Preview: UFC 249 ‘Ferguson vs. Gaethje’

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Heavyweights

Francis Ngannou (14-3) vs. Jairzinho Rozenstruik (10-0)

ODDS: Ngannou (-275), Rozenstruik (+235)

This should hopefully be a banger between two of the most intimidating heavyweights on the UFC roster. Ngannou’s rise up the ranks from prospect to contender is still electric, even in hindsight. After finishing a few fellow prospects—including a nascent Curtis Blaydes—Ngannou’s 2017 campaign saw him knock out the promotion’s two favorite heavyweight gatekeepers: Andrei Arlovski and Alistair Overeem. That was good enough, but things were only made better by how quickly and brutally Ngannou dispatched his veteran opponents. The Overeem knockout was an absolutely horrifying blow that still stands out as one of the most frightening finishes in UFC history. That led the UFC to step up and throw the hype machine behind “The Predator” and quickly turn him around for a title shot against Stipe Miocic, and that is where things went awry. Miocic exposed the lack of depth in Ngannou’s game, though there were some positives to take away regarding the Cameroonian as a prospect. Despite being exhausted and outmatched, he showed durability and heart in continuing to fight over the course of 25 minutes. Even though he has fought four times in the ensuing two-plus years, it is difficult to tell if Ngannou has improved at all. His next fight was an absolute disaster against Derrick Lewis. Both men are counterpunchers at heart, and Lewis did nothing while Ngannou did even less, resulting in an encounter that ranks among the worst UFC bouts ever, even free of the context of anticipation. After that, Ngannou settled in right back where he started, quickly knocking out Blaydes, Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos in less than two and a half minutes combined. While there are some positives to draw out of those fights if you squint—Ngannou threw some kicks against dos Santos—but it is still impossible to tell if he is more than just a dangerous knockout artist who has about a round of hard work in his gas tank. Admittedly, that may be all he needs to become heavyweight champion.

Meanwhile, Rozenstruik may have been the UFC’s 2019 breakout fighter, following much the same path as Ngannou. The Surinamese heavyweight’s debut was a mixed bag, as he he wound up obliterating Junior Albini but only after a first round that saw “Bigi Boy” get taken down and do little but survive on the mat. However, Rozenstruik turned around and knocked out Allen Crowder in just nine seconds, affirming that he was a prospect to watch. He closed out the year with knockout wins over Arlovski and Overeem, which sounds familiar, although his tear was not quite as impressive as Ngannou’s was in 2017. The Arlovski fight went similarly enough, as Rozenstruik finished things within half a minute, but the Overeem victory was a bizarre affair that raised some red flags. Overeem used a smart and conservative game plan, using takedowns and the clinch to control most of the fight while staying out of danger while the action was on the feet. Rozenstruik did not provide much of a threat—until the final 10 seconds or so of the fight, as he connected with a knockout shot and split Overeem’s lip right before the final horn. A win is a win, but Rozenstruik now finds himself in much the same boat as Ngannou. How much does he have to offer beyond that knockout skill, and at heavyweight, how much does that actually matter?

This is a bit of a mirror match, with each man looking to land a knockout blow in response to the offense that his opponent puts out. That means that a lot of this framework is similar to Ngannou’s fight against Lewis, so this could be a similarly tedious affair and a referendum on how much Ngannou has learned from that fight. The Blaydes rematch and the Velasquez win do not shed much light on what progress has been made—one of the quickest ways to get knocked out by Ngannou is to try and take him down—but he showed a bit more initiative and willingness to throw kicks in the 71 seconds that the dos Santos fight lasted. Again, the absurdity of this is that Ngannou finishes his opponents so quickly that a 71-second fight might be the best sample upon which to draw. At any rate, since neither man is pathologically aggressive, this pick comes down to who is more dependable in terms of throwing out volume just to win rounds on the scorecards. A lot of that, in turn, comes down to how much Ngannou has learned from the Lewis fight what those 71 seconds against dos Santos mean. Rozenstruik has a lot of tools to win this. If the action was guaranteed to take place at any sort of pace, he has the much cleaner technique and quicker hands in a fight where each man might be too durable to get knocked out cleanly. However, in the end, “The Predator” might be worth the flier. The pick is Ngannou via decision, though hopefully things end in much quicker and more spectacular fashion.

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