UFC 252 Post-Fight Analysis

 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 him. Still, he has not reason to be ashamed to go out with that performance. Stipe has a 2nd meet now set with Ngannou and the question is, how long can his chin hold up?

In the co-main my terrible night was saved with the biggest single bet win I ever had. You could say I got lucky to have freak injury help me to get up 10 bets with single wager, but let's be honest here, the damage Vera inflicted might have had something to do with the injury happening, and it's not like O'Malley was having it's all on its own way in the fight up until that point. Sure, he was winning the round, but it had been close and O'Malley had been struggling to figure out how to land consistently on Vera.

Both Main and Co-Main event showed that durability is a big part of this game. Also Vera's experience and well-rounded skillset was very overlooked prior to the fight. Still we probably got robbed out of a great fight with that injury. I would have really liked to have seen if O'Malley could keep simply outstriking Vera or if Vera could wear him out and impose some other style of fight on him. Either way you have to start wondering if O'Malley is just too frail to become a superstar in this sport, two leg injuries already at this point of his career during fights.

There was not a lot of fights I predicted right this time around, but Jairzinho v JDS was one of them. JDS looked good though to be fair, and was better at taking a shot than in his last couple of fights, but in the end Bigi Boy just pulverized him with a clean combination. Jairzinho will figure out to be a contender in this division for a good while to come as he rounds out his skillset.

Daniel Pineda showed experience makes all the difference in this game and would have been a great value bet against overhyped Herbert Burns. It's easy to see that hindsight, but there was actually no reason not to see that even beforehand. Burns did not have any great wins in UFC and Pineda taught him a lesson.

John Dodson seemed like he had all the tools to beat Merab Dvalishvili... but he just was hesitant to pull the trigger. He did manage to make Merab not wrestle as much as he would have liked to, but as Dodson was landing little, just the forward pressure alone was enough to make for a very wide decision.  So that fight went pretty much as expected, I just ended up picking the wrong guy. Wrestling is king in this sport.

Prelims

Vinc Pichel and Jim Miller had a very close fight and Pichel just managed to squeeze a little bit more strength and stamina out of himself to win this fight. Can't blame myself too much for picking wrong here, it was always gonna be a close fight. 

Herrig was someone I was completely wrong about - or perhaps I just did not rate Jandiroba as good as she really is. Dominant grappling performance made for a quick sub. 

Chavez v Brown was bit of an unknown quantity of a fight, Chavez did not seem like much of a fighter on paper but showed up to put on great performance. Definitely a guy that can take on even high level opponents. 

Souza v Yoder was the only clear bullshit decision of the night. I definitely called that fight right, Yoder using his physical advantages well to dominate latter two rounds, but somehow all judges had it for Souza, one even 30-27. That's some incompetence there, I mean fair enough, 2nd was close enough that I can see it going to Souza if you're on enough shrooms, but all rounds is ridiculous.

Daukaus v Porter was always gonna be a hard fight to call, my first instinct actually had been Daukaus, but Porter's higher level past opposition convinced me to pick him. Reminder that people are as good as they are regardless of who they beat, you can only beat whatever is put in front of you.

Kai Kamaka and Tony Kelley put on a very competitive fight, but Kamaka edged a decision. It's so hard to counter that constant forward pressuring style, really should have been able to call this one right, but Kelley's odds tempted me and to be fair, it was not that bad of a wager with those odds.

My picks

So yes, UFC 252 was my worst ever event by some distance. If I recall correctly, I have never before gotten less than 5 picks right. Tonight I only got 2 right out of 11 fights. At my worst, I was 0 out of 8 looking into the abyss of losing more than 10 bets in one night. So yes, in comparison recovering to loss of "only" 5.5 bets is miraculous. Obviously Vera turned out to be the only good bet of the night. I still should have gotten one more right in Yoder, but I can't complain too much since I have gotten bad decision in my favor before too. You win some you lose some.

Worst pick? Where do I begin? When event goes this bad you don't get to just blame luck, you had to have made multiple mistakes to get this deep. Burns was definitely terrible pick, bad odds and in hindsight it's easy to see its a close fight on paper. Also Herrig turned out to be pretty bad, but at the same time wide odds make it not so terrrible. Dodson probably was a bad pick too even though I was looking for odds, they weren't wide enough probably. Though Joe Rogan too said the odds were crazy, so at least I am not alone in my feel that there was value there.

Outside those though lot of it was just close fights, close picks going wrong. So yes some of it is bad picks, but some too bad luck and bit of a downswing going. We continue with 11 fight event next weekend, there should be only room to improve from this weekend's performance.