Middleweights
BETTING ODDS: Kondratavicius (-750); Trocoli
(+525)
Lithuania’s Kondratavicius (8-1) seeks his first UFC win here
against Trocoli (12-6, 1 NC; 0-3 UFC), who is still in search of
the same despite three previous tries. Much will be made of
Kondratavicius’ knockout power, which he definitely possesses, but
at this point in his development, the 26-year-old is an ultra-raw
work in progress. He is a good-sized middleweight, blessed with
athleticism that can be smooth or explosive as the moment requires,
and nice finishing instincts. While he is a well-trained striker
capable of employing a wide variety of techniques, he tends to
charge in on straight lines and does not throw in combination often
enough, aside from swarming on an already hurt foe. The result is
that he has amassed an impressive highlight reel, but watching the
actual fights reveals a prospect who gets hit cleanly far too
often, even by opponents who couldn’t hope to match his offensive
output and were eventually overwhelmed. There is something of
early-career Edmen
Shahbazyan about him in that regard, and whatever the outcome
of Saturday’s fight, he may be in for a similar learning curve in
the future.
Having said that, even if Kondratavicius is ripe for some in-cage
lessons, Trocoli is probably not the one to deliver them. “Malvado”
is an absolutely massive middleweight (after coming up as an
impossibly massive welterweight) but despite his vaunted
grappling background, it’s difficult to point out anything he does
at a UFC level. Trocoli enjoys height and reach advantages over
everyone else in the division, but his hand speed and head movement
are so poor that smaller fighters have no trouble navigating the
distance. He is a capable offensive grappler, and has big
ground-and-pound when the opportunity presents itself, but he lacks
any reliable way to get good middleweights to the floor, and his
own grappling defense has been cracked in consecutive first-round
submission losses, including getting guillotine choked by a striker
and marginal UFC talent in Tresean
Gore.
This fight features one of the widest betting lines on the card for
good reason. Kondratavicius is a promising talent but far from a
finished product, but it’s difficult to plot a path to victory for
Trocoli outside of landing the best haymaker of his career.
Conversely, Kondratavicius’ tendency to surge forward behind a
storm of huge, disconnected single strikes is likely to pay off big
against an upright, slow-footed opponent with zero head movement.
The pick is Kondratavicius by first-round knockout.
Jump To »
Jones vs. Sola
Wood vs. Keita
Sutherland vs. Pericic
Kondratavicius vs. Trocoli
Pinto vs. Franco
Rock vs. Al-Selwady
Dyer vs. Oliveira
Mullins vs. Carolina
