Preview: UFC Rio Prelims

Men’s Bantamweights

Luan Lacerda (12-3, 0-2 UFC) vs. Saimon Oliveira (18-6, 0-3 UFC)

Odds: Lacerda (-250); Oliveira (+210)

The opening bout of UFC Rio is also the only fight on the card featuring two native fighters. The good news is that one of them will presumably pick up his first win in the Octagon.

Lacerda did not look particularly impressive in losing his first two UFC bouts to Cody Stamann and Da'Mon Blackshear, even if he arguably should have gotten the nod over Stamann. Worse yet, he has been out of action for well over two years since then, meaning he returns to the cage well on his way to his 33rd birthday and desperately in need of a win. Despite what his record of zero knockouts and 11 submissions might imply, Lacerda is a very competent muay thai striker, with the upright stance and high guard one might expect. He is deliberate to a fault on the feet, especially by bantamweight standards, waiting for counter opportunities that, if they do not come, leave him to lose rounds almost by default.

On the ground, he is a much more interesting problem, but he had relatively few opportunities to show that in the Stamann and Blackshear fights, especially the latter, where he learned the hard way that rolling for leg attacks from the bottom would not fly against any decent UFC bantamweight. His regional tape shows an excellent submission artist with surprisingly good offensive wrestling that he mostly used to create scrambles, where his positional awareness routinely let him take opponents’ backs or necks in transition.

Oliveira is on a three-fight losing streak to Lacerda’s two, but at least he has fought since the last US presidential election. A bit like Lacerda, his ratio of KO to submission wins implies a grappling specialist, but the opposite is true: Oliveira would much rather settle things on the feet, but is perfectly happy to finish things with his patented guillotine choke once his foe is compromised and/or in desperation takedown mode. He is also a muay thai practitioner, taller and rangier than Lacerda but less measured. Oliveira is a hyperaggressive striker, more in the mold of old-school Chute Boxe or an early-00s South Korean berserker than most bantamweight strikers in the current UFC.

Lacerda is a big favorite here and to be honest, I’m not quite sure why. Even if we were to concede that he is the more talented fighter—which I’m not sure is the case—he has been in mothballs for over two years, and it’s an open question whether he is as good at 32 as he was at 30. Assuming he is roughly the same fighter he was then, the lean is towards Lacerda to avoid Oliveira’s big shots on the feet and get the better of things on the ground if they go there while both men are relatively unhurt. The pick is Lacerda by decision, but caveat emptor for sure.



Jump To »
Filho vs. Carpenter
Petrino vs. Petersen
Mesquita vs. Alekseeva
Rocha vs. Nicoll
Walker vs. Usman
Polastri vs. Kowalkiewicz
Lacerda vs. Oliveira