Fight Previews and Posts

UFC Fight Night:  Holloway vs. Allen  By Michael Jones - @keepingitrealmma &  Dave Manley - @mmabobblehead A love letter to [exponential] chaos...          1. Max Holloway (23-7) vs. Arnold Allen (19-1)               In a tremendous clash of styles, the Ironman is set to face the chess master, but who is who? There are at least 3 major factors to consider in this matchup: volume, damage, and grappling. First, we will look at volume. Max Holloway's victims have come to expect an avalanche of strikes anywhere between 212-746. The former was his interim-title-winning TKO of Anthony Pettis, the latter being his criminal beatdown of Calvin Kattar. To be fair, those are strikes thrown, not landed. Still, that is staggering to deal with, when you can barely mount your offense because you're so busy defending. Then there is the damage. Max's strategy has limits, he takes a ton of punishment in order to deliver it. He has absorbed about 491 combined "significant" strik

UFC 287 Preview: Pereira vs. Adesanya 2  By Michael Jones - @keepingitrealmma &  Dave Manley - @mmabobblehead          1. Alex Pereira (7-1) vs. Israel Adesanya (23-2)                Here we go again... again, again. It feels like this fight went down yesterday. In fact, it was November, which is a very quick turnaround for a guy who was TKO'd. Has he had enough time to make adjustments and build back his confidence? Can anyone right the ship in just 4 months, when you have to get over the hump of losing to one guy 3 damn times in martial arts competition? One way to look at that question is to consider the number of UFC champions who lost their belt and won it back in immediate rematches. As of January 2022, Deiveson Figueiredo was the first guy in over 17 years to do it. Since then, 2 fighters have attempted it and only 1 was successful, Amanda Nunes. All told that's only 3 successful redemptions in 12 tries. History doesn't exactly favor Izzy's ambition, but he c

UFC Fight Night:  Vera vs. Sandhagen  By Michael Jones - @keepingitrealmma &  Dave Manley - @mmabobblehead A love letter to chaos...              1.  Marlon "Chito" Vera (20-7-1) vs. Cory Sandhagen (15-4)               There are perhaps two ways to look at the current trajectory of Chito Vera:             a. The primary look is centered around his current 4 fight win streak, highlighted in the mainstream by two vicious knockouts, albeit over ex-champions who are a little bit longer in the tooth. However, the more impressive win was his bludgeoning of Rob Font, where he showcased competitive boxing and superior power. The stats speak for themselves, he officially out-landed Font by over a hundred significant head strikes and knocked him down 3 times, according to ufcstats.com (formerly known as Fight Metric). As one outlet put it, Font was left "unrecognizable".             b. The other, less popular perspective to consider... he lost to Jose Aldo. Yes, that figh

  UFC 286 Preview: Edwards vs. Usman 3 By Michael Jones - @keepingitrealmma                                                                                                     &  Dave Manley - @mmabobblehead For perspective and for fun, here's my August 23rd recap of Edwards' KO win:  "It's interesting to note that in between rounds, you could hear Usman's coach, Trevor Wittman, yelling '"No Mistakes"'. It's like he anticipated this fight going off the rails if Usman got too comfortable... or God forbid, took a shot to the groin. Usman started the round bullying Edwards up against the cage, showing off his superior gas tank, and tucking us in to witness his impending record-tying win. Referee Herb Dean was going to have none of that, he very curiously broke them up and restarted the fight in the center of the octagon, just enough space for Edwards to land that belt-line groin kick. Things had officially started going off the rails. With a

  UFC Fight Night:  Yan vs. Dvalishvili  By Michael Jones - @keepingitrealmma &  Dave Manley - @mmabobblehead          1.  Petr Yan (16-4) vs. Merab Dvalishvili (15-4)             On paper, this might seem like a derivative of Jose Aldo vs. Merab Dvalishvili, where Merab used suffocating forward pressure and great distance management to slow his opponent down. However, Petr is much younger than Aldo so this should look more like Merab vs. Jose Aldo in his prime. That Aldo wouldn't give up the cage and let you walk him down, but where Aldo relied on lightning-fast strikes to catch people, Petr is a bit more measured. He has the speed but doesn't bank on it, instead using excellent timing and bludgeoning power to slow his opponent down. I think that will be the difference. Not to solely rely on good footwork married with superior boxing, but to incorporate more kicks which could throw off Merab's timing. Merab can't cut off the cage, which is to move laterally left an

UFC 285 Preview: Jones vs. Gane By Michael Jones - @keepingitrealmma                                                                                                     &  Dave Manley - @mmabobblehead               And with the changing of the tide, Francis committed to his uncertain future. Now out of sight, only to leave a hole in our hearts. You may be in line with his reasoning or you may be on the company sauce, regardless, you're very curious to see if Jon Jones can take his place. With a win over Gane, we may forget all about the departed champion of the world. With a loss, we may be left to pick up the pieces.         1.  Jon Jones (26-1-1NC) vs. Ciryl Gane (11-1)               Okay so maybe that opening statement was a little melodramatic, but can you blame me? Jones vs. Ngannou would have been pure insanity. Instead, we get this puzzling chess match. The former light heavyweight champ and polling favorite to retain GOAT status returns from an excruciatingly long 3-yea