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#5 UFC Light-Heavyweight Division: Paul Craig vs. Gadzhimurad Antigulov

Paul Craig has a tremendous amount of UFC experience under his belt

Quite why the UFC have chosen to showcase this Light-Heavyweight bout is a question mark to me. Neither man is nowhere near title contention, and Antigulov hasn’t won a fight since April 2017. At least it should be fun I guess – the two men’s combined records show two fights going the distance between them!

The book has essentially been written on Scotland’s Craig now. ‘Bearjew’ is a tough guy and a dangerous grappler, but at the UFC level, he lacks the raw athleticism needed to make it to the top.

That’s not to say he can’t beat better athletes. His 2018 tapout of Magomed Ankalaev was both one of the greatest upset and greatest comebacks in UFC history. And he also submitted Kennedy Nzechukwu, another tremendous athlete. However, both men made quite frankly ridiculous mistakes leading to the submissions.

Thankfully for him though, Antigulov isn’t an athlete on the level of someone like Ankalaev. A smaller 205lber who doesn’t appear to be in the best shape, like Craig the Russian is also a grappler by trade. He’s a willing striker, but isn’t exactly technical – preferring to run forward winging punches to set up his takedowns.

If he can get an opponent to the mat, he’s definitely dangerous, but it’s safe to say that he’s not the greatest wrestler, either. Could he submit Craig, though? I guess it’s possible. Craig is a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu rather than a black belt and he’s willing to put himself into bad spots in order to hunt for his own submissions.

I suspect though, should he put ‘Bearjew’ onto his back, he’d be more likely to look to hurt him with strikes for a potential TKO win, as Tyson Pedro did in 2017.

The problem Antigulov is going to face here I feel is that while Craig’s definitely a limited fighter, he has far more experience. He’s fought 9 times in the UFC, and even faced former UFC champ Mauricio Rua in his last fight, even if Rua is obviously past his prime now.

Unless Antigulov can take him out in a blitz, I like Craig to outwork him, most likely on the ground – and probably pick up another late submission in the process.

The Pick: Craig via third round submission