It’s that time again! Time to pit the picks of those who like to break limbs and the ones who then write vivid descriptions of said limb breaking. That’s right, Writer vs Fighter is back for another edition. This time out, Aiemann Zahabi joins us, fresh off a red-hot victory of his own!
Here’s how each week has gone so far:
Joe McDonagh def. Randy Costa (3-2) – Fight Island 7
Doug Murray def. Bryan Barberena (2-1) – Fight Island 8
Shawn Bitter DRAW Mike Rodriguez (1-1) – UFC 257
Dalton Rosta def. Jay Anderson (7-2) – UFC Vegas 18
Austin Arnett def. Heath Harshman (2-1) – UFC 258
Sam Hughes def. Gumby Vreeland (3-0) – UFC Vegas 19
Mike McClory def. Orion Cosce (5-2) – UFC Vegas 20
Josh Evanoff def. Cortney Casey (2-1) – UFC 259
So after eight events, the writers are just narrowly ahead at 4-3 with a draw.
Here’s how it works: both writer and fighter must pick the winner of the main event, co-main event, and featured main card bout. A correct pick will earn one point. Both must then pick a “lock” — the fighter they are most sure will win their fight — from the entire card. That’s two points. The “dog” comes next, and a correct underdog pick earns three points.
It’s that simple. Five picks: Main, co-main, and featured fight winners, lock, and underdog. To the winner go the spoils. Not actual spoils, but bragging rights anyway.
This week Alex Behunin puts the writers’ lead on the line against TriStar standout Aiemann Zahabi. Fresh off of his performance of the night KO, Zahabi is looking to virtually pick up the KO here to even the score. Let’s see what they thought about UFC Vegas 21.
For the top three fights of the night, the two combatants were pretty similar. Both like Misha Cirkunov to pick up the win over Ryan Spann in the co-main event. They both are also backing Gavin Tucker in his bout against Dan Ige. The main event is the only place where we see a big difference, with Aiemann taking the underdog, Belal Muhammad, and Alex riding with the favorite, Leon Edwards.
Where there is lots of points to be won is where the big separation is. Behunin locked in with Jonathan Martinez in his bout against Davey Grant – clearly confident in that fight. However, Zahabi took Grant as his dog. There is going to be a big 5 point swing there, one way or another. Of course, the loser of that matchup can still come back with their other plays. Zahabi is rolling with Nasrat Haqparast as his lock for his fight against Rafa Garcia. Meanwhile, Behunin is taking last week’s fighter, Cortney Casey, as his dog over JJ Aldrich.
May the best writer/fighter win! We’ll have the results up after the event!
Results: Grant paid off for Zahabi! That pick, and Haqparast, gave him five points, while Alex was shut out this week.
