Edgar Chairez most recently had his two-fight win streak snapped by Japanese sensation Tatsuro Taira earlier this summer. Having beaten Gianni Vazquez and Roberto Guerrero prior, the Mexican striker looks to get back to winning ways this Saturday at UFC Fight Night: Grasso vs. Shevchenko.
Standing in his way is the always exciting Daniel “Mojo” Lacerda. The former Shooto Brazil star has his back against the wall in what will be his 5th UFC appearance and an attempt at his first UFC win. Although he is yet to get his hand raised, fans still remain hopeful as he always puts on a show and makes the fight competitive.
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Betting Odds
Unsurprisingly, Lacerda will come in as a substantial underdog as he looks for his first UFC victory.
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Fight Breakdown
Edgar Chairez is an excellent striker first and foremost. He is a conventional stance fighter, with particularly sound and powerful boxing, and displays a low kick game suited to enhancing his primary boxing skills. He typically looks to establish his jab to stun his opponents and draw out counter shots so that he can fade away or angle off while countering with heavy shots. As any good counterstriker, he has great head movement on his exits and rolls with shots when they do connect. His jab to check left hook is one to watch out for specifically, either moving forward or sticking and countering.
In his most recent loss to Tatsuro Taira, some holes in his game were exposed that Lacerda and his camp should be keeping an eye on. While Chairez has devastating low kicks of his own, his affinity to tread heavy on the lead leg himself while jabbing and pivoting offer a stance very susceptible to low kicks himself if Lacerda can time it. he almost goes completely sideways at points and takes the kicks as he cannot check them in that stance. The biggest drawbacks to his game however are general decision-making errors in his grappling. He shows good technical skills but will rush submissions to the point of losing positions, and will do so with consistency. Likewise with initial takedown defence, he has the ability to quickly sprawl and stop the penetration, but without breaking the clinch can end up falling to chain wrestling.
Lacerda is a much different kind of fighter. While Chairez sticks to fundamental boxing and does it sharply, Lacerda mixes things up more uniformly between all his striking weapons. He is also one to throw more spinning attacks and jumping attacks than the typical fighter, taking big risks for big rewards when they land but gaining almost nothing if they do not land flush. That being said, at times his ability to attack sweeps or stabbing front kicks between the wilder shot selections do very well to offer his more eccentric attacks more success, so he should look to set things up better. It is notable that in most of his fights he is able to land something big and it’s almost always the most significant moment of that round. From there however he has gassed looking for the finish, and staying composed and picking his shots at this point is an adjustment he needs to have made in camp.
If he does find Chairez hurt, the biggest adjustment I think he should look to make is to get himself in top position rather than rush through with flurries of strikes. The biggest differential in skill is on the ground, Lacerda has great submissions, and even better the ability to transition almost seamlessly between submissions. Transitioning to mount to set up armers and triangles is a major asset as Chairez will leave his arms to be isolates as he looks to get to one hip when mounted, especially high mount.
Prediction
Largely, Lacerda’s inability to get a UFC win thus far has been more a product of bad energy conservation and being a bit too reckless with big techniques when he didn’t need to. I do believe he has the skills to get it done if he stays more composed and sticks to a gameplay. Whether or not he can do this remains to be seen, and how he manages his gas tank I believe is the biggest factor in this fight.
They should be relatively competitive on the feet, Chairez may do more in terms of scoring, but I also believe that Lacerda can land the most significant strikes and has the best chance of hurting Chairez. If he is fresh and finds his moments in top control to rest and establish control, he can eventually transition to a submission for the victory, or maintain enough control time to edge rounds. This leads me to believe that although it is a close fight, the underdog is worth taking
Pick: Daniel Lacerda to win (+205)
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