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#3 Featherweight: Dan Ige vs. Edson Barboza

How Edson Barboza will make 145lbs is anyone's guess!

To me, this is an outright baffling fight, largely because I can’t really understand what Barboza is thinking with this drop to 145lbs. He was absolutely shredded at 155lbs with barely any bodyfat, and at 5’11” it’s not like he was a stocky fighter ala Alexander Volkanovski or Chad Mendes, for instance. Quite how he’ll make it down to 145lbs is anyone’s guess.

The truth is that this feels like a desperate attempt from ‘Junior’ to regain some traction in his career. He’s gone 1-4 in his last 5 fights and while he looked excellent in that win – over Dan Hooker – and could well have beaten Paul Felder with different judges, the truth is that he doesn’t weather punishment well these days and is massively susceptible to fighters with a powerful ground game.

However, outside of Khabib Nurmagomedov and Kevin Lee, powerful ground fighters aren’t all that common in the UFC’s Lightweight division. Of the current top ten at 155lbs, I’d give Barboza a fair chance against at least half of them – which is why this move is so strange.

Thankfully for the Brazilian, he’s not faced with one of the true killers at Featherweight – someone like Zabit Magomedsharipov or Yair Rodriguez – and instead, he’s up against a guy just breaking into the top half of the division in Ige.

‘Dynamite’ is on a 5-fight win streak and has looked impressive throughout, and in his last fight, he defeated the highly touted Mirsad Bektic – although it was a very close decision that could’ve gone either way. Overall, Ige is a well-rounded fighter capable of hurting an opponent on the feet, but also outworking them on the ground.

Does he possess the kind of thudding ground-and-pound of Nurmagomedov or Lee, though? Not really. Add in the fact that Barboza’s takedown defense – against lesser grapplers – is pretty excellent and on paper at least this looks like a good fight for the Brazilian.

For me it all depends on how well ‘Junior’ responds to what sounds like a horrendous weight cut. If he manages to make weight with no problem and doesn’t drain himself completely, this could well be a Jose Aldo situation where we see Barboza take well to his new division and shred Ige with relative ease.

If he struggles though, the likelihood is that unless he can take ‘Dynamite’ out early, he might find himself dragged into a war of attrition that he simply doesn’t have the gas tank to win. If that turns out to be the case I could easily see Ige grinding him down in the later rounds and taking a decision.

I’m going with a bit of a risk and picking Barboza here; if you ignore the weight issue then it should be his easiest fight for some time. I’d be more comfortable choosing a winner after checking out the weigh-ins, but obviously that’s not possible, so I’m going with the more proven fighter.

The Pick: Barboza via second round TKO