Dustin Poirier is taking Movsar Evloev over Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 333. He also has a condition. The challenger has to keep the fight on the ground and stay out of a striking contest with the champ.
Poirier made the pick on the Deep Waters stream alongside fellow UFC veterans Jorge Masvidal and Chris Weidman. The three went through every fight on the card, CBS Sports reported. According to MiddleEasy, Poirier’s case for Evloev depends on grounding Volkanovski, and he specifically warned the Russian against trying to kickbox with him. The panel did not agree on the main event. MiddleEasy described the Deep Waters picks as split, so Poirier is out there on his own branch to some degree.
He has company in that disagreement, at least among the betting crowd. Polymarket had the fight sitting at 50-50 as of Monday night, Championship Rounds noted on X. The locker room leans the other way. A roundup at boxingnews.com, headlined “Volkanovski Favored Over Evloev By UFC Roster,” found more fighters going with the champion.
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UFC 333 goes down Saturday, Oct. 24, in Abu Dhabi. UFC Brasil’s listing puts the prelims at 10 a.m. Brasília time and the main card at 11 a.m., with Daniel Santos, Iasmin Lucindo and Nicolle Caliari carrying the Brazilian flag on the card.
Aldo isn’t buying the Evloev hype
Evloev’s style has drawn criticism from one of the most respected featherweights ever. Jose Aldo said in a clip shared by MMA Fighting that if he ran the UFC, he’d hold off on cutting Evloev only until the Russian finally lost:
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“I’d wait for him to lose for the first time and then cut him because he’s a guy who doesn’t sell, a guy who puts on boring fights, a guy who doesn’t draw attention.”
That’s harsh, even for fight week. It also points to the exact tension in Poirier’s pick. The approach Aldo calls boring is the approach Poirier thinks wins Evloev the belt.
Volkanovski, meanwhile, seems loose. He told Spinnin Backfist he’s planning a trip to Dagestan for an episode of Cooking With Volk with Islam Makhachev, and he’s thinking big about it: “We want to do a whole hunting on horseback, catch stuff, cook over a fire....you can just imagine how good that content will be.” Camp has been less relaxed. In a clip Volkanovski posted himself, which Championship Rounds picked up, a teammate passed out from exhaustion during one of their training challenges. “Did he pass out? F*ck man, that was an absolute war,” Volkanovski said.
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Quick take
Poirier’s warning is the smartest thing anyone has said about this fight. If Evloev stands in the pocket and trades with Volkanovski for 25 minutes, he’s playing the champ’s game. His path is wrestling, top control and grinding until the cards come back his way. Aldo can call that boring. If it works, Evloev leaves Abu Dhabi with a belt on Saturday, and he won’t care what anyone in Brazil thinks of how he got it.
