UFC Fight Night: Aspinall vs. Tybura

The official Tapology discussion thread for the event!

Barberena vs. Muradov
Makhmud Muradov, TKO, R2
This should be a boucle back win for Makhmud Muradov.

Brasil vs. Bannon
Shauna Bannon, DEC
I think Shauna Bannon will win her UFC debut and stay undefeated.

muniz  - craig

@tepid55 

no way this fight is going to decision...

* Edited at 07.16.2023, 5:08 AM ET *

Great looking card for this weekend, let’s keep this streak going boys!

Let’s kick off today with a controversial hot take 

Daniel marcos will show he’s the real deal against Davey grant. You can **** on his competition but his skills are very legit. Davey doesn’t offensively grapple & as good and fun of a striker as he is, in a pure standup fight I think he is outmatched 

@AyyLmaonnaise 

honestly after his last fight I don’t think that’s super hot anymore. Marcos looked like a beast in his last fight and Davey is super hittable, as much as I like him I think he’s a little overrated these days because he managed to dog out some fights he was down in. It’s a close fight imo, I think pick ‘em odds are pretty justified 

Aspinall vs. Tybura
Tom Aspinall, TKO, R1
If Aspinalls knee is 100% he should dominate this fight. He's a heavyweight with actual talent and fight IQ. He's also dangerous everywhere. The acl injury makes me weary to put money on him but as far as a prediction goes I think he makes this look easy

McCann vs. Stoliarenko
Molly McCann, TKO, R3
If McCann can avoid being on the ground and getting arm barred then she should box julijas ears in. I don't think McCann should be that big of a favorite with that bad of grappling defense though

Wood vs. Fili
Nathaniel Wood, DEC
I think wood schools Fili here. Wood has bantamweight talent & Fili doesn't have enough power to affect wood or good enough grappling to be able to out grapple wood.

Muniz vs. Craig
André Muniz, DEC
I don't trust a butt scooting Chinny 35 year old moving down a weight class. I know Muniz is also a bjj guy that got subbed his last fight but he has decent striking & should just keep it on the feet because hes way faster and Craig has nothing but his guard off his back

Herbert vs. Ziam
Fares Ziam, DEC
Such a 50/50 fight but I'm going with the more durable guy in a pretty even stand up fight. Also ziam improved his wrestling & I can see whoever secures the takedown each round will be the deciding factor of the fight

Murphy vs. Culibao
Josh Culibao, DEC
I gotta go with my man culibao here. He always goes well for me as an underdog. Also Murphys grappling defense is sus culibao is more well rounded and is a DAWG 🐶

Grant vs. Marcos
Daniel Marcos, DEC
I am surprised Marcos is the betting favorite even tho I am picking him. Davey grant is super dangerous & finally back in the UK but I think Marcos will be the better striker in a mostly standup fight

Roberts vs. Parsons
Danny Roberts, DEC
I wanna pick Parsons because he's a good striker & Roberts has a terrible chin but i think I need to see how he does in this fight first before I start picking him in the future

Diakiese vs. Alvarez
Joel Alvarez, SUB, R1
Diakiese is a bum. This has Alvarez hurting diakiese then diakiese shooting a takedown and getting guillotined written all over it. Another scenario is Alvarez misses weight then gets held down all fight which will make me sad

Parkin vs. Pogues
Mick Parkin, SUB, R2
Parkin doesn't have much experience but he dominated a good opponent on contender series & pogues, while isn't terrible, just seems like your typical down syndrome heavyweight, but with a solid jab

Barberena vs. Muradov
Makhmud Muradov, TKO, R2
Muradov will be the better striker in a mostly standup fight. Also muradov improved his grappling & barberena has never improved his grappling

Duncan vs. Ashmouz
Yanal Ashmouz, TKO, R1
Duncan has 0 talent

Filho vs. Barez
Jafel Filho, SUB, R3
Barez is a good striker but he's a can crusher and also pretty old for a flyweight making his ufc debut. Should be a fun fight to kick off the card at least

@meluka it’s hard for me to go against Davey cuz he’s one of my favs but I’m really convinced marcos is the real deal. I know he’s only fought bums in the ufc but he is completely outclassing them. His Muay Thai is so clean

@AyyLmaonnaise 

yeah I agree with that, Marcos’ striking in his last fight impressed me a ton. My only concern with betting against Davey would be him finding a way to turn this into a bit more of a brawl by using some grappling and forcing Marcos to face some adversity that we haven’t really seen yet, but as you pointed out Davey generally doesn’t utilize his offensive grappling. 

Let's agree that yesterday's card never happened. There, good talk.

kinda hard to forget it happened when the next wmma goat dudakova debuted on it bro

I suppose I have to admit getting a TKO within seconds of your debut is impressive.

Gotta rewatch a few fights but from what I remember I think Mick Parkin may be a great bet on this card. I remember being rather pleased with his DWCS fight and obviously love the fact he trains primarily with Aspinall and De Fries, hard to find a better room of heavyweights than what they have. I remember being rather unimpressed with Pogues and him having a questionable gas tank, interested to hear what others think on this fight 

I’m fading Duncan, don’t trust him not to get chinned by anyone with power and ashmoz has power 

Gotta see more tape on ash the tall guy gave him that ko.

Apparently yanal has bad takedown defense. That's not enough for me to pick Duncan who has no abilities 

Heard same Duncan is so sloppy and bad fight iq.

Both are terrible. This is a mid off. I urge people to not get swayed by the patterson ko. A great win, but patterson is chinny and doesn’t move his head. All of yanal’s fights are on YouTube; not very impressive 

I thought Morales beat Duncon in they're fight because of damage, But I'm not mad at all because Duncan controlled him for a majority of the fight, And a lot of people factor in control while judging, But Duncan did **** all with his control which annoys me because I don't like when fighter don't take advanage of they're postion

Muradov vs Barberena Muradov KO RD 2
Theres a lot of odd matchups on this card but this one takes the cake. I mean what is the angle here? Obviously muradov will destroy barberena but this fight makes no sense. For starters, its an asian vs an american in the 02 arena, so it already shouldnt be on this card, but then you realize barberena is going up to 185. I know he said hes retiring once he fights out his contract, so moving up in weight wasnt to test out a new class, and if its cuz he was losing fights well, gaining 15 more lbs wont change much of anything. Barberena has been on the decline for a very long time but I think we are getting to the very end. Ever since that fight with ivy and the accident he had, he has not been the same. Granted, barberena has always been very beatable but his skills have taken a serious decline. He still has absurd cardio and the ability to break people, but his durability isnt what it used to be & honestly his general ability to pull wins out of his ass is going too. Sure, he swarms you with crazy volume and makes fights ugly, but he is insanely hittable and sloppy. Of course, you can just take him down and kill him with grappling too, but muradov is a striker so he wont do that (or maybe he will honestly, i could weirdly see him doing it). Not only is barberena getting a tough opponent, hes going up in weight which will affect a lot of things. For starters, the way he takes punches; muradov is an absurdly hard hitter for the weight class & bryan is going to have to adjust to taking punches from a bigger fighter who also happens to hit like a truck. Muradov is a calculated sniper with insane power where bryan is a brawler with endless cardio and volume. Outside of a fluke, i think muradov will take his head off. 
Viera vs Kianzad Viera DEC 
Dont know dont care. I try to at least go off what i know from memory when i dont watch tape but kianzad is so irrelevant i cant even remember her fights. Viera i just dont like because shes a slow and lumbering bum who can bareyl sc**** decisions out of washed up fighters. I will say, she looked really good r1 against pennington but then pennington put the vet experience on her and she was toast. Picking viera cuz of experience, not expecting much
Duncan vs Ashmouz Ashmoz KO RD 1
This is the hardest fight for me to call on this card. Both these guys are plain awful & im really mad the ufc booked them against one another cuz i was really hoping to fade both. The worst part is ashmousz actually has some hype on him for pulling off the upset, when in reality he is terrible. I mean really, watch his fights outside the ufc; they are BAD. For starters this dude is the smallest lw ive ever seen, he really looks like he could fight at 135. Despite having all these kos, he doesnt fight like it at all. He is super low volume & throws a little but of everything. He prefers to throw hooks with full power but he will also throw some (weak) spinning kicks and some knees along with elg kicks. However, he throws super low volume and rarely ever does he throw combos. Despite the last name, he cant wrestle for ****. I mean its painful watching his tape, a gust of wind could knock him over. It is so frustrating watching him get taken down with ease against guys with poor wrestling. Whenever he ends up on top its due to his opponent making a mistake (which is a real possibility here). When he does get on top hes not very impressive; he doesnt fish for subs or even really a finish, he just postures up and throws some half assed gnp. I really cannot believe he slept patterson. Obviously, patterson is a chinlet with tall mans defense but that was really a fight yanal loses 9/10 times and of course he won. Then we have duncan who is just equally ****. He got insanely lucky to get a ufc contract; campbell was kicking his ass & that fight was about to end up like the slava fight before he landed that punch from hell. Duncan, much like ahsmouz only really has one good quality and thats his power. He has solid ko power in his right hand but mot much else. His striking is painful to watch because he is sooo sloppy. He gets lit up on the feet by everyone he faces because he doesnt move his head and has very poor footwork. Also doesnt help that he likes to brawl despite having very little striking skils. When he cant find success on the feet (every fight) he goes straight to his wrestling. Much like the rest of his skillset, duncans wrestling is terrible. All he does is push you to the cage and attack lazy takedowns hoping to get something. He should have as much success as he wants with the takedown but the question is can he hold ashmouz down for significant amounts of time? Ashmouz cant wrestle for **** but he at least will stand up when taken down. Theres also the fact that duncan doesnt have great control either. He was able to get morales down and hold him, but morales also has no urgency ever so duncan was able to ride out control time. IN his other fights it hasnt looked good at all; i mean he coukdnt hold down slava klaus. Im not confident in my pick at all because i could see this being an exact repeat of duncan vs morales, but seeing how badly duncan gets rocked in every fight (even morales was piecing him up) i cant not take the guy with power. 
Bannon vs Brasil Brasil DEC 
Im kinda shocked the ufc decided to pull the trigger on signing bannon so early. Yeah shes got a good record and is winning fights, but shes not very impressive & doesnt look ready for the ufc. Of course, that just means shes gonna show up and dominate here knowing my luck. Bannon comes from a kickboxing background and you can see that in the way she strikes. Well, its mostly only her kicks really; she throws mostly side kicks to the legs and head. When she actually throws the kicks, they look super sharp and are fast, however they are also really telegraphed; mostly by her obvious and slow stance switching. It also doesnt help her that despite being a kickboxer, her striking is mainly just boxing; and really **** boxing at that. Its the classic wmma boxing of just walk the opponent down and spam 1-2’s. Now, bannon is pretty ferocious and fights at a high clip but shes doesnt really thrive. Her footwork is sloppy, she chases her opponent, she is super hittable, and her cardio isnt amazing. She can fight at a high pace but she does slow down round 3. Not death gas, but her already bad footwork becoems stagnant and she becomes even more hittable. She also will try to grapple more in round 3. Her grappling is really bad. All of her tsakedowns are done on the fence but none of her attempts are good. She tries the classic wmma head and arm throw but shes very sloppy with it and can end up getting reversed a lot. Her bjj is also painfully bad. She tries to do the right things but she doesnt have the skill or athleticism to pull anything off. Then we have brasil. I was very impressed with brasil from regional tape & she looked great on dwcs, then had maybe one of the worst debuts of all time. Now, that loss to gomes isnt the worst loss ever and is actually aging well, but her performance was just pathetic. There is 0 excuse for how bad she fought but I really do think part of it was ufc debut jitters. I really shouldve seen this coming from a stylistic standpoint but that was also just a **** matchup for brasil. She is a technical kickboxer who wants to sit back and pick you apart where gomes is all about fighting in a phone booth and brawling. Gomes immediately hit her with a right hand that dropped brasil & from there she just totally panicked. She seemed really scared to be hit after that and her normal composed gameplan went totally out of the window. Im willing to give her another shot here since shes now facing a girl who doesnt have crazy power like that nor is she a good striker. I think brasil is much more technical. Just hopefully shes not a total fraud 
Barez vs Filho Barez DEC 
This was a short notice bout but imo its one of the best fights on the card & one of the most closely matched. I thought Barez won on dwcs but he lost a very close decision to carlos hernandez. Since then, he has fought a lot of bums but did so to stay active & wait for a ufc shot (which he got). Barez is very deserving of a shot and brings with him a plethora of experience. Barez’s main game is striking (as he has a K1 background) but he is pretty well rounded. I love his striking; he is super crisp and throws very hard. I love how theres no wasted movement on anything; its crisp, fast, powerful strikes that are thrown straight. He will also switch stances a lot while throwing to mix it up & also punctuate his combos. I really like his awareness too. He sees when his opponents are about to shoot and has a very quick sprawl. I like his hips too and he is super hard to take down. Of course, its not impossible but it is a chore to force him to the mat. When he is on the mat, he will lie on his back & he does try to get up but of course hes not amazing on the ground. He does have solid bjj, but not off of his back. Filho is also well rounded but primarily a grappler. His striking is pretty good but it is lacking. I wish he would use his hands more because when he does throw, he has a **** ton of power and his counters are nice. However, hes not super comfortable throwing his hands, instead preferring lots of leg kicks. I dont really like filho’s defense either. Now his grappling is very good. Hes not an incredible wrestler, but he will chain wrestle you to no end. Once he gets ahold of you, he will do everything in his power to get it to the mat. Im talking trips, drags, slams, you name it, he will try it. This is good and bad. Its good because if he gets ahold of you, he is most likely getting it to the ground or at least preventing the opponent from doing anything but defending. The downside is that he will exert insane amounts of energy just to get you down. Its weird because i still dont know where to rate his gas tank. Ive seen him absolutely death gas to the point he can barely function, but ive also seen him fight at a ridiculous & hard pace for three rounds and look totally fresh so not really sure what to think. Im gonna assume part of it depends on weight cut & the other depends on the pace he sets. When he does get the fight down he is a problem. Suppresive top control & will throw either a ton of gnp or start chaining subs together. Even tho he will willingly sit in his guard, once you engage in grappling Filho doesnt accept bottom position & will also throw subs up off of his back to either transition or finish. Currently, this fight is at a pickem & thats pretty much how I feel about this fight. Both guys are well rounded but have their strengths; whoever imposes their game better will win the fight. I think im gonna go barez cuz i think he is a very good striker and does the right things to defend takedowns. 

Grant vs Marcos Marcos DEC 
This is the best fight on the card imo and also the most conflicting for me. The reason its conflicting is the ufc has pitted one of my all time favorite fighters (davey grant) vs one of my favorite rising prospects (daniel marcos), however i think im going to put my favoritism aside and go with the more logical pick. What i love so much about davey is how unusual of a fighter he is. He started out as a grappler & after long layoffs and inconsistency in the ufc, he somehow figured it out and has became a fringe top 15 guy and also almost exclusively a striker. The best way to describe his striking is awkward but effective. He looks slow and awkward on the feet yet he hits insanely hard and is very good at landing on people. His favorite combo is that body-body-head combo. He throws it so fast and switches stances as he throws the head shot, to make it even more powerful. He also throws tons of leg kicks & when hes really in his zone he starts doing spinning **** too. While his striking is awesome to watch, davey is not a world beater. He is 37 years old and even tho he in on a w streak, he has shown some signs of slowing down in those fights. For example, the smolka fight he started to punch himself out in round 2 & against assuncao he looked very off until assuncao gassed. I feel like his stance switching before throwing is getting a lot more readable; against assuncao i felt like i could see him about to throw from a mile away. He also just looked slow in general, for example he was getting tagged a lot in both those fights. Then daniel marcos i have been so impressed with. Yes, he has wins over a lot of cans and his ufc fights have been against bums, but i am blown away watchging this guy. Yes, its easy to look good against bad fighters but I can see that marcos is different watching him. He has a super high output and is very dynamic. Super slick boxing, tons of leg kicks, will throw front kicks to the head and kicks out of nowhere, super slick head movement, and i love how he chains everything together. Just look at his ufc debut. He picked saimon apart with every limb he had; mixed up knees to the body and just murdered the bum. Now, going from saimon to grant is a crazy step up, but i dont want to have such a linear look at this fight. Davey grant is mostly like not going to shoot once, and if he doesnt I have to favor marcos. I think his technique is much better than daveys, along with having sharper strikes, better defense, age advantage, and speed advantage. Its really hard to pick against my guy davey, but i am just blown away by daniel marcos
Roberts vs Parsons Roberts KO RD 2
WHen this originally got announced i thought this would be a freebie for roberts (ufc si trying to give him a win but he is dog****). After tape, i still think he wins but this is a lot closer than i originally thought. Roberts isnt a terrible fighter but his chin, fight iq, and cardio is what holds him back. On the feet he is powerful and throws hard, but he has a bad habit of getting just a little too aggressive. This would be just a slight problem normally but it is potentially fight ending for roberts since he has one of the worst chins in the ufc; this isnt an exaggeration btw, if he gets touched even barely, he is on wobbly legs. Actually, wobbly legs might be an understatement, when he gets touched his body has these violent reactions that almost look like seizures. Its uncomfortable to watch & clearly shows his brain has taken an insane amount of damage from fighting. I hate picking guys like this vecause they can win every second of a fight but the second they get clipped its potentially game over. Roberts has some grappling that is pretty solid, but nothing crazy. He has a blast double that is okay, but its mostly based on his strength and athleticism than actual technique. His timing is solid and hes fast, but often times he will start to telegraph it and come crashing in (when he wrestles that is). Similarly, his bjj is solid as well when he uses it. When this first got announced i expected this to be an easy win for roberts because parsons is a can. Watching his tape tho it wasnt nearly as bad as i thought. Now, let me make it clear that i still dont think parsons is good at all, but hes not completely worthless just has a very one dimensional game. Parsons is the striking coach at syndicate & essentially fights mma like he is in muay thai. Lots of leg and body kicks, solid boxing, good power in his right hand. He will also catch and dump on kicks a lot. What i like the most about him is his cardio and durability. Despite looking extremely out of shape & being very small, he has very good cardio. He can strike at a high clip for 3 rounds easy. Hes also really durable; his striking defense is terrible but he has one hell of a chin. We saw him win a ufc contract off of durability; he wasnt better than renfro anywhere, but renfro punched himself out and parsons outpointed him (still think he lost that & yes im still salty). All this being said, im still not impressed with parsons. Yes, he has the basics down, he is durable, and has good cardio but thats about it. He is a can crusher, very untested, is super undersized (should be at 155), and not athletic at all. I think danny will win with his size and athleticism advantage. He is far from a lock tho because of that chin. Also I do worry bout his gas tank. I did see roberts spent time at eklevation for this camp but historically his cardio isnt very good, so hopefully we dont see a parsons vs renfro situation again. 
Diakese vs Alvarez Alvarez SUB RD 1
Finally getting to the fights people want to see. Im excited for this one cuz i really like joel alvarez but i could see this being a snoozer if diakese takes advantage of alvarez’s 0% tdd. I just hate diakese in general; he is consistently disappointing, seems to fold any time he faces anyone top 30 or better, and has lost his confidence on the feet, instead adopting a very good, but insanely boring lay n pray style. When you see diakese’s highlights, he looks crazy; super dynamic kicks, one punch ko power, awesome head movement, diverse striking game. But then you watch his fights in full and realize hes actually terrible. Sure hes got the dynamic strikes but he throws one shot at a time and is very low volume. As I said earlier, he seems to have lost his confidence on the feet. He will still throw dynamic stuff, but he gets touched up a good amount and just tends to fall behind when the opponent doesnt respect his dynamic kicks. INstead, he opts to wrestle. Now, his wrestling is honestly great but it is a ******* chore and a half to watch. It doesnt help his last two wins are against people with sub 30% tdd who cant wrestle so of course he looked dominant but still it was hard to watch. He is content to sit on the ground and lay on top of your for 15 minutes, doing no damage and doesnt even try to advance position. On paper, he should wrestle **** alavrez but i think this fight is a lot trickier for him than it looks. While alvarez may willingly get taken down, he has a very good submission game. Playing bjj off your back wont fly against elite guys, but for guys around this level its a cheat code for joel. His main weapon is the guillotine (which i see him getting here) but he does have triangles and armbars off of his back. He will occasionally go for sweeps as well so thats nice. Diakese could wet blanket him & will 100% score takedowns here, but he makes so many mistakes that I cant not see him getting caught in something. Diakese isnt known for having good fight iq so maybe he is scared to shoot cuz of the sub threat (i doubt it but gotta cover all bases in the breakdown lol). On the feet i dont think its close. Diakese has flashy striking, but joel is gigantic and can strike his ass off. Ill never forget the thiago moises performance, joel looked amazing. His elbows were one of the scariest use of elbows ive seen & he just entered a flow state on the feet; really good step in knee (he may use this to counteract diakese’s takedown as well), great boxing, and was just styling on moises the whole fight. I will say, there is some bias here because i really like alvarez and really hate diakese, but i think this is a fight diakese fumbles
Parkin vs Pogues Pogues DEC 
This card is funny because besides the first fight the fights get ****tier and ****tier until it gets to the good fights. Only fitting we top off the streak of bad fights with this stinker. The card was missing a low level heavyweight bout so here it is. I have genuine hatred for both of these guys; they are both dog****. Kicking it off with pogues, he annoys me to no end. Pogues is one of those guys who has realized that he can go from mid lhw to above average hw just by not cutting weight. I hate that this has become popular recently because while you do have a speed and athleticism advantage over almost anyone in the division, it leaves you with a ton of flaws, all of which are present in jamal pogues. For starters, his cardio. Pogues has a ton of decisions and isnt a finisher so youd think his cardio would be good, wrong. Maybe at 205 it was good but at 265 he has a good two rounds then death gasses. The reason for this being, sure he may be really quick and more athletic than his oppoennts, but he cant keep that pace and fighting style for three rounds because the extra 40 pounds hes fighting with slow him down a lot. I think pogues knows this too because he fights so lazy. His boxing is genuinely clean and he has a sharp jab, but he will consistently take his foot off the gas (i think to reserve energy). This was very evident in his dwcs fight where he was absolutely sniping renato and then halfway through each round would stop pumping the kab and just let renato dictate the fight. He also doesnt have hw power which doesnt help at all when he is barely doing any work on the feet. His wrestling has always been his best weapon, at 205 and 265. He times his shots really well & i especially like at 265 how hes able to duck under shots from the slower guys and chain that into a td. However there are two problems with his wrestling, 1. He has poor bjj so hes not very good at holding people down for significant time and 2. He lacks hw strength so the big guys can use their size to get back up. This results in easy takedowns for pogues, but also causes him to gas since hes using a ton of energy to get these guys down. For Parkin I have no clue what to think. He doesnt impress me at all & his dwcs fight was horrible. In that fight he just homer simpson’ed his way to a win; just ate every punch neves threw until he gassed himself out (terrible performance from a pretty solid hw prospect btw) and then subbed neves who was death gassed and has no grappling. His regional tape isnt much better. Parkin has a pretty good chin, but he is so stiff on the feet. He will throw but nothing really looks pretty and im not sur he has good power either. He is a grappling hw and trains with some awesome hw grapplers (PDF and aspinall) however they clearly dont rub off on him. He shoots takedowns and has some bjj, but its all very low level. He is able to be reversed with ease and ive deen him get taken down and mounted by absolute bums. Thats another thing about parkin too, his comp is dog****. The one good quality in him is that hes got pretty good cardio (allegedly) for how he fights. Every one of his fights ends up being a ridiculous pace & while hes never gone past round 2, ive at least seen him fight for 8-9 minutes and he doesnt seem to slow down. I think i have to go pogues cuz i think hes much better but this could go either way. This could also be a direct repeat of pogues vs parisian except parkin actually capitalizes on pogues being tired.