UFC FIGHT NIGHT 280: FIZIEV VS. TORRES The Model's Full Card Picks: Baku, Azerbaijan | June 27, 2026
Thirteen fights, a freshly crowned champion reshaping the lightweight picture, and a card built for a city that has been waiting for this moment.
The UFC returns to Baku for the second consecutive year, and this time the stakes are higher. Justin Gaethje stopped Ilia Topuria at the White House thirteen days ago and the lightweight division is in the middle of a reshuffle. The main event sits directly in the path of that reshuffle. Rafael Fiziev headlines in front of a crowd that will shake the National Gymnastics Arena for him. Manuel Torres arrives having finished five consecutive opponents in the first round and having never been asked what happens after that.
The card runs thirteen fights deep. Prelims first.
PRELIMS
Tahir Abdullayev vs. Jefferson Nascimento | Welterweight | UFC debuts
Abdullayev was born in Baku. Not fighting out of Azerbaijan, not representing it from a distance. He walked these streets, trained out of Phuket Top Team, campaigned publicly for a UFC contract, and is now making his debut inside a venue his city built. He is 21-3, a two-time UAE Warriors title challenger who came up short both times and kept going. Jefferson Nascimento arrives at 13-0, undefeated, also making his UFC debut, handed the hardest possible assignment on his first night.
The crowd gives Abdullayev everything from the opening bell. The model reads the fight the same way.
Abdullayev gets the call.
Bekzat Almakhan vs. Jean Matsumoto | Bantamweight
Matsumoto is the favorite here and the model lands with the market. The Brazilian is 17-2 and generates volume at a level that puts him in the upper tier of active UFC bantamweights by output. Almakhan is 12-3 and Kazakh, which normally carries weight given the quality of fighters coming out of that system, but the market prices Matsumoto ahead and the model reads it the same way.
The pick is Matsumoto.
Daniil Donchenko vs. Theodor Berggren | Welterweight
Donchenko is 14-2. Berggren is making his UFC debut. The experience gap is real and the model reflects it clearly. There is not much analytical complexity to manufacture here. Berggren earned his contract and steps into the Octagon for the first time against a fighter with considerably more miles on him at this level.
Donchenko wins this.
Kaan Ofli vs. Javier Reyes | Featherweight
Reyes is the Colombian featherweight who has spent 2026 building toward a stated goal of a UFC top-15 ranking by year’s end. He is 23-5 and the market has him as a meaningful favorite. Ofli is the Australian challenger at 13-4-1, coming in as the underdog. The model lands on Reyes.
The pick is Reyes.
Nursulton Ruziboev vs. Andrey Pulyaev | Middleweight
Ruziboev is the 6’5” Uzbek finisher who knocked out Brunno Ferreira in 77 seconds in his UFC debut and has been building methodically since. He is 4-1 in the promotion with 47 professional fights behind him. Pulyaev is 1-2 in the UFC and the numbers tell a difficult story: he absorbs significantly more per minute than he lands, which is a problem against a fighter with Ruziboev’s knockout history.
The model reads Ruziboev.
Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev vs. Julius Walker | Light Heavyweight
Yakhyaev has fought twice in the UFC. The first fight lasted 33 seconds. The second lasted 2 minutes and 52 seconds. Both ended with rear-naked chokes. He is 9-0, 25 years old, and his sample size at UFC level is 3 minutes and 25 seconds of total cage time. The statistical profile that produces from that window is a data artifact, not a career average, and the model treats it accordingly. What the model does read clearly is that the talent gap here is real.
The pick is Yakhyaev.
Farman Hasanov vs. Eric Nolan | Welterweight | UFC debuts
The second Azerbaijani debut on this card. Hasanov is Baku-born, 6-0 pre-UFC, and will receive everything the home crowd has to give the moment he walks out. Nolan is 8-4 and the more experienced fighter on paper, but the model reads the physical and momentum advantages on the other side.
The pick is Hasanov.
MAIN CARD
Abus Magomedov vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk | Middleweight
Oleksiejczuk has rebuilt himself. The Fighting Nerds move to Brazil was uncomfortable and disruptive and by his own account exactly what his career needed. He has won three straight, two by first-round TKO, and his striking numbers at UFC level are genuinely elite: second-highest output among all active middleweights, the highest striking differential in the entire division, third in knockdowns per minute. He is 31 years old and fighting the best MMA of his life.
Abus carries real credentials of his own. He holds the highest takedown accuracy in the active middleweight division at 59.1 percent. He beat Michel Pereira on points in April. He is a seasoned grappler who has submitted credible opponents and won close fights that required ring generalship. He is also 35, coming off a second-round submission loss to Joe Pyfer, and facing a striker whose recent form is as sharp as anyone at 185 pounds.
The model goes against the consensus here. With Oleksiejczuk as the market and pundit favorite, the read goes the other way.
Abus Magomedov gets the call.
Ikram Aliskerov vs. Brunno Ferreira | Middleweight
Aliskerov leads all active middleweights in strikes landed per minute. He leads the division in knockdowns per minute. His average fight time is the shortest in the division. He stepped up on four days’ notice to face Robert Whittaker in a main event and got knocked out in the first round, then came back and finished Andre Muniz in round one and ground out a decision over JunYong Park in October. He is a four-time combat sambo world champion with 76 inches of southpaw reach and the kind of power that ends nights quickly.
Ferreira is coming off a first-round knockout loss to Gregory Rodrigues in March. His coach arrived in Baku this week and told reporters that Ferreira is more unpredictable than his reputation suggests and that Aliskerov fights the same way he always has. That is the honest version of the underdog argument. It requires Ferreira to land something unexpected before Aliskerov’s volume accumulates.
The data and the form both point the same direction.
The pick is Aliskerov.
Asu Almabayev vs. Charles Johnson | Flyweight
Almabayev is the eighth-ranked flyweight in the world and one of the most relentless grapplers at 125 pounds. He averages over four takedowns per 15 minutes at UFC level and hunts submissions with patient, disciplined ground work. His only UFC loss came to Manel Kape, who is now building toward a title shot himself. Since that loss, Almabayev has won two straight, including a third-round guillotine finish of former title challenger Alex Perez in November. He withdrew from a Brandon Moreno main event in February with a hand injury and arrives Saturday with something to prove about his durability and focus.
Johnson is 5’9” in a 125-pound division, which gives him genuine range, and his boxing-built striking game is legitimate. He was knocked out by Perez at UFC 324 in January and came back with a decision over Bruno Silva in March. His path to winning requires keeping the fight standing, and Almabayev’s grappling volume makes that difficult to sustain for 15 minutes.
The pick is Almabayev.
Nazim Sadykhov vs. Matheus Camilo | Lightweight
Sadykhov’s 12-fight unbeaten streak ended in December when Fares Ziam finished him with elbows and punches in the second round at UFC 323. He spent the following months rebuilding around himself. New striking coach, new grappling coach, new environment. He described his old approach, the isolation and the lone-wolf mentality, as something that worked until it did not. He is back in Baku, where he knocked out Nikolas Motta in a memorable second-round finish last year, and he is vocal about what this homecoming means to him.
Camilo is 25, a BJJ black belt recently promoted by Dede Pederneiras of Nova Uniao, and a legitimate talent whose UFC debut loss came after he had his own submission attempts reversed on him mid-round. His win at Madison Square Garden against Borshchev in November showed he can deliver when the moment matters. The experience and quality gap between these two is real, and the model reflects it.
The pick is Sadykhov.
Shara Magomedov vs. Michel Pereira | Middleweight
Magomedov is the most accurate striker among all active UFC middleweights at 63 percent. He generates the second-highest volume in the division. He fights with one functioning eye, cannot compete in North America due to athletic commission restrictions, and is about to walk into a venue two hours from his Dagestani homeland in front of a crowd that will treat him as a regional hero. His only career loss was a decision against Michael Page in February 2025, a fight he entered ill. He responded with a decision over Marc-Andre Barriault in July and has not looked back.
Pereira has lost three of his last five. His most recent win was a split decision over an unranked opponent in February that nine of thirteen media members covering the fight scored the other way. The version of Pereira who finishes people and backflips off the cage is real. It is also not the version that has shown up consistently over the past 18 months.
The model reads this decisively and so does the market.
Shara Magomedov gets the call.
Rafael Fiziev vs. Manuel Torres | Lightweight | 5 rounds
Fiziev headlines in Baku in front of a crowd that is his. He represents Azerbaijan, carries Azerbaijani roots through his father, and won here last year. He is also 1-4 in his last five UFC fights. He lost to the new champion twice. He was stopped by Mauricio Ruffy in January. He withdrew from the Charles Oliveira fight last fall with a knee injury. The crowd will be deafening for him. The model reads past it.
Torres has never been to round two in the UFC. His average fight time is two minutes and thirty-three seconds, second-shortest in UFC lightweight history. He has knocked down more opponents per 15 minutes than any lightweight in the division’s recorded history. He beat Grant Dawson, who was supposed to wrestle him into submission, in two minutes and twenty-five seconds. He withdrew from the Beneil Dariush fight in April, returned less than three months later, and is making his first UFC main event appearance, his first five-round fight, and his first bout outside Las Vegas or Mexico all on the same night.
The five-round format is the unknown. Torres has never been asked what happens after the first few minutes. Neither has anyone else in this division when facing him, because nobody has made it that far. Fiziev’s counter-striking and defensive movement give him a legitimate path, and the counter-striking style that finished Torres once before in the Bahamondes fight is exactly what Fiziev brings. The market prices this within a point or two of even.
The model goes with Torres.