UFC Picks: UFC 212

The featherweight belt will finally be unified in Rio de Janeiro. See who the RotoWire MMA staff thinks will claim the title.

Updated on June 1, 2017 1:46PM EST

UFC Picks

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Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, the featherweight belt will finally become unified when Jose Aldo and Max Holloway take the Octagon for the main event. Casual fans may remember Aldo by his knockout loss to Conor McGregor, but the rest of his career tells a different story. The McGregor loss was Aldo's lone defeat in his 17-fight UFC/WEC tenure, and he was able to quickly bounce back with a dominant victory over Frankie Edgar at UFC 200. On the other side of the cage, the 25-year-old Holloway is putting a 10-fight winning streak on the line. Like Aldo, his last defeat came against McGregor, but all the way back in 2013. Setting the table for this 145-pound bout will be a top strawweight contender matchup between Claudia Gadelha and Karolina Kowalkiewicz, as well as the possible retirement fight of Brazil native and MMA legend Vitor Belfort.

If you're looking for a fantasy-specific breakdown of these fights on DraftKings, click here for Jon Litterine's UFC 212 preview.

MATCHUP	WEIGHT CLASS	JON	EVAN	JAKE
(C) Jose Aldo (-145) vs. (IC) Max Holloway (+125)	Featherweight	~~Aldo~~	~~Aldo~~	~~Aldo~~
Claudia Gadelha (-340) vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz (+280)	Women's Strawweight	Gadelha	Gadelha	Gadelha
Vitor Belfort (-160) vs. Nate Marquardt (+140)	Middleweight	Belfort	Belfort	Belfort
Paulo Borrachinha (-275) vs. Oluwale Bamgbose (+235)	Middleweight	Borrachinha	Borrachinha	Borrachinha
Erick Silva (+125) vs. Yancy Medeiros (-145)	Welterweight	~~Silva~~	Medeiros	~~Silva~~
Rafael Assuncao (+150) vs. Marlon Moraes (-170)	Bantamweight	~~Moraes~~	Assuncao	Assuncao
RECORD		3-3	5-1	4-2
OVERALL (since UFC 200)		42-33	42-33	46-29
PERCENTAGE		.560	.560	.613

MATCHUP	WEIGHT CLASS	RICHARD	CHRIS	JASON
(C) Jose Aldo (-145) vs. (IC) Max Holloway (+125)	Featherweight	~~Aldo~~	~~Aldo~~	~~Aldo~~
Claudia Gadelha (-340) vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz (+280)	Women's Strawweight	~~Kowalkiewicz~~	Gadelha	Gadelha
Vitor Belfort (-160) vs. Nate Marquardt (+140)	Middleweight	~~Marquardt~~	Belfort	Belfort
Paulo Borrachinha (-275) vs. Oluwale Bamgbose (+235)	Middleweight	Borrachinha	Borrachinha	Borrachinha
Erick Silva (+125) vs. Yancy Medeiros (-145)	Welterweight	Medeiros	Medeiros	Medeiros
Rafael Assuncao (+150) vs. Marlon Moraes (-170)	Bantamweight	~~Moraes~~	Assuncao	~~Moraes~~
RECORD		2-4	5-1	4-2
OVERALL (since UFC 200)		29-17	10-5	9-6
PERCENTAGE		.630	.667	.600

THE PLAYERS

Jon Litterine: RotoWire lead MMA beat writer and scribe for our weekly DrafKings preview. Lead analyst on the RotoWire MMA Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @JonLitterine.
Evan Dahl: Pens our bi-weekly MMA Barometer column. Follow him on Twitter at @RealEvanDahl.
Jake Letarski: MMA and NCAA Hoops Senior Editor. Sirius XM contributor. Host of the RotoWire MMA Podcast, RotoWire Fantasy Football Podcast and RotoWire DFS Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @JakeSki52.
Richard Mann: Richard is a stats-based analyst that has appeared on ESPN MMA via Fightmetric. He handles event recaps in our Fight Stat Wrap column, and maintains his own, data-driven MMA blog at StrikescoreMMA.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RichardAMann.
Chris Olson: Contributor at RotoWire for DFS Baseball, as well as MMA fight recaps. Follow him on Twitter at @RealChrisOlson.
Jason Rubin: Host of TYT Sports on YouTube and writer of our Handicapping The NBA column on RotoWire. Follow him on Twitter at @jasonrubin91.