Manny Bermudez
Age: 23
Nationality: American
MMA Record: 11-0
UFC Record: 1-0
Notable Wins: Albert Morales
Notable Losses: None
Last Fight: Submission win over Albert Morales
Fighter Profile: One of the top bantamweight prospects in the world, Bermudez was signed to the UFC in early 2018 and immediately impressed with a submission win over a tough and durable Albert Morales in his Octagon debut. The youngster is a veteran of Cage Titans and CES in the northeastern United States and has shown throughout his young career that he is extremely dangerous on the ground with eight submission wins on his resume so far. His striking is a different story as he has a lot of work to do there still, but overall his ground game makes him one of the best prospects in the UFC and he could be a guy we’re talking about as a top-15 fighter by the end of this year.
Davey Grant
Age: 32
Nationality: British
MMA Record: 10-3
UFC Record: 1-2
Notable Wins: Marlon Vera
Notable Losses: Chris Holdsworth, Damian Stasiak
Last Fight: Submission loss to Damian Stasiak
Fighter Profile: A former standout on The Ultimate Fighter, Grant has not had a good UFC career so far as he’s battled inconsistency inside the cage as well as injuries outside of it that have resulted in him going a poor 1-2 so far in the Octagon since 2013. Averaging less than one fight a year makes it hard to develop any sort of momentum, and not surprisingly he looked bad in his last fight when he got submitted by Damian Stasiak. We’ve seen Grant has some solid wrestling skills and he showed them off in his win over Marlon Vera, but his two submission losses in the UFC are a concern as is his level of inactivity. Though he’s the hometown fighter in this one, it looks like a situation where the UFC wants him to lose to a younger prospect.
Fight Breakdown: I view this one as mostly a mismatch as I believe Bermudez matches up extremely well stylistically with Grant. Bermudez has incredibe submssions and we’ve seen numerous times that Grant has problems defending submissions. As soon as Bermudez is able to get this fight to the mat he should be at a big advantage and once he gets the chance to finish the fight I believe he will lock up a find-ending submission and coax the tapout out of Grant.
Prediction: Manny Bermudez via submission
