If you looked at Waldo's lone loss and picked this fight based off of that, then you would be all over Spivac. His takedown defense in that 2023 loss to de Lima was not great, but since then we have seen incredible improvements on all fronts. Spivac is good and a better grappler than most at heavyweight, but he's lumbering and unathletic. I think the speed and power advantage on the Waldo side will be too much and ultimately force sloppy takedown attempts which won't be successful. Waldo is the pick and I threw a half unit moneyline on him at plus money.
Serghei Spivac
Sergey Spivac is a heavyweight grappler who has great ground and pound with solid takedowns. He has an ok submission game and is a capable striker. He doesn't have ko power but he does have a decent jab and solid volume. His biggest issue is control. The reason he averages around 5 takedowns per fight is because people are standing up on him. He is coming off the loss to Jailton Almeida where they exchanged takedowns
Waldo Cortes-Acosta
Waldo Cortes-Acosta is a fun athletic striker who is tough as nails with real power. I would normally say that he gets flashy and decides to dance mid fight, but he hasn't done that in a while. 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 outstrike and outgrapple all but one of his opponents. He is coming off the KO win over Ryan Spann where the size, speed and athletecism was on full display.
