UFC on ESPN 30 Preview & Predictions

Who da fook is these guys? The main event is great but this is a brutal card and not in a good way. 

Main Event: Edson Barboza vs. Giga Chikadze

Barboza is still in the tail end of his prime, he might get nuked here cause Chikadze is lethal when he lands, but he is very low volume and just generally unspectacular, I think Barboza is defensively too solid to get hit with anything clean, whereas he will put a pace on Giga and just keep blasting him with shots. 

My strong gut feeling here is that Giga is in for a rude awakening. Barboza throws a lot and he throws absolute damage with every shot, I really don't see this fight going the distance... So GTD is a nailed on bet.

Prediction: Edson Barboza & Edson Barboza ITD & FDGTD & Under 4.5 Rounds

Confidence in winner: 5

Co-Main Event: Bryan Battle vs. Gilbert Urbina

I didn't watch TUF, but I read Urbina via sub early is good. Small punt on that, aside that don't touch this.

Prediction: Gilbert Urbina via Submission

Confidence in winner: 1

Ricky Turcios vs. Brady Hiestand

Again didn't watch TUF, but this is supposed to be a very close fight. Probably pick ITD and whoever is the underdog.

Prediction: Brady Hiestand & FDGTD

Confidence in winner: 1

Kevin Lee vs. Daniel Rodriguez

People love to underrate Kevin Lee but the guy has fought near the top of the division for a long time and was even beating prime Tony Ferguson until he gassed. Gas tank could be an issue here too, cause D-Rod is both durable and high volume, but it's hard to imagine any range where Lee gets beaten here early on.

Lee has not fought in a long time since getting beaten by Charles Oliveira, performance which hasn't really aged badly to be honest, considering Oliveira is now the champ. So Lee could feasibly show up improved.

I think Lee can definitely win this 2 rounds to 1, but in extended fight I'd expect D-Rod at least take the final round. Still think Lee might be good value to finish this early, this is a big step-up in competition for D-Rod over completely washed Mike Perry. Hard to bet on D-Rod getting finished considering it's never been happened, but it's not like he hasn't been hurt. I don't know, maybe ML is safer bet. Let's go a little both ways...

Prediction: Kevin Lee / Kevin Lee ITD

Confidence in winner: 3

Andre Petroski vs. Micheal Gilmore

Poor grappler in Gillmore facing aggressive finisher in Petroski. We on Petroski early, aside that hard to really say what's gonna happen if he gasses.

Prediction: Andre Petroski R1

Confidence in winner: 1

Makhmud Muradov vs. Gerald Meerschaert

Muradov is solid, fundamentally sound MMA fighter. GM is kind of a meme grappler, losing rounds almost always in poor positions and getting hurt on the feet a lot. Kinda feel like ITD isn't a bad shout here, cause if Muradov can keep this standing it can kinda get ugly fast, but Meerschaert has a decent chance of snapping up something if they engage in grappling.

All in all I'd say Muradov big favorite here, perhaps via KO. Probably hit a few bets on this one. Or not, the ML odds aren't great.

Prediction: Makhmud Muradov & Makhmud Muradov KO

Confidence in winner: 3

Alessio Di Chirico vs. Abdul Razak Alhassan

No tape needed here, Alhassan is terrible and has gas for like half a round. Di Chirico might get nuked but I take my chances, he is durable enough and can gas Alhassan out.

Prediction: Alessio Di Chirico & Di Chirico ITD

Confidence in winner: 3

Sam Alvey vs. Wellington Turman

Who's more washed? Kind of a funny question to ask when Turman is only 25 and Alvey is 35 with a ton of miles on him, but it's Turman who's been finished now back to back in the first round. Still, Alvey's chin that's been solid most of his career is showing clear signs of starting to go. Even so he isn't getting pulverized with single shots yet. 

Turman on the other hand got put out cold by ground and pound, which isn't a good look. Then again, he will be dryhumping Alvey for like 13 minutes of this fight if this goes that long, it's just matter of if he can avoid getting clipped in the remaining 2 minutes. He might, cause Alvey really loads up, but Alvey is powerful enough to KO him for sure.

I don't know, I feel like I trust Alvey here more than Turman, but let's see the odds first.

Prediction: Sam Alvey ITD

Confidence in winner: 2

Dustin Jacoby vs. Darren Stewart 

Opposing paths to this fight for these fighters, Stewart only has one win in his last five fights, whereas Jacoby only has one non-winning fight, his draw last time around against Cutelaba.

All in all interesting fight where both guys prefer to strike. I think overall I'd say Jacoby is the more durable and has better volume, and in the Cutelaba fight showed himself to be tough to keep down should Stewart decide to pursue clinch or grappling a lot. If there is no finish though I'd expect this to be pretty close fight, so just a slight lean on Jacoby.

Prediction: Dustin Jacoby & Jacoby ITD

Confidence in winner: 3

JJ Aldrich vs. Vanessa Demopoulos 

Gimme that low-level women's MMA and inject it straight to my bloodstream...

Aldrich is a split decision machine when she isn't getting blasted away by physically superior girls. I mean all these fight's tend to be kind of low-volume, low aggression 50/50 rounds with occasional sub thrown in here and there. Demopoulos' ticket to UFC is... losing to Godinez and McKenna basically? So roughest of the rough UFC talent that we have beat her so welcome to UFC. At least that last TKO win in 37 seconds was kinda impressive for women's MMA.

Oddly enough, despite being the newcomer, Demopoulos is actually 3 years older and at 32, it's now or never for her MMA career.

Honestly JJ Aldrich is rough to look at, but she does have 5 inch reach advantage here and is likely to be 10 pounds bigger, not easy things to overcome given Demopoulos isn't some high skill striker herself. Still, it's gonna be the typical 50/50 low-level women's MMA fight. Figure it's late notice since Demopoulos is going up a weight class, so cardio advantage lies probably on Aldrich so all in all, I have to give her the advantage here, but it's like 60/40 only cause she just isn't very skilled. I'd have a little punt on Demopoulos if she is big enough underdog, aside that this is degenerate shit to even be betting here.

Prediction: Vanessa Demopoulos

Confidence in winner: 1

Jamall Emmers vs. Pat Sabatini 

Emmers' record has aged pretty well, he has only lost to high level guys, including split decisioning Giga who headlines the event. Despite this, he finds himself buried deep into the prelims. Cachero fight was very uncompetitive, but Emmers showed a very complete game in it, dominating from range, really punishing Cachero in clinch, throwing absolutely huge volume and then showing good fight IQ to get top control when the fatigue started to set in.

As for Sabatini, he faced the regional journeyman Tristan Connelly in his debut, and that fight really didn't tell us much. Only reason Connelly even has UFC win is because he is tough and Michel Pereira is an idiot. Tangents aside this will be a totally different type of fight for Sabatini, he will have to engage much more in the feet and probably won't score as easy takedowns and top control as he did with Connelly.

Emmers throw much more volume and has 4 inch reach advantage, so he will be winning minutes here, but he is also hittable and Sabatini at least can hit hard, after all he did drop Connelly early on.

My prediction is that Emmers will come out with a patient but forward moving approach and prod Sabatini from distance, defend the takedowns and punish Sabatini in the clinch. Still the first two rounds ought to be very close, with slight edge Emmers. In the third it seemed Sabatini slowed down even against Connelly despite it not even being so crazy pace fight, so I'd expect Emmers to clearly win final round.

All in all I like Emmers a lot here, but this has to be lesser confidence pick since we still haven't exactly pinpointed how good Sabatini actually is.

Prediction: Jamall Emmers

Confidence in winner: 3

Guido Cannetti vs. Leomana Martinez

 Cannetti is 41 years old and got finished back-to-back against guys not exactly known for their massive power. The guy's fried. So question here is really is Martinez even semi-competent. Well he has three wins over Casey Jones and we all know from Turtles he is pretty tough fighter so...

Well jokes aside, what we have here actually is a 41-year-old guy whose chin is going against a guy whose every win is a KO and obviously has quite heavy hands. His past two fights lasted minute or less cause he KOd his opponents. So Cannetti needs to grapple like desperately, and he didn't show any inclination to do so in Batgerel fight.

So all in all it's hard to feel any confidence here for Cannetti. His path to victory is either to starch Martinez early (he does hit pretty hard so some chance of that) or to grapple and catch Martinez in a submission. Don't really see him top controlling his way to a win here, very unlikely given his low inclination to grapple and high likelihood he would just randomly die if fight goes full 15 minutes.

Martinez is inexperienced so you can't get overconfident on him, but this should be good match-up for him.

Prediction: Fight ends by KO & Leomana Martinez & Leomana Martinez ITD

 Confidence in winner: 4