UFN 146 on ESPN+ 4 Lewis vs Dos Santos

I dont think the version of LaFlare that Martin beated is better than the version of Moraes that he will face this weekend...
 
Wiktoruspro said:
Moraes is overrated, he has only bjj. Martin faced already better competition in Laflare and Mathews. He will beat him in stand up.
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Disagree heavily on basically all of that. Laflare was way passed it against Tony that looked and fought awful and Matthews is lucky to even be in the UFC still.

As for Moraes for a start he can win the fight with just his grappling easily but he also has heavy striking and gave Means a tough fight on the feet recently. Having rewatched it too I have no problem with the decision there either as Moraes landed the much harder shots even if his technique is a bit awkward with a little less volume as the fight went on.

Not to mention in terms of finishing ability Moraes has a very good chance of finishing Martin on the ground, in comparison Martins one KO in his whole career was against a shot Laflare so very doubtful Tony easily dominates on the feet or gets a finish.
 
Jordan3399 said:
Disagree heavily on basically all of that. Laflare was way passed it against Tony that looked and fought awful and Matthews is lucky to even be in the UFC still.

As for Moraes for a start he can win the fight with just his grappling easily but he also has heavy striking and gave Means a tough fight on the feet recently. Having rewatched it too I have no problem with the decision there either as Moraes landed the much harder shots even if his technique is a bit awkward with a little less volume as the fight went on.

Not to mention in terms of finishing ability Moraes has a very good chance of finishing Martin on the ground, in comparison Martins one KO in his whole career was against a shot Laflare so very doubtful Tony easily dominates on the feet or gets a finish.
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Dunno about shot but definitely out of his prime (LaFlare) and declined. You would have been rocked by that head kick too my friend make no mistake.
 
martin was also on his way to lose vs Mathhews, if I remember correctly I think 2 judges had Matthews winning the first 2 rounds.
 
Naught2Sixty said:
Dunno about shot but definitely out of his prime (LaFlare) and declined. You would have been rocked by that head kick too my friend make no mistake.
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Tony can certainly win, I just don't see how anyone can have that much confidence in him when Moraes can comfortably repeat exactly what he did in his last fight here and dominate. Stylistically the match up favours Moraes a lot, but as I don't trust him to come out and reliably implement an intelligent gameplan I'm not going too heavy.

Fair enough on calling LaFlare just declined, he won the first round alright but he said after he retired that he had been battling injuries for a while. Didn't help himself at all by keeping the fight on the feet and only attempting a single takedown in the first round.
 
Jordan3399 said:
Tony can certainly win, I just don't see how anyone can have that much confidence in him when Moraes can comfortably repeat exactly what he did in his last fight here and dominate. Stylistically the match up favours Moraes a lot, but as I don't trust him to come out and reliably implement an intelligent gameplan I'm not going too heavy.
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I'll agree. Although I favor Rocco by a slight slight margin I see value in Moraes as a dog. I think he has a bjj edge for sure.

Rocco's confidence (borderline arrogance if you ask me) could spell the undoing for him here. Saying he doesnt see any area where Moraes can bear him I would fear he would test his grappling for too long of stretches.

What do I know though I'm just an armchair psychologist really and realistically so is every capper putting their money on the line. My girl Thug Rose was "shook" by JJ and the dolly incidents right? :rolleyes:
 
After watching tape I am pretty big on Millender at 1.91. I noticed that zaleski had difficulty dealing with Stricklands' jab and he also found it difficult to get in range with strickland. Millender has a nice jab and knows how to use his reach well and showed excellent timing with his knees against Griffin, I also like Millenders' chin, he ate a few hard shots from Bahadurzada with ease. It is just really frustrating to see Millenders' groundgame, whenever he gets taken down he just lies there like a corpse not doing anything to get up. But fortunately Zaleski is not a great wrestler. All in all I feel Millender should be the favourite here.
 
Oblivian said:
Honestly, I cap Smolka closer to where he opened. I do agree that he's more athletic and explosive. I disagree that he's been more active and strongly disagree that he's fought better competition. Smolka has been in there with guys like Borg, Elliott, Nguyen, etc. If we are talking other physical attributes, I think Smolka is far more durable and scrappy.

Most importantly though, I think this comes down to stylistic matchup. I'd take Smolka's top game over Schnell's bottom game any day. I also think Schnell is way too confident in his bottom game which means the fight will probably end up there. Schnell's best path to victory is to keep it standing, but I just don't see him doing that. Honestly, I could see this being competitive at first but then looking like Smolka/Nguyen. I also don't think Schnell could take the punishment that Nguyen did.
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Yeah I agree with this but I'm picking Schnell

I don't know if I can trust Smolka's wrestling to get Schnell down. And even if he does get Schnell down, I expect lots of scrambles and sub attempts. I agree Smolka has the grappling edge but Schnell has tapped blackbelts like Matt Rizzo on TUF, I think he can do more than hold his own on the mat vs Smolka

I have to favor Schnell in a kickboxing match and I expect Schnell to do his best to keep it standing. Schnell's last two fights were both just 15 minutes of kickboxing and against arguably better strikers than Smolka. Schnell's biggest weakness is obviously his chin but Smolka is not the guy to exploit that, especially not on the feet.

But I don't think I'll play Schnell unless he goes to +money, hard guy to trust
 
Broe. said:
I dont see many good spots for this card actually. Last card was great, with many nice underdogs who had a good chance to win. I don't see it now unfortunately.
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I highly disagree. There are many close fights.
 
longway said:
His fight against Matthews is not available on fightpass for me, but maybe its my region, do you have it?
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Search for the event it was on instead of the fighters on fightpass and you will find it
 
Ok I rewatched their last fights and I change my mind.
Martin isnt a safe pick, Moraes can catch one of his kicks and go to the ground like with Saunders in r2. Martin has good bjj but we know from the past that there is a huge difference between world champions and good bjj fighters like for example Condit- Maia etc.
Thank you for concerning me and making me rewatch last fights, I wanted to apologize everyone for my stupid last posts.
 
Wiktoruspro said:
Moraes is overrated, he has only bjj. Martin faced already better competition in Laflare and Mathews. He will beat him in stand up.
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Everyone in here talking about how akhmedov is so tough and Boetsch won’t be able to knock him out but Moraes is bjj only cant do nothing else.

Lol Moraes tko’d akhmedov ppl
 
I agree with @Wiktoruspro this time. ROCCO has been improving recently and Moraes is awkward. Unreliable, I'd say.
 
Captain Crunch28 said:
Everyone in here talking about how akhmedov is so tough and Boetsch won’t be able to knock him out but Moraes is bjj only cant do nothing else.

Lol Moraes tko’d akhmedov ppl
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Lol good point bro. I think Moraes's striking is underrated though. The guy is good everywhere imo
 
Moraes isn't an incredibly technical striker or anything but he has solid power and is pretty effective. He makes up for less volume and technique with aggression and power so while a decent counter striker with power could probably pick him apart they're not too common.

Even if the fight with Martin stays on the feet I trust it to be competitive and really don't consider Martins power to be a concern at least not until late as Moraes can fade. Moraes has a decent chin and Martin just isn't very powerful.

Can't recall Martin being rocked on the feet though, I'd expect a striking match to go to a close decision similar to Moraes-Means did.
 
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Dianabol said:
Yeah I agree with this but I'm picking Schnell

I don't know if I can trust Smolka's wrestling to get Schnell down. And even if he does get Schnell down, I expect lots of scrambles and sub attempts. I agree Smolka has the grappling edge but Schnell has tapped blackbelts like Matt Rizzo on TUF, I think he can do more than hold his own on the mat vs Smolka

I have to favor Schnell in a kickboxing match and I expect Schnell to do his best to keep it standing. Schnell's last two fights were both just 15 minutes of kickboxing and against arguably better strikers than Smolka. Schnell's biggest weakness is obviously his chin but Smolka is not the guy to exploit that, especially not on the feet.

But I don't think I'll play Schnell unless he goes to +money, hard guy to trust
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I've been watching Schnell for a long time and he's always seemed like the type of fighter with the attitude of "I'll fight you anywhere since I'm good everywhere". If I recall correctly, he even said that on TUF. I'd be very surprised to see him use a gameplan here of sprawl and brawl throughout.
 
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