UFN 144 on ESPN+ 2 Assuncao vs Moraes II

[ill800]

Yeah we can leave it man, we just don't see Aldo fights the same and you like to speculate a lot. For example, if mendes was a little longer he also probably wouldn't be as explosive or carry as much power. He was never in trouble against Jeremy and actually beat him at his own game. Saying he would be walking dead in the 2nd and 3rd is again 100% speculation. I cap Aldo as a slight favorite here, assuming improvements from Moiciano continue. Best of luck.

I remember him being hurt by Stephens

 

[longway]

Looked at tape for Maia v Good and Teymur v Oliveira - my initial leans were Maia and Teymur, but I couldn't find out what I needed to know. There is no way of knowing how good Good's TDD is, my guess he can't handle the chain wrestling of Maia, but it's only a guess. Teymur up to now has been so good at defending TDs or getting right back up, you cant assess his sub defence or grappling at all, and Oliveira's BJJ is sick. What a waste of time.

 

[SBJJ]

I had a pretty large bet on Aldo against Stephens

But am I crazy or was that the legit worse Aldo I have ever seen? I get it he won in a Brawl. But he looked slow off balance. His defense looked horrible. He looked stuck in mud

 

[SBJJ]

I remember him being hurt by Stephens

He was wobbled anytime Stephens touched him

 

[Austisthunder]

Aldo didnt look great against Stephens, but for what its worth, Aldo took the damage and got the win; Moicanos power isnt anywhere near Stephens

 

[ill800]

I had a pretty large bet on Aldo against Stephens

But am I crazy or was that the legit worse Aldo I have ever seen? I get it he won in a Brawl. But he looked slow off balance. His defense looked horrible. He looked stuck in mud

I thought he looked pretty bad and was lucky to win that fight

It was like a Hail Mary body shot.

I think aldo is a mental midget. Not meaning that he’s stupid but after the Conor fight he’s really never been the same. He lost his mental edge and I don’t think his heart is in it.

The only thing that concerns me about moicano is his chin. Remember him getting dropped 3 times from jabs from suckmouth

 

[ill800]

Aldo didnt look great against Stephens, but for what its worth, Aldo took the damage and got the win; Moicanos power isnt anywhere near Stephens

Really don’t think you need Jeremy Stephens power to hurt him anymore

3 knockout losses in his last 5 fights have likely left his brains a bit scrambled. He can’t take a punch like he used to

 

[Austisthunder]

Really don’t think you need Jeremy Stephens power to hurt him anymore

3 knockout losses in his last 5 fights have likely left his brains a bit scrambled. He can’t take a punch like he used to

You make a fair point to be sure, but moicano isnt Jeremy Stephens or Max Holloway,

I think this comes down to we really haven’t appreciated how great Max Holloway is tbh

And to be humble i dont think I entirely respect Moicano, which could very well bite me here, but i think its fair to say if Moicano cant steal rounds with a late meme takedown.... i just dont like his prospects of winning by decision here

 

[Dianabol]

Aldo is on his way out, even saying he wants to retire this year

He's declining but I still think he's a top FW. He's very hard to win the 1st round against, I thought he won the 1st round in both Holloway fights. I think he'll win the 1st vs Moicano too but can he win the 2nd or will he slow down and get outworked by Moicano's pace? No other fighter in the division emulates Holloway as much as Moicano IMO.

Tough fight but I'm usually on the side of youth, gotta go with the guy on his way up.

 

[Ryan Kelly]

Hammered Moraes -190 early and just did the same on Aldo +140. Great prices imo.

 

[Jordan3399]

I had a pretty large bet on Aldo against Stephens

But am I crazy or was that the legit worse Aldo I have ever seen? I get it he won in a Brawl. But he looked slow off balance. His defense looked horrible. He looked stuck in mud

I thought his defence was good tbh, but his footwork was lacking. When Stephens came forward and backed him up against the cage Aldo's head movement was solid and very few of Stephens bombs landed and any that did seemed to only piss Aldo off and not hurt him. At the same time in that exchange Aldo landed something hard to cause Stephens to initially back off and then lead to the finish. It was sort of the worst Aldo we'd seen a while but not ever, he fought like he did early in his career where he legitimately wanted to hurt his opponent and not just win, so his usual highly technical approach went out the window but the technique was still there.

The fact he took everything Stephens had no problem was my biggest takeaway as so many people were acting like it would be an easy KO for him. Aldo's fight IQ seems to be the biggest decline in recent years though, I don't think we've seen him fight particularly smart since he beat Lamas so going up against dangerous finishers like Conor and Holloway without an intelligent gameplan hurt him badly. On the other hand Moicano doesn't have that dangerous finishing ability so I'm not concerned.

 

[Dianabol]

Maia has lost 3 in a row but it's against the top 3 guys in the division. Against the best wrestlers in the division, wrestlers that had the ability to nullify Maia's grappling.

Lyman Good is a striker, you don't see much of his grappling but from what I have seen it's been poor. I remember when Good fought on TUF against some 3-0 wrestler and got grinded out despite having a massive experience edge. Good trains at Tiger Schulmans, a camp full of strikers.

This fight is a style clash. If Maia gets him down early then Good is in massive trouble. Good needs to keep it standing and either KO Maia or make him tired. Maia has only ever been KO'd once and it was a long time ago at MW.

I've never bet on a 40 year old and not going to start now but I think Maia wins.

 

[Jordan3399]

Aldo is on his way out, even saying he wants to retire this year

He's declining but I still think he's a top FW. He's very hard to win the 1st round against, I thought he won the 1st round in both Holloway fights. I think he'll win the 1st vs Moicano too but can he win the 2nd or will he slow down and get outworked by Moicano's pace? No other fighter in the division emulates Holloway as much as Moicano IMO.

Tough fight but I'm usually on the side of youth, gotta go with the guy on his way up.

He won both the first and second in first clearly and probably one if not both of the rematch, they were just more competitive as he lowered his output a lot while Holloway kept switching stances, changing how he was circling etc. compared to the first fight.

I'd agree Moicano is a close to Max as anyone else but the lower power in his strikes, lack of fluid stance switches and the other finer aspects of Max's game will make it far easier for Aldo figure him out and win rounds. I highly doubt Moicano has a chin as good as Max either that will allow him to just hang in the pocket with Aldo, Moicano was backed up easily at points by Stephens and Ortega so I'd expect Aldo will be able to do the same and take the pressure off.

 

[ill800]

You make a fair point to be sure, but moicano isnt Jeremy Stephens or Max Holloway,

I think this comes down to we really haven’t appreciated how great Max Holloway is tbh

And to be humble i dont think I entirely respect Moicano, which could very well bite me here, but i think its fair to say if Moicano cant steal rounds with a late meme takedown.... i just dont like his prospects of winning by decision here

I would say damage accumulation and lack of cardio could get aldo. If your cardio and weight cut isn’t on point you can get hurt easily. See TJ Dillashaw from last night

I mean I love me some aldo but his best days were taken by mcgregor. I remember for the first Holloway fight he said he couldn’t even run to train for that because of a leg injury

Don’t know if that injury has ever been properly addressed but he doesnt throw the leg kicks in the volume that he used to

 

[ill800]

Maia has lost 3 in a row but it's against the top 3 guys in the division. Against the best wrestlers in the division, wrestlers that had the ability to nullify Maia's grappling.

Lyman Good is a striker, you don't see much of his grappling but from what I have seen it's been poor. I remember when Good fought on TUF against some 3-0 wrestler and got grinded out despite having a massive experience edge. Good trains at Tiger Schulmans, a camp full of strikers.

This fight is a style clash. If Maia gets him down early then Good is in massive trouble. Good needs to keep it standing and either KO Maia or make him tired. Maia has only ever been KO'd once and it was a long time ago at MW.

I've never bet on a 40 year old and not going to start now but I think Maia wins.

There’s not many who can employ the gameplan needed to beat Maia. You have to have elite tdd, distance control and discipline to beat him

 

[thewiggo]

Jairzinho @ 4/5 is criminal.
May be one of my biggest bets ever.

75/6 kickboxing rec with multiple titles.
He’s going to wipe the floor with Albini and embarrass him more than his infamous nappy.

 

[Jordan3399]

Good trains at Tiger Schulmans, a camp full of strikers.

Just did a look over the TDD's records of other Tiger Schulman and to be honest I'm seriously surprised and impressed. I'll just quote TDD percentages for there current UF fighters but Rivera 100%, Burgos 94%, Good 85%, Arce 93%, Trizano 86%. Aside from maybe Nova Uniao I can't think of another team with that kind of consistently great defence across their fighters. Obviously it only takes one takedown for Maia but I think thats a big plus in Good's favour. The only time he has been takendown in the UFC too was off a caught kick against Dos Santos and he popped right back up and after that he stuffed 6 more attempts easily after that.

 

[Dianabol]

Just did a look over the TDD's records of other Tiger Schulman and to be honest I'm seriously surprised and impressed. I'll just quote TDD percentages for there current UF fighters but Rivera 100%, Burgos 94%, Good 85%, Arce 93%, Trizano 86%. Aside from maybe Nova Uniao I can't think of another team with that kind of consistently great defence across their fighters. Obviously it only takes one takedown for Maia but I think thats a big plus in Good's favour. The only time he has been takendown in the UFC too was off a caught kick against Dos Santos and he popped right back up and after that he stuffed 6 more attempts easily after that.

Thats interesting. I respect Rivera's and Arce's TDD, they've shown good TDD against solid wrestlers. The other guys not so much, but those numbers are way above the UFC average, impressive.

Good's UFC opponents have all been poor wrestlers. Zaleski is by far the best UFC fighter he's faced and Zleski is a someone I'm pretty high on but Zaleski's wrestling is non existent.

Maia is going to look worse every fight, he's already 41 years old, his last win was a split over Masvidal nearly 2 years ago. I didn't give him a round vs Woodley, Colby or Usman.

I need to look into this one more

Main questions are
How much does Maia have left?
How good is Good's TDD?

 

[Jordan3399]

Jairzinho @ 4/5 is criminal.
May be one of my biggest bets ever.

75/6 kickboxing rec with multiple titles.
He’s going to wipe the floor with Albini and embarrass him more than his infamous nappy.

His BJJ looked non-existent in his last fight and his boxing defence isn't great with Kovalev landing clean overhand rights at will although his chin was solid and he stuffed all but one of Kovalev's takedowns. Comparatively Albini has fast hands, has never been KO'd and also (supposedly) has a brown belt in BJJ but has a straight up awful fight IQ, has beaten nobody decent outside of Tim Johnson and trains out of a terrible camp full of can crushers.

Not convinced going heavy on either is smart given each has big issues as a fighter but I favour Jairzinho and may bet a little but Albini does has clear holes he can exploit, I just think his fight IQ is far too low for him to do it.

 

[Soccer Steve]

Seems the thread is 50/50-ish on Aldo-Moicano so far. I'm throwing my two cents in and I'm going with Moicano. After getting crushed last night on the first ESPN+ card I'm taking it slower and more methodical with my bets and that might help me in this one; I could see money come in on Jose as the fight nears.

We have some great comparison fights there for us: I think it is fair to say the circa 2019 Aldo is a better version of Stephens (though I agree with others that the longer that fight goes the more trouble I see Aldo in; liver shots are in essence flukes) and that Moicano is a poor man's version of Max; at least as far as the cardio, length and volume go. And they both get hit. He is not a true killer like Max though and I don't know much about his chin tbh but Ortega was landing fairly heavy there. I know some people will disagree with the above but I don't think it's a huge reach to make these comparisons.

So if Max is a nightmare for Aldo, then Moicano is a bad dream. Jose is a known entity now and Moicano is a proven gameplanner. I think we'll see the Stephens version of Moicano; circling, always moving, even turning his back to run away at times, frustrating Jose, pot shots, kicks. He will try not to stand and trade like he did against Ortega (against whom I thought he was doing pretty damn well, the broken nose(?) and 19-19 as it was before the finish, and an Ortega who I think crushes this version of Aldo).

We saw Moicano's cardio look pretty impressive with all his movement in the Stephens fight. And tired, with less movement, in the 3rd round, he adjusted and went to kicks to nullify any late surge from Jeremy. The cardio for Jose is a real issue and not overblown at all. Aldo's coach made him decline a 5 round fight here because of it (did not blame cardio but said it was Aldo's training load and age he was worried about). And he's pre-declared his retirement now too. These are red flags in the fight game as far as I'm concerned. But in the here and now the Max fights show us he's dangerous in the first, declines in the second, and can be finished in the third. Jose gets tired, plain and simple, and Moicano will exploit that with all his movement.

Moicano at -155 is a bit annoying though so hoping money does come in. I absolutely understand an Aldo play here at these odds and I'd be right there with you but Moicano's style takes this for me.