Grant Dawson vs Nurullo Aliev Preview & Prediction — UFC 333: Volkanovski vs. Evloev

UFC 333 on October 24, 2026 drops Grant Dawson in with Nurullo Aliev, and the desk is logging this one as a no-play read even though the pick leans Dawson. There's no market number to post here, just a stylistic puzzle: a forward-marching veteran against a younger wrestler whose best path to winning runs through exactly the kind of entry Dawson likes to use.

Grant Dawson

Dawson fights off a looping, head-on-center-line forward entry. He walks opponents down, closes distance in straight-ish arcs, and has made a living finishing fights once they hit deep water, with rear-naked choke finishes over Rebecki, Madsen and Gordon, and a TKO over Santos all coming in round three. That patience and finishing instinct are real strengths. The flip side is the same tape: all three of his pro losses came from first-round punches, and two of those, against Green and Torres inside the UFC, were standing counters that caught him on that same looping entry. Against Solecki, a shared opponent with Aliev, Dawson's path looked nothing like a shootout. He controlled for 826 seconds, went 3-for-3 on takedowns, and was never seriously threatened.

Nurullo Aliev

Aliev's A-game isn't a counter striker's game, it's a converter's game. He takes incoming strikes and turns them into reactive level changes and fence finishes, logging 745 seconds of control and going 8-for-13 on takedowns against Davis. He's the younger man in this matchup at 25.9 to Dawson's 32.7, and that youth shows up in his engine early. But his finishing has come on the ground, not with strikes, he carries zero knockdowns on his record, and his distance-striking menu is narrow, which matters because it's the only phase where a finish over Dawson would need to come from. Against the same Solecki that Dawson dominated, Aliev needed 493 seconds of control just to win a decision, survived two separate triangle threats, faded in the third round, and gave up bottom position late.

How the fight plays out

Strip this down to delivery phases and the knockout overlay on Aliev doesn't hold up. His finishes are ground strikes, he has zero knockdowns, and his distance-striking menu is too narrow to be the equalizer against Dawson's three first-round counter losses. That leaves wrestling as his actual path, and the shared result with Solecki argues against it: Dawson smothered that fight with 826 seconds of control and a clean 3-for-3 on takedowns, while Aliev needed 493 seconds of control just to survive two triangle attempts and still faded late. Dawson's calf kicks land on a fighter who has shown he absorbs leg kicks rather than solving them, and Dawson's documented strength, finishing late after opponents gas, lines up directly with Aliev's documented weakness, fading in round three after a heavy wrestling pace. The desk isn't putting money on it given Aliev's youth and reactive takedown game, but the side it argues for is Dawson.

The verdict

The pick is Dawson. His three losses all came from standing counters off a looping entry, but Aliev's finishing ability doesn't live in that phase, it lives on the ground, and the Solecki tape shows Dawson handling exactly the wrestling path Aliev would need. Dawson's round-three finishing instincts line up with Aliev's documented late fade, which is the core case for this side even with no money behind it.