UFC Fight Night 147: Till vs. Masvidal - Predictions and Picks

#6. Jack Marshman vs. John Phillips

Jack Marshman's fight with John Phillips should turn into a filthy brawl

I haven’t checked this officially, but I’m pretty confident in stating that this is the first clash between two Welshmen in UFC history – in fact, outside of Brett Johns I can’t even name another Welsh UFC fighter! The fact that a country’s pride is at stake in some way makes this one intriguing even if it’s realistically a throwaway fight between a pair of hard-nosed brawlers.

The good news for Phillips here is that Marshman isn’t likely to attempt to capitalize on his porous ground game. ‘The Welsh Wrecking Machine’ has been fighting professionally since 2005, and currently holds a 21-8 record – with 5 of those losses coming via submission and 2 of the others coming on the ground too.

Marshman does have 5 submission wins on his ledger, but he’s hardly a prolific grappler – ‘The Hammer’ instead prefers to strike, where he’s largely a kill-or-be-killed type of fighter, as evidenced by his knockout wins over the likes of Che Mills and Magnus Cedenblad – and his KO losses to Thiago Santos and Abu Azaitar.

To make things more interesting, neither man is a truly technical striker either. Both men tend to wing power hooks with no jabs in sight, don’t really use a lot of head movement or footwork, and prefer to fire punches from close range rather than the outside. Phillips does train with SBG Ireland, but to say he’s not exactly Conor McGregor would be an understatement.

This could honestly go either way in my opinion and it’ll likely be tremendous fun for as long as it lasts – even if it goes the distance, by the end it’ll be two tired dudes throwing power punches at one another and who could ever complain about that? I’m taking Marshman as he seems more prove against better opposition, but who knows really. It’s a coin flip.

The Pick: Marshman via second-round TKO