Preview: UFC Atlanta Prelims – Craig vs. Bellato

The
Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to Atlanta, and there’s
a solid slate of seven prelims with some local flavor.

UFC Atlanta’s top two fights here are far from local, however;
Scotland’s Paul Craig
returns to light heavyweight against Brazil’s Rodolfo
Bellato, and a welterweight bout between former “The Ultimate
Fighter” winners Michael
Chiesa and Court McGee
pairs off two veterans from the western half of the United States.
But beneath that, Georgia natives Malcolm
Wellmaker and Cody Durden
each get some winnable but potentially tricky fights, taking on
Kris
Moutinho and Jose Ochoa,
respectively. As far as the lower half of these prelims, the clear
highlight is former headliner Ricky Simon
returning to action against late replacement Cameron
Smotherman.
Odds: Bellato (-375), Craig (+295)

A late scratch from a card last month, Craig’s return to light
heavyweight winds up here. Scotland’s “Bearjew” figured to be a fun
curiosity when he came to the UFC in 2016, owning a surprisingly
adept submission game for someone of his size. But it wasn’t a
surprise when Craig’s results turned out to be fairly boom or bust;
he’d pull off the occasional low-percentage miracle, most notably
in his literal last-second submission of Magomed
Ankalaev in 2018, but just as often get absolutely nuked by a
much more powerful striker. Despite most of Craig’s fights feeling
like a coin flip, he did manage to go on a six-fight undefeated
streak from 2019 to 2022 that had him on the verge of contender
status — but that luck eventually corrected, and after losses to
Volkan
Oezdemir and Johnny
Walker, Craig decided to ply his trade down at 185 pounds.
Craig’s debut in the weight class was impressive, as he was an
effective bully while running through Andre Muniz,
but he otherwise found himself stalled out against more skilled
opponents, necessitating this move back up to 205 pounds.

Craig takes on Bellato here in what should once again be anyone’s
fight, as Bellato’s the type of fighter capable of both
annihilating Craig in short order or diving into a submission for
as long as Craig survives. Bellato has some skills on the mat but
is mostly a fairly straightforward slugger that relies on his
durability, often getting hurt but rarely getting finished, with
his lone losses coming to fellow UFC fighter Vitor
Petrino. That sheer persistence is a double-edged sword in a
matchup like this, as Craig’s game is built to catch opponents that
focus on offense at the expense of defense, but the call is that
the Brazilian is bull-headed enough to find a finish here; the pick
is Bellato via second-round stoppage.

Jump To »
Craig vs. Bellato
Chiesa vs. McGee
Wellmaker vs. Moutinho
Durden vs. Ochoa
Simon vs. Smotherman
Rowe vs. Loosa
Horth vs. Demopoulos