Preview: UFC Fight Night 172 ‘Overeem vs. Harris’

Eryk Anders (12-4) reclaims some shine and snaps a three-fight skid, ransacking Vinícius Castro while the ref stares on! The former Alabama linebacker has stopped nine, eight by knockout, and seven in round one. #UFCMinneapolis pic.twitter.com/fD6ylhP9l8

— Kyle Johnson (@VonPreux) June 30, 2019

Middleweights

Krzysztof Jotko (21-4) vs. Eryk Anders (13-4)

ODDS: Jotko (-150), Anders (+130)

He may yet come out the other side of this as a fully realized fighter, but for now, Anders’ UFC career is a cautionary tale in being careful what you wish for. Anders had an impressive start in the promotion. Already possessing some notoriety after a standout senior year as a linebacker for the University of Alabama, “Ya Boi” stepped in on late notice and absolutely obliterated Rafael Natal. After an ugly win over Markus Perez, Anders surprisingly called out Lyoto Machida, and even more surprisingly, a lack of better options meant that the UFC actually threw him into a main event against the former light heavyweight champion. The fight itself was not a complete disaster. Anders almost won purely on his physicality but walked away with a split decision loss. However, with Anders now established as a headliner, he continued to get thrown into deep waters. The UFC put Anders back on a typical prospect track for all of one fight before pitting him against Thiago Santos, Elias Theodorou and Khalil Rountree. The Theodorou fight was the usual type of weird frustrating loss that most opponents endured against “The Spartan,” but the Santos and Rountree fights accomplished little outside of Anders absorbing tons of damage and probably taking years off of his career in the process. The last year or so finally saw Anders get some less dangerous opponents, but his is a game still badly in need of development. He can leverage his durability and physical strength into some solid grappling, but he still looks rather uninspiring as a low-output striker. Anders barely scraped by against Gerald Meerschaert in his most recent outing, and he gets matched with another tricky opponent here in Poland’s Jotko.

Jotko was picked up as part of the UFC’s expansion in 2013-14 and quickly slotted into the promotion’s circuit of mid-tier European middleweights who dotted its international undercards. However, a funny thing happened: Jotko kept winning his fights. The Pole enjoyed a breakout 2016 campaign, as the UFC brought him to the Americas for wins over Tamdan McCrory and Thales Leites. His fortunes went awry shortly thereafter. A pay-per-view main card bout against David Branch was an ugly grind that saw Jotko lose a split decision, and he shockingly got knocked out in his next two fights against Uriah Hall and Brad Tavares. After an injury layoff, Jotko spent 2019 successfully rebounding with clear if unexciting wins over Alen Amedovski and Marc-Andre Barriault. While Anders may be an obviously flawed prospect, a win here would be a significant step toward showing that Jotko is still a going concern.

As with most Anders fights nowadays, this is a test to see just how much his physical tools can isolate him from defeat. Jotko is at his best when all aspects of his game are working. He is more weird than dangerous on the feet and solid but not overwhelming as a grappler, so if an opponent can shut down one of those two phases, Jotko usually cannot do enough to take over and win the fight. Anders should be able to neutralize that grappling—if nothing else, the American has proven to be ridiculously tough to take down—but even as a pure kickboxing match, this one is difficult to call. Again, Jotko is more unorthodox than dangerous due to his herky-jerky movements, so while Anders should be a harder hitter, his issues with output and the fact that he remains a raw striker make it an open question as to who is going to take these rounds. Anders probably got away with one against Meerschaert his last time out, so the call is for his luck to correct itself in a fight that should be similarly difficult to parse out over 15 minutes. The pick is Jotko via decision.

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