Preview: UFC on ABC 5 Prelims

Middleweights

Cody Brundage (8-4, 2-3 UFC) vs. Sedriques Dumas (7-1, 0-1 UFC)

ODDS: Brundage (-195), Dumas (+165)

Dumas certainly has one of the most disappointing UFC debuts of the year thus far. “The Reaper” was one of the more intriguing fliers signed off the 2022 edition of Dana White’s Contender Series, as a 6-foot-2 athlete who showed some impressive finishing ability. Even beyond the typical quick knockouts expected from a top prospect, Dumas showed some solid wrestling prior to his outing on DWCS and earned a contract with a 47-second submission. However, things have only gone south from there. Some distressing legal issues for Dumas came to light shortly before his UFC debut in March, which was a particularly poor performance against Josh Fremd that ended in a second-round submission. Dumas looked woefully underprepared against someone able to match him in terms of size and athleticism, doing little to prevent Fremd from taking over the fight in increasingly one-sided fashion. After a late opponent switch, Dumas looks to rebound against Brundage, who in contrast has overachieved during his year-plus on the UFC roster. Brundage fits the typical mold of a collegiate wrestler attempting to round out his game for mixed martial arts, and he has done a solid job of doing so. Brundage has developed some knockout power and typically goes into a fight making the correct choices when it comes to leaning on his striking or his wrestling. He has hit a clear ceiling in the UFC, but he has also done well to pick off a lot of the rawer athletes filling out the bottom of the middleweight roster, which certainly seems to describe Dumas after his last performance. There is still a chance he eats a quick knockout, but the pick is Brundage via second-round submission.

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Brundage vs. Dumas