Preview: UFC Vegas 103 ‘Kape vs. Almabayev’

Featherweights

William Gomis (14-2, 4-0 UFC) vs. Hyder Amil (10-0, 2-0 UFC) ODDS: Gomis (-198), Amil (+164)

His fights haven’t been particularly entertaining to watch, but it has been a bit amusing to see Gomis keep skating by to a surprising amount of success. The Frenchman’s game does make sense overall. “Jaguar” typically uses his reach to flick out some strikes from long range, then adopts an ugly clinch game to neutralize his opponents if they decide to close the distance. However, it does seem like Gomis’ approach has had some fairly thin margins. His striking hasn’t been particularly powerful and a few opponents have been able to hit Gomis hard at close range when he has been unable to slow things down. After two close decision wins and a third-round knockout that should have been easier to find, the assumption was that Joanderson Brito was enough of an offensively focused berserker to blow Gomis’ game apart. Instead, Gomis made things grimy and walked away with his unlikeliest win yet. Gomis looks to pull off that trick yet again, as he takes on Amil, a fighter who might not be able to be neutralized.

It’s difficult to call Amil a prospect at 34 years old despite his lack of experience, but “The Hurricane” might be hitting the UFC at the right time, as he looks to have a focused game with some impressive poise. Amil is all about pace and pressure, which can go against him at times but never for an entire fight—and even less so now that he has hit the UFC. His pre-UFC career saw Amil often make his name as a comeback artist, but inside the Octagon, he has mostly run through Fernie Garcia and Jeong Yeong Lee, with the latter fight turning into an absolute war. The dynamic here is fairly clear, as Gomis needs to take the fight out of this fight, but the call is that Amil has the right combination of technique and aggression to finally outpace the Frenchman over 15 minutes. The pick is Amil via decision.

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Kape vs. Almabayev
Brundage vs. Marquez
Ribovics vs. Haqparast
Pinto vs. Lane
Gomis vs. Amil
Barlow vs. Patterson
The Prelims