Image: John Brannigan/Sherdog.com illustration
Buckle up folks, the Ultimate Fighting Championship road show is about to hit a whole other gear.
The world’s premier mixed martial arts promotion is set to visit five different countries in the next five weeks—on four different continents—starting with this Saturday’s fight night in Perth, Western Australia. Five road cards in a row place certain stresses on the UFC’s talent pool, especially for the three events that are not pay-per-views, and it shows in the fairly thin lineup here; on the entire card, only the Carlos Ulberg-Dominick Reyes headliner features two ranked fighters.
Beyond simple divisional stakes, however, cards like UFC Perth can benefit from geographically appropriate matchmaking, and in that respect the UFC nailed it. Of the 14 fights scheduled to take place in RAC Arena, 13 feature an Oceanic fighter against an international foe. That’s the kind of sensible booking that can help put butts in seats and elevate the feeling of an otherwise routine fight card.
Here is the preview for the undercard of UFC Fight Night 260, also known as UFC Perth:
Light Heavyweights
Navajo Stirling (7-0) vs. Rodolfo Bellato (12-2-1, 1 NC)Odds: Stirling (-240); Bellato (+200)
Stirling’s next step towards becoming the next City Kickboxing star after teammates Israel Adesanya and Ulberg goes through UFC Perth and Bellato. The burly Brazilian, winless in nearly two years since making a splashy debut out of Dana White's Contender Series, needs to bounce back from a combination of bad luck and flat performances in his last two outings.
As a potential next big thing for New Zealand’s top gym, Stirling is much closer to the Ulberg mold than Adesanya. The 27-year-old Kiwi is a big, athletic light heavyweight who uses solid kickboxing fundamentals, does his best work from range and at a deliberate pace, and is still vulnerable to wrestling. When allowed to work at his preferred distance and pace, he is accurate and has very good power. He throws solid kicks to all levels and while he generally does not like being put on his back foot, throws a nasty step-back hook.
Bellato has a few years and fights’ worth of experience on Stirling and feels like much more of a finished product. He is exactly as strong as his brawny build would seem to imply, but not nearly as fluid or explosive as Stirling. His striking is a mixed bag: his inborn power plus a tendency to overswing make him a crushing hitter, but he is wild and defensively porous. He has an effective ground game when he initiates things, but rarely does so, though it might behoove him to try it here.
This matchup favors Stirling, as the younger, more athletic and more technical standup fighter in a fight likely to be decided on the feet. Bellato’s best routes to victory involve either drawing Stirling into a brawl and cracking him with something big on the feet, a single huge strike, or casting aside his own wilder tendencies in favor of trying to test the prospect’s ground game. The pick here is that we see Bellato try the first option, but Stirling makes him pay with better footwork and disciplined counters. Stirling by first-round TKO.
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Stirling vs. Bellato
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