UFC Fight Night 158 Post-Fight Analysis
My prediction success rate was a little worse this time around which was something I expected. There just were lot less match-ups that I felt confident about going one way or another and the ones that I were the most certain about turned out to be the biggest mistakes.
In the Main Event Cowboy turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. He just never got going, it was all Gaethje landing heavy shots until he put together enough of solid connections to put Cerrone out. It is worth noting that Gaethje fights in a bit more calculated fashion nowadays and despite his relatively simplistic game, looks like a legit contender for the belt. After Khabib and Tony settle who is really the best, he deserves to fight the winner. Of course he would take the money fight with Conor though, and I am pretty sure he would comfortably win it too. That is something to be speculated if and when the fight happens though.
The Co-Main Event was just as messy and vague match as I sort of expected. Well, I did expect Krylov to do much better in the stand-up. It is starting to be pretty safe to say Krylov just is not smart enough to put together a coherent fight plan. Glover easily had the better of him in the stand-up and also probably slightly edged the grappling. He is shopworn, but his chin is not nearly as gone as it seemed to be and he can make-up a lot with his skills.
Todd Duffee went very near to finishing Jeff Hughes until a fairly harmless looking eyepoke ended the contest. It is rare to see fighters admit they have problems with their vision following an eyepoke, but can't really blame him for it. Anyway, Duffee looks just as reckless as before. If even Jeff Hughes manages to land and rock him, I don't see him going very high in the heavyweight division before getting knocked out himself.
Michel Pereira was the biggest disappointment in the card. The guy did not just look one weight division bigger than Connelly, he looked full two divisions up. Yet he blew up his gas tank doing backflips and ended up grinded down to a decision loss. Heartwarming for Connelly who I hardly gave any chance. It is good to see though smaller guy take on a big, athletic guy and get the win, especially since I am not a huge guy myself.
You still kind of feel that Connelly won thanks to Pereira's dumb fight plan more than being so good himself. He is tough and has some skills for sure, I will give him that, since he did get tagged with some solid shots. Anyway, with as limited gas tank as that Pereira also has very limited ceiling in the UFC. So I guess he has some function doing flips and shit to entertain people, since he cannot be champ anyway? I dunno.
Misha Cirkunov was someone though who did exactly what I expected him to do - exposed Jim Crute. Cirkunov did okay in the striking with Crute, but as soon as they tangled up, it was all Cirkunov. Well, there were few reversals to be fair, but it was obvious Cirkunov had far the more skills and got the sub.
Uriah Hall's fight with Antonio Carlos Jr. was something that seemed to hang on the balance through the whole three rounds. Carlos was hard to shake off whenever he got his hands on Uriah, but Uriah was just massacring him on the feet simply by jabbing him to death. In the end Uriah deserved his split decision win, for he was the guy who landed all the damage - but it still was not a good look on him to be controlled for the whole third round on the mat.
Miles Johns and Cole Smith had a very back and forth fight but it unfortunately was largely a clinchfest. Johns had Smith hurt multiple times in the third, but could not get him out of there. Kinda feel both of these guys are decent enough to remain in UFC, but probably not good enough to make any kind of run for a title. Still, they are not old so we will see.
Brad Katona seemed someone who has regressed lately. I mean, he did show distinct improvement on his wrestling, but overall he seemed like he should have been the one picking Azure apart on the feet, but instead the opposite happened and Katona's only success in the fight was some wrestling where he landed couple of takedowns, but ultimately did not manage to control Azure. Although Katona has short arms I still expected him to do better in stand-up, but for such a basic fighter, Azure punches and kicks hard.
For the first three fights of the night I won't say anything cause I did not see the fights, I had some technical difficulties as the event was starting.
It's been two events now since starting to research and write these full-blown previews, and in total I have gotten 13 out of 23 picks right so far. In Main and Co-Main Events I am 3 out of 4 now, perfection being broken by Glover Texeira's win.
BTW I am super happy for Tristan Connelly taking home 100k in bonuses. He did not even take that much of brain damage in the end, gotta be feel good for the guy. Just feel a bit bad for under-estimating the guy, but to be fair, I had no tape to study this time. Guess this weekend's key lesson is that size does not matter nearly as much as you would think.
Next week we have 12 fights from Mexico, I am gonna be around with my predictions again for that.
In the Main Event Cowboy turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. He just never got going, it was all Gaethje landing heavy shots until he put together enough of solid connections to put Cerrone out. It is worth noting that Gaethje fights in a bit more calculated fashion nowadays and despite his relatively simplistic game, looks like a legit contender for the belt. After Khabib and Tony settle who is really the best, he deserves to fight the winner. Of course he would take the money fight with Conor though, and I am pretty sure he would comfortably win it too. That is something to be speculated if and when the fight happens though.
The Co-Main Event was just as messy and vague match as I sort of expected. Well, I did expect Krylov to do much better in the stand-up. It is starting to be pretty safe to say Krylov just is not smart enough to put together a coherent fight plan. Glover easily had the better of him in the stand-up and also probably slightly edged the grappling. He is shopworn, but his chin is not nearly as gone as it seemed to be and he can make-up a lot with his skills.
Todd Duffee went very near to finishing Jeff Hughes until a fairly harmless looking eyepoke ended the contest. It is rare to see fighters admit they have problems with their vision following an eyepoke, but can't really blame him for it. Anyway, Duffee looks just as reckless as before. If even Jeff Hughes manages to land and rock him, I don't see him going very high in the heavyweight division before getting knocked out himself.
Michel Pereira was the biggest disappointment in the card. The guy did not just look one weight division bigger than Connelly, he looked full two divisions up. Yet he blew up his gas tank doing backflips and ended up grinded down to a decision loss. Heartwarming for Connelly who I hardly gave any chance. It is good to see though smaller guy take on a big, athletic guy and get the win, especially since I am not a huge guy myself.
You still kind of feel that Connelly won thanks to Pereira's dumb fight plan more than being so good himself. He is tough and has some skills for sure, I will give him that, since he did get tagged with some solid shots. Anyway, with as limited gas tank as that Pereira also has very limited ceiling in the UFC. So I guess he has some function doing flips and shit to entertain people, since he cannot be champ anyway? I dunno.
Misha Cirkunov was someone though who did exactly what I expected him to do - exposed Jim Crute. Cirkunov did okay in the striking with Crute, but as soon as they tangled up, it was all Cirkunov. Well, there were few reversals to be fair, but it was obvious Cirkunov had far the more skills and got the sub.
Uriah Hall's fight with Antonio Carlos Jr. was something that seemed to hang on the balance through the whole three rounds. Carlos was hard to shake off whenever he got his hands on Uriah, but Uriah was just massacring him on the feet simply by jabbing him to death. In the end Uriah deserved his split decision win, for he was the guy who landed all the damage - but it still was not a good look on him to be controlled for the whole third round on the mat.
Prelims
We can officially deem that Tybura as any sort of heavyweight contender is completely done. He has just seemed worse and worse every fight lately and this was the most miserable of his performances. I will not be picking him again if his UFC career somehow goes on. Of course Sakai deserves credit for aggression and hard striking, but this does not really tell us much about his skills except that he seemed much more willing to push a higher pace this time around.Miles Johns and Cole Smith had a very back and forth fight but it unfortunately was largely a clinchfest. Johns had Smith hurt multiple times in the third, but could not get him out of there. Kinda feel both of these guys are decent enough to remain in UFC, but probably not good enough to make any kind of run for a title. Still, they are not old so we will see.
Brad Katona seemed someone who has regressed lately. I mean, he did show distinct improvement on his wrestling, but overall he seemed like he should have been the one picking Azure apart on the feet, but instead the opposite happened and Katona's only success in the fight was some wrestling where he landed couple of takedowns, but ultimately did not manage to control Azure. Although Katona has short arms I still expected him to do better in stand-up, but for such a basic fighter, Azure punches and kicks hard.
For the first three fights of the night I won't say anything cause I did not see the fights, I had some technical difficulties as the event was starting.
My Picks
In the end, I got 5 picks out of 11 right, not terrible, but obviously a losing night for me. My biggest winning pick was Uriah Hall, who has major underdog for his fight. My worst loss was obviously Michel Pereira, whom I was absolutely certain to win - in hindsight, I probably could have tempered the betsizing for the fact that I really did not know anything about Connelly and because it seemed that Pereira does not exactly fight intelligently. I would not change my pick even if they rematched, but I would be a little less sure of myself and bet smaller.It's been two events now since starting to research and write these full-blown previews, and in total I have gotten 13 out of 23 picks right so far. In Main and Co-Main Events I am 3 out of 4 now, perfection being broken by Glover Texeira's win.
BTW I am super happy for Tristan Connelly taking home 100k in bonuses. He did not even take that much of brain damage in the end, gotta be feel good for the guy. Just feel a bit bad for under-estimating the guy, but to be fair, I had no tape to study this time. Guess this weekend's key lesson is that size does not matter nearly as much as you would think.
Next week we have 12 fights from Mexico, I am gonna be around with my predictions again for that.
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