- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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Nina Nunes pulled out this afternoon having fallen sick with definitely not covid, so the card got shuffled at the last minute.
on the topic of fight blurbs:
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 23: RAFAEL DOS
PRELIMS 3:00 PM PST/6:00 PM EST VIA ESPN+ | MAIN CARD 6:00 PM PST/9:00 PM EST VIA ESPN+
A decade and a half ago, K-1 Kickboxing and Japanese MMA federation DREAM held an interpromotional kickboxing match between DREAM Middleweight champion Gegard Mousasi and K-1 Grand Prix finalist and heavyweight Muay Thai champion Musashi. The fight, rather than a deep well of interdisciplinary intrigue, was built around the idea that they had essentially the same name and having them fight each other would be funny. It's 2022, we have regressed as a species, this card has some of the worst numerical record averages in UFC history, and baby, it's Rafael vs Rafael time.
these wikipedia graphics are ugly and i think i need to start making my own
MAIN EVENT: WHEN I WAS YOUNG I THOUGHT THE CHORUS TO BRAIN STEW WENT 'RAPHAEL, HERE WE GO'
 LIGHTWEIGHT: Rafael dos Anjos (31-13, #7) vs Rafael Fiziev (11-1, #10)
It's sad that the nexus of this fight is unintentional comedy, because it's actually a really, really good loving fight, to the point that we're going to use half the wordcount for this piece on it, because the rest of this card kind of sucks.
And it's sort of insane that, at this stage of his career, Rafael dos Anjos is having fights that aren't just really good but genuinely relevant to rankings. The lighter weight classes are not kind to aging fighters. Speed goes first, and so much of lightweight is a game of speed, and there is always some 25 year-old wrestler ready to tear your head off. Almost everyone in the twilight of their thirties in the UFC is a Tony Ferguson or a Joe Lauzon whose bodies can barely hold together anymore, let alone their fighting skills.
Rafael dos Anjos is turning 38 this October. He's one of the ten best lightweights on the planet. And that's even crazier once you realize it's been true for a solid decade--and that's after another near-decade of toiling in obscurity.
dos Anjos made his UFC debut in 2008. To put that in perspective: Barack Obama had not yet taken office, Forrest Griffin was the #1 light-heavyweight in the world, the main event of his debut card was Brock Lesnar vs Randy Couture and the UFC featherweight division wouldn't exist for another two years. And he nearly washed out, going an even 4-4 in his first three years in the company. But a funny bit of serendipity happened: Rafael Cordeiro, one of the principal architects behind the success of Brazilian supercamp Chute Boxe, moved to America and started his own fight team, Kings MMA. dos Anjos jumped at the chance to learn under him, and over the next two years of his career he grew from a black belt who looked visibly uncomfortable striking to one of the most well-rounded fighters in MMA history: A high-level grappler with fantastic boxing and powerful kicks who could somehow throw at volume for five rounds without tiring.
A year later he was the lightweight champion, and possibly the best to ever hold the belt. But Conormania was already in full swing, so rather than anyone in his own division, Rafael dos Anjos was slated to defend his championship against McGregor in the biggest fight of either man's career. And then Rafael broke his foot and missed his chance. When he came back he was dethroned by Eddie Alvarez, and Alvarez was then destroyed by Conor, and just like that, dos Anjos was a footnote in history. He chased his way through the welterweight division for years before returning to lightweight in 2020, but he's never commanded the respect he should.
Which is insane, because he's had one of the most insane schedules for any fighter in the history of the sport. This is an incomplete list of the fighters Rafael dos Anjos has faced between his coming-out party in 2012 and the present day:
- Donald Cerrone, four-time world title contender, and he beat him twice
- Khabib Nurmagomedov, UFC Lightweight champion and arguable greatest 155-pound fighter of all time
- Jason High, DREAM Welterweight Grand Prix finalist
- Benson Henderson, UFC Lightweight champion
- Nate Diaz, two-time title contender, TUF winner and inexplicable megastar
- Anthony Pettis, UFC Lightweight champion
- Eddie Alvarez, UFC and Bellator Lightweight champion
- Tony Ferguson, UFC (interim) Lightweight champion
- Tarec Saffiedine, Strikeforce Welterweight champion
- Neil Magny, all-time UFC decision recordholder
- Robbie Lawler, UFC Welterweight champion
- Colby Covington, UFC (interim) Welterweight champion
- Kamaru Usman, UFC Welterweight champion and fellow GOAT contender
- Kevin Lee, UFC #1 Lightweight contender
- Leon Edwards, UFC #1 Welterweight contender
Once again: An incomplete list. It's not just that Rafael dos Anjos has been a top fighter for the last decade, it's that it's been a decade since he fought someone who wasn't a top ten fighter. There's been exactly one exception, and that was Paul Felder, and that fight only happened because dos Anjos' original opponent, current top lightweight contender Islam loving Makhachev, had to pull out and Felder stepped in six days before the fight. Rafael dos Anjos has not had an easy night at the office in a very, very long time.
And he won't have one tonight. If Rafael dos Anjos is emblematic of one of the most enduring members of the UFC's old guard, Rafael "Ataman" Fiziev is part of the onrushing shock of new. Fiziev only joined the UFC three years ago--his only MMA loss is, in fact, his UFC debut, where he got knocked out by the unfortunately embattled Magomed Mustafaev--but he's already in the top ten, already on a five-fight win streak, and already being talked up as a potential title contender.
Which is weird! His entire career is a series of very unlikely things. He was a kid from Kyrgyzstan who started doing Muay Thai to cope with schoolyard bullying and somehow parlayed those inauspicious beginnings into becoming one of the rare foreigners to train fulltime in Phuket and become a local stadium standout who fought, and even beat, some of the best Muay Thai fighters in the world. He took up the East Asian MMA market as a nearly pure striker who self-admittedly struggled to learn how to grapple and ran up an undefeated 6-0 record before the UFC picked him up--thanks in part to the recommendation of his Tiger Muay Thai training partners, the suddenly quickly-ascending Petr Yan.
Regional fighters who've rarely fought anyone good don't tend to do well in the UFC. People who are primarily strikers don't tend to do well in the UFC. People who get knocked out in ninety seconds in their UFC debuts don't tend to do well in the UFC. Rafael Fiziev dealt with all three of these things, and three years later he's got a goddamn wheel kick knockout over the insanely tough Brad Riddell, a left hook knockout over Renato Moicano, an incredibly impressive decision win over one of the best defensive strikers in the game in Bobby Green, and a shot at one of the best to ever do it. What makes him different?
Some of it is technique, and some of it is the young man's game: Blistering loving speed. Most mixed martial artists throw strikes like people who learned to throw strikes in a gym as an adult; Rafael Fiziev has the unmistakable style of someone who's been throwing the same Muay Thai strikes since he was a literal child. There's no telegraphing, no wind-up, just a slight blur of motion before his instep is buried in someone's ribcage. He didn't land that left hook that knocked out Moicano just because his punches are powerful--he landed it because, with no warning, he threw a stunning three-hook, body-head combination in 1.3 seconds.
And that isn't a thing most fighters can do. The level of confidence you have to have in your power, your accuracy, your speed, your chin and your decisionmaking to successfully pull that off even once takes years of practice. Rafael Fiziev pulls it off in nearly every fight he has. Rafael Fiziev saw a hurt Brad Riddell pulling repeatedly to his right, and he didn't catch him with a jab or a hook, he caught him with a perfectly placed spinning wheel kick, a technique so infrequently successful in the UFC that after six hundred and eleven live events you can still count them with two hands.
Two Rafaels. One old, one new. One a lifelong grappler who learned to strike, one a lifelong striker who's still taking jiu-jitsu classes. Who will win Rafael vs Rafael? Will it be Rafael, or his opponent, Rafael?
I believe in Rafael Fiziev. I think he's an amazing fighter. I just also believe in Rafael dos Anjos. Fiziev is an immaculate striker, but that striking requires range and opportunity. Rafael dos Anjos is the kind of fighter tailor-made to deny him both: A powerful volume puncher with the physical strength enough to crash into Fiziev's range, suffocate him against the cage and force him to defend takedowns against by far the best grappler he's ever faced. Fiziev has to either crack dos Anjos early or force dos Anjos to chase him around the cage while he picks him apart, and make no mistake, he's absolutely good enough to pull it off. But I think dos Anjos can force him into a fight he's profoundly uncomfortable with, and I think dos Anjos can smother him with offense while Fiziev tries to make up the gap between bouts of being shoved back into the fence, and I think this fight ends in Rafael dos Anjos by decision.
CO-MAIN EVENT: THIS IS, APPARENTLY, A CO-MAIN EVENT
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Caio Borralho (11-1 (1)) vs Armen Petrosyan (7-1)
Yeah. This card kind of goes off a cliff real, real fast. Which is by no means intended to disrespect either of these fighters. They're both great! It should be a fine fight! But your co-main event is two unranked guys with a single UFC fight apiece, and boy, that's a weird choice. At least, it is until you see both guys are, try to contain your surprise, Contender Series superstars.
Caio Borralho, in fact, made his UFC debut in the co-main event of the deeply cursed Luque vs Muhammad 2, where he was easily dominating Russian wrestler Gadzhi Omargadzhiev right up until the point that he illegally kneed his face off and miraculously got away with a win by technical decision rather than a no contest or a straight-up disqualification. I can only assume Dana White wants to strap a rocket to this guy, as they're just re-doing it, giving him another co-main event slot against another Contender Series fighter on another ill-equipped television card.
In fairness: I get why. Borralho's a very promising all-around talent with some ultra-solid grappling that spans judo and jiu-jitsu alike, at 29 he's got plenty of years of promotion in his future, and at just one fight he's such a company man he already runs his own HOWLER HEAD WHISKY ads on instagram unasked. The only way he could be any closer to the UFC's ideal star is had he only been considerate enough to be born in Ireland instead of Brazil.
Armen Petrosyan is the source of my greatest failure in research. Giorgio Petrosyan is one of the greatest kickboxers in the history of the sport. His younger brother, Armen Petrosyan, is a slightly less celebrated but still widely decorated kickboxing champion. Both men hail from Yerevan, Armenia. When the UFC announced the signing of a championship kickboxer from Yerevan, Armenia named Armen Petrosyan, I assumed that could not possibly be a subset of details that could apply to multiple people.
I was wrong. They signed the other Armen Petrosyan.
And his debut was a little shaky. To be fair, they put him up against the almost inexplicably tough Gregory "Robocop" Rodrigues, a man who basically subsists on being punched in the face, but as a decorated championship kickboxer, one would hope Petrosyan would have a considerable edge. He showed off some quick hands and quicker kicks, but he also ate a plethora of hands, got taken down repeatedly, was nearly knocked out once, and got away with a split decision 2/3 of the media scores thought he should have lost.
For purposes of this fight, the key there is the "got taken down repeatedly" part. Gregory Rodrigues is unfathomably tough, but a fantastic wrestler he is not. Caio Borralho is a championship judoka who just finished a grappling clinic against a Sambo world champion. The UFC tried to give Borralho a big win once already and he screwed it up. With all respect in the world to Armen Petrosyan, who kicks very, very hard: This is their attempt to give Borralho another, easier highlight. Caio Borralho by submission.
MAIN CARD: SPEEDRUNNING CHASE SHERMAN'S FINAL UFC CONTRACT
BANTAMWEIGHT: Said Nurmagomedov (15-2) vs Douglas Silva de Andrade (28-4 (1))
See, this probably should have been the co-main event. This is a deeply interesting fight.
Much like our aforementioned Petrosyan paradox, Said Nurmagomedov, despite being a Nurmagomedov from Dagestan with championship wrestling credentials, is not in fact part of the extended Khabib universe. Said is a sizable -275 favorite as of this writing, and it's not hard to see why; he's 4-1 in the UFC, and his last two performances, in which he punched out Mark Striegl in fifty seconds and choked out Cody Stamann in forty-one, made him look like a goddamned monster. It's only that fight in the middle that weighs him down, a decision loss to Raoni Barcelos notable not just for his having lost, but for his having been comprehensively outfought and outgrappled.
There's no shame in losing to Raoni Barcelos, obviously, as he's one of the best. But when you're supposed to be notable for your wrestling, and you get outwrestled, it raises questions. Questions that might also make someone, say, rewatch your UFC debut and be reminded that you also got outgrappled and outstruck by Justin Scoggins for three rounds and inexplicably won a decision anyway. Someone might start to worry that you're habitually in trouble against fighters you can't physically bully.
And that's where Douglas Silva de Andrade comes in. Andrade gets regularly overlooked in the annals of the UFC thanks to an unimpressive-on-paper 6-4 record, and that is a mistake, because he's a loving monster. Douglas Silva de Andrade is a violence elemental. He throws most of his strikes like he wants to kill everyone three rows deep into the audience, but unlike his brawling peers, he mixes elbows, knees, double-legs and even suplexes into his offense to keep his opponents from adjusting. Marlon "Chito" Vera is a long-overlooked fighter currently collecting his long-overdue roses as one of the toughest, scrappiest fighters in the sport. Vera fought John Lineker, he fought Brad Pickett, he fought Sean O'Malley, he fought José goddamn Aldo, and out of all of those opponents, no one hurt him as badly as Douglas Silva de Andrade.
But the scariest thing about him is his unwillingness to stay down. In his last fight Sergey Morozov dropped him, mounted him, elbowed his face into hamburger, spinkicked his liver and nearly gouged out his eye, and Douglas Silva de Andrade took thirty seconds, got up, destroyed Morozov with knees and choked him unconscious. Lerone Murphy damaged his leg to the point that de Andrade could hardly stand, and de Andrade still nearly knocked him out. Petr Yan elbowed his face open, and Andrade's corner had to stop the fight for him because he wanted to fight some more.
Said Nurmagomedov is very, very good. But when I look at this match on paper, it feels bad for him. He likes quick takedowns, he likes physically bullying his opponents and he likes rushing, spinning attacks, and Andrade is a man no one's been able to bully unless they happened to be up an entire weight class. Endangering your base and range with spinning attacks gets very tricky against an aggressor like Andrade, and all of Said's success has come from fighting up close, which is Andrade's home.
Douglas Silva de Andrade gets a TKO. I think Said's going to get him on the ground early, I don't think he's going to be able to keep him there, and I think Andrade is going to wear him out and ultimately hurt him too badly to continue.
 HEAVYWEIGHT: Jared Vanderaa (12-8) vs Chase Sherman (15-10)
This might genuinely be the worst fight I've had to write up in my time in the fight mines. I've given it both forms of recognition because it's so bad that it kind of rolls all the way around to being incredible.
Jared Vanderaa and Chase Sherman, combined, have a UFC record of 4-13. Eight of those collective losses came by stoppage. Even more impressively, the four fighters felled by their mutual strength hold an almost identical collective UFC record of 4-14. This is how close the stakes are at heavyweight, where the greatest of athletes meet, and this is how great Vanderaa and Sherman are, that the two of them alone can do the work of four men.
...but it's mostly because this is Sherman's third UFC tenure. He was released for the second time back in January and rehired three months later because he was the only heavyweight willing to fight Alexandr Romanov and get destroyed on five minutes' notice. At the time, I wrote this:
Chase Sherman got submitted in two minutes for $15,000 in guaranteed money. The UFC gave him another $11k as a thank-you. The life of a heavyweight is a difficult one.
And no one knows that difficulty like Jared Vanderaa. The two-time heavyweight champion of South Africa--a good accomplishment for a guy from Hemet, home of the headquarters of Scientology--Vanderaa emerged in the UFC in 2021 as a promising 11-4 prospect and went on to quickly and immediately distinguish himself as Very Much Not That, getting immediately punched into dust by multiple people and managing only one hard-fought win over the legendary 5-3 Justin Tafa thanks to his habit of awkward, lumbering punches.
But here's the truly annoying thing about Jared Vanderaa: Somewhere inside, he's not that bad. Every once in awhile he'll get a good combination, or he'll really flummox an opponent with front kicks, or he'll bowl someone over with brute loving strength. But it inevitably slips. He tried to stop Alexandr Romanov's suplexes by punching him in his closed hands. He tried to counter Andrei Arlovski's boxing with leg kicks. In the biggest opportunity of his career, he dropped Aleksei Oleinik with strikes, looked down at the legendary grappler with more submission victories than most fighters have years on the planet he'd just effortlessly outstruck, and decided, "today, I am a grappler," and was submitted shortly thereafter.
Neither fighter, realistically, belongs in the UFC. Heavyweight, realistically, barely belongs in the UFC. It is only by the grace of having found one another at this specific moment in history that they can justify their contract. Jared Vanderaa wins by decision and we all have to live with the knowledge that the UFC typically signs three-fight contracts and we have to see Chase Sherman at least one more time.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Aiemann Zahabi (8-2) vs Ricky Turcios (11-2)
Aiemann Zahabi has been fighting in the UFC for five years, and you're probably still looking at his name and thinking about Firas Zahabi instead. You may not even remember where you heard the name. Firas is the head of Tristar, the gym that can claim at least half-responsibility for championship-era Georges St-Pierre; Aiemann is his younger brother. And he's by no means bad, he's got the Tristar inventory of a decent jab, some textbook combination striking and a tricky double-leg when he needs it, but despite the length of his UFC tenure he's only fought four times and he's 2-2 over the course of it. He tends to slip through the cracks, and then every once in awhile he resurfaces and people go "oh, right, that guy."
"Pretty" Ricky Turcios is the bantamweight champion of The Ultimate Fighter 29: The Return of the Ultimate Fighter, a project so successful that no one remembers it happened. Even as a giant fight nerd, when I thought about Ricky Turcios, the only thing I remembered off the top of my head was his beautiful, lustrous pseudo-mullet. His championship fight against Brady Hiestand was a lot of fun: A back-and-forth brawl that saw Turcios showing off a ton of active aggression and an unwillingness to ever stay on his back, alongside some effective clinch striking.
Ricky Turcios gets a decision. Zahabi's fairly defensively sound and I don't think Turcios is going to be able to get him out of there, but his pressure is a perfect counter to Zahabi's more thoughtful offense and should stifle his gameplan.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Michael Johnson (20-17) vs Jamie Mullarkey (14-5)
I picked against Michael Johnson in his last fight. In hindsight, I think I just wanted the Michael Johnson story to be over.
Michael Johnson could have been a lightweight champion. His wrestling is solid, his hands are fast, he carries shocking knockout power when he lands cleanly, and it shows, because he beat some of the best fighters in the sport. He beat Edson Barboza, he beat Tony Ferguson, he's one of two men to ever knock out Dustin Poirier and the other was Conor McGregor. Michael Johnson welcomed Justin Gaethje to the UFC and very nearly punched him out. He has some genuinely incredible feathers in his cap.
He also has a UFC record of 12-13. He's lost four of his last thirteen fights. He got knocked out at featherweight and lost a decision to Clay Guida in the year 2021. His last fight was against the similarly inconsistent Alan Patrick, and he won, but he almost got knocked out twice in the process. When he's focused and composed, Michael Johnson has some of the most terrifying hands in the sport. But those moments are fleeting, and his attempts to capitalize on them cost him more often than they pay dividends.
And that makes Jamie Mullarkey an oddly good matchup for him. Aside from looking like an alternate-universe Ed Begley Jr., Jamie Mullarkey is a brawler through and through, to the point that he made himself (fight) famous in his UFC debut by engaging in a brawl with Brad Riddell so violent and protracted that by the end of it both men, unable to stand, were swinging at each other from their knees.
That's cool! That's a thing that makes you very memorable and desirable from a booking perspective! That is not a thing that lends itself to long, successful careers. Jamie Mullarkey has rounded abilities and can wrestle reasonably well, but he eschews a focus on it in favor of slinging leather, and consequently even when he wins he tends to catch a beating first, and now he's 2-3 in the UFC and getting the "we're not sure what to do with you" matchmaking.
That said: Jamie Mullarkey should win this fight by knockout. Mullarkey has a chin and a half, he's aggressive enough to pen Michael Johnson up, and he should, by all sensible logic, be able to outpace Johnson with his combinations and take him out like so many others before him. It's also entirely feasible that Johnson decides he's having one of his good nights and sparkeys Mullarkey with a single punch. But I'd bet on the former.
PRELIMS: FLAILING MULLETS AND AMATEUR REMATCHES
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Cody Brundage (7-2) vs Tresean Gore (3-1)
I will continue to insist that Cody Brundage is a coward for every appearance he makes in which his nickname is not "Brundrage." Brundage is an I-can't-believe-it's-not-Team-Alpha-Male throwback: A stocky wrestleboxer (with a decent calf kick, though) with a terribly powerful guillotine choke, which was evidenced in his last fight as Dalcha Lungiambula punched him stupid and while seconds away from a stoppage made the lamentable choice to shoot a naked double-leg instead and got immediately choked out.
Tresean "Mr. Vicious" Gore was the odds-on favorite to win TUF 29's middleweight division, but a knee injury forced him out of the finals and allowed Bryan Battle to take the title in his absence. This led to Gore's UFC debut this past February in an unofficial score-settling pseudo-final notable less for crowning the real winner of a TUF nobody watched than for carrying the super-cool headline BATTLE VS GORE, but Gore's own wrestleboxing ultimately could not stop the pressure striking and relentless single-legs of Battle.
And thus, we have wrestleboxer vs wrestleboxer. The oddsmakers have this as a dead-even pick 'em and that seems just about right--their skillsets are similar and while Gore seems like the more powerful fighter, he's also an unproven 3-1 rookie. I'm still going with Tresean Gore by decision. Brundage is hittable and the Nick Maximov fight showed a weakness against heavy takedown attacks in the clinch, and Gore very much has the ability to walk him to the cage and force him to defend both pocket strikes and clinch takedowns simultaneously.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Antonina Shevchenko (9-4) vs Cortney Casey (10-9)
This, too, is a fight that is happening. I cannot imagine how strange it must feel to be Antonina Shevchenko. Fighters in the shadow of their better-known siblings is by no means a new phenomenon, but Antonina's entire style is, itself, a slightly lesser imitation of her sister's. She likes long punches, kicks with the ball of her foot, hunts religiously for armbars from the bottom and the crucifix from the top, and loses split decisions to Roxanne Modafferi. Antonina is tough as hell and has never been an easy victory for any of her opponents, but her 3-4 record in the UFC belies the trouble she's had with top-tier competition.
Cortney Casey, unfortunately, has traditionally not been top-tier competition. She's a frustrating fighter to watch, as her skills are very visible--she's got quick and deceptively stinging striking and mixes her attacks very well, her takedown defense isn't great but her defensive grappling is tricky and dangerous--but she has the deeply deleterious combination of not being able to capitalize on the openings she creates to finish fights and having a back-and-forth countering style that tends to deeply displease judges. Casey's 6-8 UFC record has four separate split decisions on it that could easily have gone the other way (although one of those was a win for Casey that should arguably have gone to Angela Hill), meaning but for the whims of Sal D'Amato, Cortney Casey could very realistically be 9-5 and her place in the division could be very, very different.
This is a much better fight than it looks on paper. Shevchenko is the heavier hitter and her clinch strikes could easily give Casey trouble, but she also has historical problems with fighters she can't dictate the pace against, and Casey's darting attacks on the feet are problematic for Antonina's kicking game. I think she could easily take Casey down, but keeping her there is a different story. I'm going to break with the betting odds on this one and pick Cortney Casey by decision.
FEATHERWEIGHT: David Onama (9-1) vs Garrett Armfield (8-2)
This has become something of a coming-out party for David Onama. He already carried a significant amount of prospect hype, an undefeated power-puncher from Uganda who head trainer James Krause cited as a future champion, and while he lost his UFC debut, he put up a comprehensive and challenging fight against a more experienced Mason Jones and earned more fans in the process. His followup being a one-sided blowout in which he knocked out Gabriel Benítez with an 82-punch combo didn't hurt.
He was going to fight Austin Lingo up until a week before the card. His replacement, making his short-notice UFC debut, is Garrett Armfield, a Kill Cliff FC product who went pro in 2018 after losing his sixth and final amateur bout to, uh...David Onama.
Also he fights at bantamweight.
So he's going up a weight class on one week's notice to fight a guy who already resoundingly beat him once.
David Onama by TKO.
LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Kennedy Nzechukwu (9-3) vs Karl Roberson (9-5)
This is quite possibly our housecleaning fight for the night, and it's a shame, because both guys have fallen an awful long way.
Kennedy Nzechukwu, who I am not going to refer to as "The African Savage" no matter how much the UFC wants me to because jesus christ, was an early Contender Series product whose punching power, surprising kicks and 83" reach had him marked as a potential contender. And then he fought. Getting tapped out by Paul Craig happens to a surprising number of people, but even in his victories he would get lit up and barely survive. As of now he's an even 3-3 in the UFC and coming off two straight losses, the latter of which could potentially have been a win had he not had a point deducted for repeated eyepokes.
Karl Roberson is a similarly embattled UFC fixture. A pickup from the third-ever week of the Contender Series, Roberson's aggressive clinch striking and grappling assaults got him out to a very impressive 5-0 career start, including a one-round blitzing of Cage Warriors top contender Darren Stewart, but after getting outmuscled and out-choked by Cezar Ferreira and future champion Glover Teixeira, Roberson dropped down to middleweight to maximize his size advantage. He proceeded to go an incredible 2-2 at the class, including the ignominy of being Marvin Vettori's only stoppage win since 2016.
And then he went back to light-heavyweight and got immediately knocked out. He's still here, and now he's fighting a guy with 9" of reach and a massive knockout power advantage over him. It's not a great plan. Kennedy Nzechukwu by KO.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Ronnie Lawrence (8-1) vs Saidyokub Kakhramonov (9-2)
I'm thoroughly looking forward to this. Ronnie "The Heat" Lawrence is a high-speed, high-amplitude wrestler who has violently shaken up the wrestleboxing paradigm with the addition of these strange, unearthly striking techniques known as "kicks." Saidyokub Kakhramanov made his debut back in August as a four-days-notice replacement fighter against the genuinely tough Trevin Jones, whom he proceeded to outlast, outgrapple and ultimately submit--which is even more impressive when you learn he was in Uzbekistan when he got the fight and had to fly across the world, do promos, cut weight and fight in 96 hours.
There's an extremely interesting stylistic matchup here. Ronnie Lawrence showed off some amazing wrestling skills (and some less amazing but still pretty good striking) in his debut against Mana Martinez, and Kakhramonov showed a vulnerability against wrestling, but he also showed a vicious countergrappling game, a plethora of dangerous chokes and punishing, gas-sapping attacks whenever he had the opportunity.
Anything could happen on this one if one of them gives the other an opening. I'm going with Ronnie Lawrence by decision but it should be a tough, tough matchup.
Broadcast starts an hour form this post, but with the cancellation there'll probably be 15-20 minutes of filling time.
CarlCX fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Jul 9, 2022
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Jul 9, 2022 22:04
