ILIAS BULAID (9-0) vs. ERICK VISCONDE (17-3) – Featherweight

Note: This is a rebooking from a Week 8 fight that was cancelled on fight day due to Bulaid falling ill after his weight cut. I have put a full copy/paste of my Week 8 prediction here. As of 2nd October I am sticking with my Bulaid pick but I may switch to Visconde given the current circumstances. I do not like it when fighters cut weight twice in a short period of time, and Bulaid certainly cuts more weight than Visconde.

ILIAS BULAID 9-0 (5 KO, 1 SUB, 3 DEC)

Bulaid is a former K-1 kickboxer who started to fight in MMA in 2019. Opposite to Tyshawn Williams, I needed to double check that this was a featherweight fight. Bulaid is pretty big for this weight class – Listed at 5″10″ but he has a big upper body. It doesn’t look like he carries a lot of weight in his legs though. He is patient but also high volume at the same time. As in he won’t rush anything but he will put out a great deal of kicks. Most of the kicks are to the legs but he does throw question mark kicks up up quite regularly too. When he lets his hands go he throws with a decent amount of power. He has a decent enough jab but he is mostly looking to set up his overhand right. I don’t think he has yet fought a great wrestler but his take down defense reminded me a lot of Losene Keita’s, where it isn’t technical defense as he is relying on sprawls and athleticism. This is mostly shown in the Kewin Jacques, Saba Sozashvili, and Wellyton Junior fights. That Jacques fight was a bit of a red flag as his opponent was a stiff punching bag with no defense at all and he needed 3 rounds to finish him. Bulaid has also turned himself into an MMA fighter, rather than a kickboxer in MMA. He actually does shoot take downs more regularly than you would expect, and he has a strong clinch game. When he gets these take downs he doesn’t really do anything though he just camps in guard. He does have a submission win but this was handed to him by his opponent who was on his knees for ages while Bulaid set up an anaconda. The only real problem is that his competition level hasn’t been great since he left Bellator in 2022, and as I stated earlier he has been more competitive than you would like with these opponents.

ERICK VISCONDE 17-3 (6 KO, 6 SUB, 5 DEC)

Visconde is the LFA featherweight champion. He is listed at 5’7″ but he has a solid build for this weight class. I don’t know what to think of him. He has been the distance a lot in his recent fights so there is a lot of information out there, but it’s hard to tell if he is actually any good. On the feet he is very low volume and when he does throw strikes he looks quite slow. He got a big highlight win over Ary Farias recently but that spinning elbow he threw wasn’t very quick or well set up – Farias is just an old BJJ guy with no cardio. Visconde can wrestle but it seems like he just gives up on it if he can’t have early success. Against Pintos he wrestled pretty hard in round 1, didn’t get any great offense off with his wrestling, and then just accepted that it would be a striking fight for 5 rounds. If the same happens here I think he will be a step behind given the height and reach disadvantage he will be giving up. His boxing is okay but nothing too impressive. He is a good minute winner though as he pressures well and usually does his best work in the last two minutes of the round. He is a black belt in BJJ but he hasn’t won by submission in a few years and against solid opponents he has struggled to get the fight down to the ground anyways. We saw a bit of this BJJ in his Mecate fight and I would say that was his best performance of his career. He actually threw volume in that fight and it lead to a doctor stoppage as Mecate’s eye was swollen completely shut.

PREDICTION

I didn’t expect to pick Bulaid to win this as I was much more familiar with Visconde due his LFA fights. But upon a rewatch of Visconde’s career I just wasn’t that impressed by him. Both of these guys are very high level fighters with a fair share of flaws but I think Viscondes flaws play into Bulaids strengths a lot more. Bulaid will be throwing significantly more volume on the feet and he will have a size advantage being taller and longer. Visconde is slow on the feet whereas Bulaid is pretty fast. Where it could get interesting is if Visconde can pressure for 15 minutes and wear down on the cardio of Bulaid. Visconde paces himself a lot and has shown that he can go 5 rounds. If the fight gets to the ground it will favour Visconde as well. But Bulaid has fought MMA for 7 years now so he will have enough experience defending take downs and submissions. Bulaid’s take down defense isn’t perfect but he should be able to keep the fight upright the same way Pintos was able to, and then have his success striking from range. I think either way this goes the distance and should be a pretty close fight.

Pick: Ilias Bulaid – Low confidence. Most likely method: Decision.

DAVI CABRAL (7-0) vs. DOUGLAS DA LAPA (6-0) – Middleweight

DAVI CABRAL 7-0 (4 KO, 2 SUB, 1 DEC)

I was not impressed by Cabral at all. He is a 5’9″ middleweight. He is very upright and stiff on the feet with zero striking defense whatsoever. He doesn’t move his head, and he doesn’t even use his hands to block. Offensively he throws a lot of jabs and his one redeeming quality is his leg kicks. He actually has multiple wins by leg kick, but he doesn’t throw these in combination or set them up at all. He is a decent enough wrestler who has good control once he is on top but the guys he has taken down weren’t very good anyways. His cardio seems pretty average as he has gone the distance in his most recent fight but he gassed out as he couldn’t get the take downs. He also looked really bad on the feet against Roderick Stewart who was 2-4 at the time. He then dropped Stewart with a leg kick before getting an arm triangle. But I can’t shake how poorly he dealt with a taller striker when the fight was standing.

DOUGLAS DA LAPA 6-0 (5 KO, 1 DEC)

Da Lapa is a 6’3″ middleweight with a muay thai background. Despite having 5 wins by KO, none of them have come in the first round. I find this interesting as he clearly has a lot of power, but he doesn’t fully commit to big strikes too often. He uses his range well as he throws a lot of kicks to the legs and to the body. When he lets his hands go he is a threat, but he doesn’t unload as often as you would like. I would have been very confident in him winning this fight if his take down defense wasn’t so terrible. He isn’t as clueless as some of the other Brazilian strikers we have had on the show this season, but he clearly doesn’t know what he is doing either. He was taken down and gave up his back against Richard, and Elias was able to find full mount on him multiple times. Once he does get taken down he does have a good get up game, but the fact I have watched him escape from bad positions and submission attempts against subpar competition is not great. He has fought much better competition than Cabral though.

PREDICTION

Da Lapa should be a big favourite here, but he has a very glaring hole in his wrestling defense. Cabral shouldn’t be the one to exploit this though. As long as the fight is on the feet Da Lapa will be at a big advantage, and I think he has a big cardio advantage.

Pick: Douglas Da Lapa – Medium-high confidence. Most likely method: KO/TKO in rounds 1 or 2.

LUIS FRANCISCHINELLI (6-1) vs. WILL RENTZ (8-2) – Welterweight

LUIS FRANCISCHINELLI 6-1 (6 KO)

Luis is a giant for 170. He literally looks like an alien in the cage. He is 6’6″ with an 83 inch reach. He has unreal power and at one point was 5-0 with 5 first round KO wins. His most recent bout was his come back off a loss, and he won in round 2. He actually got dropped in that fight and showed pretty bad defense early. When he threw kicks and punches he was hurting Arellano though. The size of him makes him very awkward to deal with, but also he is awkward too. He has very good kicks but he does some of his best work with his knees. He has power in his punches too but I think this may be due his opponents underestimating how much range he really has. He does have a loss to Jonathan Piersma in a fight which he just could not stop the take downs, and got submitted eventually. His wrestling has only ever been tested in that one fight, so I will have to continue to assume that his take down defense is not great. He is a very intriguing fighter due to his frame and I encourage you to watch some of his fights because he is a unique fighter in many aspects.

WILL RENTZ 8-2 (8 KO)

The first thing that stuck out to me about Rentz is that he going to be a lot shorter than Luis. Rentz has a listed height of 6’0″ in his CFFC fight but I am not convinced he is that tall. He has some crazy power in his hands though and decent counter striking. The first fight of his I watched was his most recent win as it was the toughest opponent he has beaten. He landed a great counter early. Defensively, Rentz relies a lot on his movement as he keeps his hands low and moves his head and body a lot. This works out for him sometimes, but it also got him caught and KOed by Chris Alvidrez. Offensively, he throws a lot of teep kicks and combination punches. He can offensively wrestle which makes this fight interesting. He found some wrestling success against Alvidrez, and a lot of wrestling success against his other CFFC opponents and Goldenvria. I couldn’t find the Tyler Smith fight, but Smith had a 1-7 record at the time so I can imagine what happened. Interestingly, a lot of his KO wins don’t come by KO on the feet, but by ground and pound. When he finds an opponents back he tends to flatten them out and win by ground and pound that way.

PREDICTION

The last time I broke down a Luis Francischinelli fight was when he fought against Jonathan Piersma. I did pick Luis to win that fight and I was wrong. Once again, this comes down to Luis keeping it on the feet. He is either going to nuke Rentz because of how bad Rentz’ defense is, or he is going to get taken down and finished. Either way, this fight won’t be going the distance. Surprisingly, Luis has fought the better competition of the two which I would like to factor in since Rentz’ wins either haven’t aged well, or were to poor competition in the first place. I have been fooled once by Luis, let’s see if I am fooled again.

Pick: Luis Francischinelli – Low confidence. Most likely method: KO/TKO in round 1.

ALINE PEREIRA (3-2) vs. SMILLA SUNDELL (2-0) – Women’s Bantamweight

ALINE PEREIRA 3-2 (3 DEC)

Aline is Alex Pereira’s sister. She has a long reach for her weight class with a 70″ reach and 5’9″ tall. She is a former professional GLORY kickboxer who fought for the title in 2021, and continued her striking career in Karate Combat, where she became the champion in 2025. Her professional kickboxing record is 6-2 with 1 KO. She has fought in MMA twice since. To my surprise her striking actually did not translate well to MMA. She has a style of striking where she will look to manage range as much as she can by throwing kicks and straight punches. She does throw in combination every now and then but not often. Her issue in MMA has been that she gives up too much cage control. She is easily pressured, so can therefore get taken down or clinched. She has either lost, or won very close decisions in which she gave up too much control time. Of course, she is a very technical striker who did show some power in Karate Combat as she got a couple KOs in a row with the signature Pereira left hook.

SMILLA SUNDELL 2-0 (2 KO)

Smilla Sundell is 21 years old, and at the age of 17 years old she become the ONE Championship Muay Thai champion. She holds a 36-5-1 Kickboxing record with 23 wins by KO. She only has two wins in MMA but both have been by KO against opponents with experience (2-6) and (5-2). In her debut against the girl with the losing record she just fought with crazy high pace and finished her early. Maya Stewart (5-2) came to fight and was actually taking Smilla down a lot, but Smilla was able to get back up every time without an issue. She eventually finished Maya with knees to the body and to the head. Smilla definitely uses her Muay Thai base in MMA. She uses the clinch a lot to throw knees. She has great technique as you would expect but she puts out a lot more volume than Pereira. Her take down defense hasn’t looked great, but neither has Pereira’s. She has also been at the UFC PI and has been training her grappling with Mikey Musumeci.

PREDICTION

This is definitely a hot take but I would have preferred that this fight took place in the UFC. You could argue neither are ready yet as Pereira’s MMA career has been underwhelming and Sundell is inexperienced, but the women’s bantamweight division has nearly nothing to be excited about. Pereira brings excitement and name value, and Smilla brings excitement and some crazy accolades. When it comes to a prediction, it is pretty clear that the UFC are setting Smilla up here. Stylistically she should have a big size advantage, and on top of that she also throws a lot more volume. This fight could be super fun if it extends as I could see them both getting into a fire fight but I see Sundell working the body of Pereira early and finding a finish.

Pick: Smilla Sundell – Medium confidence. Most likely method: Late TKO (round 2 or 3) or decision.

JASON ASHER (5-0) vs. GREG FOSTER (8-1) – Lightweight

JASON ASHER 5-0 (5 KO)

Please take into account that this fight is short notice. Surprisingly, the UFC had no grand plan for Week 10 so they scraped this fight together. Jason Asher was actually booked against multiple opponents on this show but it seems like none of them stuck, except for Foster. I am pretty sure that Asher is looking to fight at featherweight in the UFC, as his last fight was supposed to be a featherweight fight but his opponent weighed in at 150 lbs. He will be big for the weight class if so. He has all 5 wins by KO, and 4 of them are in round 1. He is a surprisingly patient striker. He fights behind a decent jab as a southpaw and throws a lot of kicks. Sometimes he will throw more than one kick in the same combination. Admittedly I didn’t find all of Asher’s pro fights but I did watch his pro debut, his most recent fight, and his fight at LFL against Matt Moody. In his pro debut he actually shot for a take down and then won by ground and pound TKO. His inexperience did show against Moody as he was throwing himself off balance and was throwing too many spinning attacks. He did get a take down in that fight but Moody was able to get up. Moody did also find pretty good striking success with his boxing. He eventually won by head kick KO in a performance that wasn’t very impressive at all. He looked much improved against Cameron Graves though, who is a solid enough opponent to beat on the regional scene. His take down defense looks pretty solid, and he can offensively wrestle if he wants to.

GREG FOSTER 8-1 (2 KO, 3 SUB, 3 DEC)

Greg Foster has not fought a great level of competition. Even then, he hasn’t dealt with them spectacularly either. He is a big lightweight at 5’11” and should have a size advantage over Asher. He also throws a high volume of kicks, especially to the legs. He has a loss to a can but I couldn’t find it unfortunately. He can wrestle but this doesn’t seem to be his main plan going into fights as a couple of submissions come from opponents making mistakes rather than him setting them up and finding the choke. Striking wise he is solid but nothing special as he does find himself in competitive exchanges against a low level of competition. He keeps his hands pretty low so his defense isn’t great. I also don’t love his cardio as even in some of his decision wins he has gassed out pretty bad in round 2.

PREDICTION

I am not confident in this fight at all. This has been put together by the UFC on short notice. I did like what I saw out of Asher more, but I am not fully convinced either guy is ready for the UFC yet. Asher looked legit against Cameron Graves so he is clearly making improvements and I will predict that momentum to continue here.

Pick: Jason Asher – Low confidence. Most likely method: KO/TKO in round 1 or 2.