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Phil and David breakdown everything you need to know about Yair Rodriguez vs. Jeremy Stephens for UFC Mexico City, and everything you don’t about molletes.
Yair Rodriguez vs. Jeremy Stephens headlines UFC Fight Night 159 this September 21, 2019 at the Mexico City Arena in Mexico City, Mexico.
One sentence summary
David: Breach and Strong
Phil: Pantera vs Lil’ Heathen in a notably sacrilegious and violent pairing in Mexico City
Stats
Record: Yair Rodriguez 11-2 | Jeremy Stephens 28-16
Odds: Yair Rodriguez +100 | Jeremy Stephens -110
History / Introduction to the fighters
David: It’s been a cooling-off period for El Pantera. Rather than grind that leg axe, he’s been more or less neutralized in his last two fights. These weren’t just unfortunate matchups, or unexpected performances: his skills were soundly squashed. Only a literal, last-second Houdini elbow kept him in the win column, and in this weekend’s main event. Do I sound down on Yair? Maybe a little. Fan, writer, or Fanatic with a capital Travolta (not for nothing, but this movie seems almost legit in a somewhat non-ironic way) — you want to see guys with his kind of Hong Kong action flick style succeed. That’s all the more reason to demand more when he continues running into the same problems. But, we forget that Rodriguez is still just 26. Even if he hasn’t learned to shore up his deficiencies, learning new efficiencies can still be the difference between being just a fun, action fighter, and being a fun, dangerous action fighter.
Phil: Prospects get such a bumpy ride in the UFC. It seems absolutely unthinkable to think that they threw Yair at Frankie Edgar (FRANKIE EDGAR) when he was just 24. After that predictable and brutal loss, it was time for a trip into everyone’s favourite situation: semi-opaque and unequal negotiations with the UFC when the fighter and the organization disagree on the fighter’s value! Hooray! This largely kept Rodriguez out of the picture, and almost kept him out of the UFC altogether. His development afterwards has been similarly unequal: he still mostly figures to be a fighter who largely presents blazing physicality and toughness, and not a whole lot more. That’s not too bad when you can still author no-look reverse up elbow KOs in the last minute of a fight.
David: Stephens continues his roller coaster career of canned-ham-fisted gatekeeper. He packs a powerful punch, and does a lot of other things really well, but he’ll never challenge for a title, and it’s possible he’s on his last octagon legs. Or so you’d think. Stephens is still just 33. I thought for sure he was Cerrone’s age. He’s not, but like Cerrone, he has access to a magical elixir that keeps his power and volition preserved. I’m not really sure what’s in store for Stephens from here on out, but it must be nice to know that Dana White is always on tap as your personal bail bondsman.
Phil: Stephens will forever be defined by three things, it seems: Who Da Fook Is Dat Guy, Jeremy Stephens Is Fighting Tonight, and the incredible impression that his uppercut from the floor against RDA made on Rogan’s brain. Despite that, he’s put together an impressive run as a featherweight. When he first moved down I frankly thought he was doomed: a fairly plodding lightweight, he figured to be terribly slow down at featherweight. Instead it’s been a fun, consistent run of him steadily walking down opponents and feeding them a diet of power punches and low kicks. Or getting outmaneuvered and outgrappled, one of the two.
What’s at stake?
David: It’s an interesting spot. A Stephens win doesn’t do anything for the division, but it might turn him into one of those emergency call-ups. Like in hockey, how if both goalies get injured, you can put any poor bastard into those cargo loaders called goalie gear and pray to the hockey gods that they’re not tested. Stephens is the featherweight EBUG when talking about title shots and contention.
Phil: Featherweight is reasonably open for business at the moment. Holloway is still making defenses, and there’s no real #1 contender after Volkanovski. I think Stephens will always struggle to make it to contender’s fights, but there’s no reason Yair can’t get, say, the winner of Kattar and Magomedsharipov.
Where do they want it?
David: Rodriguez is an interesting mixture of fighters. While much of his style is informed by charading John Woo films, he’s still an evil gumby of kick-destruction. He uses crude tools, but they’re such eccentric, well-manicured techniques that it doesn’t matter how thoughtfully or technically he’s setting each strike up. At his best, he’s already got his opponent like a deer in headlights with his Murphy’s Paw of kick selections. At his worst, he’s being attacked with solid fundamentals. Watching his fight with the Korean Zombie, I think Yair’s flaws stem from having something of an identity crisis. He actually has some decent counterstriking instincts. I think that’s part of his issue. He can’t really attack in the middle, so his efficiency depends entirely on switching between aggressive forward windmilling, and deliberate backpedaling spinning elbows. Or something. He’s better at one than the other, but if he could learn to calibrate these instincts, I think we’d see richer performances from him. As is, he’s just a tough, lumbering chopsocky film of moments packed into a Diaz brother’s body.
Phil: Man, this is one of the more defined distance matchups we’ve seen in recent years. Yair figures to be an outfighter, if just from the shots he likes to throw. You’re not doing rolling thunders and tornado kicks if you’re fighting people in the pocket and pushing them backwards. The strength and weakness of Yair is in his unpredictability: it’s difficult to tell what kind of crazy set up he’s going to go for, and his sheer physical potency makes it very dangerous to try and guess what’s coming. The problems is that much of it has the same basic solution: walk him down and punch him in the mouth before whatever it is comes out. Defensively Rodriguez hasn’t improved a lot over his tenure in the UFC, with a tendency to still skitter back out of range or just settle down and brawl. The main improvements are in his comfort in throwing back. There are points of his game which make sense, and you can see him attempting to develop a more consistent jab, but at the moment the core of his game is still hyper-athletic toughness.
David: Stephens is what would happen to Robbie Lawler if all of his subtle improvements, and additions miraculously amounted to nothing. I know that sounds super insulting. It’s not. Stephens has genuinely improved over the years. His jab is more noticeable, and he has a fantastic, deliberate leg attack that pulls double duty in keeping opponents less defense-ready as the fight goes on while setting up his boxcar boxing. Part of Stephens’ issue is that he’s simply put in dogfight after dogfight. Nobody’s feeding him huevos rancheros anymore in this rodeo (off-topic: I never understood why huevos rancheros was such a hit, but you can’t find molletes anywhere). His striking improvements have helped create the illusion that his power never wanes, when I assume the real issue is that his opponents are finding it harder to move. Stephens is spatially aware, and he’s not so proud that he’ll only look for the knockout in order to win. One of the odder results in not-so-recent memory was watching Stephens nearly lay-n-pray his way to victory over Anthony Pettis. As such, Stephens is more multi-dimensional than his reputation lets on.
Phil: Stephens is going to be wanting to pressure. As mentioned, Stephens is a huge, powerful featherweight who has essentially traded speed for power. His basic issues have never gone away: experienced grapplers are able to lock up the clinch whenever they want (Magomedsharipov, Edgar) and quicker fighters are able to keep him chasing them (Moicano, Edgar again). With that being said, if the opponent consents to Stephens’ fight, then he’s developed in reasonably impressive ways. His jab is now a genuine threat, and he can either box reasonably well or draw his opponents into settling down on their lead leg before punting it out from under them. His top game and wrestling is perhaps somewhat underplayed: he’s not a natural grappler, but he puts out ferocious damage from top position. He is of course a crushing hitter, but I think there are essentially two things about Stephens which make him into a genuinely threatening fighter, and neither are really his power. The first is his cardio, which even Tony Ferguson has complimented. The second is his ability to figure out where opponents are going to be. He has a knack for punching or kicking into space. This often goes unused in pressure situations, as he still has to brace before he can throw, but if his opponents get stuck by the fence or have predictable patterns in the pocket, he’s impressively good at wiping out slips and level changes with an uppercut, knee or kick.
Insight from past fights
David: I feel like Yair’s last two fights are the blueprint for how to beat Rodriguez. Walk him the f’ down. Like I said, I think Y-Rod has options backing up. I think his brain is working on trying to figure out solutions, whether counterstrikes, resets, or a Blanka roll. And moments happen as a result, like that counter spinning back elbow he landed on Jung earlier in the fight. But these happen like a man computing feverishly: randomly. Maybe he’ll figure it out, but this feels like a tough matchup to answer those questions without a pryoclastic cloud hanging overhead.
Phil: I’m really curious as to who (if either) goes to their grappling. One of the best tricks Rodriguez used to have was hitting level change takedowns on people who chased down his scuttling backwards movement, but he unsurprisingly shelved it for Edgar and the Zombie. Conversely, Rodriguez also looked somewhat lost underneath Edgar, and Stephens has been able to absolutely melt people on the ground. It might be tempting for him to look to take the Mexican to the floor, although I’m not sure whether his clinch wrestling could actually get it done.
X-Factors
David: Will an astrophysicist be there to interrupt them?
Phil: I thought I would enjoy Rogan getting punked on his own show, but no. No, DeGrasse Tyson is just as unbearable as he normally is.
Prognostication
David: Like everyone else, I don’t know where to start. The version of Y-Rod (ok, I’ll stop trying to make this a thing) we saw against Jung wasn’t actively impressive. But there are two kickers; well, a lot more if we count the actual kicks thrown – ok, two kickers 1) Stephens’ attention deficit and 2) Yair’s improvement. Stephens does a great job of moving forward, and moving forward and sustaining efficiency are not synonymous. Even when he’s pressuring, he’s often chasing his opponent. Rodriguez isn’t panicked, or anxious when he’s pressured, and I think that will help him “ defend”, however crudely, while remaining a constant threat to someone who uses angles well, but still plods around too much to leave Yair no room for error. Yair Rodriguez by Decision.
Phil: This is another fight where I have reasonably strong feelings about who is a “better” fighter, and it is Stephens. While KZ headhunted, Stephens should be able to kick out Yair’s leading leg as he retreats, or work the body. If Rodriguez brawls or backs to the fence, as he is wont to, Stephens is extraordinarily dangerous in both situations. That being said, something makes me feel like I don’t want to pick Stephens. Perhaps his tendency to be thrown off by weird stuff, perhaps his vulnerability to body offense. I have no doubt that he can out-brawl Yair, as he did against Josh Emmett, but I’m not sure if he can keep focused if Rodriguez keeps the fight weird. Yair Rodriguez by TKO, round 3.