UFC Fight Night 146: Lewis vs. Dos Santos - Predictions and Picks
The UFC makes its debut in the state of Kansas for the first time this weekend, as the Heavyweights headline UFC Fight Night 146 from Wichita. The entire show, from the prelims to the main card, will air live on the ESPN+ streaming service in the US.
It’s not a stacked card by any means but there’s definitely some intrigue in the main event between Derrick Lewis and Junior Dos Santos, and with names like Curtis Millender, Niko Price and Ben Rothwell on the card, we should be at least in for some wild action inside the Octagon.
Here are the predicted outcomes for UFC Fight Night 146: Lewis vs. Dos Santos.
#1 Junior Dos Santos vs. Derrick Lewis
This is an interesting bit of matchmaking from Sean Shelby, as Lewis is coming off his loss to Daniel Cormier while JDS is actually on a two-fight winning streak, but it does seem to make sense. Beat JDS, and Lewis’s spot as a top-level Heavyweight is basically confirmed, even if another title shot isn’t likely any time soon.
If JDS wins meanwhile, it’d give him his strongest run since his initial charge to the Heavyweight title from 2008 to 2011, and there’d definitely be an argument for putting him up against Cormier with the title on the line – or at least to give him a title eliminator against Francis Ngannou.
For me this is a hard fight to pick in a lot of ways. From a technical standpoint, you’d have to favour Dos Santos massively. He’s simply a far superior striker to Lewis, as he uses his jab well to set up his bigger punches – and has even won fights primarily by deploying said jab – and has a more dynamic kicking game, too. Lewis is perhaps more dangerous on the ground, but then the only guy to ever be able to ground JDS was Cain Velasquez – and let’s be frank, Lewis is not Velasquez when it comes to wrestling.
In that sense, it’d be easy to view this as a carbon copy of Dos Santos’ fights with Ben Rothwell and Blagoy Ivanov. In those fights, JDS picked apart his slower, more plodding opponent by using his jab, movement and combinations, and came away with a pretty clear-cut decision victory on both occasions. And Lewis definitely resembles both Rothwell and Ivanov in a lot of ways.
The problem for JDS however is that in the Ivanov fight, and also in his recent win over brawler Tai Tuivasa, he wasn’t immune to taking shots that caused him some damage. Ivanov never had him stunned but definitely busted his face up, while Tuivasa seemed to have him rattled early on before he became too wild and ate a huge counter from the Brazilian.
That spells trouble for a fight against Lewis, who’s arguably the hardest hitter in the division – although Ngannou might disagree. If Lewis lands cleanly on an opponent, they’re usually done. Just ask Alexander Volkov, who was basically tooling Lewis for 15 minutes before eating a huge right hand counter in the dying seconds of the fight. ‘The Black Beast’ is also surprisingly quick for a big man, and I’d argue he’s definitely faster than Rothwell or Ivanov.
Basically, if JDS decides to back up towards the cage – or if Lewis can manage to corral him with his own forward movement – and eats a bomb from the Beast, then this fight’s likely over. Lewis will simply unload on the Brazilian until he goes down. And there’s no doubt that Dos Santos’ chin is compromised after a decade of wars at the top.
With that said, for a guy as plodding as Lewis – even if he is quicker than people think – that isn’t going to be easy. Another major factor to consider is that Lewis has traditionally struggled with opponents attacking him to the body – remember how much damage Travis Browne did to him with body attacks? And few Heavyweights are as good at assaulting the body as JDS, who set up his famous title win over Velasquez in 2011 by attacking in that way.
I’m going with JDS here; I think he can use his superior speed and movement to basically jab Lewis to death from the outside, digging to the body for good measure to perhaps even set up a late finish. That pick definitely comes with a caveat, though – if Lewis can manage to land one single bomb, then he can definitely put JDS away. I’m just not confident in his abilities to find a way to land that punch. For me he’s more reliant on JDS making an error, and that’s not enough to bet on.
The Pick: Dos Santos via unanimous decision