FIGHT WEEK FRIDAY PICKS • NOVEMBER 6, 2026
The Fight Week Picks are back, and last weekend gave the prediction record a much-needed boost.
We finished 5–2, correctly backing Canelo Alvarez to regain the WBC super middleweight championship, Jaime Munguia to retain against Nikita Zon, Rafael Espinoza to stop Ricardo Blandon, Jacobe Smith to beat Randy Brown and Luana Santos to get past Yana Santos. David Picasso’s split-decision loss to Carl Jammes Martin and Tom Nolan’s impressive stoppage of Renato Moicano were the two misses. Canelo by decision, Espinoza by stoppage and Luana Santos by decision also matched our predicted methods.
That moves the running total to:
Fight Week 2026 Prediction Record: 38–26
This weekend offers a little bit of everything. Joshua Buatsi and Willy Hutchinson settle unfinished business with a world championship at stake in Manchester. Chris Billam-Smith and Chev Clarke renew an amateur rivalry a decade later in London. UFC’s original main event disappeared when Sean Brady was forced out, leaving Waldo Cortes Acosta and Johnny Walker to headline on short notice. Then Sunday brings one of the strongest women’s boxing cards of the year, topped by Alycia Baumgardner moving up to challenge unbeaten lightweight champion Elif Nur Turhan.
There are plenty of favorites this weekend, but very few easy picks.
Here are the Fight Week Picks.
BOXING — BUATSI VS. HUTCHINSON II
Joshua Buatsi vs. Willy Hutchinson
There is something refreshing about a rematch that does not require manufactured bad blood or a controversial ending to justify itself. Joshua Buatsi and Willy Hutchinson simply fought a competitive fight the first time, both came away believing there was more to prove, and now they meet again with considerably more at stake.
Buatsi won their September 2024 meeting by split decision, but the scores do not tell the entire story. Buatsi dropped Hutchinson twice, in the sixth and ninth rounds, and those knockdowns proved decisive. Hutchinson still fought his way through the full 12 rounds and convinced one judge he had done enough to win. More than two years later, they meet again with the vacant WBC light heavyweight championship on the line. Buatsi enters at 20-1 with 13 knockouts, while Hutchinson is 20-2 with 14.
Hutchinson’s path to changing the result is not difficult to identify. He needs to make Buatsi work harder to get inside and cannot afford the defensive lapses that produced two knockdowns in their first meeting. Hutchinson has enough skill to box with Buatsi and enough power to get his respect, but winning long stretches of a fight does not matter if the most damaging moments belong to the other man.
Buatsi has historically been comfortable fighting at a measured pace. That can sometimes allow opponents to stay competitive longer than necessary, but it also means he rarely wastes much offense. He knows he can hurt Hutchinson, and that knowledge should give him confidence without requiring him to chase an early finish.
The rematch may actually be closer technically than the first fight. Hutchinson has had two years to understand what went wrong and should enter with far fewer surprises waiting for him. Fight Week still believes Buatsi is the stronger fighter when the exchanges become physical, and over 12 rounds those moments should matter most.
Fight Week Pick: Joshua Buatsi
Method: Decision
Confidence: 7/10
We expect Hutchinson to have stretches where his movement and combination punching make this uncomfortable. Buatsi, however, lands the heavier shots, controls enough of the middle rounds and wins another competitive decision to become WBC light heavyweight champion.
ZUFFA BOXING 12 — BILLAM-SMITH VS. CLARKE
Chris Billam-Smith vs. Chev Clarke
Ten years ago, Chev Clarke defeated Chris Billam-Smith in the final of the British amateur championships. Saturday in London, they meet again under circumstances neither fighter could have imagined when they first shared a ring.
Billam-Smith has since become a world champion and enters at 22-2 with 14 knockouts. Clarke is 12-2 with nine stoppages and arrives after one of the most dramatic victories of his career, climbing off the canvas twice before stopping Jack Massey in the seventh round. Billam-Smith was on the same June card and had his own war, eventually forcing Ryan Rozicki’s corner to stop their fight after seven brutal rounds.
That tells us something important about this matchup: neither fighter is likely to disappear when things become uncomfortable.
Clarke may be the fresher athlete, and his amateur win gives him every reason to believe Billam-Smith has always been a style he can solve. But professional boxing, especially at cruiserweight, rewards experience in ways amateur boxing does not. Billam-Smith has been through 12-round championship fights, has dealt with adversity against elite opposition and has learned how to win rounds even when the fight is not unfolding exactly as planned.
Clarke cannot afford the kind of defensive breakdowns he survived against Massey. Billam-Smith is too experienced and too physically strong to give multiple opportunities to finish the job.
This feels like a fight where Clarke starts well and perhaps even looks like the sharper boxer through the opening rounds. The question is what happens once Billam-Smith begins forcing him to fight for every minute rather than simply box.
Fight Week Pick: Chris Billam-Smith
Method: Decision
Confidence: 7/10
Clarke’s speed and athleticism make this competitive, but Billam-Smith’s experience, body work and ability to manage difficult rounds allow him to finally avenge that amateur defeat.
Denzel Bentley vs. Shane Mosley Jr.
This may be the most overlooked fight of the weekend.
Bentley enters at 22-3-1 with 18 knockouts, while Mosley Jr. is 23-5 with 13 stoppages. Both are coming off impressive finishes: Bentley stopped Endry Saavedra in seven rounds, while Mosley produced one of the biggest wins of his career by stopping Serhii Bohachuk in the sixth. Mosley also owns the height and reach advantages, including a significant five-inch edge in reach.
Bentley has spent the buildup dealing with boxing politics after losing his WBO title outside the ring because the organization would not sanction Mosley as his voluntary defense. That could become a distraction, but it could just as easily create a fighter determined to prove that the belt situation did not change his standing in the division.
Mosley is not coming to London as somebody’s name opponent. He has become a much more disciplined fighter as his career has progressed, and the Bohachuk victory showed that he can stay composed when an opponent tries to turn the fight into a physical battle.
Bentley has the greater one-punch threat. Mosley may have the cleaner route to winning rounds from range.
That is why this feels like one of the toughest picks on the page.
Fight Week Pick: Denzel Bentley
Method: Decision
Confidence: 6/10
Mosley’s reach and patience give Bentley problems, but Fight Week believes Bentley lands the more damaging punches and does enough late to take a narrow decision in front of the London crowd.
UFC FIGHT NIGHT — CORTES ACOSTA VS. WALKER
Waldo Cortes Acosta vs. Johnny Walker
This was not supposed to be Saturday’s main event.
Sean Brady’s withdrawal canceled his scheduled welterweight fight with Gabriel Bonfim, and the UFC responded by moving Waldo Cortes Acosta and Johnny Walker into the five-round headline position. Walker accepted the opportunity barely a month after making a spectacular heavyweight debut with a knockout of Mick Parkin.
Moving to heavyweight may have been exactly what Walker needed. At light heavyweight, his athleticism and creativity were always obvious, but the weight cut appeared to drain a fighter whose frame never looked particularly comfortable at 205 pounds. Walker has said himself that training and recovering without the severe calorie restriction has left him feeling stronger and more energetic.
Cortes Acosta is a very different test from Parkin.
He has spent years proving that he belongs somewhere around the heavyweight Top 10, and even when he has lost, he has been remarkably difficult to put away. He knocked out Derrick Lewis earlier this year before dropping decisions to Alexander Volkov and Curtis Blaydes. UFC notes that he has never been finished professionally, which makes calling a Walker knockout much more difficult than the highlight reels might suggest.
Walker is the more explosive fighter. Cortes Acosta is the more established heavyweight.
The key may be whether Walker can remain disciplined once the immediate knockout is not available. Heavyweight rewards creativity, but it punishes unnecessary risks even faster.
Fight Week is buying the move up in weight, but only narrowly.
Fight Week Pick: Johnny Walker
Method: Decision
Confidence: 6/10
Walker has the more dangerous moments and uses his length and movement to prevent Cortes Acosta from settling into a comfortable boxing rhythm. We do not expect him to become the first man to stop Cortes Acosta, but we do think he does enough over five rounds to win the decision.
Tatiana Suarez vs. Virna Jandiroba
If the UFC wants clarity near the top of the strawweight division, this fight should provide some.
Tatiana Suarez and Virna Jandiroba both challenged for championship gold last year and now meet with another potential title opportunity within reach. Suarez rebounded from her title-fight loss by submitting Loopy Godinez earlier this year, while Jandiroba returned from her loss to champion Mackenzie Dern with a strong victory over Tabatha Ricci.
Normally, Suarez’s wrestling is the obvious deciding factor. Very few women in MMA can match her ability to chain takedowns together, maintain top pressure and turn one defensive mistake into a submission.
Jandiroba is not a normal opponent.
She is one of the division’s strongest grapplers and may be more comfortable fighting off her back than almost anyone Suarez has faced. That means Suarez cannot simply assume that every takedown automatically becomes a winning position.
The difference, for us, is control. Jandiroba may threaten submissions and force scrambles, but Suarez is extraordinarily difficult to dislodge once she establishes position. She is also physically strong enough to dictate where many of those grappling exchanges begin.
Fight Week Pick: Tatiana Suarez
Method: Decision
Confidence: 7/10
Jandiroba makes this much more technical on the mat than Suarez’s typical fight, but Suarez’s wrestling, pressure and positional control give her enough of the rounds to win a competitive decision and put herself back into the title conversation.
SUNDAY — MVPW 07
Elif Nur Turhan vs. Alycia Baumgardner
Sunday’s main event may be the weekend’s most interesting boxing matchup because it asks Alycia Baumgardner to do something she has not had to do at championship level: move up and take a belt from a naturally larger undefeated fighter.
Baumgardner enters at 18-1 with seven knockouts after establishing herself as a unified champion at 130 pounds. Turhan is 14-0 with eight knockouts and owns the IBF lightweight championship. The Turkish champion captured the belt by stopping previously undefeated Olympic gold medalist Beatriz Ferreira and now faces her biggest international name yet. The fight will also use 10 three-minute rounds rather than the traditional two-minute rounds commonly used in women’s boxing.
Turhan’s aggression should test Baumgardner immediately. She wants to push opponents backward, make the fight physical and create enough offensive volume that they never settle into a comfortable rhythm.
Baumgardner’s answer is timing.
She is at her best when opponents give her predictable entries. Turhan’s pressure creates opportunities for offense, but it can also give Baumgardner exactly the openings she wants to counter between combinations. Baumgardner has already talked about the importance of staying composed and punching between Turhan’s shots rather than allowing the champion’s pressure to dictate the entire fight.
The extra minute per round could become significant. Baumgardner has always been a physically strong fighter at 130, but now she is facing a true lightweight who will try to make those additional 60 seconds as uncomfortable as possible.
We still believe Baumgardner is the more complete boxer.
Fight Week Pick: Alycia Baumgardner
Method: Decision
Confidence: 7/10
Turhan wins rounds with pressure and may make Baumgardner uncomfortable early, but Baumgardner’s counterpunching and ability to adjust carry her through the second half. Fight Week has Baumgardner becoming a two-division champion by decision.
Skye Nicolson vs. Miyo Yoshida
Skye Nicolson’s formula has never been particularly mysterious. She wants space, she wants rhythm and she wants opponents to spend the night following her rather than forcing her to fight at uncomfortable range.
Miyo Yoshida knows exactly what she has to prevent.
The former two-division champion brings significantly more championship experience and is unlikely to be intimidated by the stage. Her best chance is to pressure Nicolson consistently, attack the body and force the Australian southpaw into exchanges where movement alone cannot win the round. The WBC itself describes the matchup as Nicolson’s distance and accuracy against Yoshida’s pressure and sustained offense.
The difficulty is maintaining that pressure without walking into clean counters.
Nicolson is excellent at making opponents reset. She does not need to hurt Yoshida to control the fight; she needs to make Yoshida start over repeatedly, forcing the challenger to spend valuable seconds simply trying to get back into range.
Yoshida should make this more physical than some of Nicolson’s recent fights, but the stylistic edge still belongs to the champion.
Fight Week Pick: Skye Nicolson
Method: Decision
Confidence: 8/10
Yoshida keeps advancing and makes Nicolson work for every round, but Nicolson’s movement, southpaw angles and cleaner scoring punches allow her to retain the WBC super bantamweight championship.
Fight Week Pick of the Week
Alycia Baumgardner over Elif Nur Turhan by Decision
There are safer picks on the page. Skye Nicolson is probably the most comfortable selection, and Joshua Buatsi has already proven he can beat Willy Hutchinson.
But Baumgardner–Turhan is the matchup that gives us the most interesting combination of risk and opportunity.
Turhan is undefeated, naturally larger and dangerous enough that Baumgardner cannot treat moving to lightweight as simply adding another belt to the collection. Three-minute rounds should give Turhan more time to apply the kind of pressure that can make a smaller fighter uncomfortable.
Baumgardner has something Turhan has not consistently encountered, though: championship-level timing.
She does not need to match Turhan punch for punch. She needs to make Turhan pay for coming forward, control the center often enough to keep the champion from building momentum and turn aggression into opportunities for counters.
Fight Week believes she does exactly that.
Fight Week Pick: Alycia Baumgardner by Decision — Confidence 7/10
Fight Week Picks — At a Glance
- Joshua Buatsi over Willy Hutchinson — Decision — 7/10
- Chris Billam-Smith over Chev Clarke — Decision — 7/10
- Denzel Bentley over Shane Mosley Jr. — Decision — 6/10
- Johnny Walker over Waldo Cortes Acosta — Decision — 6/10
- Tatiana Suarez over Virna Jandiroba — Decision — 7/10
- Alycia Baumgardner over Elif Nur Turhan — Decision — 7/10
- Skye Nicolson over Miyo Yoshida — Decision — 8/10
This may not be a weekend built around one enormous pay-per-view attraction, but it is loaded with fights that can reshape divisions.
Buatsi and Hutchinson are no longer fighting simply for bragging rights; a world championship waits at the end of their rivalry. Billam-Smith is trying to prove that experience at the top still outweighs Clarke’s momentum. Walker has one night to show that his heavyweight debut was the beginning of something meaningful rather than one spectacular performance. And Baumgardner is attempting to move into a new weight class and immediately take a championship from an undefeated titleholder.
Those are the weekends where prediction columns become interesting.
Fight Week 2026 Prediction Record: 38–26
Seven more picks are locked in.
By Sunday night, we will know whether experience ruled the weekend again—or whether several new names forced their way into the championship conversation.
Check back with Fight Week for results, reaction and post-fight analysis.
