Preview: UFC Fight Night 189 ‘Rozenstruik vs. Sakai’

Welterweights

NR | Miguel Baeza (10-0, 3-0 UFC) vs. NR | Santiago Ponzinibbio (27-4, 9-3 UFC)

ODDS: Baeza (-125), Ponzinibbio (+105)

This fight stands out as a potential banger, and it is an extremely crucial test in the career of Ponzinibbio. Few paid notice to the Argentinian coming off the second season of “The Ultimate Fighter Brazil,” particularly when he had a middling start to his UFC career. However, Ponzinibbio quietly racked up some wins and took advantage of an eventual headlining spot against Gunnar Nelson, scoring a knockout victory in just 82 seconds. Now established as a name, Ponzinibbio figured to factor into the UFC’s attempts to run more cards in South America, and indeed, he capped off the UFC’s debut in Argentina with a dominant win over Neil Magny in late 2018. Since that shining moment in Ponzinibbio’s career, little has gone right. Ponzinibbio missed all of 2019 and 2020 due to injuries and an eventual staph infection, and he looked gun-shy in his return bout in January, suffering a first-round knockout at the hands of Jingliang Li. Ponzinibbio’s long layoff sapped all of his momentum, and his poor performance against Li even raises some questions about his viability as a top-tier welterweight going forward. As a result, he badly needs to prove himself here.

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Baeza is a tantalizing but still relatively unproven prospect, though he has impressed quite a bit in his UFC career to date. A rangy welterweight, “Caramel Thunder” is most comfortable when he is given time and distance to pick his opponents apart, and through 2019, he faced little resistance against a middling level of competition. His first bout of 2020 saw him matched with Matt Brown, and the veteran pressed the issue enough to answer some questions about Baeza. While Baeza found himself in trouble early, he proved capable of steeling himself in the face of danger and fighting back, scoring a come-from-behind knockout at the beginning of the second round. After what essentially wound up as a showcase bout against Takashi Sato in November, Baeza has a major chance to steal the last of Ponzinibbio’s thunder. This fight essentially comes down to where Ponzinibbio sits at this point in his career. If the Li loss was just Ponzinibbio shaking off the rust and he recaptures some of his prior form, he should have enough aggression and pressure to throw Baeza off his game and start building offense as the fight goes on. However, if the Li performance is just the new normal for Ponzinibbio, he looked cautious enough that Baeza should be able to find a groove early and take initiative of the fight, if not just stop him outright with a counter. It is difficult to parse, but at the end of the day, it is hard not to go off of Ponzinibbio’s most recent performance. The pick is Baeza via decision.

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