UFC 170 February 22, 2014 Welterweight Matchup: #4 Rory MacDonald vs #6 Demian Maia By Reed Kuhn, @Fightnomics Big Picture: In the swing spot of the main card, two top 10 welterweights are both coming off losses and trying to work their way back into title contention. Rory MacDonald is ranked just two spots ahead of Demian Maia among UFC welterweights, but the line so far indicates a bigger difference. MacDonald is currently a strong -280 favorite over Maia, who sits at +240. Let’s see if the numbers justify “Ares” as the fighter more likely to get back into the welterweight title hunt. Summary Stats:
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Tale of Tape Matchup: The Tale of Tape gives us several clues. MacDonald will have strong Youth and Reach Advantages in this matchup, which will be especially valuable if the fight stays standing. Although Maia is a Southpaw, striking isn’t the focus of his attack, and between his age being beyond the knockdown resiliency risk threshold and the five-inch reach differential, there’s immediate reason to give MacDonald the edge in the physical matchup. Striking Matchup: The performance metrics to date reveal how each fighter tends to operate while standing up. MacDonald’s stats are solid across the board, but especially in his use of the jab and his cage control. MacDonald tends to outwork his opponents by 20% on volume while standing, and a lot of that is his stiff jab that lands with very high accuracy. He also averages a pace of striking that is almost double that of Maia. Although MacDonald doesn’t swing for the fences (and his knockdown stats reflect that), he controls the cage well and knows how to avoid damage and win rounds. Maia on the other hand is deficient in his offensive striking metrics. His pace is low, his accuracy is low, and he doesn’t keep up with opponents while standing and trading. He’s a grappler first, and his stand-up game belies his desire to get fights to the mat. While defensively he avoids strikes at the average rate, he’s been knocked down twice and as he gets older, this is an increasing risk. Grappling Matchup: This area of the matchup is murkier, mainly because we may not see much of it. Maia will definitely want to turn this into a grappling match, as he did with his surprising domination of Jon Fitch. Maia attempts submissions frequently, but that requires getting the fight to the mat. Maia’s takedown offense is assertive in that he attempts one takedown for almost every minute of fight time on the feet. But his success rate is actually below average. On the flipside, MacDonald ranks 10th in UFC history with a very high takedown defense of 86%. That’s not a good combination of factors if Maia is going to pull off the upset. Should they end up on the ground in a scramble, MacDonald does have the experience to survive and/or the strength to escape. I trust they’ve worked on the gameplan at Tri-Star on how to deal with Maia’s grappling threat. Reed’s Pick: Rory MacDonald by TKO (click for latest MMA odds) Reed’s Recommended Play: MacDonald is a justifiable favorite in this matchup with clear physical and striking advantages. In a grappling match, the fight is much more even, and possibly favors Maia, but the stats suggest he’ll have a hard time getting the fight where he needs it to be. At -280 the juice on MacDonald is expensive, but he makes a solid candidate for parlays. The over is currently -245 for 2.5 rounds, the under +185. Welterweights finish 49% of their fights inside three rounds, so agnostic lines for welterweights should be about even money. I agree that there’s more value on the under here due to Rory’s threat of a TKO finish. But if you’re going that route, you can get much better value in MacDonald by TKO at +315 for a smaller play in addition to the straight up pick.