Below is my fight breakdown, as posted on CapperTek, prior to the fight….

Magny to win at -120. Whoever got on this action when the lines opened at +110 Magny is a lucky person.

Magny is a very technical, impressive striker. He moves well, throws really high volume, varied strikes, slips in and out of danger well, fights at range perfectly, is extremely quick both offensively and evasively and most importantly seems to fight sensibly, or “has a good fight IQ” as a lot of people like to phrase it. My only concern for this fight is that he perhaps leans a bit too much on his speed defensively and doesn’t really keep his hands up. When he does get tagged, I also worry slightly that he turns his head away from his opponent rather than covering up and could be open to a massive one shot KO.

His opponent Hyun Gyu Lim is an enormous, powerful, powerful guy. However, this is his weakness moreso than his strength, now he’s bumbled his way up towards the upper echelons of the sport, where he will start to need some proper gameplanning and technique. He is apparently a TKD black belt but you wouldn’t know it. He’s seriously lacking in any sort of gameplan on the feet and essentially just zombie walks around then looks for a one two or if he gets a bit bored he literally runs at his opponent and throws wild combos. When he out matches his opponents standing this is fine. Because he’s so massive and does have a fairly fast straight right & jab, he can land effectively. However, against anyone with striking prowess, he has a punchers chance and if he doesn’t land that, he’s basically stuffed.

So, there’s the danger in this fight – Hyun Gyu Lim could get a knockout…. and I believe it would need to be a straight knockout because even from a knockdown, he’s not a great finisher (Pascal Kraus was doing a chicken dance for about 30 seconds before Lim finally finished him by running at him and flailing).

The only other concern is that he may have improved significantly since his last major bout (vs Saffiedine in Jan 14). His only fight since then was a gimme fight against a massive underdog, as a thanks for taking the Saffiedine fight on short notice. Whilst this is always a possibility, his corner was giving him some appallingly rudimentary non-advice in that fight, so I wouldn’t imagine they’re going to be revolutionising his game if he’s still training there. “Throw a 1-2, be aggressive and you’re doing well” was the advice, for what it’s worth, when he was getting absolutely demolished and was just aggressively throwing 1-2s already.

So, what I believe will happen:

vs Saffiedine, Lim got leg kicked to bits. He stands flat footed with his hands wide apart, which is also just about the worst thing you could do against Magny. If Lim fights in the same way here, he’s going to get leg kicked, straight punched and countered all day, whilst swinging wildly at thin air. Magny’s not got the biggest power but he should do a Nick Diaz on Lim and just pepper him incessantly and break him down. Having said that, though he’s never been KOd/TKOd, I believe Lim’s chin is questionable so a TKO is very much a possibility. As mentioned, Magny’s gas tank is excellent, so he’s not going to tire at all. Magny’s also got a decent body lock takedown and given that Lim did literally nothing at all when he was on the bottom vs Saffiedine, an intelligent fighter like Magny will most likely look to clinch up against the cage, take Lim away from his only chance to win and wear him out on the ground too. Magny’s ground game is very active but technically a bit sloppy but it’s enough to get the job done in this fight.