Marcos Rogerio de Lima and Nikita Krylov fight Sunday night at the SaskTel Centre during UFC Fight Night.
Marcos Rogerio de Lima enters this fight with a 13-3-1 record and is winning 85 percent of his fights by knockout. Lima has won five of his last six fights and is coming off a December win over Igor Pokrajac. Lima is averaging 4.97 significant strikes per minute with an accuracy percentage of 54 percent. Lima is averaging zero takedowns with an accuracy percentage of zero percent. Lima is a terrific striker with crazy power, and his last four victories have come by knockout. Lima wants his fight standing up to where he can trade blows, and so far Carlos Eduardo has shown to be the only one who can hang in that style against him. Despite never being submitted, Lima’s weakness would be his grappling and wrestling game, making him least effective. This will be Lima’s first career fight in Canada.
Nikita Krylov enters this fight with a 18-4 record and is winning 61 percent of his fights by submission. Krylov has won four of his last six fights and is coming off a January win over Stanislav Nedkov. Krylov is averaging 5.65 significant strikes per minute with an accuracy percentage of 64.3 percent. Krylov is averaging zero takedowns with an accuracy percentage of zero percent. Krylov is an aggressive fighter who lands a wide combination of kicks and punches, and lands with high accuracy. Krylov likes to control the pace offensively and is also comfortable on the mat with 11 submission wins, but just one in his last 10 fights. The downside with Krylov is the lack of show-and-prove, as majority of his victories have come against lousy opponents with losing records. This will be Krylov’s first career fight in Canada.
Both guys have proven to be solid strikers, but Lima is the real knockout artist and can end a fight rather quickly before it really begins. I also have a hard time backing Krylov given the lack of true competition at this stage of his career.
I expect Lima to come out on top here.