UFC Fight Night: Beijing - Blaydes vs Ngannou

Main and co-main event

Surging #3 contender Curtis Blaydes takes on recent title challenger and #4 ranked Francis Ngannou in a heavyweight main event rematch two and a half years in the making.

In the same division, #6 Alistair Overeem welcomes newcomer Sergey Pavlovich to the UFC in the co-main event.

Ngannou handed Blaydes his first, and so far only, professional loss of his career in Zagreb in April 2016.

That was via a doctor's stoppage in between rounds two and three, with Blaydes' right eye swollen shut.

In the last 12 months, Blaydes has picked up three top 10 wins over Aleksei Oleinik, Mark Hunt and Overeem.

Ngannou, meanwhile, has experienced huge highs and low lows inside the Octagon in the same period.

He knocked out Overeem last December with one of the most vicious finishes of the year, before taking on Stipe Miocic for the title just two months later.

It was somewhat of a humbling experience for the Cameroonian, who faded badly after a promising first round and lost a one-sided decision.

He returned in the co-main event at UFC 226 against Derrick Lewis in what many thought would be an exciting yet quick fight.

Instead, Ngannou looked like a shadow of the fighter who made such a devastating surge to title contention, barely throwing a strike a minute as Lewis took the decision.

The rematch with Blaydes is fascinating because Ngannou has looked so different in his last seven rounds of action to his previous encounters.

Blaydes, on the other hand, has mostly looked impressive in racking up some important wins.

If the Ngannou that showed up against Lewis shows up against Blaydes, it could get ugly.

The Reem faces a 12-0 Russian newcomer, who is a ferocious striker with a Greco-Roman wrestling background.

The Dutchman is coming off brutal losses to this event's headliners and will need to be back to his best to keep the 26-year-old debutant at bay.

Ones to watch

When looking at this card, three names immediately get my attention.

Firstly, Kevin Holland returns to action after his entertaining debut against Thiago Santos at UFC 227.

Holland came through Dana White's Tuesday Night Contender Series, although he did not get awarded a contract on the show.

According to White, he looked around for middleweights to take on Santos on short notice but could not find one to take the fight on less than two weeks' notice.

Despite the promise Holland showed on the DWTNCS, White himself was disappointed with the 26-year-olds style and brash talking during the fight.

He was, however, not only impressed with Holland for taking the fight with Santos, but also his actual performance in which he took the dangerous Brazilian knockout artist to a decision.

Holland returns against Welshman John Phillips, who was finished in his UFC debut back in May.

Secondly, another fighter returning for the first time since UFC 227 is Chinese strawweight Weili Zhang.

She has an extraordinary record for a strawweight and an even more impressive finishing rate.

The 29-year-old is 17-1 with a finishing rate of 88%, with nine (T)KOs and six submissions.

'Magnum' is also on a 17-fight winning streak, with her sole career loss to date coming in her debut in 2013 via unanimous decision.

She made her UFC debut against Danielle Taylor and won a unanimous decision, and takes on long-time strawweight Jessica Aguilar.

Aguilar herself had enjoyed a 10-fight winning streak heading into her UFC debut at UFC 190 in 2015, before losing out to Claudia Gadelha.

She has fought just twice since, losing out on a decision to Cortney Casey before returning to winning ways back in July against Jodie Esquibel.

Finally, 20-year-old Song Yadong returns against newcomer Vince Morales in a bantamweight clash.

Already 12-3 at the age of 20, Song has shown some genuine promise in his two UFC outings thus far.

He has picked up two performance bonuses thanks to a first round submission against Bharat Kandare in his debut and a round 2 finish over Felipe Arantes back in June in Singapore.

He has so far shown to be well-rounded and packing good power for the bantamweight division and it will be exciting to see him in main card action in his home country.

UFC 230: Cormier vs Lewis - preview

Fight Pass prelims

These are loaded.

First up is a heavyweight clash between Adam Wieczorek and Marcos Rogerio de Lima.

Wieczorek is hanging around just outside the top 15, a similar standing to the man he replaced in Ruslan Magomedov.

De Lima is returning to heavyweight for the first time since his UFC debut back in 2014 after missing weight in his previous two bouts.

He was submitted by Ovince Saint Preux last time out in Nashville, over 18 months ago.

Next up is a genuinely great-looking matchup between Brian 'Boom' Kelleher and Montel Jackson in the bantamweight division.

Kelleher is a pressure striker and it will be interesting to see how the very tall and rangy Jackson deals with him.

Jackson lost his UFC debut against the impressive-looking Ricky Simon, while Kelleher will also be looking to bounce back after falling to the 'hands of stone' possessed by John Lineker back in May.

At featherweight, Shane Burgos returns in another matchup featuring two exciting fighters coming off losses, as he faces Kurt Holobaugh.

The previously-unbeaten Burgos lost for the first time as he was finished by Calvin Kattar at the start of the year, while Holobaugh was run over by Raoni Barcelos back in July.

And to close out the FP prelims, the always-exciting Lando Vannata returns to take on Matt Frevola in a lightweight bout.

While he has a less than stellar record in the UFC of 1-3-1, it speaks to his entertaining style that he has picked up three fight of the night bonuses as well as a performance of the night bonus in those five fights.

Frevola has had a mix of wins via strikes, submissions and decisions over his six wins, but was finished a minute into his UFC debut at the start of the year.

FOX prelims

In the welterweight division, two former Bellator fighters as Lyman Good returns for the first time in over a year to face Ben Saunders in another bout between fighters coming off of a loss.

An intriguing fight between two up and coming featherweights in Julio Arce and Sheymon Moraes follows, with both showing good signs early on in their respective UFC careers.

The sole women's fight on the card is one with perhaps an unusual hype surrounding it, despite the fact that it may have title implications.

#4 Sijara Eubanks thought she would be the main event for the card and facing Valentina Shevchenko for the flyweight title.

After somewhat of a furious backlash, the fight was pulled and Eubanks was put on the prelims to fight #7 Roxanne Modafferi.

An interesting post-fight interview could be in waiting, after Eubanks' comments towards Joe Rogan and Modafferi suggesting she would present her own version of Derrick Lewis' UFC 229 viral post-fight comments.

The FOX prelim headliner sees the exciting Jason Knight square off with Jordan Rinaldi in what is yet another fight between two guys seeking to get back in the win column.

Knight had shown promise with a four fight win streak, 20-2 record and being ranked #15 going into a fight with top contender Ricardo Lamas at UFC 214, but got caught and subsequently finished in the first round.

He has since dropped two consecutive decisions to Gabriel Benitez and Makwan Amirkhani to see his UFC record slip to 4-4.

Rinaldi was finished inside the first round against lightweight prospect Gregor Gillespie last time out and is now moving down to featherweight after going 1-2 in his first three in the UFC.

PPV main card

A highly-anticipated matchup between the exuberant #9 Israel Adesanya and #6 Derek Brunson promises to be an extremely fun fight to kick off the pay per view portion of the card.

Adesanya got his first top 15 test in July when he eased past #10 Brad Tavares in the main event of the Ultimate Fighter 27 finale.

The test is ramped up once more as he moves towards the top five with a bout against the extremely dangerous Brunson.

Brunson was knocked out in his last outing against Jacare Souza, but he remains a huge barrier for Adesanya to overcome given his wrestling pedigree and knockout power.

Karl Roberson and Jack Marshman face off in what should be an entertaining stand-up battle between two guys who are... yep - both coming off losses, the first ever in Roberson's case.

#7 David Branch faces late replacement and divisional newcomer Jared Cannonier, before the fourth and final middleweight bout between Branch's former opponent Jacare and Chris Weidman in the co-main.

#3 Weidman was set to rematch #2 Luke Rockhold, before the latter pulled out through injury and was replaced by #5 Souza.

It is a huge matchup and one that could well see the winner get a title shot as a result.

In the main event, double champ Daniel Cormier puts his heavyweight title on the line against #2 Derrick Lewis.

Lewis fought only a month ago at UFC 229 and, despite being almost certainly down on the judge's scorecards against #5 Alexander Volkov, managed to pull off a late knockout win.

If it wasn't the late KO that saw him move to 9-1 in his last ten that got him his title shot, then it was his brilliant post-fight interview with Rogan and his subsequent spike in Instagram followers.

Many feel that it is Cormier's fight to lose, but Lewis' power and heart have come to his seemingly-unlikely aid before and as a result he can simply not be counted out.