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The UFC returns to the UK this weekend as UFC Fight Night 147 goes down from the O2 Arena in London, with a big-time Welterweight headliner in Darren Till vs. Jorge Masvidal. For a European UFC show, it’s pretty stacked actually, with the top three fights all having potential title implications.
Sure, there’s still a bunch of lesser fights on the card, but with largely reliable action fighters like Danny Roberts, Arnold Allen and Jack Marshman on the card, even those fights should be fun. And with this being the first show in the UK since May 2018’s visit to Liverpool, the crowd should be rabid.
The show airs in its entirety on the ESPN+ streaming service in the US, and on BT Sport 1 in the UK.
Here are the predicted outcomes for UFC Fight Night 147: Till vs. Masvidal.
#1. Darren Till vs. Jorge Masvidal
The crowd should be into this one massively as following the 2017 retirement of Michael Bisping, Darren Till has taken up the mantle of the confident, loud-mouth Brit who’s largely disliked in the US but absolutely beloved in the UK. ‘The Gorilla’ is, of course, looking to rebound in this fight, as the last time we saw him in the Octagon, he was pretty much whitewashed in an unsuccessful attempt to dethrone Tyron Woodley for the Welterweight crown.
Stylistically at least, this fight seems to be a far easier one for the Scouser than Woodley was. I might’ve picked Till to defeat Woodley back in September, but in hindsight, it was a bad pick – Till’s grappling had never really been tested before and once Woodley knocked him down, he had little answer for the champion’s offense from his guard.
Masvidal meanwhile is a fellow striker, for the most part. While he does have underrated wrestling and a pretty strong ground game – enough to tap out Michael Chiesa, for instance – he almost exclusively looks to keep his fights on the feet. That makes for an interesting match with Till, who obviously climbed the ranks in the UFC using his own powerful striking game.
So who will come out on top here? It’s quite hard to say. Till’s striking game is largely based around pressure – while he failed to walk Woodley down in their fight, for the most part, he’s used his footwork to back his opponents up and corral them against the fence, where he unleashes combinations with vicious power.
A huge Welterweight with a lengthy reach, Till has the advantage of being able to clock his opponents with winging punches from range, but he’s also excellent at using his elbows from close range, as we saw in his wins over Jessin Ayari and Donald Cerrone. And while his ground game is hugely unproven, he did finish Wendell Oliveira with some nasty elbows in his UFC debut back in 2015.
In terms of weaknesses, you’d have to pick up on how lost Till appeared to be on his back against Woodley – although it must be noted, Woodley is one of the most dangerous fighters in the world from top position and Till was already badly compromised after being dropped by ‘The Chosen One’.
Till has also struggled to make the 170lbs limit – something to watch for during Friday’s weigh-in – but it hasn’t massively affected him outside of being fined part of his purse. He infamously missed weight by 4lbs last summer for his fight with Stephen Thompson, but went 5 rounds with ‘Wonderboy’ comfortably and didn’t run out of steam.
Masvidal meanwhile is a pretty technical striker for a guy who started off as a Miami-based street fighter ala Kimbo Slice. It’s hard to really put him into one single category as he’s both excellent at counter-punching and also pressure-fighting, as we’ve seen in his excellent wins over notable strikers such as Donald Cerrone, Ross Pearson, Cezar Ferreira and KJ Noons.
The problem for Masvidal has often been a tendency to take his foot off the gas or to assume he’s winning rounds when he may not be; this tendency probably cost him decisions against Al Iaquinta, Lorenz Larkin, Benson Henderson, and Rustam Khabilov – fights that had he won, he probably would’ve found himself in a UFC title shot by now.
In terms of common opponents, both men took out Cerrone in a similar way – corralling ‘Cowboy’ into the fence and overwhelming him with flurries and combinations – but where Till was able to engage Stephen Thompson in the kind of point-fighting striking match beloved by ‘Wonderboy’ and eventually defeat him, ‘Gamebred’ simply couldn’t get a handle on the karate-based fighter and was largely picked apart for a decision.
It’s actually those two Thompson fights that have me leaning towards Till picking up the victory here. Despite a rabid crowd in his hometown of Liverpool and a ton of pressure on him given a title shot was likely at stake, Till still had the calmness of mind to not attempt to walk ‘Wonderboy’ down as he’d done to Cerrone, knowing that he’d be playing into Thompson’s hands. Instead, he surprised Thompson by engaging him in his own kind of fight, held his own and even came close to a 5th round finish.
Masvidal meanwhile tried to draw Thompson into the kind of fight he loves – an angry brawl with plenty of trades – and simply couldn’t adjust when Thompson refused to comply. Essentially, Masvidal’s hot-blooded style almost always benefits him because once he can draw an opponent into trading, he’s usually the more technical fighter and can blend that technique with his fiery attitude to great effect. But as Thompson showed, he can be picked apart by a striker more willing to fight on the outside.
Most notably, Thompson was able to use his long range to pick at Masvidal from the outside, never needing to corral him as he could land 3 or 4 clean strikes to the Cuban’s single shots. So could Till replicate that gameplan? He doesn’t have the same karate-based style as Thompson but we did see him deploy something similar in his own battle with ‘Wonderboy’, and for me, that’d be Till’s smartest route to victory.
Given Till should be much bigger than Masvidal – a former 155lber – come fight night, it should mean his slight reach advantage (0.5”) should appear much more than it actually is. Assuming he doesn’t get silly and trade wildly with ‘Gamebred’ – and even then, I think he’d stand a fair chance of cracking the Cuban before eating something nasty in return – I think Till can pick him off for 25 minutes to pick up the win.
The Pick: Till via unanimous decision
#2. Gunnar Nelson vs. Leon Edwards
In a mark of the depth of talent at 170lbs, both of these men are clearly elite-level competitors, and yet they still feel miles away from a title shot in the near future despite excellent records. Edwards, in particular, has been on a hell of a run as of late, beating 6 opponents in a row with his last loss coming at the hands of now-champion Kamaru Usman back in 2015.
Nelson meanwhile returned to action last December with a downright vicious win over Alex Oliveira; after struggling in the first round, ‘Gunni’ took the Brazilian down in the second, split his head open with a savage elbow and then barely needed to apply a rear naked choke in order to coax a tap out from him.
Despite an initial reputation as a hard-hitting kickboxer, Edwards has proven himself to be much more than that in his 5 years inside the UFC. His grappling has come on in leaps and bounds to the point where he’s actually one of the better wrestlers in the division now, and he’s been able to finish both Albert Tumenov and Peter Sobotta – a legitimate black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – on the ground during his current run.
What worries me for the Birmingham-based fighter in this match is the fact that he still feels like a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none. He’s clearly very dangerous in all areas and his win over Donald Cerrone last June proved his elite-level status, but does he really have enough in his arsenal to outfox a grappler on the level of Nelson – a jiu-jitsu prodigy who’s beaten huge men like Jeff Monson and David Avellan in grappling competitions? Probably not.
Where he could have success against Nelson is on the feet. The Icelandic fighter comes out of a similar karate-based stance as the likes of Lyoto Machida and Stephen Thompson – bouncing in and out with strikes with his chin held pretty high – and while it’s allowed him to surprise opponents like Brandon Thatch and Alan Jouban with hard strikes leading to knockdowns, it’s also opened him up to being hurt; Rick Story dropped him badly in their 2014 fight while Santiago Ponzinibbio outright knocked him out.
So does Nelson have a weak chin? I’m honestly not sure. Story hits extremely hard and Nelson did come back from that knockdown to last the distance, although he was clearly compromised following the shot. And the Ponzinibbio knockout was set up by a pretty clear eye poke, and ‘The Ponz’ has tremendous power in his own right – and is clearly a more deadly striker than Edwards when it comes to power.
Nelson’s best area is definitely his ground game, and while he struggled with finding takedowns in some of his earlier UFC outings, we’ve seen his wrestling develop more and more recently, and he was able to drag Oliveira – who’s been notoriously tricky to outgrapple – to the ground in their fight with few issues. Once on top, Nelson slices through to mount with terrifying ease and has incredible finishing instincts, favoring all manner of chokes to dispose of his opponents.
I like Nelson a lot in this fight; Edwards has never shown thunderous power meaning even if ‘Gunni’ slips up on the feet, he’s not likely to be knocked out by a single shot. And while Edwards has come along tremendously in terms of his ground game, it’s probably not going to be enough to survive Nelson on the ground if the fight goes there.
Nelson’s striking has also developed to the point where he could easily sting Edwards on the feet too, and if he manages that then it wouldn’t surprise me to see Edwards look for a takedown – or become so preoccupied with Nelson’s unorthodox striking that he allows the Icelandic fighter to get inside and hit him with a double leg or a trip.
In the end, I just can’t see Edwards managing to escape Nelson on the ground, and I’m willing to bet that the fight hits the ground at some point. Edwards is an excellent fighter but to me, this is simply a bad match for him.
The Pick: Nelson via second round submission
#3. Dominick Reyes vs. Volkan Oezdemir
When this fight was announced for this card, I instantly figured it would be the main event, which tells you both how good a fight this is and also how deep this card is for a UK effort. Oezdemir is on a two-fight slide, but prior to that, he’d shot up the rankings with 3 straight victories that handed him a stunning title shot largely out of nowhere. Reyes meanwhile is probably the best prospect in the entire division right now – meaning this fight could definitely have title implications.
Oezdemir in a lot of ways is still a bit of an enigma. What we do know about him is that he carries pretty heavy striking power – he knocked out Misha Cirkunov and Jimi Manuwa in ‘No Time’, pun intended – but he’s highly vulnerable on the ground and doesn’t appear to have the deepest gas tank, as we saw him get very tired in his loss last October to Anthony Smith and also in his UFC debut against Ovince St. Preux.
So essentially, could it be the case that Oezdemir simply fades if he can’t get his opponent out of there quickly? Quite possibly. After all – and I don’t like to judge purely on records – but prior to his UFC run he didn’t seem to be a notable top prospect, and more to the point, both Cirkunov and Manuwa have both been shown to have questionable chins in their fights post-Oezdemir.
That’s why this is such a great opportunity for Reyes. If Oezdemir really is a flash-in-the-pan who received a title shot due to a thin division and big knockout wins over vulnerable opponents, then ‘The Devastator’ could find himself in an easier fight than most expected – and could also earn huge plaudits for a win bigger in name value than actual quality.
Reyes has been perfect in his UFC run thus far, going 4-0 with his biggest win coming over Ovince St. Preux. Sure, his first two opponents – Joachim Christensen and Jeremy Kimball – were ridiculously overmatched, but to take out Jared Cannonier with ease, particularly on the feet, was hugely impressive, and to outpoint a tough veteran like OSP was also an excellent sign of his elite-level potential.
At 6’4”, Reyes is a large 205lber with an excellent reach (77”), and he’ll definitely have a size advantage over ‘No Time’ on Saturday. Perhaps the most intriguing thing about him is his ground game, though. Reyes is only a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but he trains under Joe ‘Daddy’ Stevenson – an excellent grappler, particularly in MMA – and his submission skills looked pretty slick in his win over Kimball.
For me, Reyes has the weapons to win this fight in all areas. We’ve seen him go the distance without losing steam – something we’ve never seen from Oezdemir – and while he’s largely unproven on the ground, we at least have evidence of him doing well there, while Oezdemir looked lost against both Smith and against Daniel Cormier (no shame in that one, obviously).
More to the point, Oezdemir’s knockouts of Cirkunov and Manuwa both came from extremely close-range strikes – something he’ll find hard to do against someone with the length and reach of Reyes. Assuming Reyes doesn’t engage Oezdemir in a close-range brawl, and there’s no reason to suspect he would, then I think he can keep him at distance and abuse him with strikes from there while ‘No Time’ struggles to close the distance.
Whether Reyes can pick up a finish or not is a question mark to me but I’m confident in predicting that he’ll win this fight and make it look dramatically easy, too.
The Pick: Reyes via second-round TKO
#4. Nathaniel Wood vs. Jose Quinonez
It seems a little weird to carry the nickname ‘The Prospect’ – after all, what happens when you’re ten years into your fighting career? – but I guess nobody gave Nathaniel Wood that memo. At any rate, the British Bantamweight has pretty much lived up to the nickname thus far in his UFC career, going 2-0 with submissions of Johnny Eduardo and Andre Ewell – pretty solid victories for a guy who’s still only 25 years old (despite already fighting professionally for 7 years).
Perhaps the best thing about Wood? You might be confused if you look at his UFC record, figuring he’s a grappling-based fighter due to his two submission wins. But that isn’t the case looking back at his pre-Octagon fights – 9 of his 13 pre-UFC wins came by strikes, and watching him in Cage Warriors shows a fighter fully willing to trade off with his opponent with little regard to his own well-being.
That doesn’t mean Wood is simply a wild brawler – his leg kicks are excellent, he holds a high guard and appears to chamber his combinations together pretty cleanly. And his chin appears to be absolutely granite judging on the video of his Cage Warriors fight with Josh Reed – described on Youtube as “the most incredible round in Cage Warriors history”.
Overall that penchant for striking could mean a fun match with Quinonez – a finalist in the original season of TUF: Latin America back in 2014. ‘Teco’ has only fought 4 times since his Finale loss to Alejandro Perez, and while he’s 4-0, his opponents – Leonardo Morales, Joey Gomez, Diego Rivas, and Teruto Ishihara – were hardly world-beaters.
Quinonez has largely used his grappling to earn those 4 wins, choking out Morales and then largely outwrestling his other three opponents to pick up decisions. He’s not actually a great grappler per se though; he has solid takedowns from the clinch and can clearly control an opponent, but none of his victims were as skilled on the ground as Wood appears to be judging on his first two UFC outings.
More worryingly for ‘Teco’, he was hurt by strikes in all 5 of his UFC fights, knocked down by Ishihara, Rivas and Gomez in his fights with them although he was able to recover. Clearly a tough guy, Quinonez wears punishment relatively well, but I’d worry for him against a striker as good as Wood, especially as he’s clearly willing to trade off as much as he’s willing to shoot for takedowns.
Overall this feels like a showcase fight for Wood in my book; Quinonez doesn’t seem as good as ‘The Prospect’ in any area really and barring Wood simply having no answer for Quinonez’s top control, which doesn’t seem likely, I see no reason for the Brit to slip up. Likely he prevents an early takedown, draws Quinonez into a trade and finishes him off shortly after.
The Pick: Wood via first round KO
#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
#6. Jack Marshman vs. John Phillips
I haven’t checked this officially, but I’m pretty confident in stating that this is the first clash between two Welshmen in UFC history – in fact, outside of Brett Johns I can’t even name another Welsh UFC fighter! The fact that a country’s pride is at stake in some way makes this one intriguing even if it’s realistically a throwaway fight between a pair of hard-nosed brawlers.
The good news for Phillips here is that Marshman isn’t likely to attempt to capitalize on his porous ground game. ‘The Welsh Wrecking Machine’ has been fighting professionally since 2005, and currently holds a 21-8 record – with 5 of those losses coming via submission and 2 of the others coming on the ground too.
Marshman does have 5 submission wins on his ledger, but he’s hardly a prolific grappler – ‘The Hammer’ instead prefers to strike, where he’s largely a kill-or-be-killed type of fighter, as evidenced by his knockout wins over the likes of Che Mills and Magnus Cedenblad – and his KO losses to Thiago Santos and Abu Azaitar.
To make things more interesting, neither man is a truly technical striker either. Both men tend to wing power hooks with no jabs in sight, don’t really use a lot of head movement or footwork, and prefer to fire punches from close range rather than the outside. Phillips does train with SBG Ireland, but to say he’s not exactly Conor McGregor would be an understatement.
This could honestly go either way in my opinion and it’ll likely be tremendous fun for as long as it lasts – even if it goes the distance, by the end it’ll be two tired dudes throwing power punches at one another and who could ever complain about that? I’m taking Marshman as he seems more prove against better opposition, but who knows really. It’s a coin flip.
The Pick: Marshman via second-round TKO
#7. The Prelims: ESPN+ card
The pacing of these ESPN+ cards has been excellent so far, and with 7 preliminary fights to be shown this weekend, we should be in for a quick-fire night of action – hopefully anyway.
Headlining the prelim card is a Featherweight bout between Arnold Allen and Jordan Rinaldi. I like Allen here – the Brit is 4-0 in the UFC to date and has largely relied on some excellent grappling chops to get him through. Rinaldi meanwhile is 2-2 in the Octagon but hasn’t really shown a lot to date outside of his wrestling – I think Allen’s slightly more skilled and should be able to outwork him to a decision.
At Lightweight, Marc Diakiese faces Joseph Duffy in a fight between two prospects who’ve fallen on hard times as of late. Diakiese received a ridiculous amount of hype after winning his first 3 UFC fights, but then seemed to fall off a cliff in his next 3 fights, as he was outworked by Drakkar Klose, Dan Hooker and Nasrat Haqparast in disappointing outings. Duffy meanwhile was last seen being knocked out by James Vick back at UFC 217 over a year ago. This could go either way if Diakiese regains his past form, but I simply think he’s a busted prospect now and Duffy has slick skills in all areas. I’ll take Duffy via submission.
Saparbek Safarov was initially pegged to face noted kickboxer Gokhan Saki at 205lbs here, but with Saki sidelined, newcomer Nicolae Negumereanu will now face the Russian instead. The undefeated Romanian appears to be a pretty strong grappler, and while Safarov has the UFC experience on his side, he’s also looked terrible in both of his Octagon outings. Call me crazy but I’m taking Negumereanu via submission in this one.
England’s Tom Breese returns at Middleweight to face Ian Heinisch in an intriguing bout with a bit of a backstory – Breese was supposed to face Cezar Ferreira last year only to withdraw with an injury, and Heinisch then stepped in and beat Ferreira instead. Heinisch looked excellent in that fight, using his striking and wrestling to outwork the Brazilian, but the more technical Breese might prove a more difficult opponent. How well Breese adjusts to 185lbs could prove to be an issue here, but I think he can use his jab and striking skills to outpoint Heinisch for a decision.
At Featherweight, Danny Henry takes on Dan Ige in a fun-sounding fight between two up-and-comers. Henry has already claimed two upset wins in his UFC career thus far using his tight grappling game, and while Ige is on a two-fight win streak I think Henry’s wins over Hakeem Dawodu and Daniel Teymur are more impressive, so I’ll take Henry to win a tight decision here.
Liverpool’s Molly McCann faces Priscila Cachoeira at Flyweight in what could be a loser-leaves-town bout, given both women lost their previous fights in one-sided fashion. There’s not a lot to go on to be honest as both ladies have wins over overmatched opponents for the most part, but I’m guessing McCann will take this due to the home country advantage.
Finally at Featherweight, former Commonwealth freestyle wrestling bronze medallist Mike Grundy debuts to take on Nad Narimani. It seems baffling to write about a British wrestler but there you go; Grundy is currently 11-1 in MMA with a win over UFC veteran Fernando Bruno in his last fight, and naturally, he’s primarily a grappler. Narimani meanwhile is already 2-0 in the UFC and uses a bullying style based on his massive size at 145lbs. I’m going with Narimani here based on his brute strength and experience, but to see Grundy outwrestle him to a decision wouldn’t be a total shocker.
