UFC Fight Night Natal Prediction: Rony Jason vs. Steven Siler

It’s always interesting when a fighter chooses to fight in a way that doesn’t play to his strengths. Rony Jason is a perfect example of such a fighter. Jason has a very nice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu game – when he’s taken down, he has an active and attacking guard. He immediately gets wrist control and looks for triangle choke possibilities. Jason is also effective in top position but hasn’t had many opportunities to work from there, because he doesn’t go for takedowns much.

Jason’s preference is definitely to stand and strike; at least, it has been as long as he’s been in the UFC. In four UFC fights Jason has landed just one takedown in three attempts. The one takedown he landed was a result of catching a body kick thrown by Sam Sicilia, who was already hurt by Jason’s strikes and finished shortly afterwards.

So far Jason has a positive significant strike differential, but only by a slim margin. He’s landed 90 significant strikes and absorbed 78 against the following opponents: Godofredo Pepey, Sicilia, Mike Wilkinson, and Jeremy Stephens. Apart from Stephens, that’s a fairly low level of competition – a top prospect should definitely win striking battles more emphatically against them, but Jason’s fights have been very close and competitive.

Watching Jason on tape, he’s far from a precise striker. He tends to throw wild and looping strikes in search of a knockout victory. His TKO win against Sicilia was fun to watch, but it was far from a technical masterpiece, as both fighters threw punches from the hip. Jason ended up scoring the victory but was fortunate he didn’t get knocked out as Sicilia hit him hard with a lot of clean strikes.

Jason’s luck ran out against a tougher opponent in Stephens, who defeated him by knockout just 40 seconds into the first round.

If Jason wants to maximize his chances of winning, he should probably look for takedowns against Steven Siler. Siler is a fighter who has established himself as a capable striker and a dismal wrestler. He’s maintained a positive significant strike differential (259 to 252) despite being taken down 18 times in seven UFC fights. Siler is 1-2 in the UFC when he gets taken down more than once, but 4-0 if he gets to stand and strike.

While Siler isn’t nearly as wild with his strikes as Jason, his defense isn’t any better. He was hit 72 times in three rounds by Cole Miller and has absorbed 3.21 significant strikes per minute overall. While Siler moves around the cage fairly well, he doesn’t anticipate his opponents’ strikes very well at all. The result is a fighter who relies on conditioning and volume to out-point his opponents.

Superior conditioning is Siler’s biggest advantage in this particular matchup. The problem with Jason’s reckless striking is that each punch takes a lot of energy. Jason isn’t particularly well equipped to fight that way for three rounds; Siler could definitely capitalize late in the fight on points or even possibly by TKO.

With his polished BJJ and eight career wins by submission, Jason could make himself the clear favorite to win if he pursues takedowns. However, I can’t assume he’ll do that, because he hasn’t done that yet in the UFC. Fighters who establish a certain style tend to repeat that style in every fight. Sometimes a fighter like Demian Maia will wake up and realize he needs to get fights to the ground, but that’s the exception, not the rule.

Even so, I favor Jason to win this fight for a couple reasons. One is that he hits harder than Siler does. Even though he hasn’t been credited with a knockdown yet, he’s still early on in his UFC career – I anticipate the knockdowns will come. Meanwhile, Siler has only won by TKO three times in his career.

The second reason is that it’s possible Jason will change his fighting style and pursue takedowns against Siler. Again, that would be his best bet to win the fight even though I anticipate he won’t do it.

Finally, the fight is taking place in Brazil, which should be an advantage for Jason. I should do research on what (if anything) causes Brazilian fighters to have a “home-cage advantage,” but if that advantage truly exists, then Jason will be the beneficiary of it.

Pick: Rony Jason by decision

DEGENERATE GAMBLER’S CORNER

I foresee a competitive striking battle where Jason will have the power advantage while Siler has better conditioning. I favor Jason but not by a wide margin, so I’ll need plus money at the least to get some degenerate gambling action down on him. I have a feeling I won’t get that price, but we’ll see.

UFC Fight Night 26 Prediction: Mike Brown vs. Steven Siler

Mike Brown Fight Metric profile

Steven Siler Fight Metric profile

When Steven Siler made his UFC debut after appearing on TUF 14, I was pro-Siler in terms of him having a successful UFC career. Based on the SILVA scores I used to run, Siler had a rating that was average to above-average by UFC standards. I was rewarded for this faith by Siler starting 3-0 in the UFC including a win as a heavy underdog against Cole Miller.

Now that I’ve transitioned to FPR, my opinion of Siler has changed for the worse. Even though Siler is now 4-1 in the UFC, the data strongly suggests Siler is a fringe talent in the UFC, a fighter who will likely struggle to tread water towards the bottom of the division, and will be in danger of being released by the promotion before long.

What causes me to reach this conclusion? A few factors:

• Siler is clearly a far below-average wrestler by UFC standards. He is down 3-12 in takedowns in his UFC career. According to Fight Metric, Siler completes only 21% of his takedown attempts, and defends just 45% of his opponents’ takedown attempts.
• Siler’s wins against Miller, Kurt Holobaugh, and Josh Clopton were close and competitive while his loss to Darren Elkins was a blowout. Siler is not far removed from being 1-4 in the UFC instead of 4-1.
• Siler has not shown much finishing ability. He has yet to land a knockdown in the UFC. He does have a win by guillotine choke over Joey Gambino, but his other three wins were all by decision.

So what we have is a fighter who is not much of a finisher, but also a very poor wrestler and theoretically vulnerable to losing decisions. Siler has won three times by decision in the UFC, but none of those victories were against an opponent known for good wrestling (Holobaugh, Miller, Josh Clopton).

The result is that Siler has a -2.01 FPR, which I consider to be about “replacement level.” At featherweight, this puts Siler above just five fighters: Clopton, Rodrigo Damm, Sam Sicilia, Mike Wilkinson, and Nam Phan.

Siler’s opponent in this fight is Mike Brown, a former WEC featherweight champion who is clearly in the twilight of his career. Brown surprised a lot of people by twice defeating Urijah Faber, but after losing to both Jose Aldo and Manny Gamburyan, Brown has never been the same since. I would argue Brown was never an amazing talent, but he’s a very tough guy who somehow matched up really well with Faber to become WEC champion.

The key advantage Brown has in this fight is his wrestling. While Siler struggles to fend off his opponents’ takedowns, Brown lands 3.26 takedowns per 15 minutes at 40% accuracy. Brown earned those numbers against a series of opponents with much tougher takedown defense than Siler. If Brown is serious about taking Siler down, he’ll be successful at it.

The obvious concern is that Brown is very old in “fight years” and probably should have retired after his win over Daniel Pineda last year. Brown is now 37 years old, a 12 year veteran of mixed martial arts, and a fighter who has spoken openly of retirement for quite a while now. There is some potential for a letdown in this fight.

It shouldn’t happen though. Between Siler’s lack of KO power and Brown’s clearly superior wrestling, it’s hard to imagine Siler winning this fight. Brown should be able to land takedowns in each round and grind out a victory here. It won’t be pretty, and it won’t leave people thinking the Mike Brown of five years ago is back, but I see Brown getting the job done.

Pick: Mike Brown by decision