PFL Dubai, Cage Warriors 213 and ONE Friday Fights 178 predictions: the lines that moved and a pick for every headliner

UFC 334 has Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, and three other promotions get their work done before the first UFC prelim. ONE Friday Fights 178 opens the weekend at Lumpinee Stadium in Bangkok at 6:30 a.m. ET on Friday, 6:30 p.m. local. On Saturday, PFL Dubai starts its prelims at 9:00 a.m. ET (6:00 p.m. in Dubai) and its main card at 1:00 p.m. ET, and Cage Warriors 213 goes at 2:00 p.m. ET, 7:00 p.m. GMT in London. That's 36 bouts on three cards, and all three start before UFC 334's early prelims at 5:00 p.m. ET.

This is the short version. I'm sticking to the lines that moved, the bouts the market can't separate, the underdogs worth a look and a pick for each headliner. The odds are the sportsbook consensus, and the percentage is the favorite's share once the bookmaker's margin is stripped out. The books only opened these cards on Monday night and Tuesday, US time, so most of what follows is about 36 hours of trading. All of it is information only, not betting advice.

PFL Dubai: one book moved Goltsov a long way on its own

The title fight first. Vadim Nemkov opened at -300 against Sergey Bilostenniy and is -371 now on five books, 72.1 percent up to 74.7. That's a steady drift toward the champion, not a stampede. Nemkov's last two wins were both first-round submissions, and he is 20-2. I went through how the 15-4 challenger actually gets there in how Bilostenniy beats Nemkov, so I won't repeat it here.

The move of the weekend is on the prelims. Denis Goltsov opened at -180 against Maxwell Djantou Nana at 02:51 UTC on Tuesday with a single book on the board. That same lone book took him to -220, then -300, then -350 by 12:51 UTC the same day, before a second book had even posted. With four books up he's -405, a 76.2 percent favorite, up from 62.3. Goltsov is 37-9 and 36 years old. He was stopped by Corey Anderson in the second round in Cape Town in July 2025, then stopped Hasan Mezhiev in the first round in Charlotte in August. Djantou Nana, 35, out of Manchester Top Team, is 9-2 and has won his last two, a decision over Karl Williams in May and a stoppage of Eduardo Neves on the same Charlotte card. When one book moves a heavyweight line from -180 to -350 alone, somebody knew something, or thought they did.

The second-biggest move is in the co-main. Patrick Habirora went from -400 to -500 within 30 minutes of the first price, again on one book, and sits at -656 on five, 76.9 percent up to 82.3. He's the shortest favorite on any of the three cards. The 25-year-old Belgian is 9-0, and his last three wins were all first-round stoppages, the latest over Benson Henderson in Brussels in May. Omar El Dafrawy (16-6) has won two straight. The market doesn't care.

The underdog I'd look at twice is Oleg Popov. He won PFL's 2025 heavyweight tournament final over Alexandr Romanov, he's 23-2, and he's +175 against Pouya Rahmani, the 6-0 heavyweight from Team Nogueira Dubai who is fighting in his own city. Rahmani opened at -190 and has shortened every time a book has joined, to -220 and 65.4 percent. Each of his last five PFL wins went to a decision, so he's the man the market expects to be out-worked late by a fighter who has never needed a third round in PFL.

Three bouts are close to a coin flip. Connor Hughes (12-3) is -146 against Shem Rock (12-3-1), 56.3 percent. Rock is 0-2 in the UFC, both decisions, and Hughes was knocked out in the third round of the PFL Europe final last December. Rhys McKee is -143 against Ernesto Rodriguez, 55.9 percent, with Rodriguez coming off a third-round knockout loss in his own main event in Washington in July. And Jacinta Austin is -164 against Aleksandra Savicheva, 58.3 percent, the only one of the three where neither side has budged.

Sergio Pettis has drifted the other way, -170 to -164 against Joji Goto, 61.1 percent down to 59.2. It's a small move, and it's toward the man I wrote up in how Pettis beats Goto. One welterweight bout has no price at all yet: Saygid Izagakhmaev replaced Abubakar Nurmagomedov against David Martinez on Tuesday, and the swap is logged on the event page.

Prediction: Nemkov by submission. Goltsov by TKO. Habirora by KO in the first. Popov by decision, because a 23-2 tournament winner at +175 is the one number on this card I don't understand.

Start times and broadcasters: PFL Dubai card, start times and how to watch.

Cage Warriors 213: two title fights, one coin flip

Cage Warriors 213 is the steadiest of the three markets. Nik Bagley opened at -250 to defend the featherweight belt against Bruno Souza and is -243 on three books, 66.2 percent. The case for the champion is in how Bagley beats Souza. The flyweight title fight barely moved either: Jawany Scott is -381 against Willians Nogueira, 74.1 percent. Scott (8-2) lost a five-round split decision for this belt in July 2025. Nogueira (9-3) comes in from Brazil with three straight first-round submissions at Jungle Fight, and that's the kind of streak that makes a -381 favorite stay out of the scrambles.

The closest bout on the card pairs two men who need a win. Sado Ucar is -136 against Steven Hill, 53.9 percent, after the line opened at -150. Ucar (20-9) has lost his last two, a split decision in May 2025 and a second-round KO by Andreeas Binder in the Cage Warriors 206 main event in June. Hill (7-4) has lost his last four, two by submission and two by TKO, going back to May 2024. That the four-fight skid is the one the money is narrowing toward tells you how little the market thinks of Ucar's last 18 months.

The only sharp move came on one book in 30 minutes on Tuesday night: Ben Edwards went from -500 to -300 against James Wamsley, 76.9 percent down to 69.2. Edwards is 1-0 as a pro and Wamsley 0-1, so I'd treat that as a book correcting its own opener rather than a signal. Two bouts, Marin Vetrila vs Stefano Catacoli and Bobby Chikavhu vs Habib Samadi, aren't priced yet.

Prediction: Bagley by submission. Scott by decision. Hill by decision, which is me picking a man on a four-fight losing streak, and I know how that reads.

Start times and broadcasters: Cage Warriors 213 card, start times and how to watch.

ONE Friday Fights 178: Rodtang's price holds, the undercard flips

Photo: TJ Channel Thailand / CC BY 3.0

Rodtang Jitmuangnon is -490 against Nong-O Hama, 77.4 percent, almost exactly where he opened at -500. Three books have looked at the flyweight Muay Thai fight between two of the division's top three and nobody has moved. I made the case for the 40-year-old in how Nong-O beats Rodtang, and the market has not been persuaded. The other ranked bout has drifted a touch toward the underdog: Shimon Yoshinari, 6-0 in ONE, went from -350 to -332 against Ramadan Ondash, 73.1 percent down to 71.4.

The real action is lower down, on single books, so read it with that in mind. Petubon Sor Teanchai opened as a +125 underdog to Songpandin Chor Kaewwiset at 22:21 UTC on Tuesday and was a -115 favorite two hours later, 41.7 percent up to 49.1. Petubon has won his last two at ONE Friday Fights, a TKO of Sudsab Sor Sasiwat in October among them. Songpandin has won three straight, two by TKO. Going the other way, Nongnuk Mor Kor Chor Chaiyaphum drifted from +110 to +130 against Italy's Giorgia Pieropan, who is now a 59.2 percent favorite at atomweight.

The one MMA bout with a price is a Korea vs Japan bantamweight fight. Takumi Fukamachi (3-1) is -190 against Suhyeon Kim (5-2), 61.6 percent, and Fukamachi has submitted his last three opponents. The tightest number on the card is Kumanngern Jitmuangnon at -135 against Iraq's Ali Al-Kinani, 52.9 percent.

Prediction: Rodtang by decision. Yoshinari by decision. Petubon by decision, following the only line on this card that turned all the way over.

Start times and broadcasters: ONE Friday Fights 178 card, start times and how to watch.

The common thread

Across 36 bouts, the two biggest moves both came from a single book before anyone else had posted, Goltsov from -180 to -350 and Habirora from -400 to -500, and the rest of the market followed both of them. The most interesting underdog of the weekend is a tournament winner fighting a man in his own city. And the closest fight in London is between two men with six straight losses between them. Every result, method and round lands on the event pages as each bout ends, and the PFL Dubai pick'em is open until the first bell. So what did that one book know about Goltsov?