This Friday night, Sioux Falls, South Dakota will host its third RFA card, as RFA 29 brings a US vs. Brazil theme to AXS TV. The top three fights on the card feature Americans (with honorary coach Robbie Lawler) taking on Brazilians (with honorary coach Lyoto Machida), and the evening’s main event will see the vacant RFA featherweight title decided. The title bout will determine the next 145lb champion for RFA, as Justin Lawrence vacated the belt when he was signed by Bellator earlier this year. Raoni Barcelos was seen as one of the top prospects in MMA before losing to Mark Dickman in April 2014. Since then he has only fought once, but picked up an impressive TKO win over talented wrestler Jamal Parks to do so. Barcelos will be facing Ricky Musgrave for the featherweight title, and Musgrave brings a lot of momentum into the fight. Musgrave has won his last four bouts, and has earned stoppages in three of those contests. A game that was often predicated on outlasting and outworking opponents now has much more finishing power, and that makes Musgrave a tough out for anyone. The co-main event saw one of the participants miss the welterweight limit badly, as Ackson Junior came in at 174.3lbs for his bout against Jordan Larson. The unbeaten Junior has picked up all five of his career wins by stoppage, and only went past the first round once, in his most recent outing. Larson has fought a higher level of competition than Ackson, and may need to rely on the hometown crowd and he his experience in RFA to get him out of potential trouble early on. The final US vs. Brazil fight may be the best. Exciting bantamweights Terrion Ware and Leandro Higo square off in a bout that could go many ways. After losing by submission to Joe Soto in Tachi Palace Fights, Ware picked up a pair of victories that earned him a title shot against RFA bantamweight champion Luke Sanders. Despite getting beaten up by Sanders, Ware was always in the fight, and doesn’t have quite the same animal facing him in Higo this time around. Higo — a recent competitor on TUF Brazil 4 — is more of a natural flyweight than a bantamweight. The ‘Pitbull’ team member holds wins over UFC veterans Jose Maria Tome and Wagner Campos, and has picked up eight of his victories by submission. MMA oddsmaker Nick Kalikas opened the betting lines for RFA 29 today at Several Bookmakers. Take a look: ——————– MAIN CARD (AXS TV, 10pm ET) Vacant RFA Featherweight Title Ricky Musgrave -110 Raoni Barcelos -130 — Jordon Larson +115 Ackson Junior -155 — Terrion Ware +140 Leandro Higo -180 ——————– Brad’s Analysis: Skill-for-skill, Raoni Barcelos is a better fighter than Ricky Musgrave, but Musgrave can pose a lot of the same problems that Dickman did in Barcelos’ lone loss. He’s a solid wrestler, has good cardio, and likes to pressure opponents. As we saw in Barcelos’ last performance without that third ingredient, the Brazilian can just take his time and fight at his pace, which makes him very hard to beat. I have a feeling that across five rounds against a fighter who will make him work for everything that we’ll see those chinks in Barcelos’ armor again, and Musgrave will leave with his hand raised. Generally, Barcelos still gets some solid support from bettors based on his hype from a few years ago, so it may be best to wait to see where this one goes. Normally when a fighter misses weight by 3.5lbs, it’s a huge red flag for me, but I’ve been burned enough times on regional fighters “missing” weight (re: not actually draining themselves to cut those last few pounds) to take it with a grain of salt at this point. The bigger concern for me is the fact that Ackson Junior is fighting outside of Brazil for the first time, and we’ve seen that wreck havoc on a fighter’s preparation in the past. Coupled with the missed weight and the fact that Junior normally sees his fights end pretty quickly, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Brazilian gas here, allowing the hometown fighter to take over late. I’m not sure I want to put money on Larson quite yet, but if this turns out to be another case of an overhyped Brazilian getting support, I may have to change that tune. Leandro Higo competed twice on TUF Brazil 4, winning his preliminary fight to get into the house, but getting upset as one of the show favorites against Bruno Korea in a fight that saw him tire quickly and then get outgrappled. Perhaps his poor performance was due to the extended layoff which saw him last compete officially in September 2013, or maybe it’s due to him putting on weight to fight at 135. Either way, he didn’t seem to be the same prospect who was set to make waves at flyweight. Now facing a taller, much longer opponent who knows how to use his reach, Higo could find himself in trouble again if he’s unable to close the distance early. Even if he does get inside on Ware — who isn’t a great defensive wrestler — the size difference alone may be enough to force Higo to work harder than he’d like for those early takedowns, and that could spell trouble for him if the fight drags on. I’m not sure that Ware stops him, but I think he can put hands on Higo at will when these two are on the feet, and that should be enough to pull off the victory.
