Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight strikers Dominick Reyes vs. Carlos Ulberg will go to war TONIGHT (Sat., Sept. 28, 2025) at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia for UFC Perth.
Reyes is in
the midst of an incredible career comeback, rebounding from four consecutive defeats spread out across multiple years to suddenly put together a trio of knockout wins. This is a big step up in competition, however, a rising contender with a fewer miles on the tires than any of Reyes’ recent victories. Ulberg himself is riding a quality eight-fight win streak, but “Black Jag” has struggled to break through in public perception as a genuine title threat. Even defeating former champion Jan Blachowciz didn’t do much to build his momentum, so Ulberg may have to step it up here and force the action if he’s going to score a showdown with next week’s Light Heavyweight title winner.
Let’s take a closer look at the betting odds and strategic keys for each athlete:
Reyes vs. Ulberg Betting Odds
- Dominick Reyes victory: +205
- Dominick Reyes via TKO/KO/DQ: +350
- Dominick Reyes via submission: +2000
- Dominick Reyes via decision: +800
- Carlos Ulberg victory: -250
- Carlos Ulberg via TKO/KO/DQ: -145
- Carlos Ulberg via submission: +1600
- Carlos Ulberg via decision: +550
- Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook
How Reyes Wins
Reyes is an athletic and rangy Southpaw who does his best work on the counter. At distance, Reyes likes to pepper his opponents with long left hands and punishing round kicks, though he also puts together combinations better than many distance Southpaws. If he can convince his opponent to chase, few are better than Reyes at suddenly planting their feet with a blistering counter cross.
The potential for a bit of a staring contest is high here. Ulberg is a decorated kickboxer with an identical height and reach, and he also likes to counter. The natural outcome of such a match up is for both men to stand at distance and poke at one another, trying to trick the other to walk into a heavy shot.
Kickboxing with the kickboxer does not sound like an ideal strategy for Reyes, so it’s up to “The Devastator” to switch it up. I’d like to see him gently pressing, still aware of the counters but keeping Ulberg on his back foot. The goal should be to punish Ulberg’s lateral movement, particularly as the Kiwi tries to take the outside angle to Reyes’ right. Reyes has to cut off that escape with his right hook or lead leg kicks without reaching with his left, because that’s also how Ulberg sets up the check hook — one of his best punches.
If Reyes can cut off that escape, he can start to line up power punches and kicks. Generally, I’d really like to see Reyes working behind the double jab just to chew up some distance, get a read on where Ulberg is trying to escape, then land a big kick on the exit. If he can corner Ulberg on the fence, that’s the time to set his feet and unload a combination.
How Ulberg Wins
Ulberg, a product of the City Kickboxing team, is a very crafty striker with over 20 professional kickboxing bouts to his name. In the cage, he’s proven to be a quick and powerful kicker who likes to punish opponents with counters when they try to close the gap.
Ulberg should be looking to Reyes’ fight vs. Blachowicz for a blue print to victory. In that match up, Blachowicz routinely interrupted Reyes’ offense with a stiff jab or caught him off-guard by firing counters in combination. When Reyes back off with his guard high, Blachowicz would punctuate his combination with a kick to the body, breaking down the former title challenger.
Ulberg’s check hook could be a huge weapon here. The timing and angling of the check hook against Southpaws is a little different than usual, but it’s a hard punch for them to see when thrown correctly. Reyes is a left hand-heavy fighter, so if Ulberg can start dinging him and angling off when he looks to that weapon, it’ll really help prevent Reyes from achieving any kind of flow.
Reyes vs. Ulberg Prediction
I’m back on board the Reyes renaissance train.
Despite the dramatic ups-and-downs of his UFC career, Reyes is not an old man at 35 years of age and 19 pro bouts. Debatably, he has less overall milage than Ulberg when the Kiwi’s kickboxing career is considered. Now that Reyes has regained his confidence and gotten his head on straight, there’s no reason to believe he cannot be as good as he was against Jon Jones in 2020.
Simply put, Reyes at his best was a better fighter than anything I’ve seen from Ulberg. Faced with a similarly athletic and large man, I don’t think Ulberg will be able to win on such narrow margins like he’s done previously versus top-ranked Light Heavyweights. He’s going to get clipped at some point, which will make up for a small edge in total kicks landed.
