UFC Fight Night 197 Post-Fight Analysis

Main Card

Holloway did it again. Yair didn't let him off easy though, trying his best to disable Max's lead leg and popping him clean to the chin enough times to take off half the featherweight roster, but Max did not even flinch. Perhaps he couldn't just pressure Yair into submission as convincingly as he has done before, but either way Yair, as great of a shape as he was in, wilted to some extent and couldn't keep up. 

Somehow the fight went the distance despite both guys landing a lot of damage and also having some near miss submission attemps. In the end, I need to stop betting ITD on main events, the guys who make it this far just are too tough to go away.

The co-main was over pretty fast, with Rothwell's chin looking like what you'd expect 40-year-old UFC veteran's chin to be. De Lima cracked him hard and he was pretty much out on his feet, that being said Herb managed to stop the fight simultaneously too early and too late. I guess I give a pass for hesitating to Herb since it's 600 pounds of man meat swinging around but it's still not a good look for the ref. 

Either way that was my big correct hit for the evening with both De Lima and De Lima ITD hitting and doing so effortlessly.

I had speculative shots on Leah Letson and well... Felicia Spencer really didn't give her any chance to capitalize, just relentless clinch fighting, massive volume for a dominant finish late on.

Khaos Williams took a while to bring in the Khaos, but once the fight really got Khaotic, he took Baeza's head off. Baeza was beating him technically, but hang too long in range with Williams and you are gonna get punished. Another fight where I got both pick and ITD bets right, that one was more of a sweat though. Even if Khaos didn't finish it, think there was a good chance of winning that via decision, the guy just tends to put in enough big moments to win rounds as well. Fun fight.

Julio Arce couldn't really capitalize on being better in the outside range and Song found the combinations in the end to finish him in the second round and to remind everyone how good and powerful he is. My initial assessment was that Arce was a step down and that turned out to be correct, the stylistics of it had me end up with wrong pick, but at least the fight ended inside the distance.

Prelims

It was kinda up in the air as to how good Joel Alvarez is, but he really showed in the final prelim that he is a great fighter against another high-level fighter in Moises. Now obviously I was on Moises and stoppage was maybe bit early, that said Alvarez was dealing bad damage. Still shame we didn't get to see if he would fade and if Moises could have turned up the volume later. Either way great performance, far more impressive than what Islam did against Moises.

Cynthia Calvillo came out there looking like prime Bethe Correia. Bethe never quit on the stool though but that's what Calvillo did after Andrea Lee had laid a beating on her for two rounds.

Sean Woodson also dominated Collin Anglin, who as predicted has no business being in UFC. Woodson looked like he was almost sparring and playing, but still had Anglin on the verge of getting finished for a while. Ref gave Anglin every opportunity to fight back, but he was never even borderline competitive.

Cortney Casey looked like obvious pick in hindsight, Jojua another girl who doesn't belong to this level. Thing is, the win was there, but Jojua showed epic all-time low fight IQ by only going for the takedowns late on after already taking a beating for 4 minutes every round. You can't make up for getting outstruck 50-10 by getting top control for 30 seconds, but on the other hand if he had 4 minutes of top control... oh well, would have been easy one to predict beforehand, I just have too much PTSD from losing on Casey. 

I always figured Rafael Alves would be competitive with Marc Diakiese, and he always had the opportunity for the explosive moment. That's what happened and Diakiese was finished pretty fast after not really showing much. Hard to make much conclusions about this fight considering how short it is, but either way not a good look for Diakiese.

I said Nzechukwu would be durable, but perhaps he used all of his durability already in his UFC career so far, or perhaps Jung just is absolute powerhouse of a guy, cause all it took was couple of elbows into Kennedy's guard to completely fold him in the opener of the night. Great performance for Jung.

My picks

I got 5/11 picks right and 4/6 in props for a pretty substantial 5 units of profit. That being said, I was whopping 7.5 units up before the main event fucked it up. Well, 5 units up is still very good especially how little research I did for this. Sometimes it's good to trust your gut, I guess. Last week I took couple of units in the ass so it's good to bounce back with a sizeable win, definitely wanna build on this next week.

We've had couple of bangers in a row so guess we are due for a dud of an event next. At least on paper next card is quite weak, but might be easier to find betting value on those cards. I don't know, will see, but at least can have good vibes for the week after having some success. Still annoys to get those main events wrong.

Biggest loss of the night was that ITD pick for main event, but considering how much damage was landed, it wasn't terrible. Diakiese was poorest pick in terms of performance. Best pick on the other hand was clearly De Lima, biggest win and made it look easy. Khaos was pretty solid pick as an underdog too.