Photo by Marc Atkins/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC

We are a little over one week away from the highly-anticipated title fight between Lightweight champion, Khabib Nurmagomeodv, and interim champion, Dustin Poirier, set to go down at UFC 242 on Sept. 7 in a title unification match.

Khabib (27-0) looks for consecutive win number 28, twelve overall inside the Octagon, by taking out one of the most-improved fighters over the course of the last few years. It will be “The Eagle’s” first fight since choking out Conor McGregor last October. For Khabib, taking out and ending Poirier’s run will further solidify his status as the best Lightweight on the planet.

Poirier, meanwhile, has won four straight, most recently taking out Featherweight champion, Max Holloway at UFC 236 to win the interim 155-pound strap and a shot at Nurmagomedov.

Poirier has shown he isn’t afraid of the spotlight or big-time fights, and is looking to hand Khabib his first professional loss as an MMA fighter. Should he accomplish that feat, “The Diamond” will be able to write his own ticket and potentially call for a rematch against Conor McGregor.

Ahead of the world title fight, UFC has released another dazzling promo video which highlights each combatant’s biggest wins and paths to the top, which lead to their upcoming collision.

And to see who else is fighting at UFC 242: “Khabib vs Poirier” click here.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Carlos Condit will look for his first win in a very long time when he returns to the Octagon in December.

The last time Carlos Condit had his hand raised in the Octagon was way back in 2015. Since then, he has come short five times in a row and been submitted in three of those fights.

On December 7th in Washington DC, he’s hoping to put an end to all that. The UFC announced yesterday that Condit will face off with Mickey Gall on a UFC on ESPN card in the nation’s capital.

Condit (30-13, 7-9 UFC), a former interim UFC and full WEC welterweight champ, last competed in December when he was beaten by Michael Chiesa. Many believed he would retire following that bout, but the 35-year-old decided to press on.

Gall (6-2, 5-2 UFC) is coming off a decision win over Salim Touahri earlier this month in New Jersey. He famously has wins over CM Punk and Sage Northcutt, but has gone 2-2 since those victories.

UFC on ESPN 7 will take place at the Capital One Arena in Washington DC. The event is expected to be headlined by a heavyweight bout between Alistair Overeem and Walt Harris.

Jason Silva-USA TODAY Sports

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Strawweight queen, Jessica Andrade, will throw down with Sanda specialist, Weili Zhang, this Saturday (Aug. 31, 2019) at UFC Fight Night 157 from inside Shenzhen Universade Sports Centre Arena in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.

This is really a match up of two athletic powerhouses. Andrade pushes straight forward and looks to impose her will with regularity, blasting foes at range and slamming them with horrifying regularity. Last time out, Andrade may have been technically outmatched, but that didn’t stop her from wearing Namajunas out a bit then dropping her on her face.

Zhang is perhaps a bit more graceful in the application of her athletic gifts, but make no mistake, the Chinese athlete dominates because her foe’s can rarely match her speed or strength. Zhang is perfect in three trips to the Octagon, and she’ll look to become China’s first UFC champion by taking out “Bate Estaca.”

Let’s break down the skills of both women.

Striking

Beginning with the champion, Andrade is a mauler. On the feet, Andrade frequently draws comparison to John Lineker with good reason. Though Andrade does not quite possess Lineker’s boxing craft, the two share a love of aggressively swinging for the knockout with wide hooks and overhands and make use of body-head combinations with regularity.

Andrade does not hide her intentions. The Brazilian is going to charge forward on a straight line, swinging hooks and eventually crashing into her opponent. That lack of subtlety does mean Andrade is rather easy to counter. In all of her recent fights, her opponents have found success by sticking Andrade with straights as she steps forward, then simply side-stepping the big hook that followed.

In particular, Jedrzejczyk and Namajunas did a fantastic job with this strategy.

The problem is that Andrade is not determined by a few right hands. She will absorb the blows and keep coming. Perhaps the most important development to Andrade’s approach is her commitment to body shots (GIF). Andrade may still be winging hooks through the air, but the mid-section is a much larger target. Body shots ruined gas tanks and make active footwork far more difficult, meaning each hook to the ribs further increases the amount of time Andrade will enjoy in the pocket. Furthermore, there’s the obvious benefit of causing an opponent’s hands to drop, which can create the opportunity for a knockout blow (GIF). Similarly, an extra focus on low kicks has aided Andrade in tracking down foes.

There is a large group of people who believe that Andrade’s victory over Namajunas was a fluke, and it’s frankly embarrassing. Namajunas was ahead at the time of the slam, sure, but Andrade’s aggression, body work, and low kicks were all doing what they were supposed to: turning the tide.

Contrary to Andrade’s stalking approach, Zhang likes to fight from the outside. As is sometimes common with fighters of a more traditional martial arts background, Zhang does not frequently move laterally so much as bounce in place. That consumes a lot of energy, but it does allow Zhang to hide her explosions quite well.

Much of Zhang’s offense comes from her lead side, beginning with the left leg. By shifting her weight and bouncing in place, Zhang can pretty easily hide a quick foot replacement that allows her to fire the left leg. Often, it’s thrown as a side kick, but Zhang will also throw a left round kick to the leg, body, or head. Later in the fight, Zhang will use this lead leg step to instead spin into a back kick.

When Zhang is able to control the distance with her lead leg, she really thrives. Once that happens, she’ll begin to tie punches and kicks together. Often, she still does a lot of work with the jab and left hook, punctuated by the occasional cross/overhand. Either way, Zhang does a wonderful job of alternating kicks and punches in a difficult to predict pattern.

One of the benefits of Zhang’s bounce-in-place style is that it can easily be used to draw out strikes from her opponent. She’s basically always showing her opponent false starts, which can result in a strike thrown at nothing or momentary freeze up when her foe wrongly believes a real burst is coming. When Zhang gets her foe to bite on nothing, she will capitalize by stepping forward with really punches.

Lastly, Zhang’s physicality in the clinch is impressive. I’ll talk about her takedowns momentarily, but Zhang is commonly looked to wrap her foe up and slam home knees and elbows. While the techniques may be the same as most other fights, Zhang’s strength and the impact of her blows are simply different.

Wrestling

Andrade’s wrestling has become dramatically more effective since dropping down to face opponents who are not much, much larger. Extremely powerful with a low center of gravity, Andrade looks to trap her opponent along the fence under that whirlwind of powerful hooks, at which point she’ll lower her level even further and drive into the hips with a shot.

Though she tends to prefer the high-crotch takedown, it doesn’t seem to matter whether her head is on the outside (GIF), inside (GIF), or chasing the double leg (GIF). The last time Andrade fought, we broke down the fundamentals of picking up an opponent — the video only became more relevant since Andrade won the title via slam KO, so let’s take another look:

In this realm, Zhang is actually quite a bit less technical than Andrade. For all her muscle, Andrade’s understanding of good position while on the shot is equally important when it comes to lifting an opponent. Zhang, meanwhile, prefers to chain together rapid clinch throw and trip attempts.

Most women who seek the clinch takedown as aggressively as Zhang would be reversed, but that athleticism makes all the difference.

Generally, Zhang begins her takedown attempts with a power headlock throw — always a risky move, but Zhang is better at it than most. If that attempt fails, Zhang will immediately turn into her foe and dig for underhooks. Depending on her opponent’s reaction, Zhang might attempt to jack up the underhook and run a knee pick, or she may look to switch to the tight waist and beat the knee to drag her foe down.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

A jiu-jitsu brown belt, Andrade has finished seven of her opponents via tapout. At her more natural weight class, Andrade proved her grappling by avoiding the submissions of Claudia Gadelha and generally dominating from top position. Plus, a big benefit of Andrade’s high-octane style of finishing takedowns is that she often lands passed the guard.

Offensively, Andrade’s signature technique is the arm-in guillotine. Overall, guillotines account for all but one of her tapout victories. Like the rest of her game, the technique here is not particularly complex, but that doesn’t make it less effective. After wrapping up the arm and neck, Andrade does a very good job of throwing her hips at her opponent, ensuring she’s able to secure guard and squeeze (GIF). Opposite Larissa Pacheco, Andrade used the same squeeze and heavy hips to finish the hold from top position half-guard (GIF). That’s generally a difficult position to finish the guillotine, and again it emphasizes the power of “Bate Estaca.”

Zhang is a jiu-jitsu purple belt with seven submission wins to her credit. Inside the Octagon, she landed an excellent armbar to finish Jessica Aguilar, so that’s the sequence I’ll focus on.

After taking her foe down into side control, Zhang aggressively looked for the crucifix position, dropping elbows and splitting open Aguilar in the process. “JAG” defended that position, but as a result Zhang was able to drive her knee across the waist into mount. Aguilar looked to escape out the back door beneath a hail of elbows, but Zhang latched onto one arm, ensuring she would fall into a position that threatened the triangle.

Aguilar’s second arm was still somewhat trapped as well, complicated the hold, but Zhang adapted well. Immediately, she grabbed her own shin and readjusted the triangle, gaining a better angle. After briefly pulling down on the head in pursuit of the finish, Zhang instead delivered a brutal series of elbows to her already bloody foe. When Aguilar covered up, Zhang latched onto the arm and extended for the tap (GIF).

Conclusion

This may not have been the title defense fans expected for Andrade, but it’s opposite a worthy challenge and should prove a very exciting fight. There’s much to gain for both women: Andrade can solidify her hold on the title and potentially open up super fight opportunities, whereas Zhang has an opportunity to make history in her home country.

---

Andrew Richardson, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt, is a professional fighter who trains at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California. In addition to learning alongside world-class talent, Andrew has scouted opponents and developed winning strategies for several of the sport’s most elite fighters.

Phil De Fries v Luis Henrique | KSW

Original challenger, Damian Grabowski, suffered an injury so the Brazilian was called upon as a late notice replacement.

An injury to original title challenger, Damian Grabowski (22-5), has led to a change of headliner for KSW 50 in the promotion’s milestone event. Current heavyweight champion, Phil De Fries (17-6, 1NC), will now look to defend his belt for the third time against fellow UFC veteran, Luis Henrique (12-5, 1NC). The show is set for Saturday, September 14th and will be KSW’s third visit to Wembley Arena.

De Fries is in the midst of a stunning career resurgence since his release from the UFC and is currently on a five-fight winning streak. He won the KSW heavyweight title back in April 2018 on his promotional debut when he stopped Michal Andryszak due to strikes in the first round. The Englishman followed this up with victories over former champion, Karol Bedorf, and current KSW light heavyweight champion, Tomasz Narkun, to cement himself as one of the best heavyweights outside of the major American promotions. De Fries is showing the best performances of his career at the age of 33 and his continued work at ATT is clearly paying dividends.

Henrique went 2-4 in the UFC where he shared the cage with Francis Ngannou, Marcin Tybura and Ryan Spann. The Brazilian got back to winning ways after his release from the promotion last year when he picked up a first round submission victory on a regional show before being signed to KSW. He was successful in his promotional debut when he defeated Michal Andryszak by submission in a controversial stoppage. Referee Leon Roberts, waved off the contest even though Andryszak didn’t appear to go unconscious in a guillotine choke but Henrique was dominating the bout up until that point. Once Grabowski suffered an injury, Henrique was the obvious heavyweight in the promotion to call upon to get the championship opportunity. He will be aiming to become only the second male, Brazilian champion in KSW history.

Three other titles will be on the line at KSW 50 in an event that aims to showcase some of the biggest stars in the promotion. In the evening’s co-headliner, Tomasz Narkun defends his light heavyweight crown against TUF alumni, Przemyslaw Mysiala and further down the card, Patrik Kincl challenges current champion, Roberto Soldic, for the welterweight title. The fourth championship bout of the evening sees Norman Parke take on Marion Ziolkowski for the interim lightweight title following Mateusz Gamrot’s hiatus from MMA competition.

Photo by Josh Hedges/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

This Saturday (Aug. 31, 2019), Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) travels to Shenzhen Universade Sports Centre Arena in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, for UFC Fight Night 157. Despite an excellent title fight in the main event between Jessica Andrade and Weili Zhang, much of the card is very obviously not aimed at a Western audience. Indeed, the event will take place very early in the morning (3 a.m. ET) and largely features local athletes, but there are still some interesting main card bouts worth analyzing.

Remember: Later in the week, Jesse Holland will be back to preview and predict the biggest fights of the night.

---

Welterweight: Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos vs. Li Jingliang

Best Win for Zaleski? Sean Strickland For Jingliang? Frank Camacho
Current Streak: Zaleski has won seven straight, and Jingliang has put together a couple wins himself
X-Factor: Jingliang’s willingness to cheat
How these two match up: This match up makes almost zero sense to me.

Zaleski has been killing opponents left and right. The Brazilian has nasty kickboxing, slick Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and great finishing instincts. His win streak has proven him the real deal, earning him a match up with a Top 10-ranked foe that just won’t seem to materialize. Instead, he’ll face Jingliang, a very solid but very middle-of-the-pack Welterweight. Jingliang is an aggressive slugger himself, though he often looks to wrestle as well.

So, first and foremost, it’s a match up unworthy of Zaleski’s recent success. More oddly, Jingliang is a fan favorite in China, one of the country’s most established UFC fighters, yet he enters this bout likely to get walloped in front of his home crowd.

There is a chance Jingliang can apply a takedown-heavy strategy and wear Zaleski out, but he’s never been a control specialist. More likely is that Jingliang hits a couple double legs, but Zaleski scrambles back up and proceeds to drop power shots on the Chinese athlete repeatedly.

Jingliang is notoriously tough, but that won’t win him a decision.

Prediction: Zaleski via decision

---

Flyweight: Kai Kara-France vs. Mark De La Rosa

Best Win for Kara-France? Raulian Paiva For De La Rosa? Joby Sanchez
Current Streak: Kara-France recently won his UFC debut, whereas De La Rosa was out-wrestled last time out for a loss.
X-Factor: De La Rosa seems to have a size advantage
How these two match up: Though both men are well-rounded, this is likely to play out as a striker vs. grappler match up.

Kara-France definitely prefers to kickbox. The New Zealand-native has eight victories via strikes on his record, and he moves quite well. Last time out, Kara-France successfully navigated the aggression and combinations of Paiva to skillfully pick up a close decision win.

De La Rosa, meanwhile, has found mixed success in the Octagon. He tends to win fights via submission, but De La Rosa has struggled when unable to gain top position or put on his own back.

Both of these men understand fully what must be done to win: Kara-France must avoid the takedown, whereas De La Rosa needs top position at some point. It’s always difficult to pick a fight where the match up of a single skill will really dictate the outcome, but I have to side with Kara-France. His style seems better built for success at a higher level, whereas De La Rosa has previously struggled to implement his wrestling against experienced opposition.

Prediction: Kara-France via decision

---

Featherweight: Zhenhong Lu vs. Movsar Evloev

Best Win for Lu? Sitik Muduev For Evloev? Seung Woo Choi
Current Streak: Lu will debut in the Octagon off a single victory, whereas Evloev has won 11 straight including his recent UFC debut
X-Factor: The two have fought before!
How these two match up: This is a late-notice match up put together out of necessity — Evloev actually already defeated Lu in 2015.

Lu has won 11 of his last 12 bouts, finishing most of his opponents with a healthy mix of submissions and strike stoppages. His level of competition has not been elite, but Lu has been fighting pretty solid opponents on his current run for the most part. At 25 years of age with a perfect (11-0) record, Evloev is definitely a prospect to watch. The former M-1 Global Featherweight kingpin successfully debuted earlier in 2019, showing off solid combinations and a pretty overwhelming wrestling game in the process.

Overthinking is a killer in the fight-picking business. Evloev is a very talented prospect with a high-ceiling facing an unheralded opponent whom he’s already dispatched. In fact, Evloev beat him in his second pro fight, when the Russian was much newer to the game!

Don’t overthink this one folks.

Prediction: Evloev via decision

---

Flyweight: Yanan Wu vs. Mizuki Inoue

Best Win for Wu? Lauren Mueller For Inoue? Viviane Pereira
Current Streak: Wu won her most recent UFC fight, whereas this is Inoue’s debut on the heels of a single win in Invicta FC
X-Factor: It’s still hard to get a full read on Wu given her lack of high-level competition
How these two match up: This should prove to be a pretty fun fight for however long it lasts.

I’ll be honest, I cannot say with any confidence that Wu is particularly good. She has faced three opponents with positive records: two defeated her with ease, and the other dropped her before falling into a sloppy armbar. These results do not inspire confidence. Inoue, meanwhile, was at one point one of Invicta FC’s top contenders and facing current top-talent like Alexa Grasso. The Japanese athlete has a lot of experience in shoot-boxing and grappling, and she’s proven herself a rather well-rounded and tough fighter inside the cage.

This reads to me like a mismatch. Wu is supposedly a striker, but she tagged up last time out by a fairly average fighter. Unlike in that bout, Wu will not have her jiu-jitsu to fall back on, because Inoue is definitely the superior grappler as well.

Fun and over quickly is not a bad combination … unless you’re Yanan Wu.

Prediction: Inoue via submission

Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC Fight Night 157 fight card this weekend right HERE, starting with the ESPN+“Prelims” that are scheduled to begin at 3 a.m. ET, then the main card portion that will stream on ESPN+ at 6 a.m. ET.

To check out the latest and greatest UFC Fight Night 157: “Andrade Vs. Zhang” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here.

‘X-Factor’ Picks for 2019: 38-14