This is a fight that is sure to deliver fireworks. Breaking it down should be pretty simple to do…

On one side you have the man that many believe is the best technical striker in the welterweight division (some even say the UFC) in Duane Ludwig. But he is a journeyman at best.

On the other side you have one of the UK’s top talents, a man who entered the UFC on a tear to earn a title shot against GSP only to lose it in a five round lopsided fight and he hasn’t been able to get back to his winning ways since.

Both fighters have showed that they are strikers first and both have shown an extreme weakness in the grappling realm.

For Hardy, outside of his flash KO loss to Carlos Condit, all of his UFC losses have come at the hands of better grapplers.

Ludwig too is also coming off of a submission loss to Josh Neer. It was a fight he was winning but once Neer had seen enough of the standup he easily took the fight to the mat and submitted Ludwig to get the win.

Oddly enough in this fight, the winner could easily be decided by who can get the fight to the mat. While Ludwig may have a technical advantage over hardy in the standup, it is Dan who will hold the punching power advantage.

I also give a grappling and wrestling advantage to Dan as well in this match. The UK fighter has worked tirelessly for the past several months possibly years on evolving his wrestling and jiujitsu to avoid his past mistakes.

Whether or not one these guys will choose to abandon their crowd pleasing style to get a win is an unknown, but I think Hardy, who is coming off of four-straight losses will try to stand and bang until things get rough and then opt to outwrestle/grapple Ludwig for a win.

This fight is a coin flip, but for the sake of picking a winner, believe it or not, I’m going Dan Hardy by submission in round 3.

Read More: UFC 146, Duane Ludwig (News), Dan Hardy (News)

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