UFC 271 Post-Prediction Breakdowns

Successful predictions: 4/5

Winning betting favourites: 4/5

What went right?

As predicted, Adesanya repeated his formula, Tuivasa pressured and dispatched Lewis à la Mark Hunt, Green avoid most looping strikes and outstruck Naqparast, and Philips picked his shots and nailed the perfect takedown to get the submission.

What went wrong?

Derek Brunson took down Cannonier and was moments from a submission, then the bell rang. The second round started well for him but at some point, he must have gotten rocked as he suddenly slowed down, telegraphed his takedown attempts, stopped covering his chin, and threw weak punch after weak punch. Could this have been predicted? Yes! Kelvin Gastelum and Robert Whittaker have fantastic wrestling credentials and were both previous opponents of Cannonier. Despite this, neither of them managed a takedown against Cannonier, not even in Cannonier’s loss to Whittaker. While I praised Brunson for his amazing string of takedowns over the course of his winning streak, I failed to take notice of Cannonier greatly improved takedown defence. Gastellum and Whittaker could not take him down despite 8 and 2 attempts respectively. Had this information been taken into account, and knowing Brunson’s weakness in the stand-up department, a correct prediction could have been made.

Conclusions

What I take away from this fight card is that more attention should be given to more recent fights and the quality of opponents.

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