Preview: UFC Mexico Prelims

Women’s Strawweights

Lupita Godinez (12-5, 7-5 UFC) vs. Julia Polastri (13-4, 1-1 UFC)

ODDS: Godinez (-238), Polastri (+195)

Godinez has seemingly been on the verge of a breakthrough for her entire UFC career, and “Loopy” looks to regain some momentum in this assignment. When things are fully clicking for Godinez, she looks like a clear championship-level fighter, using some effective striking to set up a crushing wrestling game that can absolutely run her opponents through the wringer. However, if Godinez can’t establish a clear advantage early, things tend to go south. She’s still capable on the feet but much more tentative, to the point that she offers little beyond the ability to survive. For most of her UFC career, it took surprisingly little to throw Godinez off her game. Opponents like Jessica Penne and Luana Carolina managed to stall Godinez out simply by being tall and lanky. While Godinez went winless in 2024, the good news is that those losses are now coming against contender-level opponents like Virna Jandiroba and Mackenzie Dern. The Lobo Gym export looked solid enough against Dern compared to how she would have handled a tricky matchup a few years ago. Godinez looks to get back on the winning track against Polastri, who’s decent enough to make this fight interesting. A natural strawweight who started her career at atomweight, Polastri was out of her depth at 125 pounds during the 2021 edition of the Contender Series but came back two years later and earned a contract with a one-sided win. Polastri seems to fashion herself as a bully, and like Godinez, she’s able to take an early advantage and turn it into one-way traffic. However, a UFC debut loss to Josefine Lindgren Knutsson raised some worry that the Brazilian still might not have the physical ceiling to make any sort of massive run, even if she did eventually rebound with a win over Cory McKenna. Godinez could put up another unexpected dud since Polastri is deceptively tough, but this looks like her fight to lose. The pick is Godinez via decision.

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