Steve Erceg🇦🇺 (12-4) is a technical striker who uses his 68.5 inch reach to establish his jab, find his range, and make his combinations that include accurate counters, straight punches, hooks, punches to the body, front kicks, and leg kicks easier to land. I'm a fan of how he showcases his boxing prowess through changing between attacking the head and the body depending on his opponents game plan in order to stop momentum. He isn't perfect, though. Steve throws strikes at a high volume but lacks forward pressure, which inherently lowers his overall output, which, in my opinion, cost him the title. Another issue is that he can be overwhelmed against fighters with effective forward pressure, when he's forced onto his backfoot his tendency to counter strike has left him open to being caught on the feet or taken down. In the grappling, he sets up takedowns through initiating the clinch and making opponents vulnerable with elbows and knees. He doesn't have the best pure wrestling outside of that, though. On the mat, Steve secures full mount and then uses his black belt BJJ to open up the guillotine, arm triangle, and rear naked submissions. Defensively, he has good scrambles, but against grapplers with good top control, he can be held down. Ode Osbourne🇺🇸 (13-8) is a southpaw who uses his 73 inch reach combined with his speed and footwork to find range then land high volume combos that include powerful jabs, straight punches, crosses, hooks, uppercuts, front kicks, roundhouses to the body, and leg kicks. He also like Erceg initiates the clinch and uses elbows and knees, but the difference is he uses the clinch more when opponents shoot takedowns on him, a benefit of his size advantage. Ode has been submitted 4 times in his career, but his grappling isn't as bad as some make it to be. He uses his frame well in sprawls and, when brought down, is active from back and looks to start scrambles. This fight seems like it should be a clear-cut win for Steve, but I see areas where Ode could make this fight hard for him. My pick is Erceg (DEC).