Charles Johnson

Picked against, but the analyst flags him as a live underdog and hedges the pick rather than dismissing him.

A mobile striker with a clearly defined rhythm problem. He strikes well to every level, mixing punches and kicks inside the same combination, with a particularly good body kick, and his lateral movement along the fence is the best the analyst can think of at the weight. His grappling is a genuine paradox worth recording carefully: his takedown defence is poor, yet holding him down is close to impossible, because he pops straight back up, scrambles constantly, and threatens submissions he has no real intention of finishing purely to create the space to escape. Beating him on the mat means taking him down over and over. The most actionable detail is temporal -- he reliably loses first rounds, comes on strongly in the third, and his fights are usually decided in the second.

Picked against despite being called the clearly cleaner striker, on the reasoning that repeated takedowns wear him down and he tends to wait too long to turn it on.

Called the cleaner, better striker of the two -- a solid overall striker with a nasty body kick as his favorite weapon, good combinations mixing punches and kicks to all levels, and good lateral movement. Generally durable; a prior knockout loss is attributed partly to taking that fight on a quick turnaround and partly to simply getting caught. Good grappler with good ground and pound who attacks submissions mainly to set up other offense rather than to finish, and a good scrambler, but takedown defense is not great -- he tends to get back up, but repeated takedowns make it tough to ever get his own offense flowing. Known as a slow starter who typically loses the first round before turning it on late.

Leans toward Silva mainly for being the more consistent performer, while openly admitting Johnson is unpredictable enough that he doesn't feel great about the pick.

Johnson looks sharp on the feet, highlighted by a genuinely effective body kick and combinations that mix punches and kicks across all three levels with good lateral movement. He's generally durable, though he's coming back quickly from a fight where he absorbed real punishment, which is worth watching. His grappling is solid too, with good ground-and-pound and a submission game built around creating scrambles and transitions rather than necessarily finishing holds outright. Takedown defense isn't his strongest suit, but he scrambles back up quickly. The recurring issue in his UFC run has been slow starts, since he gives away first rounds too often and doesn't always rally in time to make up for it.