This weekend presents the second PPV card of July and the final card of the month. It really doesn't feel like a PPV week though and I'm not particularly sure why. The hype just isn't really there. The card really doesn't feel all that special and I think a lot of the big cards have kind of fallen flat for much of 2022. The UFC ended 2021 on such a great run, but we're really not getting much going in terms of full events yet this year. It seems like they're really going all out for the October PPV and they usually try to stack up the November PPV in New York as well. This is probably the weakest PPV of the year so far as prelims are pretty thin and the main card is just kind of ok. Anthony Smith vs Magomed Ankalaev should be a decent fight and I'm looking forward to it as an Anthony Smith fan. Pantoja vs Perez should be another decent fight and I'm always down to watch Derrick Lewis. Kara-France vs Moreno is probably the best fight on the card and then the main event just doesn't feel nearly as important as it should. I'm not sure why I can't really get into Nunes vs Pena II, but I'm just not. We know the UFC doesn't actually promote any fights these days, so while that would help, it isn't out of the ordinary for us to have to generate our own interest and I'm just sort of struggling to do so with this one. Maybe because they relied on the them being the coaches on TUF they did even less promotion than usual. I'm interested to see how the fight plays out since Amanda is coming off of her first loss in awhile, but I'm just not super pumped about it. Maybe that will come with time as the fight gets closer. Anyways, let's focus on the co-main for the interim flyweight title. We're getting an interim title fight because champion Deivison Figueiredo is recovering from a finger injury and needs more time to return to full health. It is also sort of unclear if Figgy wants to return to flyweight or move up, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Let's start this breakdown.
First up is Kai Kara-France and he is coming off of easily the biggest win of his career. Kai has had a bit of a bumpy career, sporting a 24-9 career record, but has really found his footing since joining the UFC roster. He made his debut in February of 2019 and won his first two fights via decision over Raulian Paiva and Mark De La Rosa. That is when he had his first fight against Brandon Moreno, which he would lose by decision. He would bounce back with a win over Tyson Nam before losing a crazy fight with Brandon Royval. He's undefeated since and tallied back to back finishes over Rogerio Bontorin and former bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt. His last fight was against the previously undefeated Askar Askarov, which saw Kai pull off the upset win to give himself this opportunity. This is easily the best stretch of Kai's career and will see him coming in with a ton of momentum. Kara-France comes into this fight as a striker. His grappling isn't poor, but it isn't really a weapon for him. He's a good defensive wrestler and stops takedowns very well, but he hardly ever attempts his own. Even when he does, he's only landing them at a 21% rate. He will have to win this fight in the standup and he has a solid chance to do so. He's a very technical striker and doesn't give his opponents a lot of openings. He's had a tendency to let the fight get away from him a bit when it gets chaotic, but that is something that he has slowly worked out of his game. It cost him against Royval, but he has done a very good job of keeping things under control since then. His technical striking ability puts him in the right positions most of the time and helps him limit some of the damage he absorbs. It isn't very often that you'll find Kai badly out of position and taking massive damage because of it. At his best, he can keep things really buttoned up and limit the clean opportunities his opponents have to hit him. The man trains with Israel Adesanya and Alex Volkanovski, so none of that is really all that surprising. In his recent win streak, Kai has really found his power and had been finding more finishes up until his last fight. Typically, flyweights aren't really known for their power, but he has shown that when he finds the mark, he has the power to put his opponents away. Kai does his best work from range, where he uses his low kicks almost like a jab. He doesn't throw a ton of them, but he mixes them in just enough and uses them as a way to keep his opponents at the distance that he wants them. Hix boxing is really where he does a majority of his work though and he throws combinations with pretty nice volume. He isn't going to back away from a fight and he won't lose this one because he wasn't willing to engage. If there is a major disadvantage he is at in this one, it is going to be big fight experience. Brandon Moreno fought Deiveson Figueiredo for the title in his last 3 fights, while this will be Kai's first title fight appearance. I have to imagine those nerves are just different than even Fight Night main events or the fight against Askarov. We've also never seen Kai have to fight 5 rounds, which is something he will likely have to do here. We saw him win the first round over Moreno in their first fight before he lost the final two. Obviously they're both different fighters since then, but it is something to consider. Other than that, Kai has all of the skills to compete in this one, it is just a matter of how it actually plays out.
Brandon Moreno is the more well known commodity in this one and is a pretty nice sized favorite coming into it. Moreno is coming off of his trilogy with Figueiredo and for the first time in a year and a half will be facing a different opponent. I don't think that really means anything, but it is weird that Moreno has been preparing to fight Figueiredo for over a year at this point. Moreno is in his second stint in the UFC now as he briefly left after suffering back to back losses to Sergio Pettis and Alexandre Pantoja. He returned and fought to a draw with Askar Askarov before winning three in a row to earn the title fight. His first shot at the belt was a draw after Figueiredo had a point deducted, which means that without the deduction, he would have lost 48-47. However, because that strike seemingly had an impact on Moreno and the fight didn't have a conclusive ending, they ran it back. That was also the most resistance we had ever seen Figueiredo face, so the demand to see that fight was there. Moreno would come back an improved fighter and was just better than Deiveson that night and he ended up finding the submission finish to become champion. Moreno tried to complete the trilogy by defending his title, but the power of Figueiredo proved to be the difference. Moreno was out landing him on the volume, but Figueiredo was able to hurt Moreno on a couple of occasions that swung the judges decision in his favor. Moreno will be the more well rounded fighter coming into this fight and I think he needs to take advantage of that. Moreno's grappling is much more proven than Kai's and I would grade him out as being a solid grappler all around. On the mat, I think Moreno is a legitimate threat to most other flyweights. Moreno has this quality about him where he creates these wild scrambles and eventually will beat his opponent to a position. He has legitimate submission ability that can't be ignored in this one. Moreno has 11 career submission victories and while most of them came outside of the UFC on the regional scene, that doesn't happen by accident. While he's very good on the ground, he isn't necessarily the best wrestler. He is an ok wrestler, just nothing out of the ordinary. He averages 1.84 takedowns per 15 minutes and gets his takedowns at a 47% rate. In that department, I think he grades out more or less average for a legitimate UFC fighter. In the striking, Moreno is primarily a boxer. He hasn't historically thrown a ton of kicks, but he did mix in a noticeable amount of low kicks in the third fight against Figueiredo. I don't know if that is just an evolution of Moreno's game or if it was a strategy that was just specific to that fight, but we'll see. I think anything that Moreno can do to keep Kai guessing would be a good move in this one, so I would expect to see him at least attempt some low kicks in this one. Moreno is a talented boxer and that will have to do a majority of the work for him in this fight. He has fast hands and likes to throw a lot of hooks. He isn't afraid to be aggressive and will come forward against anyone. He can get a bit sloppy at times and start to trade wild hooks, but it largely works out for him. His volume overall is just kind of ok and maybe a bit lower than you would expect for a flyweight, but his pacing is typically on point. His output will never been extremely high, but he is able to maintain his pace for the entire 25 minutes. I think seeing him against Figueiredo for so long has sort of tricked people into think that Moreno has crazy output since Figgy is a bit of a slower paced fighter, but that really isn't the case. Moreno has just decent volume overall with the ability to pace it very well. Moreno's striking defense sometimes gets away from him and forces him to rely on his chin a little more often than a coach would probably like. However, against someone who isn't Figueiredo, his chin has pretty much held up without too much of an issue. He's been hurt before, but he's never been finished in any capacity. We know Kai has some pop, so Moreno does have to be careful, especially early on. The one thing that is hard to quantify with Moreno is that it seems like he just gets more out of his skills than is seemingly there. His heart has allowed him to overcome so much in both his life and fighting career and that isn't something that can be overlooked. He's been in these big spots before and has risen to the occasion against some of the best fighters in the world time and time again. I think his experience is something you have to consider in this fight in terms of the bright lights and his ability to consistently fight 5 rounds. Brandon Moreno didn't become the champion on accident and taking this interim title from him isn't going to be an easy task as he's proved he has the skillset required to win these fights.
Instead of naming three keys like I used to, I think I like the format where I sort of discuss what each fighter's general strategy should be offensively and defensively, so I think that is going to become the new norm here. We'll start with Kai Kara-France. First and foremost, he needs to keep this fight at range. Having a lot of grappling or clinch exchanges doesn't favor him as he's not a grappler and he'll also be the smaller fighter. I do think he is the more technically sound fighter as well as the more diverse striker in this fight, so he needs to make sure that is the clearest thing for the judges. Moreno is there to be hit, so Kai will have to be ready to take advantage of those moments. He should be able to land some low kicks and after he gets Moreno thinking low, he can come up high with boxing combinations. Defensively, Kai needs to not get bullied. Kara-France has a tendency where he is willing to be the fighter going backwards far too often. If he is going to let Moreno push him back, I think he'll be putting himself in bad positions far too frequently. He'll eventually have his back up against the cage where Moreno can either shoot for takedowns or land his punches. If Kai loses, I kind of think this is ultimately what the fight looks like. Kai either needs to be prepared to move laterally and circle back out towards the center of the cage or just stand his ground. All of that movement would take a lot of cardio, which it isn't completely clear that he has. If he decides to just stand his ground and plant his feet, he may end up swinging in the pocket with Moreno, which isn't always his style. Kai did a pretty nice job defending the takedowns against Askarov, who is a much better wrestler than Moreno. I don't really think Moreno is going to be able to get a clean takedown, but if he can catch a kick or get on top off of a knockdown or a slip, Kai needs to scramble to his feet as fast as possible. Any extended ground exchanges favor Moreno significantly and he probably would get a submission before too long. Kai is sound defensively, but Moreno is much more natural and would create scrambles and chaos in order to create opportunities for those chokes. On the Moreno side, I think he needs to focus on making this an MMA fight. If he is just going to stand and kickbox, he's making the fight closer than it could be. I don't know that he is actually going to be able to take Kai down, but I do think that he at least needs to try. I think the speed on the feet is going to be close, but Kai will have an early advantage in the volume. If Moreno can disrupt his momentum by clinching him or even just feinting a takedown here and there, I think that will do him well. We know Moreno can sustain a solid pace for 5 full rounds, so I would think he wants to test if Kai can do the same. Moreno is going to bring the forward pressure and having Kai pinned against the cage will allow him to have more success. Kai is probably a little cleaner at range, but if Moreno can close that distance and keep it in boxing range, he closes that striking gap significantly. If they're trading in close quarters, I'm not sure exactly who that favors, but striking from range probably favors Kai, at least early. I think that sort of covers the defense for Moreno as well. He just has to not stand at distance with with Kai. Even at range, Moreno can compete, but that is what gives Kai his best chance to win. I think Moreno should also resist the urge to start trading as much as possible. Kai is the better defensive fighter and Moreno would be exposing himself to potential clean shots. His best path would probably be to grapple in this one, but I'm not sure if he will be super committed to trying. I think this will probably be a pretty close fight. If Kai Kara-France has good cardio, it should be fun the whole way, but if he starts to fade, we probably would see Moreno start to pull away late.
What do you guys think? What are your predictions? What are your keys to victory for either side? Leave any of your thoughts and opinions below and I'll be making my picks on Saturday. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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