Preview: UFC Fight Night 179 Main Card

Heavyweights

Ben Rothwell (38-12) vs. Marcin Tybura (19-6)

ODDS: Rothwell (-165), Tybura (+145)

This figures to be a bit of a mess, but that is true of most Rothwell fights nowadays. Rothwell has been around for years as a tough veteran, but a four-fight winning streak from 2013 to 2016—it included a knockout win over Alistair Overeem and a submission of Josh Barnett—made him a dark horse title contender. Like many before and after him, Rothwell found himself stifled over five rounds by Junior dos Santos and promptly vanished for the next three years thanks to injuries and a failed drug test. Following Rothwell’s comeback, early returns certainly were not good. A large part of what made Rothwell’s game work was that he was deceptively fast relative to his massive size, and his losses to Blagoy Ivanov and Andrei Arlovski showed that he had lost just enough in those three years to render him ineffective—or so it seemed. Despite not much changing, Rothwell is suddenly riding a two-fight winning streak. Admittedly, he needed the help of repeated accidental low blows to beat Stefan Struve, and his victory over Ovince St. Preux was a split decision against a light heavyweight. However, wins are wins, and just being big apparently has its advantages. Rothwell will somehow look to make it three straight victories against Tybura.

Tybura’s UFC debut in 2016 against Timothy Johnson was a tough lesson about life inside the Octagon. While he had a successful campaign as M-1 Global’s heavyweight champion, his wrestling game was stifled against Johnson, who was simply too large for Tybura to move in any sort of consistent manner. Tybura seemingly adjusted in his next fight—a knockout win over Viktor Pesta—and while the Pole has developed his striking in the years since, everything tends to come back to the same axiom. Tybura will win if he can reliably outwrestle and control his opponents, and he will lose whenever he fails to do so. That win over Pesta started a run that actually saw Tybura earn a main event slot opposite Fabricio Werdum, but he went on a skid shortly thereafter. To his credit, 2020 has seen Tybura rebound with two grinding wins, and much like Rothwell, a victory here would give “Tybur” a surprising three-fight winning streak that could set him up for bigger things.

Shockingly, Rothwell seems set up to win this fight. Rothwell’s size alone should insulate him from a grappling perspective, and the interesting question involves whether or not Tybura will even attempt to wrestle him in the first place. Tybura usually at least tries, but given that Rothwell is a surprisingly savvy submission artist, that may just mean that the former International Fight League cornerstone snags onto a choke and puts this to a mercifully quick end. Beyond that, this figures to be a slow-paced kickboxing match, and while Rothwell is no longer particularly effective in that phase given his lack of speed and defense, Tybura is probably not quick enough to take advantage of that or stay out of trouble. Rothwell figures to hit harder and might even be able to track down Tybura and make this a grind of his own. This will not be a pretty affair, but the pick is Rothwell via decision.

Continue Reading » Du Plessis vs. Perez