UFC Fight Night 27 Prediction: Roger Bowling vs. Abel Trujillo

You would think that with 24 fights scheduled to take place next week, that I would have started writing my previews earlier. Obviously I don’t do smart things like that.

 

Roger Bowling Fight Metric profile

Abel Trujillo Fight Metric profile

At one time, Roger Bowling had a lot of hype behind him as a potential superstar in MMA. He had a lot of quick finishes in his early career, including a 28 second TKO win over Shamar Bailey and a 9 second knockout win over Seth Baczynski. Nothing drives hype quite like a highlight-reel knockout, and so Bowling had some absurd hype behind him going into his Strikeforce debut.

After reaching Strikeforce, it quickly became clear that Bowling wasn’t going to be the superstar people thought. Finishing opponents quickly is great, but it begs the question – what happens when a fighter survives the first round? As it turns out, Bowling sets a frenetic pace that he simply isn’t able to maintain into the later rounds. Bowling was stopped twice by the relatively unheralded Bobby Voelker in the second round.

What we have in Bowling is a fighter who is very aggressive but not very efficient. He’s capable of landing strikes and executing takedowns, but he puts a lot of energy into all of his techniques. His takedowns in particular are inconsistent at best. Against Tarec Saffiedine, Bowling failed on all seven of his takedown attempts.

In fairness to Bowling, Saffiedine has proven to have very tough takedown defense. That won’t be the case when Bowling fights Abel Trujillo. Trujillo is infamous for being taken down a whopping 21 times in his last fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov. It was a fight that led to people debating about what should be scored as a takedown, and what shouldn’t.

After watching Trujillo on tape, I can assure you that he wasn’t taken down so many times because Nurmagomedov is some kind of grappling savant. Trujillo’s takedown defense is genuinely terrible. To the extent Trujillo is able to defend takedowns, it’s because of natural athleticism, not any kind of superior technique.

More often than not, Trujillo abandons any idea of defending the takedown, and instead focuses on landing in such a way that he can quickly get back to his feet. Of course, when he gets back to his feet, his opponent still has a hold of him, and then he goes down again. That’s how Nurmagomedov scored 21 takedowns.

You might be wondering: “if Trujillo’s takedown defense is so horrible, how did Marcus LeVesseur only land two takedowns in ten attempts against him?” My counter to this is: LeVesseur is one of the worst fighters to compete in the UFC in the last few years. I would hope Trujillo wouldn’t get thrown around the cage by LeVesseur.

When I broke down the Conor McGregor fight last week, what stood out to me on tape was McGregor’s dominance on the regional circuit. He made his opponents look like they didn’t belong in the cage with him. I didn’t see that with Trujillo – to the contrary, I saw a fighter whose opponents were very competitive against him. It’s a red flag that Trujillo entered the UFC with a 9-4 record.

Another red flag: Trujillo’s reaction to all of Nurmagomedov’s takedowns. Instead of adjusting his strategy and figuring out how to defend the takedowns, Trujillo started complaining to the referee about it. The last thing I want to see is a fighter who is so clueless about how to fight his opponent that he appeals to the referee for help.

Ultimately, Trujillo doesn’t know how to defend himself effectively, and is facing an opponent in Bowling who is going to come straight at him and brawl. I don’t like Trujillo’s chances.

Pick: Roger Bowling by TKO

SILVA Predictions for Strikeforce: Rousey vs. Kaufman

Are here:

 

My pick for the main event will be for Ronda Rousey to submit Sarah Kaufman. I know, it’s not going out on a limb, but the idea here is to try to be as accurate as possible. I just don’t see Kaufman stopping Rousey’s game.

As it turns out, all of the main card fights feature lopsided odds, and SILVA isn’t going against the betting public in any one fight. I’ll be very surprised if more than one underdog wins on the main card. The fighter with the best chance of pulling off an upset is probably Roger Bowling, just because of the knockout power he possesses.

Enjoy the fights, everybody.

Roger Bowling and the Concept of Efficiency

I remember hearing a ton about Roger Bowling in 2009. As a fighter who had, at the time, never competed in anything resembling a major promotion, this struck me as odd. And yet, Bowling was getting coverage from guys like Kevin Iole, Leland Roling, and John Morgan. As somebody whose knowledge base on MMA wasn’t what it is now, I deferred to the wisdom of the aforementioned gentlemen, and when Bowling was signed by Strikeforce, waited for his seemingly inevitable rise to title contention.

But it didn’t happen. Instead, Bowling lost to Bobby Voelker by TKO twice, losses which deflated the tires of the Bowling bandwagon. Now, Bowling will be taking on Tarec Saffiedine, and to read the hype from 2009, it seems that Bowling should be a heavy favorite. Instead, it’s Saffiedine who’s considered the heavy favorite to win – a 3:1 favorite according to the current lines listed at Best Fight Odds.

What happened? As far as I see it, two things. One is that Bowling was considered a great prospect for the wrong reasons. Namely, Bowling had three very quick TKO wins early in his career – against Shamar Bailey, Seth Baczynski, and Devon Plaisance. Bailey and Baczynski are known fighters, and beating them in a combined 37 seconds is certainly not something to sneeze at. At the same time, a lightning-fast win is not the best indicator of future greatness for a fighter. I’d much rather see a comprehensive domination over a period of time than a win in the lightning-quick variety. Case in point:

Sokoudjou rocketed into the top 10 of a lot of rankings based on that win and a follow-up victory at the final PRIDE event against Ricardo Arona. In later fights, when Sokoudjou didn’t get the early KO, he was exposed to have insufficient conditioning, and is now an afterthought in the light-heavyweight division.

I feel the story of Roger Bowling is very similar. Check out his second fight against Bobby Voelker, from Strikeforce Challengers 11:

In the first minute of this fight, three thoughts popped into my head. One was that Bowling was throwing strikes with a lot of power, and it’s easy to see how he has seven TKO wins and a submission due to strikes in 13 fights. The second was that Bowling’s striking defense, particularly his hand placement, could be exploited by a skilled striker. The third, and the most important, was that Bowling was going to gas out if he continued to fight at his early pace. Surely enough, Bowling faded badly in the second round, in which he was defeated by TKO, which I believe was primarily due to exhaustion.

Fighters like Bowling are inefficient. Bowling’s offense largely consists of strikes thrown with a lot of power and effort, along with takedowns which also require a lot of effort. Sure, the possibility of winning by quick KO is always present, but that’s difficult to achieve against the skilled strikers which populate the upper levels of MMA. And if Bowling doesn’t get the knockout early, it’s very hard to see him winning. In both his losses to Bobby Voelker, my takeaway was not that Voelker had defeated Bowling, but that Bowling had defeated himself.

SILVA PREDICTION: TAREC SAFFIEDINE (47.80) OVER ROGER BOWLING (38.56)

Tarec Saffiedine is a heavy favorite to win because he has exactly the abilities required to beat a fighter like Bowling. In particular, Saffiedine has good defensive striking, which should minimize his risk of being knocked out, and good conditioning, which will enable him to capitalize on the opportunity to finish Bowling later in the fight. I can see why Bowling was so hyped just a few years ago – if all you see on tape is a fighter destroying his competition, it’s easy to get sucked in. But unless Bowling showcases a more efficient means of scoring points and generating offense, he’s going to lose to Tarec Saffiedine.