Andrei Arlovski vs Waldo Cortes-Acosta Prediction: Bad News for the Legend

On the night of January 14th, Las Vegas will host the first UFC tournament in 2024. In one of the fights, honored Andrei Orlovsky will share the octagon with American Waldo Cortez-Acosta. The bout will take place in the heavyweight category.

The long career of the living legend consisted of ups and downs. The famous fighter began his professional path (in the last century, by the way) with a hard knockout loss to Viacheslav Datsik. Still, in 2005, he became UFC champion and defended the title twice. His career has been full of glorious wins and tough losses. Between 2016 and 2019, it seemed that everything was already over for him (two victories and eight defeats). Slowly, Pitbull rectified the situation and, in 2021, rode a streak of four consecutive wins. The reason for this success was a change in tactics - he avoided exchanges and worked more carefully, based on experience), and the opposition became easier, too.

But time is unstoppable, and Arlovski lost his last two fights, in which he failed early (via submission and knockout).

The 32-year-old American fighter is not a star and doesn't look like a promising one. But in the last bout, he knocked out the opponent in the first round, and exactly half of the wins, he secured by knockout. He has three wins and one loss in the UFC - to Rogerio de Lima by decision. Recall that the Brazilian fighter had choked Arlovski already in the second minute.

Sadly, only Andrei Arlovski is not even a gatekeeper anymore, yet he is not fired but receives uncomfortable opponents. He lost his last two bouts early, the new tactics don't work anymore, and a slow former champion is a good victim for the young American guy. And the betting choice here essentially boils down to two options. Either Andrei doesn't make it to the end of the first round, or he does, but definitely not to the final bell.