UFC 331 Undercard Preview: Three LA Fights to Watch — SkimNews
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- Arman Tsarukyan (No. 2 lightweight) returns to Los Angeles — site of his UFC 311 title-fight withdrawal against Islam Makhachev — and faces No. 7 Mauricio Ruffy, declaring his championship aspirations end if he loses Saturday
- Mauricio Ruffy reinvented himself under featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski after Benoit Saint Denis dominated him with wrestling last year, with coaches pointing to improved defensive grappling and rare knockout power at lightweight
- Gable Steveson makes a quick turnaround against U.S. Marine Sean Sharaf following his first-round KO promotional debut at UFC 329, with the intrigue being whether the Olympic gold medalist — training under Jon Jones — deploys his world-class wrestling or continues developing his stand-up game
- Patricio Pitbull, the 39-year-old greatest champion in Bellator history, fights Dooho Choi, who is unbeaten in four straight and whose 2016 scrap with Cub Swanson ranks among the best fights in UFC history — with the winner cracking the featherweight elite and Pitbull's No. 15 ranking on the line
- Joshua Van defends the flyweight title against Alexandre Pantoja, the battle-tested veteran Van dethroned last year, in Saturday's main event
Why it matters: No. 2 lightweight Tsarukyan has publicly tied Saturday's outcome to his title future, and 39-year-old Pitbull faces a surging Choi in a fight where one ranked spot (No. 15) is directly at stake. Steveson's choice — wrestle or strike — also provides the first meaningful data point on whether the Olympic gold medalist's UFC upside is real or just promotional heat.
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