Chidi Njokuani vs Jared Gooden Prediction: A projected upset is very likely

By Sunday morning, UFC Fight Night will host the Welterweight Division bout between Chidi Njokuani and Jared Gooden. It is set as the Main Card (fight 10 of 14) event under the 170 lbs (77.1 kg) weight class. Chidi Njokuani has won twice in his last five fights, while Jared Gooden has only won three in his last five fights. All action will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, and can be watched live on ESPN+.

Chidi Njokuani is the 75th Current Best MMA Welterweight Fighter. He boasts of twenty-five career wins and ten losses. The 35-year-old fighter is fighting out of Las Vegas, Nevada, and has an affiliation with Saekson Janjira Muay Thai. Throughout his career, Chidi rarely had success via submission. His major strength has been knockout, which has contributed to fourteen of his victories. His last fight was on March 30, 2024, in UFC fight night against Rhys McKee on the main card, winning by way of split decision. Prior to this, he was on the preliminary card at UFC Fight Night and lost against Michał Oleksiejczuk via a ground and pound technical knockout. In 2022, he joined the UFC promotion and has fought six times, winning three and losing three. In May 2022, he won the Performance of the Night Award in his victory against Duško Todorović via a technical knockout.  He repeated such a feat and won the award in his bout against Marc-André Barriault, which was an overhand right to ground strike knockout victory. Other losses were against Gregory Rodrigues, Rafael Carvalho, Andrey Koreshkov, and John Salter. In 2015, Chidi won the vacant RFA welterweight championship against Gilbert Smith via unanimous decision. Exactly four months later, he defeated Max Griffin when he challenged for the TPF Welterweight Championship title belt.

Jared Gooden boasts of a professional career record of twenty-three wins and nine losses. He is nicknamed “NiteTrain” and fights out of Gwinnett, Georgia, United States. He last fought on December 2, 2023, in the UFC and won against Wellington Turman via a rear naked choke submission. This victory happened in the second round and won the performance of the night award. He joined UFC in 2020 and has fought six times, winning just twice. Jared has never lost a bout by way of submission in his entire career. The rest of his losses were to Carlston Harris (via unanimous decision), Randy Brown (via unanimous decision), Bruno Oliveira (via strikes against cage knockout), Mike Graves (lost his chance to the vacant Titan FC Interim Welterweight Championship), Julien Williams (via unanimous decision), and Alan Jouban (via unanimous decision). In October 2015, Chidi defended his NFC Middleweight Championship title after knocking out Doug Usher to an injury. 

This bout is indeed going to be a tight one, but one fan would find it interesting to witness. Jared has had the best of shows in UFC promotion and will be looking to overturn the tides against him. However, he is outweighed all round by a fighter who is obviously more experienced with a great height and reach advantage. The bookies are in favor of Chidi, but his inconsistency is scary. I believe an upset is expected. I look forward to seeing Jared use the six-age gap advantage and try to drag this bout to the distance. Getting this over two rounds is the safest bet. Jared had more time for his body to recover and train. I would be surprised if he gets a win via knockout.