Waldo not only got poked in the eye worse than Tom Aspinall, he recovered faster and is now fighting before him. Dude is tough as hell, very willing to fight and not afraid to step up. This fight is on 3 days notice on the other side of planet earth. Waldo opened as a slight favorite and is now being steamed. If they had full fight camps, i wouldn't necessarily disagree here, but on 3 days notice, with that level of travel, its a sketchy. Waldo is the more athletic and faster fighter with Shamil being the more powerful striker and better wrestler should be choose to use it. Shamil is going to remain the pick, but this is a much closer fight, even with the short notice, than Spivac was.

Waldo Cortes-Acosta

Waldo Cortes-Acosta is a fun athletic striker who is tough as nails with real power. He lands an impressive almost 6 significant strikes per minute and has showed us on numerous occasions how physically tough he is. We have seen him out strike and out grapple his opponents. He is not a fighter by trade but because of his athleticism, he adopted quickly. He is coming off the eye poke then KO over Ante Delija

Shamil Gaziev

Shamil Gaziev is a large Dagatsani but instead of being a non stop wrestler, he is a very powerful striker who marches forward and lands big. He is physically pretty sloppy and you might get nauseous if you look at him too long, but that doesn't stop him from working in spinning attacks when you least expect it. He has very real power in his hands and a relaxed striking style. He has wrestling as well but the cardio has been inconsistent. He is coming off the KO win over Thomas Ptersen where he was taken down but landed a huge straight punch.