UFC Fight Night: Santos vs Teixeira Tips, Predictions & Preview

UFC Fight Night: Santos vs Teixeira will take place at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas on Sunday, November 8 at 2pm AEDT.

Here are our best bets and predictions for the UFC Fight Night main event on ESPN; read on for Santos vs Teixeira tips.

Thiago Santos returns for the first time since July 2019 where he failed to win the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship with a split decision loss to Jon Jones at UFC 239. It may have been a little controversial as a case could be made for Santos to have won the fight. He sustained a knee injury in the second round of the fight and a lengthy rehabilitation followed.

Santos is the number one ranked Light Heavyweight ahead of Dominick Reyes and Glover Teixeira.

Teixeira has had 38 professional fights for a 31-7 record and the 41-year-old has fought against some of the very best in the industry. He has also fought Jones, back in 2014 when suffering a unanimous decision loss at UFC 172. Besides his 20-fight win streak between 2006-2013, Teixeira is enjoying the best form of his career.

After a disappointing decision loss to Corey Anderson, Teixeira bounced back as he forced Karl Roberson to tap out to an arm-triangle choke in January 2019. He then submitted Ion Cutelaba with a rear-naked choke later in the year and his momentum continued with a split decision victory over Nikita Krylov.

Anthony Smith was expected to defeat Teixeira in their bout in May, but the veteran bullied and battered ‘Lionheart’ for four rounds before finishing him with strikes in the fifth round.

The fairytale run should come to an end here with Santos the likely winner of this main event. You would be foolish to rule Teixeira out completely, but his speed could be a factor that Santos could take advantage of; Santos should be much faster in the Octagon and he should land routine strikes before showing his stopping power to close out the fight in the earlier rounds.


READ MORE