UFC 303 Fight Card: PPV Schedule, Odds and Predictions for Pereira vs. Procházka 2

UFC 303 isn't getting the return of Conor McGregor, but it's still going to have a main event worth tuning into. Alex Pereira will put his light heavyweight title on the line to close out the pay-per-view card in a rematch against Jiří Procházka from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Neither might have the drawing power of the Notorious, but it's an even better pure matchup between two men at the top of their games meeting up for a championship.

The last fight was much closer than the second-round knockout result would indicate. Procházka had some success to build on and actually won the first round on every scorecard.

A lightweight bout between former featherweight title challenger Brian Ortega and Digo Lopes will serve as the co-main event.

Here's a look at the entire card with odds as well as a preview and prediction for the two featured bouts.

Tickets: Vivid Seats

Main Card (ESPN+ PPV, 10 p.m. ET)

• (c) Alex Pereira (-148) vs. Jiri Prochazka (+124): light heavyweight championship
• Brian Ortega (+114) vs. Diego Lopes (-135)
• Anthony Smith (+120) vs. Roman Dolidze (-142)
• Mayra Bueno Silva (-110) vs. Macy Chiasson (-110)
• Ian Machado Garry (-166) vs. Michael Page (+140)

Prelims (ESPN/ESPN+, 8 p.m. ET)

• Joe Pyfer (-305) vs. Marc-Andre Barriault (+245)
• Cub Swanson (+180) vs. Andre Fili (-218)
• Charles Jourdain (-118) vs. Jean Silva (-102)
• Payton Talbott (-1650) vs. Yanis Ghemmouri (+950)

Early Prelims (ESPN+, 6 p.m. ET)

• Michelle Waterson-Gomez (+154) vs. Gillian Robertson (-180)
• Andrei Arlovski (+220) vs. Martin Buday (-270)
• Rei Tsuruya (-470) vs. Carlos Hernandez (+360)
• Ricky Simon (-250) vs. Vinicius Oliveira (+205)

Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook

It's hard to replace the excitement and additional electricity that Conor McGregor brings to a UFC pay-per-view, but this main event is a better pure fight. As the odds would indicate, this is a matchup of two titans in the light heavyweight division and the result should be a high-level and highly entertaining fight.

Pereira is the favorite after knocking out Procházka the first time. It's understandable. Pound-for-pound, he's the most powerful puncher in the UFC. Even high-level strikers like Adesanya and Procházka have been bested by his vaunted left hook.

That being said, The Last Samurai appears to be the more well-rounded fighter. He won the first round of their first fight by scoring a takedown and controlling the bout with his grappling.

That's not a side we see from the Czech fighter often, but it's a tool that he has in his arsenal in the rematch.

Whether he decides to deploy it will determine how this fight goes. Procházka is used to getting a little overzealous in his striking. Most do not have the skills to make him pay for it.

He learned in the first fight that Poatan very much does have those skills.

If he can learn from that, dial in his striking and keep Pereira off balance by mixing in his takedowns we have the recipe for a small title fight upset.

Prediction: Procházka by fourth-round TKO

The co-main event doesn't have the same championship flair as the headliner, but it does provide a huge opportunity for Diego Lopes to emerge as a scary contender at featherweight.

The 29-year-old has ripped off three consecutive wins after losing his UFC debut to Movsar Evloev. All three have been first-round finishes with a submission win over Gavin Tucker and knockouts of Pat Sabatini and Sodiq Yusuff.

Those are good wins for a rising prospect trying to make a name for himself. But those names don't come close to the resume of Ortega. T-City has never won gold, but he battled Max Holloway for four rounds and went the distance with Alexander Volkanovski in addition to wins over Yair Rodriguez, The Korean Zombie and Frankie Edgar.

There's added intrigue in this fight with the bout being moved to lightweight. Longtime MMA reporter Ariel Helwani reported that Ortega had to abandon his weight cut down to the featherweight limit hours before the weigh-in. Lopes and his team agreed to fight Ortega at 155 pounds to avoid the bout being scrapped altogether.

Ortega has been open about working toward a move up to lightweight after UFC 303 so it comes as no surprise that he was unable to make the cut.

The odds for this bout are fairly close, but it feels like Ortega is still being overlooked as the underdog. His win against Rodriguez showed that he's still capable of beating top tier featherweights and Lopes hasn't quite done enough to show he's in that category.

Prediction: Ortega via decision