Preview And Predictions – UFC on Fox 18: Johnson vs. Bader

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With the dust finally settled on Dominick Cruz’s split-decision win over TJ Dillashaw, it’s back to business this Saturday night for the Ultimate Fighting Championship as the seemingly never ending circus visits the Prudential Centre in New Jersey for the latest event hosted by American network FOX.

In the main event it’s a high-ranking light-heavyweight bout for the east coast fans as Anthony “Rumble” Johnson and Ryan Bader battle it out for the number one contender spot with champion Daniel Cormier and long-time pound-for-pound king Jon Jones due to fight in the coming months.

Bader, who made his UFC debut in a winning ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ finale bout against Vinny Magalhães in 2008, has fought a total of fourteen times inside the Octagon. In that time he has faced some of the absolute best in the world but struggled for the most part against the higher competition with his only four losses coming against Jon Jones, Tito Ortiz, Glover Texeira and Lyoto Machida. In recent times, though, Bader has turned a corner with five consecutive wins – the last couple of which came against top contenders in Phil Davis and Rashad Evans.

Speaking of turning corners, Anthony Johnson knows a thing or two about that.

While Bader was ploughing his way through the 205 lbs division before the turn of the decade, Johnson was starving himself and losing to lesser competition as a middleweight and, amazingly, even as a welterweight although attempting, and failing, to make that weight saw him cut from the UFC.

In 2012, after one more mess-up outside of the UFC, Johnson reincarnated himself as a light-heavyweight and hasn’t looked back since. The Blackzilian trained fighter has won eight of his nine fights since with names like Phil Davis, Jimi Manuwa and Alexander Gustafsson sandwiching his championship loss to Daniel Cormier in May of last year.

With all of that experience and the improvements both men have made, this one could be a very interesting battle between two fighters with very different games.

As a mixed martial artist, Ryan Bader is noteworthy for doing the simple things well and always improving. First and foremost he is a wrestler, and a very strong one at that, who can change levels in a second and fell his opponent or grind them out against the fence. But he is also a very good striker who has been very technically sound throughout his career. Bader won’t do anything spectacular but his jab, hooks, straights and combination are all on point and more and more smooth and powerful with time.

When you’re talking about power in the light-heavyweight, though, Anthony Johnson stands above all others – a lot of the time in a literal sense.

Even back in his early days fighting at 177 lbs catchweights you could see Johnson’s whip but working with Blackzilian striking coach Henri Hooft has seen him refine his attacks into more usable, deadly weapons. In all of his fights Johnson will come out headhunting and throw hard off of both hands and both legs. If that doesn’t work he also has some pretty good offensive wrestling and vicious ground and pound to get the job done. Either way, it won’t be fun to stand across the cage from him.

Ryan Bader, though, will have to do that Saturday night and if he is to win he will need a detailed and brave gameplan.

Against fast-starting power brokers like Johnson the first task is always to weather the opening storm. For Bader that might mean fighting all the way on the outside where he can’t get hit, it might mean getting all the way on the inside where he can cover up and attain a clinch or it might mean going into all out wrestling-mode in an attempt to drag Johnson to the floor.

Well, that will be the hope anyway.

If Bader can do one, two or three of those things, or more precariously survive a striking shoot-out, he’ll have a good chance of doing what Daniel Cormier did and wearing Johnson out.

If he can’t, he will get knocked out cold.

For me, oddly, surviving a shoot-out is probably Bader’s best hope with 5 rounds for him to take over against Johnson who will tire if he can’t get the finish.

With that said, I think Johnson’s defensive wrestling is good enough to stuff any early Bader onslaught while he can also dictate striking range because of his superior size, skill and speed.

Baring a Johnson meltdown or a career high performance from Bader I think this one will be Johnson’s within the first ten minutes.

He’s simply too quick, too hard to take down and too powerful.

Miscellaneous Ramblings

Apart from the top bout there is really only one top-drawer fight on this card and that comes in the co-main event as veteran heavyweights Josh Barnett and Ben Rothwell collide.

A former UFC heavyweight champion, Barnett has seen and done it all in his thirty-one fight, nineteen-year career. Fights with Randy Couture, Mirko Cro Cop, Antonio Nogueira, Pedro Rizzo, Daniel Cormier and many more all culminated in somewhat of a surprise return to the UFC in 2013. Since then he has beaten Frank Mir, lost to Travis Browne and beaten Roy Nelson and now finds himself within touching distance of another title shot fourteen years after first winning it.

A fourteen year MMA veteran himself, Ben Rothwell was also a nomadic type for years having fought in KOTC, IFL and Affliction, amongst others, before finally getting the UFC call in 2009 after thirty-six fight career which included wins over names like Travis Fulton, Ricco Rodriguez and Roy Nelson. Since then the Wisconsin native has a 5-3 record but three wins on the bounce over messrs Vera, Overeem and Mitrione mean “Big” Ben is also knocking on the title holder’s door.

With two wily veterans like this it’s pretty tough to know which way it might go. Barnett hits hard but his biggest strength is making it a dogfight up against the cage or on the ground. Rothwell, on the other hand, likes to slug it out in open water where the big power in his hands can find their target.

Against someone more athletic and skilled the deficiencies on Barnett’s game are often shown up but against Rothwell that shouldn’t be an issue. Look for him to cut off the center early, stick Rothwell against the cage and grind his way to a victory.

Other notable names on Saturday will be Tarec Saffiedine who returns after 15 months out, Alex Caceres who is looking to save his job after three straight losses, Wilson Reis who is well know to Irish fans after his fight with Owen Roddy, new Fight Pass sensation Randy Brown and, of course, the original Fight Pass sensation Super Sage Northcutt who moves up to welterweight to facilitate short notice replacement Bryan Barberena in the opening bout on the main card.

FULL FIGHT PICKS

Main Card
Anthony Johnson vs. Ryan Bader – Rumble gets the early stoppage
Josh Barnett vs. Ben Rothwell – Grinding three round Barnett win
Iuri Alcântara vs. Jimmie Rivera – Fancy Alcântara via late submission
Sage Northcutt vs. Bryan Barberena – I’ll go with an early Sage finish but he might need it

Preliminary Card
Tarec Saffiedine vs. Jake Ellenberger – Tarec
Olivier Aubin-Mercier vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira – OAB
Kevin Casey vs. Rafael Natal – Natal
Dustin Ortiz vs. Wilson Reis – Reis
George Sullivan vs. Alexander Yakovlev – Yakovlev
Alex Caceres vs. Masio Fullen – Bruce LeeRoy

Fight Pass Preliminary Card
Levan Makashvili vs. Damon Jackson – Makashvili 
Tony Martin vs. Felipe Olivieri – Olivieri 
Matt Dwyer vs. Randy Brown – Brown 

BET OF THE WEEK

This week I’m going with Josh Barnett via decision at 11/4

START TIMES

Fight Pass Prelims – 8.30pm on Fight Pass

Prelims – 10pm on BT Sport 2

Main Card – 1am on BT Sport 2