Preview: UFC 319 ‘Du Plessis vs. Chimaev’

Featherweights

Aaron Pico (13-4, 0-0 UFC) vs. Lerone Murphy (16-0-1, 8-0-1 UFC)

BETTING ODDS: Pico (-185), Murphy (+154)

Former Bellator standouts have slowly been trickling into the UFC, and Pico is the latest to make the jump. Pico has a case as the most hyped prospect in mixed martial arts history. An elite high school wrestler who also showed some potential as a boxer, Pico was signed by Bellator at 18 years old, which started a two and a half-year path towards his mixed martial arts debut. Given the build-up and the investment, the expectation was clearly that he would run over his debut opponent in Zach Freeman. Naturally, Pico immediately walked into an uppercut, which allowed Freeman to jump on a guillotine choke and end the fight in just 27 seconds. Pico never truly regained that momentum, particularly after a few more bumps along the way, all of which were thankfully more understandable than the Freeman loss. Over the years, he has finally rounded into a complete fighter who has at least proved worthy of the hype. Now 28, Pico looks like he can compete with anyone to a certain level, realizing the vision of someone who can rely on some sharp striking and some powerful wrestling. Of course, Pico rounded into form just as Bellator was ready to fold, leaving the UFC to reap the benefits of his decade of development. Pico immediately gets a shot to see if he’s ready to hop into the title picture, taking on a fringe contender in Murphy.

There was a complete lack of fanfare when the UFC signed Murphy in 2019, as he didn’t look particularly poised for success. A clear standout athlete, Murphy had taken on a poor level of competition that figured to leave him unprepared for the jump to more athletic parity. As it turned out, Murphy needed all of one round to adjust to his new level. After a rough start against Zubaira Tukhugov, Murphy took over enough to earn a draw. That tendency to figure things out as they go along has continued to define Murphy’s career. It’s still hard to identify exactly what a Murphy fight looks like, but he continues to seemingly go into his bouts without much of a game plan before landing on some effective ideas in the second round and beyond. As Murphy has jumped into the UFC’s featherweight rankings, the margins have gotten a bit slimmer even as he has managed to continue building his momentum over the course of his fights, which is a bit of a double-edged sword. It’s impressive that Murphy has enough talent to keep pulling this off at a higher level, but Edson Barboza, Dan Ige and Josh Emmett were also opponents with clear strengths and weaknesses that he could maneuver around, particularly compared to Pico’s much more well-rounded game. There’s a decent shot that this is Pico’s breakout victory, as it’s hard to see the one pivot point that allows Murphy to truly take this fight over. At the end of the day, though, the lean goes to the more proven fighter. The pick is Murphy via decision.

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Du Plessis vs. Chimaev
Pico vs. Murphy
Prates vs. Neal
Page vs. Cannonier
Asakura vs. Elliott
The Prelims