The best and worst from UFC Fight Night 140: Magny vs. Ponzinibbio

#3 Best: What happened to Michel Prazeres?

Michel Prazeres looked great in his win over Bartosz Fabinski

Brazilian Michel Prazeres came into Fight Night 140 on a 7-fight win streak, not that many people would’ve realised. That’s because for the most part, he’d been fighting on prelim cards due to a deserved reputation as a dull fighter. ‘Tractor’ had 2 finishes amongst those 7 wins, but for the most part he’d relied solely on a strong wrestling game to grind out his victories.

Last night’s fight against fellow grinder Bartosz Fabinski sounded pretty terrible on paper, but something clearly snapped inside Prazeres, as he came out looking more aggressive than he’d ever done before and dropped his Polish opponent with some huge punches before quickly securing a mounted guillotine to force the tapout.

Prazeres’ list of victims doesn’t exactly read like a who’s who in the UFC – JC Cottrell and Mads Burnell aren’t exactly huge names – but anyone on an 8-fight win streak in the Octagon has to be respected, and if he fights like he did last night going forward, then Prazeres might yet get a bigger push from the UFC brass, too.

At the worst he’s probably earned another crack on the main card of a show. The UFC would do well to ignore his post-fight plea to fight back at 155lbs, where he missed weight on 3 occasions from 2016 to 2018, but a match with a top fifteen or top ten 170lber would probably be fair. This was the best showing of his UFC career to date.