Five under-the-radar fighters to watch at UFC 311

LOS ANGELES — Never mind the two title fights atop the card. UFC 311 features 15 ranked fighters, six fights between ranked fighters, three former LFA champions, two former UFC champions, a former ONE champion, and a former RIZIN champion. Only five fighters on the card are coming off a loss. Of the 28 athletes competing, 17 have lost three times or fewer in their careers. And four are undefeated.

It’s only mid-January, but we may be about to watch UFC’s deepest card of 2025. With well-credentialed veterans and heavily hyped up-and-comers interspersed throughout the night, it’s easy to go overlooked. With that in mind, here are a few under-the-radar names to keep an eye on Saturday night.

Reinier De Ridder

Just two years ago, the lifelong grappler De Ridder was undefeated in professional MMA and held ONE Championship’s middleweight and light heavyweight titles simultaneously. But he lost both belts to Russian freight train Anatoly Malykhin in back-to-back knockouts, prompting his departure from ONE and resurfacing in UFC late last year after a one-fight stopover with UAE Warriors in the Middle East.

Back down at his natural middleweight, de Ridder debuted in November with a third-round submission of Gerald Meerschaert and is now turning around quickly to face the ever-active-and-entertaining Kevin Holland. It’s a slick piece of matchmaking by the UFC, booking de Ridder against a tough veteran with a recognizable name and a style slanted opposite of his, giving him a clear path to victory with just enough danger to envision a feasible defeat.

“I’m going from southpaw to orthodox, from a great grappler to mostly a striker,” De Ridder says. “And for me, it feels a lot different this time. The first time was special to finally get to the UFC after all those years. I’ve had a very full career already. It felt like a very special event. Cutting weight for the first time again and everything around it. This time, I’m hoping to make it a bit more business as usual.”

Despite being from the kickboxing haven of Holland, De Ridder’s calling card is his grappling. Carrying black belts in judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, the 34-year-old has a deep array of takedowns and throws he uses to get fights to the mat, where he prefers them. Once there, he’s constantly working to improve his position while intermittently threatening submissions, which is how he’s finished 13 of his 17 professional victories.

Meanwhile, de Ridder’s standup is clunky and plodding but passable enough to let him navigate periods on the feet. He had success early against Meerschaert with leg kicks and a combo at the end of the first round that earned him a knockdown.

But as that fight continued, de Ridder stuck to his bread and butter — he shot for 13 takedowns, completing five of them. Meerschaert, an accomplished grappler and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt himself, made de Ridder work and even hit a couple of reverses to take top control. But it was a de Ridder reversal in the third that began the chain of transitions leading to his arm triangle finish.

Now, Holland isn’t half the grappler Meerschaert is. But he’s more than half the striker de Ridder is. That will make this fight an interesting chess match of distance and timing as the more technical de Ridder hunts takedowns while the speedier Holland tries to keep it standing and catch him on entries. If it comes down to fight IQ, it’s edge de Ridder.

“His main thing is his right hand. It’s a very strong, very precise right hand. And he has a lot of smoke around it. He has a lot of weird kicks and weird punches that don’t do a lot normally. But if he can crack you with that right hand straight down the pipe, you’re in trouble,” De Ridder says of Holland. “So, that’s what I’m going to try and stay away from. He has decent takedown defence, decent jujitsu. I’m going to try and pressure him, hit him with some good shots, take him down, and choke him out.”

A win for the Dutchman is the ideal outcome for the UFC here, so it can continue selling de Ridder’s pedigree and maintain his upward momentum in the division. There are plenty of interesting matchups for him up the ladder (a date with Bo Nickal feels inevitable) and current middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis is an old training partner at Henri Hooft’s gym in Florida.

That’s not to get ahead of ourselves. De Ridder would need many more wins before we mention him in the conversation with Du Plessis, Israel Adesanya, or Khamzat Chimaev. But any time a two-division champion from another promotion shows up, it bears monitoring. And Saturday’s test against Holland ought to be informative.

Azamat Bekoev

Only a few days ago, Bekoev wasn’t even a part of the UFC. The LFA middleweight champion was presumably training, living his life, and maybe making plans for the weekend.

But earlier this week, that all changed when Sedriques Dumas withdrew from his UFC 311 fight with Zachary Reese, and the company called Bekoev to see if he would be willing to step in. Bekoev’s response?

“I’m ready, ready, ready — let’s go. I want to scream,” he told his manager, before literally screaming.

Bekoev’s yet another Russian grappler who grew up in the sambo school, using his strength and size to grind out opponents on the mat while searching for submission opportunities with ground and pound in between. Two of the three losses on his professional record were split decisions in Russia against fellow grapplers; the other was a submission with only 90 seconds remaining in a fight he was heavily favoured to win.

Since that third loss, Bekoev’s won six straight, earning his way into top UFC feeder promotion LFA. The final three fights of that streak saw him win LFA’s interim middleweight title, unify it, and defend it within a year. Still only 29, he may just be accessing his potential.

Eight of Bekoev’s 18 career victories have come by submission, and it won’t be a surprise to see the 29-year-old try to take things to the mat on Saturday. But his final fight prior to signing with UFC demonstrated why Reese can’t get too comfortable on the feet:

Bekoev grew up in a village of 150 near the Russian border with Georgia, but has since moved to Florida to train at American Top Team, one of the most decorated gyms in the sport. That puts him on the same mats as one-time title challenger Marvin Vettori, who’s shared octagons with some of the sport’s top middleweights, and top prospect Bo Nickal, one of the most decorated wrestlers in the sport. Pretty good training partners to have.

After spending the last two years progressively selling his belongings and driving for Uber to make ends meet, Bekoev’s finally caught his big break. We’ll find out Saturday if he can take advantage of it.

Payton Talbott

In the realm of professional cage fighters, Talbot’s a different dude.

Name a fighter. Odds are they have a YouTube channel where you can watch them train, podcast, drive fast cars, get haircuts, and deliver trite monologues about their careers. Oh look, they’re going to the gun range again. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

Talbott? His channel is chaos. Think mashups of Rob Zombie music videos and 90’s skate tapes. He doesn’t put out behind-the-scenes promo videos — he puts out short arthouse films.

In some, he acts. In others, he pole dances. There’s the one where he gave his opponent — Yanis Ghemmouri, from Lyon, France — a seminar on how to beat him, complete with French translation. And this week’s drop is typically chaotic:

Yet, what’s made Talbott a popular pick as UFC’s 2025 breakout star is what he ultimately did to Ghemmouri at UFC 303, knocking him out clean with a straight right only 19 seconds into the first round. It was Talbott’s second straight knockout and third finish in four fights since entering UFC through the Contender Series. And it pushed him to 9-0 as a professional.

At 5’10 with a 70-inch reach, Talbott has a long, Sean O’Malley-esque build for a bantamweight, which he uses along with slick timing and movement to keep opponents where he wants them and pick apart defences from range. Talbott isn’t only a unique personality. He’s a legitimate prospect in one of UFC’s most competitive divisions.

Now, whether the 26-year-old can keep putting up these performances as competition gets stiffer remains to be seen. Talbott’s opponent on Saturday, Brazilian veteran Raoni Barcelos, was a hot prospect himself at one point, carrying a 16-1 record into his sixth UFC fight. But he ran into a wall when he began drawing ranked opponents and is now the barrier that bantamweight’s latest high-flying prospect is trying to overcome.

This could be the year Talbott breaks out, continuing to rack up highlight reel finishes while subverting the personality type we expect from elite fighters. Or he could be another peculiar flash in the pan. One way or another, that story arc begins Saturday.

Rinya Nakamura

As a freestyle wrestler in 2017, Nakamura was the U23 world champion in the 61 kg division and a finalist to compete for Japan at the 2020 Olympics. But he lost that qualifying match to Tokuto Otoguro, who went on to win Olympic gold at 65 kg.

That’s the calibre of athlete we’re dealing with here — the Japanese Bo Nickal. And like his American counterpart, Nakamura has built a spotless record since transitioning to MMA, winning all 9 of his fights, five via knockout.

That’s one thing separating Nakamura from other elite wrestlers pursuing UFC careers — his power is off the charts. Competing on 2022’s Road to the UFC series, in which top Asian prospects compete for contracts, Nakamura folded Shohei Nose with a left hook in the semifinals before icing Toshiomi Kazama in the centre of the octagon only 30 seconds into the final:

Nakamura’s used his wrestling to win a pair of unanimous decisions since, racking up a ridiculous 22 minutes and 29 seconds of control time across 30 minutes in the octagon. Now, he’ll test his development against Murin Gafurov, who’s a year younger than Nakamura but has 16 more professional fights.

That’s the reality for elite-wrestlers-turned-fighters such as Nickal, Aaron Pico, and Nakamura. They’re forced to learn on the fly and rush their development to catch up to competitors who were grinding in MMA gyms while they were chasing Olympic dreams. Doing so in UFC’s absurdly stacked bantamweight division only intensifies the challenge.

That gives the UFC an interesting needle to thread as it books a still-raw Nakamura going forward, seeking to give him the right matchups at the right times that challenge him just enough to continue his upward momentum without putting him in a position to get exposed.

Thing is, as you climb the bantamweight ladder, you run into a murderer’s row awfully quick. Montel Jackson, Marcus McGhee, and Aiemann Zahabi — a combined 19-1 with 12 knockouts since 2021 — are currently the barrier for entry into the division’s top-15. Nakamura’s opponent Saturday, the unranked Gafurov, was LFA’s bantamweight champion only two years ago.

But Nakamura possesses an elite wrestling tool that gives him an instant edge against any opponent. Never mind that he’s been competing on a world-class stage since his early 20s. If he can keep a fight on his terms, he’ll excel. And as Nose and Kazama quickly learned, he might just knock someone out.

Grant Dawson

Dawson’s a post-hype sleeper after his prospect rise was halted by a devastating King Green straight left only 30 seconds into their meeting in October, 2023. That was Dawson’s first loss in 10 UFC fights and only the second of his professional career. But the now 30-year-old has picked up where he left off, winning a pair of fights in 2024 to move to 22-2-1 and keep himself on the periphery of the ranked lightweight conversation.

Dawson sat No. 10 in those rankings entering the Green fight and could re-enter the contendership conversation with an impressive showing Saturday against Diego Ferreira. His style has always leaned more effective than exciting, but Dawson demonstrated a killer instinct he hadn’t previously his last time out against Rafa Garcia with a brutal elbow from guard that led to an avalanche of heavy shots and a second-round TKO.

Dawson’s skillful wrestling is his carrying tool and it’s really not a matter of if as much as when he’ll shoot for a takedown in each round. His top pressure is suffocating but he hasn’t shown much of a submission game outside of working for rear naked chokes as opponents offer up their backs. If he can layer in more punishing ground and pound as he did against Garcia, Dawson becomes an even more difficult problem when he inevitably gets fights to the mat.

Ferreira’s a skilled grappler himself and a Brazillian jiu-jitsu black belt, but he’ll turn 40 later this month and stands to be at a significant power and cardio disadvantage to the still-in-his-prime Dawson. We could be in for a wild, scrambly first round on the mat. But if Ferreira can’t find a submission early, Dawson’s physical advantage ought to only increase.

Should he come away with a victory, particularly if it’s as dominant as the one over Garcia, Dawson will put himself in position to face a name lightweight opponent such as Rafael Fiziev, Benoit Saint Denis, or Jalin Turner. Which is the opportunity he needs to reassert himself as a contender in one of the sport’s deepest weight classes.

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