Tuesday, July 21, 2020

UFC Fight Night 172: Figueiredo Becomes Flyweight King, Gastelum Taps, Kneebars...et al

What a night of finishes: we had a heel hook, a kneebar counter to a calf-slicer, a TKO, a guillotine, and a triangle amongst a solid night of fights.

Hermannson showed by the basics of leg lock defense still matter, the women's flyweight match-up produced one of the most serious kneebar finishes I've seen in MMA, and Figueiredo showed that he's a flyweight who can stop even the very best at flyweight in exciting fashion (that critique of flyweights we often hear).

Askarov utilized wash/rinse/repeat takedowns and forward pressure to take a decision even though Pantoja got to his back in two of the rounds. I suspect that third round was the dealbreaker but I was bummed to see Pantoja not given credit for his continual submission attacks throughout the fight.

Moreno is the obvious title defense for Figueiredo with Perez lagging close behind. All of these top 5 flyweights are exciting to be honest, and I honestly don't care who gets first crack at Figueiredo as they'll all produce exciting fights.

Arman Tsarukyan picked up a win over Davi Ramos as an increasingly frustrated Ramos proved unable to deal with the footwork and work rate of Arman. Ramos tried the sticking his chin out and the dropping his hands, but even when Arman would dart into range, Ramos proved largely unable to cleanly tag his opponent, nor was he willing to shoot many if any meaningful takedowns at range. It's hard to side with an upset fighter that did the same thing for  rounds against a guy who you knew would likely engage in this gameplan, but also, Arman put Ramos on his back in the first round, and actually stayed down with Ramos so Ramos had an early going opportunity to do his thing without the accumulated sweat of multiple rounds, and was largely ineffective.

Hermannson is 7-3 in his previous 10 UFC fights with losses only to Feirera, Thiago Santos, and Jarod Cannonier. Gastelum is by far his biggest win to date but has also notched wins over Jacare, Leites, Meerschaert, and others. I still worry as to his chances against the dangerous strikers of which there are several in this division.


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