Andrei Arlovski will be taking on Jared Vanderaa in the main event of the prelims this weekend at UFC 271. This heavyweight bout will decide if a veteran continues his win streak or if a young rising heavyweight in Vanderaa will get back into the win column.
Andrei Arlovski
Arlovski is 2-1 in 2021 with his only loss being a submission loss to Tom Aspinall. Following that loss, he has won two decisions over Chase Sherman and Carlos Felipe. Arlovski has 54 professional fights racking up a record of 32-20-2. 17 of those 32 wins are by knockout and 12 of them by decision. He has been finished in 13 of his 20 losses with 11 of those finishes being knockout losses. Arlovski is 7-10-1 in the last six years but has been looking very impressive in his last five fights. It seems like age hasn’t gotten ahold of him just yet and he’s got a few more years of elite MMA left in him. In the last two years, Arlovski holds wins over up-and-comers like Philipe Lins, Tanner Boser, and Carlos Felipe.
Andrei Arlovski will come into this fight with a slight three-inch reach disadvantage. He is an international master of sport in the sport of Sambo and has significantly improved his striking over his time training at American Top Team. Arlovski won the UFC heavyweight title back in 2005 and defended it twice before losing it to Tim Sylvia. He holds the UFC record for most wins in UFC heavyweight history with 21 and the third most fights in UFC history with 36. He also has an extremely high takedown defence success rate in the UFC heavyweight division at 88.4%.
Jared Vanderaa
Jared Vanderaa has a professional record of 12-6 and has racked up a 1-2 record in the UFC octagon. He won a decision over Justin Tafa and got knocked out by Sergey Spivak and Alexander Romanov. Vanderaa has finished ten of his 12 wins with seven of those finishes being knockouts. He won his UFC contract of Dana White’s Contender Series in 2020 with his knockout win over Harry Hunsucker.
Vanderaa won the Extreme Fighting heavyweight title and the SMASH Global heavyweight title over the course of his 18 fight professional career. He has powerful strikes but has struggled in the past with dominant grapplers. Vanderaa grew up training at Dan Henderson’s gym until he bought his own gym, Team Quest Hemet. He has been training there since 2010. The biggest thing to watch in this matchup with Vanderaa and Arlovski is going to be the grappling. Although Vanderaa has struggled with grapplers in the past, he has a black belt in Brazillian Jiujitsu under Tom Gallicchio and Joe Stevenson.
UFC 271 Fight Card
Main Card (10:00 pm ET – PPV)
- Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker
- Derrick Lewis vs. Tai Tuivasa
- Jared Cannonier vs. Derek Brunson
- Kyler Phillips vs. Marceelo Rojo
- Bobby Green vs. Nasrat Haqparast
Preliminary Card (8:00 pm ET – ESPN2)
- Andrei Arlovski vs. Jared Vanderaa
- Roxanne Modafferi vs. Casey O’Neill
- Alex Perez vs. Matt Schnell
- William Knight vs. Maxim Grishin
Early Preliminary Card (6:00 pm ET – ESPN+)
- Leomana Martinez vs. Ronnie Lawrence
- Alexander Hernandez vs. Renato Moicano
- Carlos Ulberg vs. Fabio Cherant
- AJ Dobson vs. Jacob Malkoun
- Douglas Silva de Andrade vs. Sergey Morozov
- Jeremiah Wells vs. Mike Mathetha
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