Jakro's MMA Musings

Main Event: Dustin Poirier vs. Dan Hooker I could research this all day without any clarity on who will win. Two elite fighters of the division that are more so than anything excellent strikers. Hooker has the better movement and distance control of the two, and 3 inches of reach over Poirier, but he is also hittable as was evident in the Barboza fight. Poirier has fought the elite of the division in his latest fights and looked great with the exception of Nurmy fight, where he looked kinda sluggish (but still managed to ring Khabib's bell a few times) so I am leaning on him a little bit to be able to better to what Felder failed to do, which is step forward, pressure and land heavy shots as Hooker slides backwards and snipes at him. Both of these guys hit hard, but have also shown tremendous durability, so I think finish is not the likeliest outcome. I mean anything can happen if either lands the right shot, but it is more likely to be accumulation of damage in the later rou...

Main Event: Curtis Blaydes vs. Alexander Volkov This one seems pretty clear cut. Volkov has the advantage standing, but it is not a massive advantage, and Blaydes has massive advantage in grappling over most of the HW division. Blaydes just has more ways of winning this. Volkov can only win by keeping it standing and fighting a very careful fight, whereas Blaydes can score a knockout standing but also grind out a wrestling decision. But I doubt it will be a decision, Blaydes has devastating ground and pound when he gets on top, and considering how easy Volkov is to take down and how slow starter he is, I don't expect this one to go very long. Blaydes via 1st round TKO.  Co-Main Event: Josh Emmett vs. Shane Burgos Well predicting fights with extremely powerful guys like Josh Emmett is always tricky. I do think Burgos is the craftier, faster fighter of the two, and has a solid chin, but Emmett can still always find that shot. With solid wrestling background, decent car...

So UFC on ESPN 10 is over and done and... it was a pretty decent event. Lackluster main event aside, there were lot of fast finishes and couple of real wars. UFC continuing the trend of exciting fights since the lockdown-enforced break ended. Main Card As stated, the main event offered little in the way of thrills or even technical prowess. Jessica Eye went out there with very cautious fighting style, trying to do the very minimum to win rounds and it did not work when in three rounds, Calvillo got some decent ground control. Eye did not get urgent about getting up, more seemed content to defend the submission attempts. It was pretty awful performance from her against a smaller woman and it is pretty safe to say she is washed up at this point. Never really recovered from the KO Shevchenko gave her. The Co-Main was going well for Karl Robertson, until he for some inexplicable reason initiated the grappling. He will curse himself when he watches the fight, cause as a kickboxer his bes...

Alright, welcome to another edition of poorly-researched, yet somehow mostly right (so far) fight predictions. Let's see if this event will finally buck the trend of me getting away with just doing fast previews. Frankly I was hopeful that I could replace the broken SSD of my main computer already this week, but another week passes without it shipping. Thanks Covid-19. Main Event: Jessica Eye vs. Cynthia Calvillo I honestly have no impression whatsoever of Jessica Eye, despite her basically having fought who's who of women's MMA, and largely having done okay in the process. Calvillo on the other hand did leave an impression to one's mind with her early run. She should be pretty comfortably outsided here by Eye though, and I am not entirely sure if she can have the kind of approach that could outskill Eye by so much. I am not at all sure though. It's a rare main event in the regard that I have no clear vision of how this will go. Calvillo is primarily a sub hunter...

I wrote so confidently last week that I would get proper previews done for this week's event, but corona strikes again - or something - and my computer parts STILL haven't shipped so I could not do proper research. I did watch some clips from past fights but mostly this is going by feel again, therefore expect lower success rate than usually in my previews. Main Event: Amanda Nunes vs. Felicia Spencer Well, Spencer showed against Cyborg that she can take a shot, but can she take the kind of shot Nunes puts out? Is Nunes really more powerful than Cyborg? Some signs seem to suggest that she is, either way it is not hard to hit Spencer so I expect her to absorb some hellacious shots in this fight. She has some ways to make it competitive through clinch and grappling I suppose, but that is more to beat Nunes via attrition, since Nunes is a good grappler as well, something Cyborg wasn't. So all in all Spencer should be outgunned everywhere here and I am worried she just eat...