The Ultimate Fighting Champion (UFC) is back in Las Vegas yet again on January 2nd to kick off the 2016 calendar year with UFC 195: Lawler vs Condit. The stacked 12-fight card is set to kick off with Fight Pass prelims at 6:30pm ET and televised prelims to follow on FOX Sports 1 at 8pm ET. The five-fight main card will get underway at 10pm ET on Pay Per View. If interested in wagering on any bouts for this fight card, all betting lines are currently made available at Several Bookmakerss. Getting the action started at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas for the FOX Sports 1 preliminary card will be a barn-burner in the UFC’s lightweight division between Nebraska’s Drew Dober and Tennesee’s Scott Holtzman. Both 155-pounders are fun to watch, and as long as there’s no early finish, this scrap could be a sleeper come time for the evening’s ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus. Dober last saw action at UFC 188 six months ago, where he got caught in a guillotine choke by Efrain Escudero early in the first round of action and was forced to tap. In an effort to return to the win column, he will look to hand Holtzman the first loss of his professional mixed martial arts career. Holtzman is coming off a third round rear naked choke win over Anthony Christodolou in his promotional debut, which kept his professional record intact at 8-0. Next up on the evening’s preliminary card on FOX Sports 1 will be a welterweight contest that sees Kyle Noke take on promotional newcomer Alex Morono after his original scheduled opponent Kelvin Gastelum was forced to withdraw from the bout with an undisclosed injury. Noke last saw action a month ago at UFC 193, where he scored a first round knockout of Peter Sobotta, and he currently enjoys a two-fight winning streak inside the Octagon. Morono is coming off a first round guillotine choke submission of Derrick Krantz under the Legacy FC banner a month ago, capturing the promotion’s welterweight title with the win. He will be parlaying that into a UFC contract and will look to pick up his first Octagon victory against Noke, while extending his current winning streak to five in a row. The spotlight is on the women’s strawweights for the next bout of the evening, with Invicta veteran Justine Kish finally making her promotional debut against American Top Team product Nina Ansaroff. Kish was a cast-member on season 20 of The Ultimate Fighter on Team Pettis but was unable to compete due to an knee injury. Now fully healed, she is set to make her debut and hopes to remain undefeated by going 5-0 with a victory against Ansaroff, who suffered a unanimous decision loss to Juliana Lima in her promotional debut more than a year ago. The featured prelim for UFC 195 comes in the bantamweight division and sees former title challenger Michael “Mayday” McDonald make his return to the Octagon following two-year layoff. He’ll be squaring off against Japan’s Masanori Kanehara. “Kincyan” is coming off a controversial split decision loss to Rani Yahya and hopes for a return to the win column by taking out the #5 ranked McDonald. Fight fans are anxious to see “Mayday” back in action inside the Octagon, and a game veteran like Kanehara should be a good test for his first fight back. These 135-pounders are expected to deliver a solid scrap to culminate the FOX Sports 1 prelims on a high-note, setting the bar for the Pay Per View card to follow.
