UFN 123 - Swanson vs Ortega - Fresno, CA
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Things I like about Ortega after watching tape.
Ortega's wide shoulders give him a much more deceptively longer reach than his reach of 69" indicates. Ortega also fights long and does a pretty decent job of maintaining range with his straight punches which also helps minimize the amount of danger he puts himself in. He doesn't have one hitter quitter power, but he has a nice stun on his punches where a few shots will probably put you down if they land consecutively. Also like that he carries and maintains that power throughout the fight.
It's no coincidence Ortega has so many 3rd Round finishes. Ortega is very measured in how he manages his energy and purposely takes people to deep waters to drown them. That was the gameplan as heard in his corner against Brandao, but I think it's something he has adopted entirely due to his confidence in his endurance. His output is always consistently higher in the later rounds once he's attrited his opponent. As a guy with a base in BJJ, it's almost like he purposely rides out the first round each fight because he knows that's when his opponents will be the most fresh and dangerous, barring his last fight where he started pressuring very early. Once he feels their pace slow and power go is when he usually increases his volume and goes after guys similarly to Holloway. The way he poured it on Guida in the last couple minutes of the fight, who is known for his cardio, to finish him really exemplifies that. Dude likes to draw them in by having them expend their energy and then turns up the oven. What's nice though is he isn't completely inactive early, rather he sets a pace and accelerates later once he feels his opponent has spent enough energy to where they won't be able to keep up.
Guy also has really phenomenal and underrated gastank. Dude's throwing solid one twos with power immediately after wild scrambles on his opponents while they're still trying to recoup and catch their breath. I think his conditioning really lends itself to his chin too cause he took some hard shots in the first round against Brandao. Also got dropped by Guida but that seemed more like he got clipped and off balanced. Like how his corner is also very realistic and savvy about winning and losing rounds. Rener is pretty good at identifying when they've lost rounds and errs on the more conservative side when assuming they've won or loss rounds. Also like how his coaches will implore him to play out the first half of a round and try to land a takedown in the latter when they know the fight's close.
Swanson will definitely be a big step up in competition for him. Don't like how he relies on his chin and keeps his hands so low. With a creative unorthodox striker like Swanson, a well timed kick could spell trouble. The range at which he likes to fight will also allow Cub to utilize his full arsenal of strikes. Also don't like how eager he is to rely on his chin especially when he's doing it to turn the fight into a war of attrition. Ortega being so content to fight off his back could also lose him rounds if he's unable to grab onto some submission attempts. On the other hand, I think Ortega's ground striking is an underrated part of his game. Dude knows how to cut you up and do damage with his elbows which helps to keep his opponents unsafe while they're also thinking about defending submissions.
Ortega's wide shoulders give him a much more deceptively longer reach than his reach of 69" indicates. Ortega also fights long and does a pretty decent job of maintaining range with his straight punches which also helps minimize the amount of danger he puts himself in. He doesn't have one hitter quitter power, but he has a nice stun on his punches where a few shots will probably put you down if they land consecutively. Also like that he carries and maintains that power throughout the fight.
It's no coincidence Ortega has so many 3rd Round finishes. Ortega is very measured in how he manages his energy and purposely takes people to deep waters to drown them. That was the gameplan as heard in his corner against Brandao, but I think it's something he has adopted entirely due to his confidence in his endurance. His output is always consistently higher in the later rounds once he's attrited his opponent. As a guy with a base in BJJ, it's almost like he purposely rides out the first round each fight because he knows that's when his opponents will be the most fresh and dangerous, barring his last fight where he started pressuring very early. Once he feels their pace slow and power go is when he usually increases his volume and goes after guys similarly to Holloway. The way he poured it on Guida in the last couple minutes of the fight, who is known for his cardio, to finish him really exemplifies that. Dude likes to draw them in by having them expend their energy and then turns up the oven. What's nice though is he isn't completely inactive early, rather he sets a pace and accelerates later once he feels his opponent has spent enough energy to where they won't be able to keep up.
Guy also has really phenomenal and underrated gastank. Dude's throwing solid one twos with power immediately after wild scrambles on his opponents while they're still trying to recoup and catch their breath. I think his conditioning really lends itself to his chin too cause he took some hard shots in the first round against Brandao. Also got dropped by Guida but that seemed more like he got clipped and off balanced. Like how his corner is also very realistic and savvy about winning and losing rounds. Rener is pretty good at identifying when they've lost rounds and errs on the more conservative side when assuming they've won or loss rounds. Also like how his coaches will implore him to play out the first half of a round and try to land a takedown in the latter when they know the fight's close.
Swanson will definitely be a big step up in competition for him. Don't like how he relies on his chin and keeps his hands so low. With a creative unorthodox striker like Swanson, a well timed kick could spell trouble. The range at which he likes to fight will also allow Cub to utilize his full arsenal of strikes. Also don't like how eager he is to rely on his chin especially when he's doing it to turn the fight into a war of attrition. Ortega being so content to fight off his back could also lose him rounds if he's unable to grab onto some submission attempts. On the other hand, I think Ortega's ground striking is an underrated part of his game. Dude knows how to cut you up and do damage with his elbows which helps to keep his opponents unsafe while they're also thinking about defending submissions.
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Here's my analysis of Lopez and Morales. Feel free to pick it apart and tell me where I'm wrong/crazy.
Benito Lopez is an 8-0 pro fighter with 2 amateur wins as well according to Tapology. But on Youtube, you can find at least another 5 amateur fights of his which all end with a 1st round TKO win. According to Benitez himself, he's been fighting since the age of 15. So apparently despite being only 23 years young, he's been in the game for at least 7 or 8 years. Despite having watched about 10 of his fights, I still can't get a good read on how good (or perhaps bad) his striking skills are.
Lopez pretty much blasted his amateur competition (many of whom were making their amateur debut or only had 1 or 2 fights). These fights look pretty much the same. Lopez comes forward with punches and high kicks until his opponent falls down and he lands in mount and pummels them. He is very long and rangy for bantamweight, at 5'11 and with a 73" reach. He was able to squeak out a split decision win against his toughest opponent Steven Peterson in DWCS. During this fight we finally got to see more than a few seconds of his game.
In the striking department, Lopez's style can be described as a more raw and unbalanced version of Alex Caceres. He's rangy but doesn't seem to know how to use this much to his advantage. Doesn't throw a jab very often except maybe to paw at his opponent while finding range for his kicking game or the infrequent and wound-up right straight. He's put out amateur opponents with head kicks but the ones thrown against Peterson appeared more slappy than crushing. One powerful technique that he was able to land over and over was the flying knee, which he seems to time better than his punches. He only needed to land 1 of these flying knees to turn the lights out against Rick "The Illness" James. He landed 5 of 5 against Peterson.
Despite obviously having a knack for timing knees and some more unconventional strikes (like elbows in the clinch or a flurry of step-in uppercuts), Lopez's overall striking game has a few holes. His hands are usually dangerously low and he's often falling forwards into his opponents when he throws. He doesn't appear very comfortable with pocket punching and forward pressure from his opponent. Due to his lack of balance, it seemed likely that a competent wrestler would likely be able to ground him rather easily. To Lopez's credit, he was able to stop this from happening in Rds 1 and 3 of his fight with Peterson. In some of his fights, he's been content to eat leg kicks and bodykicks without checking or countering.
Morales is less diverse but definitely much more balanced striker. He's got fast hands and can throw compact straight punches. This helped him control the striking exchanges in the 1st round against both Perez and Soukhamthath. Against Perez, he was able to time naked leg kicks and send a right hand at Perez's face. By the later rounds, however, Morales' striking discipline and sharpness drops off dramatically. In the 3rd round of the Perez fight he was drunk off fatigue and throwing off-balanced and weak punches. In the Soukhamtath fight, he couldn't do much but put up a high guard, resulting in Soukhamthath spamming about 10 strikes (left hooks and knees) to Morales' gut.
Morales is hittable, and gets tagged with some pretty hard shots in all of his fights. Despite this, he was only finished by Almeida who really wasn't able to shut the lights off either. It was a well placed liver shot that crumpled Morales, but his body shut off before his chin gave out. Besides a perfectly placed flying knee or head kick, it doesn't look like Lopez has the type of power to stop Morales coming forward, much less KO him.
Matching the two up, I think Morales would have a slight advantage in most exchanges. Unless Lopez intends on spamming flying knees from the get-go (a tactic which would more likely end up with him on his back rather than getting a KO), Lopez would need to do a lot of his funk striking moving backwards. He doesn't have the head movement or hand speed to stay in the pocket with Morales for very long. And a lot of his offense relies on naked kicks, which Morales has the chops to counter with punches or maybe score a takedown against.
At least this is how it might look in the 1st round. In the later rounds, both fighters become much sloppier and lose a lot of power. It's hard to tell who will be most affected. If it's Morales that's getting the worse end of it, at the very least Morales can take it to the ground. Lopez is a good scrambler and, against poor competition, has found his way to get top position against his opponents, but Rd2 of the Peterson fight is a cause for concern. Though it looked like Morales had zero wrestling abilities in his last fight against Johns, Morales has decent grappling and most likely the advantage against Lopez in that department.
Lot of question marks in this one, and even odds seems reasonable. If I had to pick, probably Morales.
Benito Lopez is an 8-0 pro fighter with 2 amateur wins as well according to Tapology. But on Youtube, you can find at least another 5 amateur fights of his which all end with a 1st round TKO win. According to Benitez himself, he's been fighting since the age of 15. So apparently despite being only 23 years young, he's been in the game for at least 7 or 8 years. Despite having watched about 10 of his fights, I still can't get a good read on how good (or perhaps bad) his striking skills are.
Lopez pretty much blasted his amateur competition (many of whom were making their amateur debut or only had 1 or 2 fights). These fights look pretty much the same. Lopez comes forward with punches and high kicks until his opponent falls down and he lands in mount and pummels them. He is very long and rangy for bantamweight, at 5'11 and with a 73" reach. He was able to squeak out a split decision win against his toughest opponent Steven Peterson in DWCS. During this fight we finally got to see more than a few seconds of his game.
In the striking department, Lopez's style can be described as a more raw and unbalanced version of Alex Caceres. He's rangy but doesn't seem to know how to use this much to his advantage. Doesn't throw a jab very often except maybe to paw at his opponent while finding range for his kicking game or the infrequent and wound-up right straight. He's put out amateur opponents with head kicks but the ones thrown against Peterson appeared more slappy than crushing. One powerful technique that he was able to land over and over was the flying knee, which he seems to time better than his punches. He only needed to land 1 of these flying knees to turn the lights out against Rick "The Illness" James. He landed 5 of 5 against Peterson.
Despite obviously having a knack for timing knees and some more unconventional strikes (like elbows in the clinch or a flurry of step-in uppercuts), Lopez's overall striking game has a few holes. His hands are usually dangerously low and he's often falling forwards into his opponents when he throws. He doesn't appear very comfortable with pocket punching and forward pressure from his opponent. Due to his lack of balance, it seemed likely that a competent wrestler would likely be able to ground him rather easily. To Lopez's credit, he was able to stop this from happening in Rds 1 and 3 of his fight with Peterson. In some of his fights, he's been content to eat leg kicks and bodykicks without checking or countering.
Morales is less diverse but definitely much more balanced striker. He's got fast hands and can throw compact straight punches. This helped him control the striking exchanges in the 1st round against both Perez and Soukhamthath. Against Perez, he was able to time naked leg kicks and send a right hand at Perez's face. By the later rounds, however, Morales' striking discipline and sharpness drops off dramatically. In the 3rd round of the Perez fight he was drunk off fatigue and throwing off-balanced and weak punches. In the Soukhamtath fight, he couldn't do much but put up a high guard, resulting in Soukhamthath spamming about 10 strikes (left hooks and knees) to Morales' gut.
Morales is hittable, and gets tagged with some pretty hard shots in all of his fights. Despite this, he was only finished by Almeida who really wasn't able to shut the lights off either. It was a well placed liver shot that crumpled Morales, but his body shut off before his chin gave out. Besides a perfectly placed flying knee or head kick, it doesn't look like Lopez has the type of power to stop Morales coming forward, much less KO him.
Matching the two up, I think Morales would have a slight advantage in most exchanges. Unless Lopez intends on spamming flying knees from the get-go (a tactic which would more likely end up with him on his back rather than getting a KO), Lopez would need to do a lot of his funk striking moving backwards. He doesn't have the head movement or hand speed to stay in the pocket with Morales for very long. And a lot of his offense relies on naked kicks, which Morales has the chops to counter with punches or maybe score a takedown against.
At least this is how it might look in the 1st round. In the later rounds, both fighters become much sloppier and lose a lot of power. It's hard to tell who will be most affected. If it's Morales that's getting the worse end of it, at the very least Morales can take it to the ground. Lopez is a good scrambler and, against poor competition, has found his way to get top position against his opponents, but Rd2 of the Peterson fight is a cause for concern. Though it looked like Morales had zero wrestling abilities in his last fight against Johns, Morales has decent grappling and most likely the advantage against Lopez in that department.
Lot of question marks in this one, and even odds seems reasonable. If I had to pick, probably Morales.
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I would hammer Swanson in a 3-round fight. In a 5-round fight, I worry that it's just more time for him to get caught in a submission.
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Swanson's BJJ isn't terrible. He got submitted by Edgar after being dicked by him for 4.8 rounds, and Holloway was a panic wrestler move. I think this ends up looking like Pettis-Moreno where Ortega just doesn't have enough connective tissue in his game to make it work down the stretch.
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Yeah, I think who ever can keep it together better after R1 will take this. Maybe Lopez has more upside for cardio improvements making his debut and training at Team Alpha Male. Naturally there's some bad blood: https://norcalmixedmartialarts.com/...ever-been-so-fired-up-for-a-fight-in-my-life/
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Wow confidence increased that he is training at TAM
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I'm not sure if that's a great team for someone who does not have a good overall base, but at least he's getting good sparring and conditioning. Lopez and Morales were supposed to fight 2016, but Lopez got a concussion sparring with Cody Garbrandt. Not maybe the smartest way to prepare, but it's really not a bad thing to have that kind of sparring experience when facing a power puncher.Wow confidence increased that he is training at TAM
Morales cardio has improved. After the Almeida fight he said he's going to be less impatient in rd 1 and stop punching himself out. It's shown imo, even in the Johns fight he didn't seem that gassed by rd 3 after all the grappling, just couldn't deal with Johns on the ground
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Against Soukhanthath he was pretty patient round one but got sloppier and sloppier as the fight went on. He seems a bit adhd and his problems in later rounds might not be just about cardio. Still think Lopez has more x-factor so I'm not betting Morales even though on paper he seems stronger.
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Went to put 2u on Holtzman... and accidentally bet on Horcher. I guess it's late and I got the last names confused. Pretty sure there's nothing I can do about that
Take a small loss and switch sides.. for not quite as much .. only thing you can do
I mean it's -115 vs -115 in my book still, but it's gonna kill my bankroll for betting the rest of the card. I don't have that much, sucks either way, might just try and be optimistic about horcher lmao
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Sometimes books are good to me and void the bet if I contact support, I usually contact them within minutes of placing the bet though and explain my error...
I’m in for 1.5u on Holtzmann, liking be forum support on his side
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Really like the description here, great way to summarize it in short.
I rewatched Ortega and was more impressed with his ability to pressure and his boxing than I remember, but he is very hittable and relies on forcing his opponent into making mistakes using his pressure. I don't see a savvy vet like Cub falling into those traps. Moicanio landed over 100 strikes in 2 rounds, if Cub has that same success I am not sure Oretega is still standing there pressuring late. I am rewatching Cub's last few tonight to make sure I don't think he is on the decline, but I remember being very impressed with him vs Choi.
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Watching the odds dropping on bestfightodds but no lines on your books yet, there's nothing worse
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Carmouche -160 best line of the card
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