GDT: UFC Fight Night: Cannonier vs. Strickland

[MMC]

Date: December 17, 2022
Venue: UFC Apex
City: Las Vegas, Nevada
Time: 7 pm ET/4 pm PT
Viewing: ESPN+, TSN 5

MAIN CARD (ESPN+, TSN 5)

Middleweight bout: Jared Cannonier vs. Sean Strickland
Lightweight bout: Arman Tsarukyan vs. Damir Ismagulov
Flyweight bout: Amir Albazi vs. Alessandro Costa
Featherweight bout: Alex Caceres vs. Julian Erosa
Lightweight bout: Drew Dober vs. Bobby Green
Middleweight bout: Cody Brundage vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk

PRELIMINARY CARD (ESPN+, TSN 5)

Women's Strawweight bout: Cheyanne Vlismas vs. Cory McKenna
Welterweight bout: Jake Matthews vs. Matthew Semelsberger
Bantamweight bout: Said Nurmagomedov vs. Saidyokub Kakhramonov
Lightweight bout: Rafa Garcia vs. Hayisaer Maheshate
Welterweight bout: Bryan Battle vs. Rinat Fakhretdinov
Flyweight bout: David Dvorak vs. Manel Kape
Bantamweight bout: Sergey Morozov vs. Journey Newson​

Click to read more...

 

[m9]

Two huge fights at the top, really looking forward to those ones.

I kind of like pretty much the entire card though. Nothing amazing but just some fun fights and some interesting names.

Trying to navigate this card with some decent NFL games plus hockey on a Saturday will be fun.

 

[pistolpete11]

Not a big believer in Strickland. Other than his personality, whether it's actually him or just a character, he's entirely unremarkable to me. He's not a bad fighter by any means, I just don't think he can hang with the top of the division.

I know Luke Thomas among others have talked highly of Ismagulov. I honestly don't know if I have ever watched him fight. I will say, his record is very suspect. Mostly against fellow Russians without Wikipedia pages. Only 5 fights in the UFC, 3 of which also don't have Wikipedia pages, and all by decision. I guess we'll see because I have seen Tsarukyan and he is the real deal. I don't know if he's a future champ, but he's very good.

Dober-Green should be fun.

A couple of other names, but not much else here for me.

 

[m9]

I know Luke Thomas among others have talked highly of Ismagulov. I honestly don't know if I have ever watched him fight. I will say, his record is very suspect.

It's really not suspect at all to me. Alvarez & Moises are both very good wins against top25 lightweights.

The rest is a bit more MMA-Math to me but it's a pretty decent case. These three fights are basically as even fights as you'll see in the UFC:

Gamrot/Tsarukyan
Gamrot/Kutateladze
Kutateladze/Ismagulov

These four guys are all in the exact same tier based on what we've seen. They've all cleaned up the next tier down of unranked guys in the top 30 155ers in the world and have had incredibly even fights.

 

[CDJ]

Not a big believer in Strickland. Other than his personality, whether it's actually him or just a character, he's entirely unremarkable to me. He's not a bad fighter by any means, I just don't think he can hang with the top of the division.

I know Luke Thomas among others have talked highly of Ismagulov. I honestly don't know if I have ever watched him fight. I will say, his record is very suspect. Mostly against fellow Russians without Wikipedia pages. Only 5 fights in the UFC, 3 of which also don't have Wikipedia pages, and all by decision. I guess we'll see because I have seen Tsarukyan and he is the real deal. I don't know if he's a future champ, but he's very good.

Dober-Green should be fun.

A couple of other names, but not much else here for me.

Alvarez, Moises, Alves, Kutateladze is a damn good first 4 wins in the ufc- wiki status or not. If you get to watch Damir this weekend you’ll see that his boxing is some of the best in division. I wasn’t expecting that when I saw the name the first time lol

I’d probably put Fiziev’s boxing ahead but that may be it tbh

 

[pistolpete11]

It's really not suspect at all to me. Alvarez & Moises are both very good wins against top25 lightweights.

The rest is a bit more MMA-Math to me but it's a pretty decent case. These three fights are basically as even fights as you'll see in the UFC:

Gamrot/Tsarukyan
Gamrot/Kutateladze
Kutateladze/Ismagulov

These four guys are all in the exact same tier based on what we've seen. They've all cleaned up the next tier down of unranked guys in the top 30 155ers in the world and have had incredibly even fights.

Alvarez, Moises, Alves, Kutateladze is a damn good first 4 wins in the ufc- wiki status or not. If you get to watch Damir this weekend you’ll see that his boxing is some of the best in division. I wasn’t expecting that when I saw the name the first time lol

I’d probably put Fiziev’s boxing ahead but that may be it tbh

I'll take your words for it, but I'm still skeptical.

Those foreign fighters that have 20+ win streaks are always suspect to me. His wins in the UFC are fine, but I mean he's 31 and will 32 in February. I know it's MMA Math, but Arman just turned 26 in October and finished Alvarez (and I don't care what anybody says, he beat Gamrot).

 

[m9]

Last real card of the year, so just wanted to say thanks to everyone who posts around here but specifically @MMC for posting the cards each week.

 

[m9]

Winn is out of his fight due to being too fat and trying to cut too much weight too quickly*

*unofficial reason

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Winn is out of his fight due to being too fat and trying to cut too much weight too quickly*

*unofficial reason

Come on man that's so unfair! He was just trying to completely drain his body out of water to just barely make a weight class he shouldn't be in and had a freak accident.... lol I legit laughed when I read that.

 

[CDJ]

Marquez was adding some juice to my parlay too smdh

He was only a -175 fav, I figured he’d push Deron around

 

[MMC]

Maheshate missed weight at 158.5, think everyone else made it

 

[16Skippy]

This is actually really good for an Apex card.

 

[BGDDYKWL]

I really don't understand how the main event is a pick 'em. And I believe Cannonier is around +185 to win inside the distance. Cannonier is the more dangerous guy by a pretty wide margin IMO and also has a much better resume. I'm sure I'll have to come back in here and eat crow but Cannonier inside the distance seems like a great value.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

How does a 5'6 guy have trouble making 185.

 

[CDJ]

Snoozer of an opener

 

[Bunk Moreland]

Was looking forward to this fight Kape looking good

 

[CDJ]

Good performance for Kape

Dvorak is tough

 

[CDJ]

Great win for Nurmagomedov, lesser fighters would’ve folded under that pressure

 

[bov]

Kakhramonov looks like a future champion despite the crazy come-from-behind win by Said.

 

[td_ice]

What a fun fight.

 

[CDJ]

Matthews is such a mystery box every time out

 

[m9]

This was a rare wmma prelim fight I was looking forward to

I was wrong

 

[Taytro]

Matthews is such a mystery box every time out

I was really hoping to see him look good here. Losing to Brady is understandable but I thought Matthews boxing had really improved and his wrestling is always good but he can't put together consistent performances.

 

[m9]

I'm sure he'll get another fight but I don't need to see Brundage in the UFC anyway. His wins are against non-ufc level guys and his resume pre-ufc is awful

 

[I am not exposed]

Surprised Bobby Green was the underdog in this fight.

1st round easily to him.