Preview: UFC Nashville ‘Lewis vs. Teixeira’

Welterweights

Stephen Thompson (17-8-1, 12-8-1 UFC) vs. Gabriel Bonfim (17-1, 4-1 UFC)

ODDS: Bonfim (-380); Thompson (+310)

With all due respect to the great Lyoto Machida, “Wonderboy” may be the most successful pure karate stylist in MMA history. While Machida won a UFC title, Thompson has labored just as long, in a deeper division full of elite wrestlers, all while avoiding the ground game even more assiduously than “The Dragon.”

However, like Saturday’s headliner Derrick Lewis, Thompson at age 42 is clearly in the final act of his career, and like Lewis, it has been a matter of no longer being able to make his unique game work as his speed and reflexes have declined. Karate fighters in MMA live and die by their ability to dictate range. Without that, the bladed, side-on stance, with head up and hands at the waist, is an invitation to take the karateka down and/or knock his block off. For years, not only did Thompson make it work admirably, but some very credible MMA strikers could barely lay a finger on him.

That time has passed, and fighters including Tyron Woodley, Anthony Pettis and Joaquin Buckley have caught Thompson’s chin cleanly, the latter two with devastating results.

And while Thompson’s takedown defense was never more than middling even in his prime, it appears to have regressed as well, though to be fair, Gilbert Burns, Belal Muhammad and Shavkat Rakhmonov represent a murderer’s row in that regard. It would be fair to say that Thompson looks like a fighter who can still beat mid-tier UFC welterweights on the right day, but his margin for error has grown razor-thin against any of them.

That does not spell good news against Bonfim, who is already much more than a mid-tier welterweight and has every appearance of being a future contender. Still just 27 years old, the younger but larger Bonfim brother is big, very athletic and hyper-aggressive, a combination of traits that led him to overwhelm his first 15 professional opponents before hitting a stumbling block in the form of Nicolas Dalby back in late 2023. His ratio of finishing methods—13 by submission and just three via strikes—bely the fact that he is a well-rounded fighter who is perfectly comfortable striking. It’s simply that his high-volume assault on the feet tends to lead to takedown opportunities (or to his opponent looking to take him down first, as Ange Loosa did) and once things get there, it’s usually a wrap.

On the ground as on the feet, Bonfim is characterized by aggression, and excels in scramble-heavy sequences where he can either take his opponent’s back or snare him with a front headlock, leading to a guillotine or D’Arce choke. Bonfim is rightly the big favorite here, as his lone career setback so far featured a vintage Dalby performance—wearing Bonfim down with pace, pressure and plain old blood-and-guts durability—that even a prime Thompson would be hard pressed to duplicate. Watch for “Marrethinha” to come out swinging as usual, but not to waste too much time in Thompson’s wheelhouse before taking things to the canvas, where the work should be fairly straightforward. The pick is Bonfim by submission late in Round 1.



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Lewis vs. Teixeira
Thompson vs. Bonfim
Kattar vs. Garcia
Landwehr vs. Charriere
Petrino vs. Lane
Tafa vs. Tokkos
The Prelims