This is one of those fights where I am kind of bothered, and worried that people won’t fully appreciate. The winner of this fight will have a big feather in their cap, I just hope we all recognize it!

Hakeem was someone I thought of as a dark horse at featherweight. And he very well still could be. Hakeems last fight was a unanimous decision loss to the undefeated Movsar Evloev. That loss that will age like a fine wine. Evloev seems to be destined for a title fight, and soon. And the fight was pretty wild! Evloev used his wrestling to keep the Mauy Thai expert on his back and won the 2^nd round 10-8 on all scorecards. But then Hakeem came back and won the 3^rd round on all scorecards! It was a fun round, and it looked like Hakeem was going to finish him late. But ultimately it goes down as an L on the record for Hakeem.

But I have to imagine, that 3^rd round gave Hakeem a lot of confidence. It looked like something clicked for Hakeem. Maybe Evloev was just getting tired, but Hakeem was the one marching forward, threating the level change! Then his striking started to take over. When Hakeem is landing he is one of the most powerful fighters at that weight. He doesn’t have the highlight reel KOs, yet. But they are coming.

Mike Trizano was the winner of the “undefeated” season of the ultimate fighter. But he has battled injuries and has only competed 3 times since winning The Ultimate Fighter in July of 2018. He is 2-1 in the UFC, all against pretty solid competition. He is long and aggressive; he likes to pick shots and overwhelm with volume. He has the makings of a fan friendly action fighter, and I am curious to see how his skills stack up against a high-level striker in Hakeem.

Should be fun.

if you do not know, now you do know