A rematch of gigantic proportions is upon us, as light heavyweight champion Danier Cormier is set to defend his title against Anthony “Rumble” Johnson this Saturday at the KeyBank Center in Buffalo.
A lot has changed since their first fight in UFC 187, where Cormier defeated Johnson via submission in the third round. Will DC succesfully defend his title, or will we crown Rumble as the new light heavyweight champ?
Let’s find out below what the experts have to say about this collosal match as well as the four other fights on Saturday’s main card.
Jonathan Bradley of Fox Sports predicts that Cormier – a slight underdog with his odds of winning priced at -105 – will come on on top again over Johnson (-125); this time by way of a fourth-round knockout. Bradley has his doubts about Johnson’s claim that he has improved his cardio, especially when all three of Rumble’s latest wins didn’t exceed the five-and-a-half minute mark.
Elsewhere on the main card, Bradley went with Cynthia Calvillo and Will Brooks to emerge victorious from their respective matches. He gave the edge to Calvillo because of her big-game experience compared to her opponent Pearl Gonzalez, who’ll be making her UFC debut this Saturday, and that’s despite the fact that Calvillo is coming off short rest from her very impressive submission victory in UFC 209 last month.
Meanwhile, Bradley expects rising lightweight Brooks to capitalize on a lackluster stretch of matches from Oliveira, who dipped his toes in the featherweight division where he lost three of his last four bouts.
It’s also worth noting now that both Calvillo (-280) and Brooks (-240) received unanimous votes from our selection of experts, which further reinforces that they’re indeed deserving of being the odds-on favorites with the bookies.
Fansided (Riley Kontek)
Match
Prediction
Daniel Cormier vs. Anthony Johnson
Cormier
Chris Weidman vs. Gegard Mousasi
Weidman
Cynthia Calvillo vs. Pearl Gonzalez
Calvillo
Thiago Alves vs. Patrick Cote
Cote
Will Brooks vs. Charles Oliveira
Brooks
Fansided’s Riley Kontek also picked Cormier to successfully defend his title over Johnson, regardless of how Rumble has rocked his last three opponents to the ground (Jimi Manuwa, Ryan Bader and Glover Teixeira) in quick fashion. Kontek believes that DC’s wrestling skills will once again trump Johnson’s brute force with yet another submission.
As for the co-main event, Kontek sees Chris Weidman (-110) bouncing back from his two-match skid that began when he lost the middleweight title to Luke Rockhold. However, and if you’ll notice in this article, Gegard Mousasi (-120) received the majority of the votes from the pundits given his four-fight win streak and his pinpoint striking accuracy, in which 56 percent of his 219 strikes landed cleanly across his last three bouts.
Combat Press
Match
Zach Aittama
Bryan Henderson
Daniel Cormier vs. Anthony Johnson
Johnson
Cormier
Chris Weidman vs. Gegard Mousasi
Mousasi
Mousasi
Cynthia Calvillo vs. Pearl Gonzalez
Calvillo
Calvillo
Thiago Alves vs. Patrick Cote
Cote
Alves
Will Brooks vs. Charles Oliveira
Brooks
Brooks
The two-man panel over at Combat Press were divided with their predictions for the main event, with Zach Aittama being the only one of our four featured experts who’s confident that Johnson will be the better man than Cormier. Aittama went in great detail that the only loss in Johnson’s 12-fight run at light heavyweight was to Cormier, and that DC also had to cut his training time significantly leading up to this Saturday’s pay-per-view because of a couple of minor injuries.
Last but not least, CP’s Bryan Henderson was the only expert here to have Thiago Alves (+125) go over Patrick Cote in their welterweight clash. However, Alves has not been the same since losing his title shot to Georges St. Pierre in 2009. Including that loss, the Brazilian has gone 4-6 with back-to-back defeats entering UFC 210, and he’s had his fair share of injuries since as well. On the other hand, Cote’s got as strong a chin and a more well-rounded game than the younger Alves, which would explain why the Canadian’s a -155 favorite to win and recover from his TKO loss to Donald Cerrone last June.
