UFC on ESPN 23 Post-Fight Analysis

I did it again, I fucking did it again. Always the same pattern, I get steady right picks in the early going, run up to a small profit, stay on winning side most of the night, only to piss it away in the main card. This time I was breaking even until main event, but again got the pick wrong and ended up at a loss.

Main Card

What can I say? I was right Jiri's defence is suspect, but it doesn't matter cause offence is best defence. He doesn't measure his cardio, he doesn't mind getting hit, he just keeps blasting at you until you go down. Honestly Reyes did well to last as long as he did, but at the same time I got the feeling he was only few explosions away from actually gutting it out to the point where he could take over the fight. 

This sport is cruel though, and instead of him turning the tide for a legendary comeback victory in a war, he got badly KOd and probably washes out from top contender talks. Back-to-back KOs is not a good look for anyone's durability. 

As for the co-main, Swanson just randomly died at the early going before we could even see a proper match. I dunno, maybe I am not giving credit enough to Giga if I call it randomly dying. Guess it's testament to most of Giga's opponents that their defences held up, cause Swanson was done after one solid kick landing. All the decisions made me underappreciate the guy's power.

Ion Cutelaba and Dustin Jacoby slugged it out to a draw, Cutelaba had first round clearly but predictably faded. Funky scorecards, one of many of those tonight, but judges stumbled into a fair decision all in all this time.

Sean Strickland and Merab Dvalishvili did exactly what was expected of them, pretty one-sided victories from each to start off the main card.

Prelims

I guess I was wrong, I guess Luana Pinheiro is the GOAT after all. Nah I don't know, but she did look great in that first round. I still think the fight should have been a NC rather than DQ, the foul Luana did earlier was much worse than what Randa did, only difference is that it wasn't a fight ending one. Either way we still don't know how Luana's gas tank is, so will be tough to back her going forward.

TJ Brown and Kai Kamaka fought a close fight... in a way anyway. I am not saying there should have been anything unclear about the winner though. Kai pretty much won every round, I am just saying rounds were decided by small margins and could have been swayed with single moments. Still there wasn't any question that Kai Kamaka won it... except for two judges who somehow scored the fight for TJ Brown. Good for my pick, but bad judging. 

I don't know what I was thinking to put both of my bigger bets into low-level women's MMA. Poliana Botelho started in a dominant fashion like I expected, fight going as predicted for one round... then her gas tank pretty much emptied and Luana Carolina edged the other two rounds. I still think it should have been a draw, but a bad pick from me nonetheless, too chalky to bet big.

Another big women's MMA favorite in Loma Lookbonmee had as well bit of a sweaty fight with Sam Hughes whom I was expecting her to blow away. Didn't quite go so well, Hughes got one round and was very close edging the extremely narrow second round as well. Squeeze of a decision, but Loma did deserve to win that. However hard to call that a good bet when she was biggest favorite on the card and barely got by Hughes.

KB Bhullar needs to be cut after sleep-walking through another UFC bout. Michalidis took two rounds clearly but did not have to really extend himself as Bhullar was content to just poke at him and circle away, and then they had a snoozefest of a third round, waiting for a decision.

Felipe Dias Colares had to rely on his granite chin again against Luke Sanders, but it was very close to crumbling and when guy has this little defence, his career longevity is gonna be almost non-existent. He gutted it out though despite absorbing half a career's worth of damage, kept walking Sanders down and eating shots until the guy gassed the narrowly edged the latter two rounds. Could have gone either way, but all this means is that Colares is gonna face someone better in the next bout and likely gonna have what's left of his chin pulverized.

My picks

Got 6 out of 10 right, not bad rate of correct picks, but it really was just half right given TJ Brown didn't really win his fight. That's enough for two bets of loss. Still failing to string winning events together. I don't think I called any fights completely wrong, I did underestimate Giga's power though as well as just how durable and offensively potent Jiri is. Lot of rolls of the die I would still take.

Worst pick... I guess Cub considering how he just got easily folded. His durability was a questionmark and I assessed that one simply wrong. Best pick on the other hand was mr. reliable Merab. 

All in all it's disappointing to have a good event for the most part only to end up pissing away all the winnings in the end. This pattern keeps going so it's definitely not random, I have good eye for lower level fighters but lack something when it comes to the best fighters. It's a learning process though and next week is a chance to improve again. The silver lining is, as I said, I am not predicting how fights go completely wrong for the most part.

It's not luck though that makes me keep losing though, if anything I got some good luck this time with bad judging.