UFC Vegas 13: Glover Teixeira vs. Thiago Santos Picks, Odds and Predictions

Thiago Santos and Glover Teixeira fight Saturday at UFC Vegas 13 at UFC APEX.

Thiago Santos enters this fight with a 21-7 record and has won 71 percent of his fights by knockout. Santos has won eight of his last 10 fights and is coming off a July (2019) loss to Jon Jones. Santos averages 4.44 significant strokes per minute with a 47 percent accuracy rate. Santos is averaging 0.83 takedowns with a 40 percent accuracy rate. Santos is coming off a split decision loss at UFC 239 where he landed 43 total strikes and 25 percent of his significant strikes. Santos was quite competitive in the fight and he was even more impressive when you consider that he broke almost everything in his left leg and partially his right anterior cruciate ligament. That’s why Santos has been out of the Octagon for about a year and a half. Santos now hopes to avoid consecutive losses for the second time in his career. There are no secrets when it comes to Santos as he has pure knockout power and wants a stand up fight where he can unload and wait for one of those shots to land. Although he is a black belt in Muay Thai and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Santos doesn’t take advantage of his ground game often and has actually produced just five takedowns at the UFC level. Santos is dropping bombs and eight of his last nine wins have been knockouts. Santos will also throw in some strong kicks to the body, but it will be interesting to see if athletics are still there after such injuries. This will be the seventh fight of Santos’ career in Las Vegas.

Glover Teixeira enters this fight with a 31-7 record and has won 58 percent of his fights by knockout. Teixeira has won five of his last six fights and is coming off a May win over Anthony Smith. Teixeira averages 3.74 significant strokes per minute with a 47 percent accuracy rate. Teixeira has a 1.87 takedown average with a 38 percent accuracy rate. Teixeira is coming off a fifth-round knockout at UFC Fight Night 171, where he landed 202 strikes in total, 61 percent of his significant strikes, and produced a takedown. Teixeira just outplayed Smith in a fight that probably should have been stopped earlier, and he even broke some of his teeth. Although 41 years old now, Teixeira has won four fights in a row and is showing that there is more than enough left in the tank to challenge this division. Teixeira has proven his versatility throughout his career as he throws precise and powerful punches that allow him to fight on his feet, mixes leg kicks well, and is a successful takedown artist with eight submission victories under his belt. With deep experience in Kajukenbo, there’s nothing Teixeira can’t do in the Octagon and he’s far from your typical heavyweight who just throws tedders and hopes to knock out the lights. Teixeira isn’t going to leave the lights off these days, but his work rate is impressive and he controls the canvas with violent blows and blows. This will be the fourth fight of Teixeira’s career in Las Vegas.

The choice in this article is the opinion of the writer, not a consensus from the Sports Chat Place site.