Heavyweight
Marcelo Golm (6-0) vs. Timothy Johnson (11-4)ODDS: Golm (-160), Johnson (+140).
ANALYSIS: While this could easily be the low point of the night depending on how its action unfolds, you could easily do a lot worse than this for a heavyweight bout in 2018. Golm is an intriguing prospect, and despite alternating wins and losses in his six UFC fights, Johnson still has some untapped potential. Like I said, it could be worse.
In his losses under UFC employ, Johnson has lost to a superior wrestler in Jared Rosholt, should have taken a decision over Alexander Volkov and lost to a superior striker in Junior Albini. He has quality wins over Shamil Abdurakhimov, Marcin Tybura and Daniel Omielanczuk in fights where his rushes of heavy punches and trapping foes on the fence have worked. Is Golm a good enough striker to tag Johnson or take him down?
Golm is still a bit of a mystery. His six-fight pro career has lasted about 10 minutes. He fought awful competition on the Brazilian regional scene and simply ran roughshod over everybody. His ability to ragdoll opponents to the floor in mere seconds and start pummeling them with ground-and-pound does not seem likely to translate to a fight with Johnson, who was a two-time Division II All-American wrestler at Minnesota State University Moorhead.
However, Golm is aided by the fact that he has shown he has some standup. He has a jab, can vary the left hand to a lead hook and wields real pop on his aggressive right cross. It is possible that the Corinthians MMA product has more to show than what we have seen, simply for lack of competition. Another critical factor is that Golm’s top game looks legitimately impressive; bad competition or not, he has absolutely assaulted his opponents when on top of them.
If Johnson can stick him to the fence, he can keep his win-one-lose-one streak going. However, look for Golm to find some way to hurt the North Dakotan or put him in position to get hammered. These are heavyweights, after all. Golm wins by stoppage, perhaps sooner rather than later.
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