UFC 251 Post-Fight Analysis
Overall, 251 was a night of great fights that had you on the edge of your seat, but the Main Event fell a little flat despite being exactly what you would expect from it. I am just gonna get straight into it.
Mind you, Usman's style is exhausting to fight against, but I would still expect fit Jorge to last at least two rounds. In that one round he had he looked great though, being able to land a lot of damage. Once he got too gassed to properly counter and circle off the fence, it became exactly what you would expect from an Usman fight. As much as it is stylistically ugly, Usman's style is built around his strengths and will be extremely difficult to beat. I don't think Burns can do it, but he is worth trying next. Still, Colby is the biggest hope of dethroning Usman since he is the 2nd best clinch fighter in the division.
In the co-main we saw Max improve greatly from first performance, and also perhaps Alex just did not reach as high level of a performance as in the previous fight. Either way he dug deep and did enough in judges eyes to rally late to win the fight. 1st and 2nd were clearly rounds for Max, but 3rd and 4th were close, with two judges scoring them for Alex, finally 5th was clearly Alex's round. Can't complain too much, but it leaves the division in a weird place. Max has now lost twice, but you are left with a sense that he deserves a third chance. But for what though, another extremely close bout? I don't know but I would still watch that. Either way both guys showed that champion spirit in that fight and I believe Max will some day be the champion again.
Petr Yan and Jose Aldo fought an extremely tense fight where Yan had to overcome some adversity before his young man's durability overcame Aldo. Still at 33 Aldo showed himself to be absolute elite fighter, getting better of Yan in the early going and forcing him to switch stance after piecing the lead leg up with his trademark leg kicks. His problem of fading towards the end has only become more prominent as he has gotten older though, and Yan eventually just started marching him down and exhausted him. Yan has some improvement to do, but the combination of skill, power and durability he already has could have him be champ for a long time if he just keeps it together.
Rose had another tense fight Jessica Andrade, who looked greatly improved. Honestly I thought Andrade would be kinda fading out by now, if not for the damage, the limp way she lost the title made me wonder if she had that championship level fire any more. Well clearly she has, this was probably most she has improved between fights in a long way, and she still had that crazy power in her back pocket. She got clearly outlanded by Rose, but looking at Rose's face in the end you could argue that Jessica did the most damage. Still the judging was correct as Rose clearly won two rounds, but it was closer than you would have initially expected.
Ribas was a massive favorite against PVZ and sadly for PVZ after being so long away, she was just quickly done away with and finished without getting to show much of herself.
Muslim Salikhov stole a decision from Elizeu Zalewski Dos Santos who definitely seemed to get the better of the striking exchanges in two rounds at least and was overall showing the more diverse game. I think this fight established Salikhov's ceiling, he looks great against middling level opponents, but at the top of the division he is gonna have a tough time.
Makwan Amirkhani was one of my less confident picks but that was a great improvement for Mr. Finland, he looked like world class fighter out there with a measured approach and deadly submission instincts. Leonardo Santos on the other hand barely got by Bogatov. The 40-year-old was dominating the matchup but punched himself out, just barely failing to finish the younger fighter. It was only Bogatov's lack of fight IQ that saved him, with Bogatov giving him chances to rest via groin shots and inexplicably just clinching instead of going for the finish with boxing. It was there for the taking.
Max Grishin was one of the more disappointing performers of the night. Sure, he did come on a short notice as well, but he didn't even test Tybura's chin as he got dominated in clinch for three rounds. Tybura would have been great value pick in the end.
Paiva and Zhumagulov fought a close fight but perhaps octagon jitters or something stopped Zhumagulov for really going after it. I felt like with more forward pressure and volume he could have had that fight, especially since it seemed that after 1st round Paiva was somehow compromised and limited to peppering the occasional kick. That was enough to get the decision and Zhumagulov would have left feeling he could have done more to win it. Even when Zhumagulov got the better of the exchanges, getting backed up on the fence was a terrible visual and surely swayed the judges.
Vanessa Melo was more competitive against Karol Rosa than I expected... but still it wasn't even a close fight. Perplexes me how someone with such a rudimentary game can even make it to UFC, would be shocked if she gets another chance in the UFC after not looking even competitive at any point during his UFC stint.
I only saw the KO of the first fight, but Grant apparently looked greatly improved and as for Day, you have to question his durability after getting KOd.
Another thing was not respecting the fundamentals. I strongly believe clinch is the most important position in modern MMA. Yet I did not put my money where my mouth is since I picked Grishin and Masvidal in fights against strong clinchers. Masvidal is also good example of emotion over reason in a pick. I should have been disciplined and taken Kamaru, I wrote in my own preview I believed if they fought 20 rounds, Kamaru would win 15. That's pretty much how it panned out.
Even with those corrections, I would have still ended up losing. I don't regret picking Max, there is a close decision that could have easily flipped the end result 4 bets up.
My best pick was the big bet on Karol Rosa, she was very good value in the early prelims. My worst pick is probably Grishin, I was just completely wrong about that.
I am still up like 25 bets since starting to do these previews, but nights like this is a good reminder to stick to fundamentals a little better. Still there is luck element to it and even if I made every pick that I felt would have been correct even in hindsight, I would have still lost some money on this event. For instance I wouldn't change picking Oezdemir - I assessed that fight correct and he was getting the better of the fight, but with powerful guys there is just always the chance of the other guy landing something as well.
I won't need to dwell on the loss for too long though, there is new event to bounce back on in the midweek. See ya then.
Main Card
The talk that Jorge was on six days notice turned out to be the truth. There were whispers and suspicions that he really had been training and would come prepared, but seeing him gas out like that after one round leaves me inclined to think he definitely wasn't in full training mode ahead of the fight.Mind you, Usman's style is exhausting to fight against, but I would still expect fit Jorge to last at least two rounds. In that one round he had he looked great though, being able to land a lot of damage. Once he got too gassed to properly counter and circle off the fence, it became exactly what you would expect from an Usman fight. As much as it is stylistically ugly, Usman's style is built around his strengths and will be extremely difficult to beat. I don't think Burns can do it, but he is worth trying next. Still, Colby is the biggest hope of dethroning Usman since he is the 2nd best clinch fighter in the division.
In the co-main we saw Max improve greatly from first performance, and also perhaps Alex just did not reach as high level of a performance as in the previous fight. Either way he dug deep and did enough in judges eyes to rally late to win the fight. 1st and 2nd were clearly rounds for Max, but 3rd and 4th were close, with two judges scoring them for Alex, finally 5th was clearly Alex's round. Can't complain too much, but it leaves the division in a weird place. Max has now lost twice, but you are left with a sense that he deserves a third chance. But for what though, another extremely close bout? I don't know but I would still watch that. Either way both guys showed that champion spirit in that fight and I believe Max will some day be the champion again.
Petr Yan and Jose Aldo fought an extremely tense fight where Yan had to overcome some adversity before his young man's durability overcame Aldo. Still at 33 Aldo showed himself to be absolute elite fighter, getting better of Yan in the early going and forcing him to switch stance after piecing the lead leg up with his trademark leg kicks. His problem of fading towards the end has only become more prominent as he has gotten older though, and Yan eventually just started marching him down and exhausted him. Yan has some improvement to do, but the combination of skill, power and durability he already has could have him be champ for a long time if he just keeps it together.
Rose had another tense fight Jessica Andrade, who looked greatly improved. Honestly I thought Andrade would be kinda fading out by now, if not for the damage, the limp way she lost the title made me wonder if she had that championship level fire any more. Well clearly she has, this was probably most she has improved between fights in a long way, and she still had that crazy power in her back pocket. She got clearly outlanded by Rose, but looking at Rose's face in the end you could argue that Jessica did the most damage. Still the judging was correct as Rose clearly won two rounds, but it was closer than you would have initially expected.
Ribas was a massive favorite against PVZ and sadly for PVZ after being so long away, she was just quickly done away with and finished without getting to show much of herself.
Prelims
In the feature prelim, the UFC newcomes Jiri Prochazka showed that he is the real deal with devastating second round KO of Oezdemir that probably sends Oezdemir permanently out of the contention. Knockouts like that change career trajectories. It's too bad cause Oezdemir was fighting a good fight and getting the better of Prochazka in the first round. He was just in the end too willing to brawl with Prochazka instead of keeping it technical and paid for it. Prochazka showed now he can KO high level opponents just the same, now he just needs to work on the rough edges of his game and we will have a legit title contender in our hands.Muslim Salikhov stole a decision from Elizeu Zalewski Dos Santos who definitely seemed to get the better of the striking exchanges in two rounds at least and was overall showing the more diverse game. I think this fight established Salikhov's ceiling, he looks great against middling level opponents, but at the top of the division he is gonna have a tough time.
Makwan Amirkhani was one of my less confident picks but that was a great improvement for Mr. Finland, he looked like world class fighter out there with a measured approach and deadly submission instincts. Leonardo Santos on the other hand barely got by Bogatov. The 40-year-old was dominating the matchup but punched himself out, just barely failing to finish the younger fighter. It was only Bogatov's lack of fight IQ that saved him, with Bogatov giving him chances to rest via groin shots and inexplicably just clinching instead of going for the finish with boxing. It was there for the taking.
Max Grishin was one of the more disappointing performers of the night. Sure, he did come on a short notice as well, but he didn't even test Tybura's chin as he got dominated in clinch for three rounds. Tybura would have been great value pick in the end.
Paiva and Zhumagulov fought a close fight but perhaps octagon jitters or something stopped Zhumagulov for really going after it. I felt like with more forward pressure and volume he could have had that fight, especially since it seemed that after 1st round Paiva was somehow compromised and limited to peppering the occasional kick. That was enough to get the decision and Zhumagulov would have left feeling he could have done more to win it. Even when Zhumagulov got the better of the exchanges, getting backed up on the fence was a terrible visual and surely swayed the judges.
Vanessa Melo was more competitive against Karol Rosa than I expected... but still it wasn't even a close fight. Perplexes me how someone with such a rudimentary game can even make it to UFC, would be shocked if she gets another chance in the UFC after not looking even competitive at any point during his UFC stint.
I only saw the KO of the first fight, but Grant apparently looked greatly improved and as for Day, you have to question his durability after getting KOd.
My picks
On paper, 6 picks right out of 13 does not sound too bad, but this was one of the worst showings I have had in a long time. I took loss of about 5 bets. First of all I had bad discipline about bet sizing. I had no business even having my usual betsizing for picks like Grishin, Zhumagulov and Bogatov, which were at best speculative picks, let alone the higher sizing. I should have been disciplined enough to bet small on those guys. Still that would have only saved maybe one bet worth of losses.Another thing was not respecting the fundamentals. I strongly believe clinch is the most important position in modern MMA. Yet I did not put my money where my mouth is since I picked Grishin and Masvidal in fights against strong clinchers. Masvidal is also good example of emotion over reason in a pick. I should have been disciplined and taken Kamaru, I wrote in my own preview I believed if they fought 20 rounds, Kamaru would win 15. That's pretty much how it panned out.
Even with those corrections, I would have still ended up losing. I don't regret picking Max, there is a close decision that could have easily flipped the end result 4 bets up.
My best pick was the big bet on Karol Rosa, she was very good value in the early prelims. My worst pick is probably Grishin, I was just completely wrong about that.
I am still up like 25 bets since starting to do these previews, but nights like this is a good reminder to stick to fundamentals a little better. Still there is luck element to it and even if I made every pick that I felt would have been correct even in hindsight, I would have still lost some money on this event. For instance I wouldn't change picking Oezdemir - I assessed that fight correct and he was getting the better of the fight, but with powerful guys there is just always the chance of the other guy landing something as well.
I won't need to dwell on the loss for too long though, there is new event to bounce back on in the midweek. See ya then.
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