Kai Kara-France (24-10) vs. Amir Albazi (16-1) Preview

Kai Kara-France (24-10) vs. Amir Albazi (16-1)

Odds: -113/-113

In a true pick-em, Kara-France is looking to get back to the winning column after his loss to Brandon Moreno against a quality opponent in the 29-year old Albazi, who has some momentum building after getting off to a 4-0 start in the UFC. In his last fight, I think Kara-France was having a decent showing before the liver kick that took him out. The first two rounds of the fight were close, most of these were fought in slower paced, technical striking exchanges. There were at least points in these rounds though that Kara-France looked like he had a real shot at Moreno; his speed and power was shining through and he in fact was in front in damage inflicted with Moreno severely cut up heading into the third round. After this fight, I generally came to the conclusion that it said more about Moreno’s abilities than Kara-France’s inabilities.

Meanwhile Amir Albazi is coming off of a win over Alessandro Costa, where he knocks him out with a big right hand in the third round. Albazi looked great in this fight, he made Costa look outmatched in pretty much all aspects of the fight. On the feet, Albazi looked faster and was circling Costa in a way that was using this speed advantage to set up big shots. This resulted in Costa getting caught in the 2nd round, sending the fight to the ground. Costa secured a closed guard but was way too comfortable there, spending the rest of the round there and eating plenty of ground-and-pound damage. I see this as a big mistake on Costa’s part; the damage he absorbed from getting smashed by Albazi in his guard could have easily worn him down and affected his chin going into round 3, which led to him getting caught again, but this time, it put him out clean.

When comparing the resume of these two men, it is clear that they are in much different points in their career’s while only being 1 year apart in age. Kara-France has been in the UFC for 5 years and has went 7-3. He has fought wins over numerous ranked names in the flyweight division like Askar Askarov, Cody Garbrandt and Rogerio Bontorin. His 3 losses have been quality names as well in Moreno twice and Brandon Royval. Meanwhile, Albazi has a much shorter track record in the UFC at 4-0. Of these 4 wins, 3 were stoppages. While dominant, I think its hard to overlook the increase in opponent difficulty that this Kara-France fight is, who has a significant advantage from experiences being in the cage against the top of the division for a while. Stylistically, I think Kara-France is the better striker. He’s extremely fast and powerful. Albazi will have an advantage in the grappling department in this one by a significant margin, so if he can really capitalize on that, it could give him a very significant advantage. While he’s decent defensively, Kara-France has shown to be vulnerable to submissions against Brandon Royval, so I think an Albazi submission win wouldn’t be a surprising outcome.

Omega’s Pick: Kara-France (-113)

Confidence Level (0-5): 2 (Medium)

At the end of the day, I trust his experience. Kara-France has had three fights against current or past UFC champions (Moreno x2 and Garbrandt) and plenty of fights against top contenders. While Albazi is coming off of a dominant win and seems to be gaining momentum in the flyweight division, he’s going from fighting an unranked fighter in Costa that looked flat compared to Albazi in terms of striking and also made poor decisions in his strategy that I think affected the outcome of the fight in Albazi’s favor. Now Albazi is fighting one of the best strikers in the division in Kara-France, which could be too much for him given he is only 4 fights into his UFC career.