This Saturday, September 28, history is being made at Royal Arena in Copenhagen, Denmark, with the nation holding its very first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event. The main bout for the night (daytime for us here in the United States with the event being overseas) brings us a matchup between Jack “The Joker” Hermansson and Jared “The Killa Gorilla” Cannonier.
For Hermansson, he’s contending to be a challenger for a welterweight belt, and not just that, but he’ll also be looking to get a win in his native Scandinavia. For Cannonier, he’ll be looking to spoil the party representing the United States of America. As far as the odds are concerned, “The Joker” comes into the tilt as the -250 favorite, while “The Killa Gorilla” is listed as a +195 underdog, according to the top MMA betting sites.
Height: 6’1″ | Weight: 185 lbs. | Age: 31 | Reach: 77.5″ Stance/Striking Style: Orthodox/Kickboxing Last Fight: Win against Jacare Souza via decision (April 27) Camp: Frontline Academy (Norway) Risk Management: Fair
Height: 5’11” | Weight: 185 lbs. | Age: 35 | Reach: 77.5″ Stance/Striking Style: Orthodox/Kickboxing Last Fight: Win against Anderson Silva via TKO (May 11) Camp: MMA Lab (Arizona) Risk Management: Fair
It’s been awhile since Jack Hermansson has been a huge favorite, with his last time coming in August 2017 against Brad Scott — that was five bouts ago, which he would win courtesy of a knockout in the first round. In Hermansson’s defense, he was a favorite in four of those fights, but not by a distant margin like he is in this contest. Regarding his underdog status, the only time that would happen is when he would take on Jacare Souza back in April. Despite being an underdog, however, Hermansson would do his thing to get the win via unanimous decision.
Jared Cannonier has been in three middleweight bouts, and he’s came in as the underdog in two of those fights — the second being the contest against Jack Hermansson. With that being said, he’s an undefeated 2-0 in the welterweight division so far and going for a third straight victory. In his most recent tilt, he would square off against Anderson Silva, and there he would get the TKO win in the first round after Silva would suffer a knee injury.
Concerning Jack Hermansson, you can expect a very quick fighter both on his feet and with his punches. Expect a lot of movement, a lot of speed and a lot of action. When he strikes, he’s gifted with a diverse arsenal, including a series of punches that is meant to weaken his opponent before he delivers the big blow, and he’s also got a powerful long kick to go along with it.
Out of his 20 victories in his professional fighting career, Hermansson has earned 11 knockout victories and he’s also grabbed five wins courtesy of submission. Not only is his pace high either, but he also has pin-point accuracy that is deadly to opposition. Hermansson’s opponents will often go for a takedown when he’s in his zone, but it never usually ends up well for his competition. The reason is because Hermansson’s squeeze is just too much too handle, particularly with his guillotine.
Jared Cannonier just started out in the welterweight division, but you can certainly expect him to do big things as his time progresses at this level, and that’s mainly due to his time in the heavyweight division — a place where he used to consistently knock fighters out.
Cannonier is know for his patience with his opponents, and this is mainly due to his ability to counter-strike and the power that comes along with it. When his competition starts their consistent punches and kicks, that’s when Cannonier unleashes fury delivering double the force in retaliation. He does have a question with him, however, and that’s his takedown defense. When you look at the numbers, Cannonier only avoids 44% of attempts against him. With that being said, when he does get knocked on the floor, he’s excellent at getting right back up with how strong and speedy he is.
If Jared Cannonier can avoid the majority of takedowns to preserve his energy and corner Jack Hermansson throughout the fight, he’ll put himself in excellent position to get a win this weekend. For Hermansson, his biggest key to victory is to take Cannonier to the ground and keep him there. If he does that and delivers power abuse, Hermansson should have this thing in the bag. I’ll go ahead and take the latter.
Nicolas Dalby might be coming in as the underdog in this contest, but what a historic night it will be for him. Not only will he be in his first fight since 2016, but Dalby is making his comeback in his home nation of Denmark. When he would go to Cage Warriors, Dalby would do solid in his five bouts, pulling in a 3-1 record with the other being a no contest — one of those tilts would also result in Dalby winning the welterweight title, taking out Alex Lohore to win the belt.
It’s a bit tough to handicap Oliveira in this tilt. When you look at his defeats to Mike Perry and Gunnar Nelson, you have to give him a little break with both. With that being said, the rest of his competition hasn’t been the best, and this includes beating a limited Carlos Condit and knocking out Carlo Pedersoli in the first round — both would be close to two years ago. But did he really have a choice? In his UFC career, he put up a 1-2-1 record and after taking a long break, he would have to go to Cage Warriors.
I understand the odds say that Alex Oliveira is the favorite, and this is probably because Dalby hasn’t been in action since 2016, but it just seems to be a fight that Nicolas Dalby will take due to Oliveira being in a downward spiral. Still though, Nicolas Dalby actually has to get in the octagon and deliver the victory — time will tell with this interesting square off. It’s a toss-up for me, so I’ll stick with the favorite and the one who hasn’t been on a three-year hiatus.
Yeah, Jack Hermansson vs. Jared Cannonier may be the main event, but the matchup between Ian Cutelaba and Khalil Rountree Jr. could possibly go down as the most entertaining fight of the night.
The reason: The physicality. Rountree is gifted when it comes to rough-and-tumble fighting, and Cutelaba is an excellent wrestler and has a lot of power in his strike.
With Cutelaba, he does get himself in trouble sometimes and it’s shown in his last five bouts with two losses on his resume — he also has a hard time when moving up weight classes. With that being said, Cutelaba also has the potential to land lethal blows for some flashy knockouts. He may be a little overhyped if you ask Dana White, but Cutelaba does provide entertainment value.
Like the fight between Alex Oliveira and Nicolas Dalby, this is another bout that’s a bit hard to handicap. With Rountree, he’ll certainly have more energy in this one, and if the fight goes to the scorecards, he should be able to pull out the victory. What’s risky about that prediction though is just two fights ago we would see Rountree get knocked out by Johnny Walker — Cutelaba has a total of 11 KO’s in his career, so keep that in mind.
To put it simple, this fight is quite unpredictable to pick. On one end, we could see a result with a quick and powerful knockout, or we’ll see a tilt that will end up being an absolute war that ends up in the judges’ hands. We’ll see what kind of fight that we get, but as far as the winner is concerned, you have to side with Khalil Rountree Jr. in this one. Against similar competition, Rountree has the much better performances, so you have side with “The War Horse”.
Before this fight came to happen, Gunnar Nelson was actually in the process of getting ready for Thiago Alves, but he would immediately have to switch his focus to Gilbert Burns. Nelson is superb while on the ground, but his latest form isn’t the best with his most recent tilt being a defeat to Leon Edwards that would see the judges split the outcomes. It was a major setback for Nelson, and this because of him coming off of a knockout loss back in 2017 to Santiago Ponzinibbio and trying to recover.
For Gilbert Burns, he’s coming off of a victory against Alexey Kunchenko just a month ago, so it’s certainly a quick turn around for the 33-year-old. Fortunately for Burns, that fight would only be a total of 15 minutes and he wouldn’t suffer much damage. With that being the case, Burns is good to go and he also happens to be coming into this bout as the favorite. Another reason why Burns wanted this fight was because of the lack of competition that he’s faced off against, so with Nelson being able to compete, it didn’t take long for Burns to be all in for this fight. With the massive motivation there and the better form, you have to go with Gilbert Burns for the win.
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