UFC on FX 2: Court McGee looks to stay undefeated in the UFC against Constantinos Philippou

The UFC on FX 2 event will feature a middleweight bout between middleweight bout between TUF 11 winner Court McGee and Constantinos Philippou which is set for Sydney, Australia. This should be a good bout between two guys that are still relatively young in their MMA careers with only three combined losses in well over 20 fights. Let’s see how this one breaks down.

Court McGee comes into this fight with a career record of (13-1) with seven wins via submission and two wins via TKO/KO. McGee was last seen in action defeating Dongi Yang via uannimous decision back in September 2011. McGee is undefeated in the UFC at (3-0) with two wins via submission, including a submission of the night bonus. McGee’s story was well documented on The Ultimate Fighter show. He comes from a wrestling and karate background, but has shown that he’s well versed in submissions as well.

Constantinos Philippou comes into this fight with a career record of (9-2) with five wins via TKO/KO and one win via submission. Philippou was last seen in action defeating Jared Hamman via KO at UFC 140 in December. Philippou is (2-1) in his UFC career, losing in his UFC debut against Nick Catone. Philippou has good power in his strikes and trains out of Team Serra-Longo in New York.

This should be an interesting fight. I think Philippou is probably the larger more powerful guy of the two with McGee being more well rounded. McGee will enjoy a nice three inch reach advantage in this fight and he’ll need to use that length to stay out of the range of Philippou. Philippou could arguably be the biggest puncher that McGee has faced in his career thus far. McGee has two options in that he can fight from a distance standing or look to put Philippou on his back with his wrestling. Doing the latter could keep him out of danger while also zapping some of Philippou’s cardio which could open up potential submission opportunities.

Philippou simply needs to close the distance and find his range inside the length of McGee to land those huge power shots. We’ve seen McGee get rocked in the past, and Philippou can put people away when he touches them. He’ll also need to stop the takedown attempts from McGee, and he may be able to do so as he has shown decent takedown defense in the past. So keep this one on the feet and land bombs is Philippou’s best path to victory.

This is a hard fight to predict. McGee has been out of action for almost six months with Philippou being more active lately. That drought could hurt McGee with his timing, but he could have improved a great deal since his last fight as well. I both guys winning this fight and it’ll come down to who executes the better gameplan for the most part. Will Philippou’s power be too much, or will McGee’s length and wrestling be the key? I think I’ll go with the power in this one.