Yousri Belgaroui

Backs Belgaroui as a "huge imbalance of power"; the only hedge is on HOW the fight ends, not on who wins.

The analyst says Belgaroui has made enormous progress since his first Contender Series outing. He now strikes with heavy, accurate kicks to the body and calf, a sharp jab, and clean combinations, and he presses forward to work behind pressure at the fence. His takedown defense has also come along, which the analyst credits for his new willingness to stand and trade rather than worry about getting taken down. Overall he is framed as holding a clear power edge in this matchup.

picks weakly, truly a coinflip

The clearly superior pure striker here, and by a real margin: heavy kicks all around, a particularly effective body kick, a wicked calf kick, sharp combinations and a stiff jab. The thing holding him back from the sport's top tier is that opponents who keep marching forward on him give him trouble -- the analyst traces his one recent loss straight to that pattern. His ground game trails his striking: just okay, with a defense against takedowns that, per the analyst, has progressed considerably and holds up fine right now, plus a useful offensive cage push.

Calls it cut and dry, says Bekoev has every tool needed to win, and reports feeling good about the pick -- a stated skill-gap mismatch with no hedge on the outcome.

A striker rated good, borderline solid, with real pop in his kicks (a body-targeting front kick, a nasty calf kick), combination work and a stiff jab, but he struggles against forward pressure -- attributed to a kickboxing background without a takedown threat to answer with. His takedown defense was a bigger issue early in his MMA career and is explicitly described as having improved; he also has a cage push rated decent.