UFC 261: Jon Anik expects ‘much better version’ of Zhang Weili, ‘I don’t know if you can say that about Rose Namajunas’
- UFC commentator senses Zhang will have developed over past 12 months since epic title defence over Joanna Jedrzejczyk
- ‘For Rose there are a lot of areas of danger … the scariest proposition if you’re a strawweight is that [Zhang] is just getting going,’ Anik says
UFC 261 is on the horizon, an event set to welcome a live crowd for the first time since last March and one that features the much-anticipated clash between China’s strawweight champion Zhang “Magnum” Weili (21-1) and the American No 1-ranked challenger “Thug” Rose Namajunas (9-4).
Jon Anik will be there in the UFC’s play-by-play hot seat in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 24, so we’ve now an opportunity to chart the rise of China’s first UFC champion through the eyes of someone who has pretty much watched it all play out in real time.
That’s why we’ve tracked him down in the early hours of a midweek morning at his home in South Florida. First, let’s look forward, and to what Anik is expecting to see unfold once the Octagon door is shut.
“Rose is a terrific counter-striker,” Anik begins. “She is very good at letting the fight come to her and not forcing the issue; at forcing opponents to make mistakes, of getting a little bit overconfident on some of your reads.
“Zhang Weili sits down on a lot of her power punches and perhaps Namajunas believes there is an opportunity to take advantage of that. I feel like Zhang Weili could be physically overwhelming on the ground but there’s no denying all of Rose’s different tools, if this does become a grappling affair.”
Anik senses Zhang would have developed over the past 12 months, time she has spent out of action and working on her fight game – and recovering from her epic title defence at UFC 248 in Las Vegas last March, when the Chinese star fought Poland’s former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk (16-4) to a standstill, and emerged with a split decision, in the Fight of the Year.
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“For Rose there are a lot of areas of danger,” says Anik. “The scariest proposition if you’re a strawweight is that [Zhang] is just getting going.
“In theory she is going to present a much better version of herself than she did in March 2020. And I don’t know if you can say that necessarily about Rose Namajunas, who has been doing this at the highest level for a long time. Zhang Weili deserves to be favourite but I also think this presents as unique a challenge as she will have.”
Anik was there cageside – along with Daniel Cormier and Joe Rogan – as Zhang and Jedrzejczyk went to war over five rounds last March, and they battered each other relentlessly.
He rates this one right at the very top of the greatest fights he has ever seen.
“I remember at UFC 248, after those 25 minutes, having absolutely no idea who had won the fight but knowing we had witnessed something special,” he recalls.
“I still think Joanna might have pulled it out on the card but the ability of Zhang Weili in that setting was incredible.
“Joanna is as tested of a UFC fighter as we have and Zhang Weili was totally unfazed, by that environment and that fight.”
