UFC Featherweight bout: George Roop vs. Josh Grispi
Odds: (+350 Roop /-550 Grispi )
Betting Pick: Grispi
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In the semi-main event, former top contender Josh “The Fluke” Grispi will look to rebound from his upset loss to Dustin Poirier against a fellow WEC alum George Roop. Roop is something of a journeyman, but he still has a versatile skill set and some dynamic offense, so if Grispi takes him lightly he might find himself on the wrong end of another upset. Grispi, who looked set for a title short before coming up short against Poirier, can’t afford to drop his first two UFC bouts if he wants to stay relevant as a top contender, has a lot on the line in this fight and is going to need his best performance to show why he belongs at the top of the 145 pound division.
George Roop, a WEC veteran with a variety of skills, has seen his career held back by a host of inconsistent performances. A solid technical boxer with decent wrestling and a fairly effective submission game, Roop’s big problem is that he can’t take over a fight in any one area and he lacks any one dominant skill. He is forced to try and hang in fights where they go because nothing about his offensive skill set enables him to push the pace of a fight or force a fight where he wants it to go.
In many ways, Josh Grispi is exactly the opposite of Roop. Unlike Roop, Grispi can take a fight over both standing and on the ground, and has the ability to finish a fight wherever it plays out. He isn’t the world’s most dominant wrestler, but he has great standup with a lot of power, extremely effective submissions, and a decent ability to get fights to the ground when he needs to. He doesn’t really need dominant wrestling, because he can handle opponents in the striking and, if he gets taken down, can work from any position and is always a threat to submit opponents.
What this fight comes down to is that Grispi is just better than Roop at everything. On the feet he will demolish Roop, Roop doesn’t have the ability to get him to the ground, and even if he does Grispi’s ground game is on a whole different level. I expect this fight to play out on the feet, though, and Grispi will easily box Roop around before finishing him. Grispi by T/KO.
Prediction: Josh Grispi via third round T/KO.
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