- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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The warm afterglow of UFC 300 is over and it's back to the apex for some Ryan goddamn Spann for you motherfuckers. The card survived weigh-in week, only alteration is David Onama being overweight.
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 99: BACK TO EARTH
SATURDAY, APRIL 27 FROM THE RESPLENDENT DEPRESSION OF THE UFC APEX
PRELIMS 1 PM PDT / 4 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM
Sometimes a week off feels like a vacation; sometimes it feels like a much-needed smoke break. UFC 300 was a total success. Almost every fight delivered, both championship bouts were memorable, and Max Holloway's last-second knockout of Justin Gaethje is going to be played in highlight reels forever.
It could not have gone any better. And Dana White wanted to make sure everyone knew that, so he put together his own vanity video package telling everyone in the media who ever said anything bad about UFC 300 to eat poo poo. Take that, media! You're always stupid, we're always the best, and Dana White and the UFC can do no wrong.
So anyway, here's an Apex card where 21 out of 26 competitors are coming off either a loss (17) or a No Contest (1) or have never fought in the UFC before (3).
I hope you enjoyed your week off. Remember the good times.
ah, back to normal.
MAIN EVENT: THE FLYWEIGHT SITUATION
FLYWEIGHT: Matheus Nicolau (19-3-1, #5) vs Alex Perez (24-8, #8)
Flyweight is one of the most talent-rich divisions in mixed martial arts, but boy, it seems like it's always stuck in a hole.
For once, I don't even just mean the UFC. Bellator tried to inaugurate a Flyweight division, but it got scuttled the day before its title fight thanks to a Ray Borg weight miss, rescheduled for a Rizin card in a Japanese co-promotion and scuttled again when the fight ended with an eyepoke in twenty seconds; Bellator folded and got bought before they could give it a third go. Rizin made their own Flyweight division, Kyoji Horiguchi won it, and his first act as Japan's 125-pound champion was signing up for a 135-pound rematch with Sergio Pettis. ONE Championship has managed one 125-pound title fight in the last 500 days, it was a rematch of the fight from the start of those 500 days, it ended in under a minute thanks to a disqualification, and now the champion is injured and on the shelf for the next year.
But the curse has struck most consistently in the UFC. They had maybe the greatest champion of all time in Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson, but they didn't actually want him and spent half his reign trying to force him to take superfights at Bantamweight. Henry Cejudo won the title, defended it once, and threw it in the garbage. Deiveson Figueiredo was supposed to be a generationally dominant champion, but he missed weight in his first shot at the belt and ultimately spent his entire reign trading it back and forth with Brandon Moreno. This past December saw the UFC's first Flyweight title fight to not involve Figueiredo or Moreno in three goddamn years, and now, four months later, the undisputed #1 contender to the title is Brandon Royval, the guy who just lost said title fight.
They have, in fairness, been trying to fix this. Kai Kara-France vs Amir Albazi last June was a bonafide contendership match--until Albazi won an incredibly controversial decision and they both, ultimately, got injured before either could take a followup fight. Muhammad Mokaev was positioned for contendership, but he fell short of the UFC's all-action expectations and they slammed on the brakes to the point that the #10-ranked Steve Erceg is getting a title fight next week because he's the only available guy left. This fight, here, was supposed to be a crowning moment for rising star Manel Kape--but Kape is notoriously snakebit, and the first time this fight was scheduled back in January it fell through after Kape missed weight by almost five pounds, and this rescheduled bout fell apart when Kape pulled out at the start of the month.
We are left with Matheus Nicolau vs Alex Perez. Both men are extremely solid, talented fighters. And they combine, positionally, for a pretty damning statement about the Flyweight contendership scene.
Matheus Nicolau fares slightly better in the conversation. He's 7-2 in the UFC, he's only lost once in the last five years. He beat Manel Kape! Well, sort of. He took what was widely agreed to be one of the worst decisions of 2021 over Kape, and his last win was already a year and a half ago against Matt Schnell, who is currently 1 for his last 5, and his chances at title contention are extremely minimal because the last time Nicolau fought he got blown the gently caress out by Brandon Royval in two minutes. Solid, top ten fighter, but he needs a strong win over a strong competitor to really stake a claim at the top.
Alex Perez, respectfully, is not that competitor. He was, once. When he became just the third man to ever knock out Jussier Formiga back in 2020, he looked all to hell like a fighter who would be relevant to the title picture for years. And then the reality waveform collapsed and he ceased to exist as a reliably present competitor. Alex Perez has fought three times in the last four years; in that same timeframe, he has had ten cancelled bouts. Eleven, if you include the fight the UFC originally scheduled him for this Summer but scuttled so he could save this main event. He had a single fight with Matt Schnell get rescheduled three times: Once for UFC scheduling issues, once for Schnell's health, and the third time because Perez blew his weight cut. At this point he's better known for missing fights than taking them.
Which is probably in his best interests, because he's also lost all three of those sparing appearances. He got choked out in a single round in Figueiredo's only successful title defense, he got choked out in a single round again by Alexandre Pantoja in the fight that earned him a title shot, and just 56 days before his bout tonight, he got ground into paste by Muhammad Mokaev.
All of this makes perfect sense when you remember this fight existed to push Manel Kape into contention. It's a revenge fight for a decision he shouldn't have lost and, coincidentally, he's the only person out of the three the UFC's been promoting. Without him? It's a prospect bout between one guy whose only fight in a year and a half involved getting completely trucked by the division's #1 contender and one guy who hasn't won a fight since All That was still on the air.
(No, really. Look it up.)
Again: Neither man is a bad fighter. You cannot exist in the top ten at Flyweight without being very good at everything. Nicolau may not have deserved the nod against Manel Kape, but he still took him to the limit. Perez may have lost to Mokaev, but he made him work for it and even took a couple media scorecards. Nicolau has the heavier hands, Perez has the faster kicks; Nicolau has an edge in the grappling, but Perez just showcased improved takedown defense. This could easily be a fascinating grappling match.
Or, of course, it could fail to happen completely when Perez's car to the arena falls into the portal from Land of the Lost.
But this is a fight Perez isn't just taking on short notice, but is taking less than two months after losing a three-round fight. It's a big ask, and my inkling is MATHEUS NICOLAU BY DECISION, but honestly, flip a coin. Not only is it just as likely to be accurate, it's a great way to simulate the matchmaking experience that got us here.
CO-MAIN EVENT: I FEEL LIKE I SHOULD STOP SINGLING THESE OUT
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Ryan Spann (21-9, #11) vs Bogdan Guskov (15-3, NR)
You just can't have a discussion about cursed weight classes without Light Heavyweight joining the party.
The UFC's multi-year attempt to push Ryan Spann has reached Sisyphean status. They could have stopped when he got beat up by Johnny Walker and went to a split decision with Sam loving Alvey, but they didn't. They could have thought better of things after he was choked out by Anthony Smith, but they didn't. In March of last year Spann got submitted again by Nikita Krylov, somehow got pushed right back up the ladder for a rematch with Smith, and, somehow, lost again. And he's still here! In a co-main event! Are we doomed to run this circle forever?
Well, no. This is, if anything, the UFC testing its own faith in their prospect. Ion Cuțelaba was a favorable but credible matchup for Spann, Dominick Reyes was damaged goods the company wanted to capitalize on, and Smith and Krylov were both high-profile, top-ten matchups that could springboard Spann into title contention with an impressive victory. For better or worse, every one of those fights presented a big opportunity for one of their favorite early-gen Contender Series winners.
Bogdan Guskov is as far away from those lofty ranks as you can get. He's not ranked, he doesn't have much international renown, he didn't come from the Contender Series, he doesn't have any hype to speak of. He joined the UFC as a late replacement last September, was dutifully dispatched by Volkan Oezdemir in four minutes, and knocked out Zac Pauga three fights into the prelims on an Apex card that happened just two months ago, and I bet you have absolutely no recollection of it or what its main event was.
For the record: Joe Pyfer vs Jack Hermansson. Remember that happening? Remember the attempt to make Joe Pyfer a title contender? It feels like a whole-rear end lifetime ago. To his credit, Guskov didn't look awful in his fight with Oezdemir; he stood in the pocket with a real dangerous power puncher and even stunned him--right up until Oezdemir slammed him on the ground and easily demolished him in an extremely one-sided grappling exchange.
Ryan Spann's defensive grappling isn't great, but Ryan Spann's offensive grappling is absolutely crushing. Guskov's shown the clear ability to hurt anyone on Earth if he hits them in the face; he's also fighting against a half-foot reach advantage. Guskov could try to pressure Spann into the cage and tee off on him, but that means opening himself up to getting stuck in Spann's clinch, which is where his best grappling offense comes from; Guskov could turn this into a wrestling match, but not only has that never been his forte, it means putting himself at risk of a guillotine choke from Spann's giant seagull arms every time he shoots.
This should be a rebuilding fight for Spann. This should be RYAN SPANN BY SUBMISSION. But the UFC needs to see something out of him, and if Guskov upsets the apple cart, it could be the end of a long run.
MAIN CARD: A SUCCESSFUL PUSH
 WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Ariane Lipski (17-8, #12) vs Karine Silva (17-4, #13)
This right here? This is the best, most interesting fight on this card. Which is fitting, because it's the one and only fight on the card between two people who are both coming off UFC victories.
I, and most of the mixed martial arts world, had Ariane Lipski pretty much ruled out of contention at the start of 2023.
Lipski's 3-5 after four years, and one of those victories came against Mandy Böhm, who's 0-2 and likely fighting to prevent a pink slip this May, and another was double-last-minute injury replacement Isabela de Pádua, who was a strawweight fighting up a weight class on 24 hours' notice who proceeded to test positive for steroids and get kicked out of the company. The optics: They're not great.
Karine Silva, by contrast, has been nothing but onward and upward, and in one of the rare instances of the UFC letting a Contender Series winner go up the ladder the right way she's been proving herself in impressive fashion. Silva's ridiculously aggressive grappling has played out perfectly for her in the company thus far. She submitted Poliana Botelho, she tore apart Invicta champion Ketlen Souza's knee in just over a minute and a half, and when last we saw her, she met Maryna Moroz--a woman who has shared the cage with Jennifer Maia, Mayra Bueno Silva and Carla Esparza without ever being finished--and choked her out in the first round. Which is particularly important when you realize that ten years ago, a 20 year-old Karine Silva got armbarred by Moroz just six fights into her career. Her improvement is both visible and literal, and of the many prospects the Contender Series has fielded upon us for better and worse, Karine certainly appears to be the real deal and an absolute wrecking machine.
Being a wrecking machine, of course, carries with it the risk of not successfully wrecking someone. Ariane Lipski has been stopped on multiple occasions, but all of them came from fists. In eleven years of competition, she has never been submitted; more typically, she is the one doing the submitting, and Casey O'Neill's elbow joints are a testament to just how good she is at it. Silva's got a fair number of knockout victories to her credit, but she hasn't notched one in almost five years, and Lipski's been kicking motherfuckers in the head. I am still going with my gut and picking KARINE SILVA BY SUBMISSION, but Lipski's looked better than I've seen her in years, and if Karine's gotten too used to first-round victories, the likelihood that Lipski drags her into the back half of a fight could hurt her badly.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Austen Lane (12-4 (1)) vs Jhonata Diniz (6-0)
Austen Lane is proof that one man's actions can cause untold suffering. In 2018 a 4-0 Austen Lane got his first shot at the Contender Series and the stardom only a minimum-wage fight contract can offer, and his dream was crushed thanks to a first-round knockout by NFL star and domestic violence enthusiast Greg Hardy, forcing UFC fans to cope with the three-year Greg Hardy Experiment. Lane spent his next nine fights cleaning up the best 5-9 fighters the regional scene had to offer, and in 2022 he returned to the ludus league, beat a man whose last victory came against the 22-22 José Rodrigo Guelke, and finally made it to the UFC. And then he got injured and his debut got put off by four months. And then his rescheduled debut ended in a thirty-second No Contest after he poked Justin Tafa in the eye. And then their second rescheduling ended with Tafa punching him silly in less than a minute and a half. Austen Lane has not managed two minutes in the UFC, but the misery he has caused us has stretched across years.
Which leaves Jhonata Diniz as the new guy. The UFC has recently been cribbing from the old ways of Japanese MMA and importing retired kickboxers in an attempt to create casual-friendly striking sensations, and Diniz is no different. Up until 2022 he was a semi-successful Heavyweight kickboxer--good enough to be ranked, not good enough to keep himself from getting demolished by champions--and after he turned 30, he decided to branch out into mixed martial arts. On one hand: It's been a great success! He's 6-0 and he's knocked out everyone he faced. On the other: He's basically fought one real guy. His first match was, in fact, against your old buddy from the previous paragraph, José Rodrigo Guelke, who by then was 22-23. If you've read these before, you know how this paragraph goes. The only real challenge Diniz faced was on the Contender Series, and he overcame it, but the guy he beat was also the guy who got choked out by Mick Parkin, so, unfortunately: It's still Heavyweight.
That said: Austen Lane got more or less crushed by Justin Tafa, and Diniz has better check hooks and better clinch control. I don't think this lasts long. JHONATA DINIZ BY TKO.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Jonathan Pearce (14-5) vs David Onama (11-2)
Jonathan Pearce wants his goddamn hype train back. "JSP" was one of the early prospects off the Contender Series, but he was forgotten fairly quickly after his 2019 debut ended with Joe Lauzon punching his face in. Pearce spent the next four years rebuilding his profile, and by 2023 he was on a five-fight winning streak, he'd beaten multiple notable fighters, and he had officially supplanted Darren Elkins as Featherweight's grittiest wrestler. And then Joanderson Brito snatched a ninja choke on him out of nowhere last November, and just like that, all that effort tumbled into the gutter. The UFC doesn't love its wrestlers, and Pearce may be one of the best, but once you fall, you gotta grind like hell to get back on the ladder.
David Onama has chosen to get around this by stopping everyone he beats, and it works extremely well for him right up until it doesn't. He was an undefeated prospect with a fair bit of hype from in-the-know fans when the UFC picked him up on a short-notice contract, and, shockingly, a short-notice fight against Mason Jones two weeks after he'd already fought wasn't a recipe for success. His subsequent attempts at launching the Good Ship Onama have been spoiled by circumstance. He scored a real impressive win over Gabriel Benítez, but got stuck with a late replacement no one cared about in his followup and then found himself on the wrong end of Nate Landwehr's refusal to ever die. He was supposed to get higher-profile fights with Jarno Errens and Khusein Askhabov, but both got injured and left him dealing with Gabriel Santos instead.
There's a styles-make-fights aspect to this that's awful tough to miss. Pearce can strike, he has it in him, but his comfort zone is on the floor, and every opponent he's attempted a takedown on has wound up there. Onama is a solid grappler in his own regard, but his best success comes from his punches, and unfortunately, he gets taken down an awful, awful lot. If Nate Landwehr can ground him, so can JSP. JONATHAN PEARCE BY DECISION.
WELTERWEIGHT: Tim Means (33-15-1 (1)) vs Uroš Medić (9-2)
There are some guys you keep around just because they're fun as hell, and for sheer fun quotient, you just can't kill Tim Means. Means has been around so goddamn long he predates Anderson Silva losing his title, and he's been fun as hell for the vast majority of those 28-and-counting UFC fights. Is he relevant to the division? Not really. Is he able to show up and dispose of your Andre Fialhos at will? Absolutely and drat proud of it. Which is, genuinely, pretty loving cool. In a world of fighters who are all desperate to be Conor McGregor, there is something to be said for being a Tim goddamn Means; sticking around forever, having fun fights, leaving memories. God bless 'em.
He is, of course, expected to lose. Uroš Medić is a -310 favorite, and after seeing him knock out Omar Morales and Matthew Semelsberger back to back, it's hard to imagine him not punting Tim Means' head into the fourth row. He's ten years younger, he's a whole lot stronger, he hits much harder and he doesn't have several dozen fights of mileage weighing him down with wear and tear or high expectations. He, in fact, has very few expectations, thanks to his getting violently submitted by last-second-replacement Myktybek Orolbai last November. It's hard to hold that against him, though--it's hard to hold any loss against a fighter when they had almost no time to prepare.
What I do hold against Uroš is how frequently he gets into bad grappling positions against people he can't bully. Means is very, very tough to knock out and he's been dealing with adverse situations for his entire career. Uroš has some great striking techniques, but he also struggles under pressure, and pressure is where Means excels. So, gently caress it. TIM MEANS BY SUBMISSION.
PRELIMS: WEC NEVER DIE
BANTAMWEIGHT: Rani Yahya (28-11-1 (1)) vs Victor Henry (23-6 (1))
I said this the last time Rani Yahya fought, and I don't think I could say it better, so I'm just going to say it again.
If you're a veteran fan who's thinking "Wait, like the Rani Yahya who fought in the WEC back in 2010?" the answer is yes. If you're an old-school fan who's thinking "Wait, like the Rani Yahya who fought in K-1 HERO'S back in 2006?" the answer is still yes. If you're a primordial fan who's thinking "Wait, like the Rani Yahya who was winning jiu-jitsu championships back in the 90s?" the answer is still loving yes. Rani Yahya has been grappling people for so long that all but five of his thirty-eight opponents no longer compete in mixed martial arts and several are dead.
Victor Henry was a +400 underdog in his debut against Barcelos. Victor Henry is a -500 favorite to beat Rani Yahya. Just as I said in the Montel Jackson fight, Rani is almost certainly going to lose here. He's kind of slow and awkward on the feet, his chin isn't all it used to be, and as great as his grappling is, getting someone as athletic as Henry on the floor to use it while he's getting punched in the face is going to be difficult. And just as I said in the Montel Jackson fight, I care more about rooting for Rani while I can than watching my pick percentage go up. RANI YAHYA BY SUBMISSION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Austin Hubbard (15-7) vs Michal Figlak (8-1)
I'm not sure there's a sign of exactly how far The Ultimate Fighter has fallen in the UFC's estimations than this past season of it. TUF 31 (jc) was built around veterans vs prospects, one of the show's better gimmicks, but its real point was to fire up the Conor McGregor engines all over again. He's back! He's fighting Michael Chandler! Watch him train the next generation of UFC talent! And then his whole team lost and Conor went off to (allegedly!) do enough steroids that the UFC had to kill their USADA partnership over it, and he never actually fought Chandler, and now it's an entire year later and they're promising it'll finally happen this June. And the TUF tournaments? They were finished off in the middle of the pay-per-view prelims for UFC 292. Not even headlining. Austin Hubbard, a seven-fight UFC veteran and potential TUF champion, got choked out by Kurt Holobaugh in a fight that was deemed less important than Gregory Rodrigues vs Denis Tiuliulin. What became of newly-crowned champion Holobaugh? Beaten by Trey Ogden. What about Bantamweight TUF winner Brad Katona? Taken to the cleaners by Garrett Armfield. His runner-up, Cody Gibson? Defeated by Miles Johns. The cat? Choked on the goldfish. Hubbard is the only TUF finalist left to fight, and for his troubles, he gets Michal "Mad Dog" Figlak. Figlak joined the UFC with a fair bit of hype as an undefeated 8-0 Cage Warriors prospect in 2022, his debut against Fares Ziam was one he and his well-traveled counterstriking were widely expected to win, and instead, he got outstruck more than 2:1, outwrestled 3:1, and ultimately lost his undefeated streak to the riotous approval of a particularly partisan Parisian crowd. And, uh, that's it. He was briefly linked to a bout with Chris Duncan last year, but he was pulled from the fight almost as soon as it was announced. It's been a year and a half since last we saw him, he's been rehabbing injuries and preparing for a second chance at a first impression, and this time, rather than the O2 Arena or the Accor, he's doing it in the Apex, where champions are made.
This is, all of that said, a genuinely interesting fight. Hubbard was hanging in there against Kurt Holobaugh right up until he got abruptly choked out, but that was thanks to a hard-nosed, wrestling-heavy style that plays into Figlak's own. It's a much less mobile, much more face-forward method, and that gives Figlak more room to use the counterpunching that fell flat against Ziam dancing out of his range and making him pay for overcommitting. My hunch here is AUSTIN HUBBARD BY DECISION after a grueling wrestling performance, but Fiaglak could easily keep pace and sting him given a chance.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Don'Tale Mayes (10-6) vs Caio Machado (8-2-1)
It's rough times for Lord Kong, but if we're being honest, he hasn't really known any other kind. It took Mayes three cracks at the Contender Series to get into the UFC, he had the misfortune of a debut fight against some guy named Ciryl Gane, and after almost five years with the company his best victory is a tossup between Josh Parisian and mid-forties Andrei Arlovski. Arlovski is, in fact, the only victory Mayes has recorded since 2021. His ability to maul people on the ground is still more than present, but his ability to reliably get people down to do it just hasn't been there for him. When we first saw Caio Machado fight in the UFC last November, I was unkind to him. I was dismissive of his record and frustrated by his ability to land hundreds of strikes without putting his opponents in danger. I speculated that he would get outstruck by noted boxer Mick Parkin. I was wrong, and I must admit that. He, in fact, was outwrestled by noted boxer Mick Parkin. I have nothing unkind to say about Caio Machado that the universe has not already inflicted upon him with that fight.
Mayes is an underdog in this fight, and respectfully, I disagree. Machado hasn't exhibited a great deal of stopping power and getting outwrestled by Mick Parkin portends bad things about keeping a guy like Mayes from ragdolling you. DON'TALE MAYES BY TKO.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Ketlen Souza (13-4) vs Marnic Mann (6-2)
The trip from Invicta to the UFC was not kind to Ketlen Souza. Like so many before her, Ketlen traded in her championship belt for a ticket to the big leagues, and like so many before her, she was immediately eaten by a bigger fish. Souza managed to record exactly one attempted strike in her UFC debut before Karine Silva threw her on the floor and popped every ligament in her knee. Souza had to be helped to the back and, presumably, the hospital, and after eleven months of recovery and rebuilding, she's ready to try again, which is a pretty scary prospect for a fighter who relies as heavily on kicking and playing the bottom guard game as she does. Marnic Mann is in the tough position of knowing the UFC didn't really want her here. She put up a solid fight on the Contender Series in 2022 before getting her head kicked off by Bruna Brasil, she went back to the regional scene for a single fight, and she got pulled into the big show as a short-notice replacement with less than one week to prepare. Unsurprisingly: She lost. Josefine Knutsson easily outwrestled her for three straight rounds, Mann landed eight significant strikes in fifteen minutes, and one judge scored a particularly terrible 30-24 against her.
This, too, is a stylistically awful fight for Mann. Souza's dropping to 115 for the first time in four years and she's carrying a considerable size and strength advantage with her, but more than that, Mann's striking defense is porous and Josefine can attest to her wrestling defense. Worse still, even if Mann were to get Souza on the floor, Souza's bottom game is where a whole lot of her best offense comes from. KETLEN SOUZA BY DECISION and I'm not sure it'll be close.
LIGHTWEIGHT: James Llontop (14-2) vs Gabe Green (11-5)
James "Goku" Llontop has had a hell of a time staying on this card. His Contender Series victory in September didn't raise too many eyebrows--he was fine, but with how many Contenders you get these days it's just hard to expect the audience to really invest themselves in everyone--but however many 19-16 people he's crushed, he's still a solid Peruvian prospect on a twelve-fight winning streak, and that's pretty rare. Fittingly, it has been goddamn near impossible to keep his fight this weekend booked. He was scheduled to fight the perpetually weird Lando Vannata, but Vannata pulled out well ahead of time. "Gifted" Gabe Green took his place with a solid two months of time to prepare, which meant that he, of course, had to drop out a week before the fight. In his place, with five days' notice, you have Chris "Taco" Padilla, a man who is best known for his one fight in Bellator in 2018, which saw him lose to...uh...Gabe Green. gently caress, man. Chris Padilla is 4 for his last 5 and his victories include such luminaries as the 8-8-1 "Eyes Closed" El J Portée, the 15-12 Serob "Gulo" Minasyan, and in what might well be his highest profile victory, the 17-10 UFC veteran Justin "Guitar Hero" Jaynes. He likes to strike, he likes to fight, and, I can only assume, he's a fan of tacos.
Look, every once in awhile this Cinderella story works out. Marcus McGhee was a little-considered last-minute regional pickup last year and now he's 3-0 in the UFC. But Llontop has some actual stopping power and a reasonably well-rounded game, and Padilla's biggest strengths appear to be being tough and down to clown. Could this lead to him upsetting Llontop and becoming a new sensation? Sure. Is it likely? No. JAMES LLONTOP BY TKO.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Ivana Petrović (6-1) vs Na Liang (19-7)
Ivana Petrović's debut did not go as planned. She came into the UFC last July as an undefeated champion in France, was booked as a sizable favorite over a smaller, less accomplished fighter in Luana Carolina who was on a two-fight skid and pretty blatantly being used to build a new international prospect, and, as happens so drat often, the ailing veteran took the hyped prospect to the woodshed. Carolina outstruck and outgrappled Petrović to the point of outright frustration on Ivana's part, and frustration rarely wins fights. Unfortunately, "rarely" is still a better winning ratio than Na Liang has found in the UFC. Liang was a wrecking machine out in China's WLF Wars, but unfortunately, she was also persistently matched up with fighters who had at best 1/3 her level of experience, to the point that her last fight prior to joining the UFC saw the 18-4 Liang against the 0-0 Mengnan Liu. When you do not prepare for adversity, adversity tends to crush you, and Na Liang's 0-3 UFC record has been one of repeated crushings. She was outgrappled and punched into paste by Ariane Carnelossi, stopped on the feet by Silvana Gómez Juárez, and had to be rescued by the referee against JJ Aldritch just last August.
Liang's a great hammer. Her armbars are still real dangerous. But she is visibly uncomfortable being the nail, and however unfortunate it was to watch Ivana fight frustrated in the third round of her last fight, she was, still, doing it. Liang looks lost after the first round of her fights, and it's hard to imagine that changing. IVANA PETROVIĆ BY SUBMISSION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Maheshate (9-3) vs Gabriel Benítez (23-11)
Maheshate is also having some bum luck here. He came over to the Contender Series as another WLF Wars success story, but he averted the bad-competition curse by absolutely crushing the legitimately dangerous Steve Garcia in his UFC debut thanks to long power punches and an absolutely killer right. That is the end of the good news for him. One fight later he missed weight and got beaten around the cage by a better-rounded fighter in Rafa García, and as a followup performance he faced noted kickboxer Viacheslav "Slava Claus" Borshchev, poked him in the eye so badly it bled, and, somehow, still got dropped on his rear end and punched into the fetal position in two rounds. Maheshate had a theoretically easier matchup tonight against Road to UFC 1 champion Anshul Jubli, whose stock fell from "legitimately interesting prospect" to "guy who got TKOed because his opponent started barking at him like a dog" after his knockout loss to Mike Breeden last year, but Jubli had to pull out, and in his stead, Maheshate gets to deal with Gabriel "Moggly" Benítez. Gabriel has had a tough go of it in the UFC--he's exactly 7-7, his best win was probably Jason Knight all the way back in 2017, he's only got two wins in the last five years and one of them was against Justin "Guitar Hero" Jaynes who I cannot loving believe is getting two shoutouts on a single card writeup--but he's also been a perpetually difficult fight for his opponents. Even in his worst loss, a one-round shellacking at the hands of main card participant David Onama, he was blasting him repeatedly with kicks right up until he got knocked silly.
To be clear: This is a fight Maheshate absolutely should win. He's 4" taller, he's rangier, he's got knockout power and Gabriel's already paid for his kick-happy gameplan before. Maheshate's the betting favorite and I get why. But I have to have a hunch somewhere on this card, and my hunch is Maheshate's in trouble. GABRIEL BENÍTEZ BY TKO.
Prelims in thirty. Make peace with Flyweight god.
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Apr 27, 2024 20:34
