Well, 2021 was certainly a breakout year for Chris
Curtis. One of the more notable snubs on the 2018 edition of
the Contender Series, "The Action Man" dusted himself off and
continued a successful journeyman career - including multiple
attempted retirements - until he finally got the UFC call last
autumn. And Curtis certainly made good on the chance; Phil Hawes
looked in excellent form and was picking Curtis apart for the
better part of four minutes until Curtis suddenly turned things
around and scored the finish. That's emblematic of the Curtis
experience; he can be inactive or taken totally out of the fight at
times, but his ability to survive and feel out his opponents makes
him dangerous until the final horn. Curtis then turned around less
than a month later and scored a second-round finish of Brendan
Allen to cap off the best year of his career; Curtis managed to
pack in six fights during the calendar year and took himself from
outside of the UFC to fringe contender. It's taken surprisingly
long by Curtis's standards to get his first fight of 2022, and he
gets both a dangerous and winnable test here against Rodolfo
Vieira. A multi-time BJJ champion, "The Black Belt Hunter"
immediately became one of the best submission artists on the UFC
roster upon his 2019 debut - add in that Vieira also showed a
decent level of striking, and that figured to be enough to move
quickly through the middleweight division. All went well enough
through two UFC fights, but February of 2021 saw Vieira run into
Anthony
Hernandez and suffer a loss that will likely linger over him
for the rest of his career. Vieira was able to get a grappling
match going with Hernandez but was unable to submit him; Vieira's
been open about his anxiety going into his fights, but it was still
a shock to see him completely fall apart and get exhausted to the
point that Hernandez was able to score a second-round submission of
his own. To his credit, Vieira rebounded well in a striking-heavy
win over Dustin
Stoltzfus during which he was able to pace himself, so there's
still the potential for him to take this as a learning experience
and keep cobbling everything together. This does seem like a rough
matchup for Vieira; while Curtis's willingness to hang back at
times gives Vieira an opportunity to hunt for a submission if he so
chooses, it's traditionally been hard to tap Curtis out, making a
redux of the Hernandez loss a fear if Vieira adopts that approach.
But at the same time, there are enough holes in Vieira's striking
that Curtis should be able to stay patient and take advantage of
those openings, which figures to only make Vieira's anxiety
throughout the fight worse. Either way, this looks like a fight
where Curtis can keep his composure and build things while Vieira
slowly unravels against a tough veteran test; the pick is Curtis
via third-round stoppage.
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