Preview: UFC Fight Night ‘Boetsch vs. Henderson’

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HEAVYWEIGHTS

Matt Mitrione (9-3, 9-3 UFC) vs. Ben Rothwell (34-9, 4-3 UFC)

THE MATCHUP: This heavyweight pairing looks like a proper donnybrook. Mitrione has won three straight, all of them by knockout, with the most recent victory coming over Gabriel Gonzaga in December. Rothwell has taken a pair of victories, including a vicious knockout of Alistair Overeem in September. The winner should be well-positioned for a run at an elite opponent in the thin heavyweight division.

The southpaw Mitrione is a pure striker with excellent athleticism and real power in his hands. He is surprisingly light on his feet for such a big man, takes good angles and throws his straight left and right hook in various combinations early and often. When he bothers to throw it, his left kick is also a dangerous weapon and one that makes his preferred straight left all the more effective. Striking defense is a problem: He relies entirely on distance and angles to avoid his opponent’s strikes, keeps his head directly on the centerline and rarely uses his hands to block or parry. Mitrione’s takedown defense is generally solid and made more effective by his excellent movement at range, which makes it difficult to get a clean shot at his hips or pin him against the cage to chain-wrestle.

Where Mitrione is quick and athletic, Rothwell is slow and plodding. Nevertheless, his durability, power and sneaky-good timing make him quite effective, particularly in exchanges. The problem for Rothwell is cornering his opponent, since he lacks particularly good cage-cutting footwork or the consistent kicking game that would take away his opponent’s angles and force him back toward the fence. When he does connect, however, Rothwell is devastating, unloading brutal punching combinations. Defense is not, to put it mildly, Rothwell’s strong suit, and he relies heavily on his ability to take a shot. He is a decent defensive wrestler, can hit the occasional takedown of his own when the mood strikes and knows enough to control and throw ground strikes from top position.

THE PICK: This is another tough fight to pick. The dynamic is obvious: Mitrione will try to dart in and out of range, landing one or two shots at a time, while Rothwell will try to pin him against the fence and go to town with combinations. In that scenario, I favor Rothwell slightly, given his proven durability and Mitrione’s tendency to get tagged in exchanges. The pick is Rothwell by knockout in the second round.

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