Just watched a lot of tape on Skelly vs Knight. Here's my notes.
This is an interesting fight, I was impressed by Skelly, but I definitly like Knight much more here. Skelly's tough and is constantly improving, obviously very efficient at the grinder style of fighting, very solid chokes and nice ground defense as well. He's good at using sub threats to get out of bad spots. He does have power in his hands as well. His movement is improving every fight, but still not quite there yet. He also does seem to gas a little earlier then i'd like. Not the fastest guy on the feet. I find the only time Skelly is "controlling" the pace of a fight, is when he is completely successful at implementing his game plan. When he is not getting easy takedowns, I find he's prone to getting controlled.
Knight's first fight against Kawajiri was not impressive, he seemed eager to try and win with the rubberguard and basically got blanketed and controlled the whole fight. But since then he's looked outstanding. Extremly aggresive style, very nice solid striking. Always agressive, even if it's the third round and he is dead tired. His ground game is sick, very effective on the ground offensively and defensively. Only con is he's been takendown quite a bit in a few fights. He's also hittable, but has a rock solid chin, and often returns with a stronger punch.
Overall, I don't think it will be to easy, but this is Knights fight to lose. Knight wins standing up for sure, he's got a solid pace and attack, and I haven't been to impressed with Skelly's overall movement. Knight was able to land solid shots on the very fluid Caceres. I find Skelly's only method to victory is grinding out a win with takedowns and top control like Kawijiri did... but I don't see that happening. I think Knight is to tough and skilled on defense to allow that to happen. So I think we'll see a lot of this fight standing, and Knight definitely has the edge here. Chaz could knock him out, he has solid power, they both fought Alers and though I thought overall Knight looked more impressive, Chaz did knock out Alers. Also Chaz seems very motivated and constantly improving, but I feel that way about Knight too.
Conclusion: Knight will win. Hard to say wether it will be by decision or if he gets the finish, I think his aggresive style will be tough for Skelly.
Haven't looked at the odds but I wouldn't bet Skelly anything under +240.
Edit: also note, we saw Skelly fight another fighter with an agressive style in Elkins, and he looked like shit.
