Romero vs Whittaker, Werdum vs Overeem 3, Pettis vs Miller Fight Picks

-Yoel Romero: Robert Whittaker has really come a long way since losing a split decision to Court McGee back in 2012. He’s an example of fighters at a young age can really develop and improve by leaps and bounds. Now 26 years old, Whittaker is coming into his prime and showed what level he’s at finishing Derek Brunson and then Jacare Souza. But Yoel Romero has looked other-worldly in all his fights. His explosiveness is unique. I just don’t see anyway Whittaker surives the onslaught Romero is going to bring. His tools haven’t even been close to being matched. So I gotta pick Romero. And as a bonus pick, Romero should easily beat Michael Bisping to become the new champion at middleweight.

-Fabricio Werdum: The toughest fight to pick on the card. And the bookies agree having this fight at a virtual pick em. Some books having Overeem favored slightly. I could see this fight going either way but I think Werdum has more ways to win. I could see him pushing Overeem against the fence, grappling with him. Werdum’s striking has been so much better than it was years ago. It wasn’t too long ago that Werdum bewildered champ Cain Velasquez. He’s going to do the same here to Overeem.

-Curtis Blaydes: Blaydes is one the best heavyweight prospects out there, only getting finished by the #1 heavyweight prospect in Francis Ngannou. Daniel Omielanczuk is a below average gatekeeper in the UFC. I don’t see anyway for him to stop the barrage from Blaydes. Easy fight to pick.

-Anthony Pettis: Bad style matchup for Pettis as wrestlers have been a nightmare for him. But I do think this is the fight where he gets his mojo back and overcomes that. Pettis is still in his prime and hindsight shows the move to 145 lbs was not good for him. Whether Pettis returns to elite status is definitely a question, but he should have enough striking skills to beat Jim Miller

-Rob Font: Really, really excited for this fight. At the time of Douglas Silva de Andrade signing with the UFC, I had him as the #2 featherweight prospect in the world. And I wasn’t the only one that thought he deserved the hype. However, he lost his debut fight to a solid 145 lb fighter in Zubaira Tukhugov. So maybe he was too small for 145 lbs in the UFC and had to go down to 135 lbs. De Andrade did that and then got a lackluster decision win over Cody Gibson. And that was when de Andrade’s stock went down in my eyes. Gibson went 1-3 in the UFC before being released. An elite prospect would have the ability to finish someone like Gibson. But then de Andrade came out in his last fight and looked at his best against Henrique Briones finishing with a spinning back fist. So maybe he just had a brief 2 fight rough stretch. And oh how he’ll be tested by Rob Font. Font has gone 3-1 in the UFC with knockouts in all 3 wins and only a decision loss to John Lineker. Now, it’s possible that de Andrade regains his top prospect status and maybe becomes a title contender, but for my pick here, Font is more of the sure thing and at this point a better prospect. But it’ll be very interesting to see if I’m wrong about de Andrade.

-Alexey Oleynik: UPSET SPECIAL 1: Oleynik has been very under the radar, but also very good. The key win Oleynik has that illustrates how good he is, was his knockout over Jared Rosholt. Now, Rosholt is very interesting. He went 6-2 in the UFC, is 30 years old and the UFC released him. Why? Because he’s very boring to watch. Very good fighter, wrestler. But very dull. And Oleynik knocked him out. Oleynik also has really impressive wins outside the UFC with finishes over Mirko Cro Cop (who’s on a long winning streak currently), Dion Staring, Jeff Monson and Tony Lopez. And I question how much longer Travis Browne is going to fight now that he’s engaged to Ronda Rousey. Browne has lost the last 4 out of 5 fights and hasn’t looked the same since getting knocked out by Andrei Arlovski. Anything can happen in a heavyweight fight, but I think Oleynik is the safer pick with more ways to win. Possibly taking Browne down and submitting him.

-Brian Camozzi: UPSET SPECIAL 2: I always do my homework looking at both fighters before looking at the odds and I honestly feel Camozzi is more likely to win. Then I looked at the odds and saw Chad Laprise is a -950 favorite. Whoa!! So I’m really going out on a limb here. I don’t go into picking fights feeling like I’m obligated to make at least 1 upset pick. I just don’t buy into Laprise as being that good. Let’s look at Laprise’s last 3 fights. Got knocked out by Francisco Trinaldo. Lost to an over the hill Ross Pearson. And knocked out 0-2 in the UFC Thibault Gouti. And Laprise’s other 3 wins in the UFC have been decision wins over OK competition. Meanwhile, Camozzi might have lost his debut to Randy Brown, but Brown is really good 5-2 in the UFC. Before that, Camozzi finished his 4 last fights against pretty good prospects and is only 26 years old. I think Camozzi will be much improved and pulls off the stunning upset.

-Gerald Meerschaert: Meerschaert doesn’t fit the traditional prospect mold. His record seems blemished. And following him outside the UFC, he wasn’t on my radar of prospects the UFC would sign. But then RFA brought Meerschaert in to give top prospect Chase Waldon a challenge and make Waldon look good. But amazingly, Meerschaert pulled off a submission upset in less than 2 minutes. Meerschaert truly hasn’t been the same fighter since 2011-2013 when he lost 3 out of 4 fights. After finishing 2 very good prospects in his first 2 UFC fights, Meerschaert now gets a step up in competition against gatekeeper Thiago Santos who is 6-4 in the UFC. But Santos has trouble with grappling and fighters with high level submission skills which is exactly what Meerschaert brings to the table. Slight upset as the sportsbooks favor Santos a little.

-Belal Muhammad: 2nd toughest fight to pick on the card. Belal Muhammad is an average prospect. 2-2 in the UFC. Mein is the big question mark because of how inconsistent he is. Some fights he looks like a potential star when he lost a close split decision to current 170 lb champ Tyron Woodley back in 2012. Then other fights he doesn’t show up and loses. Between Strikeforce and UFC, Mein is 5-4, losing the last 2 fights. So it’s really hard to pick this fight having no idea which Mein shows up. But I can’t pick Mein when he’s coming off 2 loses in a row, one of them to a debuting fighter. Muhammad is coming off a win over a pretty good prospect in Randy Brown and I’m picking him because I don’t think Mein has the confidence anymore.

-Cody Stamann: Not that excited about this fight. Terrion Ware is way below the caliber of fighters that usually compete in the UFC. Couple years ago, he lost 2 fights in a row and since then he has 4 wins over poor competition with only 1 finish against them. Cody Stamann is a fringy prospect. Slightly below average. I doubt he’s going to stick in the UFC long term, but he’s going to be good enough to get a decision over a much smaller Ware who usually fights at 135 lbs (this fight is at 145 lbs).

-Trevin Giles: James Bochnovic might have a nice record of 8-1 outside the UFC. And all 8 of his wins have been first round knockouts or submissions. Impressive, right? Huge red flag though. All 8 of his wins have come over tomato cans, poor competition. Making your UFC is difficult enough. But Giles is by far the toughest opponent Bochnovic has fought. Giles had a ton of hype going into his last fight against Ryan Spann and it left me with a lot of question marks with Giles, with Giles barely eking out a split decision win. However Giles is still only 24 years and still developing. We should see the best version of him yet and that’s going to be too much for Bochnovic.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *