Matheus Camilo vs Jai Herbert: How Camilo Wins the Co-Main

Jai Herbert has had ten fights in the UFC and he has been knocked down in only three of them. He has knocked other men down six times. If you only watch his highlights, you would think the way to beat him is to out-strike him, and a few people have tried that. Most of the men who have actually beaten him did something else.

Saturday at the Meta Apex in Las Vegas, Herbert (14-6-1) meets Matheus Camilo (11-3) in the lightweight co-main event of UFC Fight Night: Allen vs Duncan. Our model gives Camilo 65.7 percent. The sportsbook consensus has him at -192, about 63 percent with the margin out. The line opened at -170 on October 1, peaked at -199 on October 6 and has eased back to -192. Nine of the 14 people on our pick'em took Camilo.

So the model and the market agree on who. This piece is about how, because the how is written all over Jai Herbert's UFC record.

The minutes on his back

Herbert is 4-5-1 in the UFC. Split those ten fights by result and look at one number: how long his opponent spent in control of him.

In the four wins, nobody took him down and the four opponents held him for just over a minute each on average. In the five losses, he spent an average of 3 minutes and 45 seconds per fight with someone on top of him or pinning him to the fence.

The individual losses tell the same story. Renato Moicano landed five of seven takedowns in 2021, held him for 7 minutes and 35 seconds and submitted him with 26 seconds left in the second round. Ilia Topuria got only one of four takedowns in 2022 but held him for 2:41 and stopped him in the second. And the one that should interest Camilo most is Chris Padilla in March 2025. Padilla went zero for six on takedowns. He still spent 3 minutes and 41 seconds controlling Herbert against the fence, the significant strikes finished 39 to 38, and two of the three judges gave it to Padilla 29-28.

That is the pattern I care about. Herbert's 67 percent takedown defense is real. It is also beside the point if the other man is happy to hold him against the cage and lean on him, because a minute of that is a minute of Herbert not doing the thing he is good at, and judges remember who was pinning whom.

What Camilo actually does

Camilo is not a volume striker and does not pretend to be. In three UFC fights he lands 2.22 significant strikes a minute, a full strike a minute fewer than Herbert's 3.19. What he does is shoot. He averages 4.16 takedowns per 15 minutes and lands 54 percent of them, seven of 13 in total, and he has held his three UFC opponents for a combined 5 minutes and 55 seconds.

The Borshchev fight at UFC 322 last November is the template, and also the warning. Viacheslav Borshchev out-landed Camilo 65 to 39 over three rounds. It did not matter. Camilo took him down twice in each of the first two rounds and spent 2 minutes and 22 seconds on top in the second alone. He won 29-28, 30-27 and 30-27.

Now the warning. Look at the third round: Borshchev landed 37 significant strikes to Camilo's 17, and Camilo landed one takedown in three tries with 13 seconds of control. Two judges still gave Camilo the round, which is generous. The lesson for Saturday is that Camilo's wrestling banks rounds early, and when the shots stop landing late, his striking does not hold the line on its own. Herbert has 8 inches of reach on him, 77 to 69, and a longer man with knockdown power in a third round that Camilo has not secured yet is not a comfortable place to be.

The Green fight and the clinch entry

Camilo's one UFC loss is worth a minute too. Against Gabe Green in May 2025, he won the first round 12 strikes to 7, landed a takedown and held Green for 1:26. In the second he got another takedown and 1:04 of control, and then Green spent 2 minutes and 3 seconds on top, landed 14 ground strikes in the round and submitted him at 3:43. Camilo landed one significant strike in that round.

So the takedown is the whole plan, and he has to finish it in a position he can keep. Against Herbert, that argues for the clinch entry over the open shot from distance. Herbert's reach means a long level change from the outside has to cross a lot of ground against a man who has dropped Topuria, Rolando Bedoya and Mandel Nallo. Camilo is better off walking him to the fence, eating the jab on the way in, tying up and working from there. Padilla's 3:41 of control came without a single takedown. Camilo has the shot to go with it.

The finish is there too. In June he dropped Nazim Sadykhov and finished him on the ground in 1 minute and 31 seconds. Herbert has been stopped in three of his five UFC losses.

What the model sees

The model's biggest single reason is age. Camilo is 25, Herbert turned 38 in May, and the model reads Herbert as about five years past what it treats as a fighter's prime. The second and third reasons are the ones above: Camilo's takedown rate against Herbert's habit of conceding control (3.8 minutes per 15 in the model's numbers, against Camilo's 1.5), and Camilo's 67 percent striking defense against Herbert's 53. The one factor that goes Herbert's way is size, the 8-inch reach and 3 inches of height.

That is roughly how I see it. If Camilo gets Herbert to the fence early and keeps him there through two rounds, he can afford a third round like the one against Borshchev. If the entries are long shots from distance and Herbert is still standing at range late, the reach and the power make it a very different fight, and Herbert has 6 UFC knockdowns to Camilo's 1.

Prediction: Matheus Camilo by decision

The full card and start times are on the event page. The main card starts at 8 p.m. ET, and the pick'em is open at the predict page until the first bell.