Light Heavyweights
Mauricio Rua (25-11) vs. Tyson Pedro (7-2)Advertisement
Continuing with the theme of beloved vets taking on rising athletes, “Shogun” Rua makes the trip down to Adelaide. Rua has been on an obvious decline going back to at least his all-time classic against Dan Henderson in 2011, but he has enjoyed a shockingly successful run the last few years. Admittedly, Rua is now at the point where he only fights about once a year, but in his rare appearances, he would show some veteran savvy and manage to win some tough fights against the upper-middle tier of a thin light heavyweight division. Then came his July bout against Anthony Smith. Never in the best shape to begin with during this late-career run, Rua looked noticeably worse than usual and got run over in 89 seconds by the converted middleweight turned light heavyweight contender. That realistically ends any hopes of Rua finding a path to one more title shot, so now the question turns to whether or not the Brazilian is still a reliable gatekeeper or just shot as a fighter. This fight with Pedro figures to provide the answer.
The UFC has already pushed Pedro into some prominent positions, but it is worth remembering that he is still ridiculously early in his MMA career. Pedro had a one-off fight in 2013 but essentially made his pro debut just eight months before landing in the UFC in late 2016. Pedro is a tall, strong athlete, and as the son of a promoter, he has some natural sense of the sport. With that said, his plus skills are a strong offensive grappling game and little else. Pedro tends to focus on a kick-heavy standup style that, while sometimes accurate, never really leads anywhere. However, once he gets his hands on his opponents, things can get fun. Pedro is capable of overpowering some opponents, as he did with Paul Craig, in the clinch, and if he can get things to the mat, he has some impressive creativity, as he showed in his scramble into a kimura against Saparbek Safarov. Still, Pedro does seem to be dependent on having an athletic advantage. Against a strong fireplug like Ilir Latifi, Pedro got little done, and some attempted grappling work against Ovince St. Preux just led to his getting reversed and tapped out himself. Pedro needs more seasoning, but like a lot of fighters on the top of this card, finds himself in a stratified division that does not provide much help in the way of getting some.
This fight is mostly a referendum on where Rua is as a fighter and determining whether he is capable of beating any sort of high-level athlete anymore. Again, Rua has never been an Adonis at this point in his career, but he looked quite poor in the Smith fight. If that was simply a blip on the radar and he is back to even his 2017 form here, this should be an interesting fight. If this is just the 2018 version of “Shogun,” it could get depressing in a hurry. If Pedro gets aggressive, he could obliterate Rua in the clinch or overwhelm him on the ground, but given his usual style, the shame is that this is probably going to be a slow beatdown in which Pedro constantly beats Rua to the punch before one of those kicks lands just a little too hard. The other shame is that a win would probably just lead to Pedro getting rushed up the card even further over his head. The pick is Pedro via second-round knockout.
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