Oklahoma City is the host city for this week’s UFC LV120 event. The fight card has eleven bouts scheduled after a frantic couple of weeks where the event has lost three fight matchups.
Unusually for the APEX, there are five fights scheduled with combatants weighing 170lbs. and above. The chances of finishing the other opponent is strongest within these weight classes.
We also will witness five bouts where there exists a five year youth advantage and in seven bouts, a fighter from outside the country must travel into Las Vegas and compete against an American fighter where travel, weight issues and visa concerns should not be an issue.
Last week Mario Bautista and Max Holloway both earned for digital readers so we enter this card on a tremendous heater….let’s keep it runin!
We track actual releases here not overall thoughts… as an aside.
Dricus Du Plessis -260 vs. Kamaru Usman +220 Middleweight (185lbs.) main event
Usman is the former welterweight champion who at the ripe old age of thirty-nine has decided to try once again to find relevance in a division where the men are stronger, younger, and larger than he.
This will be Usman’s fourth fight since 2023 where he pivoted from the 170 pound welterweight division for a loss to Leon Edwards then jumped up to Middleweight to be dominated by Kamzat Chimaev before taking a little time off to refocus.
In his most recent bout, Usman fought a welterweight battle against Joaquin Buckley last year where he wiped the floor with the fighter from St. Louis who is wrestling void!
Now after a year and a half Usman returns to the larger middleweight division to face off against its former champion in DDP.
DDP is seven years younger than Usman and as importantly he has taken only a nominal amount of damage in his career while Usman, a professional mixed martial artist since 2012 has many battles under his belt along with plenty of fight damage to haul into this main event and that’s before we even mention the damage he has accrued to his knees.
This will be a difficult matchup for Usman who has a tremendous wrestling acumen, but those two wobbly knees may well make execution of said wrestling prowess very difficult, especially against a guy in DDP that has been focusing on his wrestling in preparation of this battle.
DDP arrives to this fight close to the prime of his career where Usman enters this fight hoping to find a lucky submission in order to make one last run at middleweight.
While I have tremendous respect for Kamaru Usman and his body of UFC work it appears to me that rather than the UFC having to direct Usman to the retirement discussion, they’ll allow DDP to do that for them for while this fight will begin in competitive fashion the longer it goes the more I see Usman slowing and eventually showing his age and the accumulation of attrition that his body has undergone over almost two decades of world class wrestling/UFC competitions.
Total in this fight: 3.5 Over -190
Lean to the Over for DDP’s wrestling is nominal and the proud old Usman is not likely to go out of this one easily.
Jose Delgado -115 vs. Austin Bashi -105 Featherweight (145lbs.)
Bashi is a decorated and renown world class wrestling talent who has transitioned into MMA.
14-1 professionally, Bashi is 1-1 in UFC competition easily dominating John Yannis after being schooled by a well-rounded striker/wrestler in Christian Rodriguez in his debut fight in the UFC.
The good news for Bashi is that he fought a competent Rodriguez to a decision loss as well this athlete is a quick learner and is accelerating in mixed martial arts competence especially in the striking department quickly.
Jose Delgado steps into this fight 3-1 in UFC competition, he’s faced well more diverse and talented competition as well he’ll own height, reach and size advantages over the short sawed-off Bashi.
Delgado trains at Phoenix’s MMALab a team rife with world class wrestling/grappling talent so competing against Bashi in this spot will surely be a challenge but nothing more strenuous that whet he see’s daily in training.
Delgado’s size, reach, power, and well-rounded mixed martial arts weaponry separates him here from the novice Bashi and while money has tricked in on Bashi the price on Delgado has transitioned from -170 at open to -115 current.
That signals an immediate buy on Delgado -115
Total in this fight: 1.5 rds. Over -180
Strong lean Over
Friday the white hot ‘Bout Business Podcast drops across all podcast platforms. Catch all my final; releases for this fight cards there.
Thank you for reading and enjoy the fights.