UFC Fight Night: Allen vs. Craig

The official Tapology discussion thread for the event!

Allen vs Craig
Allen KO RD 1

Craig is and always will be an auto fade for me. It’s awesome watching him have these insane comebacks but I can’t ignore the fact that his gameplan is ******* terrible for winning fights. He does anything to pull guard & will take as much damage as possible just so he can find a triangle. Going to 185 was a very unexpected idea but I was actually kind of impressed in his debut. Don’t get me wrong, I still think hes bad & he beat the very flawed muniz but I was expecting him to be completely drained & god awful at this weight class. For one, he actually fits very well into the class; he clearly lost weight but he is in the best shape of his entire career & his frame is very big for 185 so that helps a lot. His striking also looked much improved. Again, he fought muniz so not the best benchmark but Craig was showing some really nice kickboxing skills, not great but a very big step up from his usually very poor standup. He also offensively wrestled for the first time in forever so that was nice to see. Despite the new weight class and improvements, I still am not a big believer in craig’s overall skills. He did get the win but he was still showing some really bad things against muniz. I was expecting him to have 2-3 minutes of gas before he had nothing left. Craig looked pretty good round 1 but you could clearly see he was getting tired at around the 7 minute mark. When he got tired, his improved striking went away. He was still able to do some big movements but he stopped moving his head almost completely; he was allowing muniz to hit him cleanly. What also helped him was the fact that muniz has an even worse gas tank & was conceding takedowns because he was exhausted. Allen has horrible tdd but i don’t think craig’s trips are going to do the job. I actually think allen is very talented but his main issue for me has always been his ego. He is a great fighter but he always thinks he is so much better than his opponents everywhere. While that is often the case, it leads to him making fights closer than they should be/taking risks eh shouldn’t have to take because of his ego. What I mean by this is if he’s facing a striker, hes going to stand with them & same with a grappler. For example, he stood toe to toe with blindado in his last fight & willingly went to the mat with muniz to prove he was better. The only thing that worries me in this matchup is that he goes to the ground with craig and plays in his guard; while i do think allen has much superior bjj, we have seen time and time again that no matter how skilled you cannot have an ego in craig’s guard, he will make you pay every time. Thankfully, allen is more of a club & sub type of guy, opting to take the back and go for an RNC (how bjj nerds should all be) instead of grinding out control time. However, I am still worried his ego will play a factor. On the feet, this is a total mismatch. Allen isn’t an elite striker but he is improving each fight, as bad as blindado is I was pretty impressed to see him stand and win against a powerful brawler. Craig did show some improved kickboxing skills but Allen is pretty aggressive and is improving his standup a lot. The easiest way to beat craig has always been to stand and trade with him. I also really don’t trust craig’s cardio at this weight class. He was really tired after round 1 and allen has great conditioning + he pushes a pace so I think craig is screwed here (outside of allen being an egotistical idiot)


Morales vs Matthews
Morales DEC

This is the easiest pick on the card. Not just because morales is an absolute beast but because matthews has too many flaws to really break through in the ufc. Hes been tenured for almost 10 years and yet he has never fixed the major holes in his game. Everyone (myself included) thought he had turned a corner when he fought Fialho but as it turns out, Fialho is just that bad. I said this the last time he fought as well but Matthews striking actually looks great. Hes got this very clean boxing style where he throws his hands very fast & has a swaggy sort of head movement. I really like his countering ability as well. Visually, his style is very pleasing to watch, his movement and counters are really really clean. However, when you start to breakdown his habits in depth there are a lot of holes that people constantly pick up on. They all mostly have to do with his head movement; while it looks super clean his movements are very readable, leading to him getting clipped a lot. His chin and recovery is very good but he is lacking defensively. He also has a very bad habit of lowering his hands when he exits out of the pocket (something sean brady was picking up on very easily). Matthews has pretty decent wrestling but is very inconsistent on when he wants to use it. Very rarely will he offensively wrestle because he has fallen in love with his hands. His grappling is okay but nothing special. On the inverse, I couldn’t be more impressed with morales. In his last fight I was expecting him to win a pretty close & competitive fight but he won very decisively. I know max griffin doesn’t have the most impressive record but his fights for the most part are all very competitive decisions. Morales lost round 1 (as expected) but then in rounds 2 &3 he put an absolute masterclass on griffin. He walked him down & tore him apart with forward pressure and his boxing skills. What makes morales so impressive to me is his physical attributes; he is a freak athlete (i believe both his parents were olympians/very high level athletes), has the perfect frame for the division (80 inch reach to boot), and has crazy natural power. His movement is very slick and because of his reach he is able to throw shots from weird angles and catch people off guard. His wrestling is fantastic but morales doesn’t liek to use it that much. When he does offensively use it his takedowns are beautiful; so quick and explosive but he doesn’t waste any movements in doing so. His defense is incredbile, sure hes been taken down twice in the ufc but he does everything right. His hips and balance are very good but he also has that freak athleticism to help him. Max griffin is no d1 wrestler but he was shooting like crazy in round 3 and morales defended everything perfectly. My two main concerns with morales are striking defense and aggressiveness. His defense is just simply bad; he does a great job of rolling with punches & appears to have a giga chin but he does get hit a lot. Again, he seems unphased when striking (he ate bombs from griffin and didn’t react at all) so im not too worried but i never like it when people only rely on chins. When he had griffin hurt, he was getting so aggressive to the point where he was chasing instead of cutting him off & he was leaving his chin way out there. Its easier said than done because hes such a force offensively but he does lose part of his calm demeanor when he is on the hunt. Regardless, I dont see any areas where matthews can give him trouble. I think a ko is likely but matthews has done a very good job of surviving when rocked so i will go decision. 

Hooper vs Leavitt
Hooper KO RD 3


This is an odd one for me, I am a massive hooper hater. I have never been high on his prospects & i hate how physically weak he is compared to everyone else; hes a bjj nerd who tries to fight grown men. However, I weirdly think this is a good matchup for him. Its funny saying that because I don’t even like hooper at 155, I think eventually he is going to hit a wall because hes going to fight someone who can bully him with size and physicality, just like what was happening at 145. Despite my gripes I am confident hooper wins this because of his pressure. He's fighting Jordan Leavitt who has had a shocking amount of success in the ufc thus far. Leavitt isn’t an awful fighter but I think he has had very favorable matchmaking thus far in the ufc (hes lucky he got hurt against brener because he would've died). Leavitt’s matchups in the ufc have only been against other grapplers or bottom of the barrel 155ers; when he loses a fight, he has lost to the better grappler. However, what bothers me the most about watching leavitt fights is nobody pressures him. Leavitt’s striking is god awful. He barely throws hands & his main weapon consists of low impact leg kicks. Hooper’s striking is terrible too but he is not afraid to throw down at all; he shows no respect to his opponents, using his size and length to walk people down. His technique is so ugly to look at but its effective against low level fighters because he is so aggressive. I think this will give leavitt a lot of issues because he has never had to face someone who is going to swarm him with punches and elbows. Hooper is there to be hit but leavitt doesn’t have ko power like that (unless he finds a knee like last fight but even then hooper doesn't have a glass jaw). The one guy who actually tried to stand with leavitt was trey ogden, who is a decent striker but not a great one & even he was giving leavitt hell before he death gassed. I dont see either having a ton of success in the grappling realm here. Don’t get me wrong, both are great on the ground and we will see a lot of grappling, but i dont really expect anyone to dominate. Both guys have terrible tdd & are very active from the bottom. As a result, I dont think we will see a lot of settling for position. Hooper throws himself into awful positions all the time on the mat. He makes up for this with having very fast transitional abilities but I hate watching him pull himself into near fight ending positions. I don’t see him getting subbed but he will have to be careful that he doesn’t pull leavitt into one of those spots because leavitt has good enough grappling that chase won’t be able to get back up. Another edge for chase that will help him in the grappling is cardio and activity. Much like on the feet, chase pushes a maddening pace on the mat; he is never in one position & constantly makes his opponents get into hellish scrambles. Leavitt will be able to compete early on but I think all this grappling is really going to tire him out; we saw him beat puelles in round 1 by outscrambling him, but as the fight went on he started to get more and more tired before conceding bottom position for ⅘ min of round 3. To add to these crazy scrambles, chase does a great job of throwing gnp on top, even the grapplers leavitt has faced have not tried to hurt him on the ground. If chase gets on top at any point i think he is going to start raining down elbows on leavitt. I could see hooper losing the majority of this fight but I think he is going to win by making it ugly; leavitt has never been dragged into deep waters like that before & i think the pace of this fight will make him panic 



Talbott vs Aguirre 
Talbott KO RD 2

Love this fight for talbott. Imo he is one of the most promising fighters out of the current dwcs cycle. Talbott has all the talent in the world but he is still pretty green so, the ufc is giving him a guy who got to the ufc too early; this is essentially another dwcs fight for talbott. I’m not overly high on aguirre but going to 135 is definitely the right move for him. Aguirre is going to be gigantic for this weight class, both in stature and size. He is 5”9 with a 74 inch reach, which is absurd for the weight class but, hes also fought as high as 155. He has never really had a set weight class & has only fought at the weight class once so it will be important to see how he looks on the scales. His tape outside the ufc isn’t overly impressive; his gameplan is simple, all he wants to do is take you down. When he gets you down, he either takes the back and gets an rnc, or he tko’s you with gnp. He is running through guys pretty quickly but hes not doing it all that impressively. For starters, hes facing nobodies, hes only facing inexperienced guys who are bad. Aguirre’s striking is really ugly, he has a very square stance and doesn’t move his head. He is very uncomfortable on the feet and cant strike all that well. He has no idea what a leg kick is and he just spams 1-2’s on the feet. It should be worth noting that he has yet to face any resistance but his wrestling is decent; I believe he wrestled in college so he at least has a background. In his debut against argueta, he looked very pedestrian. He didn’t look horrible but he didn’t look like someone fully ready for the ufc. The one positive i took away was that hes got pretty decent conditioning (although he was clearly tired rounds 2 and 3) and he showed a pretty tricky scramlbing ability early; argueta got him down & he was finding all these tricky escapes to get to his back. Besides that, he lost pretty clearly. He was able to land on the feet due to his length and argueta’s predictable footwork, but he allowed argueta to back him up into a corner and impose his will. Outside of the scrambling round 1, he got uncontrolled pretty easily. Talbott may also be green, but he is much more ufc ready than aguirre is. I just love watching talbott fight because he shows absolutely zero respect in there. He walks you down eating anything you throw back, taunting you the whole time & doing as much crazy stuff as he wants. Talbott pushes an absurd pace and never seems to get tired. His wrestling does not look all that good, but he is lanky & very athletic which helps a good deal. I do think aguirre can get him down, his initial takedown entries are actually pretty good but, I don’t see him being able to do all that much. Maybe he could get the back and ride out some minutes, we havent seen much of talbott off his back at all but, talbott is very hard to track & keep down. On the feet, this is just a complete mismatch. Talbott does have really bad head movement, he just walks you down not giving a **** but that will probably favor him here. Aguirre will be able to land but we saw how easily argueta was walking him down, imagine what will happen when hes fighting someone bigger than him, with crazy dynamic striking and showing zero respect for any part of aguirre’s game. I think his most success will come early but he is really going to feel the pressure in rounds ⅔ and i think talbott will break him late. Of course, theres always the dwcs debut tax so maybe talbott gets fraud checked, but i really don’t see that happening here; aguirre is not that dangerous and he is also relatively green himself, so its not like he can pull out some veteran savvy trick to win the fight. That's the only reason talbott isn’t a lock to me.

@AyyLmaonnaise 

Some of the same reasons you gave for Brendan Allen KO I can see applied to Paul Craig by KO.  I do not know which guy is going to get the win yet... But I definitely think the KO is more likely than the sub with each fighter's skill set.  I think they cancel each other out... And both have shown a propensity to get cracked in the past.  Should be a great fight.

No clue why some people love Diego Lopes than on the other hand will pick JSP

* Edited at 11.12.2023, 6:31 PM ET *

@crimson Brito is mad overrated. Hes gonna gas out fighting at JSP’s pace 

He's always live for a KO though, and I'll never forget Pearce making old ass Lauzon look like the second coming of Christ.

I have to refresh my memory on Pearce's fights to see how hittable he is.

He’s really hittable, but so is Brito. This fight is gonna come down to cardio & JSP can go to war for 15 minutes easy

There's a difference in power though, Pearce obviously has the cardio advantage but Brito is a guy who made Chepe look like he had Cirkunov's chin.

Chepe has been put out cold a bunch of times. Brito def has power but he swings wild and will take a shot to give one. JSP is bigger and much cleaner in the feet. 

But I think the wrestling will make a big difference. We saw Brito get really tired when algeo started resisting to his grappling. JSP is a monster with scrambles. He could very easily tire out brito

damn this FN is pretty meh 

@AyyLmaonnaise 

JSP's cardio is good until he meets some push back.

Think Brito is a perfect matchup made to beat JSP's type of style

* Edited at 11.12.2023, 9:47 PM ET *

I don't think you can honestly say JSP has cleaner striking than Brito, that feels slightly disingenuous. 

@crimson you could say the exact same thing about Brito. Algeo kept matching his pace and he crumbled. JSP gets tired but he never death gasses. He wasn’t tired against Elkins. His constant scrambling and activity on the ground is really going to tired out Brito. Brito goes super hard for the first 8 minutes and slows down later. JSP will get a little tired but he is always pushing a crazy pace 

@AscendantMMA 

just because Brito swings bombs doesn’t mean he’s more technical. His footwork is really bad, he marches the opponent down swinging overhand rights with an occasional jab and straight right. He takes punches to land punches. JSP gets hit a lot but he knows how to use his length. He throws his punches straight & not looping and also uses a lot of kicks. You have long been a critic of what I say tho so I’m not surprised you don’t believe me 

* Edited at 11.12.2023, 9:56 PM ET *

@AyyLmaonnaise 

On the other hand Brito survived the later rounds with Diego Lopes and won a very close decision, even against Omar Morales JSP was going life or death until Omar gassed.

I don't know you and I'm not a critic of you - put yourself out there with opinions on a forum, of course you will get reception whether it's negative or positive. Regardless, I just disagree on that point. Pearce is clearly uncomfortable on the feet, he's got stiff/awkward footwork and lunges in and out of range. He's heavy set on the lead leg, he doesn't set his entries up with a jab a lot of the time and technically, he's just pretty average in the striking realm. Brito is far more comfortable on the feet and IMO has far more success off the back of his striking. Not claiming he will win this fight, I think Brito is very live RD 1 and then downhill when JSP's cardio takes over. Just don't agree with your point that Pearce is a cleaner striker.

@crimson but he broke him down. JSP doesn’t win minutes, he breaks his opponents with his pace and pressure. Brito has shown that when he doesn’t get that early finish he slows down. JSP has that dog and is going to give Brito hell on the ground with his gnp and constant scrambling. 

@ascendant Brito’s striking is not technical at all tho. He just wings overhands like crazy and rushes forward. He will sometimes jab and throw straights but he doesn’t fight technical. Both guys are sloppy but I think JSP is a better striker

* Edited at 11.12.2023, 10:12 PM ET *

I think this card is roughly the same quality as other Apex card, i think their a few fun scraps even tho the name value on this card is subpar 

* Edited at 11.12.2023, 11:34 PM ET *

Almeida vs. Duncan
César Almeida, TKO, R1
Omg fraud check

Alexander vs. Saragih
Jeka Saragih, TKO, R2
Time to see aspinol move to super star in wwf.

@Vispian 

having wagers on fights can make crap card into a highly entertaining one.