One of the most anticipated fights on tonight’s (Sat. May 13, 2017) card is the bout between No. 5-ranked welterweight Jorge Masvidal and former UFC middleweight title challenger Demian Maia. The winner of this contest is the most likely candidate to challenge welterweight champion, Tyron Woodley, next. Round 1: Maia tries to find his way inside […]
One of the most anticipated fights on tonight’s (Sat. May 13, 2017) card is the bout between No. 5-ranked welterweight Jorge Masvidal and former UFC middleweight title challenger Demian Maia. The winner of this contest is the most likely candidate to challenge welterweight champion, Tyron Woodley, next. Round 1: Maia tries to find his way inside […]
UFC 211 kicks off the organization’s summer season with a bang in Dallas, Texas as Stipe Miocic looks to defend his heavyweight title against Junior dos Santos in the main event.
The two will be running back an instant-classic slugfest in 2014 wh…
UFC 211 kicks off the organization’s summer season with a bang in Dallas, Texas as StipeMiocic looks to defend his heavyweight title against Junior dos Santos in the main event.
The two will be running back an instant-classic slugfest in 2014 when JDS took a unanimous decision from the current champion. That was then, though.
A lot has changed since that memorable fight. Miocic has gone from massive underdog in that matchup to the champion and slight favorite over the Brazilian, according to OddsShark.
Miocic and Dos Santos is sure to be fire, but it’s going to have stiff competition for Fight of the Night. Joanna Jedrzejczyk will also be in a firefight to defend her title against Jessica Andrade.
Here’s a look at the PPV card, along with the latest odds from OddsShark and the biggest questions coming into Saturday night.
Has StipeMiocic Evolved Beyond Junior Dos Santos?
In a way, it was StipeMiocic‘s loss to Junior dos Santos in 2014 that set him up to be the champion today. Until then, Miocic was considered a mid-tier heavyweight.
He was 6-1 in the Octagon, but his best win was against Roy Nelson. He had been knocked out by Stefan Struve. Good, but not great.
Then came his opportunity against Dos Santos. Cigano was coming off his second loss to Cain Velasquez, still looking like the best heavyweight that wasn’t Velasquez. It was a rebound fight.
But Miocic never got that memo. Instead of playing the role of punching bag. Miocic dug his toes in and fired back. The Ohio native unflinchingly went after the former champion and turned the bout into a slugfest.
Dos Santos won, but Miocic left everyone with the same takeaway: His skills weren’t quite on the same level of Dos Santos, but he wasn’t as far as originally thought and his toughness can take him a long way.
As it turns out, that toughness has taken him all the way to the top. Now the roles will be reversed in the main event, but the same question still remains: Have Miocic‘s skills surpassed Dos Santos?
It’s an interesting question because both fighters like to do similar things. JDS and Miocic are both boxers looking to land that knockout punch. Miocic is the slightly better grappler, but not enough to make it the obvious path to victory for him.
According to Reed Kuhn of Fightnomics‘ numbers, Dos Santos is still the more accurate striker of the two.
However, Miocic‘s striking has come a long way since 2014. While JDS has become a bit more patient and tactical with his choices and pace, Miocic has become an excellent counterpuncher.
That’s what could be the difference as Miocic catches JDS with the counter that puts him to sleep after initial success from both fighters.
Can Joanna Jedrzejczyk Withstand Jessica Andrade‘s Power for Five Rounds?
On March 14, 2015, Joanna Jedrzejczyk became the second women’s strawweight champion in UFC history. She hasn’t looked back since.
The Polish phenom has outclassed four challengers for the belt. Outstriking opponents in the clinch and from range with record-making efficiency, per UFC Europe:
However, being the most dominant strawweight isn’t enough for Jedrzejczyk. She has her eyes on an even bigger goal of being the most dominant women’s champion in the organization’s history, eclipsing Ronda Rousey‘s standard for title defenses.
“I want to be the first female fighter to hold two belts,” Jedrzejczyk said, per Mike Bohn of Rolling Stone. “First I want to reach the record of Ronda Rousey. She had six successful title defenses, which is a pretty big deal to me. I want to be an undefeated champion and retire undefeated. It’s not going to be easy.”
Of the potential challengers for the champion’s throne, Andrade might be the most dangerous. Jedrzejczyk is not an exceptionally large strawweight. She’s lean and long but has been challenged by the likes of Claudia Gadelha who could neutralize her advantage in the clinch.
Andrade should fit that bill. She made her UFC debut and fought seven times at 135 pounds before making the cut down to 115.
The Brazilian has serious stopping power too. 12 of her 16 career wins have come by way of either TKO or submission.
Jedrzejczyk is the ultimate volume striker, but her ability to break down opponents is just that: The ability to break down an opponent over time. Andrade will have a power advantage throughout the fight, but especially early.
“Joanna Champion” will need to fend off the early onslaught from Andrade in this fight to take over in the later rounds and assert her will.
Can Demian Maia Get Jorge Masvidal to the Ground?
It just seems like whatever Demian Maia does, respect never seems to follow.
The 39-year-old will enter his fight against dangerous opponent Jorge Masvidal on a six-fight win streak that includes Carlos Condit, Matt Brown and Gunnar Nelson. Yet he’s preparing for a bout against Jorge Masvidal instead of UFC champion TyronWoodley.
It appeared Maia was in line to be Woodley‘s next title opponent, but when Woodley was scheduled to fight Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson again, he chose to take a fight against Masvidal.
The current champ explained why that’s a potentially bad move.
“Unfortunately for Maia, he accepted the fight the week of me and Wonderboy‘s fight. In my personal opinion, bad move. Wait and see how the fight went. If nobody came out of the fight hurt, a clear winner, not another draw, you’re already in a position to fight for a world title,” Woodley said on the “UFC Undisputed“podcast (via Damon Martin of Fox Sports). “Why would you put yourself up against the worst possible matchup outside of a title fight? Why would you put yourself in that position?”
Masvidal is, at heart, a brawler. His background as a street fighter can be seen in his approach to attacking opponents in the cage, and he’ll likely have the advantage while these two are standing.
However, if the fight goes to the mat, it’ll be Jaws: MMA Edition as Maia drags Masvidal down into his submission game.
Maia’s takedown game is sneaky good. He’s always given credit for his grappling, which has led to 12 submission victories in his career, but it’s his singular drive to score the takedown that sets everything up. Former opponent Matt Brown broke down the Brazilian’s takedown game, per Jonathan Snowden of Bleacher Report.
“The one thing different I felt from him, different than every person I’ve ever fought or even trained with, was he didn’t seem interested in chaining things together or transitioning from one technique to the next,” Brown said. “He had an idea of what he wanted and he was going to go for that with a single-minded purpose until he got it. He was willing to live or die based on getting what he wanted.”
This is a huge fight in the welterweight division, but whether Maia made the right choice comes down to one simple question: Can he take down Masvidal?
If he can, he may finally get that title shot. If not, Masvidal could be the one with the massive momentum after Saturday night.
In 2014, Stipe Miocic and Junior dos Santos put on one of the best fights in heavyweight history. That’s not Joe Roganesque hyperbole. The two combined to land 212 significant strikes over five rounds and pushed each other to the brink.
At U…
In 2014, StipeMiocic and Junior dos Santos put on one of the best fights in heavyweight history. That’s not Joe Roganesque hyperbole. The two combined to land 212 significant strikes over five rounds and pushed each other to the brink.
At UFC 211, the two will run that instant classic back with a championship belt on the line.
If that weren’t enough to lure your eyeballs to this card, dominant women’s strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk will also put her title on the line against a dangerous opponent in Jessica Andrade in the evening’s co-main event.
It’s a slate that not only features the two championship bouts, but former and future title contenders in Frankie Edgar, Demian Maia, Jorge Masvidal, Yair Rodriguez and Eddie Alvarez.
Here’s a look at the complete card, how you can catch all the action and a look at who the biggest winners on the card might be. All odds courtesy of OddsShark.
Potential Biggest Winners
Demian Maia
As the lead-in to the championship double header, Demian Maia is in a spot where there will be a lot of eyes on his matchup with Jorge Masvidal.
Maia also hasn’t fought since August 2016, so even though he’s riding a six-fight win streak with back-to-back submission wins, he isn’t on the tip everyone’s tongue in the welterweight division. Masvidal—however—is a fighter on the rise with a three-fight win streak and a TKO win over Donald Cerrone in January.
With a win on a high-profile pay-per-view card over a hot opponent, Maia’s title chances all of a sudden come alive. Of course, that first means he has to beat Masvidal, but he appears to be taking the one-fight-at-a-time approach.
“Of course I want to fight for the title first, but once we signed for the fight, I cleaned my mind,” Maia said, per Mike Bohn and John Morgan of MMAjunkie. “I said, ‘Let’s go and do what I love, which is fighting.’ I’m very blessed to do that, to do what I love and to go every day to the gym and make my living with that. That’s it.”
This is a classic grappler vs. striker matchup, so it’ll be interesting to see if and when Maia can drag the fight to the mat.
Masvidal is dangerous on the feet, but he’s been prone to takedowns before. Ross Pearson took him down twice in their fight in 2016, while Benson Henderson, Daron Cruickshank and Pat Healy have all taken him down as well.
As long as Maia can close the distance without getting tagged, he should be able to score the takedown. From there, it’s a matter of time before he sinks in a choke or maims a limb.
Yair Rodriguez
It’s no secret that the UFC wants to push featherweight Yair Rodriguez as a future star in the sport. The decision was to put Rodriguez in a headlining bout against fading legend B.J. Penn.
The allure is easy to see.
Rodriguez is an entertaining fighter with a penchant for performance bonuses. Since winning The Ultimate Fighter: Latin America in 2014, he’s either won Fight of the Night or Performance of the Night in four of five fights.
Rodriguez is also one of few Mexican fighters in the organization and part of an even smaller group that have a shot at a UFC title one day. The possibility has Rodriguez believing that he could be a bigger star in his home country than Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.
“If I become a champion, if I become the first Mexican UFC champion, I can become bigger because I will be the first one,” Rodriguez said, per Damon Martin of Fox Sports. “There are already a lot of Mexican boxers, great boxers. I’m not saying Canelo is not great. He’s great. But I think I can become bigger than that because I’ll be the first one.”
The corrosion on Edgar’s career isn’t as clear as Penn’s. The former champion lost to Jose Aldo at UFC 200 but rebounded with a decision win over Jeremy Stephens.
Still, at 35 years old with plenty of memorable fights in the book, it’s hard to tell when the other shoe will drop on his career.
Edgar is always a fighter who has gotten by with savvy and ringcraft, but speed has always come into the equation. He’s going to have a huge discrepancy in length, and Rodriguez isn’t just a good fighter, but also a good athlete.
If Rodriguez can utilize that athleticism to score a win over Edgar, it’s going to be the win that takes him from up-and-comer to bonafide contender.
Dustin Poirier
For years, Dustin Poirier has flashed the potential to contend for a UFC championship. For years, he’s come up short when he needs to show up against improved competition.
Diamond gets a chance to change that at UFC 211 when he takes on former lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez in the prelim main event.
It’s an opportunity that Poirier understands could open some doors if all goes as planned.
“I told my management, ‘The only way I’m coming back is if it’s a big fight. Otherwise, let me have some time,‘” said Poirier, per Mike Bohn and John Morgan of MMAjunkie. “But as soon as Eddie’s fight came up I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ … When a name comes up like that and you get the opportunity to fight the former champ, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do and try to get that fight.”
Alvarez is coming off a championship fight where he lost his belt to ConorMcGregor. Finding motivation after being knocked down the mountain like that isn’t the easiest thing for most fighters to do.
In addition to that, Poirier is simply one of the best strikers on the card, according to Reed Kuhn of Fightnomics:
There’s a reason this fight is serving as the lead-in to the pay-per-view portion of the evening. It’s going to set a violent example for the other fights to follow as both Alvarez and Poirier are capable of throwing down.
If Poirier wins against a former champion in a big spot, it’ll be the sign that he’s finally overcome some of his demons against quality competition.
Thirty seconds into his fight with Demian Maia, it’s already over for Carlos Condit. He may not know it yet, but the end is approaching; unflappable, unyielding, the ancient art of jiu-jitsu given new life by a man who’s devoted himself to the religion…
Thirty seconds into his fight with Demian Maia, it’s already over for Carlos Condit. He may not know it yet, but the end is approaching; unflappable, unyielding, the ancient art of jiu-jitsu given new life by a man who’s devoted himself to the religion of martial arts.
Condit had prepared for this moment for two months. He knew Maia would try to push him into the cage. He knew he’d use a single leg takedown attempt to do it. He knew once he was on the ground that Maia would overwhelm and envelop—a human ocean seemingly covering every inch of his body, impossible to escape.
He practiced studiously to avoid it, every day an emotional battle, with frustration boiling over every time his back touched the mat. Once he was there, Condit knew it was a matter of waiting Maia out, battering him from the bottom and hoping the referee stood the two men up.
Getting up against a man like Maia was out of the question. The trick was not going to the ground in the first place.
“The best fighters make their opponents fight their fight,” Condit‘s coach Brandon Gibson said. “You know Maia wants to go to the ground. You know he wants to advance position. You know he wants to be in mount or take the back. And he just gets there.
“There’s no secret to what he does. He’s just the best at it. Our first job was to highlight how he gets to the position where he controls the back. How does he get to that position and how can we stop him? We looked for glimpses of success against him and created a plan to minimize what he does well and concentrate on what Carlos does best.”
A plan is a good start. Intellectually, that all makes sense. But, against a man like Maia, nothing can prepare you for the experience of actually being there. For former opponents like Matt Brown, watching Condit struggle was all too familiar.
“The one thing different I felt from him, different than every person I’ve ever fought or even trained with, was he didn’t seem interested in chaining things together or transitioning from one technique to the next,” Brown said. “He had an idea of what he wanted and he was going to go for that with a single-minded purpose until he got. He was willing to live or die based on getting what he wanted.
“You don’t really train with guys like that. I’d never competed against anyone like that before. Yes, I trained for the moment. But there are levels. And it’s hard to find a guy as good as Demian Maia to train with.”
Within a single minute, 60 ticks of the second hand, Condit found Maia on his back. Less than two minutes after the ringing of a bell kicked off the contest, Condit was giving in to Maia’s pressure, turning his head to escape a wicked neck crank, accepting the inevitable rear naked choke that he knew must surely follow.
“What can I say? Opponents, they know the techniques, but they don’t know the details,” Maia said. “They know that I like to do a certain kind of sweep and that I like to do submissions from the back. It’s hard for them, though—because it’s not just the basic technique, it’s what is hiding behind the technique. Those are the details I work on and am learning every day.”
It was low-key one of the most dominating performances the sport had seen in years, one elite athlete in complete control of another. And Maia did it all without throwing a single punch with bad intentions.
Carlos Condit was born to fight. A whirling dervish of kicks, punches and elbows, he’s a non-stop cacophony of violence, good enough at one point to claim the honor of being the best welterweight on the planet. He’s been in the cage with fighters who will be first ballot Hall of Famers, men like the incomparable Georges St-Pierre.
In that time he’d never looked out of place—until he found himself face to face with Demian Maia.
The most intimidating man in the UFC’s welterweight division hardly looks the part. In a sport filled with tattooed wild men and muscle-bound s–t talkers, he barely makes a peep, visually or sonically.
It’s why, despite six consecutive wins agains the best competition the welterweight division can offer, you’ve likely never heard of him unless you count yourself among the sport’s hardcore fans. It’s why he’s fighting on the undercard of UFC 211 against Jorge Masvidal instead of against champion TyronWoodley as athletic norms would suggest.
Talking with Bleacher Report as he drove through the Brazilian countryside, this seeming rejection did little to raise Maia’s blood pressure. He understands that ConorMcGregor has lit a fire under the sport, overnight becoming the most popular attraction in UFC history. The result has been an endless stream of copycats. But, while he doesn’t believe that’s the only personality a promoter can sell to the public, he can accept UFC’s decision to prioritize others over him.
“UFC may be this giant company, but it is made up of people,” Maia said in his heavily accented but pristine English. “And people have their preferences. You change people and the preferences change. For now, most people making decisions in UFC like standup fighting. That’s a personal taste. Just like if I was the owner or made all the decisions for UFC, I would reward a lot of ground fighters. That’s normal. People are biased towards what they like. It’s a human being being a human being.”
It’s hard to imagine, as the conversation journeys from his early life as a martial arts obsessed kid to his current life as a martial arts obsessed adult, Maia getting too upset about anything. The closest he comes is when I ask him about the psychic and karmic results of possibly hurting an opponent in the cage, and he gently admonishes me for bringing up such a taboo subject in the days before he must fight.
“I cannot have these thoughts when I’m fighting,” he said, simply but emphatically. “The style of jiu-jitsu I do isn’t likely to lead to injury. It shouldn’t lead to hurting your opponent, but sometimes that is a consequence. As an athlete, I cannot think about that.”
Other than that, Maia is entirely composed, calm, polite and thoughtful. This, he says, is the product of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and why, at the age of 39, he’s still willing to step into a steel cage to pit his will against another man’s.
“I have a mission to share jiu-jitsu with the world,” he said. “I have something beautiful to share with people and a big platform, which is the UFC. I know that when I am fighting, there are many people who are influenced by me. So, I’ve got to use that to bring what I love to everyone.
“It’s a way to discover self consciousness and to understand yourself better, to learn how to control yourself under pressure. All of these values, the things that are important in jiu jitsu, are just as important in every day life. This is something I can help give to other people.”
To Maia, fighting is just something he does to support his real passion, a martial arts journey that started when he was four years old and discovered judo for the first time. Kungfu and other arts would follow. Brazilian jiu-jitsu, too expensive for his parents to afford, remained just out of reach, tantalizing and intriguing him from a distance.
By the time he started college, everything changed. After watching a local competition in Sao Paulo, Brazil, that saw jiu-jitsu players destroy traditional martial artists of all disciplines, Maia found a new meaning and purpose in life.
Jiu-jitsu had taken the martial arts world by storm a few years earlier as Brazilian brothers Royce and Rickson Gracie dominated no-holds-barred competitions in America and Japan, and Maia was swept up in the excitement of it all. Inspired by the Gracies, the 19-year-old found his way to world champion Fabio Gurgel‘s gym and made the decision to devote himself to the most efficient and beautiful art he’d ever seen.
“Rickson was a guy who really influenced me, because of his mindset and his way of seeing things,” Maia says. “I feel like I know Rickson, not personally, but through his approach. I admire his way and his belief in jiu-jitsu as an art where you can win without getting hurt or hurting your opponent. In terms of philosophy, I follow the mindset of Rickson and his belief in the strength of jiu-jitsu.”
Every morning Maia got up and went to work. Later in the day, he’d attend class en route to a degree in journalism. In between he trained at least twice a day. At night he studied videos of the Gracies and other grappling greats and dreamed about jiu-jitsu.
Others his age had been in the sport for years before Maia had even begun. There was a lot of catching up to do. He was in a hurry to absorb it all, to learn everything there was to know, to become the very best in the world.
“Training with Fabio Gurgel was like going to college for jiu-jitsu,” Maia says. “A lot of athletes aren’t great teachers. I was very lucky to find one who was. What really helped me advance quickly was teaching. That helped me jump ahead of many people because I was thrown into it. I was teaching sometimes five classes a day. It was like a private class for myself as well. I was training and teaching and in love. I was thinking about jiu-jitsu all day.”
In less than five years Maia had earned a black belt from Gurgel, something that would normally take even the most promising student double that amount of time. But Maia was more than promising. He won world championships as both a purple and brown belt, and after just six years into training, he won the prestigious World Cup two years in a row.
“Just like anybody who excels in their craft, whether it’s a musician or an artist, I think the beauty is in the details,” Gibson said. “What makes Maia so good is that everything he does is perfect. The way he floats is perfect. The way he posts is perfect. He’s always balanced, he’s always in control. Jiu-jitsu is physics and geometry and he understands it. Mentally, he’s a master.”
The key to Maia’s success is not just the details—it’s that they are ever-changing. In some ways, in fact, Condit was a victim of Maia’s obsession with incremental improvements. And he has Brown to blame for it.
Though Maia eventually finished Brown with a choke in their 2016 bout, his early struggles to do so bothered him, lingering in his mind long after the fight was over. Brown had bested him in what is typically Maia’s best position until a last-second, desperate attempt to pull victory from defeat led to a mistake.
That wasn’t good enough.
“I needed to understand some more details and studied it more and more,” Maia said. “I did things differently and I worked and worked and soon I was submitting everyone from the back in training. By the time I fought Carlos Condit, I was in the same position I was in against Matt Brown but was able to submit him much faster.”
In grappling, details are everything. And you can see it in the Condit fight. Instead of simply going for a choke, Maia grabbed a hold of Condit‘s shoulder with his left hand. This grip allowed him to crush Condit‘s face with a brutal neck crank, forcing him to choose between an agonizing hold and the danger of the choke, a hold Maia had previously used six times to secure a submission.
Condit turned his head to take his chances with the choke. Seconds later it was over. The difference was in the details.
“For people watching, it looks the same. It is hard to see,” Maia said. “The pressure of my body. How I move my head. The angle I chose. These are small details. For the opponent, these things are hard to prepare for.
“Even though it looks like the same technique I used to do, it is not the same anymore. I added some details or I took some things away. I am in love with the technique because it is always changing. I am never the same. I do a different thing every time, even when it doesn’t always look like it.”
It’s this passion for perfection that has kept Maia from settling into the comfortable role as an established veteran, comfortable in the skill sets he brings to the cage. That’s why he sought out Wanderlei Silva to improve his striking game and coach Dave Esposito to perfect his wrestling game, making it impossible for opponents to avoid going to the mat with him.
“His takedowns and his ability to take the back so quickly really threw me off,” Brown said. “We knew his jiu-jitsu was as good as anyone’s and I was prepared for that. But his wrestling was much better than I thought it would be.
“His takedowns and transitions took me by surprise. And once he got a hold of me, it felt like I wasn’t going anywhere. I’d never trained with anyone at the gym who was able to hold a position so well for so long. He’s at the highest level. And you know that if you make one mistake, that’s going to be it.”
These are the little things that keeps Maia coming to the gym every morning, personally teaching students at least once a week in the traditional gi of his art and perfecting his own craft every day with burgeoning professionals. He’s a scientist studying pain, his own Academy in Sao Paulo a laboratory covered in blue mats.
“I just love martial arts. I love the discoveries you make in training. I love to be ahead of the other fighters, using techniques they aren’t ready to defend,” Maia said in a voice that leaves no doubt that he means it. “I fight to pay for my passion. I love to train more than I love to fight.”
It’s this spirit of adventure, this drive to discover new ways to push both his opponents and himself that will propel Maia into the cage with Masvidal on Saturday, the latest step on a journey that has spanned a lifetime. Should he win, Maia is prepared for an opportunity to prove he’s the best in the world. Just don’t expect the same man from the fight before to enter the cage.
“This sport is still so new that we have this opportunity to create new strategies and techniques,” he said. “This is what I do everyday at the academy to stay ahead of my opponents. I am not stronger than them, I am not better at standup. My difference is that I train every day to bring things to the table my opponent will not be used to. When the chance comes, I will be ready.”
Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.
Summer blockbuster season kicks off early for MMA fans, with UFC 211 on Saturday, May 13.
Two belts will be on the line in the main and co-main events. A heavyweight rematch between Stipe Miocic and Junior dos Santos headlines the event, coming a…
Summer blockbuster season kicks off early for MMA fans, with UFC 211 on Saturday, May 13.
Two belts will be on the line in the main and co-main events. A heavyweight rematch between StipeMiocic and Junior dos Santos headlines the event, coming after the women’s strawweight championship fight between Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Jessica Andrade.
Both champions have looked excellent in defending their titles the last time out, but both are presented with dangerous challenges to cap off a night full of intriguing fights.
Here’s a look at the card for the evening, ticket information, the latest odds from OddsShark and predictions for the biggest fights.
The heavyweight championship bout is a sequel to one of the better heavyweight fights in recent memory. The last time these two met, they landed 212 combined significant strikes in an all-out war.
Back then, Miocic was considered a long shot against Cigano. According to OddsShark, the current champion was a 13-4 underdog against the former champion.
Ultimately, Miocic lost a unanimous decision, but he held his own, even taking at least one round on each of the judge’s scorecards. Despite the loss, it was Miocic‘s launching pad as a serious contender in the heavyweight division.
“The lesson I learned, not even really a lesson as much as, just knowing that I belong,” Miocic said, per Dave Doyle of MMA Fighting. “I belong, that I can hang anyone. I went five rounds with a former champ, a guy who has been a knockout artist, and I went five rounds with him, I know I belong. I know that I’m not going anywhere, and look at where I’m at now.”
Fast-forward three years and this matchup is a little more high profile. What was once a rebound fight for Cigano is now one he’s the slight underdog in, but he believes that he’ll actually fare even better against Miocic this time around.
“It’s going to be done early,” Dos Santos predicted, per Fernanda Prates and John Morgan of MMAjunkie. “It’s not going to take five rounds for sure. We know a little bit more of each other, so we’r going to be able to do a better strategy for this fight. I’m very confident. I’m saying I’m going to beat him before the end of the second round.”
Both fighters have come a long way since their first encounter. Since that loss, Miocic is fighting with a whole new level of confidence and has knocked out his last four opponents, including Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem in championship fights.
Meanwhile, Dos Santos put in one of the most complete performances of his career against Ben Rothwell and is looking to get his spot back as the king of the division.
However, the area that Miocic has improved the most—his counterpunching—could be the difference here. Look for him to catch JDS coming in after a few rounds to secure a fifth straight knockout win.
Prediction: Miocic via third-round TKO
Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs. Jessica Andrade
Thus far, the toughest challenge to Jedrzejczyk‘s championship reign in the women’s strawweight division came in the form of a big, strong grappler in Claudia Gadelha. That’s going to change at UFC 211.
The undefeated Joanna Champion will take on an even bigger (both literally and figuratively) challenge in Andrade. The Brazilian is a former women’s bantamweight contender with a 3-0 record since dropping down to strawweight.
Not only does Andrade‘s power pose a threat to the champion, but the way she deliver’s that power makes this fight interesting as well. Jedrzejczyk is a measured fighter, calculating in doling out her devastation through a wide variety of strikes.
Andrade is just the opposite. A throwback brawler who is looking to exchange whenever possible, she’s going to return fire when strikes come her way.
It’s the unpredictability that she believes will be one of her greatest assets in taking the belt from the champ, per Damon Martin of Fox Sports:
“The way that I put pressure on in fights is something Joanna has never had to deal with. She’s not used to someone just bullying her or just grabbing her and with pressure all the time. This is something we’re expecting her to have problems with because she is so technical, she is someone who comes from a really strong technical background. We know this from history that people who are too technical, they sometimes lose themselves with an opponent who are not as technical or not as predictable as them. This is something we are really hoping will make a difference. We know that it’s going to make a difference cause I’ll be honest, it’s really difficult to prepare against someone like me.”
Meanwhile, Jedrzejczyk isn’t necessarily sold on Andrade being her toughest opponent, per UFC Tonight:
Although Andrade has the experience of fighting at 135 pounds, the champion will still be the taller, longer fighter on Saturday night. That could be the difference, as she will definitely look to put the challenger on the end of her jab and send kicks to the body and legs.
Andrade will have her moments—and could conceivably pull off the upset in those moments—but the champion’s ability to thrive from range should keep her relatively safe. Jedrzejczyk sweeps the later rounds to earn the decision despite early trouble.
There are many good non-championship fights on this card, but the best and most important one might be the high-profile welterweight bout between Jorge Masvidal and Demian Maia.
Much like the women’s strawweight title fight, it’s a delightful contrast in styles. In one corner you have the free-swinging brawler in Masvidal and in the other the brilliant ground technician in Maia. The winner will have a lot of momentum in the division, and the odds indicate a tough fight to prognosticate.
Masvidal doesn’t lack confidence. While his vitriol on Twitter is mostly aimed at Michael Bisping at the moment, he has adopted the slogan “easy money” for this fight.
Maia is obviously known for his world-class grappling chops, but Masvidal wants to put those to the test.
“When I beat that guy by outpositioning him, outwrestling him, people are going to know how good my grappling is,” Masvidal said, per Fox Sports’ Martin. “They’re going to see the best of ‘Gamebred.’ This ain’t just talking. I’ve been here for a long time—people just haven’t been paying attention.”
Confidence is good, but hubris oftentimes leads to the fall.
If Masvidal‘s game plan is truly to grapple with Maia, he’s going to have a bad time. Masvidal‘s takedown defense has never been elite, and Maia’s submission game is good enough to tap anyone in the division if they are willing to roll with him.
Masvidal has all the tools on the feet to deliver a devastating knockout, but it’s going to take a careful avoidance of the ground game to win. It doesn’t sound like he’s too concerned about taking those risks on the mat, though, and that could be his undoing.
When it comes to recent form, Demian Maia (24 – 6) has a pretty strong case in his favor. He has six consecutive wins to his name in his past six fights and is looking sharp and dangerous. Maia fights in the welterweight division, but this is not where he started off. Maia was originally […]
When it comes to recent form, Demian Maia (24 – 6) has a pretty strong case in his favor. He has six consecutive wins to his name in his past six fights and is looking sharp and dangerous. Maia fights in the welterweight division, but this is not where he started off. Maia was originally a middleweight prior to dropping to 170 lbs. While fighting in the middleweight division, he did not necessarily enjoy the same kind of success as he does now. He had ups and downs. However, since entering the welterweight division, Maia has looked pretty ruthless. He started off in the division with wins against some of the divisions best fighters such as Dong-Hyun Kim, Rick Story and Jon Fitch.
Maia’s strong suits most certainly include his grappling game, when the fight gets horizontal, Maia has some insidious grips and techniques which will have even the toughest fighters tapping out.
On the other hand, Jorge Masvidal is eager to, in his own words, “take out all the guys they (the UFC) don’t like”. Masvidal to has reignited his career with a move to the welterweight division and he will be looking to go from UFC’s go-to hitman to an actual title contender, a champion!
However, while Masvidal is not low on confidence, does he really have what it takes to take out Demian Maia? We think if the fight goes to ground, then Masvidal may just run out of gas. For this UFC 211 prediction, we are going with Maia to win by unanimous decision.
UFC 211 kicks off the organization’s summer season with a bang in Dallas, Texas as