Stephen Thompson vs Geoff Neal: our prediction

Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC, continuously brings exciting fights to its fans, and now it’s time for the UFC Fight Night to be held on 20 December 2020 where Geoff Neal will take on 2-times welterweight title challenger Stephen Thompson in the main event.

Geoff “Handz of Steel” Neal (13-2-0) is red hot and riding a 7-match win streak and can make anyone sleep in the octagon. Neal is turning out to be a great knockout artist as he has stopped 5 fighters in his last 7 fights. Though his opponent, Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson (15-4-1) has lost 3 of his last 6 fights (1 ended up in a draw), cannot be underestimated as he has been the 2-time welterweight title challenger looking to end the victory streak of Neal who is crushing everyone coming in his way.

Stephen Thompson, 37-year-old, said that he did not feel good as he wanted to fight Leon Edwards (18-3-0, 1 DQ) but he refused because he was more interested in fighting with Khamzat Chimaev (9-0-0). So now when he has got an opponent in Geoff Neal, 30-year-old, Thompson wants to defeat him to cement his place in the division and maybe a big victory can earn him another title shot. If we look at the current form of both fighters, the chances of Thompson are much lower since it seems he has lost his momentum in the MMA. After missing twice in a row the opportunity of becoming UFC world champion against Tyron Woodley (19-6-1), Thompson has scored good wins against Jorge Masvidal (35-14-0) and Vincente Luque (17-7-1) but he got trashed by Darren Till (18-3-1) and Anthony Pettis (23-10-0).

His performances are truly unstable, and it is always hard to predict the form of Stephen Thompson. In addition, it seems that he lost that bit of aggressiveness he used to have preferring to control the fight scoring points than going for an early end. On the contrary, Geoff Neal, partially thanks to his southpaw stance, is a punching machine relying mainly on his power and accuracy as well as striking skill. As mentioned, Neal is on a 7-win streak and, whenever possible, he much prefers to attack ending the fight early on. Both fighters are coming back to the octagon after more than a year without fighting which makes the prediction even more complicated. Despite this, we think that Neal is slightly favorite: Geoff Neal will win by stoppage, this is our prediction.