Preview: UFC Vegas 109 Prelims

Light Heavyweights

Cody Brundage (11-6-1, 1 NC; 5-5-1, 1 NC UFC) vs. Eric McConico (9-3-1, 0-1 UFC)

Odds: Brundage (-190); McConico (+160)

The last-minute addition of this bout, featuring two middleweights meeting at light heavyweight on a week’s notice, is weird to say the least, but that’s par for the course for Brundage, owner of one of the most weirdly unlucky runs in UFC history.

After a loss on Dana White's Contender Series to William Knight—and in hindsight, doesn’t any matchup with Knight feel like weird luck—the Michigan native won one more fight in LFA and ended up getting signed anyway. Since then, he has been a middling middleweight with a fairly unconventional game, prone to unconventional fight outcomes.

On top of the slam knockouts, disqualification wins (of course the only DQ in the entire promotion in 2023 featured him) and other foul-plagued oddities on his ledger, Brundage outdid himself in his last outing at UFC Atlanta in June. What was adjudicated at the time as technical decision loss to Mansur Abdul-Malik after an accidental clash of heads rendered him unable to continue in Round 3 was overturned to a draw on appeal, thanks to a strange (and terrible) Georgia regulation that incomplete rounds are not scored.

That result, bizarre as it was, is emblematic of Brundage’s whole UFC run, where the weirdness sometimes overshadows the fact that he is actually a decent fighter. Yes, under a consistent rule set Brundage should have lost the technical decision, but the Georgia regulation only helped him because he had helped himself by winning Round 2 against a super-prospect and massive favorite in Abdul-Malik.

Brundage’s odd approach—despite his background as a former NCAA Division II wrestling standout, he stands like a karateka, throws haymakers and head kicks, and appears to hate wrestling—should make for interesting times against McConico. The 35-year-old MMA Lab export debuted in February against Nursulton Ruziboev and did a credible job drawing the much younger, much taller and much more touted fighter into an ugly fight, alternating between slow-paced clinch exchanges along the fence and wild flurries in the center of the cage. His luck ran out in Round 2 and he went down under a barrage of accurate punches from the towering Uzbek, but the basic scrappiness and smart approach were to be applauded.

This fight—now one of only two on the entire UFC Vegas 109 card without a greater than 2-to-1 favorite—is tricky to call. Brundage is much more experienced, especially at this higher level of competition, but his penchant for winning, losing and now drawing in bizarre ways has always made his fights tough to forecast. McConico has his own odd yet effective approach, slowing down his fights and picking spots to flash his underrated power. The pick here is McConico—by decision, since Brundage pretty durable, throws more volume than McConico and is unlikely to have his takedown defense tested too badly, but brace for strangeness.



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Walker vs. Cerqueira
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Fernandes vs. Stoliarenko
Brundage vs. McConico