Preview: UFC Fight Night ‘Bader vs. Nogueira 2’

Welterweights

Warlley Alves (10-1) vs. Kamaru Usman (8-1)

THE MATCHUP: Alves looked like the next welterweight contender coming off winning “The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3,” but he has since revealed himself to be something of an Erick Silva 2.0: more technical with his striking, just as dangerous with his submissions and just as prone to bad decision-making. Alves’ main strategy in every fight seems to be to get his opponent out of there as quickly as possible. To his credit, it has worked most of the time. Quality wins over men like Colby Covington and Nordine Taleb cannot be discounted altogether. In two of his fights, however, the cracks in his overall game have been exposed. He exhausted himself trying to finish Alan Jouban before losing the remainder of the fight -- a fact the Brazilian judges failed to notice. Most recently, Alves poured out his gas tank trying to finish the inhumanly tough Bryan Barberena before succumbing to the crafty journeyman’s superior stamina and clever clinch fighting.

Take Alves out of his game -- force him to rely on just one range or phase of fighting -- and he is decidedly less dangerous. The question: Can Usman do so?

In many ways, Usman is similar to Alves. He certainly shares the Brazilian’s stocky, powerful build; and like Alves, he is not as slow on his feet as that frame might suggest. On the contrary, Usman is quite fleet-footed, and under the guidance of Henri Hooft, his striking has only gotten better. As with Alves, however, the thrust of Usman’s game is his grappling. Where Alves looks for chokes from the front headlock and top position, Usman tends to pound his opponents to dust from top position. Both men are capable of finding a submission, but Usman is the superior wrestler and seems to be building a style that allows his striking and wrestling to flow together well.

THE ODDS: Usman (-210), Alves (+180)

THE PICK: Usman is not the most durable fighter in the world, and that gives Alves a good chance here. His reliance on shot takedowns also means Alves will have the openings he needs to lock in his beloved guillotine. In the end, however, Usman is more of a prospect. He fights with consistency, applying volume and pressure and relentlessly pursuing his game plan -- but not so eagerly that he gasses himself out in the process. Like the aforementioned Silva, Alves will always be dangerous, but until he fixes his problems with focus and conditioning, these are the kinds of fights he will lose. Usman by third-round TKO is the pick.

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