Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) returns with UFC 316, the Merab Dvalishvili vs. Sean O’Malley 2-led pay-per-view (PPV) event that wants you to believe O’Malley can pull off a miracle — and reclaim his bantamweight crown — against an opponent who already whooped his ass rather convincingly. We’ll find out this Sat. night (June 7, 2025) inside Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, with Julianna Pena defending her 135-pound strap opposite Kayla Harrison in the UFC 316 co-main event, also scheduled for five, five-minute rounds.

Kelvin Gastelum has been a problem for a lot of big name fighters over the years and consistently over-performs when he’s the odds-on underdog, starting with his upset win to stymie Uriah Hall in The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 17 finale back in 2013. Gastelum went on to retire Michael Bisping and nearly turned the middleweight division upside down with his UFC 236 performance against a prime Israel Adesanya. More importantly, at least for this contest, is that Gastelum has never been knocked out in 29 professional fights and has faced some heavy-handed sluggers along the way, including Jared Cannonier and Robert Whittaker, among others.

Even though he’s been competing inside the Octagon for over a decade, Gastelum is still just 33 years old. That makes him younger than several fighters in the UFC 316 lineup, including co-headliners Julianna Pena and Kayla Harrison. From the outside looking in, it would appear Gastelum never mastered the psychological components necessary to reach the pinnacle of the sport, evidence by his never-ending weight struggles and inconsistent performances. A trip back to welterweight ended with a submission loss to Sean Brady; which to be fair, is not anything to be ashamed of considering Brady is ranked No. 2 in the world, though I’m sure his rebound victory over Daniel Rodriguez at UFC Saudi Arabia convinced Gastelum that middleweight is where he belongs.

Joe Pyfer will look to prove him wrong in his quest to become a bona fide contender at 185 pounds. “Bodybagz” lost some of his shine when he got shut down by Swedish veteran Jack Hermansson atop the UFC Vegas 86 fight card back in 2024. That performance raised a couple of red flags (“fraud check” as the kids would call it) because Pyfer seemed to have no Plan B after failing to land the knockout blow. I’m not sure the former “Contender Series” standout needs to worry about getting picked apart by Gastelum, but the granite-chinned TUF champ does have other ways to frustrate Pyfer and shut down his heavy-handed offense. What happens after that is likely to determine the outcome of this fight, and don’t be surprised to see this bout decided by who lands the timeliest takedowns.

Mark Choinski did some work over in Anthony Pettis’ upstart promotion, winning all three of his fights while collecting the 155-pound title. He is undefeated at 8-0 with five submissions and one knockout to his credit. His first challenge inside the Octagon will be MarQuel Mederos, who is scorching hot with eight-straight wins, which includes winning his first two fights under the UFC banner. Joo Sang Yoo is also undefeated at 8-0 as he comes into his UFC debut. He got his MMA start just four years ago, so he is still very green. But that does not take away from his skill, because he does have the tools to do damage and make a quick impact in the Featherweight division. He will battle Jeka Saragi, who is just 1-2 inside the Octagon and was last seen getting submitted by Westin Wilson exactly one year ago. Ariane da Silva is currently on a two-fight losing streak with her last win coming two years ago. To compound her woes, she came in a whopping six pounds overweight for her scheduled fight against Wang Cong, who is 2-1 so far in her UFC career. Not only will da Silva have to fork over 20-percent of her purse, she needs a win pretty badly because if she loses her third straight, added with a massive scale fail, she will be a prime candidate to get cut.