Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is back with its latest pay-per-view (PPV) offering as UFC 316 is set to go down later TONIGHT (Sat., June 7, 2025) inside Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., streaming LIVE on ESPN+ PPV. Headlining the event will be a Bantamweight championship rematch as division king, Merab Dvalishvili, will defend the belt against the man he took it from, Sean O’Malley. The co-headlining title fight will see women’s Bantamweight roost-ruler, Julianna Pena, defend her belt against bitter rival, Kayla Harrison.
Kelvin Gastelum will look to reestablish his place among the middleweight elite by turning away the brick-fisted stylings of 185-pound power puncher, Joe Pyfer. Elsewhere on the card, longtime Bellator MMA veteran Patchy Mix makes his Octagon debut against the rough-and-tumble Mario Bautista, while Vicente Luque continues his welterweight adventures opposite hot-and-cold “Trailblazer,” Kevin Holland. I’m not sure that’s a lineup that commands a $79.99 price tag, but we’re likely to get a couple of fun fights out of the ordeal, regardless if you’re at home or suffering through the noise at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Kelvin Gastelum has been a problem for a lot of big name fighters over the years and consistently over-performs when he’s the odds-on underdog, starting with his upset win to stymie Uriah Hall in The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 17 finale back in 2013. Gastelum went on to retire Michael Bisping and nearly turned the middleweight division upside down with his UFC 236 performance against a prime Israel Adesanya. More importantly, at least for this contest, is that Gastelum has never been knocked out in 29 professional fights and has faced some heavy-handed sluggers along the way, including Jared Cannonier and Robert Whittaker, among others.
Even though he’s been competing inside the Octagon for over a decade, Gastelum is still just 33 years old. That makes him younger than several fighters in the UFC 316 lineup, including co-headliners Julianna Pena and Kayla Harrison. From the outside looking in, it would appear Gastelum never mastered the psychological components necessary to reach the pinnacle of the sport, evidence by his never-ending weight struggles and inconsistent performances. A trip back to welterweight ended with a submission loss to Sean Brady; which to be fair, is not anything to be ashamed of considering Brady is ranked No. 2 in the world, though I’m sure his rebound victory over Daniel Rodriguez at UFC Saudi Arabia convinced Gastelum that middleweight is where he belongs.
Joe Pyfer will look to prove him wrong in his quest to become a bona fide contender at 185 pounds. “Bodybagz” lost some of his shine when he got shut down by Swedish veteran Jack Hermansson atop the UFC Vegas 86 fight card back in 2024. That performance raised a couple of red flags (“fraud check” as the kids would call it) because Pyfer seemed to have no Plan B after failing to land the knockout blow. I’m not sure the former “Contender Series” standout needs to worry about getting picked apart by Gastelum, but the granite-chinned TUF champ does have other ways to frustrate Pyfer and shut down his heavy-handed offense. What happens after that is likely to determine the outcome of this fight, and don’t be surprised to see this bout decided by who lands the timeliest takedowns.
Pyfer strangled Abdul Razak Alhassan by way of arm-triangle choke at UFC Vegas 80 so he’s not the one-trick pony some fans make him out to be — and Gastelum has been tapped three times in his MMA career (including an arm-triangle choke by Chris Weidman). It's hard to pick against Gastelum because he’s such a stubborn mule inside the cage, I just think the younger (28 year-old) Pyfer, even without the knockout punch, is going to be the busier striker. And even if he’s spending more time defending the takedown than working the body, he only needs to win two of the three rounds to go home victorious.
Bellator MMA finally collapsed under the weight of its own pointlessness and PFL, for reasons still not fully understood, swooped in with some of its Saudi funny money to pay for the funeral. As a result, some of the world’s best fighters not employed by UFC finally get a chance to strut their stuff on the biggest stage in combat sports, and it’s hard to see the addition of Patchy Mix as anything but a win for both parties. Let’s face it, the bantamweight division is about one or two fights away from being cleaned out by Merab Dvalishvili, so having Mix as a viable contender extends the shelf life of “The Machine,” at least in terms of public interest.
In addition, Patricio Freire also made the jump at UFC 314 and came up short against Yair Rodriguez. To be fair, Rodriguez is ranked No. 4 in the world and “Pitbull,” who turns 38 in just a few weeks, was coming off a 13-month layoff. Mix, by comparison, is still competing in his athletic prime at 31 and brings a 20-1 record into the promotion with 15 finishes. More importantly, he’s paired off with the unranked Mario Bautista, who is certainly an established veteran after six years under the UFC banner, but not the caliber of opponent that would have Mix fans jumping ship.
The Brazilian is currently the -180 betting favorite and matches up to Bautista fairly evenly in both height and reach. Mix will be fighting southpaw against a switch stance for the UFC vet and this three-rounder is likely to come down to who has the better grappling. There’s no question Bautista has faced stiffer competition throughout his career, going toe-to-toe with top stars like Jose Aldo and Cory Sandhagen, I just don't think the disparity is great enough to pick him based on that alone. I would, however, anticipate a very close fight with Mix taking home the “W” by getting the better of the frequent grappling exchanges.
Longtime welterweight veteran Vicente Luque is 2-1 since returning from his year-long medical suspension, which came in the wake of his Geoff Neal loss at UFC Vegas 59. His bounce-back fight resulted in a decision victory over an old and shopworn Rafael dos Santos, a career lightweight, before the “Silent Assassin” was stopped by Joaquin Buckley at UFC Atlantic City. I was ready to write him off at that point, but Luque — still just 33 years old — rebounded with a submission victory over Themba Gorimbo at UFC 310 to close out his 2024 fight campaign. Luque has bagged nine post-fight performance bonuses over the course of his UFC career with four “Fight of the Night” honors. Win or lose, the Brazilian comes to fight and has endeared himself to even the most fickle fight fans over the years.
Like his UFC 316 opponent, Kevin Holland also has nine post-fight performance bonuses and is coming off a rebound victory of his own. Following consecutive losses to Roman Dolidze (UFC 307) and Reinier de Ridder (UFC 311), the 32 year-old “Trailblazer” outworked Icelandic assassin Gunnar Nelson at UFC London back in March. It seems like a zillion years since Holland was a fresh-faced recruit on Season 2 of Dana White’s “Contender Series” and across a span of seven years, Holland has racked up an incredible 25 fights with a 15-10 record. Offensively, the former Legacy Fighting Alliance (LFA) headliner can do it all. He’s got power in his hands, sneaky submissions, and championship cardio — leading to 22 finishes in 27 career wins. Unfortunately, his takedown defense is a major liability and one of the main contributors to his losses over the years. That’s pretty much the story of this fight. Holland has a whopping 81-inch reach and stands four inches taller than Luque, which could turn their PPV curtain jerker into a shooting gallery for “Trailblazer.” The more likely scenario is that “Silent Assassin” defaults to his wrestling, like he did against Dos Anjos (Luque scored eight takedowns in that fight). That’s assuming the Brazilian doesn’t get seduced by Jersey’s Just Bleed’rs and in turn let his Holland contest devolve into a sloppy bar fight. If so, he’s getting KTFO.
UFC 316 Dvalishvili vs. OMalley 2 PPV Pay Per View June 7th 2025 Match Card.
