Edgar Chaput
March 22, 2023

Alex Perez vs Manel Kape: UFC Fight Night (UFC on ESPN 43) Odds, Prediction

The AT&T Arena where the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA usually play will host this weekend’s tilts. Alex Perez will put his 24-7 record on the line against the Portuguese, Angolan-born Manel Kape.

The 29-year-old Kape is given the advantage on the MMA odds as of Wednesday. He sits at -195 to Perez’s +150.

Manel Kape -215
Alex Perez +170

Alex Perez

The Hanford, California native has had a long and winding road to get to this Saturday’s match. Looking at his recent history, it’s a minor miracle the bout with Kape is going to happen at all. There was an entire saga surrounding Perez vs Askar Askarov in 2021, which turned into Perez vs Matt Schnell, which itself was rescheduled a couple of times before being scrapped altogether.

He pulled out of UFC Fight Night 216 in Dec 2022 against Amir Albazi for unspecified reasons. His next opponent, Kai Kara-France, was the one to decline at UFC 284 just last month because of a knee injury. The only bout Perez actually partook in over the last couple of years came in July 2022 at UFC 277 when he faced Alexandre Pantoja. He lost in the opening round via a neck crank submission. While most of what we’ve described was not his fault, the reality is he hasn’t done any real fighting in a while and lost the only time that he did.

He is significantly lighter than his opposite number this Saturday (125 LB to Kape’s 142) and doesn’t quite have the same reach with his 65.5 to his rival’s 68. Judges’ decisions are what lead to most of his wins (50 per cent of them), whereas a healthy 29 per cent come via submissions and the remaining 21 per cent thanks to good old KO/TKO. Where things will get intriguing is in the significant hits department. He delivers 4.67 per 60 seconds and Kape 4.46. Very comparable. He suffers 3.14 per minute and Kape 3.92. An advantage, yes, but not a monumental one.

Manel Kape

The one they call “Starboy” who trains out of Phuket, Thailand comes into this tilt with not too dissimilar a recent history than Perez. That said, he has truly fought more often, but even some of his bouts have been rescheduled or cancelled.

His last fight did end up happening. It was at UFC Fight Night 216 in December of last year against David Dvorak, a match he claimed thanks to a unanimous decision. Prior to that, however, things didn’t go according to plan. He was supposed to go toe-to-toe with Rogerio Bontorin in June 2022 at UFC 275. Unfortunately, his opponent was unable to nurse a kidney-related problem in time and the fight was cancelled. There was also supposed to be a bout with Su Mudaerji in April of the same year, but personal reasons forced Kape to cancel. We have to go back to December 2021 for a fight that took place when he earned a TKO win over Zhalgas Zhumagulov at UFC on ESPN 31.

Unlike Perez, Kape is a KO/TKO machine, earning an impressive 65 per cent of his victories like that. Another stark contrast is that he rarely depends on judges’ decisions, with only a tiny 6 per cent of his wins attained by that mean. We mentioned how similar their significant strike statistics are, and the same can be said with respect to their defences. Kape sports a 54 per cent defensive efficiency to Perez’s 60. The success ratio favours the Portuguese slightly, 52 per cent to 48.