UFC on ESPN 18 Post-Fight Analysis

As rough as the event was in terms of names, it delivered a lot of finishes so all in all it was not bad at all. 

Main Card

Main event was over pretty much as fast as it started. Smith and Clark did not really exchange much, as Smith closed the distance and in the clinch, Smith took Clark down. Smith had a little while of top control before getting reversed, but locked up triangle from the bottom promptly after to get the tap. Smith showed that he is still a level above guys like Clark who really belong to the prelims.

Co-Main was more tactical affair, where Baeza was running away with points by throwing volume while Sato tried to find the perfect shot. In the end Baeza took it down and got the submission to finish the fight. 

Big boys Porter and Parisian but together a hard scrap that was one of the better fights of the night. They went after it from round one, both high volume and hard shots landing nonstop. Naturally neither had much gastank after first, but Porter had enough to keep throwing and keep it technical. Fight went to a pretty wide decision and Porter got the win after giving Parisian's head a good pounding. If anything, Parisian has a monster chin for standing up after the onslaught.

Spike Carlyle showed that his cardio issues need to be taken seriously. As usual he showed some impressive strength, but gassed out even faster than before and Algeo cruised to victory with volume. 

Norma Dumont looked tremendous against Ashlee Evans-Smith - or was it more Evans-Smith looking awful? Either way, Dumont cruised to pretty comfortable victory, having speed advantage despite also comfortably outmuscling Evans-Smith. Hard to make lot of conclusions from that fight on whether Dumont is good enough to stick around, but it's promising for someone with so little pro experience. 

Kamaka vs. Pearce fight confused me. After looking so great in his debut, Kamaka somehow found himself a step behind all the way against Pearce, ultimately getting dominated to a finish when he wilted under the offense. Pearce still has something of a suspect defense, but showed that he can at least put together enough damage to make people give up. File that under "don't make sweeping conclusions over fighter's debut".

Prelims

I don't know what people were thinking making Day such a big favorite against experienced veteran like Dos Santos, especially  since he is a good grappler. It wasn't only grappling Dos Santos did well in, he also cracked Day's chin a few times and frankly I was surprised Day didn't get KOd. In the end Day went for an ill-advised takedown on the BJJ expert and got punished for it with a submission. 

Gina Mazany looked absolutely huge against Rachael Ostovich and pretty much handled her all through the fight. She did eat a lot of shots in the process and seemed to get gassed as well, so questionmarks around her continue, but win is a win and if anything, she showed strong mind to not let gassing stop her from keeping engaging until the final minute, when she finished Ostovich with bodykicks. 

Mudaerji used his sniper-like left hand to devastating effect against Malcolm Gordon, getting the KO in 44 seconds. Gordon's UFC run doesn't look like it will be long, two fights and two finishes. 

Luke Sanders looked like a man on fire going after Nate Maness in their fight. It looked like he was gonna be the one to get the KO as they kept exchanging, but Maness showed some impressive durability to take it all and in the end catching Sanders coming in to get the KO himself. 

My picks

I got exactly half of the picks right, and ended up almost exactly breaking even. Rarely things go that neatly. Worst pick is tied between Kamaka and Sato, who both showed up doing well-below expectations but also their opponents looking better than earlier. Best pick is also a tie between Dos Santos (I wish I fired more on that bet) and Parker Porter, but Smith was a pretty good pick as well. 

All in all I said before the event I would be happy if I broke even, but I am left ruing the fact I did not even follow my own guidelines, like usually betting the cardio guys against power guys - picking Algeo vs. Carlyle was a pretty clear pick in hindsight and would have turned breakeven event into clearly winning one. I dunno, guess it's hard to put your partiality aside for just wanting a crazy guy like Carlyle to pick up steam. 

It was a good reset after the disaster of last week. Next week's card is pretty rough as well, which makes me wonder why don't they just set events only every other week to give us degenerates some time to recover and to make the cards they put out more stacked, rather than scraping together match-ups to fill half-good events. As much as I love fighting, some breaks here and there would be welcome and would make the fight night more something to anticipate. Anyway that's all for my rants, see you next weekend.