The UFC returns to its APEX facility for this week’s Fight Night event. The fight card is populated with thirteen scheduled bouts utilizing the smaller APEX twenty-five-foot octagon.
An international set of combatants descend on Las Vegas to propel their careers by overtaking other specialized fighters arriving from every corner of the globe.
To date favorites are running 64.6% in the UFC.
Stevie Garcia -120 vs. David Onama +100 Featherweight (145lbs.) main event
Onama, 6-2 in the UFC trains in Kansas City, MO. He arrives to this main event after having won four straight fights against solid competition. A refugee from Uganda, Onama’s background of despair and immigration to the U.S. is a compelling one.
Athletic and brutally powerful, Onama makes fights by forcing the throwdown. He is fit, experienced in the UFC and packs ridiculous power in his hands despite the fact that he’s earned decisions in each of his last three bouts. Understand however that those recent foes were grizzled UFC veterans themselves.
When the bell rings for a fight, Onama simply walks down his adversary and initiates an immediate throw down in the center of the cage. Those who allow him this form of fight are often finished as it takes deft movement, precision striking laced with speed, quickness, and effective strike evasion to make it a full fifteen with this young aggressor.
In Stevie Garcia we have a fighter that could be described by using the same breakdown as I just gave Onama.
Garcia has the same aggressive approach, the same power and might and arrives with wins in his last six bouts five of which were finishes.
In this slugfest, it is Garcia that will be the slightly taller and longer man who fights from a southpaw stance. Garcia sports a kickboxing and jiu-Jitsu background and has now folded fluid boxing into his repertoire and his defense and strike evasion are what stand out as blatant differences between he and his Ugandan adversary.
This fight will be an absolute barn burning standing battle unless one man gets zapped in which case we may see a takedown attempt.
Onama’s willingness to take a strike in order to deliver one puts Garcia in a slightly more advantageous position because Garcia’s strike defense is foundational to his game as he gets hit with only 2.2 significant strikes out of every five minutes of fight time while his opponent Onama receives a whopping 4.73 per five minutes of fight time.
Evading power fists, elbows, and kicks are as important as landing them and it is in the balance of Garcia where I find advantage for this fight.
Garcia’s patience, his experience, and the ability to evade strikes together make him a very reasonable position and he stands just under his opening number.
Garcia -120
Total in this fight 1.5 Rds. Over -225
Waldo Cortez-Acosta -115 vs Ante Delija -105 Heavyweight (265lbs)
Huge men with power stuffed into the smaller twenty-five-foot octagon has the potential of being a dynamically violent outcome.
Cortez-Acosta is the athlete with more substantial UFC experience. He arrives to this battle 7-2 in the UFC but off a loss in his last battle to Sergei Pavlovich.
The Dominican Acosta nicknamed ‘Sala boy’ has profuse power in all appendages and uses all mixed martial arts weaponry to great advantage for Cortez-Acosta’s strongest fight attribute may be his well-rounded ability as well his granite beard. Cotez-Acosta has never been knocked out nor submitted as his only losses have been decisions.
In Delija we have an athlete new to the organization and with that, far less experience as well he has faced a lesser set of competent fight adversary than has Cortez-Acosta.
The Croatian Delija is beneficiary of this opportunity because after competing with the PFL his move to the UFC has produced two first round decimations over both Yorgan de Castro and Marcin Tybura.
In one corner we have Cortez-Acosta with a depth of UFC experience, substantial power and little wrestling ability other than sturdy take down defense.
In the other corner we have an athletic, adroit power striker in Delija who is more explosive and damaging with his strikes than his opponent however he has not seen the second round of a fight since 2023.
This fight is lined 2.5 Under -125 for a reason and that’s because one of these mammoth men is going to clobber the other.
Which one is it?
I handicap it to be Delija, the more explosive, quicker fresher mixed martial artist.
Delija -105
Friday the ‘Bout Business Podcast drops in the morning hours at GambLou.com, catch all my final releases there!
Thank you for reading and enjoy the hostilities!