UFC 84: Wilson Gouveia vs. Goran Reljic in Undercard Match

What's that, you say? Two guys without nicknames, quietly fighting their way up the ranks of MMA's biggest organizations? They've done it so quietly that no one chose to give them any press, so I'll be the one to answer the call.

Goran Reljic is a member of the Gracie Barra UK team, originally fighting out of his native Croatia.  His record is 7-0, with five submissions and one TKO to his credit. He has never fought in the USA, and this will be his UFC debut.

Gouveia will be competing in his sixth fight in the UFC, with a record of 10-4 (4-1 UFC). His early wins consisted mostly of (T)KOs, but he has pulled off submission wins in three of his last four fights.

Reljic has what I hesitate to call a "padded" record, but upon examining the competition he has fought, the best record I could find among them is 8-5 (Petr Kelner). In fact, the majority of his opponents have losing records. This is certainly not a reason to discount him, but weighs into the thought process heavily.

The only fight of Reljic's that I was able to view was against Bojan Mihajlovic, whom he defeated by Kimura in less than two minutes. Bearing in mind that Mihajlovic was 0-2 at the time of the fight, he still managed to drop Reljic with a punch in the opening seconds of the match, but was unable to pass Reljic's guard—despite it being wide open. Goran kicked his opponent off, scored his own takedown, and in short order passed to side mount for the submission.

Gouveia, on the other hand, has plenty of fights available to study. He received an interesting welcome gift to the UFC in the form of a three round war with Keith Jardine—who, in my opinion, is overdue for a title shot. Gouveia came out strong and had Jardine limping heavily with leg kicks in the first round, but faded as the rounds wore on, and received enough of Jardine's return fire to have him limping his way to a close decision loss.

Since then, Gouveia has reeled off four impressive wins in a row, including back-to-back guillotine submissions over Seth Petruzelli and Carmelo Marerro (who owns a UFC win over heavyweight prospect Cheick Kongo).

In his last fight, he had a bit of a slow start against Jason Lambert. Gouveia was muscled around by the stockier “Punisher” before throwing a perfect punch less than a minute into the second round and knocking Lambert cold.

The future of the 205-pound class is muddy at best. If champ Quinton Jackson wins his next title defense, he still has a few contenders lined up before he runs out of work to do (provided that all the contenders stop injuring themselves), and if challenger Forrest Griffin manages to take the belt, the division will be wide open.

I feel that even if Reljic wins, he will still have to distinguish himself with more wins before he even enters the upper echelon, whereas Gouveia is possibly one or two fights away from a title shot—depending very heavily on how the rest of the division plays out.

Gouveia claims he is in even better shape than he was for his win over Lambert, which could spell a lot of trouble if Reljic is expecting him to fade like he did against Jardine. While neither fighter is known for going to decision often—only three total between the two of them—I would have to give the edge to Gouveia, as Reljic apparently has only gone the distance once in his career.

Given that Wilson appears to be solid in all aspects of the game, I don’t see a fighter as (apparently) one-dimensional as Reljic beating him. Particularly when fresh, Gouveia has shown that he is difficult to get to the ground. And after a few punches, even a submission expert like Reljic could be caught in a wicked guillotine.

Gouveia knows how to survive against wrestlers as well, as he showed when he defeated the powerful Marerro, and knocked out welterweight contender Jon Fitch with a knee.

Reljic is listed as having previously fought at 222 pounds, which means he could be bringing a lot of size and strength down from heavyweight. But after seeing how Wilson handled himself against the monstrous Lambert, he doesn’t seem like the type of fighter to be put off by a size disadvantage.

As I said, it is difficult to judge a lot about Reljic from a handful of inexperienced opponents and a two-minute fight video. But everything I can see points to Gouveia tiring him out on the feet for a bit—probably aided by the infamous “UFC Jitters”— defending the takedown and/or working back to his feet, and notching a TKO win midway through the second round.

After that, hopefully Wilson can get a match in the upper echelon of the division—against Rashad Evans, Chuck Liddell, or Shogun Rua and company—or hopefully, a rematch against Jardine, which in a fair world would be a contenders' matchup if all the “big names” continue to be out with injuries or are continually fighting against one another.