Read our UFC Nashville predictions for the Saturday, July 11 event live from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. The preliminary card airs on ESPN+ starting at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time, with the main card starting at 9:00 ET.
Our MMA experts went through this weekend's 12-fight lineup for their UFC best bets and identified their four favorite picks for the card.
You can find their analysis and picks, as well as Sean Zerillo's moneyline and prop projections, on those matches below.
UFC Nashville Moneyline Projections
UFC Nashville Prop Projections
UFC Nashville Best Bets
Junior Tafa vs. Tuco Tokkos
John LanFranca, Contributor
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 9:15 p.m. ET
Some people look to avoid low-level MMA I like to lean into it. When it comes to Junior Tafa and Tuco Tokkos, you’ll be hard pressed to find two men less skilled matching up in the octagon the entirety of 2025.
There is one glaring difference, however. One man is pretty good at striking, and the other man isn’t really good at anything.
Junior Tafa is dropping down from heavyweight for this fight, and while his complete lack of takedown defense and mat presence should scare you from ever laying chalk on such a fighter, by all accounts, he has taken this cut to light heavyweight seriously.
Tafa not only looks like he is in very good shape in comparison to his previous form, but he also will be battling men not nearly as physically strong, which will obviously bode well for his chances of potentially stuffing a takedown.
If I had to sum up this best bet in a single sentence, it would be that I don’t believe Tokkos could wrestle for three rounds, even if he wanted to. Tafa is going to get his chances to put his hands on Tokkos, and that is all he really needs to end this fight.
After Tokkos lost his Dana White Contender Series opportunity back in the summer of 2022, he made his way back to the UFC with three consecutive wins in regional MMA. Those three opponents’ records were 3-2, 1-7 and 19-10.
If Tafa can prove to just be a UFC-level light heavyweight, he will dispose of Tokkos rather easily.
The Pick: Junior Tafa -170 (Fanatics)
Nate Landwehr vs. Morgan Charriere
Billy Ward, Staff Writer
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 11:45 p.m. ET
Outside of his friends and family, I'm not sure anybody will be rooting for Morgan Charriere on Saturday.
The Frenchman is traveling to Tennessee to take on Clarksville native Nate "The Train" Landwehr in a featherweight fight.
Outside of regional biases, Landwehr is a fan favorite both due to his all-action fighting style and skills on the microphone:
With that in mind, I'm trying hard to make sure I'm separating my desire for a Landwehr victory from my actual handicap in the fight. Landwehr is 37 and coming off a rough loss to Dooho Choi, where he was finished with ground and pound in the third round.
However, Landwehr has claimed to be both sick and dealing with a broken hand in that fight. The hand part checks out, as he was mostly winging wild elbows rather than his usual wild punches on the feet. He's also historically been one of the best come-from-behind fighters in the UFC, so to see him run out of steam was uncharacteristic.
Charriere, on the other hand, has two knockout wins and two decision victories, with a powerful but low-output style that doesn't play very well to the judges. Given the location of this fight, I don't think he'll win any close decisions, either.
If the notoriously durable Landwehr can withstand a few hard shots, he'll be in a good position for a comeback victory against a tiring opponent.
As an added bonus, I'm also taking a sprinkle on Landwehr's submission prop at +1800. Charriere has been mixing in more takedowns lately, and Landwehr has an underrated submission game predicated on the front headlock position — which is exactly where Charriere would end up if his shots are stuffed.
Both Landwehr's moneyline and submission prop are best at DraftKings.
The Pick: Nate Landwehr +210 (0.5u) | Landwehr submission +1800 (0.25u) (Both DraftKings)
Calvin Kattar vs. Steve Garcia
Sean Zerillo, Senior Writer
Fighter walkouts: Approx. 10:45 p.m. ET
Steve Garcia enters Saturday's featured main card slot on a five-fight winning streak (all by KO/TKO). At the same time, Calvin Kattar has lost five of his past six matchups, albeit against far superior competition (Kattar's career striking stats are also completely skewed from his record-setting, one-sided loss against Max Holloway).
Kattar arguably should have won his main event against Josh Emmett (14 of 18 media scorecards and 79% of fans scored the fight for Kattar), suffered a knee injury in his TKO loss to Arnold Allen, and had poor stylistic matchups in his recent fights against former Bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling (who proactively grappled) and rising contender Youssef Zalal (who successfully played matador, after failing to land any of his eight takedown attempts.
Garcia, who prefers to move forward and brawl in the pocket, presents a much more favorable stylistic matchup for Kattar, who is the more technical boxer in this matchup.
Garcia carries significant power for the Featherweight division. Still, unless you are an outlier (like Ilia Topuria or Conor McGregor), it is tough to continually knock opponents down or out in the lower weight classes; three-round Featherweight fights have roughly a 33% knockout rate over the past three years.
Moreover, Kattar has never been knocked down in the UFC – or finished with strikes; he's the more durable fighter in this matchup against Garcia, who was knocked down twice and finished by Maheshate, and knocked down (and taken down) in a win over Shayilan Nuerdanbieke.
Although he rarely grapples, Kattar may have some offensive wrestling upside in this fight, too; he was able to take down and control Giga Chikadze (and land some damaging elbows) in the first round and could land a reactive takedown against Garcia – who got stuck on bottom for a round against both Shaylin and Mel Costa.
My projection would flip the moneyline odds on this fight – I make Kattar a -120 favorite – and I would also bet the fight to go to the decision (projected -114, listed +170) and include Kattar to win by decision (projected +201, listed +450) in a round robin.
The Pick: Calvin Kattar (+110 at DraftKings) | Fight Goes to Decision (+170 at Caesars)
