The UFC is back in jolly old England, where Wembley Arena plays host to the first-ever championship fight on Fuel TV. Sure, Renan “Barao” Pedago is just the interim bantamweight champ, but who are we to quibble? A title fight is a title fight.
Standing across the cage from the young Brazilian star, who won his title belt against fading pioneer Urijah Faber, is 22-year-old Michael McDonald.
A teenage prodigy who started his professional career before he even graduated high school, McDonald has a powerful right hand he will use to try to put Barao to sleep.
But the champion trains daily with featherweight kingpin Jose Aldo. He’s been through the fire many times and will be hard to impress.
Although big names are scarce, the undercard is packed with young European prospects and fights that, if our experts are any judge, are too close to call. The picks are all over the map here, which usually indicates a good job of competitive matchmaking.
Click on to see our picks. Disagree? Shout at us in the comments.