Light Heavyweights
Ilir Latifi (14-5) vs. Corey Anderson (11-4)Advertisement
Beyond the two UFC 232 headliners, the 205-pound weight class is a bit of a mess. The old guard has mostly aged out of contention, but there are not a ton of young prospects ready to take its place, leaving a bunch of flawed veterans like Anderson and Latifi among the top contenders.
Anderson has taken the Ryan Bader career path, running through “The Ultimate Fighter” as a raw but physically talented wrestler before suffering a bunch of prospect losses that left him typecast by the time he became a true contender. Anderson supplements his wrestling with a low-power, high-volume striking game. It works for teammates like Frankie Edgar but makes for an odd fit for Anderson. Compared to Edgar, who ranks as an all-time durable lightweight and featherweight, Anderson is a 205er with a questionable chin, so that style allows his opponents to stick around and eventually blast him. A loss to Ovince St. Preux at UFC 217 felt like it was going to write the book on Anderson for good -- he dominated for two rounds, only to eat a sudden knockout -- but 2018 consisted of one-sided wins over Patrick Cummins and Glover Teixeira, giving his career some new life. The Teixeira pushed Anderson closer to contention, but the time has come once again to prove he belongs here. Latifi should serve as a tough challenge.
For a time, Latifi looked like he would be an odd footnote. Thanks to an injury to Alexander Gustafsson, Latifi made his promotional debut in the UFC on Fuel TV 9 main event in Stockholm, as he was the best Swede available to fight Gegard Mousasi on short notice. However, in the ensuing five-plus years, he has gone from novelty to contender. Latifi is an absolute bowling ball of a human being, and for a good while, it was fun to see him pop up on the occasional European card and obliterate a mid-tier light heavyweight. Once the UFC saw fit to move him up the ladder, Latifi started holding his own. His strength and frame make for an underrated wrestling game, and while his striking is somewhat offensively limited, his knockout power continually makes him a dangerous opponent. Over the last few years, matchmaking has seen Latifi face technically deficient athletes like St. Preux and Tyson Pedro, and “The Sledgehammer” has driven holes through the gaps in their games. It will be interesting to see if Anderson will be too much to handle or if Latifi somehow will have a claim towards top contender status.
Anderson is still young enough that he will keep drawing opportunities even if he loses, but this does feel like the fight that will determine if he ever turns the corner. Anderson’s game is clicking as well as it ever has, on the strength of that beastly wrestling, which is the key here. If he can take this to the mat and keep Latifi underneath him, this will obviously be a one-sided win, but after a stuffed takedown or two, a striking match with the Swede becomes dangerous. That does not mean Anderson cannot win a fight on the feet. Latifi is sometimes defensively mindful to a fault, which leaves him limited to singular power shots, and while he has made that work so far, it does ride a fine line where things can go downhill quickly. Anderson has all the tools to win this fight, but this is yet another bout that comes down to one question: Can he be trusted to make it three rounds against a power puncher without getting knocked out? Given that Latifi might be strong enough to keep this standing, it is too easy to see a scenario in which Anderson is winning the fight, only to get clanged. The pick is Latifi via second-round knockout.
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