UFC 246 Post-Fight Analysis

So my winning streak came to an end in a lackluster event that nonetheless will please the UFC brass immensely. Let's mull over the fights a little bit.

Conor is Back?

Honestly, the main event was a huge let down for me. It's not that the result displeases me or anything like this, I just hated how uncompetitive it was. It was obvious that if it wasn't the age (Cowboy being couple of months from 37), being tenderized by Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje back to back in last 8 months obviously meant that his already suspect durability was completely gone. 

Conor knew this and was ready to just get offense in no matter what. Hence those shoulder strikes which has been sold to ignorant general public as Conor's stroke of genius and something new he invented. Well, perhaps to use them in such explosive capacity was a little variation to it, but it irked me to act like Conor changed the game when in reality Cerrone, having broken his nose against Ferguson, probably was still frail there anyway so all it took was a well-placed shoulder shot to shatter it again. 

I know this makes me sound like a hater, but I am not. It just bums me out this match happened with Cowboy so much over the hill, and that somehow beating him makes Conor the #1 challenger in all divisions. Such is UFC these days though, but I won't be surprised if Conor goes back to boxing next. 

The question before the fight for me was if Conor is still an elite fighter or if prime Conor indeed (as I suspected) would be forever gone. Well we did not get a decisive answer to that given how short contest it was and how clearly compromised Cowboy was, but whatever little that 40 seconds tells us was that Conor at least looked sharp, fast and fit. So I would treat any subsequent matches like prime Conor is back. It's a rare thing for a previously elite fighter who no longer looked so sharp to come back to 100 % skill level, but Conor is an anomaly in many ways.

All in all the event, for me did not have the usual McGregor fight buzz, but for casuals who ONLY turn up when he is fighting it does not make any difference. This just felt like the result was gonna be foregone conclusion, and for UFC bottom line it was the perfect result. 

Main Card

Holly Holm clinchfucked Raquel Pennington to oblivion. Pennington seemed to have the tools that she could have given Holm trouble, but lacked the fight IQ to stop engaging in the constant clinches. Whenever she got free she would just bullrush back in. It was a lackluster match on all fronts despite both girls being elite women's bantamweights - it just seems like neither of them has enough in them to really challenge Nunes and them matching up between themselves just had a feel of irrelevancy even beyond it being a lackluster bout.

Maurice Greene was another guy showing infuriatingly poor fight IQ. He had the fight in his control, but just could not get off the fence and ended up getting taken down and submitted. Oleynik's chin held up as long as it needed to, but it will be tough matching him up going ahead since everyone at HW are so heavy hitters. Experience trumped athleticism in this fight, but it only goes so far.

Experience was also enough for Brian Kelleher to get past the blazing fast Ode Osbourne. The Jamaican was my biggest bet for the night and as he got submitted, arguably the poorest pick as well. 

Prelims

Still, I did not regret picking Osbourne even 10 % as much as I regretted not picking Roxanne considering the one-sided odds. 

I have this simple rule in my head that generally when odds are very wide in MMA, you should go for the underdog. This being such a crazy, unpredictable sport, anything can and will happen. So odds should never be very wide. However, from the Abrurakhimov bet I made on early days of this blog I learned that if I cannot even imagine a path to victory for someone, I should ignore that rule and just go for the favorite. In that case, the wide odds might be warranted. 

In Roxanne's case, I could clearly imagine how she could win the fight, so when I saw the odds I should have shifted my original pick from Barber to Modafferi. After all, I was unconvinced about Barber's overall skillset. After all, I thought it was a very big step-up in competition for her. By all means this was a bet I should have gotten right given everything I wrote, yet somehow when the time to use my brain for the pick came, I failed. Even with my smallest bet size, with how wide the odds were, just changing this one pick would have kept my win streak alive.

Yusuff vs. Fili was always going to be a close one. In the end I also feel like I could have gotten it right, but I can't be too angry at myself given how close the margin's were in this one. What I should have seen is that both of these guys are just so aggressive, that there is no way both of them won't absorb shots - and given how powerful Yusuff is, it was always going to be a big problem for Fili's dodgy chin. 

It ended up going the full distance, but Yusuff's ability to hurt Fili when Fili couldn't really rock him was what made the biggest difference in the fight.

Askar Askarov vs. Tim Elliot was another close fight that I feel like I should have gotten right. As much as Askarov gets complacent in bad positions, he was still the superior athlete and Elliot really never was a heavy top game wrestler who could win rounds via control. Askarov went as close to a KO as you can get, but ended up gassing under Elliot pressure, but it was too little too late as Elliot kept absorbing damage without delivering much back.

Dober vs. Haqparast was another act of the same story. I wrote it in my preview that Dober starts fast, Haqparast starts slow. I rated Dober as a good fighter, so I feel I should have been able to predict this. Guess I just overvalued Haqparasts fight IQ and boxing. 

Aleksa Camur and Justin Ledet had a close fight. Aleksa Camur looked exactly what he was, green fighter but with decent fundamentals and some good talent. He was able to stay composed enough to remain active through the fight. Ledet was a question mark for me as to how good he is, and the answer is simply not good enough for UFC. Just like all the guys he has beaten under UFC banner, he will probably get cut from the organization after stringing 3 losses in a row. 

Sabina Mazo looked the clear winner against JJ Aldrich but somehow judges only had it a split. 

My bets

All in all, I got 5 out of 11 bets right, ending up bit under 3 of my average bets losing. Like I said just getting that Roxanne pick right would have had me turn the night around to breaking even, but I got lot of close calls wrong. All in all at least it's satisfying to be getting so many close predictions. I am still overall massively winning so this night does not affect big picture much. Better glean the lessons from this and move forward a little bit wiser.