The ‘Fighting Nerds’ gym from Sao Paulo, Brazil is all the rage in 2024 and every bit of the attention has been earned.
Going into UFC 309, which takes place one week after their man Carlos Prates won a main event and a ranking, the young core of fighters from the gym who are in the UFC – Caio Borralho, Jean Silva, Prates, and Ruffy – have a combined record of 10-0 in 2024 alone.
Although he is the least experienced of the bunch, Mauricio Ruffy has enormous amounts of hype around him due to his slick boxing and knockout power, which must be why he opens the pay-per-view main card this week in his second UFC fight despite facing a foe who is 0-2 with the promotion.
Ruffy has won every fight thus far by knockout, so it is hard to pick any other result, especially when he is a -750 betting favorite. However, the only method by which Peru’s Llontop has never lost is by knockout.
Which first-time result will occur? Will Llontop drag Ruffy into deep waters, where he has never been? Or will Ruffy knock out the durable Peruvian?
With such young, untested fighters it is hard to know what will happen when they face new challenges. If James refuses to be put away then there is every chance Llontop, a decent striker himself as seen against Viacheslav Borshchev, could eke out a victory.
However it is impossible to pick that result. Ruffy’s boxing will probably be too dynamic and devastating to let the bout end any other way than with the referee pulling him off his battered foe.
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