Gutierrez finally makes his first trip to the Octagon of 2024, as
“El
Guapo” looks to turn over a new leaf after a rough 2023
campaign. Gutierrez dropped his UFC debut to Raoni
Barcelos back in 2019, then quietly became the dark horse of
the division, going undefeated in his next eight fights over the
next three years. It was easy to ignore Gutierrez’s success at
first, since his approach wasn’t particularly electric. A
neutralizer at heart, Gutierrez was content to stay at range and
break down his opponents with an impressive array of leg kicks.
However, 2022 seemed to be the year that Gutierrez learned to
effectively turn defense into offense, as he scored brutal
knockouts of Batgerel
Danaa and Frankie
Edgar to end the year as a potential contender. Gutierrez’s
momentum wound up being halted by Pedro
Munhoz in April 2023, and it seems to be a fight that has also
caused him to regress a bit. Munhoz hurt the Factory X rep early
and essentially took him out of the fight, and Gutierrez spent his
last two performances making a clear pivot back to his more
defensively minded ways. Gutierrez’s last fight, a main event loss
to Yadong Song
in December, suggests that some of his problems might be mental
beyond the limitations of his approach. He got off to a hot start,
but once Song cracked the proverbial code and started finding
success, things went off the rails badly as Gutierrez failed to
regroup. At any rate, he gets a clear step back to try and rebuild
some momentum against a UFC newcomer in Le, who steps in for a
late-notice Octagon debut.
Le was scheduled to compete on Dana White’s Contender Series later
this year, having earned the spot with an undefeated record and
some recent knockout wins. That striking power seems to clearly be
Le’s ticket to success in the UFC for the time being. He’s at his
most comfortable when he has time and space to set things up, but
he has also shown an ability to throw down and land some hard shots
when things get wilder than he’d prefer. Le should run into trouble
going forward if the UFC pairs him with stronger wrestlers, but
this is an advantageous matchup stylistically for the promotional
newcomer, since Gutierrez should be patient enough to give him his
preferred pace and distance. Of course, the issue is that this is a
massive step up in competition for Le, so while there are some
interesting dynamics at play, the likeliest scenario is that
Gutierrez just chops him down at will and eventually finds a
finish. The pick is Gutierrez via second-round stoppage.
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