Islam Makhachev vs Bobby Green: Green to be thrashed

UFC Fight Night 202 (Vegas 49) will take place on February 27 in Las Vegas with the main event featuring Islam Makhachev and Bobby Green. Here you can find a prediction for this fight.

Everyone is well aware of Makhachev's style, his conditioning, his motivation, his charge. He's the favorite of the division, a very dangerous guy and a 100% title contender. He's a tough fighter, he's a presser, he's very good in standup, he's also good in wrestling, in punching he is more diverse than even Khabib. Of course he's also a dominant on the ground. So I am not going to say anything about Makhachev, there is no point.

What may Bobby Green oppose Makhachev? Well, first of all, the guy comes out on short notice (because Makhachev isn't fighting Dariush). What I have to say is that Bobby Green is not a bad boxer. Yes, he's a boxer, good with hands, feeling the distance, but not very versatile. His feet are not very good as far as punching power is concerned, he hardly ever uses them. He moves quite well but often freezes in front of his opponents, calling them to attack.

As we saw, Rafael Fiziev punished him many times for that, making longer combinational attacks against him. By swinging, by pulling back, these multi-strike combinations often ended with kicks, Bobby Green was smashed by this.

My point is that if he is going to freeze in front of Makhachev like that, he is not going to beat him, he is going to move into the parterre and destroy him there. Because Bobby Green's wrestling... Well, if you don't wrestle or transfer yourself, you have no chance even to defend yourself against such fighters as Makhachev or Khabib. And Green is not very fond of that business, he never imposes himself to fight and he's hardly very good at fighting.

All in all, Makhachev is at the peak of his form, with a full camp, with his ambition, motivation and technical arsenal to be used against Bobby Green, who basically only has very good hands. With a fighter like Makhachev, of course, that won't be enough, much less an incomplete camp.

Makhachev will impose a fight on him, and if he hasn't had a camp, and he hasn't been tightening up his conditioning in the wrestling aspect, he's done. So Makhachev is very likely to destroy the opponent. In the first round. TKO, choke, basically an early victory in the first round. In the second round at best, the same situation as with Hooker will happen, and Hooker is a more diverse fighter than Green.

So, prediction. Makhachev will destroy Bobby Green on all fronts unless there are some things that can't be predicted, but we don't take that into account.

Here are some objective characteristics of the fighters to consider before making a prediction and picking a bet.

Bookmakers, like most experts and fans, have no doubts about the victory of the Russian fighter. Bet365 offers odds of 1.083 on Makhachev's victory, while Bobby Green's win is estimated at 8.00.

Makhachev's victory in the first or second round has odds of 2.34 offered by 1xbet.