UFC Fight Night 179 Post-Fight Analysis

Great fight night, perhaps one of the greatest of all-time, very few dull fights, wars and KOs galore. Unfortunately for me my predictions turned out so-so. 

Main Card

The main event was great for everyone else except Marlon Moraes and his backers, though at least even the latter could enjoy Sandhagen's great performance. This was the event when most of us finally awakened to how good Sandhagen really was. It was also Moraes' worst performance in the octagon so far. He wasn't setting his shots up very well, just swinging hard powershots.

Sandhagen got out of the way easily for the most part and hardly got touched up until he found the finishing combination that ended in a knockout with a kick. I thought Sandhagen would win via attrition but truth is he won pretty much every moment of the fight. 

Similar was the story for Edson Barboza, whose only adversity against Amirkhani came in the 3rd as he got top controlled for a little, but even then he did not take much damage. Makwan tried to keep a very calm pace to make sure he does not gas out, but ended up doing very little and pretty much losing every round, though guess one judge thought the takedown was enough to win the third despite him taking most of the damage even in that round. 

Lack of output wasn't a problem for Ben Rothwell, in fact quite the opposite, the big man threw over 100 strikes in the first round, and for someone as big as him, that is probably not something you wanna do. Tybura took everything he dished out and as Rothwell faded in the impossible pace, took over and won the latter rounds to keep his win streak going.

Dricus Du Plessis came out to his UFC debut looking extremely tense, which seemed to spell trouble against the veteran Markus Perez, who was going off early, looking very relaxed as you would expect from a veteran like that. Being a veteran does not help though when you go for an ill-timed spinning backfist and eat a hook from a blind angle. Du Plessis found the right shot and ended the night to cool his nerves, I am sure he will look even better next time around.

Tom Aspinall had easy time against the newcomer Alan Baudot. Cracked him with a good shot, took him down straight into full mount and pounded him into finish, making it now 5 fights in a row that have ended in 95 seconds or less. Sure he has beaten nobodies, but even against relative nobodies that is impressive. 

Prelims

Ilia Topuria was the only unbeaten fighter who remained unbeaten in the whole event, and boy did he do it in style, taking on the talented prospect Youssef Zalal. Topuria's grappling was relentless, threating submission after submission, and Zalal did very well to even survive the onslaught. Zalal had his moments late in the fight as Topuria eventually got completely exhausted from the nonstop grappling and short notice, but made it out to the decision where he deservedly won. 

Before that we witnessed three KOs in a row, as Tom Breese showed you should not doubt UFC vets against complete unknowns by crushing KB Bhullar easily and Daukaus showed he is too fast for these heavyweights by cracking Rodrigo Nascimento multiple times before finishing him. The best of the three KOs was the first though, as Joaquin Buckley taekwondo kicked Impa Kasanganay into shadowrealm in what has been called since as the best KO of all-time. It is up there, that is all I am gonna say.

It was great performance from Buckley who was definitely the pick of the night, dominating as a huge underdog even before the remarkable KO. 

Tony Kelley and Ali AlQaisi slugged it out in a competitive fight that went to a close decision, which Kelley got unanimously after having had AlQaisi hurt couple of times. Although AlQaisi has only lost two in a row and only in tight decisions, it's kinda tough to imagine him getting another chance as he is mostly a defensive fighter.

Giga Chikadze and Omar Morales meeting was supposed to be the pearl of the early event and it was not a bad fight by any means, but Omar Morales did disappoint a little, failing to mix it up much or put Giga in the test. It would have taken more grappling and forward pressure to wear on Giga, as it happened, Giga simply made use of the distance and landed all the big shots in the fight to win comfortably and in fact it was him who had Morales hurt in the end, not vice versa.

Tracy Cortez showed Stephanie Egger that there is levels to this game and that despite crushing cans in the regional circuit, Egger is nowhere close UFC level yet. Cortez comfortably dominated the grappling, and there wasn't much in the way of striking in probably the most sleepy fight of the night.

The night opened up with a great fight between Bruno Silva and Tagir Ulanbekov. Very competitive one, both guys landed some hard damage on each other, with the Russian pulling ahead in the end. Great fight from both, willingness to put their body in the line. 

My picks

I got 7 out of 13 right, which again at first glance doesn't seem too bad, but still resulted in taking 3 bets up the ass. I only snapped up one of the many underdogs that won today, so all-in all I am left bit disappointed cause some of the value in hindsight seems very obvious, like Buckley. I have had moments where I think odds have made me change picks without thinking the other guy can really win, well now I definitely should have changed some picks because of the wide odds. Just getting one more pick right and that being Buckley would have already turned a sizeable loss into small win.

Either way, there is plenty of candidates for the worst pick of the night. It could be Moraes, as he looked really bad and it looks easy to say in hindsight that Sandhagen was terrible matchup for him. I give myself a pass for picking Ben, he looked decent in the first round if he only calmed his pace a little - it was always gonna be a close fight if Tybura's chin does not crack. 

I guess KB Bhullar was the worst pick. Like I said there is time and place for picking someone based on odds being too wide, but that is the case when it's a case of guy that you literally know nothing about going against long-time UFC veteran. Also I just completely assessed the fight wrong, calling Bhullar the bigger man. I have to explain that cause as soon as you saw the guys side to side, it looked completely retarded thing to say - I was simply going by 1) the fact Breese used to be a welterweight 2) Whatever I read Bhullar's height to be.

Either way it turned out to be really dumb pick, Breese would have been easy value even as big favorite. Obviously I am also gutted on missing out on the Buckley value, but I don't think Impa is a bad fighter or terrible pick all things considered. 

Gotta give myself some props too in the end after all self-criticizing. I think Barboza pick was decent, the fight went almost like I called it though Makwan actually took less damage than I expected just hanging at range with Edson. I expected him to get hurt much worse than that. Still, the best pick had to have been my only underdog pick Ilia Topuria. Good instinct to see he is a problem despite being a newcomer, and always great to get someone with big better odds.

All-in all I am wondering what has started to go wrong with my picks ever since the fights returned. I was absolutely crushing the picks in March making big profits still before the fights went on a break, and since they resumed I have just been off and losing all the profits that I had gained before that. I am still overall a little bit on the winning side, but if keep taking losses like this it's going to end.

Variance is part of this game obviously, but I don't think you can attribute such a strong contrast just to luck. I have simply changed something in the way I make my picks. Something to mull over during the week before I write my next weekend's previews.