The UFC returns to pay-per-view this weekend with UFC 177. Live from Sacramento, California, the card boasts a title fight in the main event slot between TJ Dillashaw and Renan Barao.
The card in general is full of prospects, which corresponds wi…
The UFC returns to pay-per-view this weekend with UFC 177. Live from Sacramento, California, the card boasts a title fight in the main event slot between TJ Dillashaw and RenanBarao.
The card in general is full of prospects, which corresponds with its lack of star power. It’s a reason why fans are not jumping at the opportunity to cough up money for the event.
That said, this is all about the prelims. I had a fantastic weekend with the double header, as Macau and Tulsa provided me with an awesome 9-2 mark.
With that said, we move forward. Here is a preview for each fight on the preliminary card, along with predictions.
UFC 177 heads to Team Alpha Male country on Saturday. The Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, California, plays host to the next UFC event.
Team Alpha Male member and UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw defends the title against Renan Barao in the main…
UFC 177 heads to Team Alpha Male country on Saturday. The Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento, California, plays host to the next UFC event.
Team Alpha Male member and UFC bantamweight champion TJ Dillashaw defends the title against RenanBarao in the main event.
Dillashaw won the belt from Barao back in May at UFC 173. It was one of the biggest title upsets since Matt Serra defeated Georges St-Pierre. Due to Barao‘s dominance prior to the fight, the UFC awarded him an immediate rematch.
The co-main event also features a Team Alpha Male fighter. Danny Castillo battles Tony Ferguson in a lightweight scrap.
We will take a look at the betting odds for each of the five main card bouts to help give you the best information leading to the event. Let’s jump right into the action that will come your way this weekend.
The rematch between former UFC bantamweight champion Renan Barao and reigning 135-pound king T.J. Dillashaw is one of the most highly anticipated fights of the year. It headlines UFC 177 on Saturday from Dillashaw’s hometown of Sacramento, California, …
The rematch between former UFC bantamweight champion RenanBarao and reigning 135-pound king T.J. Dillashaw is one of the most highly anticipated fights of the year. It headlines UFC 177 on Saturday from Dillashaw‘s hometown of Sacramento, California, so fans should expect a raucous crowd on hand at the Sleep Train Arena.
In the first fight, Dillshaw executed a perfect game plan centered around lateral movement and effective and accurate striking. Dillashaw connected on 140 of 309 significant strikes, while Barao landed just 64 of 273.
Dillashaw surgically dismantled an opponent who had appeared to be a fighter without weakness in the last three years.
The loss snapped a 32-fight win streak for Barao that had lasted more than nine years. Can Dillashaw do it again? That’s what everyone wants to know.
Here’s a breakdown of the entire card with predictions for each bout and viewing information. For a more detailed look at the top three bouts, check out the analysis just after the table.
Bethe “Pitbull” Correia Will Take Down Another Horsewoman
After Bethe Correia defeated Jessamyn Duke in her previous fight, she held up four fingers and slowly dropped one of them.
It was a shot at the self-proclaimed Four Horsewomen of MMA: Ronda Rousey, Duke, Marina Shafir and Shayna Baszler. The UFC immediately saw the awesomeness in Correia‘s gesture and booked her against Baszler.
Can Correia take down half of the crew?
You bet she can. Correia is not especially strong as a striker. She’s only finished one opponent in her eight professional fights. That said, she’s undefeated, and it’s not because of luck.
Correia simply wins rounds, and it’s based on her activity and relentless approach. The 5’4″ dynamo overwhelms her opponents, and that’s likely to be the case on Saturday against Baszler.
The Pitbull will win by unanimous decision.
El Cucuy Will Be Too Long and Athletic for Last Call
Tony “El Cucuy” Ferguson is putting together a solid run in the UFC. Since debuting in 2011, Ferguson is 5-1 with the only defeat coming to Michael Johnson via decision in 2012.
In Ferguson’s last fight, he spectacularly finished KatsunoriKikuno with a vicious right hand. He had worn him down with excellent technique on the ground, and he simply depleted his fatigued opponent with the power shot.
Danny “Last Call” Castillo scored an impressive KO of his own over Charlie Brenneman in his last fight, but he will be facing an impediment similar to the one Kikuno faced with Ferguson.
Ferguson is too long and skilled on the ground. He’ll wear Castillo down on the mat and then stop him in the second round.
RenanBarao Will Avenge His Loss to Dillashaw
Are you ready for a trilogy? That’s what’s on the way for MMA fans after Barao takes back the UFC bantamweight title.
Dillashaw fought a perfect fight in the first meeting, and he’ll need to do the same thing against Barao in the rematch.
Instead of attempting to strike with the lightning quick and confident champion, Barao will go back to his submission and grappling roots. While Dillashaw is no slouch in this department, he clearly has a better chance of winning if he keeps the fight standing as he did in the first fight.
Barao wanted to oblige him before, but he has to realize that’s not the way to beat Dillashaw.
As devastating as Barao had become as a striker, it’s easy to forget he also owns 14 wins by submission in his career. My prediction is that the number grows to 15 after he sinks in a rear-naked choke to regain his title.
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Really quick, let’s lay out the doomsday scenario for T.J. Dillashaw.
The new men’s bantamweight champion is already getting the short end of the stick on Saturday—slated for a nonsensical immediate rematch against Renan Barao on an o…
Really quick, let’s lay out the doomsday scenario for T.J. Dillashaw.
The new men’s bantamweight champion is already getting the short end of the stick on Saturday—slated for a nonsensical immediate rematch against RenanBarao on an otherwise dreadful UFC 177 card.
It’s the sort of booking that can only be justified by the fight company’s constantly increasing menu of live events and its subsequent need to furnish them all with headliners—even if those headliners don’t seem marquee-worthy or remotely defensible from a competition-based standpoint.
Dillashaw beat Barao in every imaginable fashion just three months ago at UFC 173, pummeling the former pound-for-pound poster boy for more than 20 minutes before finally finishing him off in the fourth round.
It was surprising, but this wasn’t a fluke knockout or one-in-a-million submission. This was total destruction. If Barao deserves a rematch in the wake of such a thorough, long-form beatdown, then every MMA champion who has ever lost a title deserved an immediate chance to get it back.
So, what’s the worst that could happen?
For starters, Dillashaw could lose—and if he does, it’s possible he might not get the same immediate rematch consideration the UFC afforded Barao.
The 28-year-old Team Alpha Male product was a 7-1 underdog headed into their first fight. Though he’ll enter Saturday’s rejoinder as a slight betting favorite according to BestFightOdds.com, we’d be fools to count out the previously dominant Barao.
In hindsight, a lot has been done to discredit the former champ’s nine-year, 30-fight win streak. But can anybody be sure the Barao who’d gone 9-0 in WEC/UFC bouts won’t show up, smoke Dillashaw, do his bizarre victory dance and take the belt back to Nova Uniao?
I can’t.
Such an ignominious fate would be a bummer for Dillashaw. Among other injustices, it would stick him with the shortest title reign in UFC history, at 98 days. It would make his initial win seem like lightning in a bottle and further our suspicions that we still know very little about this weight class in general.
On the bright side, it’s impossible to imagine a defeat so earth-shattering that the UFC wouldn’t owe him a trilogy with Barao, right?
Probably. Maybe. But Dillashawwouldn’t be the organization’s only option.
Keep in mind, we’re still a few days away from the second installment of this matchup, and the public already seems weary of it. The UFC 177 main event isn’t drawing many complimentary reviews, and if the pay-per-view buyrate turns out to be as low as some are projecting, would the company be itching to sign up for Round 3?
Certainly, part of what forced the UFC’s hand in making Dillashaw-Barao II is the fledgling 135-pound division’s relative lack of depth. Perhaps matchmakers felt they just didn’t have a better option for Dillashaw’s first title defense. Or, perhaps they felt they’d spent so much time building Barao into a “monster,” they needed to squeeze as much out of him as they possibly could.
In the wake of this weekend’s bout, however, that might not still be the case. There might be more attractive options for whoever emerges as the champion.
That’s because the return of Dominick Cruz lurks right around the bend at UFC 178.
Cruz became the UFC’s first ever 135-pound champion when he beat Scott Jorgensen in Dec. 2010. He never lost the belt, successfully defending it twice before a terrible run of injuries took him out of action and forced him to vacate in January.
Now he’s scheduled to meet TakeyaMizugaki on Sept. 27 in a long-awaited comeback fight. Mizugaki is riding a five-bout win steak, but he’s spent most of his Zuffa career losing to top-level competition. He’s the guy the UFC used to ease Urijah Faber into the bantamweight division back in 2010, and this booking gives every impression he’ll play a similar role in Cruz’s return.
If Cruz manages to re-enter the UFC looking like the “Dominator” of old, if he blows Mizugaki’s doors off the way we think he should, he’ll immediately be the 135-pound class’ most interesting player.
And yes, that includes both Barao and Dillashaw.
Imagine for a moment that Barao dusts Dillashaw in the first round this weekend and Cruz walks circles around Mizugaki next month.
If the UFC has the chance to essentially set up a “unification” bout between the division’s two most dominant champions—which was its original plan at the beginning of this year, remember—would executives really pass that up for another unsellable meeting between Dillashaw and Barao?
Let’s put it another way: If you were the UFC and your job was to make money selling PPVs, which fight would you make?
There would be a certain amount of public outcry on Dillashaw’s behalf, but it also might not be too hard to shuffle him to the side—especially if UFC brass has Raphael Assuncao at its disposal.
Assuncao has won six in a row and defeated Dillashaw in a bantamweight contender bout less than a year ago. He was also briefly rumored to be Barao’s opponent at UFC 173, before a lingering rib injury made that booking impossible. In his place, Dillashaw filled in and pulled the upset.
Assuncao will take on Bryan Caraway in early October. If he’s victorious, he could conceivably be Dillashaw’s next opponent, no matter what happens at UFC 177.
Long story short: If Dillashaw loses and everybody else keeps winning, somebody is going to get left out in the cold.
It could be Cruz, being forced to take a second comeback fight before getting the opportunity to regain the title he never lost. It could be Assuncao, who already missed out on one championship chance and whose massive seven-fight win streak would give him understandable claim to No. 1 contender status.
The UFC is rapidly expanding and putting on more and more shows, and the increased number of events means an increase in roster size.
Despite a championship bout in the main attraction, UFC 177 is relatively low on star power. In fact, many of the part…
The UFC is rapidly expanding and putting on more and more shows, and the increased number of events means an increase in roster size.
Despite a championship bout in the main attraction, UFC 177 is relatively low on star power. In fact, many of the participants are prospects looking to establish a name.
Apart from the recognized names, there are some fresh faces on the card. In fact, a handful of fighters are set to begin their journeys with the UFC.
A half-dozen fighters are making their official UFC debuts this week. Let’s take a look at every new fighter.
T.J. Dillashaw isn’t thinking about the past.
Granted, the date (May 24, 2014) will forever be burned in his brain as the night he shocked the MMA world by doing the unthinkable and upsetting and dethroning the reigning bantamweight king. It will be re…
T.J. Dillashaw isn’t thinking about the past.
Granted, the date (May 24, 2014) will forever be burned in his brain as the night he shocked the MMA world by doing the unthinkable and upsetting and dethroning the reigning bantamweight king. It will be remembered as the night he transitioned from a prospect filled with potential to a certified UFC title holder—and in doing so—brought a tremendous sense of pride to his Team Alpha Male brethren and ended the gym’s seemingly never-ending and highly publicized drought from championship gold.
It’s a moment Dillashaw will sit and cherish long after his fighting days are behind him, because no matter how the outcome on the road ahead, he put on a career-defining performance at UFC 173 and did what very few believed he could achieve. While that night in Las Vegas was just three short months ago, Dillashaw has already tucked that evening away for something to look back on when the twilight sets in on his days as a mixed martial artist. Right now, the only thing on Dillashaw‘s mind is what comes next.
As it turns out, his first step out as bantamweight champion will be to face the very man he took it from in RenanBarao. While most immediate rematches are granted when the first fight was a closely contested affair, that wasn’t the case in the initial go between The Ultimate Fighter alum and the Nova Uniao representative. Dillashaw jumped on the champion from the go and pounded him from pillar to post until he finished Barao off with a flurry in the fourth round.
Yet, due to the Brazilian knockout machine’s previous decade-long reign of dominance, the UFC believed an immediate turnaround between the two fighters would be the best option. And it was a choice Dillashaw took no issues with. He out-struck and out-fought the pound-for-pound great to win the title, and the 28-year-old believes he will do it once more when the two fighters collide in the main event at UFC 177 in his adopted hometown of Sacramento this Saturday night.
Their first fight is in the past and Dillashaw is thinking about the future.
“I’m treating this fight like every fight because every fight is huge in my mind,” Dillashaw told Bleacher Report. “You get the exact same nerves and jitters for every one, and I treat them the exact same way. There is no added pressure and I’m going out there and I will feel the way I always do.
“My focus going into every fight is to focus on improving my skills and what I need to do to improve, and I don’t worry too much about what they are going to bring to the table. But I make sure I’m prepared for it. I went through and watched the tape of our first fight, and even though it went perfectly for me, there are still things I could have done better and things I need to watch out for. I’ll be prepared for what he’s going to bring to the table and I’m going to continue to surprise him. Surprising your opponent and doing things they don’t expect is how you become the best.
“My focus is always on getting better,” he added. “If I want to hold onto this belt and continue to reach the goals I’ve set for myself, then I have to keep improving. You set these goals for yourself and start doing the work in the gym. I’m working hard right now than I ever have.”
While constant progression is the key focus for Dillashaw, he will be attempting to duplicate or outdo a maestro performance at UFC 173 back in May. Where he was once considered a wrestler with speed and athleticism, Dillashaw‘s striking game has improved tremendously with former UFC veteran-turned-coach Duane “Bang” Ludwig at the helm.
Working with Ludwig has completely changed the former TUF finalist’s straightforward attack into something unpredictable and varied, and that approach gave the former champion fits in their first meeting inside the Octagon. It didn’t take long for the rematch to materialize, therefore Dillashaw and Ludwig wasted no time getting back to work.
Despite the Muay Thai guru parting ways as the head coach at Team Alpha Male, Ludwig returned to Sacramento in order to prepare Dillashaw to once again dance with the Brazilian striker.
“Duane just wanted to move back to Colorado and start his own gym,” Dillashaw explained. “He wanted to start something of his own and start his own legacy. His family is from Colorado and he wanted to go back there. All of us understood that was the case, but as soon as my fight got announced, Duane actually came back out to Sacramento.
“He moved his family back to Colorado, but then moved into my house with me for this training camp. He’s been living with me at my house for the past eight weeks, we train during the week then he flies home to see his family every weekend.”
Despite coming into the matchup as a heavy underdog, Dillashaw put on the best performance of his career in his first fight with Barao. Few in the MMA community gave him a chance to upset the reigning 135-pound king, his victory sent a shock wave across the sport’s landscape. Such tilted odds and his previous dominance in the division could have forced Barao to take the young challenger lightly, but Dillashaw doesn’t care if that is the case.
He believes he exposed holes Barao has always had in his game and has every intention of doing it again this Saturday night.
“I don’t know, it’s possible, but I just think that is the way he fights anyways,” Dillashaw said in regard to being potentially overlooked at UFC 173. “The things I saw and capitalized on were things I have seen him do in every fight. I studied a lot of his tape, saw his weaknesses and decided to go for them.
“Solidifying my place at the top of this division is absolutely my goal. I have to continue to build my name. I have to try to become a legend in this sport and defeating Barao again in the way to do it. He’s the one who is still ranked ahead of me in the pound-for-pound rankings, so if I want to get my name as big as possible he’s the guy to beat.”
Duane Finley is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report. All quotes are obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise.
The rematch between former UFC bantamweight champion 