Preview: UFC on ABC 7 ‘Sandhagen vs. Nurmagomedov’
Magomedov vs. Oleksiejczuk
Middleweights
Sharabutdin Magomedov (13-0, 2-0 UFC) vs. Michal Oleksiejczuk (19-8, 7-6 UFC)ODDS: Magomedov (-238), Oleksiejczuk (+195)
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Oleksiejczuk has had an interesting run under the UFC banner, first coming to the promotion as a light heavyweight in 2017. At that point, Oleksiejczuk’s approach was built around absorbing a ton of offense and tiring his opponents out, and that proved crazy enough to work early on, with the Pole even successfully eating shots from hitters as hard as Khalil Rountree. At some point, Oleksiejczuk’s game developed along a somewhat tragically comic path, ending in him becoming the exact type of fighter he used to take advantage of, hunting for the quick knockout before tiring himself out. As an undersized light heavyweight, it wasn’t a shock to see Oleksiejczuk eventually move down to 185 pounds, but it hasn’t changed his fortunes much. There’s still some trickiness to his aggressive boxing, but he still tends to get blown out of the water against much better athletes. The interesting thing here is that while Oleksiejczuk has gotten rocked hard in most of his losses, he has still never actually been knocked out in the UFC. Instead, opponents have typically found success hopping on a submission once Oleksiejczuk is taken out of his game. With Magomedov having shown little—if any—grappling skills to date, it seems worth the flier to think that Oleksiejczuk is tough enough to survive and drag him into his deepest waters yet, with high potential that he can turn that into an upset. The pick is Oleksiejczuk via second-round stoppage.
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Sandhagen vs. Nurmagomedov
Magomedov vs. Oleksiejczuk
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