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UFC Vegas 87
JR vs Shamil Gaziev, March 2, UFC Apex
1 PM eastern
https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/events/106064-ufc-fight-night
https://www.tapology.com/forum/threads/76662
https://fightodds.io/odds/5318/ufc-fight-night-rozenstruik-vs-gaziev
https://www.betmma.tips/free_ufc_betting_tips.php?Event=1466
https://twitter.com/search?q=#UFCVegas87 lang:en&src=typed_query&f=live
Pasting this from a ufc fan website lol
ESPN MAIN CARD
Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs Shamil Gaziev
Vitor Petrino vs Tyson Pedro
Muhammad Mokaev vs Alex Perez
Raul Rosas Jr vs Ricky Turcios
Umar Nurmagomedov vs Bekzat Almakhan
Matt Schnell vs Steve Erceg
ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS
Eryk Anders vs Jamie Pickett
Ludovit Klein vs TBA
Javid Basharat vs Aiemann Zahabi
Christian Leroy Duncan vs Claudio Ribeiro
Vinicius Oliveira vs Yanis Ghemmouri
Loik Radzhabov vs Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady
You know what? I actually don’t think this is that bad. It’s gonna get shat on because of the main event but there’s some solid matchups on there. And even the main event could be (hopefully) short and sweet. We’ve had worse. Couple of fights have dropped off, which is why there’s so few fights on there, but I don’t mind that at all. Apex cards being shorter works for me.
On a side note - this is the card that was originally supposed to be in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis put up a $20M site fee so, rightly, wanted something better than this! Apparently the plan is now to do the Saudi show in June. Trying to take a sodding Apex show over there was never gonna cut it, was it? The good news for us is, according to Marcel Dorff, it’s still gonna be on Saudi timezone. Prelims are currently set to kick off at 6:30pm UK time, with the main card from 9pm.
Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs Shamil Gaziev headlines. Whether we like it or not. I guess this is what we get for moaning about all those Middleweight Apex main events. Now we’ve got 5 rounds of Fattyweight mediocrity to look forward to. Smashing. In fairness, this mightn’t be as bad as we think. As Heavyweight fights go, they actually could’ve given us a lot worse than this. But for the life of me I’ll never understand why the lower weight classes so rarely get these main event spots when they’re pretty much always way better actual fights than the 185 and up lot. Whatever. This is undeniably one of the weakest main events on the schedule but I’ll give it a chance.
I don’t mind Rozenstruik myself. I mean, he’s going nowhere and his fight announcements always seem to be met with groans and negativity, presumably because he’s not elite or something. But he’s an alright middle of the pack player. Seems quite likeable and he’s far, far from the worst or most boring in the division. He’s got a shitload of fight experience, 85 Kickboxing fights. Again, I often see that get shat on because of the level of opposition or whatever, no doubt there’s truth to that criticism but it’s all reps and experience in the bank. In MMA he’s gone 13-5 with 12 knockouts. He hit his ceiling a while back and has lost almost every time he’s stepped up a level. But he’s definitely had his moments. Stopped Arlovski early, stopped Overeem late, stopped JDS. There was a time when he was actually knocking on the door of being in the title mix. Any hopes of that seem to have fizzled out now though. He’s gone 2-3 in his last 5 and the wins were over Augusto Sakai and Chris Daukaus. We last saw him getting steamrolled by Jailton Almeida in May last year. He turns 36 a couple of weeks after this fight. So yeah, safe to say he’s found his level. Unlikely he’s gonna go on some surge at this stage of his career. But still, he packs a punch and he’s a decent enough test for an up and comer, I guess.
Gaziev is actually where my intrigue lies here. He’s from Bahrain, 34 years old and he’s undefeated at 12-0 with 11 inside the distance. He fought in the Brave CF and Ares FC promotions, scored a quick submission on DWCS back in September and made his Octagon debut at UFC 296 in December, getting a TKO finish over Martin Buday. I don’t remember being blown away by Gaziev’s performance that night but not bad for his debut. Better than a lot of the big useless slugs in the division and at least he goes for the finish. Granted, he could well turn out to be just as awful as the vast majority of the lumbering plodders stinking up the division but, for now, he’s been inoffensive enough.
That’s our main event then. Yeah, I know, not ideal. Pretty high possibility that this ends up being rotten to watch. But that’s always the case with Heavyweight. Especially over 5 rounds. I’m hoping they both stick to their usual approach and both come in looking for the early finish. Obviously, Rozey is a KO merchant. He’s gonna be looking to land a bomb from the off. But he’s weak in the grappling and I could definitely see Gaziev trying to exploit that. Looking at the rankings, Rozenstruik is currently at #12 so, while a win here wouldn’t exactly catapult Gaziev up the ladder, it would earn him a spot in the rankings just 2 fights into his UFC career. Yeah, expectations aren’t high for this but I hope it’s a pleasant surprise.
Vitor Petrino vs Tyson Pedro could be a banger but I get the feeling it’s gonna be a bit of a slaughter. I’ve been saying for a while I’m just not fully sold on Tyson Pedro. I like him, seems a sound bloke and against a certain level of opposition he looks solid. But I don’t know. I know he had that period of bad luck with the injuries and the massive layoff a few years ago but he had his shortcomings even before that. He lost to a washed up Shogun in the fight he got injured in and went into that layoff having lost 3 of his last 4. He finally came back after 3+ years on the shelf and he’s gone 3-1 since. But the wins were over Ike Villanueva, Harry Hunsucker and Anton Turkalj. The loss was against Modestas Bukauskas. I think Pedro’s getting battered here.
Vitor Petrino has looked like one of the better prospects to come out of Brazil in a while to me. He’s 26 years old and undefeated at 10-0 with 8 finishes. He got in off a TKO win on DWCS in 2022 and went 3-0 in the UFC last year. He hasn’t been beating a who’s who, hasn’t really been tested yet, it’s early days. But so far, so good. He’s ended fights by knockout and by submission, so he’s not a one trick pony. He’s finished fights early and he’s finished fights late. So despite his WWF Hasbro looking physique, he doesn’t seem to be the type of fighter who fades terribly if they don’t get the quick finish. He’s coming into this fight off a vicious knockout win over Pedro’s pal Bukauskas on the São Paulo card in November. He looks a handful. Not sure how much further he can go and there’s definitely still questions to be asked of him, but he’s looked the real deal so far. With his potential, his style and his look, he’s a guy who could become a bit of a star the likes the Brazilians haven’t really had come along in a while. He’s not ranked yet but if he wins this, I’d like to see him get a ranked opponent on that upcoming Brazil PPV in May next. Maybe Oezdemir or someone like that. I realise I’ve probably jinxed him now but he looks legit so far.
Muhammad Mokaev vs Alex Perez is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** this time. Genuinely wouldn’t have been upset if this was the main event, to be honest. Cracking fight. If it happens. And that’s the problem. I’ll give the UFC a little bit of an out here. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit but maybe part of the reason why this wasn’t given top billing is because of Perez’s track record of cancelled fights. Since signing with the UFC in 2017, Perez has had 9 fights. He’s also had, count ‘em, 12 fights cancelled. Fair enough, they weren’t always down to him pulling out. But Christ. He’s a decent fighter when he shows up. He stopped Jussier Formiga with leg kicks in a round back in 2020, a win which earned him a title shot against then champion Deiveson Figueiredo. That’s been the peak of his career so far. But Figgy made short work of him and subbed him in 2 minutes. Perez then got strangled in 90 seconds by Pantoja in his next fight and hasn’t been seen since. He’ll have been inactive about 18 months or so by the time he steps into the Octagon here. If he does.
Mokaev’s the pull here. He came into the UFC with hype and was widely considered to be one of the most promising prospects in the Flyweight division. He’s undoubtedly got talent and potential but, so far, I don’t think he’s quite delivered on the buzz he had coming in. That probably sounds harsh. He’s been winning, he’s undefeated, can’t fault him too much. But while the record looks great on Wikipedia, you watch him and he still looks so raw, sometimes even green. He’s fought 5 times in the UFC now, has gone 5-0 and won 4 of them by submission. But he always seems to have these moments in fights where it looks like it could all go tits up at any second. It’s only been his UFC debut against Cody Durden that’s been completely flawless and that’s because he just breezed through him in seconds. Since then he’s had shaky moments against Charles Johnson and Malcolm Gordon, had to gut through a horrific kneebar against Jafel Filho and in his last fight I had him 2 rounds down against Tim Elliott before he found the submission in the last round. Like I said, bags of potential and he’s still only 23. Time is on his side. But he seems hell bent on rushing straight up the rankings and I can’t help thinking it’s gonna backfire on him sooner rather than later. For as promising as he looks, he was 2 minutes away from losing a decision to Elliott last time. He keeps finding ways to win and that’s admirable but it’s only a matter of time before he just doesn’t find that late sub and takes the L. He’s already ranked #8 now. It’s all tough matchups from here on out. Hopefully he doesn’t crash and burn though because the Groundhog Day title picture at Flyweight could definitely do with some fresh faces.
JR vs Shamil Gaziev, March 2, UFC Apex
1 PM eastern
https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/events/106064-ufc-fight-night
https://www.tapology.com/forum/threads/76662
https://fightodds.io/odds/5318/ufc-fight-night-rozenstruik-vs-gaziev
https://www.betmma.tips/free_ufc_betting_tips.php?Event=1466
https://twitter.com/search?q=#UFCVegas87 lang:en&src=typed_query&f=live
Pasting this from a ufc fan website lol
ESPN MAIN CARD
Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs Shamil Gaziev
Vitor Petrino vs Tyson Pedro
Muhammad Mokaev vs Alex Perez
Raul Rosas Jr vs Ricky Turcios
Umar Nurmagomedov vs Bekzat Almakhan
Matt Schnell vs Steve Erceg
ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS
Eryk Anders vs Jamie Pickett
Ludovit Klein vs TBA
Javid Basharat vs Aiemann Zahabi
Christian Leroy Duncan vs Claudio Ribeiro
Vinicius Oliveira vs Yanis Ghemmouri
Loik Radzhabov vs Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady
You know what? I actually don’t think this is that bad. It’s gonna get shat on because of the main event but there’s some solid matchups on there. And even the main event could be (hopefully) short and sweet. We’ve had worse. Couple of fights have dropped off, which is why there’s so few fights on there, but I don’t mind that at all. Apex cards being shorter works for me.
On a side note - this is the card that was originally supposed to be in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis put up a $20M site fee so, rightly, wanted something better than this! Apparently the plan is now to do the Saudi show in June. Trying to take a sodding Apex show over there was never gonna cut it, was it? The good news for us is, according to Marcel Dorff, it’s still gonna be on Saudi timezone. Prelims are currently set to kick off at 6:30pm UK time, with the main card from 9pm.
Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs Shamil Gaziev headlines. Whether we like it or not. I guess this is what we get for moaning about all those Middleweight Apex main events. Now we’ve got 5 rounds of Fattyweight mediocrity to look forward to. Smashing. In fairness, this mightn’t be as bad as we think. As Heavyweight fights go, they actually could’ve given us a lot worse than this. But for the life of me I’ll never understand why the lower weight classes so rarely get these main event spots when they’re pretty much always way better actual fights than the 185 and up lot. Whatever. This is undeniably one of the weakest main events on the schedule but I’ll give it a chance.
I don’t mind Rozenstruik myself. I mean, he’s going nowhere and his fight announcements always seem to be met with groans and negativity, presumably because he’s not elite or something. But he’s an alright middle of the pack player. Seems quite likeable and he’s far, far from the worst or most boring in the division. He’s got a shitload of fight experience, 85 Kickboxing fights. Again, I often see that get shat on because of the level of opposition or whatever, no doubt there’s truth to that criticism but it’s all reps and experience in the bank. In MMA he’s gone 13-5 with 12 knockouts. He hit his ceiling a while back and has lost almost every time he’s stepped up a level. But he’s definitely had his moments. Stopped Arlovski early, stopped Overeem late, stopped JDS. There was a time when he was actually knocking on the door of being in the title mix. Any hopes of that seem to have fizzled out now though. He’s gone 2-3 in his last 5 and the wins were over Augusto Sakai and Chris Daukaus. We last saw him getting steamrolled by Jailton Almeida in May last year. He turns 36 a couple of weeks after this fight. So yeah, safe to say he’s found his level. Unlikely he’s gonna go on some surge at this stage of his career. But still, he packs a punch and he’s a decent enough test for an up and comer, I guess.
Gaziev is actually where my intrigue lies here. He’s from Bahrain, 34 years old and he’s undefeated at 12-0 with 11 inside the distance. He fought in the Brave CF and Ares FC promotions, scored a quick submission on DWCS back in September and made his Octagon debut at UFC 296 in December, getting a TKO finish over Martin Buday. I don’t remember being blown away by Gaziev’s performance that night but not bad for his debut. Better than a lot of the big useless slugs in the division and at least he goes for the finish. Granted, he could well turn out to be just as awful as the vast majority of the lumbering plodders stinking up the division but, for now, he’s been inoffensive enough.
That’s our main event then. Yeah, I know, not ideal. Pretty high possibility that this ends up being rotten to watch. But that’s always the case with Heavyweight. Especially over 5 rounds. I’m hoping they both stick to their usual approach and both come in looking for the early finish. Obviously, Rozey is a KO merchant. He’s gonna be looking to land a bomb from the off. But he’s weak in the grappling and I could definitely see Gaziev trying to exploit that. Looking at the rankings, Rozenstruik is currently at #12 so, while a win here wouldn’t exactly catapult Gaziev up the ladder, it would earn him a spot in the rankings just 2 fights into his UFC career. Yeah, expectations aren’t high for this but I hope it’s a pleasant surprise.
Vitor Petrino vs Tyson Pedro could be a banger but I get the feeling it’s gonna be a bit of a slaughter. I’ve been saying for a while I’m just not fully sold on Tyson Pedro. I like him, seems a sound bloke and against a certain level of opposition he looks solid. But I don’t know. I know he had that period of bad luck with the injuries and the massive layoff a few years ago but he had his shortcomings even before that. He lost to a washed up Shogun in the fight he got injured in and went into that layoff having lost 3 of his last 4. He finally came back after 3+ years on the shelf and he’s gone 3-1 since. But the wins were over Ike Villanueva, Harry Hunsucker and Anton Turkalj. The loss was against Modestas Bukauskas. I think Pedro’s getting battered here.
Vitor Petrino has looked like one of the better prospects to come out of Brazil in a while to me. He’s 26 years old and undefeated at 10-0 with 8 finishes. He got in off a TKO win on DWCS in 2022 and went 3-0 in the UFC last year. He hasn’t been beating a who’s who, hasn’t really been tested yet, it’s early days. But so far, so good. He’s ended fights by knockout and by submission, so he’s not a one trick pony. He’s finished fights early and he’s finished fights late. So despite his WWF Hasbro looking physique, he doesn’t seem to be the type of fighter who fades terribly if they don’t get the quick finish. He’s coming into this fight off a vicious knockout win over Pedro’s pal Bukauskas on the São Paulo card in November. He looks a handful. Not sure how much further he can go and there’s definitely still questions to be asked of him, but he’s looked the real deal so far. With his potential, his style and his look, he’s a guy who could become a bit of a star the likes the Brazilians haven’t really had come along in a while. He’s not ranked yet but if he wins this, I’d like to see him get a ranked opponent on that upcoming Brazil PPV in May next. Maybe Oezdemir or someone like that. I realise I’ve probably jinxed him now but he looks legit so far.
Muhammad Mokaev vs Alex Perez is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** this time. Genuinely wouldn’t have been upset if this was the main event, to be honest. Cracking fight. If it happens. And that’s the problem. I’ll give the UFC a little bit of an out here. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit but maybe part of the reason why this wasn’t given top billing is because of Perez’s track record of cancelled fights. Since signing with the UFC in 2017, Perez has had 9 fights. He’s also had, count ‘em, 12 fights cancelled. Fair enough, they weren’t always down to him pulling out. But Christ. He’s a decent fighter when he shows up. He stopped Jussier Formiga with leg kicks in a round back in 2020, a win which earned him a title shot against then champion Deiveson Figueiredo. That’s been the peak of his career so far. But Figgy made short work of him and subbed him in 2 minutes. Perez then got strangled in 90 seconds by Pantoja in his next fight and hasn’t been seen since. He’ll have been inactive about 18 months or so by the time he steps into the Octagon here. If he does.
Mokaev’s the pull here. He came into the UFC with hype and was widely considered to be one of the most promising prospects in the Flyweight division. He’s undoubtedly got talent and potential but, so far, I don’t think he’s quite delivered on the buzz he had coming in. That probably sounds harsh. He’s been winning, he’s undefeated, can’t fault him too much. But while the record looks great on Wikipedia, you watch him and he still looks so raw, sometimes even green. He’s fought 5 times in the UFC now, has gone 5-0 and won 4 of them by submission. But he always seems to have these moments in fights where it looks like it could all go tits up at any second. It’s only been his UFC debut against Cody Durden that’s been completely flawless and that’s because he just breezed through him in seconds. Since then he’s had shaky moments against Charles Johnson and Malcolm Gordon, had to gut through a horrific kneebar against Jafel Filho and in his last fight I had him 2 rounds down against Tim Elliott before he found the submission in the last round. Like I said, bags of potential and he’s still only 23. Time is on his side. But he seems hell bent on rushing straight up the rankings and I can’t help thinking it’s gonna backfire on him sooner rather than later. For as promising as he looks, he was 2 minutes away from losing a decision to Elliott last time. He keeps finding ways to win and that’s admirable but it’s only a matter of time before he just doesn’t find that late sub and takes the L. He’s already ranked #8 now. It’s all tough matchups from here on out. Hopefully he doesn’t crash and burn though because the Groundhog Day title picture at Flyweight could definitely do with some fresh faces.
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