Tonight, UFC returns to the fight capital of the world for UFC Vegas 117 in an explosive UFC Fight Night on Saturday, May 17.
The UFC Fight Night main card is headlined by a featherweight clash between Arnold Allen vs. Melquizael Costa, anchoring a main card set to kick off at 8 p.m. ET on Paramount+, live from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas.
The UFC Vegas 117 main card also delivers a featherweight co-main between Dooho Choi vs. Daniel Santos, plus bantamweight prospects Malcolm Wellmaker and Juan Diaz looking to make a statement in what could be a Fight of the Night candidate.
We will give you an in-depth look at every fight for UFC Vegas 117 and our UFC Fight Night predictions and picks for tonight, including predictions from our expert's model.
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UFC Fight Night Predictions: Allen vs. Costa & Main Card Fights
Before we get into our UFC Vegas 117 predictions for Saturday night, a brief intro on what you'll find below.
We've listed the payouts for who will win each UFC Fight Night main card fight, via PrizePicks Team Picks; for example, a 2x means that outcome will payout $200 on a $100 entry. A lower payout multiplier represents a higher implied probability of that result based on user picks.
PrizePicks Team Picks payouts are live at the time of writing and are subject to change. UFC winner markets available in 35 states.
Swaim’s UFC Fight Night Predictions Model: How It Works
I’ve developed a predictive UFC model that uses historical UFC stats, fighter attributes, tendencies, and historical finishing outcomes to estimate a fighter's win probability, how often they win by finish, and the exact method of victory.
To avoid poor results from a small sample, both fighters must have 35 minutes of octagon time or 5 completed UFC fights to be run through the model, which is why some fights will be ineligible.
Each UFC Fight Night main card fight is listed below with this model data to help you make your UFC predictions on PrizePicks tonight.
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All UFC predictions and analysis — model or otherwise — are the opinions of writers who are not investment professionals. Picks are not based on PrizePicks Team Picks payout multipliers and are not recommendations to trade.
PrizePicks Team Picks payouts listed are as of writing and are subject to change. Check the PrizePicks app for live UFC favorites and payouts.
Arnold Allen vs. Melquizael Costa Prediction for UFC Fight Night Tonight
Fight Winner Payouts: Arnold Allen 1.78x | Melquizael Costa 1.96x (via PrizePicks Team Picks)
Weight Class: Featherweight (145 lbs.)
Allen vs. Costa Model Results:
Featherweight is arguably UFC’s most loaded division, so even with Melquizael Costa’s last two opponents coming outside of the rankings, he’s been facing stiff tests. It’s just not quite what “Almighty” Arnold Allen has had to endure.
Allen’s skid of three losses in his last four has been at the hands of Max Holloway, Movsar Evloev, and Jean Silva. By the end of 2026, that’s likely three different title challengers. His lone respite was a decision win over Giga Chikadze in July 2024.
The British fighter is skilled at all, but a master of none. Allen's +0.43 striking success rate (SSR) is primarily due to elite striking defense (60%). He’s been able to keep his feet (71% takedown defense) despite not offering much by way of offensive wrestling or grappling.
We’ll see if Allen's defensive foundation can halt the streaking Costa. “The Dalmatian” enters this one on a six-fight winning streak, including being the first one to knock out both Morgan Charriere and Dan Ige over just the last six months.
It’s been an unusual late-career power binge for the Brazilian, who previously made his mark at distance with volume (4.38 significant strikes landed per minute) and sneaky submission skills (1.1 attempts per 15).
To some extent, my model will reward Allen for his level of competition; ultimately, you have to do something positive to make it count.
Costa is the larger fighter (2-inch height advantage,1-inch reach advantage) who throws more volume at distance, and he conceivably has the grappling upside in this matchup.
Allen will have to establish he’s leveled up his entire game to a point where Melky’s recent flair for the dramatic outside the top 10 of the rankings doesn’t surface inside of this bout.
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UFC Fight Night Pick for Allen vs. Costa on PrizePicks
Arnold Allen – 73.5 Significant Strikes
Melquizael Costa isn’t renowned for his striking defense (54%), but it is good enough that Allen is going to have to show he can put out more volume.
Allen’s highest land rate in his last four bouts — including a win over Chikadze — is just 4.07 significant strikes per minute. Chikadze was 36 and knocked out by Kevin Vallejos last year, so that low-volume decision hasn’t aged well, either.
A captivating point of note to watch in this fight is that Allen surprisingly hasn’t faced a fighter averaging north of 1.0 submission attempts per 15 minutes since 2017.
That was Makwan Amirkhani, who managed three official attempts but didn’t convert any of them to a sub. In addition to Costa’s high volume of attempts, he’s converted two submission wins in his last six bouts.
My model’s curiously high verdict for a Costa submission (16.1%) could jeopardize Allen’s significant strike totals, which, based on his historical land rate, are in jeopardy simply by way of the Englishman’s own hesitancy.
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Dooho Choi vs. Daniel Santos Prediction for UFC Fight Night Tonight
Fight Winner Payouts: Dooho Choi 2.12x | Daniel Santos 1.63x (via PrizePicks Team Picks)
Weight Class: Featherweight (145 lbs.)
Choi vs. Santos Model Results:
Before Allen-Costa, moving day at 145 pounds starts with a veteran facing a newcomer looking to bust into the rankings in the UFC Fight Night co-main event.
Daniel “Willycat” Santos is 2-1 in the division after early-career weight issues at 135 pounds. He dominated JeongYeong Lee and knocked out JooSang Yoo in the second round.
Santos’ SSR (-0.27 SSR) is actually quite poor from a 2022 debut at featherweight against Julio Arce, who accumulated a +73 striking differential in a 15-minute whooping. His best moments have come wrestling, landing 3.01 takedowns per 15 minutes with solid accuracy (40%).
An elite nickname battle commences when he squares off with “The Korean Superboy”. Dooho Choi was out of the UFC for over three years due to mandatory military service in South Korea.
Choi is 2-0-1 since returning, and just delivered his best performance yet: a third-round stoppage of Nate Landwehr, where he had the edge in every realm of MMA.
Choi’s +0.65 SSR has come against elite competition, considering Charles Jourdain, Cub Swanson, and a prime Jeremy Stephens were on his original tour of duty. He’s also added enough wrestling (1.43 takedowns per 15 minutes) and grappling (0.6 submission attempts per 15) to keep foes on their toes.
Choi’s superior level of competition comes with significantly better distance striking metrics, but the Korean’s 47% takedown defense is poor when Santos has attempted 20 takedowns in his last four full rounds. So it's hard to make a call on this match on paper.
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UFC Fight Night Pick for Choi vs. Santos
Dooho Choi – 45.5 Significant Strikes
For PrizePicks UFC projections, this pace could be quite intense. There aren’t many moments to breathe in a Willycat bout, considering he attempts 11.90 significant strikes and 0.50 takedowns per minute.
That pace, theoretically, should be ever higher without the additional weight cut in this division.
If this is a back-and-forth, up-and-down affair, Choi’s projection for strikes is extremely interesting. Choi hasn’t really faced a primary wrestling threat, but he’s only been taken down six times in his three fights since returning to UFC.
Choi's rate of defending them (47%) is well below the divisional average, but it hasn’t stopped him from topping 50 significant strikes in this span.
Santos is coming off a knockout win, which suggests he could make a statement in this one without any wrestling. However, the model’s 60.6% verdict that this fight goes all 15 minutes would likely require both fighters to mix up their arts.
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Malcolm Wellmaker vs. Juan Diaz Prediction or UFC Fight Night Tonight
Fight Winner Payouts: Malcolm Wellmaker 1.33x | Juan Diaz 3.12x (via PrizePicks Team Picks)
Weight Class: Bantamweight (135 lbs.)
Wellmaker vs. Diaz Model Results: N/A (Wellmaker and Diaz ineligible)
MMA isn’t boxing. Sometimes you lose to a better guy. We’ll find out Saturday if that’s what happened when Malcolm Wellmaker unceremoniously ran into Ethyn Ewing and suffered his first career defeat last fall — a third-round KO/TKO.
Ewing’s highlight stoppage at the Apex last month implies hope that could be the case. Wellmaker knocked out his first three UFC-affiliated opponents in under three minutes each before that fight, with an elite knockdown rate (2.34 DK%) for this division.
The switch-stance boxer throws huge, dangerous combinations:
He’ll be looking to find the button against Peru’s Juan Diaz. The fact that Diaz is facing Wellmaker in his debut shows you how little room there is to hide in this bantamweight division.
Otherwise, conventional wisdom would say that Dana White would love to push one of the brightest stars from Season 9 of Dana White’s Contender Series:
At 27, Diaz seems to be quickly improving at Entram Gym, which has previously hosted Michael Morales, Adrian Luna Martinetti, and other rising UFC stars from Mexico.
His 9.03 takedown attempts per 15 minutes on the Contender Series also implies he’ll be the one of these two to mix things up from a striking affair.
Diaz ended a competitive affair on the audition show in emphatic fashion, but it does go to show what a struggle it was that his SSR (+0.41) is still lower than Wellmaker’s (+0.65), despite the latter having gone through a 15-minute loss.
Both of these inexperienced prospects are in an improvement window, though, which could lead to some variance in this fight’s outcome.
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UFC Fight Night Pick for Wellmaker vs. Diaz
Malcolm Wellmaker – 54.5 Significant Strikes
Juan Diaz is a fighter who seems primed for war — or to take a beating for 15 minutes if required.
I don’t want to read too heavily into Diaz’s one-fight sample of metrics, but his 5.02 significant strikes absorbed per minute show the fervent pace at which his Contender Series fight took place.
That sort of back-and-forth brawl with Malcolm Wellmaker’s hands seems like a nightmare, but Peruvian hasn’t been stopped in 17 pro fights. That toughness shows up on tape, too.
Wellmaker won two of his four regional fights before the octagon by decision, and one was a 25-minute affair. It was actually a little surprising that he was such an effective knockout artist earlier in his career. That crashing down to Earth against Ewing made sense in hindsight.
This should be a “Fight of the Night” type of affair in a weight class with the highest 2025 decision rate of any division (67%). Significant strikes could pile up quickly if one of these fighters is unable to replicate their highlights as they step up in competition.
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Modestas Bukauskas vs. Christian Edwards Prediction for UFC Fight Night Tonight
Fight Winner Payouts: Modestas Bukauskas 1.25x | Christian Edwards 3.44x (via PrizePicks Team Picks)
Weight Class: Catchweight (215 lbs.)
Bukauskas vs. Edwards Model Results: N/A (Edwards ineligible)
UFC Vegas 117 lost a fun one this week. Modestas Bukauskas was originally scheduled to face Rodolfo Bellato this weekend, but Bellato’s withdrawal has opened the door for UFC newcomer Christian Edwards:
“The Baltic Gladiator” will look to make an indisputable statement against a less experienced foe in Edwards..
Bukauskas’ four-fight winning streak was snapped with an uninspiring effort against Nikita Krylov, where the Ukrainian actually closed the show in the waning seconds.
Bukauskas has his warts, but a 7-5 UFC record is nothing to sneeze at, and he’s clearly made improvements at 32 years old. If there’s one thing holding him back, it’s low volume at striking range that makes his power significantly more manageable.
Bukauskas 79% takedown defense keeps him upright, and he secured his first career pro submission in 2024.
Edwards is an interesting opponent for him. The Jackson Wink MMA product has training partners like Jon Jones and Don’Tale Mayes in this weight range, and his 5-3 stint with a now-extinct Bellator promotion was not poor overall.
But you have to be wary of a guy uncompetitively stopped on the regional scene now facing a formerly ranked 205-pound fighter.
Bukauskas' measured approach and historical grappling shortcomings could certainly make this fight interesting, but significant experience, technical, and athletic advantages seem to reside in the Lithuanian’s corner.
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UFC Fight Night Pick for Bukauskas vs. Edwards on PrizePicks
Bukauskas vs. Edwards — 10.75 Minutes Fight Time
Christian Edwards has been finished in half of his pro losses, raising serious questions about his durability entering this step-up in competition.
Edwards hasn’t seen the 10-minute mark in 7 of his 12 pro fights — for or against. Similarly, Bukauskas’ fights have ended inside that duration in 7 of his 12 UFC bouts.
In general, these two are finishers, and the late-notice dynamic of this fight could absolutely mean there hasn’t been ample time to prepare for both.
“The Baltic Gladiator” doesn’t have a huge knockdown rate on paper (0.27 KD%), but that’s excluding a submission of Marcin Prachnio and a vicious ground-and-pound stoppage of Paul Craig:
His power hasn’t always translated to the stat sheet, but that could change if Edwards isn’t amply prepared for this level.
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Timmy Cuamba vs. Bernardo Sopaj Prediction for UFC Fight Night Tonight
Fight Winner Payouts: Timmy Cuamba 2.17x | Bernardo Sopaj 1.61x (via PrizePicks Team Picks)
Weight Class: Bantamweight (135 lbs.)
Cuamba vs. Sopaj Model Results: N/A (Sopaj ineligible)
Bantamweight has two bangers between prospects on Saturday’s card. In addition to Wellmaker-Diaz, local entrant Timmy “Twilight” Cuamba vs. Bernardo Sopaj sets up to be an exciting fight.
Both are looking to improve their records and move up the rankings; Cuamba is 2-2, and Sopaj is 1-1.
Sopaj’s UFC debut on three days’ notice will always be remembered as a valiant effort and a spectacular, horrifying defeat:
The debutant’s gas tank had expired, but he did a far better job delivering on his promise with a win over veteran Ricky Turcios last time out. Sopaj’s striking (56%) and takedown (71%) accuracy have shown remarkable offensive efficiency to this point.
Defensive concerns are lessened by the fact that Cuamba doesn’t carry a ton of power (0.52 KD%). Ironically enough, his lone career knockdown came on a flying knee.
The Las Vegas resident makes his hay with tremendous cardio, great wrestling defense (72%), and immense toughness.
Remember, Cuamba’s debut was at lightweight — 20 pounds heavier than he’ll compete at UFC Vegas 117.
This matchup should be a competitive, lengthy affair. The tight hooks, low kicks, and occasional wrestling advances of Sopaj meet the creative combinations and sprawls of Cuamba. We’ll learn a ton about both prospects in this matchup.
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UFC Fight Night Pick for Cuamba vs. Sopaj
Timmy Cuamba – 43.5 Significant Strikes
One of Cuamba’s areas for improvement is definitely his volume. The American attempted just 32 total significant strikes in his last fight.
Now, that fight with ChangHo Lee featured 12:20 of a possible 15 minutes in control time, so it was a grappling-heavy affair where Cuamba found a way to get his hand raised. Sopaj (3.56 takedown attempts per 15) will likely look to keep things in close due to his five-inch reach disadvantage, too.
Cuamba’s overall land rate (2.77 significant strikes per minute) is below the bantamweight average, guaranteeing nothing in the way of a cumulative total even if this fight sees its full duration.
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Make UFC Fight Night Predictions on PrizePicks
A new chapter of UFC Fight Night goes down this Saturday evening from Las Vegas, with a stacked main card at UFC Vegas 117 of fighters who are looking to climb up the ranks.
Before the action gets underway on Paramount+ at 8 p.m. ET, lock in your UFC predictions for tonight's UFC Fight Night main card.
Just go to the PrizePicks app and pick More or Less on two or more fighter projections for UFC Vegas 117, headlined by Allen vs. Costa, and lock in your Lineup to win real money on the fights if you're right.
You can also predict UFC fight winners, method of victory, and more on PrizePicks Team Picks, available in 35 states.
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