Not being salty or anything (well, maybe a tiny bit) but what exactly did you see that made you confident in Oleinik?
Hunt
- I didn't expect him to push forward and put a lot of pressure on Oleinik, so Oleinik would be able to work at his own pace.
- He doesn't have any skills in the clinch, aside from an uppercut if he can get the space to throw one.
- He has improved his TDD and get-up game, but when he faces an above average wrestler or grappler, he is fucked.
- During the weigh-ins, he was wearing a fake smile, imo. Something about him looked off, like he didn't care much.
Oleinik
- Big reach advantage, so he'd be able to throw his hooks and overhands and still be able to avoid the counter. He has no punching technique, but his unorthodox punches and the power he carries is what makes him dangerous on the feet.
- I knew that he just needed to clinch with Hunt, then he could either get a single leg TD, or drag him to the ground. Once on the ground, he can maneuver Hunt's body around and make Hunt make a mistake. Paying close attention to how Oleinik gets his subs, you can tell that he doesn't need to be in the perfect position, he can use his strength and technique (mostly his arm strength) to lock in a choke on most people.
- I paid close attention to his fight against Daniel Omielanczuk. DO has a very similar build to Mark Hunt, but he is a much more well-rounded MMA fighter than Hunt. I saw what Oleinik did good and bad in this fight, and where DO excelled in. After seeing both guys, I knew that Hunt wouldn't be able to replicate anything close to what DO did, and Oleinik would have his way with him unless he ran into a counter punch from Hunt while throwing a big overhand punch of his own.
- If you've seen Oleinik fight, you know he goes 100% all of the time. This means he would be closing the distance and clinching a lot with Hunt against the cage, making him work. While Oleinik has shown cardio issues in the past, I wasn't worried too much about his cardio in this fight because he would be the one applying the pressure and making the other guy work, and Hunt would be the one getting tired. In the fight against Omielanczuk, Oleinik got tired as fuck cuz he kept wasting a ton of energy doing what he usually does, but then getting countered + stalled out + reversed + eating punches + DO was able to not take much damage when taken down and was able to get back up (Hunt can't do this against Oleinik).