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#4 UFC Light-Heavyweight Division: Roman Dolidze vs. John Allan Arte

Roman Dolidze impressed in his UFC debut against Khadis Ibragimov

This UFC Light-Heavyweight clash should be a fair fight at least when it comes to chemical enhancement. Dolidze was banned for a year by USADA even before setting foot in the Octagon after he was flagged for using banned hormones, while Arte saw his last UFC win overturned for the same reason. It’s no surprise then that this is the Brazilian’s first UFC appearance in over a year.

Dolidze, however, has fought more recently. He made his delayed UFC debut in July and utterly destroyed Russia’s Khadis Ibragimov, landing a massive knee to turn out his lights in the first round. The win was his 7th in MMA, and he’s also finished all of his opponents.

Overall though, it might’ve been a bit of a red herring in terms of his fighting style. Judging by pre-UFC footage on him, Dolidze is far more of a grappler than a striker. Aggressive to a fault, he tends to rush his opponents with strikes and then looks to either beat them down with punches or submit them.

The native of Georgia hasn’t really shown many weaknesses yet, but to be fair, when you’re finishing fights so quickly for the most part it’s hard to spot them. However, I’d probably question what would happen if an opponent could stop Dolidze’s takedowns – particularly if that opponent were a sharp striker.

So is Arte the man to test the Georgian? It’s hard to say. ‘The Hunter’ has far more experience than his opponent here – he’s 13-5 in MMA and did win his UFC debut before the result was overturned by USADA.

However, while he clearly throws with power and aggression, he doesn’t look like a pinpoint striker to me. Unsurprisingly for a product of the Chute Boxe academy, Arte looks like he’s more adept at simply swarming an opponent with power hooks to look for the knockout.

Indeed, nine of his 13 wins have come by KO or TKO, and while he does have three submissions to his name, it’s also worth noting that fellow UFC fighter Vinicius Moreira was able to hand him a tapout loss – one of four on his ledger.

Arte’s UFC debut was a back-and-forth affair with Mike Rodriguez, and to me, it doesn’t bode well for his chances in this fight. The Brazilian was taken down a couple of times by Rodriguez and was also reversed, despite eventually winning the exchanges on the ground.

However, his aggressive, straight-ahead punching style seems tailor made to allow an opponent like Dolidze to ground him with a takedown. And if the Georgian can do that, then particularly from the top, he appears to be the superior grappler.

Add in the fact that Arte’s had trouble with submissions before and has been away from the UFC for well over a year, and I’m favouring Dolidze in this one. Arte could get him out of there in a rush, but as long as Dolidze can survive that first blitz I think it’s his fight, probably by submission.

The Pick: Dolidze via first-round submission