UFC 313 Preview

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Greetings. I'm Luka Fury, and welcome to my main event
preview for UFC three thirteen. Headlining that card is the
middleweight vercuse the light heavyweight titled bout between former middleweight
champion Alex Poetan Pajera and Magamed ank Eliev. Anka Lav
has been waiting in the wings for a bit now.

(00:21):
This has been the obvious matchup to make. However, they
have given Alex some other matchups. Now, they were more
favorable matchups, for sure, they were easier matchups, for sure.
That said, I don't think that they were made specifically
because they were just supposed to be easier matchups. I've
seen some conspiracies theories going on Twitter for the last

(00:44):
two or three Lex fights now, where they basically been
saying that he's essentially been protected and they're giving him
the easier matchups because they want to keep him marketable
and a champion and all that. Yes, I'm sure they
do want that, but there have been reasons for why
some of these matchups have taken place. Also on Caliav, well,
yes he is deserving of a title shot, Yes he

(01:05):
is one of the tougher style matchups for Alex he's
not a big name, he's not any kind of star power,
and on top of that, his fights are not the
most exciting. So if you're the UFC and you have
a very marketable, very exciting champion, and you have say,
a group of a handful of challengers, and most of

(01:26):
them are exciting and one is not really well, obviously
it makes sense that you're going to try to have
the more exciting ones get their shot before the other one.
It's not that they're specifically trying to protect Alex, but
it's the case where even if he loses, which is
a very real possibility in a lot of these matchups, well,
guess what if he loses to Yeri Prahasca, They'd love

(01:46):
to have Yerie as a champion. He's exciting. Even if
he loses to Khalil Rowntree, that would not be exactly
a deal considering his name value in that but at
least Khalil is a very exciting champion. The last thing
that UFC ever wants at any given time in any
division is a boring champion. And so what they will
do is if they a fighter is not very exciting,

(02:08):
and I wouldn't say that Aklive is boring, but he's
not super exciting. And what they always have done historically,
whether it's the new owners or the old in these
situations is, yeah, they do avoid giving those guys title
shots until they really kind of can't avoid it anymore.
So it's not about protecting Alex like people have been
saying for like three fights now. It's just that Ankliav

(02:31):
he hasn't had any kind of you know, gangbuster ball
out super exciting performance or over any like good competition.
At least you know, he's got out there and gotten
some great wins. Don't get me wrong, he's even gotten
some finishes, but generally speaking, he's not a guy where
after he fights, you're like, oh, man, can't wait to
see this dude fight again. He lit the world on fire.

(02:52):
So finally this matchup is taking place. I actually kind of,
you know, a lot of times I'll critique THEDFC for
their matchmaking. I actually agree with why they held it
off for the reasons I just mentioned, but I'm glad
it is now finally happening. It's a very good matchup,
not one that's easy to call either, so excited to
dive into it. Done a good amount of tape study

(03:13):
and analysis on this one of course, real quick. Before that,
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(03:35):
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(03:57):
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(04:18):
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(04:39):
As for this matchup, we have again Alex Pahanna taking
on Magomed on GOLIAV. As for the betting onds some
weird openers here. So originally this line opened a few
fights ago, or maybe a couple of fights ago, where
Magomed was like minus two thirty or something. I called
on Twitter that was ridiculous. That's line. It should be

(05:00):
around to pick them. And then they open it again
like maybe a one fight ago, and again on Calia
was like two to one, and again I said that stupid.
It should be like a pick them. And then this
time around they opened Alex around two to one, and
again stupid should be around to pick them. And then
now where is the line settled? Oh? What do you know?
A pick em? Alex minus one fifteen come back on

(05:22):
Anklive plus one hundred. I don't know what the hell
they were thinking with this opener. This was one of
the more obvious situations where the champion, the hyped guy, Alex,
should probably be a slight favorite and a pick em
line exactly where it is now, Like I talk about
this all the time when people are like, man, the
most common questions again, Man, Luca, do you think that

(05:43):
the lines have gotten sharper over the years? And I've
said adamantly over and over again on these podcasts, no,
they have not. In some situations, yes, but generally speaking,
there's still just dumbass lines regularly with these books, especially
with Live betting. Don't get me started on that, always
harping on how bad those lines are. But like, this

(06:04):
is just an obvious pick them line here, and obviously
it's settled at that now. Just I do not understand
what they were thinking beforehand in terms of how I
think the matchup's going to go and who I favor.
It's interesting, so I think that the line actually should
be roughly a pick them. I think it's a tough
matchup to call. I do slightly favor Alex for some

(06:25):
reasons that I'll mention, however, this is one of those
fights that I will mention sometimes where yes, on paper,
it should be roughly like a pick them fifty to
fifty type matchup, but that doesn't mean that the way
it will play out will look fifty to fifty. There's
certain fights where it's fifty to fifty because it's going
to be a super close, split decision type of matchup,

(06:46):
and that's why it's fifty to fifty. And then there's
other matchups where it's fifty to fifty because one guy, say,
has a massive advantage on the feet, the other has
a massive advantage on the ground, and it's very unclear
based on the evidence of Availa, who's going to be able
to dictate where the fight takes place. So you're fifty
to fifty on where it's going to take place, which
means the fight in essence is also fifty to fifty. However,

(07:09):
the way it plays out will not be fifty to fifty.
If it stays on the feet, that striker is going
to dominate a knock out his opponent. If it goes
on the ground, we'll get that dominated himself and submitted,
and it'll look like one way traffic either way, so
the outcome will be dominant no matter no matter who wins.
But on paper it's actually a fifty to fifty matchup.
This is kind of like that. It has a bit actually,

(07:30):
to be honest, it has shades of both, but it's
a bit more of the ladder where if Alex is
able to keep this on the feet, he should have
a clear advantage. There's some issues for him there that
we'll get into, but he should have the clear advantage.
If Anclive gets this to the ground in top position,
he should have the clear advantage. And so we could
be in a situation where Alex keeps it on the
feet all fight long, cruises and looks like he should

(07:53):
have been never a pick him. Calf also have the
situation he gets taken down, looks like a fool dominated
on the mat, and then he should have also never
been in pick him for a different reason. And that
is where I'm having the difficulty. Here is one I
don't know who actually has the better overall grappling in
terms of dictating the location. We know generally speaking, Uncle

(08:14):
Lave does have the better grappling on the mat, but
I don't know if his takedowns are good enough to
get past Alex's takedown defense, which is it. We'll get
into it momentarily. I don't actually think very highly of
but I also don't think highly of maga Met's takedown ability.
On top of that, I also don't know how much
he's gonna shoot the takedowns, because this dude has I
don't want to say bad fight IQ, but certainly not ideal.

(08:38):
Like there's times where one thing I've always talked about
with him is he will be in fights that are
close for no reason, where it's like he's clearly the
better striker. Every time he throws, he's landing. They can't
really land much on him, and for some reason, he'll
just barely throw more than them. It's almost like he's
counting in his mind, like, all right, they've thrown six

(08:58):
strikes so far, I got to make sure I throw seven.
All Right, the round is progressed. They've thrown thirteen, I
have to make sure I throw fourteen. He's always just
barely doing enough to win, whether it's on the feet,
whether it's on the ground, whether it's the overall fight.
There's times where it's a close fight where you're going
you know, he's probably ahead, but what are the judges
going to be thinking here? He could easily turn it

(09:19):
up more by just throwing more volume or shooting a takedown,
and a guy who can't defend his takedowns or just
opening up on the mat instead of just blatantly lay
in praying go for some ground and pound, really sealed around.
There's just constant, repeated issues, fight after fight after fight.
I mention it every breakdown with him where you can
visibly feel that he could be making the fights clear,

(09:41):
even maybe possibly dominant, and he's for whatever reason content
to just barely scoot by. And so maybe we're in
a situation here where you go, man, he really got
an easy takedown in round one, why hasn't he shot anymore?
And it's round four and he's now down, possibly about
to be three rounds to one, and then he ends
up losing three rounds to two because he finally shoots

(10:02):
in round five. I mean, that's a very real scenario here,
or a situation where maybe he just can't get the takedown.
It's a striking matchup, but he can actually have some
success on the feet here, but he's just not throwing
enough and so instead maybe we're sitting there going, you know,
I think this is actually probably three two on Calive.
But there's the champion bias that I always talk about,

(10:24):
there's the UFC favorite bias that I also always talk about.
Those are both absolutely one thousand percent at play for
Alex here. If Onklive just barely edges out the fight,
he's probably not getting the scorecards in his favor. So
there's multiple situations here where I could see us at
home sitting there going, you know what, on Caliave either
is winning this fight or should be winning it, and

(10:46):
he is, by his own choice, essentially going to let
it slip away. And so that's the biggest concern for
me and why I'm actually picking against him. Whereas if
I actually knew one hundred percent we were going to
get maximum effort, maximum pace and volume, maximum exploitative game
planning to take advantage of the holes in Alex's game

(11:07):
and avoid giving him any chance himself, I would be
on unclive here. I don't trust him to do that
because well, let me see why is that he's literally
never done that, Like he just literally never fights up
to his maximum potential. It's crazy, and so in this matchup,
getting more into these stylistic differences and strengths of each fighter.

(11:29):
Alex is certainly the more powerful of the two, but
he also has the much worse defense. He doesn't have
good defense. He is a classic example of a good
defense is a strong offense. He doesn't defend well with
his hands or his arms. He doesn't really move his
head almost at all. This is why Israel was able
to repeatedly tag him with the straight right even in

(11:50):
their most recent bout when he knocked him out. It
was the same thing that he almost knocked him out
with in the first fight, but he was saved by
the bell with and Alex made no adjustment. So his
striking is what it is. When you look at the
matrix mode that he went into in the late rounds
against Khalil Roundtree last time out, that was because Khalil
was gassed. Before that, Khalil had a lot of success
against him, and that was something I actually predicted what

(12:12):
happened on the podcast that I did for that fight.
Go back and listen. I said, while it's early, Khalil's
gonna actually have success because of Alex's poor defense, but
once he gases that's what it's going to be, really
his downfall, and that's exactly what happened. Well, once again,
those same defensive liabilities are going to be present for
an Caliav. The difference here is on Caliov does not
have the power that is a finishing threat that Khalil did,

(12:35):
So on Caliab, well, yes, he might be able to
capitalize on the poor defense of Alex, it's unlikely to
be by rocking him or knocking him out. It's more
likely if it's going to happen, be because he actually
just outlanded him. But again that will require actually throwing
and so it goes back to this. You have Alex
who has a clear exploit where he doesn't have great

(12:57):
defense on Caliv. If he avoids obviously running into power,
being careful and selective about his shots, but while still
throwing more volume, he should be able to actually out
not potentially clearly outvolume him or easily out volume him,
but have a real chance to out volume him. Whereas
if he doesn't do that, he's basically dead on the

(13:18):
water because if he doesn't out volume him, he's very
unlikely to knock him out, while he's also at a
risk of getting not only out volume himself, but knocked
out more importantly himself. But here's the bigger issue. We
have Uncle Live, who, even against guys who are not
big CHO threats, very limited cho threats, he still has
issues with volume, He still has issues with pace, he

(13:38):
still has issues with the whole thing that I mentioned
barely edging by. And so now he's going to against
someone who's arguably the biggest power threat in the UFC.
You think he's just going to be flooding volume. Probably unlikely,
so overall on the feet if he actually fought to
the best of his ability, I actually think there's a

(13:59):
path for on CALIAV. I just don't think that's going
to happen, and so I think most likely you got
a favor, of course Alex on the feet, whether it's
volume or power. Now, when we're talking about kicks, specifically
leg kicks, both of them have actually had some issues
defending leg kicks in the past. Both of them also
do not throw them offensively enough as they should, so

(14:21):
I kind of throw that as a wild card. I'm
not really sure if either of them are gonna throw,
especially Alex, considering the fear of the takedown potentially, But overall,
my point is that Ankliav has multiple ways on the
feet that he can either be competitive or possibly even
actually get an advantage. Now, obviously the best path would

(14:41):
be to avoid the striking and go for the grappling. Well,
here's the thing. He's not a very good offensive takedown artist.
Look at his fights versus anyone, even versus non good
takedown defenders. He just doesn't have good takedown ability. Yes,
he's eventually able to get them, yes, well sometimes anyway.
Yes he's good from top position. But this is not

(15:02):
like we're talking about some guy with like a great
power double leg or something who's just gonna duck under
the left hook of Alex and sweep his legs out
from under him. It's a lot of stumbling into the clinch,
walking forward with his head on a center line, basically
bending over at the waist reaching for the legs. It's
really not great stuff. However, while normally I'd be like, yeah,

(15:23):
you're not taking down the dominant UFC champion with that
kind of takedown style, Well, there was a fight that
Alex had not that long ago in this same division.
This is a fight that I have referenced. I believe
every single Alex Pajeda about because it is the last
time we've actually really seen him tested in the grappling department.

(15:44):
He hasn't really faced grapplers. He's faced strikers here Prohaska,
Israelata Sonia Khalil Rountree and Yan Belhope. It's making a mistake.
Is also a striker, however, he's a bit more well
rounded than your average striker. He does have some grappling.
He is of a similar caliber grappler to Anca Laiev,

(16:05):
except worse in some ways. But they are similar in
the sense that neither has like a strong power double leg.
It's a lot of just kind of walking into the
clinch and leaning over. It's kind of somewhat similar top
position styles too, where they're not like super great slick
guard passers who are going to instantly get dominant position
and finish you. It's kind of a lot of control.

(16:25):
Even if they get the dominant position, they're not great
at finishing. They're similar. But if anything, you'd say overall
on caliv obviously is the better grappler, right well, if
that is indeed the case, that does not bode well
for Alex Pahana because look at that Jan Belhovet's fight. Yes,
he won a very close to one decision. However, that

(16:46):
fight was at altitude, extreme altitude. It was on one
of those cards where all of the fighters gassed completely
in just one round, even the cardio freaks and Jan Belhovetz,
who normally has great five round cardio, gassed after one
round there, one round of dominating Alex on the mat
and getting back control consistently. So it's probably safe to

(17:08):
say that had that fight taken place not at altitude
and the normally great cardio of Jan Belhovitz was actually present,
we probably see Alex to lose that fight in possibly
dominant fashion three rounds to zero, maybe probably even getting finished. Now,
since then has he improved? Yes? Since then did he

(17:30):
earn his black belt for beating a striker with no grappling? Yes?
But how much has his grappling improved? Here's the thing.
When he first came to the UFC and he was
just a pure kickboxer, the concerns about him having no
grappling were obviously a legitimate concern. But at this point,
even if he came to the UFC with literally zero grappling, well,

(17:51):
he's obviously been training diligently on that for several years now,
he's been in the organization, so his grappling has to
at least bed at this point. Isn't on the level
of someone like Anka Alive who's been grappling much longer. Well,
obviously not. However, I don't think that we should have
the same old I feel like this has kind of

(18:12):
been a stigma that was applied to him at one point,
like I mentioned, for a good reason, but has stuck
with him to a bit of a degree that isn't
quite deserved because again people discount the fact that obviously
he is now a black belt, whether that was deserved
for beating a striker. You know, usually the way that works,
as they were already going to get their black belt,
then the coach just waits for the big moment to

(18:32):
give it to them. So it's not like, oh, you
beat the striker, so that proved that you're a black belt.
But it is still kind of, you know, weird when
they give it to him in that situation. But I'm
assuming he's at least good on the ground at this point.
Maybe his black belt is a bit of a you know,
not so great like Vanderlei Silva back in the day,
quote unquote had a black belt. But the real deal there,

(18:52):
but everyone kind of knew, or the suspicion anyways, is
that it was fake and it was just used as
a deterrent to people to make people think that he
wasn't week on the ground. But whatever, Maybe that's a
similar situation going here. I don't know. Point is, when
we've seen the dude grapple, it hasn't looked good. I'm
sure it's not as bad as some people are worried about,
but I don't think it's good. Also, there's some footage

(19:15):
out there of him grappling with much smaller fighters and
it doesn't look good. Some of this is public, some
of it is stuff that I've just seen that is
not public. And I will say two things about this. One,
you don't know the situation with the training footage. It
could be a situation where Alex has been training for hours,
he's basically gassed, then his opponent meanwhile that situation is

(19:39):
actually completely fresh. Could be also a situation where they're
training a specific drill where he's maybe not necessarily purposely
being taken down but giving it up kind of easy,
so they can train how to do something in transition.
For example, there's drills where it's like, Okay, you get
taken down, and then you're trying to do something immediately
while you're being taken down, whether it's go for a reverse,

(20:00):
I'll go for a submission, go for just a defensive position,
and so in order to train that, you basically allow
yourself to be taken down. And the point of the
drill then is you're training the moments right after the
takedown is occurring. And so maybe some of this footage
that's being leaked or whatever of him is actually situations
like that where he's trying to train in certain get
ups or something along those lines. So again, there's so

(20:22):
many reasons for why training footage can be completely misleading,
but it also, I'm just gonna say, doesn't bode well
for him that there is training footage out there of
him not looking good in the takedown, defense and grappling department.
And the only time we've seen him defending takedowns or
defending grappling in the UFC, he's also not looked good
in those departments. So safe to say, Unclelive, I'm still

(20:44):
gonna have an advantage there. The question is, well, twofold
one does he actually shoot the takedowns and how often?
But then two, if he does, how successful is he
with them? Because we could have a situation where let's
say he shoots five total takedowns, let's say one per round,
but let's say he has a forty percent takedown accuracy,

(21:04):
which is not unusual for him. Well, that means he
gets a takedown in two rounds, and then let's say
he loses the other three, and now he loses three
rounds to two. So we could have a situation where
he is shooting several takedowns, but it's still not enough.
So this is my big sticking point with him and
why I'm ultimately slightly favoring alex Is. Again, as I

(21:24):
mentioned earlier, if you told me uncle Liave's going to
fight to the best of his ability, with pace, with
volume of shooting, the takedown, offensive grappling, all that exploitaive
game planning, I would actually favor him here. But you're
talking about a fighter who's literally never done that. You're
talking about a fighter who every single time this man fights,
people are sitting there going why is he doing this?

(21:45):
Why is he allowing this to be so close. I
hope the judges score it for him. Okay, they did,
but man doesn't vote well for him in the future.
Every fight. It's the same deal with him pretty much anyways.
And so when you're looking at a fighter, you have
to not just look at their skills, but you also
have to look at the way they fight. And if
you have a guy who this is not him, but
someone who has like the most ridiculous fight IQ issues constantly,

(22:09):
you can't then expect them to be like their next
fight go. I think he's actually gonna show up with
one of the best game plans we've ever seen, like
a game planning fight IQ. The mental game, the approach
that is all part and parcel of who a fighter
is just to the same way that their striking or
their grappling or their cardio is. And Alex, to his credit,

(22:29):
fights to the best of his ability, leverages his matchups
in a way that give him the best chance to win.
Unclive does the total opposite for the most part. And
so if you have a matchup that is close on paper,
but if they both fight to the best of their ability,
I favor one guy slightly. That's unclive, but he's most
likely not going to fight to the best of his ability,

(22:51):
while his opponent, Alex well most likely will fight to
his best of his ability. Well, in a very close
matchup like that, that makes me slightly want to go
towards Alex. But then on top of that, to make
it even sweeter, you have the favorite, the UFC favoriteism
bias for Alex, as well as a champion bias for Alex,
which also not only in terms of judging comes into play,

(23:13):
but with refereeing as well. So again, very close, tough
matchup here. Would not be surprised if Alghliaev actually goes
out there and just dominates the grappling and actually fights
the best of his ability. I'd be surprised if he
fought to the best of his ability, but I would
not be surprised if he was able to cruise at
that point. It's just to me, it's almost like you're
betting on does Anklive actually finally do that or not,

(23:35):
And I'm kind of leaning more towards now, even though
the path is absolutely there for him. So ultimately I
will go with Alex Paheta here. But this is a
great matchup a tough one to call would not be
surprised at all if he were to lose. I'm very
interested and excited to see what happens on fight night.
As for the rest of the picks here on the card,

(23:58):
I am going to hopefully be doing a live stream tomorrow,
that is, Thursday in the evening that will be live
streamed on my x account as well as YouTube YouTube
is YouTube dot com Slash Furies Fight Picks, will xs
X dot com slash Luca Fury. If you haven't been
able to tell by my voice here, I'm not exactly

(24:19):
in the best of health at the moment. I actually
have a pneumonia. I'm not quite sure how I got it.
I have to get surgery later this month, and I'm
on this medicine in the meanwhile, and it makes my
immune system suck right now, so I've just been like
sick all the time. That's why every podcast always sound
like I have like a cold or something. Later this month,
that'll be all solved. Was supposed to get this last December,

(24:41):
and the day before they canceled on me. So now
getting it later this month, but the work will continue.
We'll still hopefully get the live stream going as long
as I'm not too shitty feeling. Other than that, all
the same content will be out on the usual schedule.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, the Patreon,
which is of coursereon dot com slash Furies Fight Picks

(25:03):
have a bunch of content up there, written breakdowns, wigh
and analysis, tape, study notes, staff pick article, post fight
analysis podcast, The rest of the podcast picks for this
will be on there as well, as well as the
other content like Luca's lecture and Fantasy Fight forecast, and
of course most important, of course, most importantly of all

(25:24):
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and joining us for the other content. If you do
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Twitter or x now I guess that's at Luca Fury
l U c A f U r Y also be

(25:46):
links over on the Patreon as well. Also should point
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so even if you're not signed up for it, you
can still check that for updates and other free posts
as well, so again patreon dot com slash Fury fight picks.
That aside, I'm gonna go take some more cough medicine
and get on with my tape study for the rest

(26:06):
of the night. Hopefully you guys join us over on
the Patreon even if not, though, good lucking off your
bets for this weekend. I'm Luka Fury and thank you
for listening.