Noche UFC: Full Card Analysis, Silva vs. Delgado

Thirteen bouts in Glendale, headlined by a five round featherweight main event with a short notice replacement. A fight by fight look at what the numbers show, and where the sample is too thin to say much.

The fourth annual Noche UFC lands at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale on Saturday, and it arrives looking nothing like the card announced in July. Yair Rodríguez was supposed to headline against Jean Silva and withdrew with an injury on August 19. Kelvin Gastelum was booked opposite Yousri Belgaroui and came off six days before that. Rodrigo Vera's visa fell through last Friday, taking his bout with it and opening a slot filled by two men who have never set foot in the Octagon.

What is left is thirteen fights with a very wide spread of experience. Six of the twenty six fighters have fifteen or more Octagon appearances behind them: Tim Elliott at twenty two, Dan Ige and Curtis Blaydes at twenty one, Brandon Moreno at twenty, JJ Aldrich at seventeen, Alexa Grasso at fifteen. Seven have three or fewer, and two have none at all. Muslim Salikhov is forty two years old and fourteen fights into his UFC run. Regina Tarin is twenty one and has fought once.

That makes this a useful card for thinking about what numbers can and cannot tell you. Some of these fighters have thousands of recorded strikes and hundreds of minutes of tape. Some have fifteen minutes. Where the sample is too thin to support a claim, that is said plainly below rather than dressed up.

Here is a fight by fight look at all thirteen, first bout of the night to last.

Prelims

JJ Aldrich vs. Regina Tarin

Women's Flyweight

Aldrich has been in the promotion since December 2016 and has seventeen Octagon appearances behind her, of which she has won eleven. Ten of those eleven wins came by decision, and she has one stoppage win in the entire run with no recorded knockdowns. That is a description rather than a criticism. She lands 3.92 significant strikes per minute, absorbs 4.34, and wins by being the busier fighter in exchanges she selects. She has taken two straight and four of her last five.

Tarin is twenty one, unbeaten at 8-0, and has been inside the Octagon exactly once, on very short notice in February. That bout was contested at a catchweight rather than at flyweight, so there is no UFC flyweight data on her at all, and everything derived from the appearance sits on fifteen minutes of cage time.

The physical read is close. Tarin is two inches taller, Aldrich holds an inch of reach, and both fight southpaw. What separates them is twelve years of age and sixteen Octagon appearances.

Sean King III vs. Jessie Rosas

Featherweight

This bout did not exist five days ago. It was assembled after Vera's withdrawal scratched the original pairing, and it puts two promotional newcomers against each other.

There is no UFC data on either man, and neither has height, reach, or stance on file, so this is a fight with no physical comparison available. What is known comes from reporting. King is 6-0 with finishes in three consecutive bouts and had a Contender Series appearance scheduled for October before this call arrived. Rosas is 8-1 and is Raul Rosas Jr.'s brother.

Anything beyond that would be invention. Two unbeaten or near unbeaten regional prospects, no promotional tape, and a fight that will tell us considerably more afterward than it can beforehand.

Rafa García vs. Rongzhu

Lightweight

García has rebuilt himself in the Octagon as a wrestler. He is 32 for 70 on takedown attempts at 45.7 percent, holds 196.4 seconds of control per fifteen minutes, and has taken three straight and five of his last six. The interruption in that run was a second round knockout by Grant Dawson in October 2024, the one time he has been finished in eleven UFC bouts.

Rongzhu is an awkward matchup for that game. His takedown defense sits at 83.3 percent against eighteen attempts faced, which is the specific wall García runs into. He is 3-3 across six Octagon appearances and has won his last two in the promotion. He also stopped Victor Martinez in the first round in Macau in May, though that came on a Road to UFC card and does not appear in his UFC figures.

Both men throw more than they defend. García lands 4.28 per minute and absorbs 4.42; Rongzhu lands 5.60 and absorbs 5.78, a higher volume version of the same shape. Rongzhu is two inches taller with reach even at seventy, and both fight orthodox. Ignacio Bahamondes, who fights three bouts later on this card, submitted Rongzhu in the third round back in February 2022.

Drakkar Klose vs. Tommy Gantt

Lightweight

Klose is thirty eight and has been in the UFC since January 2017. Thirteen bouts, ten wins, eight of them by decision. He fights at 55.1 percent striking accuracy and holds 211.5 seconds of control per fifteen, the profile of a man who gets you to the fence and keeps you there. His three losses split a decision to David Teymur and knockouts by Beneil Dariush and Joel Alvarez. He has not competed since beating Edson Barboza at UFC 319 in August 2025, a layoff of 392 days to Saturday.

Gantt comes out of a Division I wrestling background at NC State and left an assistant coaching job with the Wolfpack to fight full time. He has one UFC appearance, a second round stoppage of Artur Minev in May, and he is 12-0 with a no contest as a professional. Any rate figure attached to him comes from that single seven minute and fifty one second fight, so none appears here.

Gantt is two inches taller with six inches of reach. That is the concrete edge. The rest is a wrestling base against a man who has spent nine years learning how to fight along a cage.

Yousri Belgaroui vs. Djorden Santos

Middleweight

Belgaroui is six inches taller with four inches of reach, and both of his UFC wins came by stoppage in the third round. Across those two fights, roughly twenty five minutes of cage time, he has landed 196 of 294 significant strike attempts and absorbed 40 of 137. Those are startling numbers and they are also a two fight sample, worth holding in mind before treating them as who he is.

He came through Contender Series Season 8 without receiving a contract, got signed anyway, and has since stopped Azamat Bekoev and Mansur Abdul-Malik.

Santos is the replacement here after Gastelum's withdrawal, and he has three Octagon appearances for a 1-2 record. He lands 6.97 significant strikes per minute and absorbs 7.58, the signature of a fighter who ends up in firefights. He was submitted in the third round by Baisangur Susurkaev in May.

Ignacio Bahamondes vs. Muslim Salikhov

Welterweight

Bahamondes moves up to welterweight for the first time in the promotion, and he arrives on two consecutive decision losses, to Rafael Fiziev in June 2025 and Tofiq Musayev in March. The move up is a real variable and there is no UFC data at 170 to read it against.

What the data does support: he has never been finished in the Octagon. All four of his UFC losses across ten bouts went to the scorecards. He lands 5.80 significant strikes per minute, carries four inches of height and five of reach on Salikhov, and is 0 for 9 on takedown attempts, which tells you where he intends to fight.

Salikhov is forty two and has fourteen UFC bouts. His nine wins split five knockouts and four decisions with no submissions at all. He is economical rather than busy, landing 3.37 per minute against 2.96 absorbed with 62.4 percent striking defense. The concern sits on the other side of the ledger. Three of his five UFC losses came by knockout, and the most recent was a first round stoppage by Uros Medic in November, 308 days before Saturday.

Tim Elliott vs. Édgar Cháirez

Flyweight

Elliott's UFC career is 65 takedowns on 143 attempts, 3.61 per fifteen minutes, and 269.4 seconds of control per fifteen across twenty two appearances. He fights in scrambles by design. He has also never been stopped by strikes in the Octagon: twelve losses, five by submission, seven by decision, none by knockout.

There is a genuine pattern in his recent run, and it holds up when you check it. His last nine bouts go win, win, loss, three times through, ending on the Steve Erceg decision in May.

Cháirez is built to punish scrambles. Three of his four UFC wins came by submission, including three finishes in his last five appearances, and he averages 1.82 submission attempts per fifteen minutes. His control time is 27.5 seconds per fifteen, which says he is not winning fights from top position. He is winning them in transition and off his back. He has taken three straight.

Cháirez holds five inches of reach with height even at 5'7", and Elliott fights southpaw against his orthodox.

Main Card

David Martínez vs. Dan Ige

Bantamweight

Martínez is 3-0 in the promotion with a first round knockout of Saimon Oliveira and decisions over Rob Font and Marlon Vera, the Font fight taken on short notice at last year's Noche UFC. He lands 4.62 significant strikes per minute, absorbs 2.83, and defends 70.0 percent of what comes at him. All of that sits on three fights and roughly thirty five minutes of cage time.

Ige has 15,633 seconds of recorded Octagon time, more than seven times what Martínez has, across twenty one appearances. Saturday is his first UFC bantamweight bout, and his only prior fight outside featherweight in the promotion was a catchweight against Diego Lopes.

The recent form is the honest problem. Ige is 1-4 in his last five, the win a third round knockout of Sean Woodson, and his most recent outing was a first round knockout loss to Melquizael Costa in February. That Costa fight is worth isolating: nine of Ige's ten UFC losses went to the scorecards, and Costa is the one man who has finished him. Ige carries two inches of height and four of reach.

Waldo Cortes Acosta vs. Curtis Blaydes

Heavyweight

The structure of this fight is unusually legible. Blaydes has 66 takedowns on 138 attempts and 407.9 seconds of control per fifteen minutes, a wrestler who wins by putting heavyweights on their back and keeping them there. Five of his six UFC losses came by stoppage, the exception being the decision he dropped to Josh Hokit at UFC 327 in April.

Cortes Acosta has never been finished, and that is a claim about his entire professional career rather than just his UFC run. He is 10-3 in thirteen Octagon appearances, all three losses by decision, and his 17-3 professional record means those three decisions are the only defeats he has. He lands 5.18 significant strikes per minute against 3.61 absorbed with six knockdowns.

Before dropping a decision to Alexander Volkov in May, he knocked out Ante Delija, Shamil Gaziev, and Derrick Lewis in three consecutive fights between November 1 and January 24.

Height is even at 6'4" and Blaydes holds two inches of reach. One man's path runs through the takedown and the other's runs through keeping it standing, and there is not much ambiguity about which is which.

Manon Fiorot vs. Alexa Grasso

Women's Flyweight

These two last fought on the same night. At UFC 315 in May 2025, Fiorot lost a decision to Valentina Shevchenko with the title on the line and Grasso lost a decision to Natalia Silva a few bouts earlier. That evening has aged into something significant. Shevchenko vacated the championship on September 5 with an injury expected to keep her out for a year, and Natalia Silva now meets Wang Cong for the vacant belt at UFC 332 on October 3. Shevchenko's second reign was built in part on beating both of the women fighting here, and the fighter who beat Grasso is the one contesting the title she left behind.

Fiorot is 8-1 in the UFC and that Shevchenko decision is the loss. She lands 5.66 significant strikes per minute, absorbs 3.58, defends 66.9 percent of incoming strikes, and has stopped 87.5 percent of the takedowns attempted against her across twenty four tries. She has not competed since knocking out Jasmine Jasudavicius in October, a layoff of 329 days to Saturday.

Grasso is 9-5 with a draw in fifteen appearances, and her career is inseparable from the Shevchenko trilogy: the fourth round submission that won her the belt, the split draw at Noche UFC in 2023, and the decision loss at Sphere.

One number shapes the matchup itself. Grasso concedes 217.5 seconds of control per fifteen minutes, which is the figure a wrestler would target. Fiorot attempts roughly one takedown per fifteen and is 9 for 31 across her UFC run, so she is unlikely to be the one who does. The more pressing issue for Grasso is her 58.7 percent striking defense meeting Fiorot's volume.

Grasso has beaten Maycee Barber twice, by decision in 2021 and by first round knockout in March. Fiorot is two inches taller; Grasso holds an inch of reach.

Tommy McMillen vs. Marwan Rahiki

Featherweight

Two unbeaten Contender Series Season 9 signings, four UFC wins between them, and all four came by stoppage. Neither man has attempted a single takedown in the promotion, which tells you what this is going to be.

McMillen has landed 326 of 647 significant strike attempts across two fights totaling roughly seventeen minutes, with three knockdowns. He stopped Manolo Zecchini in the first round in April and Alberto Montes in the third in July. Rahiki has landed 112 of 204 across roughly thirteen minutes, stopping Harry Hardwick in the second round in March and Ollie Schmid in the first in Perth in May.

Both of those are two fight samples and neither supports a career rate, so the counts appear here rather than a per minute figure that would look precise and mean very little.

McMillen carries four inches of height and two of reach, and comes in on 56 days' rest.

Brandon Moreno vs. Joseph Morales

Flyweight

Moreno has twenty Octagon appearances, a championship run, and 31 takedowns on 78 attempts with 162.9 seconds of control per fifteen. He is also on a two fight skid, a knockout loss to Tatsuro Taira in December and a decision loss to Lone'er Kavanagh in February, and he has gone 4-5 across the nine fights since he won the belt at UFC 263.

Morales presents one specific threat and not much else. All three of his UFC wins came by submission, he averages 3.04 submission attempts per fifteen minutes, and he is a live danger any time the fight hits the mat in a scramble. The counterweight is that he concedes 375.9 seconds of control per fifteen and has stopped 26.7 percent of takedowns attempted against him across fifteen tries. He is not going to control where this fight happens.

His absence is the other story. Morales went nearly seven years between UFC bouts, from November 2018 to August 2025, returning to win The Ultimate Fighter 33 flyweight final over Alibi Idiris and then submitting Matt Schnell in November.

There is a piece of symmetry in this booking. These two shared a card in August 2017, where Moreno lost the main event to Sergio Pettis and Morales submitted Robert Sanchez. Moreno holds an inch of height and an inch of reach; Morales fights switch stance.

Jean Silva vs. Jose Delgado

Featherweight, five rounds

Silva has scored five knockdowns across seven UFC appearances and holds 19.3 seconds of control per fifteen minutes, a figure that says he has no interest whatsoever in holding anyone down. Four of his six wins came by knockout. His takedown defense is 78.1 percent against thirty two attempts faced, so the people who have tried to take the fight elsewhere have mostly failed.

His loss came in this exact slot last year, when Diego Lopes stopped him in the second round of the Noche UFC main event in San Antonio. He answered it with a decision over Arnold Allen at UFC 324 in January, and Saturday arrives 231 days after that.

Delgado took this on under a month's notice and is the reason the card still has a main event. He is 4-1 in the UFC with first round knockouts of Connor Matthews and Hyder Amil, a decision loss to Nathaniel Wood at UFC 321, then a split decision over Andre Fili and a decision over Austin Bashi in July. Four knockdowns in five fights, 6.05 significant strikes landed per minute at 54.6 percent accuracy. He was born and raised in Yuma, trains at The MMA Lab in Glendale, and is fighting in the city where he trains.

The physical edge belongs to him: four inches of height, four inches of reach, and switch stance against Silva's orthodox. The unknown belongs to both equally. Neither man has been past fifteen minutes in the Octagon, and this is scheduled for twenty five.

Summary

Thirteen fights, and the shape of several of them is legible before the cage door shuts. Blaydes needs the takedown against a man who has never been finished. Cháirez needs the scramble against a fighter who lives in them and has never been stopped by strikes in the Octagon. García needs to get Rongzhu down through 83 percent takedown defense. Bahamondes and Salikhov both intend to keep it standing, and one of them is forty two.

The parts that are not legible are the ones with the least tape behind them. Seven fighters on this card have three or fewer UFC appearances and two have none at all. McMillen and Rahiki have four stoppages between them in four fights and nothing else to go on. Delgado has never seen a fourth round, and neither has the man across from him.

The model keeps updating as new data comes in. For the most current call on every fight on this card, visit mmafightadvisor.com/predictions, and for head to head comparisons on every fighter on it, visit mmafightadvisor.com/stats.