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#2 Aleksei Oleinik vs. Walt Harris

Can Aleksei Oleinik pull off another wild submission?

This Heavyweight fight was scheduled for earlier in the year at one point before Aleksei Oleinik stepped in to face Alistair Overeem at Fight Night 149, a fight which saw his surprising run to the top of the division ended when ‘The Reem’ TKO’d him in the first round. So can Walt Harris – a man who’s lived on his potential for a while now – repeat the trick?

Personally, I’m not so sure he can. Sure, the difference in sheer athleticism here is huge – Harris is a massive guy even at Heavyweight, standing at 6’5” and weighing practically 260lbs.

And he throws pretty explosive strikes, as we saw when he easily took out Serghei Spivak in less than a minute in May. But he’s also 36 years old, and for all his explosiveness he also has a tendency to lull himself into plodding fights, as we saw when he fought Andrei Arlovski last December.

And sure, his loss to Fabricio Werdum might’ve happened the best part of two years ago, and Werdum is one of the best ground specialists in the division, but still – Harris simply looked miles out of his depth on the ground in that fight to the point where it was practically embarrassing for him.

Oleinik meanwhile is a slow, plodding figure in the cage, but he certainly hits hard and has sneakily good striking defence, too; he was actually landing the better shots on Overeem until the Dutchman managed to get his trademark Thai clinch and deliver some of his patented knees. And realistically, Harris isn’t anywhere near the striker that Overeem is.

‘The Boa Constrictor’ might be 42 years old right now and is clearly slowing down, but realistically he’s already slowed down and was never that quick, to begin with. He’s still tough as nails and is still one of the most deadly ground specialists in the division; he’s not as skilled in a pure sense as Werdum, but I’d actually suggest he’s better at catching his opponents off-guard in nasty positions – you don’t win fights with stuff like Ezekiel chokes and scarf holds if you’re not.

In the end, I think Harris might hurt Oleinik early on with something explosive, but I just don’t see him being good enough to put the Ukrainian away, and at some stage, Oleinik will get this fight to the ground. And when they do hit the ground, Harris will be done, another victim of one of the most surprising fighters in the UFC today.

The Pick: Oleinik via first round submission