Preview: UFC Belgrade ‘Medic vs. Rodriguez’

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is set to touch down in Serbia for the first time, but everything about the card proclaims that it won’t be the last. Actually, would you allow your friendly neighborhood preview writer a moment of personal reflection? If not, feel free to scroll to the fight breakdowns, but if you’ll indulge me, I promise it will be relevant to Saturday’s card. UFC Belgrade will be the last card I preview after eight and a half years at Sherdog, including covering every single UFC event for the last six of those. Six years may not sound very long considering that the sport is set to celebrate its 33th birthday in November, but consider this: There have been just under 800 UFC events and I’ve previewed about a third of them. In 2003, the year I started watching MMA obsessively, the UFC put on five shows. Last year that number was 42, without even counting “The Ultimate Fighter” and “Road to UFC.” If the term “ballooning schedule” sounds like a negative, it isn’t meant to be, at least not entirely. Forty-plus events a year is definitely a lot, and you can count me among the many fans and media members—not to mention the growing contingent of UFC fighters—who would love to see fewer events at the Apex, but I also remember the days when MMA was an underground, underdog phenomenon, when it would have seemed ridiculous to predict the kind of mass acceptance the sport has achieved in the 2020s. The UFC’s event at the White House last month was certainly a sign of the sport’s rising profile, and it’s what the promotion itself touts as “the biggest sporting event ever,” but that feels more like a confluence of the right president at the right time to create a truly surreal moment. Certainly there’s no indication that the South Lawn is about to become a yearly destination for the Octagon, nor do we expect any lasting impact on regional MMA in the Washington D.C. area. What’s more heartening to me as a longtime fan of the sport is that even in 2026, the industry leader continues to push out the corners of the map. In the last 18 months alone, the UFC has established its presence in two new nations—Azerbaijan and Qatar—and is about to make it three on Saturday. That kind of geographic push does help grow the sport as a whole, raising local interest in MMA and shining a light on standout regional promotions: Brave CF and UAE Warriors had been around for years, but only became known as top-tier prospect pipelines once the UFC began traveling to the Middle East multiple times a year. Which brings us to this weekend and UFC Belgrade. Much like the UFC’s second trip to Azerbaijan a month ago, this weekend’s card is an indication that the promotion is interested in cultivating a relationship with the region. The show is headlined by Serbia’s own Uros Medic, easily the top Balkan fighter in the UFC at the moment, and the rest of the 14-fight card features Central Europeans in virtually every bout, including…let’s just say several matchups that are calculated to let the local fighters shine. Without further ado, let us preview the six-fight main card of UFC Fight Night 283 “Medic vs. Rodriguez,” also known as UFC Belgrade. Welterweights Uros Medic (13-3) vs. Daniel Rodriguez (20-5) BETTING ODDS: Medic (-400); Rodriguez (+300) I was cageside at UFC Houston in February when Medic lamped Geoff Neal in about a minute and a half, then made a heartfelt plea for the UFC to put on an event in his native country of Serbia. Less than six months later, here we are: “The Doctor” not only spoke that card into existence, but it’s his name on the marquee outside Belgrade Arena this week. It’s frankly an awesome story, and whether Medic is a UFC champ a year from now or never wins another fight in the Octagon, it’s something he should always be able to take pride in. It is almost exactly six years since Medic punched his ticket to the UFC through Dana White's Contender Series, a Balkan immigrant who came up through Alaskan regional shows and presented as a physically imposing, skilled but raw and untested lightweight kickboxer. I grossly underestimated his upside; picking Aalon Cruz to upset Medic in his UFC debut might be the worst pick I made in over 3,000 fights previewed for Sherdog. Even though Medic was clearly better than I predicted, he did not truly hit his stride in the UFC until he moved up to welterweight, where he is still big for the division, but is clearly more comfortable and confident without such a draining weight cut. Since transitioning to 170 pounds, Medic is 5-2 with all five wins by knockout, the last four of them in less than half a round. He is still not a perfect fighter by any stretch—like his wins, his UFC losses have all been some combination of lopsided and brutal—but he clearly understands the kind of fighter he is, and that has carried him to his current three-fight win streak. On the feet, Medic is deceptive; he can look stiff and awkward at times, but he is not slow at all. He uses his reach and speed to throw an arsenal of long, accurate punches and kicks, all of which carry numbing power. He still has some glaring defensive lapses: Punahele Soriano and Matthew Semelsberger exposed some of the holes in Medic’s boxing, checking his chin at the same time he tried to check theirs. His takedown defense and grappling have come a long way since his humbling loss to Jalin Turner, but they still represent a route to victory, as Medic’s game plan still mostly consists of “try and knock them out before they take me down.” “D-Rod” is on a three-fight win streak of his own, and is returning to the cage after just a little over a year away. If it feels like a lot longer than that, it’s probably because…well, he made headlines earlier this year for his stint in a Mexican jail. Assuming he is no worse for wear from the food and facilities in el calabozo, there is still the issue that Rodriguez turns 39 in a few months and already appeared to be slowing over the last few years. Rodriguez is still a crafty, technically sound boxer who does his best work in close quarters, throwing combinations that carry surprising power despite him looking extremely relaxed in the pocket. He has always greatly preferred to handle his business on the feet, but his longtime affiliation with 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu becomes obvious when he is taken down, or when he pounces on a hurt foe on the ground. At his best, Rodriguez was also a builder, a defensively sound and very durable welterweight who carried round-winning volume and knockout power into the later rounds. However, that has begun to fade even as he racked up those three straight wins: Santiago Ponzinibbio and Alex Morono were perhaps the two most shopworn fighters in the entire division at the time Rodriguez fought them, which might have served to mask his own gradual decline. A few years ago this would have been a sensational main card matchup and a very hard fight to predict. However, Medic has really come into prime form over the past three years while Rodriguez has started to look old. Even assuming Rodriguez is the same fighter who outlasted Ponzinibbio and Kevin Holland last year, it’s difficult to picture him surviving Medic’s early onslaught to be able to drag him to the proverbial deep waters. If he is compromised at all by the extracurricular issues, or is just the victim of another year’s worth of the ravages of time, it’s even harder. The pick is Medic by first-round knockout. Jump To » Medic vs. Rodriguez Blachowicz vs. Stirling Rakic vs. Tybura Todorovic vs. Valentin Cepo vs. Urbina Janicic vs. Gugnon The Prelims