Andre Fili vs Kai Kamaka III Preview & Prediction — UFC Fight Night: Allen vs. Duncan

Andre Fili has made a career off the counter right hand, the kind of punch that put Bruno Almeida away in the opening round and dropped Rafael Delgado with a hook. Kai Kamaka III does not offer that kind of fighter a stationary target, and that stylistic mismatch is the whole story of this one. The desk is on Kamaka here, and the case runs through exactly what has beaten Fili before.

Andre Fili

Fili is a counter puncher's counter puncher. Ten of his wins have come by knockout, and his best moments arrive when an opponent plants their feet in range and eats a check hook or a straight right on the way in. He has real power and he is comfortable switching stances, which adds a layer for anyone trying to find his chin or his hips.

But Fili's losses tell a different story than his wins. Delgado outlanded him 94 to 62, Wood outlanded him 84 to 58, and Oliveira ran him over 105 to 40. In each of those fights his tape shows the same pattern: body kicks and rib shots going unanswered, and long stretches where his own output simply disappears. He has also been stopped four times since 2022, by Brito, Ige, Costa and Oliveira, and he has dropped his last two fights. A fighter who counters well against stationary opposition has a much harder night against someone who keeps moving, keeps kicking, and never gives him a fixed target to time.

Kai Kamaka III

Kamaka's game is built on exactly the thing that has given Fili trouble: volume. He throws in bunches, leans on calf and liver kicks to wear down a stance over three rounds, and his pace tends to climb rather than fade as a fight goes on. That profile lines up almost perfectly with the losses already on Fili's resume.

Kamaka does have a hole, and it is a real one. He was punched out in the first round by Luke Riley in July, and tape from that fight and others shows a lead hand that drops and feet that square up in pocket exchanges, exactly the kind of standing-chin flaw a sharp counter puncher wants to see. The fighters who have beaten Kamaka before, like TJ Brown, Dan Ormsby and Journey Gonzales, shared a longer, switch-stance frame not unlike Fili's own five-inch reach advantage here. Those wins, though, were close split decisions, which points to Kamaka's durability holding up under pressure rather than a clean, repeatable path to finishing him.

How the fight plays out

This fight comes down to which flaw gets exploited first, and the math favors Kamaka. Fili's reach and counter power give him a puncher's chance early, and if Kamaka squares up in the pocket the way he did against Riley, Fili has shown before he can make a stationary opponent pay. That is the live danger here and it is real.

But Fili has to find that moment against a man who is not going to stand in range and trade. Kamaka's volume and leg kicks are designed to deny exactly the stillness Fili's counters need, and Fili's own history says he does not have an answer for that kind of pressure. Three separate decision losses show him getting out-landed by wide margins once an opponent commits to a high pace, and three stoppage losses since 2022 show a fighter who has become more hittable, not less, as that volume piles up. The switch-stance fighters who have beaten Kamaka needed split decisions to do it, which means even Fili's best version of this matchup is a coin flip at best, while his worst version looks a lot like the Delgado, Wood and Oliveira fights already on tape.

As the rounds add up, Kamaka's pace is the more reliable asset in the cage. He does not need one clean finishing sequence, he needs three rounds of the same kicks and volume that have already broken Fili down before, and at 36 and off back to back losses, Fili has not shown the pace to turn that fight back around once it is running against him.

The verdict

The pick is Kamaka III. His volume and leg kicks target the exact pattern that has put Fili on the losing end of lopsided striking numbers before, and nothing in Fili's recent form suggests he has fixed the pace problem that keeps showing up on his tape.