UFC on ESPN 21 Post-Fight Analysis

 That was a weird night of fights. Obviously some good fights, but some odd ones as well.

Main Card

By the time main event rolled around, there had been some strange fights on already, but Kevin Holland's performance was the one that was definitely the weirdest thing of the whole night. It seemed like he had the tools to beat Brunson, but whereas before talking has been part of his fighting, it never really took precedence over fighting. This time it seemed it was more about talking than winning the fight. 

It wasn't so much that Brunson taking him down surprised anyone, just the fact he had absolutely no urgency to get up. It's not like he was completely unable to do so, but instead of scrambling like crazy he went for body triangle and let the rounds burn away on his back.

Obviously I am a bit bitter that I got my pick wrong, but I don't feel I was that wrong - he did have Brunson hurt and gassed - it's just that he did not perform like he usually does. I dunno, perhaps we would have already seen this in the Jacare fight if Jacare had not been so easy to get KOd. 

At least the co-main was as easy as you like from betting perspective, I figured wrestling would be the path of least resistance for Griffin to win, but that he would have Song covered everywhere. Well he did go for the wrestling, but did not manage the takedown, however it did not matter since he soon after put Song out cold with good striking. Honestly even if Song isn't a high-level fighter, to KO him like that was an impressive performance nonetheless.

Montserrat Ruiz headlocked Cheyanne Buys for 3 rounds, awful fight. Cannot believe something like this happens in UFC level.

Adrian Yanez keeps being a bright prospect that ought to climb up the ranks fast if he keeps performing like this. Laser sharp counterpunching had Lopez KOd in third round, but Lopez was never gonna win that fight anyway based on what we saw.

Tai Tuivasa put on performance for ages by KOing "honeysucker". We all expected Tuivasa to win, but to his credit he managed to look even more dominant with the fast KO.

Prelims

Macy Chiasson and Marion Reneau had a good scrap, Reneau kept it close but her age showed, just wasn't able to take shots as well as Chiasson did and Chiasson's size was enough to win her two rounds. If Chiasson puts everything together she is a problem for anyone due to her physical attributes, but she has been in UFC for a while and even this win was kinda incoherent at times, so one has to wonder if that is even gonna happen.

Grant Dawson was on his way to controversial decision win (apparently judges had it for him even though it seemed like Santos was two rounds up) when just within the last seconds Santos went for an ill-advised leg lock and Dawson delivered some ground and pound for hell to almost kill the guy. You can't take shots like that in your 40s. Tognoni was maybe just two seconds late, but those were long two seconds, cause I think Santos took two hard shots after already being out, final one of them making his mouthpiece fly.

Trevin Giles v Roman Dolidze was a weird fight with both fighters showing some poor fight IQ. Giles was comfortably winning the stand-up (though his leg was getting eaten up just like I predicted), then somehow ended up on his back on both 2nd and third rounds. So Dolidze could have had it, but instead of trying to find the top position in scrambles and holding onto it, he kept going for leg locks and lost rounds because of it. Also while they were still standing in the third, he completely abandoned the leg kicks even though it was working so well. In general I think he should have kept hammering at that leg to force Giles to adjust to it. 

Either way, Giles just about got the decision, and turns out all the sharps who picked him as underdog were right. I dunno, not a great spot either way imo. 

Montel Jackson was always gonna have easy time against Jesse Strader. Montel is high level prospect, they should not feed these regional guys to guy like that with such complete skillset.

JP Buys was my most awful bet of the night. I mean at least Dolidze had his moments, but Buys looked completely awful fighter when he does not get his takedown. Guess this one goes down to lack of tape reviewed, perhaps it was there to be seen if I saw more of his regional fights. Note to self, gotta get more looks of new fighters before betting on them as favorites. I need to become more suspicious of favorites.

My picks

Considering I was not expecting much of the event, it was not surprising I got 6 out of 10 right and ended up two bets down. Honestly with the beatings I have been taking lately, going only two bets down feels a relief. It does make one wonder, cause I had a monster first 12 months, did I get worse or what happened? Or was I simply running hot in the beginning? Hard to gauge if I was just getting lucky. Either way I have not in major way changed my methods from those times, I just am supposed to have more experience. Feels like such a massive difference in results cannot be just attributed to luck.

Oh well, while some of the picks went wrong, I did not completely predict fights wrong for the most part, with the exception of maybe that JP Buys fight. Max Griffin was comfortably the best pick I made, I wish I loaded up more on him. There obviously were couple of other clear winners too, but their odds compared to the dominance of the victory weren't so great. 

It does frustrate me to see guys I follow make a killing while I miss something that they see on tape/stats/wherever and fail to win when there is opportunities for it, but margins are close as always, just one more pick right and it would have been a winning night or at least breakeven. On to the next week, this is a learning process.