Main Event Spotlight | UFC Fight Night: Cannonier vs Rodrigues

Jared Cannonier

Though “Tha Killa Gorilla” has been a fixture in the middleweight title picture for the last six years and change, his time in the UFC began at heavyweight, where the MMA Lab representative went 1-1 before moving down to the 205-pound weight class. Cannonier managed just one win in four starts at light heavyweight, though his losses came against two future champs, Glover Teixeira and Jan Blachowicz, and eventual title challenger Dominick Reyes.

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Since dropping down to middleweight, the “Level 40” fighter (Cannonier doesn’t speak in terms of age, but levels) has gone 7-4, making him one of a handful of athletes to earn victories across three divisions, and only the second, along with Conor McGregor, to collect knockout wins in three weight classes.

Over the course of their UFC runs, Cannonier and Rodrigues have spent upwards of 80 percent of their time in the Octagon on the feet, with the former spending just 1.8 percent of his total fight time in top position, and the latter having logged 17.6 percent of his time there through his first nine fights.

While the grappling data serves as an interesting point of consideration in this pairing, the reality is that we should see these two spend much of their time trading blows in the center of the Octagon, engaging in what could very well be a Fight of the Night type of contest.

Both Cannonier and Rodrigues land at a higher-than-average rate per minute — 4.49 strikes landed per minute for the ninth-ranked Cannonier, 5.5 SLpM for Rodrigues — and clock in slightly above the average rate in terms of strikes absorbed per minute as well, coming in at 4.39 SApM and 4.6 SApM respectively; the UFC average is 3.46 SApM. According to the numbers, both are essentially “take one to land one” fighters, with Cannonier consistently working at a higher volume, but Rodrigues having exhibited the superior efficiency thus far.

If there is one wrinkle to watch for on the Cannonier side of the striking exchanges, it’s his willingness to mix up his targets. Where Rodrigues aims more than 75 percent of his shots to the head and has attacked the legs less than five percent of the time through nine fights, Cannonier is far more varied with his offerings, attacking the body 20 percent of the time and the legs 16.8 percent of the time, which could be a key to slowing the advances and output of the pressuring Rodrigues this weekend.

One last stat to consider in this pairing is that Saturday marks the first time Rodrigues has been booked in a five-round main event in the UFC, while it will be Cannonier’s sixth consecutive headlining assignment and the eighth UFC main event of his career. He’s gone the distance in four of those contests, including his win over Kelvin Gastelum and title fight setback against Israel Adesanya, while his counterpart has only seen the scorecards three times through his first nine UFC appearances.

There is a ton to consider as these two ready to make the walk this weekend, and hopefully this little breakdown of Saturday night’s main event has got you pumped and primed to tune into the action.