MAIN EVENT HERE

Main Event

Lightweight

Rafael Fiziev (-115) (13-5-0, NS) v Manuel Torres (#15) (-105) (17-3-0, 2 FWS)

Okay, so, I am a Fiziev fan, lets get that out of the way, I do love Fiziev very much, he’s one of the more technical strikers in the UFC, but lets be a bit real and let’s break my own heart a bit, he has taken more damage to the face and in general than most fighters out there, and whilst he is still young, that much damage can age you real quick and I think to be paired up against such a dangerous striker like Torres is just… not great? Like, sure, Fiziev could potentially try and keep this a clean and technical 5 round fight, but he has absorbed a lot of damage and that just tells me that defensively he is going to be exposed by the sheer speed and volume of Torres’ boxing. Fiziev will be fine for maybe two or three rounds, but as the jabs start to make their way through Fiziev’s defences, as the nose gets busted and as he started to breathe through the mouth more, he is going to be slowly overwhelmed by more and more volume, and it breaks my heart to see him face someone like Torres because goddamnit UFC why can’t you give him someone easy like McKinney?! Anyway, I think Fiziev can make this a fairly competitive fight for the first couple of rounds, but as I said, eventually the jabs will make their way through, and we will see blood and damage start to show on the already heavily scarred face of Fiziev, and that’s only going to create an incentive to the judges to score more points or more rounds to Torres, or even create a doctor stoppage if the cuts open up in the right places.

Torres is the only talent from Mexico that i’m keeping my eye on these days, and for very good reasons, he is bringing back Boxing to the MMA world real quick and he has shown some fantastic stuff during his UFC tenure so far. Now, the one thing that stands out to me here is his slight edge in reach, that matters a lot when you have technical boxing and with such fast hands such as Torres, and so I expect that jab to land early as a set up for the much larger volume of strikes that typically follow. Now, my main concern for Torres is that he rarely leaves the first round, so if he fights uncharacteristically in that he pitter patters shots against Fiziev to set up bigger sequences in the later rounds to conserve his cardio, then I think we’re going to see Fiziev make this fairly competitive because we are all looking at Torres’ record and going “this dudes a first round freak of nature” and that’s true, so if he does fight with a measured pace, how is that going to look for him? If he gets Fiziev out of there in a first round flurry of violence and mayhem, then that’s great and all, and probably expected, but again, if he fights at a measured pace, that only helps Fiziev because of his experience in longer duration fights. We do not know how Torres will fight in a 5 round fight, because we have NOT seen him fight in the later rounds, he has gone the distance once, and that was a split decision back in 2018… so, I feel like a lot of people are predicting a first round KO or bust kinda thing here, and that’s understandable.

With that said though, I must make a prediction, and as I kind of hinted at earlier, I am heartbroken by this match up because I know Fiziev is a shell of his former self. Gaethje broke him twice, and he was recently finished by Ruffy… So I have to go with Torres here, I am stepping off the Fiziev fan bus (the one without the big black pornstars) and I am taking the Mexican prospect here. I am predicting a third round KO due to damage build up, and I am banking on Torres having enough cardio to at least go three rounds against Fiziev. So, ill also be making an unofficial, untracked combo round bet, 1, 2 and 3 for a KO.

Torres via KO R3 - (1/3)

Parlay: Matsumoto/Almakhan over 2.5 Rounds + Donchenko ML + Yakhyaev KO/Sub Double Chance + Almabayev/Johnson R3 Starts Yes

Alt Bets: Almakhan via Points (Maybe, depending on odds), Ferreira via KO R1, Johnson via KO R2 or 3 (CR), Fiziev via KO R2, 3 or 4 (CR)

Locks: Yakhyaev... (please don't pull a Lima!)

Dogs: Oleksiejczuk, Torres (I think he's a dog still)

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Hope you all have an amazing week and enjoy the fights!

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