Welcome back all! This week, I am going to be doing breakdowns for the Co-Main and Main event. Also as a planning note, I am also currently working on a ton of breakdowns for UFC 259. I will be releasing one per day starting on the Sunday before the event!

To create the following analysis, I watched every fight of both fighters and mixed my own visual analysis with the statistical breakdowns I created for them. Statistical analytics were drawn from my Judging Model as well as my new FAST model. I will be breaking down each fighter's past high level strategy and specific fight tactics and then investigating their ratings based on their round win % as determined by the Judging Model.

First, let’s start with Lewis. Lewis’ power jumps off the screen. Watching the speed and power with which he throws his “frozen turkeys”, as Paul Felder called them on the broadcast, was spectacular. I was also surprised to see the power and speed of his kicks. My mental image of Derrick Lewis is an upright bomb thrower that practices just-get-up-jitsu. Lewis’ combinations also look crisp and powerful. Watching him throw against Junior Dos Santos was a spectacle to behold.

Lewis is a prototypical power, counter puncher. This leads him to oftentimes utilize techniques like his flying knee and naked leg kicks to initiate contact with his opponent. I agree with his coaches who say that he needs to initiate more on offense and get his opponents on their back foot where his power can be dominant. The other aspect of Lewis’ game that I would like to see him build out is a power leg kicking game. Lewis has legit power in his kicks so if he can limit his opponent's mobility then his powerful, accurate shots can land with greater effect. The addition of a slick leg kicking game would really complement his skill set and help him against more skilled fighters like Stipe Miocic and (previously) Daniel Cormier.

On to Curtis Blaydes. Curtis has a really unique skill set for the heavyweight division. I don’t want to jump the shark too much on my analytics section but Curtis profiles as what I have been calling an Anaconda Tactician, i.e. high takedowns and a low takedown to control time ratio. Curtis doesn’t want you to just get taken down, he wants you to get up so he can do it again and sap you of your hope and energy.

Curtis’ biggest problem in my opinion is in his ability to finish fighters, specifically with his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Curtis could be a PROBLEM at heavyweight if he developed his submission skills and merged them with his truly dominant "Anaconda" skills. Personally, I really wish I could see Curtis against a younger Fabricio Werdum or a fighter of that skill profile. This would allow me to really see if Curtis can adapt to a fighter whose strengths lineup with what Curtis wants to do.

In my notes, I mentioned multiple times that Curtis does not take advantage of the poor BJJ positioning of his opponents and instead chooses to hold his control position and throw the occasional strike. I see this as a hole in his game. Fighters like Lewis could get dominated for 24.5 minutes of a fight only to throw one power bomb that knocks Curtis’ lights out and ends his title run. That to me is a problem that he needs to address. To further this statistically, Curtis has never attempted a submission attempt in his UFC career. For a ground dominant fighter this is a pretty major hole. In my research, I found that he's a blue belt in BJJ which makes sense to me based on what I have seen.

On to statistics! For each fighter, I have taken their fights from November 2018 onward. This encompasses Lewis’ shot at the title and Blaydes' last loss against Ngannou in their second matchup.

A little context that I think explains the above numbers. My model is trained on previous 30-27 or 50-45 decisions. Power counter punchers like Lewis don’t really get that far into fights since they usually knock their opponents out pretty early on or get dominated and lose. My model sees Lewis as a low output power puncher and so if he doesn’t grapple (ground and pound/clinch) he loses the round in my model’s eyes.

Same concept applies here, he profiles as a low efficiency power puncher who gets beaten on the scorecards but can knock guys out like he did with Volkov two years ago.

Unsurprisingly, Blaydes profiles as a ground specialist who wins at a high rate. I am going to go out on a limb here and say he is for sure going to try to enact this strategy on Lewis.

Basically, if you try to stand with Blaydes you are going to get decimated but if you mix in some grappling you have a chance. I think this is more a function of how dominant Blaydes is on the ground though. To me, the best way to beat Blaydes is a guard player or a Stipe type with strong takedown defense and superior striking.

Lewis profiles as a mix of head hunting and balanced striking. I believe the balanced rounds come from rounds where he throws in some leg kicks and flying knees. Tactical rounds are based on ratios so if Lewis throws five strikes in a round and one is a flying knee then he will look balanced in the model’s eyes.

Fighters take a varied approach to fighting Lewis, most with success. Lewis’ power is the great equalizer though and he can turn the table in a fight with seconds left.

Blaydes fights as the quintessential Anaconda tactical role, i.e. high takedown with strong control in the clinch and the ground. You know what Blaydes is going to do but the question is, can you stop it?

Not much to see here because of how dominant Blaydes has been.

Blaydes has many more paths to victory and his clinch and ground skills will be overwhelming for Lewis. However, his inability to finish could very well lead to a late round KO victory for Lewis. Lewis needs to land with power whereas Blaydes needs to apply his Anaconda tactics to gass Lewis out so that he can’t land his trademark power shot. I believe that Blaydes takes this one on points.