UFC 302: Makhachev vs. Poirier – Odds, Picks, Preview

UFC 302 on Saturday night in Newark, N.J., pits lightweight champion Islam Makhachev against former interim lightweight champ and No. 4 contender Dustin Poirier.

The co-main event will put former middleweight champion Sean Strickland and No. 1 contender in the division against No. 7 Paulo Costa in a title-eliminator match.

Let’s take a deeper look at the card and make some picks in this preview:

• UFC lightweight championship: (C) Islam Makhachev (-650 or better) vs. (4) Dustin Poirier (+455 or better)
• UFC middleweight fight: (1) Sean Strickland (-250 or better) vs. (7) Paulo Costa (+205 or better)
• UFC middleweight fight: (15) Kevin Holland (-290 or better) vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk (+235 or better)
• UFC heavyweight fight: Niko Price (+215 or better) vs. Alex Morono (-265 or better)
• UFC welterweight fight: Randy Brown (-175 or better) vs. Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos (+145 or better)

Saturday night will see Makhachev make his first title defense against an actual lightweight since winning the belt in 2022. He’s technically defended the belt twice already, but both came against former featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski, who was trying to become a double-champ.

We’ll also see Poirier get his third and likely final shot at an undisputed UFC title. He won the interim belt back in 2019 but got choked out by the true champ — and man in Makhachev’s corner Saturday night — Khabib Nurmagomedov.

In the co-main, Strickland takes the octagon for the first time since losing his middleweight title to Dricus Du Plessis in an extremely close and split decision fight. He’ll face Costa, who was an undeniable prospect at a point in time but has since lost three of his last four fights — and has struggled to even make it into the octagon at all, with just six fights since 2018.

Other big names competing are include Holland and Jailton Almeida, who are both coming off tough losses and looking to get back in the win column.

Poirier got knocked out by Justin Gaethje in July and had to settle for a fight with Benoit Saint-Denis, the No. 12 ranked fighter in the division, back in March — in which he was a heavy underdog. It looked like things were over for his career.

But by paying his dues with a stunning knockout of Saint-Denis, Poirier finds himself right back where he belongs.

Makhachev has had some undeniable success, but we still feel that he’s kind of coasted his way into his No. 1 pound-for-pound spot.

His win over Arman Tsarukyan back in 2019 is more impressive now that he’s the No. 1 contender in the division, but that’s about the only one we can pinpoint to up until his title challenging fight against Charles Oliveira.

Yes, he defeated Oliveira handily and has since beaten Volkanovski twice, but Volk is a much smaller fighter and the second fight happened on 11 days notice.

Makhachev skipped over fighting the likes of Poirier, Gaethje, Michael Chandler and even Conor McGregor to get his belt. Meanwhile, Poirier hasn’t just fought them all, he’s beaten them.

He’s got the advantage on the feet while Makhachev is much better on the mat, but every round starts upright.

If he can keep things up there, we like Poirier to knock down Makhachev and then either finish him with that or secure a submission of some kind to finally become an undisputed champion.

With Du Plessis all but certain to be making his first title defense against former champ Israel Adesanya, Strickland has to wait before he gets tagged back in for a shot at the belt again.

He’ll do so against Costa, a former title challenger in his own right that’s looking for another shot at UFC gold.

Both are coming off tough losses, with Strickland falling via split decision in one of the tightest championship fights in recent memory, and Costa just seconds away from finishing Robert Whittaker before the round bell rang and he eventually lost via points.

Strickland isn’t known for having knockout power in the UFC, but he does have some of the best cardio out there and uses the Philly Shell stance to his advantage.

That cardio and defense is what we believe will eventually land Strickland a knockout win in this one — specifically because this is a five-round fight.

All that “secret juice” Costa drinks might have him extremely muscular, but all that muscle gets him real tired, real quick in the octagon. This will be just his third five-round fight — and he lost the first two.

If Strickland is patient and doesn’t get caught — Costa has shown a lot of power if he connects well — then he’ll be able to clip him down over and over until a TKO is inevitable.

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