UFC Fight Night 158: Cowboy vs. Gaethje - Predictions and Picks

#5 Misha Cirkunov vs. Jimmy Crute

The powerful Misha Cirkunov will provide youngster Jimmy Crute with a tough test

A couple of years ago, I’d have ranked Latvian-Canadian fighter Misha Cirkunov as perhaps the best prospect in the world at 205lbs. A massively muscled Light-Heavyweight, Cirkunov tore through his early competition in the UFC with a strong mix of powerful striking and tight ground work. Sure, he wasn’t the most flowing striker, preferring to throw stiff punches with a lot of power, but that didn’t give him any trouble against the likes of Ion Cutelaba, Nikita Krylov and Alex Nicholson.

Then he walked into a short punch from Volkan Oezdemir and was knocked out cold, and in his rebound match with Glover Teixeira he just didn’t look right at all, succumbing to the strong ground game of the Brazilian and losing a first-round TKO.

Cirkunov bounced back last year by impressively submitting Patrick Cummins, but in his last fight he was stopped by the explosive Johnny Walker in violent fashion.

I wouldn’t go as far as calling Cirkunov a bust just yet – he’s still got a lot of talent and if his striking game improves a bit in terms of his defensive skills and his ability to string together more combinations, he could definitely rise back up the rankings – but his chin and overall toughness are a definite worry going forward.

His opponent Crute is a tricky fighter to get a handle on. The young Australian came into the UFC off the back of an impressive KO on Dana White’s Contender Series and then won an exciting – if sloppy – grappling match with Paul Craig before knocking out Sam Alvey in February. Crute’s clearly an athletically talented fighter but he’s still very raw – meaning he could well have bitten off more than he can chew in this fight.

Basically if this fight were coming a couple of years down the line I’d give Crute a huge chance of winning – and in fact, he might well win anyway by catching the slightly slower Cirkunov with a big punch early on – but for me this is just a step too far for him at this stage in his career. Cirkunov is more experienced, more polished and although he’s coming off a loss, he’s beaten guys like Crute before.

Given Crute got into issues on the ground against Craig – who isn’t as good a grappler as Cirkunov – I think this one should be Misha’s if he can get the Aussie to the ground. Given Crute was more than willing to duel on the mat with Craig I don’t think he’ll have issues attempting to do the same with Cirkunov – until he’s tapping, that is.

The Pick: Cirkunov via second-round submission