Heavyweight veteran Ben Rothwell (38-12, 28 KOs, 6 SUBs) will meet Poland’s Marcin Tybura (19-6, 7 KOs, 6 SUBs) at UFC Fight Night: Moraes vs. Sandhagen on Saturday, October 10, 2020 at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The contest supports a main event featuring bantamweight title contenders Marlon Moraes (23-6, 10 KOs, 6 SUBs) and Cory Sandhagen (12-2, 4 KOs, 3 SUBs). The card streams live on ESPN+ starting 8pm ET. Let’s take a closer look at the heavyweight tilt between Rothwell and Tybura and break down the fight to get to your best online betting picks.
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Ben Rothwell (38-12, 28 KOs, 6 SUBs)
Rothwell has had a long, productive MMA career. This is a guy that fought Tim Sylvia back in 2001 in a tiny promotion called Extreme Challenge, then captured the championship for the now-defunct IFL with a win over Ricco Rodriguez in 2007. He even fought Andrei Alrovski for the short-lived Affliction promotion. Since joining the UFC in 2009, a number of his former opponents have since retired or left the promotion, like Cain Velasquez, Brendan Schaub, Gabriel Gonzaga, Brandon Vera, Matt Mitrione and Josh Barnett. He even scraped his way into the contender ranks with a four-fight win streak that included finishes over Barnett and Overeem.
But truthfully, Rothwell’s fight career seems to be nearing an end. His current two-fight win streak really doesn’t say much. Knocking out Stefan Struve isn’t that big of a deal - everybody’s done it. Eking out a split decision win over an upjumped, creaky OSP is something of a loss in itself considering that Rothwell was fighting a blown up light heavyweight. Rothwell has never been much of an athlete, but he looks slower than ever and it seems like he’s operating on half a gas tank. The power is still there, but the ability to impose it is waning.
Marcin Tybura (19-6, 7 KOs, 6 SUBs)
It seems like we have a clearer picture of who Tybura is. After starting his UFC career 3-1, the Pole crept into the top 15 with a win over Andrei Arlovski that actually led to a headlining fight against Fabricio Werdum. That didn’t go so well, and neither did a follow up shot against Derrick Lewis where he was knocked out in a fight he was winning. It was all part of a 1-4 slide that included TKO losses to Shamil Abdurakhimov and Augusto Sakai. At this point it’s safe to say that perhaps the most we can expect out of the 34-year old is some gatekeeping duties.
Tybura is a generally well-rounded fighter who prefers to wrestle. We’ll give him credit for building on that skillset when it became clear that he could not outmuscle bigger UFC fighters. Training at Jackson-Wink, Tybura has developed comfort in his standup, but he doesn’t present much knockout threat even as a 6'3",250-pound man. It’s not like he can’t knock people out, but he’s only done it once in the UFC in 11 fights.
Significant Striking Stats
Strikes landed per minute: Rothwell 3.38 / Tybura 3.6
Striking accuracy: Rothwell 42% / Tybura 52%
Strikes absorbed per minute: Rothwell 6.36 / Tybura 2.99
Striking defense: Rothwell 47% / Tybura 52%
Grappling Stats
Takedowns per 15 minutes: Rothwell 0.85 / Tybura 1.61
Takedown accuracy: Rothwell 31% / Tybura 61%
Takedown defense: Rothwell 69% / Tybura 79%
Submission average: Rothwell 0.49 / Tybura 0.15
UFC Picks
This fight will likely get pretty tedious - neither fighter is particularly aggressive, nor are they very flashy. But in the end, we lean Tybura simply because he is the younger, fresher fighter. As somebody who prefers to grapple and clinch, we expect Tybura to tie up Rothwell and control long portions of the fight. That should be enough to give him the win, and it’ll likely go to the judges’ scorecards.
UFC Fight Night: Holm vs. Aldana Card & Odds
Bantamweight - Marlon Moraes +108 vs. Cory Sandhagen -132
Featherweight - Makwan Amirkhani +213 vs. Edson Barboza -264
Middleweight - Markus Perez +130 vs. Dricus du Plessis -157
Heavyweight - Marcin Tybura +134 vs. Ben Rothwell -162
Heavyweight - Chris Daukus +221 vs. Rodrigo Nascimento -274
Bantamweight - Ali Alqaisi +177 vs. Tony Kelley -215
Featherweight - Giga Chikadze +127 vs. Omar Moraes -152
Flyweight - Bruno Silva +322 vs. Tagir Ulanbekov -419
Middleweight - Joaquin Buckley +203 vs. Impa Kasanganay -250
Middleweight - KB Bhullar +207 vs. Tom Breese -255
Women’s Bantamweight - Stephanie Egger +173 vs. Tracy Cortez -210
Featherweight - Ilia Topuria +162 vs. Youssef Zalal -196
Heavyweight - Alan Baudot +414 vs. Tom Aspinall -564
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