The first title fight of 2021 is here and it should be a good one. Granted, when I was told this PPV was being main evented by former teammates, I was hoping it was Colby v. Jorge. That is the battle of former teammates I want to see. This one doesn’t have that layer of hatred that Colby v. Jorge has. But nevertheless, this should be an entertaining fight between two highly skilled fighters. Usman went to Colorado to learn how to strike, while letting Burns stay in the home gym and try to figure out the puzzle that is Kamaru Usman. This should be a great matchup and hopefully it doesn’t disappoint. Now to my picks:
MAIN CARD
KAMARU USMAN V. GILBERT BURNS
The first title fight of 2021 is between two former teammates and that should make for an interesting fight. Typically, when you have a matchup of 2 strong grapplers, the fight turns into a standup battle. I have a feeling that will happen here. Like Usman’s fight against Colby, I think both guys respect each other’s grappling and know it’s dangers that they will keep this a kickboxing fight at range. The main difference in these two matchups, is that Burns, unlike Colby, has true finishing power. Colby relies on volume for his striking game. Burns is a pressure fighter that has strong power and can finish fights on the feet. Usman has never been knocked down, and being a former training partner of Burns, he knows how much he has to respect Burns’ power. If he respects it like he respected Colby’s power, this fight will probably see little grappling exchanges. If Usman actually fears the power, he will probably fight similar to how he fought Masvidal which would be a big bummer for us.
Usman is quietly (definitely the right word) getting into Mighty Mouse territory. He isn’t really talked about in the best fighter conversations, even though he is one of the best. Usman hasn’t lost since before joining the UFC. He has been dominant and seems to get better each fight. Usman’s last 5 wins are over Demian Maia, Rafael dos Anjos, Tyron Woodley, Colby Covington, and Jorge Masvidal. That is one hell of a stretch. He has gone in against the best, and seems to come out the winner every time. That obviously can’t last forever, and it only takes one shot to end the fairy tale title run. Usman tends to make improvements before each fight, and fighting his teammate this time caused him to go to a different gym. So he went to Elevation, and trained with Justin Gaethje, one of the better strikers in the UFC and it was at an excellent gym that has been on quite a hot streak. That definitely won’t hurt his chances in this fight. If his striking has improved at all, he will be damn near unbeatable, which already seems to be the case. If he improved his ability to get finishes, that would be even more dangerous.
Burns was one of those top prospects that seemed to hit a ceiling, but then went up a weight class on late notice and found to his surprise that the weight cut for the lower weight class sapped him of power and energy. He has been reborn since moving up to 170, and seems to finally be meeting his initial hype. Granted, his initial hype was due to his all word BJJ skills and now he has found power in his standup game that he didn’t really have before the move to welterweight. Along with finding power, he seems to have developed a better standup game too, and while he likes counter punching with bombs, he isn’t the typical BJJ grappler that just throws bombs and haymakers with little skill. He does tend to leave himself open for takedowns, but that is probably due to his confidence in his ground game. How many people are going to want to take down an all world BJJ grappler?
That brings us to the matchup. We weren’t in the training room, so we don’t know how they matchup as well as they do. As I said before, it comes down to if they respect each other’s power if we see them grapple at all. I don’t think we’ll see them tie up often, they will probably keep this a striking battle, and we might see another entertaining Usman fight, something that isn’t guaranteed. If this does stay on the feet, it will be a battle. Usman is going to have to be more wary of Burns’ power than he was of Colby’s. Burns will have to be more cautious of being taken down, because if Usman gets a hold of you, he doesn’t really let go. This is an exciting matchup, and whenever teammates fight there is an added degree of excitement and unpredictability. These guys know each other well. One other thing about teammates fighting that I heard from Rashad Evans this week, was that it might be hard to pull the trigger and get a knockout or finish of a friend because you know so much about them. Will that play a part in this fight? I think this might play out like the Colby fight, and it is a back and forth battle, but Usman out lasts Burns. Burns has the wild card of a power punch that Colby didn’t, but I don’t think it will come into play.
Kamaru Usman (-275) by decision
MAYCEE BARBER V. ALEXA GRASSO
Maycee Barber is making her return since tearing her ACL in a surprising loss to Roxanne Moddafferi last year. It will be interesting to see how she bounces back. Is she going to be as good as she was before the injury? Will she have ring rust? She was on a trajectory for a title shot in time to be the youngest champion in UFC history before that last fight. Barber is still a top prospect and a win here will put her in the thick of title contention. Barber is very athletic and does have finishing skills. She’s 8-1 with 5 KO/TKOs, 2 submission, and 1 decision win. The fight against Roxanne wasn’t going her way before the ACL injury in the 2nd round, but Barber gets stronger as the fights go on and I think without the injury, she might have been able to battle back and get a win.
Now she is going up against Alexa Grasso who is still new to flyweight, and learned in her first flyweight fight that not cutting an extra 10 pounds could be beneficial to her. Grasso has been a bit of a disappointment since joining the UFC. She has traded wins and losses in each of her fights and is sitting at 4-3 in the UFC. The potential is there, and maybe not cutting to strawweight will be good for her overall. Grasso is a strong athlete and her speed is an asset that carried over well into her flyweight debut. Grasso has 4 wins by KO/TKO, and all of them were before she made it to the UFC. Grasso is a grinder and tends to win ugly fights, at least since joining the UFC.
This is a decent matchup of flyweights just on the outside of the top ten and are looking to start 2021 off with a big win, and get one step closer to a fight with the champion Valentina Shevchenko, which is the worst prize I can think of. Both of these flyweights are tough and I expect an entertaining fight, but I think Barber is going to come back strong and look to getting back on the path of being the youngest champion in UFC history.
Maycee Barber (-110) by decision
KELVIN GASTELUM V. IAN HEINISCH
Kelvin is a lightning rod among UFC fans. At least I have found that when making my picks in his fights. Some people still consider Kelvin as that young winner of the Ultimate Fighter season with the huge upset over Uriah Hall. But he hasn’t been that guy for a couple of years. He is on a 3 fight losing streak, and hasn’t looked good since his loss to Israel Adesanya. His career has been playing out like Johny Hendricks’ minus the title reign, maybe he stole Hendricks’ thunder when Kelvin won in their 2016 matchup.. He was a thick welterweight that seemed to sap his strength to make weight. He had a great run to start, he lost a welterweight title fight to Woodley, and is 5-5 with 1 no contest since the loss to Woodley. He did win the no contest and it was overturned due to failing a test for weed. So, Kelvin is essentially 6-5 since losing to Woodley, but those wins were over Nate Marquardt, Johny Hendricks, Tim Kennedy, Michael Bisping (3 weeks after his loss to GSP), and Jacare (a split decision that Kelvin was lucky to get the decision win). I am a fan of Kelvin, and have been since his season of the Ultimate Fighter, but looking at his resume, it kind of looks like he was given favorable matchups for most of his UFC run. His wins were all over guys that were already on the down slide of their career. His last 2 fights, losses to Darren Till and Jack Hermansson, were very uninspiring. His loss to Till was one of the worst fights I’ve ever seen. Kelvin did practically nothing, and Till didn’t do much better but did enough to get the win. Kelvin looked like he didn’t train at all for the Hermansson fight, and was submitted by heel hook in just under 80 seconds.
He is going up against a young (in MMA years, he is actually older than Kelvin) and hungry fighter in Ian Heinisch. Heinisch is 3-2 since joining the UFC, his two losses were to Derek Brunson, probably too big of a name too soon, and Omari Akhmedov who used strong wrestling to dominate. Heinisch is coming off his biggest win, a 1st round TKO win over Gerald Meerschaert. Heinisch’s abilities line up well with Kelvin’s. Both are strong wrestlers that prefer to brawl. Heinisch’s wrestling is underrated, but he mostly uses it defensively to get up and to defend takedowns. He likes to brawl, which should play well into Kelvin’s typical game plans.
I don’t have much faith in Kelvin these days. The last couple of fights seemed like he just wanted to collect a paycheck, and I don’t see him coming in here super motivated, unless a 4 fight losing streak truly frightens him. Kelvin has strong wrestling, but rarely uses it. I think this is going to be a fight we love thanks to the small octagon. I think these guys are going to stand in the middle and throw bombs. They both have suspect gas tanks, and wrestling just empties that out a lot quicker than necessary. If this was 3 years ago, Kelvin is an easy pick, but until he proves me wrong, I won’t be picking the guy that seems unmotivated in each of his fights. I hope we get the old Kelvin back, but my hopes are low. Both guys have never been knocked out, and I think we might see that streak end. This should be a banger of a fight.
Ian Heinisch (+180) by 1st round TKO
RICKY SIMON V. BRIAN KELLEHER
This is one of those fights that you scratch your head at making the main card, but then you think about it, and this could be one of those fights that delivers a classic. Both guys are action fighters that have high paced fights. This is an easy contender for fight of the night. Boom Kelleher took advantage of the Rona 2020 fight season to get his name out there and take any fight he could. He went 3-1 in 2020, with his one loss coming to Cody Stamann on very short notice. Kelleher is a Long Island guy, so I might be biased here, but he is someone that is dangerous and should not be overlooked. He is a BJJ grappler by trade, but his hands are made of stone. He has been fighting between 135-145 since the Rona era started, and just wants to get into the octagon. Here he gets Ricky Simon, a strong grappler with some strong strikes mixed in. He uses his strikes to get close for takedowns. Five of his 17 wins come by KO/TKO so there is some power there, but he relies on controlling fights to get wins. Nine of his 17 wins are by decision. He is 5-2 since joining the UFC, but that win over Merab was bullshit and he should be 4-3. That was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen, the ref called a submission finish after the bell rang. It was garbage.
I like this matchup as both of these guys are bangers that like to fight. They won’t shy away from each other, and neither will be afraid of the other’s specialty and strengths. This has fight of the night potential and I am excited for it. This could be a biased pick, but I am rolling with Kelleher. I think he has more tools and is a more well rounded fighter. This will be a fast paced match, as long as it lasts and I wouldn’t look away once it starts.
Brian Kelleher (+200) by 1st round submission
MAKI PITOLO V. JULIAN MARQUEZ
Another interesting matchup, for me this is due to Maki Pitolo’s craziness. He will just move forward and throw as many strikes as he can. The man nicknamed Coconut Bombz has serious power and might be one of those guys that stays on the UFC roster purely for the entertainment he delivers, not for actually winning fights. He is 1-3 since joining the UFC and his gameplan tends to be to throw as many bombz as possible and hope to get a finish or a decision win. He doesn’t have the strongest gas tank, but he is one tough son of a bitch that will not quit. He is going up against another prospect that has shown mixed results in his couple of UFC fights. Julian Marquez is 1-1 in the UFC but he did get hurt in his last fight and lost a split decision. He hasn’t fought since 2018, but is looking to get back into the win column here. I don’t know much about Marquez.
I want to pick Pitolo here based on activity, and he very well might win, but Pitolo has the Michael Johnson DNA to make a dumb mistake late in fights that cost them the win. It is impressive. If Pitolo didn’t share this DNA with MJ, I would probably pick him based on activity and his gameplan. He is going to go out slinging bombz. But Marquez is smarter, and I have a feeling even if Pitolo is winning most of the fight, he will pull an MJ and blow the fight.
Julian Marquez (-165) by 3rd round submission
PRELIMS
RODOLFO VIEIRA V. ANTHONY HERNANDEZ
Rodolfo Vieira is a classic BJJ grappler that has power. He throws bombs and has the power to get finishes, but he is very raw on the feet and prefers to grapple. His gas tank isn’t great, but he is tough and dangerous. He is getting a good step up in competition here with Hernandez, but Hernandez isn’t the most cautious fighter. This might be fast paced while it lasts, but I have a feeling Vieira might have been given a favorable matchup here to get him to the next level.
Rodolfo Vieira (-450) by 1st round submission
BELAL MUHAMMAD V. DHIEGO LIMA
Belal is one of the most underrated fighters on the roster. Granted, he is in a stacked welterweight division, but he has strong skills all around. His grappling is good, and his standup game is solid as well. He is dangerous in the octagon and a big win on this card, might catch the attention of the welterweight division. Lima has been a solid fighter in the welterweight division. A bit underwhelming, but he has shown potential. Especially on his current winning streak. He has put his striking game into solid form and while he hasn’t fought since 2019, a win here would do good for him.
I don’t think Lima has it in him to match Belal’s pace and strength. But Belal did have covid, so you have to wonder if that will affect him. We don’t know how he will bounce back from that. I hate betting on guys that are coming back from covid, we don’t really know if he had it bad or how it affected him. But even still, I don’t think Lima is on his level
Belal Muhammad (-500) by 2nd round TKO
POLYANA VIANA V. MALLORY MARTIN
A grappler v. grappler matchup here. Wrestling v. BJJ. Should have interesting exchanges if it gets into a grappling fight. If it stays on the feet, Martin has a good advantage. On the ground, Martin’s ground and pound is very strong, but Viana is tricky with submissions. Seven of her 11 wins come by submission. Have to believe she isn’t afraid of this fight going to the ground. Martin might be slightly better, but I am feeling the BJJ grappler finding a way to a submission win.
Polyana Viana (+105) by 2nd round submission
ANDRE EWELL V. CHRIS GUTIERREZ
Chris Gutierrez (-140) by decision
GABE GREEN V. PHILIP ROWE
Gabe Green (-130) by 1st round TKO
FIGHT OF THE NIGHT
RICKY SIMON V. BRIAN KELLEHER