Kyle Anthony

THE PLAY: Yan Xiaonan -140

Yan Xiaonan opened as a -185 favorite at some books. Since then the market has drifted toward Denise Gomes and I disagree with that move. Yan is now priced at a real discount providing value at this number. Yan is a well-rounded fighter with sharp striking and a large amount of high level UFC experience. She has four losses inside the promotion but two of those came against former champions. The other two came against fighters who sat in the top five of the division at the time. She also owns a win over current champion Mackenzie Dern which is a nice feather in her cap. That result still carries weight. While Gomes is a rising prospect with real power in her hands. Her style is aggressive forward pressure crashing the pocket willing to stand toe to toe and throw heavy hooks. At 26 years old she should keep improving from fight to fight and has already added more wrestling to her game. Tape on both fighters makes the skill gap obvious. Yan is clearly the better overall fighter. More polished striking, better set ups to her combinations and more technical. Gomes can be a dangerous hammer, but she is far less comfortable when she becomes the nail. Denise wants to dictate the pace and the pressure and does not like fighting off the back foot. Many of her strikes are big looping hooks while Yan’s cleaner combinations and higher level striking should stand out against that approach. If Gomes cannot match Yan’s pace she will look for takedowns. Although Yan can be vulnerable to wrestling, the opponents who had success in that area brought a much higher wrestling level than Gomes possesses. Virna Jandiroba is a highly credentialed wrestler landing 3 takedowns with 10 minutes of control time. Former champion Weili Zhang landed 6 takedowns and held her down for 13 minutes. Former champion Carla Esparza landed 3 takedowns and controlled the fight for 8 minutes. Gomes is not close to those fighters in overall skill or wrestling. Yan should sprawl and brawl her way to a win. She will push a higher volume of strikes while staying defensively sound. She should out land Gomes on the feet and stuff the takedown attempts that come. This is also a large jump up in competition for Gomes as well. At -140 there is still plenty of value on Yan.