Preview: UFC 300 Prelims

Bantamweights

#8 BW | Deiveson Figueiredo (22-3-1, 11-3-1 UFC) vs. Cody Garbrandt (14-5, 9-5 UFC)

ODDS: Figueiredo (-310), Garbrandt (+250)

Two former champions look to keep their momentum going here. Seven years ago, Garbrandt looked like the future of the UFC’s bantamweight division. “No Love” was seemingly rushed into a title fight against Dominick Cruz to cap off 2016 but instead authored a dominant decision victory, during which Garbrandt showed off the elite athleticism and quick-twitch reflexes that figured to be able to take care of anyone in the division. But that proved to be the high point of Garbrandt’s career, as he lost his first title defense against T.J. Dillashaw. Garbrandt found some early success, but once Dillashaw adjusted to Garbrandt’s combination of speed and power, he was able to consistently take advantage of Garbrandt’s aggression until he scored a second-round knockout. That was the first loss in a three-fight skid that laid Garbrandt’s issues completely bare. Dillashaw picked up where he left off in an immediate rematch that was an even more dominant win, and Pedro Munhoz had little trouble luring Garbrandt into a brawl where the former champion was content to keep eating offense until he got knocked out. Garbrandt rebounded with a brutal knockout victory over Raphael Assuncao, but a loss to Rob Font showed that while Garbrandt might have learned some lessons from his previous losing streak, it’s hard to say his adjustments have been particularly positive. Garbrandt now seems set on preserving his durability at all costs, adopting a range striking style that has mostly kept him safe thus far but also hands his opponents a ton of initiative. Font was able to outpoint him and Garbrandt still got knocked out by Kai Kara-France in an ill-advised one-fight move down to flyweight; and while Garbrandt is now on a two-fight winning streak, his performances have been a mixed bag. His win over Trevin Jones was a fairly unwatchable affair against an overly patient counterpuncher who still found a lot of success against Garbrandt with some late aggression, and Brian Kelleher was essentially a perfect style matchup to walk quickly into a Garbrandt knockout. But with Garbrandt’s profile, he figured to be rushed back into big fights after any modicum of success, so after he called out Figueiredo, it’s not a shock that Garbrandt gets that matchup here.

Figueiredo was just the man that the flyweight division needed in 2020, as his title reign and four-fight rivalry with Brandon Moreno gave some much-needed energy to a division floundering after Henry Cejudo vacated the belt. It was immediately apparent that “Deus da Guerra” had a rare level of power for his size on the regional scene—his last pre-UFC fight saw him backhand an opponent into unconsciousness—and that carried over when he got the UFC call. Figueiredo could be a bit inactive at times, but he had a knack for finding the knockout blow when needed, on top of possessing an underrated and vicious ground game. When it came time to crown a new champion, it was a bit of a surprise to see how easily Figueiredo blew through perennial contender Joseph Benavidez twice, missing weight the first time to keep the belt vacant, then once again obliterating Benavidez in an immediate rematch. A sub-two-minute title defense over Alex Perez set Figueiredo to turn around three weeks later for his first fight against Moreno—a five-round war that ended in a draw and cemented Figueiredo’s “Fighter of the Year” campaign. The result also necessitated an immediate rematch, which eventually turned into four straight fights against Moreno. Each fighter made impressive adjustments to adjustments to adjustments over the series, but Moreno eventually won the rivalry with a stoppage finish in January of last year. Figueiredo’s cut to 125 pounds was always difficult, so it wasn’t a shock to see the Brazilian take his talents up to bantamweight afterwards, and he looked good in a decision win over Font in December. Font has always struggled to win rounds against powerful counterpunchers, so it was a bit of a favorable matchup, but it was nice to see Figueiredo do Figueiredo things and confirm that he’ll at least be relevant in his new weight class. Given Figueiredo’s preference for countering and Garbrandt’s new overly safe approach, there’s a chance that a solid segment of this fight is a staring contest; and there’s even a shot that Garbrandt can take an extremely ugly decision win as the faster fighter if he simply remains dedicated to making nothing happen. But with Garbrandt still spiraling badly whenever someone can hit him hard, the bet is that Figueiredo can do that at least once over the course of 15 minutes and get the ball rolling towards a finish. The pick is Figueiredo via second-round knockout.

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