Prediction: Punahele Soriano inside the distance<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At middleweight, Puna was always a guy known for pounching power. He\u2019d load up, look for the knockout, leaving himself open fo counters and burning too much energy early. But since making the move to 170, you can see he\u2019s done this the right way. He didn\u2019t just cut the weight recklessly; he actually slimmed down, tightened up his frame, and got into real fighting shape. It shows not just in how he looks but in how he fights. His cardio is finally backing up his skillset. He\u2019s blending his striking with his wrestling, he\u2019s pushing a pace, and that version of Soriano is a serious problem for someone like Nikolay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The biggest difference maker here is the wrestling. Soriano\u2019s shown he\u2019s actually willing to lean on that part of his game now, and at welterweight, he has the strength and gas to keep it going without burning himself out. Nikolay\u2019s takedown defense just isn\u2019t there, and if he\u2019s struggling to stuff shots, it\u2019s only going to get worse as the fight drags on. Meanwhile, Soriano\u2019s power at 185 has carried down with him, but the scary part is he\u2019s no longer banking on it. He can still crack, but now he\u2019s mixing that with a grindy style that makes him way more dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So while Nikolay has the ability to land something big, his best weapons are too easy to read.Soriano has the cardio advantage, sharper game planning, and wrestling edge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prediction: Punahele Soriano inside the distance At middleweight, Puna was always a guy known for pounching power. He\u2019d load up, look for the knockout, leaving himself open fo counters and burning too much energy early. But since making the move to 170, you can see he\u2019s done this the right…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ufc-320"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","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=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions\/571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capmma.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}