Melissa Croden is back on a Canadian fight card this Saturday, and this time she gets Darya Zheleznyakova on the UFC Winnipeg prelims. The bout is set for 5 p.m. ET and will air on Paramount+.
Croden’s path to this moment started when she got her first UFC call in late 2025 and was offered a fight in Vancouver, British Columbia. She said walking out in a huge arena there was a life moment she will never forget, helped by the crowd’s cheers and the high-fives she got along the way. After that, she took a short-notice fight at the Apex, then got the news this week that she was booked for another Canadian card. “I was quite excited,” Croden said of hearing from her manager that she had landed the fight in Winnipeg.
That return matters because Croden said she was eager to get onto the next Canadian card, even though she was not expecting it and knew plenty of other Canadian fighters wanted the same chance to compete at home. Winnipeg gives her that stage again, and it comes after two very different UFC settings: a major arena in Vancouver and the stripped-down environment of the Apex.
The matchup itself has the ingredients for a crowd-pleaser. Croden said both she and Zheleznyakova like to stand and throw hands, and she thinks the fight will play well with fans. She is also forecasting how it ends: a “good old-fashioned Croden TKO” in the third round.
For Croden, the setting and the stakes are tied together. She is fighting in Canada again, in front of a home-country crowd, with the kind of matchup she believes can draw people in from the opening bell. If her prediction holds, Winnipeg will get a finish, and Croden will leave it with another Canadian memory to stack beside the one she made in Vancouver.