Preview: Noche UFC Prelims

Lightweights

Claudio Puelles (12-4) vs. Joaquim Silva (13-5)

Odds: Puelles (-120); Silva (+100)

These are two talented lightweights with some major question marks hanging over them, but of the two, Puelles has far more to prove at Noche UFC. Three years ago, the “Prince of Peru” was a promising up-and-comer, a young, decently sized prospect with a dangerous ground game, who had cobbled together a five-fight winning streak in one of the UFC’s deepest divisions.

Since then, Puelles has fought just twice more, losing ugly to Dan Hooker as well as Fares Ziam and frankly looking terrible both times. Still just 29, there is time for Puelles to turn this around, but he desperately needs a good showing here.

What the Hooker and Ziam fights showed is that Puelles is out of his depth against strikers who can exploit his lack of speed and power on the feet, and while he is a serious submission threat, he struggles to get fights to the ground on his terms. That and his predilection for leglocks means that he is exposed to a lot of damage while grappling, and if the submission doesn’t come, he can be shockingly inert: Puelles lost to Ziam in a dreadful fight despite taking him down seven times because he simply didn’t do anything on the ground.

Silva needs to reassert his place in the division as well, but he feels like much less of a mystery than Puelles. “Netto BJJ,” a nickname that translates roughly to “The BJJ Kid,” is hilarious since most of his offense consists of big overhand punches, but Silva himself is no joke. Still a plus athlete at 36, the burly Brazilian tank has the power you would expect from looking at him, and while he sometimes slows down late in fights or gets lulled into periods of inactivity, at his best he does throw enough volume to give himself a good chance to win.

Nickname irony aside, Silva does have excellent jiu-jitsu, and very credible wrestling for “a jiu-jitsu guy.” He just prefers not to use them, and this is a fight where that instinct may serve him well.

My preview co-host Keith and I were divided on this one, with him picking Silva in a slight upset. I lean towards Puelles, as the much younger fighter, being better on Saturday than he’s shown in the last couple of fights. It will be a nip and tuck affair, as Puelles tries to navigate a minefield on the feet and time a few takedowns against a savvy grappler in Silva, but the pick here is for the Peruvian to get back into the win column by a narrow decision.



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Hernandez vs. Ferreira
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Puelles vs. Silva
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