UFC 259 Post-Fight Analysis

UFC 259 was wild in many ways and there has been lot of talk since the event. For me it was an excellent event, though still not free of mistakes. 

Main Card

Main Event went pretty much as predicted, as a very calculated, tactical kickboxing match. The numbers were very close for first three rounds, but obviously as the much bigger man Blachowicz shots had much more impact. In the end Jan sealed the championship rounds with takedowns and absolutely glued Izzy on the mat, showing why weight classes exist in this sport - Jan just was too heavy for Adesanya to do anything.

To me it seemed that the much more than the fight itself, the biased commentary of Rogan and DC generated comments. I'm gonna go on a little tangent here, cause when the hell am I ever going to get to talk about this... Is it Rogan who is washed out, or did we all grow out of liking him? I really liked Rogan when I was new in the sport, so it made me wonder is the fact that he is no longer my favorite commentator to listen because he is simply not as good as he was, or because I started to actually understand the sport myself and find some of the stuff he says silly?

Maybe it's a bit of both, obviously Rogan does limited if any research on the fights, and there clearly is a bias - but the bias was always there, even back in the day in Khabib v TIbau fight there was such a clear bias that to this day a generation of affected fans thinks it was something else than 30-27 for Khabib.

But I digress, let's get back to talking about weekend's fights, cause there is plenty to talk. Amanda Nunes had widest odds in a while for a title fight, but she actually ended up looking value for the money anyway, quickly knocking Megan down and then strangling her with a triangle. Completely uncompetitive, as I said in Twitter, hope you had your mortgage on her. 

The most talked about fight was the Petr Yan v Aljamain Sterling fight. Honestly it was a good fight, but less competitive than people expected. Sterling was just somehow anxious, kept throwing crazy volume and trying to spam takedowns like he was scared to stand in front of Yan. Okay I would be scared to stand in front of him as well, but Aljo had the tools to make it a hard fight for Petr, but instead he just kinda spazzed out and by fourth round was very gassed.

Of course, that's not what anyone talks about now. All anyone talks abut is that illegal knee. First of all, any of you idiots saying Aljo was acting or should have continued need to be kneed to the head like that couple of times. That was a very heavy knee and had it been legal, would have probably been a KO shot anyway. The fight should have been stopped immediately, the ref kind of threw Aljo under the bus by kinda making it seem like he had a choice to keep going. 

So Aljo became the derided champ despite getting dominated, but it's not his fault his opponent broke the rules. DQ was the only option there. As for Yan, it was pretty inexcusable mistake for a champ, but I can kinda understand, fighting is very instinctive and those knees to a guy when he is about to stand-up are always timed. All in all it just makes me wish they had ONE FC ruleset where that knee is legal and Yan would be the champ now, this rule fuckery always annoys me. 

As much as it isn't Aljo's fault his opponent got DQ'd and as a result he is the champ, he could have at least saved a little face by vacating the belt immediately instead of posing on the social media with the belt. Still, it is what it is, I know why he is holding onto it, it's a big leverage and means more money in the future. Fighters know that being an UFC champ is a rare opportunity, very few would be willing to just give it away.

Alright with that out of the way, the final two fights of the main card. They weren't that exciting to be honest. It actually felt the card was kinda running out of the steam after good prelims. Islam predictably dominated Dober via wrestling, and before that Rakic stayed pretty safe against obviously aged Santos.

So my main card wasn't so great actually, I got the main event wrong and my shot on Santos didn't work out. It was amazing prelims that really got me a winning night and since this has been a constant pattern, I actually think I should do a statistical breakdown of how much am I winning in prelims vs. how much I am losing in main cards - this is not an isolated incident. 

Prelims

There was no reason to doubt Dom Cruz wouldn't be the same guy. He looked good against Cejudo before getting caught, and Cejudo is a fast guy who was deservedly the champ. Kenney is a solid fighter but not really championship caliber at least yet, and his game was always gonna be too basic to beat Cruz. So Cruz outpointed him to a pretty comfortable decision, though he did get marked up a little bit.

I went against the grain with my pick of Kyler Phillips against Song Yadong, and that perhaps was my best pick of the night. Honestly this time picking best one will be hard, but Phillips looked to have Song covered in range and moved well to stay on the outside through the fight. It's hard to employ that boxing style at a reach disadvantage against a guy who moves well. Close fight, but Kyler the deserved winner.

Joe Benavidez probably needs to retire, unless they want to throw him against some newly-signed regional. As much as I thought Askar Askarov was gonna beat him, Askar still regardless was stylistically the most winnable top level match-up for him. Askar didn't just edge him out closely but dominated him by quite wide margin. Also I really don't like how Joe reacts to getting hit these days, Askar doesn't hit that hard, it's just the air of a guy who no longer has much chin left.

I kinda talked in my preview how Bontorin is tough grappler and all and basically all the reasons why he should win but then still picked Kara-France anyway. Well, that's kinda how the fight turned out too, with Bontorin dominating the first four minutes, Kara-France looking completely lost on the ground with him, before ultimately he managed to get up and Bontorin was just done - his own grappling had gassed him out. Kara-France took advantage of the situation for late 1st round KO.

The fight between Jordan Espinosa and Tim Elliott was another that seemed close on paper, but in practice my prediction that Espinosa probably can't defend the takedowns well enough turned out to be true. Elliott top-controlled his way to a comfortable decision.

Kennedy Nzechukwu and Carlos Ulberg put in a fight of the night performance, not for skill displayed but simply through heart and grit. I picked Kennedy and wrote that I think he gets an ugly decision here, well he didn't get a decision but it was hella ugly. Kennedy's strategy basically was to shell up against the fence and be a human punching bag while Ulberg carefully picked his shots and barraged him.

Now Ulberg seemed to be pretty patient going for the finish, but the constant volume still had him pretty badly gassed and as a result, his defence was first thing to go. He would just stand in front of Kennedy exchanging with his chin in the air. Eventually Kennedy found that chin and KO'd him. Rough debut, but what do you expect from a 3-0 guy?

Sean Brady matched with Jake Matthews well on paper, but in practice it was more one-sided fight. Well, on the feet Matthews could hang just fine, but when Brady got him down he basically did what he wanted to him. Eventually it was just too much for Matthews and he got finished late in the 3rd.

Livinha Souza had no business being in there wirh Amanda Lemos, just complete domination. Disappointed Souza didn't even throw anything or pursue takedowns before getting mercifully stopped, even if I bet big on Lemos. Having seen Lemos getting tested at least a little bit would have given us more information. Either way Lemos needs a tougher match-up now.

Feel bad for Aalon Cruz. You climb up the ranks and make it to the UFC, only to find out you can't take a shot from the top guys. Got finished fast both times and probably done for good as UFC level fighter. Good win for Uros Medic, but he still has lot to prove against more legit UFC competition.

Trevin Jones looked much improved from the first fight against Valiev, putting on a close fight with Mario Bautista... until Jones found a powerful uppercut and put Bautista's lights out. Up until main card, that was my only wrong pick of the night.

My picks

It becomes bit debatable as to how to count my picks this time. Aljo won, and I picked him... but it was weird and really I just predicted the fight poorly. Furthermore, I live bet Yan anyway so I actually ended up losing  money on that fight anyway. So I will count that as a wrong pick in the end. That brings me to total of 11 picks out of 15 going right, for a pretty solid evening of 5.5 bets up. Main card brought me down 2 bets so that just shows how monstrous prelims I had.

Best pick? Perhaps Kyler Phillips since that was something many got wrong, but Amanda Lemos was pretty solid value as well and Kennedy Nzechukwu was the biggest underdog value. As for worst pick, that's probably Thiago Santos. He just got old and perhaps the signs were there that after all the injuries at age of 37 a guy who relied so heavily on his athleticism isn't gonna be the same. All things considered, if that is my worst pick it wasn't a terrible night. 

I know I have had terrible form in the recent months, but this event shows that I am not completely clueless. I have developed some eye for the fights at least on a rudimentary level. I think the fact that I tend to win on prelims but lose on main card suggests that I have eye for recognizing differences in fundamentals, but at the highest level I still lack recognition of nuance when the margins are very tight. I dunno, looking to learn from people smarter than me, it's a constant journey and it's much nicer journey to make when you find some successes.