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Welterweights
NR | Kalinn Williams (11-2, 2-1 UFC) vs. NR | Matthew Semelsberger (8-2, 2-0 UFC)Advertisement
Williams’ hot start to his UFC career essentially came out of nowhere. Prior to getting the call for his late-notice debut in early 2020, his record was inconsistent in terms of his level of competition and his ability to find a finish. However, “The Oxfighter” immediately made people take notice, knocking out Alex Morono in just 27 seconds before following up with a 30-second starching of Abdul Razak Alhassan. Sadly, Williams’ last bout did not bring much in the way of fireworks, as Michel Pereira was mostly content to stay at range and win a lackluster decision.
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Williams looks to rebound and regain some momentum here against Semelsberger, an intriguing prospect in his own right. It is still a bit hard to know what to make of the Marylander, as the former college football standout has some obvious athleticism but did not show much in the way of consistency during his regional career; he flashed lots of tools that had inconsistent levels of success from fight to fight. However, “Semi the Jedi” has some raw potential, and thus far, his UFC career has gone swimmingly, even if wins over Carlton Minus and Jason Witt—the latter via a 16-second knockout—do not say much about how he will fare going forward. Semelsberger tends to move forward and tries a lot of techniques on offense, which seems like a recipe for Williams to hit him extremely hard at the beginning of the fight. That has been a successful recipe for the Michigander, so the pick is Williams via first-round knockout, even if all bets are off if this goes any length of time.
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