UFC Fight Night 180 Post-Fight Analysis

Middle of the road event for me, decent in terms of entertainment value. Let's go through the fights and talk about the picks as usual.

Main Card

The main event was a very clean performance from Brian Ortega, who returned to action greatly improved after a long layoff. Korean Zombie hardly got anything going throughout the five rounds and got even hurt couple of times during the fight, including running into another spinning elbow. Still both guys made it to decision with wide scorecards for Ortega, who will surely get a title shot against Volkanovski for this. 

In the co-main Andrade showed without a doubt she is one of the most powerful women in any weight division, closing the distance and pretty much ragdolling Chookagian before finishing her with bodyshots. Andrade is probably gonna challenge Valentina next, see her having a tough time in that fight, but who else is there anyway?

Modestas Bukauskas faced a big step-up in competition against Jim Crute in his second UFC outing. Sure enough it ended bad with Crute absolutely starching him with some powerful punches. Crute should be fighting only ranked guys going forward, he is that good. 

Claudio Silva and James Krause had a pretty sloppy, horrible mess of a fight, with Silva throwing powershots and gassing like he is drunk, and Krause skating on the outside until his knee blew out. So yea, Krause was just less bad to win the decision, not much to talk about there. 

Main card opened up with a good scrap between Jonathan Martinez and Thomas Almeida. Almeida's chin got checked a few times, but it held up, however it did not help as Martinez keeps improving and had the fight under control all through the 3 rounds. 

Prelims

In the featured prelim the two highly-touted newcomers, Mateusz Gamrot and Guram Kutateladze put on a quality scrap that featured very skilled fighting in all ranges. Fight ended up going to a close decision, which Kutateladze got and even didn't feel like he deserved it, but don't think anyone can call it a bad decision. Either way, Gamrot's 0 is now gone, but both guys will be moving up the rankings fast in the UFC based on this showing.

Gillian Robertson grappled Poliana Botelho relentlessly and never gave the striker a chance to impose her own fight, getting a comfortable decision in the process. John Phillips continued being a GnP bag for various middleweights, this time helping Jun Yong Park to set a new ground strikes landed record in the UFC over the course of the 3 round domination. It's just embarrassing at this point, Phillips isn't even close to good enough to be on the UFC.

Fares Ziam and Jamie Mullarkey put on a close scrap that could have really gone either way in the decision. In the end Ziam gets the nod and will feel happy to have avoided repeat of the Madge fight, where he got controlled in the clinch for the whole fight. Mind you, he did still get controlled too much and seemed to fade with Mullarkey's pressure, but it still was improvement nonetheless and the young fighter has some potential. 

Maxim Grishin had another pretty underwhelming fight, this time against Antigulov. Antigulov was fading after his grappling attack wasn't working as well as he would have wished, but he still will feel a little gutted at the weird stoppage at the end of 2 round. Sure, he was eating unanswered shots, but he was also blocking some of them, and there was only couple more seconds on the clock. Either way it was unlikely to change the result. Think I am probably fading Grishin next time around, he is just too low volume to win reliably.

In the opening fight of the evening, Mark Striegl got a rude welcome to the UFC level by Said Nurmagomedov, who knocked him out cold in 51 seconds. Good on Striegl to believe in his dreams and come to Vegas to get this chance, but he probably won't be able to compete on this level and it's the kind of KO that might blast your chin for good.

My picks

I got 6 out of 11 right, not that great, but thanks to underdog Ortega cashing on the main event, I managed to squeeze one bet worth of winnings out of it. Ortega obviously is my best pick as well, big bet on reasonably big odds. Nurmagomedov and Park didn't have great odds, but they were decent bets too as it was practically free money.

As for worst pick, it was clearly Silva, who never looked like he was winning that, looking all of his 38 years of age... no, much worse than that, like a drunk man fighting in a bar in his 40s. Terrible showing, even if you can fairly argue that he did land some of those powershots and fucked Krause's knee up. Still he didn't look like he even belongs to the UFC let alone that he has been undefeated for over a decade. 

Despite taking a small win and being overall on profit in my MMA betting career since I started this blog, I am back against the wall in the next weekend's big card cause I have stupidly over-extended myself in seasonal soccer bets (which is to say, I have lot of my bankroll tied up to those until next May).

So basically hoping that variance is kind enough to me that I don't lose many bets in a row. Probably gonna be dropping the betsizing as well just to stay in the game. Will see how the prelims on the next card looks.

Maybe I will just go all-in on Gaethje like Chansen10 talks about doing on Twitter. Anyway will see what happens, point is, if I ever really needed a good run, it's now.