UFC 253 Post-Fight Analysis

Great event of fights, and happy about the results overall, skill prevails over power, good guy Jan is the champ... but as far as my own predictions go, it went terrible. Let's try to figure out what went wrong by going through the fights.

Main Card

Right from the start it was obvious that the skill discrepancy between Adesanya and Costa was far, far bigger than I had thought. You started to wait for Costa to put pedal to the metal and try to really swarm Adesanya, but it never happened. Costa somehow just didn't even show up as his usual self. He did not get KOd rushing recklessly in, he got KOd from damage accumulating at him standing in distance with Israel. Israel took away his base with leg kicks and then started to put together his punching combinations.

Costa could hardly touch him and in the end got finished in under two rounds. A guy that had seemed so durable was completely blown apart so fast. I do think the mental disheartening of having not been able to land pretty much anything all fight also played a part in it, but in the end it was a solid shot that put him on his ass. 

I'm glad Israel won but it still surprised me that Costa abandoned the way of fighting that got him there. We saw a calculated Costa who did not rush in, which unfortunately just meant that he is gonna end up in a technical kickboxing battle with a great kickboxer. Not the smartest gameplan, if I was win I would have been putting in nonstop pressure, eating those shots and then clinching for my life. Or at least commit to the leg kicks if you are gonna hang out in the range.

Oh well. Costa losing was something that anyone could see before the fight, perhaps even in such dominant fashion. I don't know why I slowly started to doubt myself over picking Israel. I don't think the odds were that low that I should have swayed.

As for the co-main, Dominick Reyes looked like the more powerful, more technical guy ahead of the fight, but didn't look anything like it during the fight. I guess just looking at KO/Fights ratio is not a good way to gauge power of these guys. Reyes kinda seemed to freeze in the occasion too though like Costa in the main event. It kinda doesn't make sense since Reyes was so composed against Jones, but perhaps he was composed cause no one really expected him to win so there was no real pressure. 

Against Jan, it certainly felt like his big chance to capture the belt. He never really got going and Jan landing his power early put him on backfoot. In the end Blachowicz put him away and looked like much the more powerful guy. I guess Thiago Santos rematch next? Don't expect seeing Jones fighting for LHW belt in a while.

There were questionmarks about Royval's real skill level ahead of this fight, so Kara-France was gonna be a good test for him. Well he completely overwhelmed Kara-France with his wild volume and grappling. He got clipped a few times with his reckless attack, but did not care about getting hurt and ultimately submitted Kara-France. I called that fight just completely wrong, it was Royval's forward pressure that gassed Kara-France and not vice versa. Guess I could have seen that considering Royval is the grappler looking to close distance and not the other way.

Ketlen Vieira and Sijara Eubanks had a very close fight, where Ketlen scoring a takedown last second of a razor thin round 1 probably won it for him. Sijara was coming on strong in the third, but could not find a finish. 

Hakeem Dawodu and Zubaira Tukhugov had a very close fight, which Dawodu just edged by landing the more impactful shots and especially in the third round just on engagement alone. Strangely after very close two rounds Tukhugov started literally running away in the third, giving up the round. 

Prelims

Alex da Silva put Brad Riddell on the toughest test of his UFC career by dominating the first round via grappling, but Riddell responded to the challenge by putting on his best performance so far in the latter two rounds. As da Silva faded, Riddell started putting the striking together and would have gotten the finish if he only had more time to work.

Diego Sanchez predictably lost to Jake Matthews, who played it safe and thus probably made Diego look better than he is as well. Still, Diego took some heavy shots and did not get KOd and also showed some of his forward pressure too, so he looked much better than expected. That's not saying much though...

Ludovit Klein put on one of the more impressive debuts of recent memory by quickly dispatching Shane Young with a headkick and a punch combination to follow it up. Klein only needed bit over a minute to give first KO loss to Shane Young and to keep his KO streak alive. This guy looks like he is gonna make a run in the UFC. Potential future star.

William Knight saw first decision of his career against Aleksa Camur, but the way he won was still the same - purely with his incredible strength. Skillwise he is somewhat limited, but with physical properties like this he can go reasonably long way.

Jeff Hughes couldn't stop the grappling of Juan Espino and got submitted pretty fast in the first round.

Then we get to the stinker that opened up the event. Awful way to start an event, one of the worst fights I have seen and I definitely think both guys should get cut. Khadis somehow managed to look worse in each one of his UFC fights, even though there was so much room to improve already starting in his debut. No way he gets another pop after losing to a poor regional fighter and going 0-4 in UFC.

He went from throwing 30 shots in a row and gassing (dumb, but fun) to doing nothing and still gassing. What the fuck man? As for the other guy, he was not any good either, he was just less bad and managed to impose some grappling on Khadis. 

My picks

I always say it that it's not the money lost that bothers me, but being wrong, and I was wrong a lot on this event. Lot of my picks didn't lose close fights, they got absolutely squashed or looked awful. 

Now to be clear, I never thought Costa was likely winner. But I did give him a very good punchers chance to win in similar fashion as he did against Hall, even though Adesanya is the much better striker. In the end Costa got exposed just as what he was, skillwise far inferior fighter. Still, at least I was right in terms of Adesanya being better fighter, I just way over-estimated how big of a chance Costa has. In hindsight he had very close to none. 

Still the worst pick selection goes instead to Khadis Ibragimov, who instead of improving steadily throughout his UFC stint, actually managed to look worse and worse every fight. He looked absolutely awful against another guy who doesn't belong in the UFC and made all his backers look like complete retards.

As for best pick, I think Dawodu was really the only real spot of joy for me. Yea he won a close fight but that's as good as it got for me in this event, cause my other right picks were on the smaller size. At least some of the wrong picks weren't that bad, had Sijara for instance won - and she well could have, it was a competitive fight, I would be looking at a small loss instead of a big one.

So after getting 4 out of 11 right I look at annihilation of about 8 bets down. I won something like 6 bets last 3 events, so in last 4 I am now two bets down. Runs like this shake one's confidence - it's back to the drawing board to try to figure out this whole fighting thing better. 

To be fair I don't think I am that far off from turning losing events into winning, I just emphasize wrong things. Like seems I still over-value strength and am not very good at gauging technical competence beyond the basic fundamentals.