Preview: Bellator 238 ‘Budd vs. Cyborg’

Darrion Caldwell vs. Adam Borics

After Caldwell lost to Kyoji Horiguchi for a second straight time and dropped the Bellator bantamweight title for a second time, he didn’t look for a warm-up fight to get back on track. “The Wolf” elected to move up to featherweight and join the loaded field of fighters competing in the Grand Prix with hopes of being crowned the division champion. He showed how well suited he is to the weight class at which he started his career with a decisive victory over Henry Corrales in the opening round. Despite coming up from the weight class, the 13-3 professional is anything but small for the division, standing 5-foot-10 with a 74-inch reach. Caldwell likes to fight in two distances — long range or in close. While he is a limited striker, the southpaw uses a lot of kicks to keep his opponent at bay. He also uses his large arsenal of kicks to help set up his takedowns. The Division I NCAA National Champion wrestler has lightning fast entries and does well to drive through his opponent’s hips to easily take them to the canvas. He is incredible at winning scrambles and has a suffocating top control game. The North Carolina State alumnus likes to dispatch elbows from the top position and will advance to more dominant positions on the ground if an opening presents itself. While he is a submission threat with five career victories by that method, he doesn’t mind winning a snoozefest, where he just looks to keep his opponent pinned on the ground while the clock just ticks away. Cardio was an Achilles heel for him at bantamweight but it might not be an issue at featherweight as shouldn’t be depleting his body with a drastic weight cut.

Borics is one of two fighters left in the Bellator Featherweight Grand Prix with a perfect undefeated record. The 14-0 professional is a finishing machine with 10 victories coming before reaching the judge’s scorecards. The Hungarian is 5-0 in his Bellator career with all five wins coming by stoppage. He has already won two fights by way of flying knee, including one over the highly-touted Aaron Pico at Bellator 222. The destruction of Pico earned “The Kid” a spot in the Featherweight Grand Prix. In the opening round, he took out former two-time featherweight champion Pat Curran with ease. The 26-year-old is a long and rangy striker who is very loose on his feet. He works behind an active jab which sets up his powerful straight right hand. He dispatches hard kicks which he uses to attack all areas of his opponent’s body. The young fighter prefers to lead the dance on the feet and can be backed up towards the cage when he is pressured. The Hard Knocks 365 representative needs to improve his takedown defense, which could be a major issue when matched against strong wrestlers. If he ends up on top, he unloads powerful ground strikes. Borics is also a submission threat, with six tapout wins to his credit.

I expect Borics to throw the flying knee often in the matchup. He used it to stop the takedown attempts from Pico and to close the distance against Curran. If he touches the former bantamweight champion’s chin with his knee, there is a strong chance the Hungarian will be advancing to face AJ McKee Jr in the semi-finals of the tournament. However, I think that it is unlikely that he lands the knee once again. Pico had great success early going with his wrestling versus the European and I expect Caldwell to have the same. Give me Caldwell by unanimous decision.

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