The
Ultimate Fighting Championship trots out the
middleweight division with a well-matched lineup that sees only one
betting favorite at -300 or higher this Saturday at the UFC Apex in
Las Vegas. The stakes may not be the greatest, but there will be
some movement at 185 pounds at night’s end, and a few contenders
may emerge. Join the
UFC Fight Night 236 edition of Prime Picks as we juggle two of
those 185ers, look forward to a banger in the co-main event and
suggest a two-for-one that should safely cash.
Hermansson possesses all the tools to separate the wheat from the
chaff in the UFC’s middleweight division. This has kept him in or
around the Top 10 for quite some time, with slightly above-average
power coupled with the ability to maintain a high pace, decent
wrestling chops and not a ton of defensive liabilities. On the
other hand, “The Joker” can get cracked. He is not impervious to
getting caught, and he tends to lose the bigger fights of his
career. Consider him the 2024 version of fellow UFC Fight Night 236
competitor
Brad
Tavares, whose all-around skill set kept him in contention
while never seriously stamping himself as a contender. With what he
brings to the table as a sizeable underdog, the value is on
Hermansson in the main event.
Joseph
Pyfer is an offensive beast, and he introduced his submission
abilities to fans in his last appearance by putting
Abdul
Razak Alhassan to sleep with an arm-triangle choke. Until then,
those seeing him on the major stage had largely seen Pyfer’s timing
and punching power on display, as he put the stamp on
Alen
Amedovski and
Gerald
Meerschaert. About eight years Hermansson’s junior, Pyfer will
undoubtedly possess a speed advantage. Still, Hermansson only
presents himself as a fighter who relies on quick attacks and
sudden movements when he pursues submissions—ask
Kelvin
Gastelum,
David
Branch or the aforementioned Meerschaert. If Pyfer puts hands
on his opponent early and often, he can look every bit of the -260
favorite that books have him now.
The underdog has shown plenty of times his capacity to go hard late
in fights and not simply wilt when 15 minutes elapse. On the other
hand, Pyfer has only gone the distance once as a pro, which also
serves as the lone occasion he has reached Round 3. Every minute
that ticks off the clock, bettors should have more faith in the
Swede to get his hand raised. Should Hermansson push past the early
blitzes and make Pyfer work for it, he can tire out the
self-proclaimed “trending superstar” and remind him it takes a lot
of energy to be a rock star.
The blueprint has been laid to beat the Hawaiian bruiser. Put him
on his back and keep him there for prolonged stretches, and he will
not be able to punch you in the face. In his last two defeats, Ige
has been grounded a
combined 14
times thanks to
Movsar
Evloev and
Bryce
Mitchell.
Andre Fili
can act as a wet blanket, stifling opponents like
Charles
Jourdain and
Artem Lobov
over the years, but those men are a far cry from the perennial
contender in Ige. If Fili cannot take the fight to the mat, it will
be up to him to make the most of his three-inch reach and height
advantages to keep just enough of a distance to potshot his way to
victory.
Fili takes this fight on short notice, although the Team Alpha Male
staple rarely gets out of shape when out of camp. Conditioning will
not likely play a factor unless he backs up most of the matchup, as
he does not prefer to fight off his back foot. Both men may come
into this co-headliner with complicated game plans, but when they
boil it down, these two featherweights would like nothing more than
to point down to the floor, nod to one another and start trading
leather. Brawls may ensue across this 15-minute encounter, and of
the two, Fili has been taken out while Ige’s beard has held
together against the fists of names like
Josh Emmett,
Calvin
Kattar and
Chan Sung
Jung. Ige on the front foot crowding Fili in the pocket will be
his best path to victory, which he prefers to employ.
This is the second verse of this middleweight pairing, the same as
the first. Once scheduled for November,
Armen
Petrosyan fell ill on fight night to scuttle the matchup. A few
months later, the lines are almost the same, shifting slightly
higher for Vieira from -115 to -120. Petrosyan can be found at +100
at best on the other side of the equation. What has not changed is
the value maximization in the Vieira pick, with his winning inside
the distance still in the neighborhood of +135. This stylistic
matchup remains as stark as it can get on paper, but of the two,
Vieira has a better chance on the feet than Petrosyan does on his
back. A bet on the Brazilian is still not a waste at these close
odds, especially against a fighter susceptible to controlling
grapplers.
The only two people to escape without serious harm against Vieira
did so in ways Petrosyan has not shown the capability to emulate.
Chris
Curtis completely nullified all 20 attempts from “The Black
Belt Hunter” to take things horizontally, while
Anthony
Hernandez allowed Vieira to blow his gas tank embarrassingly
and hit a beauty of a guillotine choke. The multiple-time Mundials
and ADCC champion will use his striking, which can sometimes
consist of looping shots that leave him wide open for counters, to
close the distance. From there, it is only a matter of time until
he either drives through the hips with a double-leg entry or uses
the clinch to hit a trip. The Armenian, by way of Russia, will have
to rely on a sprawl-and-brawl approach if he hopes to be the third
to defeat the vaunted grappler, and Petrosyan has to imagine that
the floor is lava. It will be up to Petrosyan to stay on the
outside or force Vieira to expend his energy on low-percentage
takedown attempts to get his hand raised.
DOUBLE PLAY (-162)
Rather than a straight pick for this last section, due in part to a
dearth of options, we look to a time-based twofer. While the two
weight classes are leagues apart, at strawweight and light
heavyweight, both matches have particular indicators that they will
go long. For the first selection, much of the designated over is
because of
Konklak
Suphisara, more famously known by her Thai combat name of “Loma
Lookboonmee.” Win or lose, eight of the Thai’s 11 professional
outings have heard the final bell, with nine in total going beyond
the 2:30 mark of Round 2. Submissions have been the reason for her
to get out of there sooner, and that is not something the tall,
rangy Brasil presents with any specific danger or deficiency. This
could play out on the feet or in the clinch, but the power is not
there at this level to wrap fights early for either woman.
For one of these two in the 205-pound collision, it would be smooth
sledding on paper. Prachnio sports a knockout rate below 70%, while
Clark has more defeats via strikes than on the scorecards. That all
falls apart when examining the performances of each man in the
Octagon. Prachnio has earned just one stoppage after eight walks to
the UFC cage—against the brave but fallible
Isaac
Villanueva. At the same time, Clark’s lone finish came over
William
Knight, another losing competitor no longer on the roster.
Clark’s durability may be a factor, but fortunately, Prachnio does
not celebrate lights-out power or lightning-quick submission
prowess to take advantage of the sluggish “Brown Bear.” Prachnio is
no spring chicken, either, so this has all the makings of one that
takes a while to get anywhere.