Three new fights have been made official for the upcoming UFC Fight Night 61 card, which takes place February 22 at Gigantinho Gymnasium in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and for today’s MMA Odds and Ends I’ll give my thoughts on them. Sam Alvey vs. Cezar Ferreira In a middleweight bout, Sam Alvey will fly to Brazil to take on Cezar Ferreira. Alvey is 1-1 in the UFC with a win over Dylan Andrews and a loss to Tom Watson, while Ferreira is 4-1 with wins over Andrew Craig, Sergio Moraes, Daniel Sarafian and Thiago Santos and a loss to CB Dollaway. This is a really good matchup on paper, and a tough one to pick. Obviously there’s a lot of hype behind Ferreira, but if you ask me he hasn’t really lived up to it yet. While he’s had some nice offensive performances himself, defensively he is quite flawed and his chin is a big question mark. As for Alvey, he looked awful against Watson but bounced back nicely against Andrews. He has a ton of knockout power, and if he can catch Ferreira on the chin he can absolutely knock him out. It’s a close fight on paper, but I lean slightly towards Alvey here because of his KO ability combined with Ferreira’s weak chin. Rustam Khabilov vs. Adriano Martins In a lightweight matchup, Rustam Khabilov takes on Adriano Martins. Khabilov is 3-1 in the UFC with wins over Jorge Masvidal, Yancy Medeiros and Vinc Pichel, with his lone loss coming to Benson Henderson. As for Martins, he’s 2-1 with wins over Juan Puig and Daron Cruickshank and a loss to Donald Cerrone. In other words, it’s a matchup between two fighters who have been some solid talent, but who have failed so far when they have stepped up against top-10 talent. This is a good fight and I could see it going either way. I think overall Khabilov is the better wrestler and has the better chin, but Martins is an offensive machine and has looked really good in his wins. I could see either guy pulling off the win here but I lean slightly towards Khabilov because of the wrestling advantage, but this is a close fight. Matt Dwyer vs. William Macario And in a welterweight matchup, Canadian Matt Dwyer will take on Brazil’s William Macario. Dwyer made his UFC debut at UFC Fight Night 54, losing via head kick knockout in the first round to Albert Tumenov. As for Macario, he is 1-2 in the UFC with a win over Bobby Voelker and losses to Leo Santos and Neil Magny. This should be a pretty entertaining fight but based on the matchup I have to lean towards Macario to get the job done here. We have seen already that Dwyer is super hittable and Macario is an offensive machine. Macario hasn’t looked great in the UFC, but this looks like a fight the UFC wants him to win, and I expect him to do just that, so look for him to be the favorite when the lines come out for this card.
