Preview: UFC Fight Night ‘Barnett vs Nelson’

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Middleweights

Gegard Mousasi (37-5-2, 4-2 UFC) vs Uriah Hall (11-5, 4-3 UFC)

THE MATCHUP: When he failed to take gold in the “The Ultimate Fighter 17” final, Hall experienced a fall from grace every bit as quick as his rise. Overnight, Hall went from blue-chipper to bust. In the years since, however, the former Ring of Combat champion has quietly begun putting things back together, perhaps in part because of the decreased pressure to perform.

Hall has toned down and smoothed out his strike selection since his loss to Kelvin Gastelum, focusing more on straight, powerful punches and economical front kicks. This makes his selection of spinning kicks all the more dangerous, and Hall remains one of the few fighters in MMA who uses those spins the way they are taught in arts like taekwondo and Kyokushin karate: as devastating counters. Hall’s wrestling has improved since “The Ultimate Fighter,” as well, and he likes to mix in occasional takedowns to keep his opponent guessing. Like Anderson Silva, a man to whom he has often been compared, ground-and-pound is an underappreciated skill in Hall’s arsenal; as a result, he rarely hurts an opponent without finishing him soon after.

What Hall has only recently begun to learn, Mousasi has been doing for years. Armed with an educated left hand, Mousasi picks apart most opponents with extreme accuracy, mixing long, straight punches with punishing low kicks. Earlier in his career, the onetime Strikeforce champion was wont to swarm his opponents, but he seems to have found his niche as an out-fighter these days, happy to prod, poke and frustrate his opponent until he charges forward and runs right into Mousasi’s shots. Mousasi is also an underrated wrestler; faced with the hard hitting Costas Philippou, he showed off a variety of reactive takedowns that enabled him to work his stellar submission grappling. Mousasi’s positional grappling is top notch, and whether it is a back take, a knee slide or the spider’s web of Mousasi’s guard, “The Dreamcatcher” excels at finding openings for submissions in the midst of wild exchanges on the ground.

THE ODDS: Mousasi (-405), Hall (+335)

THE PICK: Despite the experience disparity, this fight is unlikely to be a blowout. If Hall and his trainers are smart, he will enter the cage prepared to outhustle Mousasi the way Lyoto Machida did, using his superior athleticism and unpredictable strike selection to take advantage of the full area of the Octagon. Experience always plays a role, however, and I suspect Mousasi will find a way to coerce Hall into taking the offensive, in which case Mousasi’s counterpunches and low kicks should give him the edge for as long as it takes to walk Hall into a takedown and put him on his back. The pick is Mousasi by unanimous decision.

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