Jakro's MMA Musings

 Well, if you follow my Twitter you already know I got butchered in tonight's event. Yet I am left not even feeling like I necessarily could have done much differently. I don't know, let's try to dissect it a bit. Main Card Obviously the main event was not a robbery. The rounds were razor thin, seemingly Arman edging the first two just with bigger moments, landing those loud kicks, while numbers and exchanges were very even. Then comes third round and it starts to seem Arman is actually feeling the pace a bit. Still he rallies and finishes the round strong. If you scored that round for damage, it's very close, you could argue Arman had it, but with lot of grappling control early I can understand if you scored it for Gamrot. Then comes fourth round where Arman again clearly outlands Gamrot, but ends up taken down and being in some tricky grappling positions. He also seems very weathered at this point of the fight. However, he rallies to finish strong in R5. Soundly outst...

Main Event: Arman Tsarukyan vs. Mateusz Gamrot Both very high-level, highly touted prospects, but I feel this is pretty straightforward match, Tsarukyan just is better everywhere. It's gonna start off as a close fight but Arman with his superior cardio will start to pull away late. Even if I am wrong and Gamrot will have some success early, Arman has survived with better guys (Islam) so think he can keep it close long enough until the cardio gap starts to show itself. Prediction: Arman Tsarykuan / GTD Bets: 3u Arman ML to win 1.2u, 1.5u Arman R4/5/Dec to win 1.7u Co-Main Event: Neil Magny vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov Should be a good test for Shavkat whom everyone seem to now think is the Jesus' next coming. Don't get me wrong, I think he is high-level but getting past Magny is not easy out for anyone. It's interesting that Shavkat has retained 100% finish rate and now faces the ultimate decision machine in Magny. Since being KO'd by Ponz in 2018, he has gone to six decisi...

Got some rough luck with decisions this time around. Three split decisions flip a potentially big profit into big loss. That said, my bets weren't good and think in big picture, the bad luck was warranted. Main Card The fight was mostly as expected, except Kattar was a bit more gun shy and lower volume as usual and obviously worried about Emmett's power. Emmett had big flurries in most of the rounds that made almost all of them flip rounds, while Kattar had volume edge but only barely. Only round 4 had a clear winner, Kattar, and even that the judges didn't get right, so it is not wonder that in the end Emmett got the split decision. I had both Kattar decision and Emmett KO obviously in the main event, thinking that obviously nothing could go wrong, but ironically Kattar being so hesitant to engage made both of those probabilities lower. Kattar goes in harder he will edge clearer rounds, make the dodgy split decision less likely, but also lean more into the volatility of ge...

Would have liked to do more tape on some fights, but at least I did some and finally do proper previews again. Main Event: Calvin Kattar vs. Josh Emmett I don't know, Kattar is big favorite and rightly so, he is technically better and throws more volume... On the other hand, Emmett hits hard and Kattar took a lot of damage over his last 2 fights. Like I gotta see the odds but think that I would happy to roll the dice here with an Emmett KO, he has 25 minutes and carries his power late, and not only that, Kattar's strength is his boxing so he will have to go to Emmett's range to really dominate the fight. That said, most of the time Kattar gets 50-45 or 49-46 here and the fight goes the distance. Emmett is tough enough that even if he is getting pieced up, he does not get finished. Prediction: Kattar & GTD Bets: 3.25u Emmett ITD to win 13u, 3u Kattar Dec to win 4.8u Co-Main Event: Donald Cerrone vs. Joe Lauzon Originally I bet this to go the distance, but perhaps in hind...