The MMA Daily

We got ourselves an intriguing fight in the Featherweight division, as Jonathan Pearce takes on UFC newcomer Christian Rodriguez. A winner of two straight and seven of the last eight, Pearce comes into his fourth UFC fight with momentum. With ten finishes in eleven victories, Pearce is not one to need the full fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, Christian Rodriguez comes into his UFC debut on short notice. Having been passed over on Dana White’s Contender series due to a missed weight cut in October of last year, Rodriguez pressed on, winning via submission in January of 2022. A perfect 8-0, Rodriguez will look to keep a 0 in the loss column.

As for a prediction, I have Pearce. While I do think that Christian Rodriguez has a skillset that will be successful inside the octagon, I believe that the short notice nature combined with the opponent will be a tough task. Pearce seems to have found his stride of late, finishing his last two opponents in round two. Having excellent wrestling abilities, Pearce looks to take down his opponents and implement his volume based ground-and-pound. With submissions in his arsenal and excellent cardio, Pearce is one you generally want to avoid being on the ground with. So with all that said, I predict that Pearce wins via late submission.