UFC 231: Holloway vs. Ortega preview and predictions

Jimi Manuwa vs. Thiago Santos

‘Manuwa vs. Marretta” was originally booked for the Sao Paolo event in September; as Glover Teixeira fell out of his scheduled bout against Jimi Manuwa, Thiago Santos was able to fill in, only for Manuwa to also sustain an injury that forced him out of the event. When Eryk Anders filled in for Manuwa, what followed was one of the most uncomfortable beatdowns in MMA, and it announced Santos as a real contender at 205 pounds. Santos faces Manuwa in his fifth fight in 2018 over two weight classes, having gone 3-1 so far; Manuwa, meanwhile, is on a two-fight skid and needs a win here to remain a potential force at 205. With wins over Corey Anderson and Ovince St-Preux, Manuwa is undeniably dangerous; however, he’s yet to hit the light heavyweight elite and is in danger of irrelevancy with a loss at UFC 231.

Both Manuwa and Santos are quintessential glass cannons; this isn’t a great fight to bet on, because there’s a decent chance either gets knocked out at any moment as a function of the other’s offensive potency or as a function of their own lack of durability. Thiago Santos’ only loss this year was a first-round knockout loss to Dave Branch, an underrated veteran but by no means a power puncher; meanwhile, Jimi Manuwa’s last two losses both saw him very severely stumbled (and Volkan Oezdemir was able to put him out inside a minute). There’s a decent chance the more technical striker wins the fight, but either could probably blitz forward and find the knock-out.

Thiago Santos is probably the more refined overall striker of the two, and his durability hasn’t looked as quite as exploitable as Manuwa’s has, but the dynamic is a bit more favorable for Manuwa than it is for Santos. In the Jan Blachowicz rematch, Manuwa looked like a reasonably aggressive pressure early, feinting forward and using kicks well to back Blachowicz up, and was dropped by a considerably more polished boxer than Thiago Santos. Manuwa can dig to the body well with the left hook, he can counterpunch effectively if his opponent isn’t really thinking about what they’re doing (as St-Preux found), and his left hook is absolutely venomous; Manuwa is a better-schooled boxer than Santos, and his pressure should be able to defuse the kicking game of Santos and force a boxing fight. Santos was able to kick in his last loss to Branch, but Branch also drove him backward and eventually landed a right hook against the fence that ended the fight; if Manuwa can keep moving forward, Santos is dramatically hampered, and Santos isn’t terribly difficult to drive back.

Santos is better-rounded, but the approach seen from Manuwa in his last fight suggests that it isn’t necessarily relevant. Breaking down this sort of fight is always difficult to do with any sort of accuracy, but the actual matchup favors Manuwa.

Prediction: Manuwa via first-round knockout.