The most useful piece of scouting on this fight is already on tape. In February 2025 Colby Thicknesse took a short-notice UFC debut against Aleksandre Topuria — a hyped debutant, 5-1 with every win by finish, heavy-handed and willing to wrestle. Topuria rocked him with an overhand right in the first round, suplexed him, attacked his lead leg in the second and took his back after an over-extended shot in the third, and all three judges gave him every round. Asaf Chopurov is that archetype with a longer record: 11-0, ten finishes, a UAE Warriors title defended twice, and a July knockout of Reece McLaren that took one counter right and 63 seconds. Thicknesse has improved since Sydney — the second round against Vince Morales, 27 strikes to 18 from range with most of the damage to the body, is the best round of his UFC career — but the most likely version of this fight looks more like UFC 312 than like Perth.
The fight's most important detail is positional. Thicknesse's grappling threat lives in his guard: he is a BJJ black belt who threw four submission attempts at Morales in a single round, chaining a guillotine, a triangle, an armbar and elbows from the triangle. His grappling weakness lives on his back: both Topuria and Morales reached it in the third round, and he has conceded four of the six takedowns tried against him while landing two of his own 28. Chopurov does not finish from inside the guard. All five of his submission wins are rear-naked chokes, and his fights show him slamming opponents and hopping onto the back rather than passing. A back-taker against a guard player whose back has been exposed is a matchup that skips the Australian's best position and attacks his worst — which is why the model gives Chopurov 18% by submission despite the black belt across the cage.
What keeps Thicknesse alive is the thing neither record has ever shown: a stoppage loss. He has gone fifteen minutes in all three UFC fights and six of ten pro fights, absorbed 132 significant strikes in the Octagon without a knockdown, and came back from two knockdowns in a regional fight to win. That is why half of the model's hundred fights reach the scorecards against a debutant who has finished ten of eleven opponents, and why Chopurov's single largest outcome is a decision rather than a knockout. It is also where the Australian's path runs: two rounds banked early, a third survived, a 29-28. The model gives that route 21 fights in 100, against 30 for the same scorecards going the other way.
