UFC Fight Night: Vera vs. Cruz

The official Tapology discussion thread for the event!

If Dom has a 40% chance in this one and a 40% chance in his next one vs Merab Aldo or TJ, assuming he wins this one and the next and he then gets a title shot after that against Aljo, Yan, Sandhagen, Merab or whoever is on top at that time and we give him 20% in that fight and we subtract a further 15-20% chance for him to sustain a career ending injury along the way that means..

There's maybe a 2-3% chance Dom is the champion next year. 

If its a Split Decision/close fight being in San Diego benefits Dom.

Ahhh, I see. Stats I was looking at only gave Munhoz 1 which is how I got 4.

I'm probably sticking with my original prediction of Cruz by decision. I see Cruz comfortably winning the first 3 rounds and eventually getting clipped in the championship rounds but not finished. I truly think this fight comes down to whether Chito can knock down Cruz in just 1 of the first 3 rounds. The judges will almost certainly give him whatever round that is since Cruz does little damage and throws so much volume that his overall striking accuracy is usually very low. 

I think I'm leaning Cruz because he actually demonstrably out struck Munhoz in round 1 of their fight but then mixed it up considerably after that. Cruz is going to take round 1 just off his volume, intelligence, and experience. How quickly Chito can adapt to his strategy and begin to land actual damage is the key to the fight. 

If Chito gets one or more knockdowns before end of round 3, I think he has a very real chance of winning. I know that sounds specific, but I think his takedown defense is good enough that Cruz isn't going to have much success in that department. Chito only gets better as the fight goes on which with Dom's fight style is a huge disadvantage in this fight IMO. 

If Dom Cruz doesn't get dropped once in this fight I will be surprised. I think that's why I'm still a little unsure. I'm set on him getting dropped, but how many times? And does Cruz have any success at all with takedowns and control time? That could tire Chito and take some power out of his hands.

Yeah that’s kind of what I’m thinking. Realistically his movement should be too much for Cruz but the thing is all it takes is one shot; if Cody, cejudo, and munhoz are doing it I think chito could too. But then again, font was winning every round until he got clipped so do we see the same thing here? 

I've been back and forth on the Cruz-Chito fight...Chito is just unreliable, and it's way different when your a big favorite vs. when he's been an underdog...you were getting value with that risk of unreliability, there's no value on Chito here. On the flip side, Chito is going to be much bigger than Dom, and I did not like how much Cruz was getting pieced up by Pedro at all. That plus his age really makes me think Vera wins, but Vera also gets outvolumed, so it's been hard to really commit to anything for me on this fight.

Chito is gonna finish Dom

This card is going to spectacular! I hope Chito wins!

It's worth keeping in mind that the last time Dom actually went the full 25 was in 2016 vs Cody and he slowed down in the latter rounds in that one.
If you look at the pace Dom kept vs TJ or Cody or even in rd1 vs Cejudo (which was a 5rounder) it's not the same as the pace he keeps in a 3 round fight, something Dom's also been verbal about in his commentating about how a fighter has to adjust his work rate based on the amount of rounds he's fighting.
I don't think Dom has much of a chance to finish Chito and so he needs to bag at least 3 rounds. That's a tall order when he's going to move on the outside for the entire fight and not quite be able to sustain the kind of pace we've seen in his last 2 in terms of output.

Chito is actually good at cutting off the cage and has a good arsenal of kicks so you'd think he can take a page from Cejudo and chop across both the legs of Cruz to make sure he hits something. Having his opponent moving along the cage with him playing the bull is Chito's strongest look as a fighter imo. He struggles more at times when he's pushed back or faces a lot of power, neither of which is Dom's forte.

The main issue for Chito is that he always start slow and typically give up the first round. That's less of a problem in a 5 rounder than a 3 rounder though and we learned just last april vs Font what an terrific pace Chito can push overall over the course of 25.
I also think Chito is live for a finish, we saw Cejudo and Munhoz both drop Dom pretty bad and Chito has good knees and upkicks to potentially catch Dom as he ducks his head forward.

I think Dom can win but Chito is probably 60-65% favored. Agree there's no betting value on Chito's side of the line. There might be a little bit of value on Dom's side but it's going to be a sweat to bet Dom here imo. Perhaps if Dom can mix in more wrestling than we usually see, he has a decent wrestling game. That could help him bag rounds.

I mean one thing about Cruz is he knows exactly what his opponents weaknesses are and how to exploit them, so we may very well see him wrestle

All but one judge Chito rounds 2-5. The only round Font definitively won for all 3 judges was round 1. He literally lost every other round, or the majority of the fight, according to the judges. He just looked like he was up because he through an absolutely absurd amount of punches. He was never really winning that fight at any point.

Font hit Chito almost 300 times and barely did any damage to him. I mean these punches were visibly barely effecting Chito. He was getting hit all throughout that fight, barely flinched, and visibly didn't have much swelling or damage on his face. Font LANDED almost as many strikes as Chito ATTEMPTED but it didn't matter because 10 of Font's punches didn't seem to equal 1 of Vera's in terms of damage. Font was wearing it. Cruz probably has even less pop on his shots at this point than Font given his age. He's also much harder to hit than Font, but as you alluded too, Cruz has been knocked down at least once in 4 of his last 5 fights. 


Chito also the most accurate striker Dom has fought since Mighty Mouse. Most of Dom's opponents are fighters with striking number's in the 40-45% range where Chito is over 50%. Very noteworthy IMO. 

You really think Cruz can hold down Chito?.. Idk @ayy

* Edited at 08.11.2022, 2:41 PM ET *

But I mean how great is Dom, regardless of how well he will do in this fight.  Being still a live dog in every fight in the modern bantamweight division?  With his age and injury past?  Gotta make the claim he's the BW GOAT

Chito got held down by Frankie Edgar for extended periods of time. Plus when Chito gets on his back he has a habit of not getting up sometimes. 

I think that’s what he’s going off of when he says Dom could hold Chito down and steal some rounds. Marlon has 68% takedown defense. Not exactly pristine

* Edited at 08.11.2022, 3:05 PM ET *

Why is everyone so confident on Silva? the fight could end up like the Muradov one imo. Could be a real parlay buster. Would love to hear some perspectives. 

Also was watching Buday and Brzeski fights. I think Buday takes this easily with his size and clinch game. The guy doesn't give a **** if he gives a boring fight as long as he wins. Solid for betting.

Gm3 beat Mach after two perfectly timed back to back fouls with a **** ton of luck mixed in. To this day I maintain the cup shot and eye poke Gm3 threw to kill Mach's momentum were 100% on purpose. Very savy, veteran win for Gm3 because at the end of the day he got a finish but put simply, absolutely everything went his way in a fight he probably loses 9 times out of 10.

There's almost no way lighting strikes twice for him, especially when Silva is even better than Mach.

Muradov gassed and has no ground game. Idk how you think he wins 9/10 times

Muradov gassed because Gm3 attempted 10 takedowns, only landed 3, and didn't even muster a minute of control time. Go back and watch the fight. Muradov had GM3 badly hurt two different instances and both times has his momentum stopped because he's fouled. They're literally almost back to back fouls. It completely changed the tempo of the fight.

Doesn’t change the fact that he gassed and started to lose the exchanges on the feet which led to the sub. Watch his next fight with Borralho, he’s gonna get dominated. 

Well yeah, it obviously does change the fact since the fight probably would have ended before Mach gassed. I don't know how you can ignore going from seconds away from KOing a guy to having your adrenaline zapped because you've been kicked in the **** and had your eyes poked. Agree to disagree I guess. 

The eyepoke was at the beginning of the fight and the nutshot was a whole minute after Meershaert was at his most hurt. Muradov still won the rest of the round but you could see he was getting tired. One nutshot in the first isn’t going to deplete someone’s tank like that, that’s a cardio problem.