The UFC veteran of nine years returns when Guido Canetti steps back into the octagon to fight the surging, Mario Bautista.
The Argentinian Canetti is coming off of two massive finishes over Randy Costa and Kris Mountinho, stopping each within one round with his explosive and powerful style.
His opponent, Bautista who hails from Nevada has only two blots on his otherwise clean winning record, a loss to Cory Sandhagen in his UFC debut and a KO loss to Trevin Jones in a fight he was beforehand winning.
Bautista is coming off three straight victories since a unanimous decision over Jay Perrin followed by two submissions over Brian Kelleher and Benito Lopez respectively.
Betting Odds
Guido Canetti will find himself the underdog against the much younger Bautista.
Fight Breakdown
Guido Canetti has a very specific style. He stands southpaw, in a wide stance much akin to karate, but fires his strikes with weight behind all of it. He always wants to work from the outside, firing low kicks and body kicks both round and straight to chip away at his opponent’s frame and get a read on their distance. He is particularly good at digging his shin into the leg as his opponents try to advance on him with multiple low kicks. He will then look to circle and reset if they do gain any ground, and in a perfect world, what he wants to do is fire and reset, building on that damage enough to draw their guard down and then raise the target of his kicks and punches. Although he is primarily a kicker, he has powerful blitzing punches, as he bursts into range.
However as dangerous as he is, there is a reason he is such a heavy underdog. He is extremely explosive and throws everything behind every one of his shots, which is difficult to sustain over an entire fight. His two most recent wins have come within one round. Those who have beaten him, have found success if they are able to cut an angle and pressure him to the cage, taking away that space he needs to kick.
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Mario Bautista is a very well-rounded individual, he has good kickboxing at range and is very good at returning counters on almost every one of his opponent’s kick attempts, Although shot for shot, Canetti has more power, Bautista has a history of also successfully punishing his opponent’s legs. The biggest difference is that Bautista may be one of the very best at unloading fast combinations when his opponent hits the fence. He is great at mixing his shots between the body and head but also one of his favorites is to start southpaw, directing his opponent to his left to escape, stepping over in a stance switch, and ripping three to four lightning-fast hooks to the body. His hand speed often results in a shelled-up guard from his opponents, prompting a clear level change if he wants to take it.
Canetti has shown himself a submission threat recently, with his scrambling back take and choke over Costa. That being said, Bautista is the more educated grappler, he is tremendous in his ability to find the mount quickly from so many positions, and constantly readjust to maintain it. From there he will slide into a high mount to attack arms and triangles.
Prediction and Betting Guide
Canetti is dangerous in the opening minutes, and he is dangerous at kicking range. What makes Bautista so scary is that recently he has become a very quick finisher but is traditionally known as a fighter who gets better as time goes on. If he can get past those kicks and drag Canetti further into the fight, I do see his momentum only snowballing. On the inside, Canetti’s kryptonite has always been those who can suffocate him against the fence or potentially on the mat, and those two specific things are his best weapons of Bautista. I think that his body hooks are well used to sap the explosiveness of Canetti, and I think ultimately the boxing and pressure will eventually put Canetti on the fence taking shots and opening him up to takedowns.
At -1000 Bautista is not an appealing bet. For those who do want to use him, he is better as a parlay booster or Bautista by submission sits at -107 currently. Four of Canetti’s six losses have come via submission and three of those by rear naked choke. Although Bautista does his best work in the mount, he could very well take the back if Canetti tries to muscle out from the bottom and Bautista floats over.
Pick: Mario Bautista by submission (-107)