Every once in a while, a veteran fighter makes an unexpected jump
after any potential improvements have been written off. Erosa is
one of those cases. The die was seemingly cast on “Juicy J” for
years as a fighter just good enough for the fringes of the UFC,
enough so that he signed with the promotion three separate times,
only getting this most recent call as a late-notice opponent when
the UFC was scrambling for options during the pandemic. Erosa has
always been a reliably aggressive fighter and spent most of his
career with just enough defensive slickness to get him into
trouble. Erosa could get through his wins with little damage on the
regional scene, but the better athletes in the UFC almost always
found a defensive opening against him to score a finish with little
issue. By the third UFC go-round, Erosa had gained enough
experience that it was just plain harder to knock him out—a tone he
immediately set by winning his return fight via third-round
comeback against Sean
Woodson. A 2021 knockout loss to Seung Woo
Choi suggested the old playbook still mostly held true, but
Erosa has rebounded and been an obviously smarter fighter in his
last few bouts, putting together a practiced performance to score
the biggest win of his career against Hakeem
Dawodu in September. It has been a similar story of improvement
through experience for Caceres, though “Bruce Leeroy” has done most
of his learning on the UFC stage. Caceres had a particularly rough
start to his UFC career coming off “The Ultimate Fighter” in 2010,
but the UFC stuck through him until he rose to potential contender
status with an upset win over Sergio
Pettis in 2014. However, Caceres never quite got over the hump
against elite-level competition and instead settled in as a
reliably entertaining but frustrating veteran. Caceres can do a bit
of everything, but he has historically just flowed along with
whatever fight his opponent is trying to pursue, minimizing his
strengths and putting him in a tough spot against potent
specialists. Caceres has forced the issue a bit more in recent
years and cleaned up on prospect duty during the pandemic era with
five straight wins, even though his March loss was a clear reminder
that even at his best, he can still run up against a physical
ceiling. Caceres should have a speed advantage that he could
leverage to make this a frustrating fight for Erosa, but “Juicy J”
does seem to have finally struck a balance in terms of effective
aggression that should help him pick his spots and win this fight,
even though there should be a lot of back-and-forth exchanges. The
pick is Erosa via decision.
UFC News & Features
