Contributor: Ben Kohn
In the co-main event of UFC 165, we have an excellent matchup for the Interim Bantamweight Championship between the near man with the insanely long winning streak and a great smile to go along with it, Renan Barao. He will face one of the first WEC Bantamweight champions and a man not to be confused with Weidman, Eddie Wineland.
Barao has laid waste to many fighters in the Bantamweight division including top guys like Brad Pickett, Urijah Faber, and Michael McDonald to name just a few. He has an absolutely lethal and slick submission game, good offensive and excellent defensive wrestling, and his striking is nearly as good as his already top level submission grappling. He is the epitome of a well-rounded fighter and has very few weaknesses (though they are there) for an opponent to exploit. It just so happens to be that Eddie may be the one to be able to exploit them. Eddie is a striker in the mold of a sprawl and brawler. While not a bad wrestler, he would much rather use it to keep the fight standing in order to uncork his deadly boxing attack that he has used to beat the likes of Scott Jorgenson and Brad Pickett (both of whom are common opponents with Barao). While not a kicker, Wineland uses his boxing very well and probably has among the best hands in the division. It just so happens that Barao’s pure boxing is the weakest part of his standup game. Let’s take a look at how these two stack up on the feet.
Eddie Wineland is almost solely a boxer on the feet. He just doesn’t throw many kicks which is usually looked at as limited. Wineland however makes up for it with his fantastic boxing skills. His aggressive counter-punching style with long straight punches, great uppercuts and hooks, and great use of angles to disengage and “close the door” really make him hard to deal with on the feet. In his fight with Brad Pickett, Winedland used excellent feints to see Pickett’s reactions and used that to get his timing down. He also used a fantastic 1-2 to keep Pickett at bay and force him to rush in chin first which allowed him to really hurt him on multiple occasions. Whenever Pickett would try and hit him, Wineland would disengage with hooks while circling 
out with lateral movement, resetting in the center of the cage and again aggressively moving forward but being very patient with his attacks, usually throwing only when there was a high percentage of landing those punches. The only real issues I have with his performance against Pickett was while angling off, he would drop his hands and Pickett was able to land some decent shots on Wineland when he did that. The biggest issue, and one that may play a pivotal role in this fight, was that Pickett landed almost every single leg kick he threw. Pickett is not known as a kicker and the fact that he had success all fight long (his only real success) against Wineland does not bode well for him because Barao’s kicks are lethal. If Wineland has learned to check leg kicks, he can give Barao some serious issues on the feet because his hands are really just that good. Barao, though he showed improvement in his boxing in his fight with McDonald, still is not on the level to get into a fire fight with Wineland, who also possesses some serious power. Wineland needs to back Barao up against the cage and stifle his kicking game so that he can work in boxing range where he is at his best. Can he do it? It’s possible but he will have to get in range and Barao is really good at keeping range.
Renan Barao’s striking is really centered on his excellent kicking game. Like his teammate Jose Aldo, Barao possesses excellent leg kicks that he uncorks with stinging power and incredible velocity. His use of front kicks and spinning kicks are the base of his range attacks and he will throw those spinning kicks from pretty close to his opponent too (see fight with Michael McDonald). His boxing and footwork are what I would like to focus on though. A kick based fighter usually needs to move forward to kick effectively. When you force a kicker backwards, it’s hard for them to set properly to kick. Barao when he is being attacked moves in a straight line backwards until his back either hits the cage or his opponent stops attacking. This is really bad as he loses his best weapons when doing this and has to rely on his weakest skillset which is his boxing. While he does have a decent jab and good left hook, he tends to swing wildly and engage in a brawl with his opponent. McDonald was able to get the better of Barao despite having no real distance weapon to enter range with because of these issues with Barao. What Barao does do well is strike when his opponents back is on the cage. He is very good at sneaking his hooks through his opponents guard and when he gets you to back up, he can implement his very fluid kicks and knees into the equation. Before really taking a look at the tactics and skills of Wineland and Barao, it was hard to see how Wineland could deal with the multi-faceted attack of Barao. It turns out that Wineland has exactly the type of style to give Barao a very bad night on the feet. His forward pressing style of counter punching is excellent for stifling Barao’s kicking game and forcing him to try and brawl with Wineland which Pickett failed miserably at. The edge in the standup goes to Wineland.
Wrestling is where this fight will be decided. In the one takedown Brad Pickett attempted, and nearly got, Wineland used an excellent whizzer to get back up and separate. The clinch is also somewhere Wineland doesn’t like to hang out there and does whatever he can to create space and separate. Barao on the other hand has proven to be quite adept and wrestling for a BJJ based fighter with a pretty good shot takedown and very good clinch takedowns. He is very good at ducking under punches and grabbing a hold of the body lock, usually tripping his opponent (as he did multiple times against McDonald) into side control. McDonald was able to survive on the ground for short periods of time before being submitted. Wineland on the other hand will have a much harder time doing that because he really is just not a good enough grappler to really handle dealing with 
Barao. Barao’s incredibly slick submission and passing game probably rank among the best in the Bantamweight division if not the best in the division. Wineland is purely defensive off of his back and that allows Barao to be in complete control if the fight hits the mat. The question is if the fight can hit the mat. Wineland showed some good defensive takedown skills against very good wrestlers in Faber and Jorgenson but he can be dragged to the ground. Barao needs to time Wineland’s punches and shoot in or grab a hold of him when ducking these strikes. If he can do that, he it will be his fight to lose. Edge in wrestling/clinch/grappling goes to Barao.
My original prediction for this fight was a Barao win by submission. I am changing that because I feel the offensive boxing game and Barao’s weaknesses in said boxing game will be put on display in this fight. I feel that Wineland will hurt Barao enough that Barao will start desperately shooting for takedowns and Winelands constant lateral movement will help him avoid the takedowns and make Barao pay for failed attempts.
Final Prediction: Eddie Wineland by KO rd 2.
-Ben can be reached at [email protected] or @agentbenten.
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