UFC Minneapolis prediction: Francis Ngannou should make quick work of Junior Dos Santos
My enthusiasm to pick a knockout Saturday in the heavyweight bout between Junior Dos Santos and Francis Ngannou in the main event of UFC Minneapolis (9 p.m. ET, ESPN) is tempered only by my enthusiasm last year in picking a knockout in the bout at UFC 226 in Las Vegas between Ngannou and Derrick Lewis.
The Ngannou-Lewis fight on paper seemed to be a dream bout, pitting a pair of offensive-minded sluggers against one another. It was a can’t-miss until it did miss, miserably. There’s no sugar coating it: Ngannou-Lewis was one of the worst bouts in UFC history.
Lewis fought with a bad back, and Ngannou was struggling to deal with the aftermath of his first defeat, which occurred at UFC 220 in a title fight six months earlier to Stipe Miocic. Ngannou’s confidence was shot after he was humbled by Miocic and he was subsequently unable to pull the trigger in the showdown with Lewis.
The result was a bout memorable only for the cascade of boos that serenaded the fighters for much of it.
A little less than a year later, we face a similar match. While Dos Santos, a former UFC heavyweight champion, has a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, he doesn’t make a living trying to arm bar anyone. He told Yahoo Sports, “I consider myself a boxer.”
Ngannou is a 6-foot-5, 255-pound knot of muscle whose genteel manner outside the cage is belied by his seek-and-destroy nature inside of it. He’s known as “The Predator” for a reason.
The Dos Santos-Ngannou bout has stakes that didn’t exist in the Ngannou-Lewis bout. Though nothing has been promised, it seems almost certain the winner will get a shot at the heavyweight title, currently held by Daniel Cormier. Cormier will defend the belt in the main event of UFC 241 in Anaheim, California, in August against Miocic. Ngannou is ranked No. 2 and Dos Santos No. 3 behind the top-rated Cormier.
Unless the UFC decides to give light heavyweight champion Jon Jones a shot at the heavyweight title in his bout following his UFC 239 match on July 6 with Thiago Santos, there seems to be no one else who’d deserve the opportunity than the Ngannou-Dos Santos winner.
That knowledge could cause either, or both, men to be cautious, not wanting to make that mistake which would end the fight and crush the dream of a championship.
More likely, though, is that it will give them incentive to push, to win with emphasis and prove conclusively they’re ready to fight for the championship.
Dos Santos concedes that Ngannou has “crazy knockout power,” and said he’ll have to use his boxing skills to avoid being hit. But while Dos Santos has been one of the best and most exciting heavyweights of the last decade, it’s not because of his skill in avoiding punches.
Consider these statistics from Fight Metric about Dos Santos’ last five fights, four of which were victories:
Ben Rothwell landed 41 percent of his punches to the head.
Miocic landed only 33 percent of his punches to the head, but connected with 100 percent of the punches he threw from distance.
Blagoy Ivanov connected on an astounding 78 percent of his strikes to the head.
Tai Tuivasa landed 56 percent of his strikes to the head.
Lewis landed 58 percent of his strikes to the head.
Those are scary numbers for someone preparing to face Ngannou, who in his last eight fights has landed 8-of-20; 1-of-1; 8-of-13; 6-of-14; 21-of-113; 11-of-46; 13-of-17 and 6-of-10 of his significant strikes. That is a low number of landed strikes in each fight, but there is a reason for that.
He’s connected on 74-of-224 significant strikes in those eight bouts, six of which were first-round finishes. Throw out the bouts with Miocic and Lewis which he lost and Ngannou has landed just 42 significant strikes in those six victories. Ngannou spent just eight minutes, one second in the cage in those six victories, which came over Boris Mihajlovic, Anthony Hamilton, Andrei Arlovski, Alistair Overeem, Curtis Blaydes and Cain Velasquez.
What those numbers say is that Ngannou doesn’t need many connects to finish the fight. If he finds the range, he’ll generally end the fight quickly.
Given that Dos Santos absorbs so much punishment, even when he’s winning, it’s difficult to understand how he’ll be able to survive 25 minutes against Ngannou.
Look for Ngannou to finish the bout sometime in the first round.
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