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After a huge pay-per-view last weekend, the UFC returns to the Las Vegas APEX this weekend for a far lesser Fight Night event.
UFC Fight Night: Tai Tuivasa vs. Marcin Tybura is, unfortunately, lacking in name value up and down the card, but it may hopefully produce some decent action.
Here are the predicted outcomes for UFC Fight Night: Tai Tuivasa vs. Marcin Tybura.
#1. UFC heavyweight bout: Tai Tuivasa vs. Marcin Tybura
Initially, this heavyweight bout was scheduled to take place at UFC 298, only to be moved to this event in order to headline.
So, will wild Aussie brawler Tai Tuivasa get back on track by winning? Or can Poland’s Marcin Tybura play the spoiler of sorts and grind his way to victory?
One thing is for certain and that’s if Tybura wants to win, he probably needs to ground ‘Bam Bam’ as fast as he can.
Despite being one of the longest-tenured heavyweights in the promotion right now, having debuted back in 2017, Tuivasa’s ground game still lags behind the rest of his arsenal, as we saw last year when he fell to submission against Alexander Volkov.
Tybura, on the other hand, is a genuinely excellent grappler, even though he’s often been billed as a striker during his career. Sure, he’s not the flashiest fighter in the division, but if he can gain a dominant position, he’s more than happy to smash his foes with punches and elbows.
Those skills led him to wins over the likes of Greg Hardy, Walt Harris and Andrei Arlovski, and have kept him in or around the top 10 for a while.
So why hasn’t he climbed into proper contention? Probably because he lacks durability, having been KO’d five times in his career. More worryingly, those losses haven’t always come against concussive hitters, which is a huge red flag at heavyweight.
Tuivasa, of course, is one of the heaviest hitters in this division. While he won’t win any prizes for his technical striking, he has no fear, throws hard shots with brutal power, and has an impressive chin, too. Sure, he was stopped by Ciryl Gane and Sergei Pavlovich, but there’s no shame in that given the power of both men.
Overall, if you combined these two fighters you’d probably have a heavyweight champion. As it is, they’re too limited to really make it to the top, and this should come down to which man capitalises on his opponent’s weakness first.
If Tuivasa can land early, then he should be able to pick up a win via KO. Tybura, on the other hand, simply needs to shoot for a takedown as early as possible.
Given that the Polish fighter does tend to exchange to start with, though, it seems more likely that ‘Bam Bam’ will be given an opportunity. Therefore, the Aussie is the pick.
The Pick: Tuivasa via first-round KO
#2. UFC welterweight bout: Bryan Battle vs. Ange Loosa
Okay, so it’s fair to say that quite how this bout made the co-headline spot is anyone’s guess. Neither of these welterweights are high-level prospects, and both men have suffered recent losses, too, making their positioning odd.
Of the two, Bryan Battle is probably the more recognizable name. The winner of TUF 29 has won five of his six bouts in the octagon, and has stopped all but one of those foes, too.
His lone loss came at the hands of the dangerous Rinat Fakhretdinov, who basically outgrappled him - although to be fair, Battle gave it his best shot.
Overall, ‘The Butcher’ has solid offensive skills in all areas and seemingly few weaknesses. Had he not fought someone as underrated as Fakhretdinov, in fact, he could well be unbeaten and looking to break into the top fifteen.
Ange Loosa is a little harder to get a handle on. He was first seen in a losing effort to Jack Della Maddalena on Dana White’s Contender Series, and then lost to Mounir Lazzez in his octagon debut. Since then, he’s won two bouts, both via decision.
Based on the little we’ve seen of ‘The Last Ninja’, Loosa is primarily a striker, albeit not one with a massive amount of power in his strikes.
This one is a tricky one to call because we just don’t know all that much about Loosa to really know how good he is. However, Battle has shown flashes of brilliance in his brief octagon career, and his finishing skills are genuinely excellent.
Therefore, the pick in this one is ‘The Butcher’, probably by a finish midway through the fight.
The Pick: Battle via second-round KO
#3. UFC Fight Night: The Main Card
In a light heavyweight bout, Ovince St. Preux takes on Kennedy Nzechukwu. The fact that ‘OSP’ is still ticking around is a surprise in itself.
He’s been in the UFC now since 2013, but has arguably looked past his best since 2020, and has now won just once in his last four bouts, beating the even further over-the-hill Shogun Rua.
Nzechukwu still hasn’t quite lived up to the early promise he showed, but ‘The African Savage’ is definitely improving. He’s explosive, hits hard, and has a killer instinct, even if he leaves himself open and there are question marks around his ground game.
Overall, this is probably the kind of opponent Nzechukwu needs right now to bounce back from his poor loss last summer to Dustin Jacoby.
In his prime, ‘OSP’ likely would’ve taken this, but he’s probably too far gone to survive at this point. The pick is Nzechukwu via KO.
In a lightweight tilt, Thiago Moises faces Mitch Ramirez. Ramirez has taken this fight on around two weeks’ notice, replacing the injured Brad Riddell. So can he pull off an upset?
It’s fair to say that the veteran of Dana White’s Contender Series hasn’t had the experience of Moises, who has headlined events and fought the likes of Beneil Dariush and Islam Makhachev in the past.
The Brazilian seems to have been around forever, but he’s actually still only 28 years old, and nothing he’s done recently – even a loss to the explosive Benoit Saint Denis – suggests he’ll fall to a newcomer on late notice. The pick, therefore, is Moises via submission.
At bantamweight, Pannie Kianzad takes on Macy Chiasson. Interestingly, this is a rematch of their TUF 28 finale bout from 2018, and that one saw Chiasson win via submission.
Can she repeat the feat? It honestly seems likely. She’s fallen to the likes of Raquel Pennington and Irene Aldana in recent years, but both women are far more explosive and offer more offensively than Kianzad, who is more of a grinder, albeit a successful one.
The fact that Chiasson hasn’t fought in well over a year could hamper her here, but if she comes in at her best, she ought to win given she’s built more experience since their first bout and was far better anyway. The pick is Chiasson via submission, again.
Finally, at middleweight, Gerald Meerschaert squares off with Bryan Barberena. Both of these fighters are similar, as they are renowned brawlers who have lost their last few bouts and are probably out of any kind of contention at this stage.
The big difference is that where Barberena is wildly durable, only ever being stopped late in fights, Meerschaert has suffered 12 losses via finish across his career. He is, though, the better finisher of the two, able to take out foes in any way.
This one is tough to pick as it’s hard to know how much either man has left, but due to his sheer durability, the pick is Barberena via decision.
#4. UFC Fight Night: The Prelims
Picks in bold
UFC featherweight bout: Christian Rodriguez vs. Isaac Dulgarian
UFC lightweight bout: Natan Levy vs. Mike Davis
UFC bantamweight bout: Josiane Nunes vs. Chelsea Chandler
UFC flyweight bout: Jafel Filho vs. Ode Osbourne
UFC featherweight bout: Joshua Culibao vs. Danny Silva
UFC strawweight bout: Cory McKenna vs. Jaqueline Amorim
UFC bantamweight bout: Charalampos Grigoriou vs. Chad Anheliger
