UFC 264 Post-Fight Analysis

Lot to unpack with this one...

Main Event

I was wrong about McGregor fight... again. I thought peak Conor was forever lost, but that he would at least still be high-level fighter that is dangerous for few minutes in start of the fights. Truth is that he represents very little danger to any elite lightweight at this point of time. Dustin was huge value first time in hindsight, and still value this time. 

Conor got thoroughly beaten today. His adjustment of more leg kicks seemed to work at first, but ultimately bit him in the ass. You can't start throwing 100 % hard kicks to the legs after lifetime of not conditioning your shins to it. Granted, it was not shin to knee that broke the bone but rather tip of the foot hitting the knee and cracking the joint, but the point still stands. 

Even if the leg didn't break, it was Dustin who was the one who was landing all the hard shots early and indeed hurt Conor, forcing the first real error out of Conor - initiating the grappling. You could argue that if Conor was hurt, clinching up was the right decision, but when you have a very rapidly closing window of time where you can win the fight like Conor has, you might just be better off tucking your chin, planting your feet and swinging for the bleachers when you get hurt rather than try to tie up the other dude.

Still, at least could have still salvaged it after some clinchwork when his head was clear. Guess his bell was really badly rung though, cause the next mistake he made was legit regional level shit. Yeah, I'm talking about him dropping down to a guillotine. Let's give the guy free top control for a tiny percentage submission. Dustin duly capitalized, mauling Conor for the rest of the round until at the very end Conor's broken foot finally cracked. 

This was a complete domination and it's unbelievable to see some low IQ's try to argue that Conor lost a chance to win or that it was some sort of fluke thing. Dustin just beat him bell-to-bell and if they fight again, I would say Conor's chance of winning is less than 20 %. He can only reliably win gimme fights like washed-up Cowboy at this point. He still hasn't demonstrated one shot KO power above featherweight, so even that few minutes of cardio in the beginning won't bring wins often enough.

Rest of Main Card

Wonderboy didn't get old, but Burns fought a smart fight and scored the takedowns that he needed while Thompson didn't very little in the meantime. It's a shame cause when he did land, he had Burns hurt, but just not enough to make up for the fact Burns dragged him down twice. 

Tai Tuivasa showed exactly why fighters beat athletes. He is the kind of fat guy who just absorbs your shot and then puts you to sleep. Toughness and durability beat athleticism... most of the time anyway. Is Hardy's dream of ever becoming a top heavyweight over now? I would say so, given even Spivac beat Tuivasa.

Aldana's win over Yana Kunitskaya... It was a bit flukey. You don't often see those kind of KOs in women's MMA. Granted, Aldana has gotten some KOs so it is not completely unheard of, still think Yana wins that most of the time. This time she got caught and finished though. 

Kris Moutinho shocked the world... Not by beating Sean O'Malley or even coming anywhere close to it, but by surviving out of 1st, and almost all the way to the end. In fact he probably should have survived to the end, but Herb did all of us KO/ITD backers a favor and stopped the fight with Moutinho still standing 30 seconds from the end. Bad look from Sean to not be able to get a short notice regional 125er out of there faster. Moutinho looked rough but had the right idea with walking O'Malley down and making him uncomfortable with the constant pressure. Moutinho gained some respect but at the expense of years of his life and lot of brain cells.

Prelims

Max Griffin did not pursue lot of takedowns, which hardly surprised anyone, but he was comfortably ahead of Condit in the feet. Close second round made the fight a bit tense towards the end, but by the end Griffin had clearly done enough to get the decision. 

Niko Price and Michel Pereira went to war as expected but somehow with all the clean shots that landed no-one went down. Pereira clearly had 29-28 but you were still left feeling like Price got robbed since Pereira was just surviving in the end. 

Ryan Hall put in an embarrassing performance. Sure he is a dangerous grappler and pretty much one-trick pony, but even Demian Maia tried to build somewhat functional MMA game on top of his grappling ability. Nothing of the sort from Hall, just flopping around for leg logs. Ilia Topuria was always gonna be too good not to exploit that, and when he got his opening he pounded Hall unconscious. My only regret is not hitting the Topuria KO much harder.

Dricus Du Plessis did again what he did last fight - looked rough on the feet to start, but ultimately pulled the KO to win the fight. Giles also did what he always did, made mistakes that ended up throwing away perfectly winnable fight. I don't know why I didn't bet Du Plessis in the end when it was so obvious. Some things just never change.

Jennifer Maia and Jessica Eye had a close fight. I think Maia deserved to win it, sure Eye kept walking her down but Maia landed much cleaner shots all through the fight. 30-27 scorecard is not good though, and Maia definitely didn't justify her price.

Omari Akhmedov and Brad Tavares had close two rounds, then Akhmedov faded and looked somewhat close to getting finished in the 3rd. All in all Tavares clearly deserved to win, Omari was just poor pick there.

Zhalgas Zhumagulov started the night well with a guillotine submission of Jerome Rivera, who keeps showing new holes in his game in every fight. Miracle really he ever made it to the UFC level, but definitely he is out now. Again wish I hit Zhumagulov harder.

My Picks

Got 7 out of 12 right and hit a few props, but missed a lot too. All in all took a loss of about 2 bets, which means that my three fight win streak comes to an end. Wasn't that far from hitting some huge props like Price R3 but it is what it is. 

Worst pick was easily McGregor. It was always gonna be high-variance pick, but the fact Conor never even looked dangerous and it was a very one-sided beatdown with very poor fight IQ from Conor is what makes it an awful pick. Gone are the days when Conor is the guy who makes his opponent uncomfortable and makes them make mistakes. 

Best pick is tougher cause while the event overall was a losing one, I did make some pretty decent calls. Guess Topuria ML and Topuria KO were the best one out of all, we mature performance from the prospect, justified his price and then some. 

Sucks to lose but it was just a small loss in the end and the recent trend of overall making good reads continues. Gotta feel I am getting better at this, Conor fights have historically always been tough for me to bet. 

Next week continues with a kind of a weak card, which is fine, I usually do better on those anyway.