-Yancy Medeiros: UPSET SPECIAL 1: To be blunt, Medeiros knocking out Alex Oliveira by itself makes me confident that Medeiros wins this fight. Oliveira was on such a roll. Oliveira moved up to 170 lbs. Finished Tim Means. Finished Ryan LaFlare, which is a big deal. And then Medeiros just completely derails him. And Medeiros just moved up to 170 lbs himself and wow, what a difference. He’s just been a completely different fighter. He went from a fun, lower-tier gate keeper with a 3-4 UFC record at 155 lbs, to what looks like a possible contender at 170 lbs so far going 3-0, with finishes in all 3 wins. And I see Medeiros winning also because Donald Cerrone is getting towards the end of his career. 34 years old, but with a lot of fight mileage. 42 pro fights. His body is just not able to handle as much damage as it once did. I see Medeiros following a similar gameplan that Darren Till and Jorge Masvidal did and I see Medeiros knocking Cerrone out in the 2nd.
-Derrick Lewis: UPSET SPECIAL 2: First off with Marcin Tybura, he struggles with higher levels of competition. Just a couple fights before he signed with the UFC, he got beat by Stephan Puetz who’s a 205 lb fighter. Tybura is 3-2 in the UFC. Loss to Fabricio Werdum isn’t bad but a loss to Tim Johnson doesn’t look good. Mainly I see Tybura having problems in this fight because of a big power difference. Lewis has one punch knockout power. Tybura doesn’t. Lewis was actually outstriking Mark Hunt in Lewis’ last fight. And if it wasn’t for Hunt’s chin and Lewis gassing out, Lewis would’ve won that fight. But Tybura doesn’t have the same iron chin Hunt has, so I see Lewis catching Tybura and knocking him out in the 2nd round.
-James Vick: The winner is going to get a big fight next, so long as they don’t win in boring fashion. Trinaldo’s usual path to victory is via take downs. But Vick has good sprawls and take down defense, so I see this fight playing out on the feet. Trinaldo does have some power, but his technique isn’t as clean and he’s not the quickest. And Vick is going to, as he usually does, have a big reach advantage. And Vick’s boxing is on a much higher level than Trinaldo’s, so I see Vick catching Trinaldo and knocking him out in the 1st round.
-Curtis Millender: UPSET SPECIAL 3: So Millender has an interesting profile. Starts out as mainly a one dimensional wrestler. First 7 pro fights, facing horrible competition. 2 knockouts. 5 decision wins. Really bad. Shows Millender depended on his wrestling to take guys down and stay on them for the win. Then Millender took a step up in competition in Bellator. Lost Brennan Ward, who’s pretty good. Then got submitted by a journeyman fighter. Then lost to Eddie Mendez, who’s average at best. So Millender is 8-3 at that point. Only 2 finishes from the 8 wins. Struggles to finish mediocre opponents. Loses to some blah opponents. Picks up 2 more decision wins over average competition. Knocks out a journeyman fighter. Beats a really good young prospect by decision. But it wasn’t until Millender’s last 2 fights where he turned the corner, leading to a UFC contract. He started to really mix in kicks with his striking and picked up 2 head kick knockouts in a row over 2 quality prospects. Millender is 30 years old. In his prime. And if he can figure out how to knock people out, to go ahead with his wrestling, he could have some good potential. He takes on Thiago Alves who’s in the tail end of his career. The last time Alves picked up a big time win was 10 years ago when he beat Josh Koscheck to get a title shot against GSP at UFC 100. That’s how long it’s been. Since, Alves has turned into a middle tier gate keeper. I see Millender pretty easily picking up the win. He’ll start the fight on the feet. See how it goes. Maybe Millender can knock Alves out. But more likely, I think Millender plays it safe. Knows he has a big advantage in wrestling. Takes Alves down enough to pick up a one sided decision win.
-Livia Souza: Jessica Aguilar just isn’t the same fighter she used to be. She’s only fought twice in the past 3 years. Both losses. And she takes on an elite prospect in Souza who’s 26 years old, 11-1, with the only loss being of the split decision variety to UFC fighter Angela Hill. Aguilar is not going to use her main weapon, wrestling, because of how good Souza’s ju-jitsu is, so it’s going to stay on the feet where I also think Souza has an advantage and I like her to pick up the decision win.
-Sage Northcutt: The UFC is smart to take things slow with 21 year old Northcutt. He’s super young, being that he already has a 4-2 UFC record at his age. Thibault Gouti (1-3 in the UFC) is a good opponent for Northcutt in the sense the UFC wants to build Northcutt as an eventual, possible contender. Gouti goes for broke in the 1st round usually, which is going to play to Northcutt’s advantage as I think he has better striking. Northcutt has been bouncing back and forth between 170 lbs and 155 lbs, but he’s now settled at 155 lbs where he’s bigger. I think Northcutt is going to catch Gouti in striking exchanges and will win by 1st round knockout.
-Jared Gordon: Fight might look competitive on the surface. Carlos Ferreira looks to be pretty good. 3-2 in the UFC. Only losing to Dustin Poirier and Beneil Dariush. Coming off a big decision win over Oliver Aubin-Mercier (6-2 in UFC). But a closer look shows a big red flag. That Ferreira has only fought twice in the past 3 years. He’s 33 years old, so he’s not getting any younger. But I’m going with Gordon due to the horrible style matchup for Ferreira. Ferreira is a ju-jitsu guy and Gordon has very good wrestling to keep the fight on the feet where he’s going to have a big advantage. If Poirier can knock out Ferreira in the 1st round, I think an elite prospect like Gordon can do the same.
-Brian Camozzi: UPSET SPECIAL 4: This should be a fun fight. It’s tough for me to pick a fighter who’s gone 0-2 in the UFC. Actually, most fighters that sign with the UFC and lose their first 2 fights get released. But the UFC is giving Camozzi one more chance for the same reason I’m picking him. For his resume of what he did outside the UFC. Still 26 years old. Went 7-2 outside the UFC. 5 of the 7 wins were against pretty good prospects, a couple of them, really good prospects. 6 of Camozzi’s 7 wins were 1st round finishes. All 7 wins have been finishes. And they’ve been a mix of 3 knockouts and 4 submissions, so Camozzi isn’t one dimensional. So this is a really good resume for a possible contender. But he’s lost to 2 likely contenders in Chad Laprise (2-0 in the UFC at 170 lbs) and Randy Brown (4-2 in the UFC). Geoff Neal is an average prospect and a big step down in competition for Camozzi. Neal is 27 years old, which is OK. But he’s only beat 1 fighter who I grade as a quality prospect in Chase Waldon. And he just lost to a 6-2 fighter last year. Plus Neal is going to have the UFC debut jitters. And Camozzi is going to have experience already fighting way tougher dudes. So I’m going to boldly pick Camozzi by 1st round knockout.
-Joby Sanchez: Before Roberto Sanchez debuted in the UFC, he looked like a pretty good prospect. He has wins over big time prospects in Klayton Mai and Jerome Rivera. Submission wins too. And I picked Roberto to beat Joseph Morales in his first UFC fight. But Morales exposed Sanchez on the feet and Morales finished the fight in less than 4 minutes. So with how bad Roberto was on the feet, I took a closer look at his fights outside and low and behold, Sanchez, being a submission fighter, has been fighting other submission fighters. Out of the 7 fighters Roberto has beat, his opponents have combined for only 2 knockout wins. Yes lol. You read that right. 7 opponents. 2 knockouts. So then Roberto fights Morales, who’s well round, and no wonder Roberto looked out of place. Still not sure what to think of Joby Sanchez. This is Joby’s 2nd go around in the UFC. He previously got released with a 1-2 UFC record. But Joby’s last 2 wins over JP Buys and Manny Vazquez were pretty good. And Joby is 26 years old. And 4 of Joby’s 11 wins have come via the knockout. So due to a big striking advantage, I’m picking Joby by 1st round KO.
-Sara Moras: UPSET SPECIAL 5: Moras really impressed me last time out against Ashlee Evans-Smith, a fight I picked Evans-Smith to win. Moras has really gotten better. Lucie Pudilova’s resume outside the UFC is not good at all. Not a single win over any decent prospects. Pudilova is 1-1 in the UFC so far. Loss against Lina Lansberg. But Pudilova is 23 years old. And her win over Ji Yeon Kim was the first solid opponent she’s ever beat. The win is a good foundation for her and to try and build her skill set from there, which she should be able to do with how young she is. But Moras is a horrible style matchup for Pudilova, as I see Moras having a giant wrestling advantage. I see Moras submitting Pudilova in the 1st round, following the same gameplan she had against Evans-Smith.
-Steven Peterson: I don’t think that highly of Peterson. Yes, he has been doing better in the past 5 years, going 8-2 in that span. Like he’s decent. And he does have some finishes over quality prospects. I would grade Peterson as being an average prospect. And I’m picking him to beat Brandon Davis due to not only where I think Davis is currently, but also because Davis is taking the fight on 10 days notice. Davis’ profile is pretty clear. He can be pretty good prospects. But not finish them. Which shows that he’s well rounded, but his skills aren’t at a high enough level to finish really good fighters. So because of all these reasons, I’m picking Peterson by decision.
-Alex Morono: Josh Burkman is just done. He’s 37 years old. Lost 4 in a row. Lost 6 of his last 7. And the only fighter Burkman beat during this stretch is KJ Noons, which was Noons’ last fight in MMA. Morono is an OK prospect. 27 years old. 2-1 UFC record. Beat Kyle Noke who’s been a decent mid tier gatekeeper. Lost to Keita Nakamura in a close split decision. Morono is decent. And decently is good enough to beat Burkman at this point. Morno by decision.
-Oskar Piechota: The book has pretty much been written on what Tim Williams can do. He’s 31 years old. And if you count his fights on the Ultimate Fighter, Williams is 16-5. He’s a submission specialist. And it’s been proven that if he can’t take his opponent down, he can have problems against high level strikers. He’s in his prime. He’s lost to quality competition. He hasn’t been losing to nobodies. But he his game hasn’t really evolved either. Since losing to UFC fighter Anthony Smith twice in a row, he has 5 straight wins, but they were against all journeymen fighters and a 3-0 fighter. And 3 of the 5 wins came via decision. Piechota, meanwhile, is a pretty good prospect. Undefeated. 10-0. 1-0 in the UFC. Was impressive in his debut picking up a decision win over a really big Jonathan Wilson. Piechota also has finishes over quality prospects before signing with the UFC. 28 years old, in his prime. The way I see this fight going, Wilson has better wrestling than Williams. And Wilson couldn’t take Piechota down. So I doubt Williams will be able to. Fight will stay on the feet. Piechota has better striking. And Piechota will knock Williams out in the 2nd round.