Prediction: Micallef via KO<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Micallef isn\u2019t the flashiest striker. He\u2019s not going to sit there and spam combinations or look slick in the pocket, but he\u2019s a tank with a nasty left high kick and a strong grappling base. And the thing about that left high kick? It\u2019s not just a weapon, it\u2019s the weapon for this fight. The way he whips it up, it doesn\u2019t even matter if Oban Elliott tries to block\u2014it\u2019s still getting through, wrapping around, and landing with force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, Elliott definitely looks like the more complete striker on paper. He\u2019s quicker, he\u2019s got more tools, he can put together volume, angles, and tempo changes. He\u2019s the guy you\u2019d normally favor in a striking match. But there\u2019s one glaring hole that makes all that irrelevant: every time he dips his head off to the right, he\u2019s basically begging to eat a left high kick. And it\u2019s not like this is a one off habit. It\u2019s baked into his style. He dips, he moves, but he doesn\u2019t have that defensive cover to keep himself safe. Against most fighters, you can get away with that. Not against someone like Micallef, who\u2019s built to punish exactly that mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On top of that, if by some chance Elliott does avoid the kick, he still has to deal with Micallef\u2019s grappling. The dude just looks stronger and if he gets his hands on Elliott, the fight gets real ugly for him real fast. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prediction: Micallef via KO Micallef isn\u2019t the flashiest striker. He\u2019s not going to sit there and spam combinations or look slick in the pocket, but he\u2019s a tank with a nasty left high kick and a strong grappling base. And the thing about that left high kick? It\u2019s not just…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ufc-perth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":551,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}