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#2 Yair Rodriguez vs. Jeremy Stephens

Everyone will be hoping the rematch between Yair Rodriguez and Jeremy Stephens ends differently

Firstly then, kudos to the UFC for turning this fight around far more quickly than I’d expected. For those who’ve missed the past couple of months of UFC programming, Rodriguez and Stephens faced off in the main event of Fight Night 159 in Mexico City last month, only for the fight to end in a No Contest after a handful of seconds following an inadvertent eye poke from Rodriguez.

Since then, what was a seemingly respectful rivalry has been replaced with some serious bad blood; essentially, Rodriguez felt that Stephens was making a meal of the eye poke and took the easy way out, while Stephens obviously disagreed. Personally, I’m with Stephens – I just don’t see what he would gain from faking an eye injury in that manner.

At any rate, we’re not even a month removed from the original fight, so I’m glad the UFC are letting them settle the issue here. Last time around, I picked Rodriguez to win this fight, feeling that while his wildness often gets him into trouble, he’s also got the fundamentals to fight a smart fight and Stephens had faced issues in dealing with longer, lankier fighters like ‘El Pantera’ before.

The caveat to that, however, was that I felt that Rodriguez would only be able to win in that way if he could avoid any brawling exchanges with the hard-hitting Stephens. That’s not to say that Rodriguez can’t out brawl opponents – his chin is obviously rock-solid based on his wild fight with Chan Sung Jung and he hits hard himself – but by doing that he’d be stepping into Stephens’ wheelhouse.

With the bad blood now brewing though, can Rodriguez really avoid simply heading to the center of the cage and throwing down with ‘Lil Heathen’? I’m not so sure. Mexican fighters traditionally pride themselves on their fighting spirit and Rodriguez is certainly no different, but to me, that just wouldn’t be the smart thing to do.

With that said, it does feel like Stephens is the more aggrieved party coming into this one and that means he’s going to be more likely to come in as the angrier fighter, which means he’s more likely to be swinging haymakers that might miss and allow Rodriguez to counter on him.

I’m going with Rodriguez here; I picked him last time and it’s not like a lot has changed since then, and even if he does get drawn into a brawl, I suspect if he gets hurt he might well be able to go back to a more disciplined gameplan and if that’s the case he’s definitely got the skills to pick Stephens apart.

The Pick: Rodriguez via unanimous decision