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#1 Worst: The awful Theodorou/Brunson fight
Okay, so I’ve been a huge fan of Elias Theodorou ever since he won the lone season of TUF: Nations back in 2014. He’s got the coolest hair in MMA, seems like a hilarious and charismatic dude and for a while at least he looked like a red-hot prospect to watch.
Somewhere along the line though – shortly after his 2015 loss to Thiago Santos – ‘The Spartan’ changed his style from a grinding takedown artist ala early Diego Sanchez to an unorthodox, stick-and-move striker, and the results of this change have been varied.
It earned him 5 UFC wins with only one more loss, but it also earned him the ire of a lot of fans, and after last night’s performance – a loss to Derek Brunson – he probably won’t be gaining any new fans any time soon.
The fight was simply a poor style clash, as Theodorou deployed his usual unorthodox striking but couldn’t really get a rhythm going or hurt Brunson, and while Brunson was able to gain some takedowns, he didn’t do a lot with them and seemed content to avoid Theodorou’s bizarre attacks.
In the end, Brunson ran out the winner by unanimous decision, but the fight was one of the worst televised ones of 2019 and where both men go from here is a total mystery. For Brunson, I guess the win keeps him afloat in a division that’s currently in flux, but for Theodorou it represents him hitting a pretty notably ceiling.
For me, he’d be best to really work on his wrestling game and look to revive his style from pre-2015, but to see him relegated to the prelims next time around wouldn’t be a shock at all.
