Marvin Vettori vs Roman Dolidze Prediction: Judges Were Wrong in the First Match?

Las Vegas is going to be hosting a UFC event on the night of 16 March, with Marvin Vettori and Roman Dolidze sharing the octagon in the main event. The fight will be in the middleweight division (Vettori is ranked eighth and Dolidze eleventh). They first fought in March 2023, when Vettori won by unanimous decision. To be honest, the decision was, to put it mildly, very strange, and many experts still don't agree with it.

Marvin Vettori

The Italian fighter joined the UFC in 2016 and gradually made his way to a title fight, which he lost to Israel Adesanya in 2021. After that setback, his career went a bit up and down, with wins and losses all over the place. He also had a bit of a break after the last fight, which lasted almost two years.

The Italian's fighting style is all about putting the pressure on to wear down his opponent. He's always on the move, throwing punches, breathing well and has a strong will.

Marvin Vettori is a dangerous grappler and has always been known for his wrestling strength. He's won by submission just once in the last six years, but he's got a lot of resilience, character, workrate and stand-up activity. But if you look at his official UFC stats, you'll see he's got a high number of accentuated strikes (4.56 per minute on average) and a pretty poor success rate of kickdowns (45%) and defence against them (69%).

Roman Dolidze

Roman Dolidze joined the UFC from the Ukrainian league WWFC, where he was the champion without losing a single fight. Like Vettori, he's been climbing the rankings without any sudden jumps (he even tried flyweight), and now he's on a streak of two wins in a row. In his last fight, Dolidze won by TKO over Kevin Holland, who was injured and refused to go out for the second round.

Roman Dolidze is definitely a finisher, with only three of his wins not reaching the judges' scorecards. It's worth mentioning that he's never lost early. The Georgian can win his opponent in the stand-up and on the mat, and he's confident in any situation that might come up during the fight.

His strengths are speed, aggression and unpredictability. He doesn't seem to have a 'classical school', but that's what makes his opponents shocked, the Georgian is able to knock out and sabmit, he misses a lot and often takes risks, but his next move is often unknown to him. But now Roman Dolidze has really hit his stride and is in top form.

Expert Betting Tips

Roman Dolidze will learn from his past mistakes and not just rely on stand-up. He'll also have something to offer his opponent in wrestling. He's stronger, more versatile and in better shape than the Italian, who's been out of the game for a while.

Both fighters like to throw a lot of punches and end up missing a lot (Vettori hardly ever knocks his opponents down), and neither is great at defending against tekdowns. This match is probably going to go the distance, and we'll find out who's won either when the championship rounds are done and dusted or when the judges' decision is announced. But there's still a good chance Dolidze will win. We also have to think about the fact that both of them have cast-iron chins, none of them has lost early, but problems with stamina still occasionally come up for both of them.

Our picks: 

W2 for 2.30

TO (3.5) for 1.36

TO (2.5) for 1.92