UFC 227 fell victim to ‘withdraw curse’. First Volkan Oezdemir pulled out on Alexander Gustafsson for what seemed to be a legitimate concern, but then Alexander Gustafsson said he would not be fighting on the card stating an undisclosed ‘minor injury’ after being called out by Alexander Smith after his KO victory of Shogun Rua.
The letter to Gustafsson from Daniel Cormier on Instagram was an instant classic. D.C. called out Alexander, saying that he [Gustafsson] was entitled and after this incident, will never share the ring with him again.
This may be disappointing to the fans that want to so Gustafsson and D.C. do battle again. But then again, just because Cormier said it, that doesn’t mean that Dana White can’t convince him and use all of this to build more drama and sell even more PPV tickets.
Despite an excellent light heavyweight fight being pulled from the UFC 227 card, the action that remains with the two title fights between TJ Dillashaw-Cody Garbrandt , Demetrious Johnson-Henry Cejudo, and the veteran featherweight bout Cub Swanson and Renato Moicano should be more than enough to satisfy our MMA hunger. August 4th will be a double title night, both of which are rematches. It doesn’t get much more fun than this.
Dillashaw vs. Garbrandt II
There is a ton of drama built around this fight. Not quite as much as the first fight, but you can see the UFC propping Garbrandt up as the ‘good guy’ again. Right on the front page of UFC.com, Cody is shown holding his baby, bottle in hand and a beautiful wife by his side. So he’s the ‘family man.’ We saw the same type of thing leading up to the first fight. Garbrandt was the all-American loving boyfriend. Dillashaw was “snake” that betrayed his long-time team, friends, and head coach Uriah Faber to follow his coach Duane Ludwig to Colorado.
In my opinion, it looked like the UFC and the world was preparing for a Garbrandt win. But that didn’t happen. He got knocked out by Dillashaw in the second round. But will that happen again? Cody is actually the better striker, despite getting dropped last time around. And when we check a trusted sportsbook like Bovada for UFC betting odds, we find that the odds are close. Really close. -120 for Dillashaw and -110 for Garbrandt. TJ is the favorite, but only slightly. In the world of fighting, these odds are almost as tight as they come.
This is a fight that can easily go either way. I do have to lean Dillashaw, as I feel like he just has Cody’s number. But one shot from Garbrandt that lands on the button could end the fight, and that is certainly within the realm of possibility.
Demetrious Johnson vs. Henry Cejudo
Henry Cejudo is doing all he can to prepare for DJ. And I hope we see a more competitive fight than last time around. The problem with Mighty Mouse is nobody in his weight class even comes close to his level of talent. This includes Cejudo. I don’t imagine that the result will be any different than the first fight. Except for maybe, the knockout comes one round later. But this begs the question, where does DJ go from here?
If both Dillashaw and Johnson win at UFC 227, is a super fight at a catchweight the answer? Dillashaw usually fights at 135-lbs and Johnson at 125-lbs. But most likely TJ will drop down to 125-lbs as he has been vocal about becoming a two-division champion and said he will gladly go down to take the fight. The fight was almost made but the sticking point was that DJ said he wanted to be on a stacked PPV card to be paid more money for taking on a super fight.
Could this happen? We’ll just have to wait and see if both come away victorious once more.
