We have an early card this weekend with the prelims starting at 11 am eastern time as the UFC makes it's return to ABC. In what they want to be a showcase to hopefully appeal to fans who otherwise wouldn't have been watching, we'll see a pair of top 5 featherweights in Brian Ortega and Yair Rodriguez. I would be pretty surprised if this fight didn't deliver in the way the UFC brass are expecting as both men only know how to fight one way, which is all out. Rodriguez said on The MMA Hour this week that he was told he will earn a title shot with a victory this weekend. Ortega is coming off of his second career title shot, but a win over someone like Rodriguez won't have him too far away from a third opportunity. This fight headlines what should be a pretty decent card from top to bottom. It is certainly one of the deeper Fight Night cards of the year, outside of the London cards. We're going to get into this fight and try to diagnose what we can.
The blue corner will see the number 3 ranked Yair Rodriguez making his first appearance of 2022. Rodriguez, historically, hasn't been the most active fighter in the world, having 17 professional fights since beginning his career in 2011. He has never fought more than twice in calendar year as a professional either, so this longer layoff may not effect him the way it would someone else. Rodriguez is coming off only his third professional loss, which came via decision to Max Holloway last November. That was Rodriguez's first appearance in just over two years, but he looked fresh and ready to go. The reason I go over resume's in these previews are to get a feel for how the fighter is trending, but for Rodriguez, the long layoffs make that much more difficult. He isn't really a guy who can really get on a roll one way or another because his fights are spaced so far apart. The only way that I can really describe Yair Rodriguez stylistically is that of a video game character. He is athletically capable of doing things in the striking that most other fighters simply can't do. He mixes in jumping and spinning techniques seemingly out of nowhere. Yair is the more explosive athlete in this one and he is going to have to use that to his advantage. He is also the more diverse and advanced striker. He uses all 8 limbs better and he will need to keep Ortega guessing and not get too predictable in his combinations. Yair will also probably have the power advantage in this one. Grappling wise, Rodriguez is still a work in progress. He isn't necessarily a poor grappler, but that is where he has had the most trouble in the UFC. His worst loss came to Frankie Edgar when he was taken down and beaten up badly. Rodriguez was also taken down multiple times by Max Holloway, which probably isn't a great sing of where his takedown defense is at. Where I do give him some benefit of the doubt is that the takedown attempts from Max were pretty unexpected. For his UFC career, Yair's takedown defense is at 60%, which is just ok. It isn't the worst, but it isn't the best either, especially when he is fighting at the highest level of the division. Yair has never been submitted in his career and does have 3 submission wins of his own, but all of those came in his pre-UFC days. It then goes without saying that Yair doesn't look to wrestle much offensively and he hasn't had a ton of success when he has tried to shoot for a takedown. At the end of the day, Yair is an unique striking talent and is going to need to keep this fight standing in order to use it. There aren't many fighters who could stand with Yair for 25 minutes and have success. I always forget to mention durability and cardio in these sections, but I remembered this time. I think Yair is pretty on par in both categories. No one gets into the top 5 while having poor cardio or being chinny and Yair is neither. I think he is just pretty solid at both. He doesn't have an amazing Max Holloway chin and he doesn't have Alexander Volkanovski's endless cardio, but neither is all that close to a weakness either. The one thing that may be a concern is if he gets too stuck in his crazy, jumping, spinning strike mode. All of those huge explosive actions take a lot of energy to perform and if he uses them too frequently, he may deplete his gas tank too quickly. However, that really hasn't been too much of an issue for Yair and, while he did get out paced by Holloway in his last fight, he didn't look completely gassed out by the end. He typically throws his strikes with a pretty decent pace regardless and does at least an ok job of limiting damage. Because he throws so many weird strikes, he does leave himself open at times, but I wouldn't say he has awful striking defense either. On the feet, Yair is a tough puzzle to solve and he makes it even tougher with his athletic advantages. He can be taken down though and with someone as gifted on the ground as Brian Ortega, that is certainly a danger.
Brian Ortega is coming into this fight in a somewhat similar situation to Yair Rodriguez. Ortega is also making his first appearance of 2022 after losing in a title fight against Alexander Volkanovski last September. Ortega is also selectively active and is used to long stretches away from the cage. He got his first title shot against Max Holloway in December of 2018 and lost in pretty brutal fashion. The injuries he suffered in that fight caused him to be away from the sport for almost 2 years until he returned in October of 2020 and picked up an impressive win over The Korean Zombie. That was enough to get him his second title shot, this time against Volkanovski, but he suffered a similar fate as he was beaten pretty badly. About 10 months later, we'll see him return against Yair Rodriguez and we'll see what changes he has made to his game. Ortega enters this fight with one of the most unique skillsets in MMA today. I think Ortega is one of the most dangerous finishers in the sport right now. Outside of Francis Ngannou and Charles Oliveira, I don't know that there is someone who is a threat to finish a fight more on an exchange by exchange basis. He is a pretty decent striker in his own right. He isn't nearly as creative, flashy, or explosive as Rodriguez, but he has come a long way in the stand up. He's always had ok power and has thrown with solid volume, but he's really cleaned things up from a technical perspective. He does a much better job now of throwing the right strikes and managing distance than he did when he was younger. The worry on the feet for Ortega is his defense. He is very hittable, especially against elite level strikers. He is very open to be hit and when he faces strikers who are more technical and faster than him, he is prone to taking a ton of damage. He has shown himself to be extremely durable and despite taking all of that damage, he doesn't get knocked out or give up. He got stopped by the doctor in the Holloway fight, but he was almost unrecognizable at that point. After taking a similar beating against Volkanovski, I do worry about how many times someone can go through that and still be the same fighter. I do think that his inactivity does help slightly because while he is taking a ton of damage, he is only fighting once a year at this point. Where Ortega goes from just a solid fighter to an extremely dangerous one is in his ground game. Ortega is one of the best pure submission threats that the sport has right now and he can snatch them at any moment. He'll grab on to standing guillotines or take someone's back standing and everything in between. Even though he lost the fight, he had Volkanovski in two incredibly deep submissions that probably should have won him the title. This has caused Ortega some problems as he can jump for submissions a little too quickly and give up positions at times, but I think that just comes with the territory. The problem for Ortega historically has been his inability to get the fight to the ground. While he has elite level BJJ, his wrestling has always been a bit behind. His career stats still don't look great, but his wrestling has taken some steps forward recently. He has been able to get takedowns against Holloway, Zombie, and Volkanovski, who I think are all better wrestlers than Yair Rodriguez. Ortega is a very unique problem to deal with and it is always interesting to project how someone else will match up with him.
The keys to this fight seem a little bit weird because it isn't exactly clear how these things are going to play out. Obviously, the most important thing is going to be whether the fight stays standing or if it gets grounded. If we see 25 minutes of kickboxing, that fight is going to swing in the favor of Rodriguez. He's the more technical striker, while having an athleticism and speed advantage. Ortega is a decent striker and he would be able to hold his own on the feet, but I don't think he's out striking Yair over 5 rounds. I don't think he is sound enough defensively to have that kind of success. Similarly, if this fight is taking place largely on the ground, I think Yair would be in a really bad situation. He has shown himself to be competent on the ground at times and given how aggressive Ortega is, he'll probably be able to get up a few times. If Ortega went against the grain and focused on holding position first and letting the submissions come to him instead of forcing it, I think he could hold Rodriguez down for long stretches. Rodriguez can get stuck on his back at times, but Ortega just hasn't shown the willingness to hold guys down for 4 minutes. He wants the submissions and he is going to force his way to those positions and give his opponents the opportunities to get up. The real question is "what is going to happen when Ortega shoots for takedowns?" I don't think Ortega is a great offensive wrestler and I don't think Rodriguez is a great defensive wrestler, so it isn't immediately clear as to how this will go. I don't think Yair is good enough to just stuff all of Ortega's shots, so it will probably end up on the ground at some point. If Rodriguez is giving up too many takedowns, he is going to get submitted at some point. The finishing ability for Ortega down there is real and may only take one takedown to find it. On the feet, Yair should have the advantage, but I don't know that he has the same ability or chance of finding a finish. Ortega has taken extreme amounts of punishment from Volk and Max and didn't quit, so I don't know that there's anything Yair can do that would be worse that what he's already experienced. I guess you could think that Ortega's chin may start to go after so much damage, but that would be purely speculation. My feel is that Yair needs this fight to have 3+ minutes in every round to be standing so that he can have enough time to win the majority of each round. Ortega may only need a single takedown to finish it. Ortega can also compete on the feet with Yair much better than Yair can compete on the ground with Ortega. My initial feel is that Ortega is the rightful favorite, but I'm not sure what the number is where it becomes too much. I'm going to start incorporating betting into my fight picks on Saturday's, so be on the lookout for that.
What do you guys think? How do you see the fight playing out? What predictions do you have? Leave all of your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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