smolka has ridiculously good cardio. borg can slow down in fights. borg seems undisciplined in general.. missing weight, etc. borg more one-dimensional -- he's just a grappler. and if he can't outwrestle you, he will just be on bottom doing not much at all (i.e. scoggins fight). smolka gets stronger the longer the fight goes. he underestimated moreno and it cost him. i think he takes over in rd 2/3 after borg has a good first, personally. great top game.
When has borg ever slowed down besides the fight against blue chip prospect Scoggins? In his debut against Ortiz (an extremely close fight) he wasn't even breathing hard by the time the third round rolled by. Most flyweights nowadays have top notch cardio these days and having a slight advantage in that does not mean as much as opposed to if the fight was at heavyweight.
I think people underrate Scoggins, even though I won money betting Muhnoz NSC, he has more than enough potential to eventually become champ. Heck his current skillset would provide problems for most of the current top ten. And people this is talking about the BANTANWEIGHT TOP TEN. Borg losing to Scoggins shouldn't be looked down upon at all especially because Scoggins was giant in that fight and had to move up soon after. He has such an effective karate based style (trains with thompson) and top tier wrestling to go along with it.
Because he missed weight once he undisciplined? Borg starting training at the age 13 and was initially extremely nonathletic and awful at wrestling. Through thousands of hours and hard work he is a beast wrestler/scrambler never-mind a professional athlete. He created his own "talent".
I think we will see his training to Gibson and Wink pay huge dividends in this fight. Through some unfortunate circumstances we haven't seen him in the cage for awhile so just imagine how much he potentially has improved given that he's young, evolving, and recently changed camps. He is infinitely faster than Smolka and his smooth combinations transition seamlessly with his large array of stellar take-downs from both the middle of the octagon and against the cage. Being smaller lets borg get in on his opponents hips much easier and his speed counteracts any reach advantage Smolka may have. Smolkas game literally leaves him WIDE open to take-downs and he ends up getting in sloppy (but exciting) grappling exchanges with all of his opponents. Borg can grapple for days and is so much technical than blue belt Smolka on the ground.
You admit that Borg wins round 1 with superior ground work but what will stop him from doing the same rounds 2 and 3?? Even by some large stretch of imagination Borg gasses out after being on top of Smolka round 1, come round 2 Smolkas wide striking style and love for the clinch leaves him open for yet another td no matter how gassed Borg is. On the feet we dont know what type of improvements Borg has made and I certainly wouldn't put it past him to out-land Smolka on the feet. Borg basically outgrappled the monster that is Dustin Ortiz 2+ years ago when Ortiz was 25. Smolka is 25 now also and Ortiz is so much better than him. I favor young Borg over Smolka here but the fact that we're getting 23 year old Borg here at even odds is a complete steal.
I know betting against Smolka can be scary sometimes but as said before his style falls directly into Borgs much stronger/faster style. Smolka is able to make fights scrappy by mindlessly stalking his opponents and throwing sloppy volume (open for takedowns), constantly throwing clinch knees (open for takedowns), throwing slow kicks with zero setup (open for takedowns) and lastly embracing the grappling himself by going for takedowns himself. Without all these attributes that fall directly into Borgs favor Smolka is an extremely mediocre fighter that has okay offense output but nearly nothing of the defense side, striking and grappling included.