Saturday’s UFC 316 fight card is nearly upon us. The event features two bantamweight title fights at the top of the card. We give you six reasons to tune into the event.

In the UFC 316 main event, men’s UFC bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili meets the man he took the title from, Sean O’Malley, in a rematch. Meanwhile, in the UFC 316 PPV card co-headline, Julianna Pena begins her second stint as the women’s 135-pound champ against former PFL lightweight champion Kayla Harrison. Also appearing on the main card is high-profile free agent signing Patchy Mix. Mix faces Mario Bautista in a bantamweight bout.

The UFC 316 PPV fight card takes place on Saturday, June 7 from Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The event streams on ESPN+ following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass.

Sean O'Malley has mostly stayed out of the spotlight since his UFC 306 unanimous decision loss to Merab Dvalishvili. Ostensibly, the reason for O'Malley's low profile has been to allow him to focus on one thing, getting his title back from the man who ended his reign at The Sphere in September.

O'Malley has his work cut out for him on that front. A high-output striker who uses his length and power well, Dvalishvili held O'Malley to 89 attempted significant strikes in their first matchup. While O'Malley connected on a respectable 52 percent of those attempts, he was coming off a win over Marlon Vera, where he landed 230 of 356 attempted significant strikes for a landing rate of 64 percent.

O'Malley must find a way to negate the pressure, wrestling, and ground control of Dvalishvili, something that the champ's foes have been incapable of since he opened his UFC career at 0-2 in 2017-18. In their first meeting, Dvalishvili went six for 15 on takedown attempts while racking up 10:03 of control time.

Dvalishvili holds the all-time UFC record for takedowns with 92, a record he broke when he went nine-for-30 in takedown attempts against Usman Nurmagomedov in defense of his UFC bantamweight crown at UFC 311.

Kayla Harrison has been a high-level athlete for a long while. A gold-medal winner in judo at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games at -78 kg (172 pounds), Harrison spent the first four years of her MMA career competing at 155 pounds, with one fight at 145 and one bout at 150. When the former PFL lightweight champ signed with the UFC, there were some concerns about how she would deal with the bantamweight limit.

In her first two UFC bouts, Harrison checked in at 136. As those fights were not for UFC gold, Harrison and her opponents in those contests, where Harrison picked up wins over Holly Holm (UFC 300) and Ketlen Vieira (UFC 307) were given the luxury of a one-pound allowance. Harrison and UFC bantamweight champ Julianna Pena were not given that option for Saturday's UFC 316 fight card. Both fighters made weight, but Harrison looked drawn out and depleted on the scale.

A member of American Top Team, I expect Harrison has top-notch coaches to guide her to her fighting weight for the co-main event of Saturday's fight card. Still, it's not out of line to ask just how much the first cut to the bantamweight championship weight took out of the challenger.

For those who focus mainly on the UFC, the name Patchy Mix might not carry much weight. That could change on Saturday night. Mix, a former Bellator bantamweight champion who secured his release from that promotion and almost immediately signed with the UFC, faces Mario Bautista on short notice on the UFC 316 main card.

"When you really, truly look at it, I'm one round removed from being 21-0 right now," Mix told Chuck Mindenhall. "I am a three-time Bellator world champion and I'm coming over at 20 wins, one loss, with an 80% finish rate. I finished 15 people, and not to mention I was 11-0 as an amateur. So I've won 31 of 32 fights. Not one guy that came over has done that, except maybe Justin Gaethje. He had credentials. He was 17-0 coming over from WSOF."

"Let's put it like this," Mix added. "I fought five championship world title fights in a row, five-round fights. Not a lot of guys get 25-minute fights to begin with, but I fought five main event, 25-minute fights in a row."
Here he gives that a second to sink in.

"I've won all five of them," he says. "Those are my last five fights. So I think that [Bautista's] the one taking a step up, while I'm just taking a step up in the promotional aspect, moving from … let's say the second-best league to the first-best league. The UFC is the premier league, so the main focus for me is staying calm and not letting the lights and all this — the attention, the fame of it — get to me. I'm just too grounded to let it, so my main thing is stay calm, stay focused and stay laser-accurate. And that's taking out Mario Bautista on Saturday. That's bringing him to the floor, and that's submitting him."

Mix is the betting favorite to beat Bautista, but the odds are not overwhelmingly in his favor ahead of Saturday’s event. I believe the fact that he has yet to compete under the UFC banner have skewed those odds.

In awarding Joe Pyfer a UFC contract following a Dana White's Contender Series fight card in July 2022, UFC CEO Dana White said, "If you want to get into the UFC, and this is where you want to be, act like Joe Pyfer. Okay? Be Joe Pyfer. Be excited to be here. Be fired up to fight. Try to finish the fight. Try to win. Be Joe Pyfer, and you will get into the UFC."

After that TKO win, Pyfer put together a 3-0 run under the UFC banner between September 2022 and October 2023, scoring three stoppages and two "Performance of the Night" bonuses.

Seeing promise in Pyfer, the UFC booked him in a main event against veteran Jack Hermansson in February 2024. Pyfer was a favorite in that matchup, but he fell short, as Hermansson's veteran skills showed gaps in Pyfer's game.

Pyfer rebounded from that loss with a first-round knockout win over Marc-André Barriault at UFC 303.

On Saturday, Pyfer faces a tough test in Kelvin Gastelum, who has one of the best chins in the business. While it's true that you never know what kind of performance you'll see from the inconsistent Gastelum, he has the skills to give Pyfer the hardest fight of his UFC career.

UFC 316 will determine if the UFC will get behind Pyfer for another push or not.

The 23-year-old Joshua Van has made some noise during his UFC tenure. Van began his UFC run in 2023 after winning the Fury FC flyweight title. Van opened his UFC career with three wins. His winning streak of eight fights overall ended in July 2024 when Charles Johnson knocked him out. Van bounced back from that setback by winning three in a row. He is coming off a UFC 313 decision victory over Rei Tsuruya in a fight where Tsuruya replaced Silva, who was Van’s initial opponent.

Van enters UFC 316 as the No. 14 fighter in the official UFC flyweight rankings. His opponent in the featured prelim bout is the No. 12 ranked Bruno Silva.

Van has looked better in each of his outings; a win over Silva will move him up the rankings and set him up for a fight against a top-10-ranked opponent in his next trip to the Octagon.

Wang Cong joined the UFC in 2024. She came to the promotion with some fanfare because of her 2015 kickboxing win over current UFC women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko.

In her UFC debut, Wang scored an impressive knockout win over Victoria Leonardo. However, she lost some shine in her next outing when Gabriella Fernandes choked her out in their meeting in China. In her most recent trip to the Octagon, Wang earned a decision win over Bruna Brasil.

The jury is out on Wang, who is unranked heading into her UFC 316 matchup opposite Ariane da Silva, who weighed in at 132 pounds for what the UFC booked as a 125-pound scrap. Silva is the No. 13 ranked UFC flyweight.

What fans and the matchmakers will want to see from Wang is growth in her overall MMA game. She is a good striker, but outside of that skillset, does she have the goods to move to the elite level of the flyweight division?

Quillan Salkilld enters UFC 316 with a fair amount of hype following his UFC debut in February. In that UFC 312 scrap, Salkilld scored a 19-second knockout win over Anshul Jubli, winning a “Performance of the Night” bonus. A notable feat since the bout was the event’s curtain jerker.

The 25-year-old is someone to watch, and it feels as if the UFC has him booked as the second fight of UFC 316 to make sure fans are in their seats early in the evening.

Salkilld faces Yanal Ashmouz at UFC 316.

Stay tuned for more coverage from the UFC 316 fight card. Including live UFC 316 results, reactions, recaps and video highlights during Saturday’s event