UFC Fight Night 145: Blachowicz vs. Santos - Predictions and Picks

#2 Stefan Struve vs. Marcos Rogerio De Lima

Stefan Struve has been a staple in the Heavyweight division for a decade now

It seems hard to believe, but Dutch Heavyweight Stefan Struve has now been with the UFC for a full decade, as he debuted pretty much ten years ago to the week of this show with his KO loss to Junior Dos Santos. Few fighters have gone through quite so many ups and downs and still kept their place on the UFC roster, too.

‘Skyscraper’ is currently 12-9 inside the Octagon, but he’s also in the midst of his worst run in the promotion, as he’s on a three-fight skid and hasn’t won since 2016. The tallest fighter on the UFC roster at 7’0”, Struve has always shown flashes of elite-level talent – his 2012 KO of Stipe Miocic, for instance – but for various reasons that we’ll explore in a second, he’s never quite gotten himself into title contention.

Essentially, while you’d expect him to be a deadly striker given his insane range and reach (84.5”), he’s never quite worked out how to maximise those natural gifts. He doesn’t really use a ramrod jab, and while his long punches and kicks can be effective when he finds his range, he’s way too open to eating a big counter shot and his chin isn’t the most durable – as we saw when Mark Hunt violently knocked him out back in 2013 with a pair of overhand hooks.

6 years have passed since then, but judging by his KO loss to Alexander Volkov in 2017, he still suffers from the same issues. His ground game is equally inconsistent; capable of snatching nasty submissions due to his long limbs, Struve has notable tapout wins over Daniel Omielanczuk, Pat Barry and Lavar Johnson. But his takedown defense is also pretty poor, as is his bottom game against a competent grappler – something that led directly to his 2018 losses to Marcin Tybura and Andrei Arlovski.

With his back firmly to the wall though, this fight with Marcos Rogerio De Lima actually sounds like a winnable one to me, assuming he’s not thoroughly shot after a decade of action at the top. ‘Pezao’ arrived in the UFC in 2014 off the back of a middling showing on TUF: Brazil but looked like a potential contender when he smashed Richardson Moreira and Igor Pokrajac in his first two outings.

He was easily handled by Nikita Krylov in his next fight though, and since then he’s alternated wins and losses, giving him a UFC record of 5-3 coming into this clash with Struve. A heavy-handed kickboxer, De Lima’s main weapon is his stand-up, as he throws powerful leg kicks, hooks to the head and body, and he’s also adept at ground striking from the top position too. It’s hardly a surprise, therefore, that of his 16 wins, 11 have come by KO or TKO.

On the flip side, De Lima’s grappling skills have shown to be somewhat lacking during his tenure in the UFC. All three of his losses have come via submission, and you can add a 4th to that if you count his loss to Antonio Carlos Junior on TUF. ‘Pezao’ does have a lone submission win on his ledger, but it was an arm triangle of Clint Hester based more around power and squeeze than genuine jiu-jitsu skill.

The biggest issue I can see for De Lima in this fight is his size; initially a Light-Heavyweight in the UFC, he moved up to Heavyweight in 2018 after missing the 205lbs limit twice in 2017. He did defeat Adam Wieczorek at UFC 230 at Heavyweight, but physically he didn’t look great, as he certainly didn’t appear to be svelte at his new weight. He did show some solid ground skills in the fight which was a plus point, but I suspect he’ll be hugely outsized against Struve – who has to cut weight to make 265lbs.

De Lima could win this one I guess; he could land a clubbing blow to take Struve out early on, and if he can get the Dutchman to the ground then there’s every chance he could also pound him out. But Struve’s issues with grappling haven’t been coming against smaller Heavyweights – last time he fought one of those, he choked Daniel Omielanczuk out with ease. De Lima just isn’t a grappler on the level of Marcin Tybura or even latter day Andrei Arlovski, and I can’t see him taking Struve down.

That leaves us with either a stand-up battle – meaning there’s a 50/50 chance of Struve being knocked out – or the possibility that Struve takes De Lima down and deals with him on the ground as Ovince St. Preux and Krylov did. I’m taking my chances with that scenario and going for Struve via submission.

The Pick: Struve via second round submission