War Wagon Waldo Cortes will salsa his way to a decision victory against Sergei Pavlovich

[WoozyFailGuy]

Pav will find Waldo in the 2nd and send him to Shadow Realm

Obligatory

 

[Pequeño Corey]

Waldo Cortex Acosta never been KO’d

 

[WoozyFailGuy]

Waldo Cortex Acosta never been KO’d

 

[TRYHARD 2001]

My first reaction to this fight was that Salsa Boy was gonna get sparked quickly. I've thought about this a little more and I look at this fight as being a real crossroads fight for Pav. He looked amazing for a good while (Overeem mauling notwithstanding), then got KO'd, then resoundingly outpointed by a Top 5 HW, then had a boringass grappling performance against a dangerous kickboxer. There is a chance we have a case of a shot fighter on our hands.

He's still only 33, which is a youth in HW MMA, but every fighter has their own journey through aging in the fight game and there are a lot of examples of a fighter getting beat and never getting it together again. To be clear, we don't know if that's the case for Pav yet but if this fight is anything but a dominant win for him I feel safe in saying he's a spent casing. Waldo is not a particularly good fighter but he is dangerous and has decent TDD, so Pav will probably have to show he still has it in him to brutally KO a massive stepdown in competition if he wants to keep his place in the Top 10.

I think he gets this one done and moves on to better fighters in the near future who will really help determine what his new ceiling is, but I don't necessarily think this as cut and dry as it might look at first glance. It all hinges on where he's at mentally and physically at this point and there's no way we can know that till after the fight is done.


Isn't MMA fun?

 

[Bowel-forged Stool]

Sergei’s got that shattered chin that started the aspinal movement

 

[Safton]

Feels like a "Y'all must've forgot" match to me. Waldo's success astounds me. He is so unremarkable as a fighter, even by HW standards. de Lima wrote the book on how to beat him a long time ago and dudes are still struggling.

Still, I think his time is up. He was losing striking exchanges and getting clubbed with big shots by Spivak... a pillow-fisted, chinny judoka. Spivak showed zero fear of his power, which says a lot to me. He's lucky the judges favored him there. Waldo's boxing defense is decent, but Pavlovich has some of the most dangerous hands in the division. His own boxing fundamentals are solid, he throws good straight shots down the pipe at a high volume, and he'll enjoy a 6" reach advantage with more KO power to boot. True, he has looked gun-shy and "off" since the loss to Aspinall... but I think he just needed time to reset and this is a tremendous step down in competition.

Acosta represents a guy who will engage Pavlovich in his favored range, has a far more limited kicking arsenal than Volkov, and is still potentially somewhat vulnerable to the takedown threat. Pavlovich has more ways to win and I'd be fairly shocked if he doesn't. Acosta's only path to victory is to copy Volkov's homework and out-point Pavlovich on the outside while staying defensively sound and stuffing his takedowns... and I don't think he has the chops.

 

[CroCopsLHK]

Well...

Not the fight we all clamored for lol. Glad to see Cortes get the L though

 

[Mask Of Winters]

Where's Waldo? In Loser Town, that's where.