Preview: UFC Paris Prelims

Heavyweights

Marcin Tybura (27-9) vs. Ante Delija (25-6)

Odds: Delija (-115); Tybura (+100)

It will be a rematch a decade in the making when “Tybur” welcomes former Professional Fighters League champ Delija to the Octagon. That is more of a trivia point than a scouting report, however, as their first meeting, in M-1 Global in September of 2015, would be irrelevant to who they are today even if it had not ended in just two minutes when Delija broke his right shin on a checked kick.

Tybura turns 40 this fall, and while that hardly means the end of the road for a heavyweight, he is beginning to show signs of a gradual decline. However, the hulking Pole’s game remains largely the same as it has since he joined the UFC nearly a decade ago—right after the Delija fight, incidentally—meaning that everything starts with the question, “Can Tybura take him down?” If he can, he will, and usually ends up sitting on his opponent’s chest and punching him until the opponent either turns his back and gets choked or simply sits there and gets pelted into oblivion. If he can’t, he struggles; with the notable exception of his quick loss to Serghei Spivak last summer, his worst losses have seen him get sprawl-and-brawled by opponents who could stay upright long enough to exploit his lack of hand speed and head movement.

It is an open question whether Tybura can take down Delija, which makes this a close fight on the betting books and a tricky one to call. Two years ago, the Croatian was one of the top heavyweights outside of the UFC. The 2021 PFL heavyweight runner up and 2022 winner was on a five-fight win streak at the time of that promotion’s acquisition of Bellator MMA and was booked to face former Bellator champ Valentin Moldavsky last April. Moldavsky blew Delija out of the water in less than half a round, and Delija’s only activity since then was a 40-second dusting of Yorgan De Castro this spring, which makes it difficult to get a read on where the 35-year-old is right now, competitively speaking.

At his best, Delija is a tall heavyweight with a big frame who uses his reach well. He is capable of securing takedowns in space as well as against the cage and is not averse to doing so if it’s strategically advisable. He is likely to have an edge against Tybura on the feet, but without the kind of crushing power that Tom Aspinall or Derrick Lewis used to short-circuit him, he will need to thread the needle for the full 15 minutes, much like Alexander Volkov did a few years ago. That’s certainly possible, but difficult, as Tybura showed in beating a technically sound but light-hitting heavyweight in Mick Parkin just this March.

Despite Delija being nearly five years younger, it feels as though there are more question marks hanging over his head than Tybura’s. The pick here is that Tybura puts in a classic Tybura performance, either grounding Delija or at least mugging him against the fence for long stretches in two out of three rounds, enough to sew up a decision win.



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