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#5. Danny Roberts vs. Claudio Silva
This fight has me intrigued largely because of the odd situation surrounding Silva. ‘Hannibal’ – a UK-based Brazilian – signed with the UFC back in 2014 and managed to outgrapple Brad Scott and a very raw Leon Edwards to decision victories. And then he simply vanished – until May 2018 that is, almost 4 years after the Edwards win. Most people, myself included, gave him little to no chance against Nordine Taleb, but Silva somehow made things look simple, taking the Frenchman down and choking him out inside the first round.
Silva is a rare breed in the modern UFC in that he’s almost exclusively a one-note grappler. He’s clearly excellent in that area, as his win over Taleb and previous UFC victories showed, but his striking – at least back in 2014 – leaves a lot to be desired, although his chin certainly kept him in the fight against Edwards at times.
Roberts is more well-rounded – he’s looked good in all areas at times during his UFC tenure, and while he’s been stopped twice – by Taleb and by Mike Perry – both of those fighters carry knockout power that Silva clearly doesn’t have. True, he does have a tendency to get hit as he wings his own power punches at his opponents, but that probably won’t be an issue against Silva.
What will be an issue is his takedown defense; ‘Hot Chocolate’ was taken down on numerous occasions by David Zawada in his last fight in June, and was quite willing to go position-for-position with the German on the ground. If he tries to do that with Silva, he could find himself up the creek, as I fully suspect that ‘Hannibal’ has a more venomous ground game than Zawada – or indeed, Roberts himself.
This should be a winnable fight for Roberts – Silva’s takedowns aren’t great in all honesty and if Roberts stays on the outside and uses his 3” reach advantage to snipe at the Brazilian from there, I think he can probably pick him apart for a decision or a late TKO. I definitely worry for Roberts if the fight does hit the ground based on how easily Silva handled Taleb, but as long as he focuses on defense and getting up rather than attempting sweeps or submissions, I think he could be okay there too.
The Pick: Roberts via unanimous decision
