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#3 Humberto Bandenay vs. Luiz Garagorri
The UFC was always likely to find a home-based fighter to get the crowd into this show, but while they were able to deploy the experienced Guido Cannetti and Diego Rivas in Argentina and Chile respectively, they’ve had to bring in newcomer Luiz Garagorri to fill the role on this occasion.
Garagorri is currently 11-0 and from the footage I’ve been able to track down, he seems pretty good in all areas.
He’s clearly a very aggressive striker, throwing all sorts of strikes usually from a Muay Thai-esque base, but he also seems adept on the ground too and has a nice mix of knockouts and submissions on his ledger.
The problem? He’s been snacking on fighters on the regional circuit who largely have losing records. That just doesn’t prepare a fighter for what they’ll face in the UFC, particularly when they’re not matched with a fellow newcomer.
Garagorri’s opponent, Peruvian fighter Humberto Bandenay, won’t be confused for a title contender at 145lbs any time soon, but what he does have is 3 UFC MMA fights to his name.
Sure, he’s lost two of those three, and both his lone win and one of his losses went less than a minute combined, but in his last fight, he went the distance with Austin Arnett. Again, that doesn’t make him a title contender – particularly as he lost – but it helped him gain far more experience at the UFC level than Garagorri is bringing in.
I’d say you can’t class this as a squash match in favour of Bandenay; he’s lost 6 times in his career and has been finished in all but one of those losses, which means he’s not the most durable fighter.
That means that a man as purely aggressive as Garagorri might have a chance at catching him in a rush. In the end, though I just can’t pick a guy who’s been fighting since 2015 and only has squash fights over weak opposition to his name in good conscience, even if he is fighting at home.
The Pick: Bandenay via first-round TKO
