UFC 267 Post-Fight Analysis

I'm still here trying to comprehend what just happened. What a rollercoaster, both for my betting but in terms of just results.

Main Card

Glover did it. I didn't believe the old man's chin would hold up, but thanks to how the night panned out, I was chasing hard and heavily losing so I went for my pre-fight prop and really loaded up on that Glover sub - and it paid off. 

Glover got the takedown early in the first and didn't even need to get his chin checked. It was clear Jan had no answer on the ground, and in the second when they exchanged more Glover avoided taking anything too clean on the chin and managed to pull it to the ground again. I don't know what was up with Jan capitulating so fast, he was probably more hurt from those stand-up exchanges than we even realized.

We theorized it on Twitter some year or so ago, but it still seemed wishful thinking. Now it is real. Glover Texeira the light heavyweight world champion in 2021. He pulled off the unlikely run. Is there still another chapter to that career? I'd be inclined to say quit while you are ahead, but you can never count Glover out. Still I wouldn't wanna see him get starched by Jiri or something. Lot of killers coming up. 

In the co-main we had Petr Yan masterclass. Sandhagen fought pretty much as well as he could have, but just didn't have enough to him to not fall behind Yan. He made it to decision, but it was more down to him really not going after it any more in the 5th after being badly hurt in the 4th. He only won first round and getting the first round against Yan is pretty much automatic.

So... yeah. Feels like I somehow under-estimated Yan again even though I think he is a hell of a fighter. I focused on him losing the early striking to Aldo more than focusing on the fact that he still outstruck Aldo later on with basically one leg crippled. The thing is, we are basically gonna be forced to be on Aljo in the unification match (if Aljo doesn't vacate and retire) since I expect extremely lopsided odds. Like we might legit see something like -1000 and although I would heavily favor Yan now against anyone, that'd be just silly.

Islam Machachev was kinda forgotten tonight again wasn't he? Yeah in between there he beat Hooker without breaking a sweat, but between Yan masterclass and Glover's heartwarming victory, I hardly remember the whole thing. Perhaps Islam's fate is to be forever buried into obscurity. At least until he wins the title, which is only matter of time. 

Alexander Volkov was my big bet for the night, and he did beat Tybura, but Tybura probably wore him out worse than we expected. That's what Tybura does and he is tougher than he looks, so in hindsight hammering the ITD there perhaps was a mistake. Also given Volkov was sizeable favorite, sweating out the close 29-28 decision wasn't the nicest thing. 

Chimaev hype is real I guess? He finally faced someone kinda legit, and made just as easy work of him as he did of the last three guys. Not much to say, still undefeated and has hardly gotten touched, he fights few top guys next and keep this up, we gonna get the GOAT talks started.

Magomed Ankalaev easily covered his odds against Volkan Oezdemir. He might look a little low volume, but that's just efficiency, why spaz out and work anything more than you have to when you a comfortably dominating your opponent popping him off one shot at a time? Just had Volkan covered in all ranges and then Volkan stopped even trying in the third.

Prelims

Virna Jandiroba started strong, top controlling Amanda Ribas all through first round and even sitting her on her ass with a stiff shot at the end of the round. Unfortunately gas tank usually beats power in MMA and Ribas just took over with pace eventually, winning the latter two rounds. Didn't figure Virna to have gas tank issues, but then again she had not fought anyone who fights at as high volume as Ribas does. Poor read on me to bet Virna there.

Speaking of gas tank, Zubaira Tukhugov fixed his gas tank issues to keep going strong and outhustling Ramos, whom I had be bet based on the tape figuring that he would be the busier one. Both looked improved in that department, but Zubaira comfortably outstruck Ramos all through the fight to get the W. Don't hate on my pick too much, no way I could have expected Zubaira to suddenly figure out his issues after always fading in third rounds.

Albert Duraev and Roman Kopylov had a bloody war that Duraev edged in a decision after breaking his orbital bone in the early going. He also smashed Kopylov's nose pretty good in that round. Kopylov had improved takedown defence, but lost once the fight was on the ground. 

Worst performance of the night was not any of the fighters, but the absolute clown show of the referee Vyacheslav Kiselev, who made Mario Yamasaki seem merciful as Elizeu Zalewski Dos Santos was massacring badly hurt Benoit St. Denis. Everyone was yelling for the fight to be stopped, and the fact that Benoit somehow survived full distance does not make the refs inability to step in any better. It was indeed such an egregious error that Kiselev was removed from the rest of his assignments. 

Michal Oleksiejczuk put together a beautiful performance of southpaw boxing pressure on Shamil Gamzatov and turned out to be one of the best picks of the night for me. Gamzatov never got going, looked constantly uncomfortable until Michal started stringing together damaging shots and eventually Gamzatov went down, broken down in only 3.5 minutes. Love watching Michal fight.

Lerone Murphy beat Makwan Amirkhani in bit of a flukey way, but I believe it was always gonna happen. Yes, Makwan was dominating him via grappling in the first round, but we know of Makwan's gas tank issues. To me it was looking that at the end of first round Makwan was showing signs of fatigue. 

Obviously I can never prove Murphy landed that flying knee because of Makwan gassing, but a lazy, telegraphed shot would be something a gassed fighter does, no? We will never know but I think I read that fight correctly, Makwan doesn't have gastank for extended grappling. Even if he somehow scored takedown there instead of getting flatlined, he would have had cardiodeath in third and been finished. That's speculating though.

Andre Petroski and Yaozong Hu had a pretty awful quality fight, Petroski looked pretty gassed all through the fight but still dominated grappling cause Hu basically didn't have any skills at all aside existing and surviving. I ruined a perfectly good pre-fight pick by livebetting Hu when Petroski started to slow down.

Tagir Ulanbekov and Allan Nascimento had close fight that Tagir was never gonna lose via decision in Abu Dhabi.

My picks

Honestly the way I, in ill-disciplined manner, started to chase with reckless betsizing and put myself into a position to go bust makes it almost not matter how my picks fared. If I had not placed any bets after starting to lose, I would have ended up in a small loss of couple of units. However as things went, I ended up in a heavy loss of over half my bankroll, then swung right at the end to a profit with big bet on Glover sub cashing.

Basically got lucky. All in all my picks weren't terrible but wasn't much good ones either. I think Murphy was one of my better reads, but people won't agree on it, especially with the way R1 panned out. Glover getting the sub would have been biggest win regardless of my bet sizing, and it was correct read that it was Glover's best chance to pull it off. 

Aside those, Lord Michal was the best performing pick and one of the few underdogs who cashed. As for worst pick, I don't think betting numbers on lot of the underdogs is terrible, but most of our big underdogs never came close to justifying their bets. My worst bets were made after writing my reviews when chasing, worst of them perhaps being increasing exposure on Sandhagen and betting ITD for that fight. In hindsight it was obvious both fighters too good defensively and too well conditioned to make finish likely. Bad discipline for sure, but I was chasing so that isn't so much a bad read as it is simply being tilted from losing - poor emotional control.

As far as bad reads go... Well I completely called that Sandhagen fight wrong. Or maybe I just didn't completely flesh out my thoughts but that preview was clearly wrong. Obviously I felt I would overall favor Yan but it seems like Sandhagen was the one I preferred pre-fight instead of just thinking he would cover the odds. Yan soundly beat him and would have been value. 

Volkan pick kinda stings cause I read correctly he might be washed, oh well, big odds, what are you gonna do? I read the Ricardo Ramos fight wrong, but I don't think you could  have reasonably expected such a significant gas tank improvement from Zubaira. So I give myself a pass for that. That just leaves Virna as the worst pick. Even there I correctly surmised she is probably bit behind on all ranges, but still didn't make the logical choice and bet Ribas at nearly even money odds.

All in all my biggest problem is still simply discipline about exposure and chasing, but I do make some bad reads too. It's also the high level fights that I consistently get wrong, the same old pattern of running up an early profit only to lose in the end keeps repeating, of course this time with the twists and turns the chasing caused. Gotta do better next week. All in all took 1.5 units of winnings, but it feels irrelevant cause it wasn't reflective of how well I read the fights, just more a matter of me going for crazy variance to try to get lucky to come back.