Posted in Alexandre Pantoja

The first thing to note is that Pantoja has never been past round 3 and has shown he can slow down later in fights like in round 3 against Figueiredo in 2019, or round 2 of the Askar Askarov fight. In his most recent fights against Perez, Pantoja came in like a wrecking ball landing 8 of 12 strikes thrown in the first 20 seconds of the fight before getting the takedown and submission. For Pantoja I worry about if he can keep up that pace for 25 minutes knowing that Brandon Moreno has been scheduled to go 25 minutes in each of his last 5 fights and one of Moreno’s weapons is his cardio and the pace that he can keep. It’s also worth noting that outside of the exhibition submission loss to Pantoja in 2016, Brandon Moreno has never been finished in his 29 professional fights. This includes the 1.3 hours of fighting with Deiveson Figueiredo who has a finish rate of 85% amongst his wins and is probably one of the hardest hitters at Flyweight.

Pantoja does have 8 KO wins, but is known more for his high level Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), with 40% of his wins coming by submission. On one side, Moreno has never been finished and only 3% of his total analyzed fight time and 20% of total time grappling was spent on his back. On the other side, Moreno has not faced anyone with Pantoja’s level of BJJ since their last fight in 2018. Over his UFC career, Moreno has shown a Takedown defense of only 67%, so there is a path to victory for Pantoja through grappling.

Striking-wise, both fighters stand in orthodox, with a combined 0.1% of their time in southpaw stance, meaning the rear outside leg kicks are open. Both Moreno and Pantoja both throw the rear low kick 7% of the time, but the difference being Moreno throws the rear high kick only 0.67%, whereas Pantoja is closer to 17%. This is a big discrepancy, but will probably continue into this fight noting that if Moreno throws the high kick, it will open him up to get the kick caught and taken down. I expect a heavier kicking game from Pantoja where he throws 2.18 kicks per minute, compared to 0.64 from Moreno. 

In terms of striking variety, Pantoja can be pretty basic, with 62% of his total strikes either a jab, cross or a jab-cross (1-2). Moreno seems like more of a head-hunter with 85% of strikes thrown towards the head compared to 76% by Pantoja, which I think is more of a by-product of Pantoja’s 10% leg target percentage, compared to 5% from Moreno.