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Saturday, UFC Fight Night 192
• HIT -180 Anthony Smith vs. +142 Ryan Spann: A huge win for the career trajectory of Anthony “Lionheart” Smith this past Saturday against the heavy-handed demolisher, Ryan Spann. After notching his third consecutive win, Smith came out with a verbal onslaught towards Spann. “Lionheart” made it known that he heard Spann’s pre-fight comments shouting, “Where’s that a-- whooping?!” following the beatdown. It was a thrilling cap to the weekend’s fights and now, with Smith tallying his third consecutive victory, he has reasserted himself as one of the division’s elite fighters. In the in-cage post-fight interview, Smith demanded a rematch to Alexander Rakic, in hopes that he can right that wrong, and get another crack at UFC gold. For Ryann Spann, it’s back to the drawing board.
• HIT -225 Joaquin Buckley vs. +175 Antonio Arroyo: ‘My goodness!’ is what myself and many other MMA fans said when Joaquin Buckley once again sent his opponent reeling to the canvas with a strike nobody saw coming. Last year, the young and evolving Buckley earned knockout of the year and a ton of attention that he may not have been ready for. Buckley had a spectacular one-legged spinning back kick that went viral, but the talented fighter hit a valley a few months later when he was humbled with a loss. On Saturday night, Buckley pulled another rabbit out of his hat as he was being dominated the entire fight by Antonio Arroyo, until … BANG! Buckley landed an overhand right strike that came out of nowhere and knocked out Arroyo to get back in the win column and spread another highlight reel knockout to the internet.
• MISS -200 Tony Gravely vs. +160 Nate Maness: As expected, we got the battle of the chins between Tony Gravely and Nate Maness. Similar to UFC 262’s main event between Charles Oliveria and Michael Chandler, we saw Maness get knocked down and pummeled to end the first round and then come back in the next round and knockout his opponent Gravely, pretty incredible stuff. Maness wasn’t shy in admitting in the post-fight interview that he felt some cobwebs after the first round. Once the horn sounded, Maness’ cornermen didn’t allow their fighter to sit on the stool. They were trying to get Maness to get his legs back under himself by forcing the woozy fighter to continue to stand and find his equilibrium, and it worked.
• MISS -120 Ariane Lipski vs. -105 Mandy Bohm: A huge bounceback win for Ariane Lipski who gave her opponent Molly Bohm her first professional loss and let everyone know why she was given the nickname “Queen of Violence.” Lipski looked crisp in her boxing and footwork to cut off the cage and trap Bohm so that she could land huge blows that sat down Bohm on three different occasions. The Brazilian native is young and motivated, and she is only going to get better now that she’s training at American Top Team, which is arguably the best Mixed Martial Arts gym in the world. Much more to come for the 27-year-old.
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Saturday, Bellator MMA
• HIT -130 Phil Davis vs. +105 Yoel Romero: Man, did Phil Davis look on point on Saturday night against former four-time title challenger Yoel Romero. Davis, who has fought the best fighters in the world for the last decade, seems to be getting better with age even at 36-years-old. The former NCAA Division 1 wrestling champ is far from his early days in MMA where he avoided kickboxing exchanges and would dive for his opponents’ legs to secure takedown after takedown. Now, Davis is loose and extremely fluid in his movements allowing him to throw punches and kicks with ease and Romero was a victim of this striking improvement. It only makes Davis that much more dangerous as his opponents can’t anticipate one specific strategy. His evolving weapons allowed him to batter Romero on the feet and shoot for easy takedowns. He pretty much dictated the pace of the fight and Romero, a former Olympic wrestler, looked absolutely baffled— big win for Davis. Bigger fighters await the adaptive veteran on the horizon.
• HIT -180 Alejandra Lara vs. +150 DeAnna Bennett: Bennett came out firing and motivated to establish that she is focused and committed to her career and avoided journeywoman status with a gutsy win. Bennett shed light (and a tear) about why getting a win inside the SAP Arena in San Jose meant so much. Bennett’s father worked security for StrikeForce MMA in the same building years ago, and in Bennett’s mind, everything came full circle to fight and get a win in the same arena she walked around as a 20-year-old with her father. Getting the dominant win against a talented Alejandra Lara tasted that much sweeter.
• HIT -300 Neiman Gracie vs. +230 Mark Lemminger: Neiman Gracie walks into every fight with not only the pressure of being locked in a cage, in front of an audience, in his underwear with another guy trying to knock your head, but also with the pressure of representing the Gracie name. Luckily for the Gracie family, Neiman rises to the occasion and is getting better by leaps and bounds with each and every fight. It was expected that Gracie was going to initiate clinches and drag his opponent into his jiu-jitsu wheelhouse, but he did what nobody saw coming: he won via knockout … more on that to come.
• MISS -1000 Christian Edwards vs. +575 Ben Parrish: First and foremost, I need to apologize to Ben Parrish. I’m sorry. Now that that’s off my chest, Mr. Parrish deserves a ton of credit. The doughy Parrish proved that dad bods are not just for softball, but for convincingly beating opponents too. Parrish’s opponent was the biggest favorite of the weekend in both the UFC and Bellator’s Money Lines, and he proved the entire world wrong. Now, with a 5-1 record and a lot more followers on social media, Parrish forgives everyone who picked against him this time, but admits that the bandwagon is about to close its doors.
• MISS +950 Neiman Gracie wins by TKO/KO: As previously mentioned, Neiman Gracie, the submission specialist, won his fight via knockout and the line for that prediction was huge. Earning his first career knockout, Gracie showed noticeable improvements in his boxing and Muay Thai skills as he landed shot after shot on the button of Lemminger’s chin that got the arena jumping out of their seats. Gracie has two career losses and is looking to get the one against Jason Jackson back.
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