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The UFC returns to pay-per-view this weekend with its first show in Brazil since February’s excellent Fight Night 144, and headlining UFC 237 is a UFC Women’s Strawweight Title match between champion Rose Namajunas and challenger Jessica Andrade.
Namajunas will be stepping into enemy territory for this, her second title defense, as the Brazilian crowd should be red hot for the challenger.
Elsewhere on the card, we’ve got a pair of UFC legends in the form of former champions Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo facing two up-and-comers in Jared Cannonier and Alexander Volkanovski, and a solid mix of prospects and veterans – mostly Brazilian fighters – filling up the undercard.
Here are the predicted outcomes for UFC 237: Namajunas vs. Andrade.
#1 Rose Namajunas vs. Jessica Andrade
This fight feels like it’s been a long time coming, but in reality it’s only two years since Andrade had her last title shot – an unsuccessful attempt to dethrone Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who at the time looked almost unbeatable – and it’s actually less than two years since Namajunas eventually dethroned Jedrzejczyk in a shocking result to become the third champion in UFC Strawweight history.
Since then, Namajunas has managed just one defense, but it was a hugely impressive one, as she outpointed Jedrzejczyk in what was essentially a kickboxing match. She’s been on the shelf ever since, recovering from a couple of injuries and some apparent issues surrounding her unfortunate involvement in the infamous Conor McGregor bus attack, but assuming she’s back to her normal self now, she’s quite clearly the best 115lber on the planet right now.
How she matches up with Andrade is quite tricky to tell really. ‘Bate Estaca’ has actually been in the UFC for years now – since 2013 – but she only really started to shoot up the rankings once she moved to Strawweight in 2016.
Wins over Jessica Penne, Joanne Calderwood and Angela Hill netted her the 2017 title shot, and since she came up short there, she’s beaten Claudia Gadelha, Tecia Torres and Karolina Kowalkiewicz to earn another one.
Andrade’s game is literally all about power and brute force. She’s not the cleanest striker in the world even if she can chain combinations together, but she’s got a granite chin and more to the point, she hits ludicrously hard for a 115lber.
Her one-punch knockout of Kowalkiewicz was probably the most brutal finish in the division’s history, and she can also grapple well too, again with a game largely based around power. Envision a female version of prime, PRIDE-era Wanderlei Silva – minus the soccer kicks and stomps of course – and you’d have Andrade.
Namajunas meanwhile is a much more nuanced fighter. If I’m honest I would’ve had her pegged as a pretty mediocre striker even after she knocked out Jedrzejczyk, but then in the rematch, she showed that she was a lot more than that.
‘Thug Rose’ essentially used her boxing skills – largely her head movement, footwork and a counter left hand – to outpoint Jedrzejczyk in the early rounds, never allowing the Polish fighter to establish her jab, and while she took a lot of leg kicks which hampered her footwork later in the fight, she eventually hung in tough and had enough power in her own punches –as well as a good enough chin – to outstrike Jedrzejczyk in the stretch to cement the decision.
Based on that fight – assuming Namajunas hasn’t regressed since, which is unlikely – I think this is a winnable fight for the champion. Andrade was outpointed by Jedrzejczyk pretty firmly in their fight and while Rose isn’t as pure a kickboxer as the former champ, it’s not really like Jedrzejczyk used anything wildly outlandish to beat her; it was more that Andrade just couldn’t land a clean shot on a fighter with better movement and more nuanced striking.
The question to me then becomes about whether Namajunas is good enough to push the kind of pace that Jedrzejczyk did without tiring, and also whether she can prevent Andrade from taking her down if she does look to try that game.
Andrade’s wrestling isn’t exactly based around technique, but her takedowns are very powerful and from the top, she’s highly dangerous – just ask Claudia Gadelha.
Namajunas is no slouch on the ground herself though, even if we did see her lose to Carla Esparza largely due to an inability to work from the bottom back in 2014. And of course, Esparza isn’t as aggressive and wild as Andrade from the top, meaning the Brazilian would likely be more susceptible to attacks from the guard.
I actually don’t see Andrade going for takedowns though, as she’s probably got too much faith in her punching power to really bother – unless Namajunas hurts her badly standing, which based around her own solid chin, I doubt will happen.
That means that this should be a stand-up affair, and my money is on Namajunas I think. She didn’t slow down against Jedrzejczyk despite taking a lot of damage to her leg, and I’m not sure that Andrade can land a one-shot kill on her as she did to Kowalkiewicz, who made the error of trading.
As long as ‘Thug Rose’ doesn’t make that same error, I think she’s got enough skill to pick the challenger apart just as Jedrzejczyk did two years ago.
The Pick: Namajunas via unanimous decision
#2 Anderson Silva vs. Jared Cannonier
It’s pretty much an undisputed fact that Anderson Silva is the greatest Middleweight of all time, but the question now is whether he’s still at all relevant some 6 years after he lost his title to Chris Weidman.
At 44 years old and with just 1 official win since 2012 – a controversial decision over Derek Brunson at UFC 208 – as well as two PED busts in the last couple of years, it’s probably true that he should’ve hung up his gloves a while back.
But then we’d have said the same prior to his February fight with Israel Adesanya and yet he didn’t look miles away from picking up a win there, and Adesanya is now the UFC Interim champion.
Jared Cannonier is a different proposition entirely, though. Adesanya was always going to be a fascinating style match for Silva as while he essentially represents a modern-day twist on ‘The Spider’ himself, he also seemed to have a crazy amount of respect for the legend.
Cannonier is a far more straightforward power-puncher, but he’s not likely to want to put a show on like Adesanya did and is probably more likely to come out looking to take Silva’s head off.
For me this all comes down to exactly how much Silva has left in the tank. Cannonier looked good in his knockout win over David Branch late last year, but let’s be honest – he’s the kind of slow-footed, heavy-handed power puncher that Silva would’ve eaten alive in his prime. Think someone like Patrick Cote, James Irvin or even Dan Henderson, albeit without the wrestling threat.
The problem for Silva is that while he’s still got the majority of the skills that allowed him to become a UFC legend, the reflexes and speed that helped him utilise those skills are now largely gone, meaning he’s more susceptible to punches than he ever was in his prime, and with his style – which still uses a lot of unorthodox movement and “clowning” – it means he’s highly vulnerable, particularly as his chin isn’t what it once was.
With all that said though, I’m just not convinced Cannonier has enough to take him out. He’s not the striker that Adesanya is, he doesn’t have the sheer grit that Michael Bisping had – as evidenced by his KO loss to Dominick Reyes, which saw him fold under a barrage of punches – and I don’t think he’s as good in the clinch as Brunson is either.
It’s a risky fight for Silva because ‘The Killa Gorilla’ does have knockout power and can probably turn the legend’s lights out if he does land cleanly, but I’m just not comfortable with picking a fighter this unproven at the top level, not when he hasn’t really shown any true flashes of elite-level potential outside of that win over Branch, who’s always had suspect striking defense.
In the end I’m happy to take Silva by unanimous decision – but I hope this will be the last time we see him inside the Octagon as it’d be cool to see him go out with a win.
The Pick: Silva via unanimous decision
#3 Jose Aldo vs. Alexander Volkanovski
Like the Silva/Cannonier fight, this one is all about a Brazilian legend facing a hot up-and-comer, except unlike Silva/Cannonier, Jose Aldo isn’t quite past his prime just yet, as we saw when he destroyed another up-and-comer in Renato Moicano in the UFC’s last Brazilian show in February.
Sure, he’s clearly not in Max Holloway’s league at this point, but then who really is? There’s probably an argument to be made in fact that Aldo remains the second-best Featherweight in the world.
Volkanovski is out to prove that idea wrong. The Aussie has been in the UFC now since 2016, and he’s put together a record of 6-0 in the Octagon to go along with his overall record of 19-1.
Early in his career it looked like he was a ground-and-pound based fighter – a worrying thought given he wasn’t coming from a legitimate wrestling background – but since then he’s developed a remarkably good kickboxing game.
Most recently, Volkanovski tore former title contender Chad Mendes up on the feet, pulling through some early issues to beat up Mendes with combinations to the head and body before finishing him off late in the second round.
It was a huge win for ‘Alexander the Great’ and set him up for this huge opportunity – a win over Aldo would almost certainly put him in line for a title fight against Holloway next time around.
Can he really pull it off, though? I’m not too sure. It’s not exactly like Aldo has truly declined over the past couple of years, after all. Holloway made him look bad but there’s no shame in that, and while he started relatively slowly against both Jeremy Stephens and in his recent fight with Moicano, once he found his range he absolutely destroyed them both with vintage combinations, using his winging left hook and some brutal shots to the body.
I could see a super-fast starter having some success against this iteration of Aldo; the fighter who once had the deadliest leg kicks in MMA seems to be gone now and while the boxing-focused version of Aldo is still incredibly dangerous, starting slowly could well be an issue for him and so if Volkanovski could come out and blitz him in the opening moments, then he could well pull this out.
The problem though is that Volkanovski isn’t a quick starter himself, as he takes time to settle into a rhythm and arguably lost the first round of the Mendes fight – and then got hurt early in the second – before finding his range to blast the American later in that round.
And realistically, if Aldo opens up on him like he did to Moicano, I’m not really sure if he can survive the barrage.
I’m predicting a slow-burner here; I think both men will come out pretty slowly in a feeling-out process and Volkanovski might well edge the early exchanges, but in the end I think Aldo’s the fighter more likely to find a rhythm, and once he does that then he’ll light up the Brazilian crowd with another violent finish.
The Pick: Aldo via second round TKO
#4 Thiago Alves vs. Laureano Staropoli
This one feels like a weird choice for a main card fight, as Staropoli has fought just once in the UFC – a decision win over Hector Aldana in his native Argentina last November – and while Thiago Alves has been around for more than a decade and has challenged for the Welterweight title, he’s also miles past his prime at this stage and should probably be considering retirement.
This could be his chance to go out with a victory, though. Sure, his durability is largely gone at this stage and his reflexes and speed aren’t what they once were either, but we’re only two years removed from a performance that saw him destroy Patrick Cote like it was 2008 all over again, and his striking skill and power still seem as they were in his prime.
Staropoli meanwhile hasn’t fought an opponent anywhere near the calibre of ‘The Pitbull’ over his 8-1 career – which stretches back to just 2013 – and while he did win his UFC debut, it wasn’t without issues, as he entered into a dirty brawl with Aldana and largely won based on his superior volume, as both men came away looking hurt and badly busted up.
The fact that he didn’t finish Aldana despite landing cleanly on numerous occasions doesn’t bode well for this one either; if he had one-shot knockout power I’d be tempted to take him purely due to Alves’ waning durability, but then ‘The Pitbull’ actually outstruck Max Griffin in his previous fight to take a decision and pushed Alexey Kunchenko hard too, and both men landed cleanly on him and couldn’t put him away.
In the end this comes down to the simple question of, is Staropoli good enough to take out a waning veteran like Alves who, outside of his durability and speed, still has most of his skills intact? I’m just not convinced he is, particularly based on the lone UFC fight he’s had. I’ll take Alves to win by late TKO here.
The Pick: Alves via third round TKO
#5 Francisco Trinaldo vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira
This battle of veterans might be the sleeper fight on this card, as both men have shown skills in all areas and despite their status as elder fighters in the 155lbs division, both men could still find themselves in title contention in the near future.
Both men are coming off wins; Trinaldo over Evan Dunham, Ferreira over Rustam Khabilov, and in fact Ferreira is on a 4-fight winning streak.
In terms of how these two match up, I’d give Trinaldo a slight advantage on the feet and Ferreira a slight advantage on the ground.
Ferreira has actually looked pretty solid with his striking game recently, but he’s still a largely wild striker who relies too much on his power to get by.
On the ground however he’s extremely smooth, and has developed his wrestling to the point where he comfortably outgrappled the tricky Khabilov earlier this year.
Trinaldo meanwhile came into the UFC with the reputation as a grinder-come-grappler, with a lot of submissions and ground-and-pound based TKOs on his record, but over his 7 years in the Octagon he’s really come on with his striking.
Where ‘Massaranduba’ once relied almost purely on overhand haymakers, he now throws heavy shots to the head and body, chains his combinations together and is fond of a Cerrone-style step-in knee – one of which he used to finish Dunham last year.
At 40 years old he should theoretically be showing signs of slowing down now, but somehow that hasn’t been the case; like a man who drinks regularly from the fountain of youth Trinaldo still appears to be in his athletic prime, both physically and in terms of how he looks inside the cage.
For me, this fight suits ‘Massaranduba’ down to the ground. He pushes a harder pace than Ferreira and doesn’t tend to slow down dramatically, and while Ferreira is the more proven submission grappler, it’s not like Trinaldo is a slouch on the ground himself – he has 5 submissions on his ledger and came close to tapping out Michael Chiesa in their fight.
And while two of his UFC losses came by submission, they came after he’d been hurt on the feet.
I think this will be an exciting fight but I feel like Trinaldo is too strong, too aggressive and will push too hard of a pace for Ferreira to keep up with, especially in the early going of the fight when both men will likely seek a stand-up affair.
Ferreira’s cruder striking style will struggle to mesh with Trinaldo’s more technical abilities and so I think ‘Massaranduba’ will pull another surprising victory out of the bag.
The Pick: Trinaldo via second round TKO
#6 The Prelims: ESPN card
Saturday’s main prelim card will air on the ESPN network and there’s a huge name headlining things for once as Light-Heavyweight legend Antonio Rogerio Nogueira returns to face Ryan Spann.
Nogueira has been written off more times than I can count at this point – understandable as he’s now 42 and has taken a ludicrous amount of punishment in his career – but I’m actually going with him here; his boxing looked remarkably sharp in his win over Sam Alvey last year and I just don’t see anything special from Spann that makes me think he can blitz ‘Lil Nog’ as the likes of Anthony Johnson and Ryan Bader did. Nogueira via TKO is my pick.
At Lightweight, Thiago Moises takes on Kurt Holobaugh in a fight flying under the radar somewhat given neither man actually has a UFC win under their belt. I’m taking Moises here – Holobaugh has never really looked that great on the ground to me while Moises is a noted jiu-jitsu player. Moises via submission is my pick.
Bethe Correia – who once challenged Ronda Rousey in Rio de Janeiro for the Bantamweight title – returns to face Irene Aldana in what sounds like a tricky fight for her given Aldana’s length, toughness and striking ability and Correia’s own lack of athleticism and questionable chin.
Correia would probably be best looking for takedowns here but I’m going with Aldana in a mild upset, probably a decision win.
In a downright bizarre fight at Featherweight, UFC legend BJ Penn is back despite facing some serious legal issues, to take on fellow veteran Clay Guida. In his prime Penn would’ve absolutely throttled Guida, but ‘The Prodigy’ hasn’t won a fight since 2010 and has looked downright awful since moving to 145lbs. I’m taking Guida via first round TKO here.
#7 The Prelims: UFC Fight Pass card
UFC Fight Pass has felt almost redundant since the ESPN+ deal has kicked in, and the four fights on Saturday don’t really give much incentive to the service either.
At Flyweight, Luana Carolina faces Priscila Cachoeira, a late replacement for Wanan Yu. I honestly don’t know a lot about either fighter here, although I will say I’ve not been impressed by Cachoeira thus far. Carolina looked decent in her appearance on DWTNCS so I’ll take her.
The most interesting fight on Fight Pass is a Welterweight match between Warlley Alves and Sergio Moraes. This should come down to Moraes’ excellent grappling and experience against Alves’s sheer aggression and athleticism; I’m leaning towards Alves taking out ‘The Panther’ early, but wouldn’t be surprised to see Moraes pull this one out either.
At Bantamweight Talita Bernardo takes on the newcomer Melissa Gatto, who stepped in to replace Jessica-Rose Clark on late notice. I can’t trust such an inexperienced newcomer to be honest, not on late notice, and Bernardo has always looked pretty decent to me. Bernardo via submission is my pick.
Finally prospect Raoni Barcelos takes on late replacement Carlos Huachin at Bantamweight. Again, I find it hard to trust a late replacement, particularly one coming off the regional scene, against a prospect as highly rated as Barcelos, who’s looked fantastic in the UFC thus far. I’ll go with Barcelos via TKO.
