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 NGF 38 Preview
MAIN CARD
Main Event
Heavyweight Title Fight
#2 Rinky Spider (6-0, 4-0 NGF) v #1 Sam Winchester (6-2, 1-0 NGF)
A fantastic fight for the heavyweight championship between two great fighters. Rinky Spider is undefeated in his career with 6 finishes, 4 by KO and is coming into this one after a TKO win over Polish Engineer at NGF 35. Sam Winchester is the first heavyweight champion since Leifur Le was stripped of his title. Sam Winchester and older brother Dean Winchester are supernatural hunters from Kansas. As I’ve said before, Spider is just a scary dude. He’ll beat you up at every aspect of fighting, but he likes to stand and bang. He’ll use his fantastic kicking to batter legs and when the hop is gone from his opponent, he’ll move in for the kill. Winchester also likes to keep fights standing, but he is very good on the ground if the fight goes there. He’s only real weak area so far is he doesn’t have great ground defensive skills; although he has very good striking defense skills holding opponents to under 30% strike landing percentage. I see this fight standing, a great battle and a possible FOTN consideration. Neither fighter goes deep into fights, so I don’t see this one getting into the 3rd round. PREDICTION: Spider 2nd round KO
Co-Main Event:
Middleweight Fight
#7 Alpha Male (10-6, 4-4 NGF) v #6 Facaloto Gals (11-4, 3-1 NGF)
Alpha Male has just 1 win in his past 4 fights and his win at NGF 35 over Jambo Alvez broke a 3 fight loosing steak. Facaloto Gals lost his title to Purpura Mortis in his last fight at NGF 34 and he’ll try to get back into #1 contender consideration with a win. These two fought back at NGF 21, and produced the FOTN in that event. Gals was able to lock in a late submission to claim the victory in their first fight. Male’s biggest problem has been his poor striking defense. He just gets hit too much and it’s cost him in 2 decision losses in his past 3 fights. Male has dynamite power and can knock down an opponent with one punch. He has all 10 wins by (T)KO and he has 6 KO’s all by punches. Facaloto Gals is the opposite of Male where he’ll avoid the standup game and get this fight to the ground where he has 7 submission victories. Gals has good skills in the clinch and has a real skill for picking his spots to throw strikes, usually landing what he attempts. Both fighters like to get into the clinch; they are both very good there so this fight very well could have a lot of time there. Gals holds a considerable advantage on the ground, he lands a high % of strikes there and Male hasn’t shown good ground defense. Male will obviously look for a 1 punch KO quickly! PREDICTION: Gals 1st round submission
Heavyweight Fight
#16 Armand Battailen (6-2, 2-1 NGF) v #7 Andrew Golota (9-3, 4-1 NGF)
Armand Battailen was riding a 2 fight winning streak when he ran into a heavy hitter in Kullervo Pelli at NGF 34 and was KO’ed just 50 seconds. Andrew Golota will come into this a winner of 4 straight and looking to move into the top 5 with a win. Battailen, 6 years younger than Golota, loves to use his remarkable Muay Thai skills to work; he’ll get in a clinch and repeatedly use his knees. He also has excellent kicking skills and he’ll pound away at the legs of Golota. Battailen is also very good defensively on the ground, holding his opponents to just 25% strike landing and 27% in letting an opponent improve a position. Andrew Golota is purely a standup fighter, basically boxing, he does not like to clinch, he rarely goes to the mat, but he has power and skills boxing. He does typically throw a lot of punches and very few kicks, he has not got a great strike landing percentage, but he has a lot of power. I feel like if Battailen can get inside, avoid the big punches from Golota, he’ll make this a Muay Thai fight and Golota has shown no experience here. I don’t like Andrews’s chances if he has to fight in the clinch. PREDICTION: Battailen 2nd round TKO
Light Heavyweight Fight
#19 Noob Saibot (6-2, 0-0 NGF) v #8 Kert Nigobson (6-5, 3-2 NGF)
A fight that I had circled on my calendar since this was announced. Noob Saibot making his NGF debut vs Kert Nigobson who needs to start stringing together wins to make a title run. Saibot is a black belt in bjj and his signature move is the Kimura. Noob, who wears a mask to the octagon, is an exciting fighter, he’ll use very good standup striking, get a takedown and then it’s usually over if the fight ends up there. He doesn’t have a lot of holes, but you got to hope to get the best of the standup and stay off the mat with him. Kert Nigobson has good take down defense skills, he has not been taken down in his career yet. Nigobson lives and dies with wrestling, he’ll get take downs and control a fight, landing 74% of ground strikes attempted. Kerts biggest weakness is he’ll become so aggressive trying to end a fight with ground and pound he has a tendency to get sloppy, he’s been submitted by armbar 3 times. This is a fight between two very good ground fighters, who can stand too, this is so close I don’t know how to pick a winner. PREDICTION: Saibot decision
Bantamweight Fight
#14 Maksim Zotov (6-2, 5-2 NGF) v #17 Ron Sieler (5-5 NGF)
Maksim Zotov is coming off a decision loss to Jonathan Brookins at NGF 32 which broke a 3 fight winning streak. Ron Sieler is coming off a 1st round KO of Michael Sandler at NGF 34. These two first meet at NGF 8, it’s safe to say that both these guys are different fighters then they were then. Zotov will look to get this to the mat, like always, he’ll do most of his work with leg kicks, but he’ll look to control the fight on the mat, using ground and pound then look for the submission win. He has completed 50% of his submission attempts, which has gotten him 5 submissions. Ron Sieler is a tough cookie to crack; he looks very skilled, but cannot get consistent. Sieler has not beaten any quality fighters yet, this is another, but he is 0-5 vs top fighters. He has put up good fights against the better fighters, but he can’t seem to get the job done. He’s well rounded and he looks better and better each fight. To this point, Sieler is an aggressive fighter, but doesn’t land a high percentage of strikes and he also has not shown great defensive skills at anything. He is also letting opponents better their position on the ground at 62% which just can’t happen. If Zotov gets this to the mat, which he will, he will dominate this fight. PREDICTION: Zotov 1st round submission
PRELIM CARD
Heavyweight Fight
#17 Bob Probert (4-3 NGF) v #24 Matt Higginson (5-1, 1-1 NGF)
Bob Probert, the guy who hits with blocks of concrete…ok, at least that’s what it seems like. Probert has never gone past a 1st round, but he has lost 2 straight and things seem to have gone terribly wrong with him. He was once touted as major prospect, a possible champ one day, but now, the words out of his camp are much different. Matt Higginson will look to make it 2 wins in a row and move to 6-1 in his career. This fight should be a great one and it’s my favorite for KOTN. Both fighters love to stay standing, they don’t do much of anything else besides stand and bang. I’m not sure, but if Higginson wanted to try and get this fight to the ground he would have a huge advantage, Probert is simply terrible on the mat. He has no defense nor can he do any offense there either. I like Higginson’s all around stand up skill more than Proberts. Bob has the more power, but if Higginson can avoid the big punch, he can use his good kicking to take Proberts legs out. PREDICTION: Probert 1st round KO
Lightweight Fight
#23 Andry Andrianampoinimerina (3-2, 1-0 NGF) v #22 Jesse James (4-2, 0-0 NGF)
Andry Andrianampoinimerina is coming off an un-impressive split decision win over Urac Hunt at FN 14 and Jesse James is making his NGF debut. “The King” has decent boxing, he’ll use some strikes and then change levels to get a take down. He has exceptional wrestling skills and he will ground and pound everyone he faces. He is landing an astounding 93% of his ground strikes, but his aggressive style has opened him up for sloppy submissions against. Jesse James is an outlaw and he loves to fight…at least that’s what his bio reads. James has exceptional boxing skills and has shown good finishing power. He loves to use combinations to pick apart his opponents, but he is successful on just 17% of his attempted combinations. His weakness is his striking defense, he’s shown very little defense in his 6 fights, and this has gotten him rocked and his 2 losses. I like this fight, I believe James is the slightly better fighter at this point, I think he’ll be able to finish this with his striking power. PREDICTION: James 2nd round TKO
Bantamweight Fight
#19 Ron Paul (3-0, 0-0 NGF) v #13 Andrew Summer (6-4, 5-3 NGF)
Ron Paul is making his NGF debut in this one and he’ll look to use his wonderful Muay Thai skills to get the win. Paul will get into the clinch quickly and he usually spends the majority of the fight here. He loves to knee the body and will attempt a lot of take downs from the clinch. Once on the ground he likes to control the fight and not let his opponents do anything. He’ll attempt a lot of submissions, but he’s only locked in 7% of his attempted. Andrew Summer is coming off a KO loss to John Johnson at FN 13. He is well rounded with a brown belt in bjj, he will fight in all areas, but he is better on the ground and he gets chewed up in the clinch…which isn’t great for Summer in this one. Paul has just blown through his 3 QFC fights, so it’s hard to say what his weaknesses are yet. Summer will have to fight standing, and then get this fight to the ground. He needs to stay out of the clinch at all costs. We’ll see how good Ron Paul is in this one. PREDICTION: Paul decision
Super Heavyweight Fight
#13 Leopold Stotch (5-1, 0-0 NGF) v #17 Ben Benson (2-1, 0-0 NGF)
A couple of NGF rookies square off in this one. Leopold Stotch is 1-1 in his last two; he has gone to back to back fights decisions after finishing his first 4 fights of his career. He has remarkable boxing and wonderful wrestling, but make no mistake, he is a boxer first. He’ll just bombard his opponents from the bell; he averages 23.5 head punches per fight. He has shown good power early, but he has shown he is well conditioned too for a big man. Ben Benson has good, very good stand up skills, remarkable boxing and exceptional Muay Thai. His go to move is the head kick; he throws it early and often, averaging around 14 per fight. He has two KO wins; both have come by head kick, so he’s deadly with that kick. He’ll get take downs, but often just stands back up, just looking to point with take downs then to do any real damage. I like Benson in this one; I think he’ll kick his way to 1-0 in the NGF. PREDICTION: Benson 1st round KO
Bantamweight Fight
#20 Tony Frost (4-3, 4-2 NGF) v #15 PO Burn (5-5, 4-3 NGF)
We start this event off with an intriguing match between two fighters trying to figure out their problems and get their careers turned around. Tony Frost has lost 2 straight fights after starting off so promising. He has faced two very good ground fighters and they both have submitted Frost, showing his glaring weakness in his ground game. Frost will once again face a very good ground fighter, so he’ll be tested. Frost has good power and he likes to stay standing, trading punches, looking for a KO. What he doesn’t do is defend a take down and know how to fight on the mat yet. That is a problem. The story with PO is one day; Joe Burn was walking on the street with one of his fighters. They broke up a streefight, but the young kid was so agressive that Joe Burn's fighter had to took him down and sub him. "WTF is that ?" "Jiu-jitsu bicth".... the next day, this young kid was at the Joe Burn training center, beginning a new story. Burn will take a fight anywhere it needs to go, but he lacks any sort of finishing power or drive. He’ll often get into fights where he’s looking to counter, and he’ll let himself just get out pointed. He can do good work on the ground, but not enough. I like Frosts finishing power in this one, I think Burn is the more experienced fighter, but he just has lost a lot of fire now a days. PREDICTION: Frost 1st round KO
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