Court McGee vs Eric Nolan Preview & Prediction — UFC 332

Court McGee vs Eric Nolan is the kind of booking that looks simple on paper and plays out as a genuine stylistic trap. McGee wants the fight on the fence and on the mat, where his finishing instincts have aged better than his chin. Nolan wants the fight standing, on the counter, where McGee's entries have been a recurring liability. The desk is logging this as a read with no market attached, but the pick is McGee, and the case for it runs straight through his grappling rather than around his recent standup troubles.

Court McGee

McGee is 41.8 and fighting on the back of a layoff for neck surgery, and the surface numbers are rough: he is 1-2 in his last three. None of that changes what his actual path to winning looks like. When McGee gets to the fence and establishes top control, he still finishes fights. Against Means in 2024 he needed only 118 seconds of control before closing the show with a first-round RNC. Against Morono later that year he built 200 seconds of control en route to another finish. That is the blueprint: close distance, own the fence, get on top, find the neck.

The risk is getting there. McGee has been knocked out in the first round three separate times, against Ponzinibbio in 2016, Wells in 2022, and Brown in 2023, and the tape on the Brown knockout shows a clean counter right landing as he walked forward with his head upright and his left hand dropping. That is not a one-off habit, it is a pattern, and it is the exact entry a sharp counter-puncher is built to punish.

Eric Nolan

Nolan is 29, active, and built around that counter. His overhand right and left hook are timed for exactly the kind of upright, hands-down entry McGee has shown on tape, and if this fight stays standing on his terms, he has a real chance to land it early. That is the whole case for Nolan, and it is not nothing.

But Nolan's two UFC losses both broke the same way once the fight left the feet. He gave up 672 seconds of control time against Hasanov in a 27-30 shutout, never finding a way to stand back up and never threatening the scorecards. Against Susurkaev he conceded 199 seconds of control, got mounted, and was finished by RNC. He has also lost a regional fight by RNC, to Richards. Three different grapplers, three different levels, and the same hole in his game: once he is on the fence and controlled, he does not get free, and he has already been choked out twice.

How the fight plays out

The standing exchanges favor Nolan, and McGee's own history says that phase is dangerous for him. If this were a kickboxing match, Nolan's counter would be the easy side. But McGee does not need to win the standing phase, he needs to survive it long enough to get his hands on the fence, and that is where Nolan's résumé breaks down. A fighter who has given up over eleven minutes of control in one fight and been finished by submission twice more is not someone who has shown an answer for a committed top-control grappler.

McGee's style is built for exactly that matchup. Get to the fence, get on top, and his finishing instincts take over, the way they did against both Means and Morono in 2024. Nolan's counter power is real, but it only matters if McGee keeps making the same upright, low-hand entries that got him caught against Brown. The desk's read is that McGee's path to the clinch and the mat is live against a fighter with a documented hole in exactly that area, and that outweighs the standing risk.

The verdict

The pick is McGee. His recent finishes show he can still close the show once he is on top, and Nolan has already shown twice in the UFC that he cannot get off the fence or off his back once a grappler settles in. The counter-right risk on the feet is real, but it is a risk McGee only has to survive, not solve, before his actual game plan takes over.