UFC 234: Whittaker vs. Gastelum - Predictions and Picks

#3 Rani Yahya vs. Ricky Simon

Rani Yahya will be making his 16th UFC appearance this weekend

There’s a fair argument to be made that grappling whiz Rani Yahya has had one of the strangest UFC careers of all time. Saturday’s fight will be, incredibly, his 16th Octagon appearance, and his career under the Zuffa banner actually stretches all the way back to his WEC debut in June 2007. Despite this long tenure though, this upcoming bout with Ricky Simon will be just his second appearance on a UFC main card – making him one of the least televised UFC fighters ever.

His record of 11-3 is also pretty impressive – that is until you check out the strength of his opposition. The likes of Matthew Lopez and Luke Sanders are solid enough, but they’re not ranked 135lbers. Still, one loss since 2013 is nothing to be sneezed at, and since 2016 he’s averaged a decent 2 fights per year. He’s also currently on a 3-fight winning streak.

In terms of his style, Yahya is almost a pure grappler – another rarity in modern-day MMA. He’s never truly rounded out his game – and at age 34 he’s unlikely to at this stage – as his striking remains rudimentary and essentially stiff, but his wrestling and takedowns have improved over the years, particularly since his 2014 drop to Bantamweight. And on the ground, he’s one of the most dangerous fighters in the division; an Abu Dhabi gold medallist who has submitted foes with various types of submission.

Yahya’s problem, traditionally – and this appears to go hand-in-hand with his striking issues – stems largely from the fact that he’s just not a great natural athlete. In a sense, he’s like Royce Gracie in that he’s the perfect example of how tremendous Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can take a fighter pretty far without much explosive athleticism. And this issue might get him into trouble on Saturday as his opponent Simon is definitely a great athlete.

The former Titan FC Bantamweight champ debuted in the UFC last April with a fun – and pretty bizarre – win over Merab Dvalishvili that saw the referee decide Simon had choked his opponent out with a third-round guillotine despite Dvalishvili apparently being fine when the buzzer sounded. Prior to the turnaround though, Simon had been losing the fight largely due to the takedowns of Dvalishvili.

Simon followed that win up with a unanimous decision over Montel Jackson at UFC 227, but interestingly enough he switched up his gameplan for that fight, relying almost entirely on his wrestling and grappling to win a decision. He’s quite clearly a well-rounded fighter who is happy to grapple and strike – although against a fighter like Yahya, he’d probably be more inclined to attempt to stay on his feet.

So can he do that? In all honesty, I’m not too sure. While he’s clearly a better athlete than Yahya, he was taken down worryingly easily by Dvalishvili in their fight and while the Georgian wrestler wasn’t able to secure a finish, Yahya is light years beyond him in terms of submission skills. If the Brazilian can get Simon to the ground as easily as that, then the fight is likely over.

I’m leaning towards Yahya here; Simon might be pretty quick and explosive but I’m not sure he’s necessarily any better than recent Yahya victims like Luke Sanders and Russell Doane, and if the Washington native is taken down it’s hard to see a way in which he avoids a submission. I’m taking Yahya to get a tap out win to mark his 16th Octagon appearance.

The Pick: Yahya via first round submission