I feel like I've been saying this forever, but I'm really just running out of time for a lot of the early and midweek posts here. These next two weeks are when everything is coming to ahead so, after the next 10 days, everything should return much closer to normal. This weekend I will be traveling for a series of interviews that take place all of next week. That means that I probably won't be posting anything for UFC 280 until the picks and bets on Saturday morning. At the very least, I'll have picks out just for the continuity of it, but depending on how much time I actually have to write and look over lines, I could take the week off from betting. I have to be in 3 different cities over 5 days and I get way too car sick to type when it isn't my turn to drive, so there's really not any way for me to get any of those previews done. I may try to squeeze in a round up for this card if I can, but it depends on how much all of the driving takes out of me. Anyways, I think we have a pretty solid card ahead of us this weekend. All of the people who hate WMMA are up in arms about two women's main events in a row, but I'm fine with it. If the UFC wants to legitimately build some of these women, then they have to start somewhere. I think this will be a pretty good main event with a sneaky good set of fights before it. It isn't the most amazing card I've ever seen, but this isn't any worse than most of the Fight Night's that we've gotten over the last couple of months. I think there are some pretty interesting matchups here and even if a fight isn't great, most of them should finish. I don't expect that too many fights will over stay their welcome here. Unfortunately for me, I like both of these women and one will have to lose, so let's get to it.
We'll start with Araujo, who comes into this fight ranked number 6 in the flyweight division. She isn't far off of a title shot and this will be her second crack at it. Had she won her last fight against Katlyn Chookagian, she would probably be a front runner for a shot at Valentina Shevchenko. However, she came up short in that fight and is looking to get back on the horse. Wins over Montana De La Rosa and Roxi Modafferi had her in that position to begin with, so she'll be looking to pick up where she left off. Vivi has been pretty consistent with her one or two fights a year pace for a little bit now, so her inactivity isn't an issue coming into this one. I don't think the loss to Chookagian is going to be too much of a set back either as Chookagian's style has been a tough one to solve for a majority of the flyweight division for quite some time now. Araujo's style largely depends on her superior physicality. She's pretty big, fairly long, and very strong for the division and she generally uses those advantages pretty well. On the feet, she can put out decent volume, at least at times, and her power is pretty noticeable. Women's flyweight isn't really known for having much in terms of a knockout artist, but when Vivi is feeling herself, she can be legitimately dangerous with her hands. She's really at her best on the feet when she is able to mix in her kicks, especially to the calf. She doesn't always commit to them and sometimes goes away from them though, so that will be something to watch for. I think Vivi would benefit from fighting behind her jab and trying to use the small reach advantage that she has in this one. Her technical striking isn't anything outstanding, so getting into extended exchanges won't be to her benefit in this one. When this fight is at range, I think her best bet is to try and minimize the amount of exchanges and limit the length of those exchanges, but I'll get more into that later. Vivi's physicality also comes into play in the grappling, where she is strong enough to drag opponents to the ground absent of technique at times. Vivi's wrestling is pretty solid though and she is able to get her takedowns at a very nice 60% rate. She's not going to blow anyone away with her ground game, but she's so strong that she is usually able to get some decent top control time. I think she would benefit from being a little more active with her ground and pound, but we'll see how she's evolved in that department. The huge hole in Vivi's game is that most fights sort of become a tale of two fights because of her cardio. Around the midpoint of the second round, Vivi starts to slow down and becomes a much different fighter. The fresh Vivi is fast, powerful, strong, and aggressive as I described above. Once she starts to get tired, her volume starts to fall off, some of the power starts to fade, and the takedown attempts become more and more labored. This is her first main event in the UFC and will be potentially her first time in championship rounds. She desperately needs to have improved her cardio or she is going to be very behind late in this fight. One weakness that is in her game regardless of how much gas she has left in the tank is her striking defense. She is prone to eating a lot of strikes. It isn't too much of a problem early because if she's trading with her opponent, she is very likely to have more power. Strike for strike, she will do more damage that way. Once she slows though, she has a tendency to become more flat footed and will stand in front of her opponent and absorb damage. Araujo has a lot of talent and skills, but her ability to maintain them into the latter portion of the fight is going to be maybe the biggest key for her to come away a winner.
Alexa Grasso will enter the cage one spot above Araujo as the number 5 ranked flyweight. She entered the UFC as a strawweight and was having some mixed results in that time. She ended up losing two fights to Tatiana Suarez and Carla Esparza, who are probably the two best wrestlers in the history of women's MMA. For someone who came into MMA with a striking base, those are realistically the two worst matchups she could've gotten and she faced them both within 3 fights. After the Esparza loss, Grasso moved up to flyweight and has had a lot more success. She's won all 3 of her fights at 125 and has shown a lot of growth in that time as well. I just said above that Grasso came into MMA as a striker and that is still where she will win most of her fights. I know it's the stereotype that Mexican fighters are good boxers, but Grasso feeds right into that. Her boxing is pretty sharp and she should have an advantage there in this one. Grasso doesn't really kick that much, but she has at least shown some low kicks here and there. I think the best thing about Grasso's striking is that she has found a really nice balance of striking with volume and countering. For someone as technical as Grasso, we sometimes see them become too reliant on counter striking and they fall behind on the totals. While Grasso can counter punch with the best of them, she isn't afraid to go forward as well. She does a good job of striking with volume and initiating the exchanges. She also does a good job defending strikes. She isn't so aggressive that she leaves herself open. I think the longer her combinations go in this fight, the more success that she'll have. If she can force Vivi to trade with her, Grasso's superior technical boxing should be able to land some really clean shots in the pocket. She will have to proceed with caution early to avoid Araujo's power shots, but if she can, she should be able to have a lot of success. Historically, Grasso's struggles have come against grappling heavy opponents, but she's shown a lot of growth there recently. She still doesn't have the best takedown defense in the world, but 60% isn't completely terrible either. The more noticeable improvements have come in her ground game. She is much more comfortable on her back and has developed a pretty nice get up game to go with it. She's even made some progress in her offensive wrestling and has shown an ability to get her own takedowns here and there. She secured a submission in her last fight, so not only is she improving, but she has the confidence to go to it when necessary. It is worth mentioning that Grasso has never gone a full 5 rounds either, but cardio has never really been an issue for her in the past. Besides the grappling, the only real knock on Grasso is that she just isn't much of a finisher. She doesn't have the power on the feet to get knockouts early. Maybe in this 5 round setting she will be able to get a knockout just based on pure volume after Vivi is gassed, but that is kind of the only scenario I see a knockout or TKO. She got the submission last time out, but that was the first of her entire career. If that is a skillset that she continues to develop and improve, then maybe that is the route for her to finish fights more consistently. Grasso has appeared to be a different, improved, and more confident fighter since moving up in weight and a win in this one could put her in a prime spot to challenge Valentina Shevchenko for the championship.
The biggest key to this fight is going to be Araujo's cardio in my opinion. If she can only fight at her best for 7-10 minutes, that is going to be a huge problem. I suspect that Grasso will be able to fight at a really solid pace for all 25, so if Vivi can't do the same, those late rounds will be a problem. Given how willing Vivi is to plant her feet in front of her opponents, I think Grasso is going to be able to counter her quite a bit. Grasso is pretty smooth with her counter striking in general and pair that with someone who doesn't defend strikes all that effectively and it is sort of a recipe for Grasso to land a ton. In my mind, this fight almost sets up for Vivi to be damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. On one hand, if she just stands with Grasso for 25 minutes, she probably ends up slightly behind on the numbers due to her defensive holes. Grasso probably out lands her and does some damage on the counters when Vivi engages. That means Vivi is going to need to wrestle and get the fight grounded, which I believe she can do early on. The thing there is that I do believe Grasso will probably be able to work back to her feet. That will mean Vivi will have to be prepared to shoot for and land multiple takedowns per round. This all leads back to the problem with her cardio. She's essentially left in with the choice to stand and allow Grasso to be comfortable for the entire fight or wrestle to give herself the best chance of winning early rounds, but gas herself out even faster. I hate to be the guy that boils a fight down to just one thing, but I really think that is what we have here. Unless Vivi really went hard this training camp, I think that will be her undoing. When she's fresh, I think we get a fairly competitive fight. Grasso puts out a little more volume, while being more technical and Vivi has more power, but gets hit more often. Then add in the dynamic of Vivi's grappling and that sets up for a pretty fun fight. However, if we get to the 8 minute mark and Vivi is standing flat footed and giving away free volume, while planting her feet to throw her own and eating counters badly and not being able to shoot takedown attempts, then whatever those first 8 minutes look like may be largely irrelevant. If Vivi can push that wresting pace for extended minutes, then this fight would become very interesting, but there's really no reason to believe that is going to be the case. We've seen Vivi look badly gassed out towards the end of 3 round fights, so if this fight gets into the 4th or even 5th round, I kind of think Grasso may be able to finish her, even though that isn't really her game.
What do you guys think? What predictions do you have? What keys will you be watching for? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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