Preview: UFC Fight Night ‘Holohan vs. Smolka’

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Welterweights

Nicolas Dalby (14-0, 1-0 UFC) vs Darren Till (13-0, 1-0 UFC)

THE MATCHUP: Undefeated European prospects meet in this battle of kickboxing savants.

Till is a long-limbed southpaw with a penchant for crushing kicks and arrow-straight left hands. His reluctance to throw anything but those two strikes may be his biggest flaw, along with his reliance on single strikes rather than combinations. Till’s timing is superb, however, and he does an excellent job of combining his two favorite attacks, using the threat of one to create an opening for the other. The fact that he carries serious knockout power does not hurt, either -- unless you happen to be his opponent.

We have not seen much of Till’s grappling so far, but that seems like a good sign for the kickboxer. He is capable in the clinch, with a habit of hitting opportunistic trip takedowns to keep his opponents wary whenever they tie up with him. Till demonstrated some devastating ground-and-pound in his last bout, reversing Wendell de Oliveira Marques in a scramble before putting him away with elbows from the half guard. Considering the huge roster of Brazilian training partners Till enjoys at Marcelo Brigadeiro’s Astra Fight Team, his grappling can only continue to improve.

Dalby is just as comfortable on his feet as Till, but his methods are quite different. Where Till’s one-shot power allows him to pick and choose his openings, Dalby prefers the Michael Bisping approach, using copious movement and volume striking to wear down his adversaries. Dalby, too, is an excellent kicker. He couples powerful leg kicks with snappy head and body strikes, often thrown sneakily with the lead leg, to present a well-rounded threat on the feet. Like Bisping, Dalby seems to deliberately avoid putting too much power into any one strike in order to preemptively deny counter takedowns.

Perhaps the best thing about Dalby’s busy striking game is how well it disguises his wrestling. Dalby is not a particularly technical grappler, but he has excellent timing when it comes to takedowns. Whenever an opponent, frustrated by Dalby’s in-and-out kickboxing, attempts to chase him down, the undefeated Dane can pull back, only to change levels and hit an unexpected double-leg to alter the pace of the fight and take away his opponent’s confidence.

THE ODDS: Dalby (-140), Till (+120)

THE PICK: In a fight as well-matched as this one, I tend to look for X-factors that could tilt the odds in one fighter’s favor. In this case, all of them seem to belong to Till. At just 22, the Englishman has years and years of improvement ahead of him yet, while the 30 year-old Dalby is almost certainly a mostly finished product. Then there is the power differential. Dalby has put away a few reckless and tragic opponents, but his striking is attritive in nature, in strong contrast to the thumping power of Till, who has knocked out nine of his 13 professional opponents. Of course, Dalby has his sneaky takedown game, but Till is not the type to recklessly chase after him and give up his base. The pick is Till by split decision.

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