Preview: UFC Fight Night 198 ‘Vieira vs. Tate’

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Bantamweights

NR | Adrian Yanez (14-3, 3-0 UFC) vs. NR | Davey Grant (13-5, 4-4 UFC)

ODDS: Yanez (-290), Grant (+245)

Yanez has brought guaranteed fireworks into the cage each time out in the UFC, and he could yet turn that into a legitimate run towards title contention. Yanez earned a contract by obliterating Brady Huang on Dana White’s Contender Series, and the knockout is certainly the name of the game for Yanez. Basically everything he does is built out from the idea that, over the course of 15 minutes, he will put his opponent’s lights out. For most fighters, that means burning themselves out while hunting for a finish, but Yanez has the opposite problem. He is willing to coast and stay patient in a way that, outside of those knockouts, can make his fights more even than they need to be. Yanez’s slickness and sharp hands have typically been enough to discourage his opponents from pressing the issue out of fear of the knockout, but Randy Costa found some success through aggression in July—until the Metro Fight Club product staged a comeback. As a result, it will be interesting to see what Grant can get done.

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England’s Grant has had a shocking late-career resurgence, particularly for someone who was an absolutely forgotten man on the UFC roster. After falling short to Chris Holdsworth in “The Ultimate Fighter 18” final, Grant suffered a rash of injuries that limited him to just two fights between 2013 and 2018. Even upon his return, Grant was not particularly active. That changed in the last year and a half, as he has put together a surprisingly strong campaign, scoring violent knockouts of Martin Day and Jonathan Martinez before acquitting himself well in a loss to Marlon Vera in June. Grant’s game is built around aggression using unorthodox techniques, so he should be able to press Yanez into action and turn this into a war as a result. There is a solid chance that either man suffers their first career knockout loss, but as the faster fighter and the harder hitter, the bet is that Yanez can stay ahead on the scorecards if there is not a finish. Neither man figures to be taken out of his game, and Grant seems to be the one more willing to take attritional damage. The pick is Yanez via decision in an all-action affair.

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