UFC 314 Preview

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Greetings.

Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Luka Fury, and welcome to my free preview for
UFC three fourteen going down this Saturday live from Miami,
headlined by Alexander Volkanowski against Diego Lopez for the vacant
featherweight title, the same belt that Volkanovski used to hold,
of course, he lost that to Ilya Taporia by ko

(00:24):
Ilya then went on to defend the title before now
moving up to one fifty five. So the title is
vacant and Volkanovski finds himself in yet another title fight.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
He again was the champion.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
He moved up to one fifty five to fight Islammikashev lost,
lost again, then moved back down to one forty five,
lost to Taporia, and now right back to a title fight.
So I point that out because obviously there's concerns about
the state of Volkanovsky coming off of back to back
ko losses, not had any sort of a tune up fight,

(01:00):
given him tough opponent.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
After tough opponent.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Very curious to see the form that he's in after
now also going off of a bit of a long layoff. Now,
to be fair, I think that's actually probably a good
thing considering he rushed back after the islam Ko loss
and then was like on a drinking binge, and everything
comes back to fight to Poria. It was one of
the reasons why I actually really liked Dapouria in that matchup.

(01:25):
We had an official bet on Da Pooria as a
dog there outright picked him, favored him. Everything seemed kind
of obvious, not just in hindsight, but even at the time.
Given again, Volkanovski coming off the KO loss, going on
a drinking binge when he normally doesn't drink, and rushing
back on short notice, it was just a perfect storm
of bad. Well, this time he's actually taking some time

(01:45):
off to recover. He's not rushing back in there.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
He's not I.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Assume anyway, he's going on a drinking binge. So I
definitely think he's better prepared in that sense. However, the
damage that was done by those back to bet Ko
losses might actually be too much at this point, and
we've seen time and time again fighters like him who
have great durability they finally get put out, their chins
don't just get worse, they become absolute glass. In most cases.

(02:11):
I look at Dan Henderson, He's an example. I always
bring up guy could get hit by a truck and
walk through it, then finally gets put out by a
headkick by TRTV to our billfort loaded to the gills
on TRT and after that, basically everybody could put him
to sleep. Guys with pillow hands, we're hurting him and
knocking him out. So we saw volcanofs. He also get
stopped for the first time with a head kick like that,

(02:33):
or knocked out for the first time anyways with the
head kick, And obviously you know to Poria he does
have big power himself, so it's not like you can
look at that match but be like, oh, yeah, chin
is glass, but it is worth noting the first clean
shot to Pooria landed there put Volkanovski out, and we
really haven't seen Volkanovski take any other shots, So I
am genuinely concerned about his chin and durability and some

(02:56):
other things for him here, But overall, aside from that,
I actually think it's a pretty favorable matchup for him.
So I have a lot of thoughts on this one.
I'll get to that in just a second here real quick.
Of course, speaking of official bets, we do have several
up and now for this card over at Furies Fight
Picks dot Com, coming off of another winning week last

(03:17):
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(03:40):
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Speaker 2 (03:47):
Check out several bets up now.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Not just for UFC three fourteen, but also there'll be
other MM events going down this week will be betting.
Plus we already have bets up for the next pay
per view card, UFC three p fifteen as well. Is
also a bunch of other content, including a bunch more
podcast breakdowns, written breakdowns, staff picks, post fight podcasts, evergreen

(04:08):
content such as Lucas Lecture and Fantasy Fight Fantasy Fight
Forecast episodes as well. So a ton of stuff over
on again Furiesfight Picks dot Com. Check it all out,
including most importantly those official bets up right now getting
to the fight breakdown here the thick of it anyways,
starting first of the betting odds, we do have Volkanovski

(04:30):
as a small favorite here, currently sitting minus one twenty
five at the best available price come back on Lopez
plus one ten.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Here's the thing. If this fight takes place.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Not that long ago, before Volkanovsky loses those couple of
fights by knockout, I have a different opinion overall in
the matchup, and you definitely see a different betting line
as well. When I say I have a different opinion
overall on the matchup, I'm still picking the same guy.
In the end, I will be picking Volcanov, but right
now I am hesitantly picking him with some legitimate concerns

(05:07):
that I alluded to momentarily before, but I'll get into
more in a minute here. But if it wasn't for that,
if he wasn't coming off of those two brutal Ko
losses where it's not just like, oh, he got stopa strikes,
he got flatlined with one strike each. By the way,
let's not forget if it wasn't for that, he would
be a bigger favorite, and like I said, I would

(05:27):
have a different opinion overall in the matchup, not because
I'd be picking the other side or anything, but I
would be confidently picking Volkanovsky. This would be going from man,
I'm hesitantly picking him to this is basically as long
as he avoids the fluke, he wins. But because of
the issues he's facing overall, now I do have a
different vibe and general opinion on how the matchup could

(05:49):
play out. Now. I think at its core, the same
things are true in terms of who is better at
what where the main areas of strengths are. However, if
Volkanovski's chin truly is now not just glass, it doesn't
have to be that bad. It could just be genuinely
or generally not so great. It does become a bit
of a different matchup because if you look at him historically,

(06:10):
even at his best, at his prime, at his peak,
while he was the champion, he still got hit a
decent amount. Now he had overall solid defense, but he
still did get hit and even actually rocked a decent amount.
But like Dan Henderson, even if he got rocked, he
would instantly recover in a split second and wouldn't really
be any worse for wear, wouldn'like he took time to

(06:31):
recover or anything like that. However, if it's not like
he's just you know, suddenly going to go out there
and just drastically improve his striking defense since you know
his last loss to Toporia. So if we're looking at
now this match up here and he doesn't have that
same durability, well again, Lopez, Yeah, he doesn't hit as
hard as say a to Poria, and I'm not even

(06:53):
sure that, to be honest, Islam hits that hard. Who's
he really been hurting with strikes or knocking out Like
the ghost of Glease and Tibow Volkanovsky, who were talking
about being at the end of his career and having
not a good chin anymore. It's all like he's going
out there and knocking out guys we know have great chins.
You know, if you have like over twenty fights and
you don't really hurt guys with strikes except a couple
of guys who were way up there in age at

(07:15):
the tail end of their careers, it's pretty safe to
say you were hurting those guys because they had bad chins,
not because you randomly had crazy ko power ten years apart.
Like that in those two matchups doesn't really make sense.
So obviously it's because Tebow, as we knew at that point,
another guy with a former great chin turned a glass
at that point. And it seems to be the case

(07:35):
for Volkanovski as well, who we just saw take the
best of what Islam had in the previous matchup between
the two where it went to a very close decision.
So again, kind of safe to say that his chin
is probably not all that great at this point. He's
also dropping down to one forty five, which was where
the Chaporia fight was, and obviously his chin don't look
good there either, So if anything, dropping down the from

(07:57):
one five versus one fifty five is only going to
hurt his chin, it's not going to help it. So
again I'm not just looking at the Trapori fight. I'm
also looking at we have a guy at one fifty
five who's not really that big of a power guy,
Volkanovski moving up to that division should have had a
better chin than at one forty five, and he's still
got one hitterc quitted by him. That's not good at all.
Look at Lopez recently. Now, is he, you know, a

(08:19):
huge one hitter quitter like Taporia?

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Not generally.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
However, he just basically knocked out Brian Ortega woke him
up with a shot on the way down. Ortega is
a guy who's known to have a pretty iron chin.
Do we think that Ortega has a better chin or
a worse chin than Volkanovski. I would say, even at
their primes, I would say Ortega still at a better
chin than Volkanovski compared to this version. I think it's

(08:46):
a very, very safe bet to say that Ortega has
a better chin than this version of Volkanovski. Not a
sure thing, but I think that's a pretty safe bet.
And so we already saw Lopez what he was able
to do there. To say that Lopez can't hurt or
knock out Volkanovski considering where he's been at in his
career Volkanovski, that is, I think that'd just be purely delusional.
I think that is a legitimate, serious risk here in

(09:08):
the matchup. That's why you're seeing it be a close line.
That's why I'm having some hesitation regarding my pick over Volkanovski.
We know Lopez is wild and aggressive and spams a
lot of kind of looping wild strikes early on. That's
the type of stuff I can catch a guy like Volkanovski.
We've seen him in matchups against those types of opponents before,
and again that was at his peak, at his prime,

(09:30):
and they did happen to catch him with some shots,
in some cases actually sting him a bit, and he
was able to then again recover instantly because his chin
in his prime was that good. At this point in time, though,
does his chin recover like that, I don't think it does.
I hate to be a broken record, and I know
I say this on so many podcasts, but I've been
watching the sport for over twenty years at this sport

(09:51):
at this point, so many of the people do in
podcasts and talking and even handicapping and betting and even
on TV in that have only been watching for a
few years or handful of years, and they haven't been
around to see the consistent trends that develop over time.
And you'll see people in these types of situations and
be like, I don't know, maybe it shouldn't be good. Maybe, well,
history says an all likelihood will be pretty bad at

(10:11):
this point, Like this is just a consistent trend we
have seen decade after decade in the sport of NIME
as well as boxing actually too. It's kind of like
what I discussed recently with Leon Edwards against Sean Brady,
where we actually had an official bet on Brady there.
And part of the reason what went into that handicapping
is the fact something I mentioned on the podcast is
that in those types of matchups where you have a

(10:34):
guy who's a prospect on the rise versus a former champion,
people always expect, oh, well, the former champion, he just
lost his belt. He was just the number one guy
in the world, so he should be number two now, right,
he should be able to beat this contender. As I said,
there no usually actually what happens they fall off a cliff.
They lose their belt, and they fall off a cliff.
They usually aren't winning it back. And then you saw there,

(10:55):
just like I said of the prefive podcast, not only
will they lose, but they'll just look listless and off
out there. Is that not how Leon Edwards looked in
that fight, because that's certainly.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
How it looked to me.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
That's just genuinely how it goes Now a lot of
people are surprised by that because again they've only been
watching a few years or a handful of years. They
haven't seen decade after decade that super consistent trend. Well,
guess who's also under that category here as well, Not
just the bad shin category like a Dan Henderson that
I mentioned, but also the former champion that is Volkanovski.
We haven't seen him do well since he lost his

(11:27):
belt initially, now have we. He might not ever do
well again. I mean he might just lose three fights
and retire. That that would not be unheard of for
a former champion in MMA or boxing. So these trends
are they one hundred percent accurate? No, but they are
very consistent for the most part, and you do have
to pay attention to them now. Sometimes they will change

(11:47):
over time. For example, there was a trend that used
to be incredibly consistent just up until a handful of
years ago, where if you had a rubber match where
two fighters compete and one fighter wins the first match,
then they rematch the other fighter wins that one, so
now they're one and one, they do a best two
out of three, they do the trilogy matchup. It's called
a rubber matchup in that case, specifically where it was

(12:08):
one to one going into the third match in that case. Basically,
all throughout NIM history, every organization pro like UFC level,
regional level, super consistently, whoever won the rematch basically always
won the third fight, like almost always. It was crazy
how consistent. Not one hundred percent, but damn near close. Well,

(12:29):
over the last handful of years that's actually changed. We've
seen a lot of fighters who have won the first
one but lost a second, go on to then win
the third, So that trend overall, long term, still it
favors the person who wins the second matchup. However, it's
not nearly as consistent as it used to be. So
I do still follow trends and you know, update them
and make note when they change in the tides turnover time.

(12:52):
But as far as guys developing poor chins after developing
their first knockout losses, or especially back to back like this,
or in terms of former champions falling off a cliff,
those trends are still as strong as ever. Again, not
one hundred percent, but still very strong. So aside from that,
if let's just say, for example, Volcanovski doesn't get caught early,

(13:13):
because I think it's probably gonna happen in the first
two rounds if it does. If it doesn't happen and
he gets to round three, he's probably in pretty safe
territory here. And overall, I think he's actually the better
fighter even from the start. It's just the first couple
of rounds is the real danger zone. If I'm Volkanovski,
I think the safest strategy would actually be to shoot
takedowns on Lopez, who does not have good wrestling, avoid

(13:35):
the chance of him getting with a lucky shot on
the feet, and just try to grind him out from
top position, even if you're not really doing all that much.
Just grind him out and wait until round three, where
you know Lopez is going to tire out. He always
get not just tires but gases by round three. So
if you can just survive to round three for Volkanovski,
who has great cardio and great pace, especially down the stretch,

(13:56):
you're probably home free. So if I'm him, don't play
with fire on the feet and risk getting caught. Shoot
the takedown. Yes, you know Lopez is going to try
to scramble, try to sweep. You'd thrown up submissions from
his back. Who cares Even if you lose one of
the first two rounds or even both of them. As
long as you get to round three and he's gased
and you're not, you're probably sweeping those last three rounds.

(14:17):
If not actually even stopping Lopez in a five rounder here,
we've seen him in some three rounders where you're looking like, man,
if this had an extra round or two, he might
be just getting finished. Here, he might be done, but
he clings on and still ends up winning because it
was just three rounds that he won the first.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Two not going to be the case here.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
In a five rounder, he has to win three rounds
unless he gets obviously a finish early on. So I
think in terms of the overall skill overall on the feet,
Volkanovsky is a better striker. In terms of the wrestling,
He's definitely better on both sides offensively and defensively.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
In terms of jiu jitsu.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
Sure, Lopez is better offensively, but we've seen Volkanovsky have
great defense against fighters who'd say are even slicker submission
artists than Lopez. So if he's been able to defend
those submissions, and that's something that doesn't really tend to
kind of fade as a fighter gets older and gets
on the toilet of their career, their reflexes, their chin,

(15:10):
their durability, their speed will definitely start to fall off,
and that greatly affects their striking, but it doesn't affect
their grappling as much because it's just much a much
more slower kind of thought based thing, not so reactive
and reflexive. So his grappling should still be on point
even if I'm worried about a striking defense. So, like
I said, overall, he's the better fighter here. If this
was prime Volkanowski before those Ko losses, it'd be like, Okay,

(15:33):
maybe Lopez stings, nobody's going to recover in half a
second and then be fine, just like what happened with
Like even if he gets kind of submission or anything
like that, like.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
What happened with Artega, He's going to get out of
it and recover.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
We've seen what prime Volkanowski is capable of on the
defensive front, and you know, if you take out the
chin and everything, man great matchup for him. Probably should
be a big favorite, right, but you do have to
factor in the chin, the hit ability, the defensive issues
that come with fighters in that situation. The fact if
and he's a former champion who has not looked good
since losing the belts, coming off back to back KO losses,

(16:05):
like there's so much going against him that if he
goes out there and gets dusted with the first strike
in thirty seconds or is doing well early, then he
gets dusted in the last thirty seconds in the first round,
you shouldn't be surprised, Like that should not be surprising
at all. Again, we just saw Lopez go out there
and heard a guy who even in their prime had
a better chin than Volkanowski, and Brian Ortega woke him up.

(16:26):
Probably should have kaoto him otherwise. So that's a real,
real concern here if you're talking about Volkanovski's chances in
the fight now again, if he gets to round three,
he probably should be pretty much home free. And so
that is still ultimately why favor him the matchup. If
he shoots takedowns, he should be good there. If he
plays on the feet, man, it's dangerous, but it doesn't

(16:48):
mean he's you know, completely dead in the water. He
is actually over all the better cleaner striker here. So
it's a sketchy one. It's scary, but it is worth
noting that before Volkanowski came over to the UFC, something
I've mentioned quite often about him, he was a takedown in,
ground and pound type of guy in a lot of
his fights, and then when he came to the UFC,
his wrestling did not translate to the UFC level and
he turned into a striker. He uses his wrestling in reverse.

(17:11):
He can go back to being more of what he
used to be and being a top position grinding kind
of Russell grappler, ground and pounder, and maybe not just
for this fight, maybe even just for the end of
his career, be smart to do actually against some of
the upper echelon of the division. Yeah, I still think
his wrestling's probably not going to translate, but against the
guy like Lopez has been taken down by not great

(17:32):
wrestlers who will oftentimes kind of give up the takedown
to try to play his guard, Lolkanovski probably can get
takedowns here. So this is a tricky one from a
picking and betting perspective. From a picking perspective, I do
still have to favor of Bolkanofsky slightly here. Do I
want to lay money on him at minus one twenty
five ish. To be honest, I'm of two minds on that.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
One.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
I think it's probably not a lot of value, if
at all, and probably is not value. And then on
the other hand, if you're looking at what I just
outlined in the breakdown, well, how does volcanofsk you lose?
It probably has to be in the first two rounds, right,
If he loses any of the rounds, which are they
going to be, probably has to be in the first
two rounds.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Right.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
In other words, if we go to round two, if
we go to round three, at that point before round
three starts, is there a realistic chance that Lopez is
up around or possibly even two. I guess, not up around.
I guess it'd be even in rounds one to one,
or possibly up two rounds. I should say that's a
very real possibility. Not saying I favor that, but it

(18:33):
is a very real possibility. If that happens, Volcanovsi is
going to be the underdog. It's going to be the
classic situation that I always mentioned where these dumb ass
Live odds makers don't know the fighters that they're watching
and go, bro, this guy won two rounds, let's jack
him up to minus five hundred, not realizing that this
guy has two rounds of cardio, it is going to

(18:53):
be a dead body for the next three and get
finished probably. So this is that classic situation. Hopefully I'm
not jinxing it. They're actually educated this time. But this
is that classic situation where to be honest, if you
like Lopez, I say, you gotta bet him pre fight,
since it's gonna probably happen early for him. If you
like Volkanovski, or if you just don't like betting the
fight at all, wait till after a round or two,

(19:16):
especially probably round and a half, two rounds around that area,
and then you're probably gonna get at least as good
of a price at Volkanovsky, if not possibly a way
better price. And at that point, like if we go
to a round two, and even though even if he's
down two rounds to zero, if Volkanovsky's still fresh and
he's not like completely battered, and Lopez is probably going
to be tired at least winded, like at that point

(19:38):
in time, should Volkanovsky really not be favored in the matchup,
even if he's down two rounds of zero, he's again,
probably sweep in the last three if not getting a
finish at that point, considering how badly we've seen Lopez gas, unless,
of course, Lopez shows up with much better cardia, which
obviously would throw a monkey wrench into all this. But
point being, if you live bett, you can also analyze
that maybe two rounds are in the bank for Lopez

(19:59):
if he perfectly fresh, and you're like, okay, I actually
don't want to live bet Volkanovski. He's screwed here, or
maybe Volkanofski looks like garbage there, and another reason you
don't want to live bet him. Point being, you can
get two rounds of information here, and in all likelihood
you're gonna get a better price on Volkanovski if not
roughly the same, and you're actually at a higher win
percentage because he's out of the biggest danger zone. In addition,

(20:21):
you're just having more information about the state of each fighter,
how damage they are, how fresh they are, et cetera.
So for me, the obvious way to bet this one
is if you really like Lopez and see an edge there,
you gotta do a pre fight again, if you don't
like betting the fight, or you like Volkanovski wait to
do it in live betting, sometime in round two or
after round two or early round three. I can't say

(20:43):
the exact time because it does vary. Sometimes I'm thinking,
you know, oh, it's going to be around end of
round two, and then I'm watching live and you know,
maybe in this case, Lopez is already gassed an early
round one, and I'm like, oh shit, I gotta get
the live bet in now, because by the time end
of round two happens, He's not gonna be a Volkanovsk's not.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Going to be the underdog anymore. That kind of stuff happens.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
So generally I'm thinking between round and a half to
two and a half rounds is probably when the live
bet on Volkanovski would be good if it happens. So
I'm not saying it's a guarantee, but if it were
to happen, I would imagine it's in that area. But again,
if he avoids the big shot early on, I think
overall he is actually the truly better fighter here, so

(21:22):
I still have to favor him. I'm definitely concerned about
the chin, about the other issues I mentioned, but all
things considered, I do favor him slightly in the matchup,
so Volkanovski by late Tko on a gassed Diego Lopez
will be my official prediction.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Of course. Again, if you do want the official.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Bets, check out Furiesfight Picks dot Com. Can also go
to Patreon dot com slash Furies fight Picks. They both
direct to the same place. They have the betting tier
over there, where again you can get all of our
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(22:01):
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(22:22):
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(22:44):
for that for the rest of this week's content. Otherwise,
until next time, I'm Luka Fury and thank you for listening.