UFC on Versus 1 Preview: The Main Card

Alessio Sakara vs. James Irvin

The Breakdown: Someone is getting starched like a cheap shirt in this one. Considering that James Irvin looked downright dehydrated as a light heavyweight, I’m guessing he’ll have to be wheeled out to the cage for his middleweight debut. Subjecting yourself to an incredibly rigorous weight cut only makes sense if it makes you a better fighter by being more physically dominant, but Irvin’s problems have always been his one-dimensional striking style and weak chin. Cutting weight addresses neither.

Sakara has some serious advantages over Irvin considering he’s added solid kicks and knees to complement his well-known and rightly feared boxing. Irvin counters with a whole army of fast-twitch muscle fibers augmenting every strike he throws, which makes him more than capable of knocking out Sakara, who also suffers from a weak chin. Of course Irvin is capable of knocking out just about anyone, but it’s also the only thing he really knows how to do, making him surprisingly predictable inside the cage.

Sakara is at least capable of mixing it up and using decent fundamentals to keep himself from getting poleaxed on the regular. Then again, Sakara often loses track of himself and gets into wild exchanges like the one that cost him his middleweight debut against Chris Leben at UFC 82. In that bout Sakara was bullied around by Leben’s brutish style. He has to avoid that same fate against Irvin, who thrives on blitzing like the mutant offspring of Deacon Jones.

Striking in modern MMA often comes down to skill against talent, and the ever-present variable of four-ounce gloves makes the clash unpredictable since it’s a lot easier to luck into talent than cultivate skill. The classic clash continues in this fight, and here’s hoping it ends with something other than a couple of guys with anti-chins flailing about.

The Bottom Line: A pure coin flip of a fight. Sakara is every bit as likely to pick apart Irvin as he is to end up laid out. Go with Sakara to survive a wild opening minute and eventually wear down and knock out Irvin with a hellacious punching combo.