shots and looked out-of-his-depth in his sole loss to Nassourdine Imavov last year due to lacking the footwork, set-ups and combinations to operate at that level. It’s possible that Borralho could have learned from that adversity and could now become a more complete fighter, but only time will tell.
The 34-year-old Belgaroui is a former kickboxer who compiled a 27-7 record fighting for the likes of Glory, where he was a three-time title contender. That included once beating Alex Pereira, though he subsequently lost to him twice, as well as having been beaten by Israel Adesanya on two occasions. He eventually turned his attention to MMA in 2021 and had mixed results to begin with, including a loss on the Contender series in 2023 that took his record to just 5-3. However, Belgaroui has since went on a six-fight winning run, including three TKO victories since being signed to the UFC. Belgaroui is a big middleweight and will hold a 3″ height and 4″ reach advantage here to help dish out his versatile striking game. However, as is often the case with former kickboxing pro’s, his ground game is fairly weak.
Borralho has a huge advantage on the mat here and I’d expect him to use that sooner rather than later to get control of the fight and work his way to a 2nd round submission finish.
Pick: Caio Borralho wins by submission in Rd2.
Uroš Medić vs. Kevin Holland
Uros Medic comes in off four wins in a row to fight Kevin Holland, who beat Randy Brown back in April.
All four of his Medic’s wins on his latest streak came via 1st round strikes, and against respectable opponents like Daniel Rodriguez, Geoff Neal and Muslim Salikhov. That continues a career-long trend for the 33-year-old Medic, whose heavy hands have helped him to stop 12 of his 14 career wins inside the distance, with the majority coming in the opening five minutes. He’s an aggressive kickboxer who comes out of the gates swinging with fast, high-volume offense, while still managing to maintain good accuracy. While that’s been effective for him, it does leave holes defensively and he was KO’d for the first time in his career last year. And meanwhile his takedown defense isn’t the most convincing and he’s been submitted twice before.
Holland has had a reputation for fighting as often as possible for years and even racked up 5 fights in 2025, but an injury held him back this year and so this is only his second bout. At 34-years-old and with just a 4-6 record in his last 10 fights, Holland is also starting to think about his future beyond fighting, and claimed earlier this week that he plans to retire by the time he’s 36. Holland is a very big welterweight and due to Medic also having quite a short wingspan for his size, ‘Trailblazer’ will actually have a huge 10″ reach advantage on Saturday night. He likes to use that to fire off straight punches down the pipe from range along with some kicks, while those long limbs will also transform into threatening knees and elbows in close. Holland showed real power earlier in his career, particularly up at 185lbs, but it’s actually been 12 fights since his last finishes via strikes. Meanwhile, Holland’s suspect defensive wrestling has been taken advantage of multiple times in the past, but he does actually pose a threat with his offensive grappling that’s delivered 9 submission wins over the years.
Uros certainly has the momentum heading into this one, but Holland has only been finished by strikes twice in his long career, and given his big reach advantage it’s going to be tricky for Medic to get another fast finish here. I’m conflicted on the pick here because Holland isn’t always reliable, but if he does weather that early storm then he has a real chance here, and I’m taking him to create some chaos on the feet and then snatch on an opportunistic submission finish in the 2nd round.
Pick: Kevin Holland to win by decision.
Bilal Hasan vs. Luis Gurule
Contender Series sign-up Bilal Hasan made an immediate impact in his UFC debut in August by KO’ing his opponent in the 1st round. Now he fights Luis Gurule, who has only gone 2-4 in the Octagon to date.
The 25-year-old Hasan holds a 10-0 (+1nc) record and his mix of dynamic striking and charisma has marked him out as a potential star in the flyweight ranks. Hasan comes from a taekwondo background and that’s clear to see with his very fast and versatile kicking arsenal that blends in smoothly with his equally speedy punches to the head and midsection, and spinning attacks. There’s real sense of confidence and fluidity to his work and it’s not all just for show as he’s topped eight of his 10 opponents by strikes. We’ve still to see how his ground game holds up at this level though, but he can grapple and does have a solitary win by submission on his record.
The 32-year-old Gurule also joined from the Contender Series and held a 10-0 record at the time, but has struggled to keep that going in the Octagon. Gurule has functional striking, but lacks speed and so will no doubt be eager to utilize his solid wrestling game here to try to put Hasan out of his comfort zone and rough him up.
Hasan has to be mindful of Gurule’s wrestling here, but his speed, power and strikes from all angles should get the job done by the 2nd round.
Pick: Bilal Hasan wins by TKO in Rd2.
Prelims (Predicted winners in bold)
Stephen Thompson vs. Charles Radtke
Drew Dober vs. Chris Duncan
Jim Miller vs. Terrance McKinney
Donte Johnson vs. César Almeida
Jared Gordon vs. Melquizael Costa
Macy Chiasson vs. Beatriz Mesquita
Evan Elder vs. Samuel Sanches
