UFC Vegas 42: Max Holloway vs. Yair Rodriguez preview and prediction

UFC Vegas 42: Max Holloway vs. Yair Rodriguez preview and prediction.

UFC Vegas 42 goes down this Saturday from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The event is headlined by a top-ranked men’s featherweight tilt between former UFC men’s featherweight champion Max Holloway and Mexican contender Yair Rodriguez.

Holloway is coming off the biggest performance of his career, after putting a hellacious five-round beating on Calvin Kattar back at UFC on ABC in January.

As for Rodriguez, the Mexican stand-out hasn’t graced the Octagon since before the pandemic, with his last UFC appearance coming against Jeremy Stephens back in October 2019.

Max Holloway vs Yair Rodriguez Preview and Prediction

Holloway is 15-3 in his last eighteen UFC appearances dating back to 2014, with ten of his last fifteen wins coming by way of stoppage. Holloway’s only recent losses are to champions, as he dropped back-to-back controversial decisions to Alexander Volkanovski in 2019 and 2020.

Prior to that, in a failed attempt at becoming a two-division champion, Holloway dropped a UFC interim lightweight title fight to Dustin Poirier by way of unanimous decision back at UFC 236 in April 2019.

Rodriguez, on the other hand, is 8-1 with 1 no-contest since making his UFC debut back in 2014. The Mexican fighting out of Huntington Beach, Florida has five decision wins to his credit and three stoppages in that stretch. Rodriguez has been known to deliver end-to-end excitement and action-packed fights in his career, going the distance in 5 of his 9 UFC appearances.

Holloway comes in as the massive -625 betting favorite at sportsbooks such as WynnBet, which may be a bit overpriced considering who his opponent is in this match-up. With Holloway coming off of the best performance of his career, it will have to be a career-defining night for Rodriguez if he plans to get past Holloway, and make it out of the fight in one piece.

Prediction: Holloway by 3rd round T/KO.

UFC Vegas 42 takes place on Saturday, Nov. 13, live from the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, NV. Follow along with FanSided MMA, who is on-site, for all your news and highlights.