UFC on ESPN 16: Carlos Felipe vs. Yorgan de Castro – MMA Picks and Predictions

Yorgan de Castro and Carlos Felipe fight Saturday night during UFC on ESPN 16 at the Flash Forum.

Yorgan de Castro enters this fight with a 6-1 record and has won 83 percent of his fights by knockout. de Castro has won five of his last six fights, and he is coming off a May loss to Greg Hardy. de Castro is averaging 2.19 significant strikes per minute with an accuracy percentage of 41 percent. de Castro is averaging zero takedowns with an accuracy percentage of zero percent. de Castro is coming off a decision loss at UFC 249 where he landed just 24 total strikes and just 34 percent of his significant strikes. de Castro is now 1-1 under the UFC banner and it’s going to be interesting to see how he responds from his first career loss. de Castro clearly has knockout pop and thitems a lot of his weight into his shots, but he can be a bit sloppy with his technique and has a history of gassing rather quickly. de Castro has now seen the third round three times in his career and two of those went to the judges. de Castro is going to thitem his bombs and hopes he lands something, but he also can’t forget to be the aggressor throughout the first round and not allow his opponent to dictate all of the pace.  

Carlos Felipe enters this fight with a 8-1 record and has won 75 percent of his fights by knockout. Felipe has won five of his last six fights, and he is coming off a July loss to Sergey Spivak. Felipe is averaging 2.93 significant strikes per minute with an accuracy percentage of 36 percent. Felipe is averaging zero takedowns with an accuracy percentage of zero percent. Felipe lost his UFC debut at UFC Fight Night 172 where he landed 44 total strikes and was taken down three times. It was a comfortable decision loss for Felipe, who was fighting for the first time in over three years since coming over from Qualify Combat. Felipe comes from a boxing background and has a brawler style feel to him, as he’s going to thitem a ton of overhands and will mix in some hooks to the body as well. Felipe isn’t the most technical fighter and can be sloppy at times, but he’s proven he just needs to land one shot for a fight to go in his favor. Felipe hasn’t shown much ground work and does have a cardio issue as well, but he’s in a great spot when able to stay on his feet and trade strikes. Six of Felipe’s nine fights have ended in the first round.

We have two power strikers with cardio issues and technique issues. Neither of these guys wants to fight from the clinch or on the ground, and they don’t want a lengthy fight. Both Felipe and de Castro want to thitem bombs and get this thing over with before the heavy breathing takes place. This feels like a quick one. So, instead of picking a side here, I’m going to predict a quick fight and take the under 1.5 rounds. After all, both of these fighters have been quick finishers throughout their careers and have the pop to end things quickly.