Jakro's MMA Musings

 We had a good event yesterday, snapped up my losing streak and we got some decent fights. Let's get into it as usual. Main Card I think it would be fair to say that neither of the main events really lived up to the expectation, but to be fair they weren't bad fights. Rakic obviously hurt something in his feet with all those leg kicks being exchanged cause he chose to just top control his way into victory against Anthony Smith. Lot of people weren't impressed, but I don't mind, he fought smart and won a shutout.  Lawler fought strangely against Magny and you start to wonder if he is just doing it for the paycheck at this point. Lawler's style of fight is to pressure and box you up, but he was sometimes initiating the clinch which was perplexing considering the expectation was that Magny will dominate there. As was the case, Magny won most of the clinching transitions and put the volume on Lawler, in the end Lawler hardly looked competitive anywhere. Looks like that...

 I'm on the worst run of my MMA prediction career, but what would I be if I quit when going gets tough? It's more interesting card this weekend on paper than last week anyway. Main Event: Anthony Smith vs. Aleksandar Rakic My first instinct is that Rakic is clearly the better fighter of the two, but he did fight to a close decision against Oezdemir whom Smith finished, so this one needs obviously a little deeper analysis than that. Smith's last fight was hard to watch and you gotta wonder if that did some lasting damage. Either way, it's not like he got purely outskilled, more like set himself into a pace that he could not keep up, whereas Glover remained calm, composed and measured himself to take over after Smith gassed.  As for Rakic, you could very validly argue he beat Oezdemir last time around. Either way it was very close fight and to me it is evident that his combination of range, speed and power will be a problem for anyone in light heavyweight division. I thin...

 My losing streak continues and it is getting to the point of crisis. I am gonna talk more about the downswing in my betting journey as usual in the final segment, first let's talk about the fights. Main Card So I guess Frankie Edgar is a top challenger in bantamweight, or definitely at least in the mix? I don't see him being able to get the title, but he obviously showed he can still hang and perhaps even beat the top contenders of the division. Though as far as decisions go, I don't agree with that one. To me, Munhoz dominated the fight with pressure for almost all the rounds, although I suppose almost everyone agrees second round was Frankie's round. Rest of the way? Yeah, Frankie arguably had the volume in at least three rounds, but fights are about more than just volume. In every round it was Munhoz landing the cleaner shots and even if you say Frankie's volume offset that, then the striking was pretty much even - so Munhoz' forward pressure should have won...

Main Event: Pedro Munhoz vs. Frankie Edgar  Pedro Munhoz probably by all means did not lose that fight against Aljo last time around. It was extremely high-level contest, razor thin decision, massive volume, technical striking, relentless pressure... what I am getting at is Munhoz is elite of the division at the top of his game. Aljo got the nod in scorecards, but it's not like Munhoz did not hurt him at times in that fight. Edgar on the other hand has had a long and storied career of never getting finished, except that he has gotten KOd twice in his last 4 four fights. Particularly the manner Korean Zombie KOd him worries me. I know KZ is a powerful puncher, but pretty much anything he landed solidly had Frankie hurt. Basically it seems like Edgar's good chin is completely gone. Munhoz is not the most powerful guy in the division but he still is powerful and has very good boxing. So Munhoz will land, and he will land often, and there is no confidence in me that at 38 Frankie c...

 UFC 252 was supposed to buck the trend where I lose in the big events, but instead I took a brutal beating where 5.5 bets down seems like a small loss in hindsight. That is why I am gonna look at the fights more from the standpoint of where I went wrong and what could be learned. Main Card Running theme on the event was that whatever had been my first instinct in any given fight would have been correct, but I ended up over-analyzing my way to a wrong pick. Main event was one such case. Like I said in my preview, months ago I already said Stipe should be favorite. Still, it was a close fight, and the odds were close just like they supposed to be, but my initial analysis about Stipe to an extent figuring out DC and having more durability was right.  Stipe was able to take shots and give one back to DC that he in turn could not fully take. DC was lucky in the end to make it to a decision, although it had been competitive fight there had been some bad, bad moments in there for hi...

I have traditionally done poorly in bigger events, guess cause lower level MMA is easier to predict, but let's see how this goes. Main Event: Stipe Miocic vs. Daniel Cormier I wrote my initial prediction when the odds for the fight initially were released, saying that Stipe should be favorite and that's who I would be picking if the odds stay the same. However, rewatching both of the fights have made me sort of change my mind. Of course, the facts that the initial prediction was based on are still true - Stipe is the fighter still in his prime, whereas everything about Daniel's demeanor seems to acknowledge that he is past his prime. Stipe also managed to figure out DC during the most recent fight. Still, that does not change the fact that ultimately Daniel was pretty dominant up until getting finished. He was clearly faster, much sharper boxer and his pace seemed to be suffocating Stipe. Perhaps that pace was a tad bit too much though considering Daniel was visibly slowing...

 The event this time around was full of tight, good fights and some great highlight finishes. Can't really complain at that department, even though in terms of picks I did only so-so again. Main Card It was always gonna go one of two ways in the main event, either Alexey Oleynik slices through Lewis like hot knife through butter on the ground, or Oleynik gets KO'd. Well it kinda went both ways, as Oleynik was dominant in the first round, getting lot of top control and having Lewis in tight submission spots.  The second round started standing again and Lewis quickly got the KO most people were expecting in spectacular fashion.  In the co-main, Chris Weidman scraped by Omari Akhmedov after a tense, back-and-forth fight. They both had won a round a piece going into third and looked quite worn out, but Weidman worked hard for the takedown, got it and then held top control for the round to get the decision. Weidman does not look like he has any business at the top of the divis...

 So it's Saturday and I am only starting to write these previews... Gonna be an all-day project so let's get to it. Main Event: Derrick Lewis vs. Alexey Oleinik I know it's the main event and all and I know my usual method is to watch one fight each fighter... but knowing I still have another 11 fights to preview after this, and knowing the fights I should watch are Lewis v Latifi and Oleinik v Werdum... I'm gonna pass. Some of the worst fights of recent times and I would say sufficiently recent for me to have good mental image of them. Anyway it's the kind of fight where whoever wins, absolutely crushes the other person. Either Lewis vaporizes Oleinik with a hard shot, or Oleinik dominates Lewis via grappling. Considering even Latifi held down Lewis easily, I think Oleinik will have this as long as he gets hold of Lewis. Big if cause one shot can end with Lewis and Oleinik up in age is at best chinny.  Not one that you can pick with any certainty, but you gotta pla...

So we had only 8 fights all event after some cancellations, and then of the remaining fights one ended in a draw and rest were littered with groin shots. Honestly it wasn't a good event and my pick results did not make it any better, but at least I had a lesson that I was supposed to have already learned reingrained. Main Card I wrestled with the result of the main event internally for a long time before eventually accepting that I had simply been wrong. I had overemphasized an aspect that actually happens kind of rarely (KO) while disregarding another important factor of the matchup, which was that it was once again significant step-up in competition for Edmen. I simply got so caught up in the fact that Brunson gets always rocked and that Edmen had scored a few KOs that I did not see anything else any more. Dunno if more careful analysis would have had me change my pick anyway, but certainly some people called it right and considering the odds, Brunson obviously would have been gr...