Two rising heavyweights clash in this interesting
striker-versus-grappler battle. Boser has had an interesting path
up the ranks. Canada’s “Bulldozer” made his hay on the regional
scene as a relatively fast but underpowered heavyweight who could
outlast his opponents, but he had a bit of a breakout in the summer
of 2020, fighting twice within a month and scoring knockouts each
time. However, that success petered out a bit thereafter. Boser
became one of many young heavyweights to lose a slow-paced striking
match with Andrei
Arlovski, and a somewhat controversial loss to Ilir Latifi
saw the Swede control his smaller opponent with a low-output
grinding wrestling attack. Boser did rebound with a second-round
knockout of Ovince St.
Preux just three weeks later, but he has not been able to build
on that momentum until now. Nearly 15 months later, he takes on
Brazil’s Nascimento. As the rare heavyweight with some wrestling
and grappling skill, Nascimento should be able to find wins at the
UFC level, though getting to those areas of his game has often been
a bit of an adventure for “Yogi Bear.” Nascimento can find the
occasional knockout, but he is just as prone to getting clipped—an
issue made worse by the fact that he often takes a while to pursue
his wrestling. It will be interesting to see what work Boser has
put in on his takedown defense, since this runs the risk of being a
bit of a grind. Boser is capable enough on the mat, per heavyweight
standards, but that may just result in Nascimento doing a lot of
clinch work and scoring a lot of takedowns that suck up time but
accomplish little. Even if Boser cannot find a knockout, he should
be able to win rounds as the much more effective striker since it
is hard to see Nascimento doing much in the way of effective
offense outside of an outright fight-ending submission. The pick is
Boser via ugly decision.
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