UFC 331 prelims preview: Vera vs. Jourdain predictions & picks – Tuivasa vs. Despaigne

Odds: Despaigne (-750), Tuivasa (+525)

So it’s come to this. The UFC quickly got into the Tai Tuivasa
business when he debuted in 2017, and it’s easy to see why;
Australia was quickly becoming an important market, and Tuivasa was
an obvious choice as a potential star, with some natural charisma,
impressive athleticism and even a memorable gimmick as a man who
drinks post-fight victory beers out of a shoe. It took about a year
for the UFC to rush Tuivasa into his first main event against
Junior dos
Santos, and after that went unsuccessfully, it looked like
Tuivasa might surprisingly slide out of the promotion; he got a
rough bounce-back fight against Blagoy
Ivanov, then his lack of defensive wrestling was exposed by a
then-lightly regarded Serghei
Spivac.

“Bam Bam” then took a year off to regroup and looked refreshed upon
his comeback, improving just enough to go on the best run of his
career, reeling off five straight wins and getting close to a title
shot before losing a game effort to Ciryl Gane.
Tuivasa figured to regroup, but instead his career has been a
complete disaster since; at first, some of his losses were just the
types of coin flips that happen at heavyweight when both men race
toward a finish, but loss after loss has seemed to corrode
Tuivasa’s confidence and game planning, with him now coasting
listlessly through some wrestling-heavy decision losses despite the
occasional early moments of success. The tally is now seven
straight losses for the Australian, and he somehow gets a chance to
avoid No. 8 here against the returning Robelis
Despaigne.

A 2012 Olympic bronze medalist in taekwondo, the Cuban launched his
mixed martial arts career in his mid-30s and quickly found his way
to the UFC amid a ton of hype, which only got louder after an
18-second win over Josh
Parisian in his UFC debut. As a 6-foot-7 monolith with a
striking background and a ton of knockout power, expectations were
that Despaigne could move through the UFC ranks quickly after that
debut — but he was instead out of the UFC just six months later.
Waldo
Cortes-Acosta and Austen Lane
each proved that any level of wrestling could throw Despaigne
completely off his game, with the Lane loss being particularly
damning, as it came against one of the least durable heavyweights
on the UFC roster. That figured to be it for Despaigne as far as
the UFC was concerned, particularly after he found success in
Karate Combat, but after he made a successful return to mixed
martial arts on the MVP MMA card this past May by knocking out
Junior dos
Santos, it’s not a shock that the UFC would immediately look to
damage a potential competitor by signing someone who could gain
some notice.

This could be an absolute mess, as Tuivasa might be too durable for
Despaigne to knock out immediately but also have just enough
offensive wrestling to get Despaigne to fight tentatively — but
not enough to make that wrestling actually count toward any sort of
successful offense. So the prediction is a slog of a fight where
neither man looks all that confident and Despaigne lands the harder
strikes; the pick is Despaigne via decision.

Jump To »
Vera vs. Jourdain
Tuivasa vs. Despaigne
Aswell vs. Yoo
Gandra vs. Diaz
Shahbazyan vs. Ferreira
O’Neill vs. Moura
Chikadze vs. Brito