In this featherweight matchup, we will get to see a six-year and eight-fight UFC veteran in Charles Rosa taking on a relative UFC newcomer but veteran of 36 fights in Darrick Minner.
Minner holds a professional record of 25-11 and has finished 23 of his wins, 22 of them submissions. He utilizes simple but effective submissions like his signature guillotine, triangles, rear naked chokes etc. Minner lost to Herbert Burns on DWCS in 2019 but signed his first UFC contract prior to fighting Grant Dawson last year.
Rosa made his octagon debut in 2014 while holding a perfect professional record at 9-0, but fell by unanimous decision to Dennis Siver. Rosa is now 4-4 in the UFC with submission wins over Sean Soriano and Manny Bermudez. In his most recent outing, he won by split decision over Kevin Aguillar.
Rosa is a balanced fighter who is usually comfortable wherever the fight goes. On his feet, he switches stances and tries to show his opponents a lot of different looks. He takes a sideways, karate-style stance and throws a lot of kicks with his lead leg. In a lot of his recent fights, he has thrown more kicks than punches.
When he feels he is at a striking disadvantage, he looks to attack his opponents’ lead legs, but he usually does that regardless of who has the better hands. When he throws those calf kicks, he tends to drop his hands and keep his head on the center line. He has solid boxing but really doesn’t throw very many combinations. He’s usually looking to pick his shots once he has set them up with his kicks and movement.
Rosa is much more of a volume striker than a power striker. He’s usually moving backwards and looks to be keeping his opponents off of him, but he does throw a cleaner every once in a while, usually his right overhand.
Rosa is a jiu jitsu black belt with eleven professional wins by submission. His wrestling skills have proven to be sub-par for this level of competition, but he’s comfortable fighting off his back and looking for triangles and armbars.
As he showed against Bryce Mitchell, Rosa’s submission defense is excellent. He hasn’t been submitted in MMA and its because of his high-level grappling intelligence. That is what’s going to win him this fight.
Darrick Minner is a pretty frantic fighter who’s intensity and “strategy” can somewhat be compared to that of Spike Carlyle. Neither of his two UFC fights have gone the distance. He’s going 100 miles per hour at all times. He attacks immediately off the opening bell, he ends up on his back a lot, and relentlessly chases guillotines and armbars.
On his feet, Minner shows decent striking speed but he’s winging his shots. There doesn’t seem to be rhyme or reason to his striking, only bombs. All he is looking to do on his feet is all that he’s looking to do on the ground: finish the fight.
Of Minner’s 25 wins, only two have been decisions and only four have escaped the first round. He pretty much doesn’t win fights if he doesn’t find a submission in the first round. He demonstrates a low fight IQ which will likely cost him this fight against an intelligent and disciplined veteran in Charles Rosa.
The big selling point on Rosa is this: he has never been submitted and that’s Minner’s only real way to win this fight. Rosa is too disciplined defensively to get guillotined by a lower level jiu jitsu player. The reason TJ Laramie got caught in that guillotine is because he’s an aggressive wrestler which Rosa is not.
You should get on Rosa before the market runs the line too much, but Minner by submission is worth a light hedge play at +350 “just in case.” And if Rosa appears to be down on the cards after the first round, jump on that live line HARD.
Sharp Corner Of The Octagon 