Preview: UFC Fight Night 236 ‘Hermansson vs. Pyfer’

Featherweights

#13 FW | Dan Ige (17-7, 9-6 UFC) vs. Andre Fili (23-10, 11-9 UFC)

ODDS: Ige (-175), Fili (+145)

A compelling late-notice booking comes together and pairs two vets who always bring the excitement. Ige has struggled to break through into the Top 10 of the UFC’s deep featherweight division, but the Hawaiian has still had an extremely successful career relative to expectations. Ige did not earn a contract on the first season of Dana White’s Contender Series and subsequently dropped a late-notice UFC debut to Julio Arce a few months later. However, that led to a surprising run up the ladder. Quick wins over Mike Santiago and Danny Henry established Ige as a legitimate finishing threat, and by the time of his 2020 decision win over Edson Barboza, he had proven himself to be a well-rounded fighter with enough technical depth to give any 145-pounder a tough scrap. The Barboza win earned Ige his first UFC main event opposite Calvin Kattar, which exposed some issues in his improved game. While he is extremely dangerous in close quarters and able to quickly close distance on opponents, Ige’s stocky frame leaves him without a lot of weapons from range, allowing opponents like Kattar to keep him at bay. Starting with the Kattar fight, Ige has won only three of his last eight bouts but has still proven himself to be a high-level fighter. Those losses have all been of the hard-fought variety against a combination of past and future title contenders, and they include a few controversial decisions that could have gone Ige’s way. Whenever Ige takes a step down in the rankings, he serves a reminder of just how good he can be. Gavin Tucker and Damon Jackson got absolutely obliterated by the Hawaiian, and he consistently stayed ahead of Nate Landwehr for three rounds in June. Initially matched against rising British prospect Lerone Murphy, Ige now instead faces Andre Fili, who can have an entertaining fight with essentially everybody on the UFC roster.

In contrast to Ige, Fili came into the UFC as a highly touted prospect back in 2013, though “Touchy” got off to a rocky start inside the Octagon. Part of that was matchmaking—he had the bad luck of facing Max Holloway, Yair Rodriguez and the aforementioned Kattar in their lesser-known days—but that was also thanks to Fili’s relative inconsistency and lack of mindfulness in throwing out his offense. Thanks to his years of experience, Fili has smoothed out a lot of issues in his game to become a well-rounded veteran, showing both some crafty striking and surprisingly strong wrestling chops that manifested in the past few years. Fili has also historically struggled against elite athletes—a quick 2022 loss to Joanderson Brito looms large—and he does seem quite outmatched here in terms of firepower despite his own quick knockout of Lucas Almeida in December. He does have the reach and speed to cause some frustration for Ige, but it does feel like Fili will have a defensive lapse at some point and pay dearly for the error. The pick is Ige via second-round knockout.

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Hermansson vs. Pyfer
Ige vs. Fili
Bryczek vs. Potieria
Rodrigues vs. Tavares
Johnson vs. Flowers
Vieira vs. Petrosyan
The Prelims