UFC Fight Night 175 Post-Fight Analysis

 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's it for Lawler being in the UFC.

Ji Yeon Kim did not even look remotely on the same level as Alexa Grasso and never attempted to make it a clinch fight where she would have had a better chance, so Grasso just boxed her up good. Good debut for Grasso after moving up, but she still probably will have problems against the bigger wrestlers in the division if she already got top controlled at 115. 

Ricardo Lamas showed both that he still has the skill to be a top level fighter but also that he indeed has a chin that is going. Algeo had him hurt, but he dug deep to dominate the 3rd round to get the deserved win. As for Maki Pitolo, it looks like his best attribute is his nickname and everything else is kinda falling short, as inexperienced newcomer Impa Kasanganay came in and took in the end quite clear win. Sure, it was back and forth fight, but in the end Impa ran away with it. Impa looks like very high potential fighter, solid fundamentals already so soon into his career, whereas Pitolo has to think hard about where he needs to put in more work. Obviously at this level just having them coconut bombz is not enough. 

Prelims

Zak Cummings and Alessio Di Chirico had a forgettable, but closely contested fight. Kind of what you would expect from low-level middleweights. I was predicting Alex Caceres would need Springer to fade before taking over the fight, but he ended up hurting the wrestler already in the first round with some well-timed shots and then submitting the hurt Springer. 

I called Sean Brady a decision machine, so he really put the pressure on Aguilera and beat him by submission. Brady has not exactly looked spectacular so far, but it is obvious that he is very tough guy to beat so it is no wonder he is still undefeated.

Polyana Viana dominated Emily Whitmire via grappling and got a quick sub, just like I expected. Hannah Cifers on the other hand is probably out of the UFC after what was probably the best fight of the event. Cifers, whose punches have always been her sole strength, really put a hurting on on Mallory Martin, having her so nearly out, but landing the repeated barrages of shots took their toll on Cifers and by the second round, she did not have much energy left to stop the takedown and the submission that followed.

Tough break for a girl that desperately needed a win, but realistically Cifers is not good enough at this level and needs some significant amount of time to train to improve her skills to get another crack at the UFC. 

My picks

I got in a solid night with 7 out of 10 picks right. Thanks to reduced betsizes and mostly favorites winning, I only came back two bets up, which is bit underwhelming after the heavy losses sustained lately, but hey, win is a win and I gotta be happy about it. The great thing was that 2 out of 3 wrong picks were smaller bets, and all my bigger bets were right, so I was picking my shallow and deep shots well. 

My best pick was Polyana Viana cashing in as a slight underdog for one of my bigger bets. Worst bet was Kim who never looked like even a remote threat. In hindsight is easy to say that even as a favorite, Grasso was value. 

Next weekend there is again a card with some weaker name value, but traditionally I do better in those cards, so will see how it goes. See ya.

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