I'm a scaredy cat on this card. Not sure why. But i look at these matchups and trust nothing. Sure, Geoff Neal should win. He's much younger, hits much harder and has good takedown defense. But no offense to Neal here, he would be the least accomplished person RDA has lost to. RDA is a former world champion. Of his last handful of losses, 3 of them were to former world champions and the others were to specialists like Gamrot and Fiziev. I am going to pick Neal here because eventually that 4 in front of your age matters a lot. He is also significantly larger and has very good takedown defense. But I hate these odds and maybe the best play is the over on rounds.
Geoff Neal
Geoff Neal is a good striker with real power, solid volume and solid takedown defense. He isn't the most technical but with his power and aggression, he doesn't need to be. Geoff likes to dictate the pace, range and exchanges. If he can stay at kicking range and use those kicks to set up his punches he will have a ton of success. But if you get in his face and tie him up, he gets frustrated and exhausted. He is ocming off close decision loss to Ian Garry where the volume was the difference.
Rafael dos Anjos
Rafael Dos Anjos is the former lightweight champion of the world. He is incredibly well rounded but is a grappler at heart. He's developed clean striking with some solid volume that will trick people into thinking he will strike with them before he starts working his grappling. He is very good everywhere and has the fight IQ of a 39 year old former champion with 47 fights. He is coming off the loss to Mateusz Gamrot where he was taken down 11 times, but managed to drop him and do well striking.