- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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Prelims got bumped back half an hour after Maverick/Young was canceled yesterday.
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 29: YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN
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We have a welterweight championship match that's just predicated on the champion fighting the absurdly clear #1 contender. I think the last time that happened, Kamaru Usman won the drat thing. But it's okay, because the UFC knows how weird it makes us feel when they do logical matchmaking, so the co-main event is an important middleweight contender fight between a guy who can't make middleweight and a guy whose last fight was three years ago at light-heavyweight and it's only happening because of the power of internet memes about how they're fancy, handsome boys. It's a card full of weirdly interesting fights, and I am here for it.
a couple of these fights just stick way the hell out
MAIN EVENT: IT'S DISARMING WHEN THE SPORT IS A SPORT
WELTERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Kamaru Usman (20-1, Champion) vs Leon Edwards (19-3 (1), #2)
Welterweight was, for a long time, the UFC's premier division. Chuck Liddell may have ruled the roost during the UFC's mainstream break, but Matt Hughes was the UFC's dominant champion posterboy, and from his ashes rose Georges St-Pierre, one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time. They made welterweight a must-see division based in no small part on their stability: While the heavyweight, light-heavyweight and even lightweight championships were hot-potatoing their way around the company, Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre were reliable constants of the sport, steadily meeting and defeating the best contenders the world had to offer them.
And then things at welterweight got weird. For, like, a long time. Johny Hendricks debatably beat GSP but lost a split decision, GSP retired, Hendricks won the belt and immediately dropped it to Robbie Lawler, who put in two all-timer defenses before getting crushed by Tyron Woodley, who proceeded to have one of the most maligned reigns in the division's history--two incredibly tedious fights with Stephen Thompson, the first a draw, a stinker against Demian Maia that was mostly a progressively more exhausted Maia shooting useless takedowns and getting sprawled on (Maia went 0 for 21 on takedown attempts and that's not counting at least four more, it's genuinely impressive), and one destruction of Darren Till, whom the UFC really, really wanted to win. Management hated Woodley, the fans hated Woodley--unfairly, in my opinion, but all the same--and matters were made worse by the UFC coining interim champion Colby Covington only to then pass him by in favor of Till and simply take his belt away. The premier division hadn't had a stable fanbase in six years.
And that's how Kamaru Usman came to power. A crushing, dominating wrestler who was virtually undefeated--his sole loss having come in his second fight, just months into his career--Usman joined the UFC through the in hindsight hilarious twenty-first season of The Ultimate Fighter, pitting training supercamp American Top Team against The Blackzilians, a camp composed of fighters who'd all splintered off from ATT and whose name came from the realization that every single one of them was either black or Brazilian. At the time, they were an exciting camp with some of the most promising fighters in the world and were seen as a potential championship factory, and their future only seemed brighter after Usman, their star performer, won the tournament.
Within 18 months the Blackzilians would shut down completely, split apart by clashes over ego, money and responsibility. Founder Glenn Robinson swore they would return stronger than ever; within a year he had a heart attack and died. Mixed martial arts is fast and cruel. Kamaru Usman, stylistically, was neither. He was an eminently patient fighter, content to fire long jabs and crosses before effortlessly slamming his opponents to the floor and manhandling them. From power strikers like Emil Meek to supergrapplers like Demian Maia to all-around apex predators like Rafael dos Anjos, Usman disarmed and dominated everyone put in front of him. He'd won TUF in 2015; by the beginning of 2019 he was on a nine-fight winning streak and the clear top contender for Tyron Woodley. He outstruck him 336 to 60. The torch was passed. And welterweight was saved, with a dominant champion fighting the best of the best, and everything was fine forever.
Right?
The millstone around Kamaru Usman's reign isn't his skills, it's the UFC. Where Matt Hughes and Georges St-Pierre made their names on a rotation of credible top contenders, the UFC, given a vital and multifaceted welterweight division with a number of interesting challengers chose to, for the most part, ignore them. Former interim champion Colby Covington was a logical first defense for Usman, and after Usman knocked him out that should have cleared the field. Instead, the UFC's promotional darling Jorge Masvidal, fresh off a victory over a Nate Diaz who'd only had one fight in three years, got his shot. Gilbert Burns was a brief breath of fresh air--and then Colby Covington, having won exactly one fight since his title shot, got another one by virtue of being a loud, racist rear end in a top hat. And then Jorge Masvidal, having had exactly zero fights since his title shot, got another one by virtue of the UFC really, really wanting him to be the champion.
Kamaru Usman is an exceptional fighter. He was already one of the best in the world in 2015, and unlike many of his peers, he has steadily, visibly improved with every fight. But the UFC's own attempts to beat their chests and call him the greatest welterweight of all time are stymied by the fact that, thanks to their own terrible matchmaking, his entire title reign has consisted of three people. And the UFC has kneecapped his challengers by forcing them to spin their wheels, quietly knocking each other off on undercards while Colby Covington paid women to touch him while he cut promos about beta males.
No one has been buried by this quite like Leon "Rocky" Edwards. British by way of Jamaica, Edwards has one of the classic stories in martial arts--come from bad circumstances, lose a parent to gang violence, nearly die thanks to his own cyclical involvement in gang violence, break the cycle by discovering MMA and never look back. He's one of the best examples of the post-mainstream generation of mixed martial artist: Not a grappler struggling with boxing, not a karateka who learned how to do armbars, but a fighter trained from the very beginning of his career to do everything.
And he's really, really good at everything. His kickboxing is smooth, accurate and deadly, his clinch grappling stymies people who on paper should ragdoll him, and on the rare occasions he's been taken down, his bottom game has been surprisingly active. He was a standout in his native Birmingham knocking out local superstars like Wendle "Nice Guy" Lewis and "The Disgrace" Shaun Taylor--before you google it to double-check, yes, they're real, and no, I just thought the names were funny--and was the only welterweight champion of the defunct but highly influential British Association of Mixed Martial Arts before, like so many regional champions (including six more of BAMMA's own), leaving his belt behind to sign with the UFC as a 7-1 prospect.
In a sign of the friction to come: He lost, sort of. He had already "lost, sort of" once, the sole blemish on his record a disqualification after firing off an illegal knee three fights into his career, but his UFC debut came against the deeply underrated Cláudio Silva, and despite most MMA media giving him the decision, he lost a very close split. He was apparently fairly upset about this, as in his next fight out he recorded the third-fastest knockout in UFC history with a one-punch, 8-second flooring of the Polish Pistola himself, Seth Baczynski. But just two fights later, Edwards took the first unequivocal, indisputable loss of his career:
A 29-28 unanimous decision loss to the just-crowned TUF 21 champion making his post-tournament debut, Kamaru Usman.
Edwards was incensed. Edwards really, really didn't want to lose again. Thus: He didn't. Over the next seven years, Leon Edwards trashed everyone the UFC put in front of him. Ranked fighters, unranked fighters, top contenders, Bryan Barberena, Edwards rattled off eight straight victories without batting an eye. And then he disappeared for two years.
Here's the thing: The UFC has never liked Leon Edwards. He's never had great matchmaking, he's never had a promotional push, the UFC visibly wanted Donald Cerrone to pole-vault to a title shot off of him. At the same time that Leon Edwards, a former British champion with a stellar record and a ton of credibility was right there, the UFC decided to strap a rocket to Darren Till in the hopes of creating a British star, to the extent that coming off of his main event victory over Cerrone, Leon Edwards was in his next appearance demoted to co-main event status, under Darren Till, who had just lost in his attempt at the championship. And when Jorge Masvidal suckerpunched Leon Edwards backstage after the fight, the UFC not only declined to take action against him, they made it an integral part of the marketing for his push to a title shot.
And at the same time that Jorge Masvidal was getting pushed to the belt, Leon Edwards, now on an eight-fight streak, was put on the shelf. For two years. Because the UFC wanted to use him as a stepping stone for their new star, Khamzat Chimaev, but Chimaev had COVID and was suffering so badly that, after rescheduling the fight three times, he temporarily retired. Ever-valuing Edwards, the UFC gave him the toughest matchup they could, the dominating wrestler Belal Muhammad, and despite nearly knocking Muhammad out in the first round, an eyepoke turned the fight into a no-contest. So the UFC, left with Leon Edwards as the top contender whether they liked it or not, did the only thing that made sense:
They had him fight the unranked, semi-retired Nate Diaz.
After once again winning a stupid, unnecessary fight, having now not lost in ten fights and six years, and with literally no other available contenders at welterweight, the UFC booked Leon Edwards to fight Jorge Masvidal, who was coming off three straight losses and two unsuccessful championship bouts, in the hopes that they could throw one last roadblock in his way and get their favorite fighter back in the title picture, and we were spared only because Masvidal got injured.
I spent a long time saying all of that, so let me say it again, but shorter: The crystal-clear #1 contender in the division, who beat a half-dozen contenders on his way up the ladder, who went undefeated for most of a decade, only got his shot at the championship because he beat a retired Nate Diaz and then Jorge Masvidal hurt himself.
This fight should have happened three years ago. Leon Edwards was at worst the #2 contender when Kamaru Usman won the belt back in 2019. If Jorge Masvidal hadn't gotten himself arrested for suckerpunching Colby Covington at a loving steakhouse, they would almost certainly have rebooked them and it STILL wouldn't be happening.
But, despite all promotional attempts to the contrary, we are here. Kamaru Usman has broken free from the Bermuda Triangle and is fighting the traditionally-tested #1 contender in his division. What happens now?
It's an interesting fight. The betting odds are about as clear as you'd expect from a dominant champion vs an undermarketed contender--as of this writing, Usman's at -400 and Edwards is +300--but I think that undersells how competitive this could be. As much as people hype Masvidal, Leon Edwards is the stiffest striking threat Usman's faced in a long time. He's laser-accurate and massively dangerous early in the fight, which is when Usman tends to be at his most vulnerable, and moreover, he's the first opponent Usman's faced in almost five years with a size advantage; their reach is about even, but Usman's always relied on the length of his jab to establish his range. Edwards is also very good, early in the fight, at fighting off clinch grappling and even controlling exchanges with superior grapplers. His game is, and has always been, underrated.
But I keep emphasizing "early in the fight" for a reason. The biggest patch on Leon Edwards has never been his style, but rather, his staying power. Vicente Luque, Bryan Barberena, Donald Cerrone, even against Nate goddamn Diaz, Leon Edwards can dominate every aspect of the first 75% of a fight and look absolutely lost in the last 25%. He gets tired, his composure slips, and suddenly he's on roller skates trying not to get knocked out. If Nate Diaz had chosen to keep punching Leon Edwards rather than posing and giving him the finger, he could very well have stopped him and become the #1 contender to the welterweight championship of the world, but asking a Diaz to choose wisdom is like asking a waterfall to flow into the sky.
That's our divergence point. If Leon Edwards is going to win this fight, it's happening in the first two and a half rounds. Unless he's radically altered the way he prepares both physically and mentally, by the midway point of the fight he's going to be falling off, and Kamaru Usman has shown a willingness to get even more intense in championship rounds, as Colby Covington's jaw can attest.
But primarily: I don't bet against Kamaru Usman. Kamaru Usman by TKO in the fourth or fifth.
CO-MAIN EVENT: SUNRISE, SUNSET
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Paulo Costa (13-2, #6) vs Luke Rockhold (16-5, NR)
This is, quite possibly, the funniest fight the UFC will put on all year. Possibly in multiple years. Paulo Costa and Luke Rockhold are both living proof that the surest way to success in this sport is looking like a human action figure and we're going to have to tell several tales of meteoric rises and falls to get to the bottom of this one.
Paulo Costa came straight out of Jungle Fight, the long-enduring regional promotion in Brazil that helped introduce the world to people like Gabriel Gonzaga, Fabrício Werdum, Lyoto Machida and even Shinsuke Nakamura. Costa, a musclebound punching machine who theoretically has a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu but virtually never uses it in favor of just punching people until they stop moving, got off to a perfect 8-0 start en route to becoming Jungle Fight's middleweight champion and, fulfilling the primary duty of a regional champion, immediately tossed the belt and left for the UFC, and what followed was a remarkably fortunate road to title contention. Paulo Costa rifled off four wins across four straight knockouts, and that's very impressive, but on closer examination those victims were Garreth McLellan, who retired one fight later, Oluwale Bamgbose, who retired one fight later, Johny Hendricks, who could no longer make the welterweight limit, was massively outsized and who retired from MMA immediately, and Uriah Hall, one of the most pressure-sensitive fighters the UFC has ever seen.
But his luckiest break came in his title eliminator with Yoel Romero--a terrifying, age-defying Olympic silver medalist wrestler who'd beaten five world champions and very, very nearly gotten a sixth against Robert Whittaker thanks to his combination of speed, power, and the ever-present threat of nearly unstoppable takedowns. What people forget, however, is Yoel Romero is also a crazy person, and thus decided to forego his wrestling almost entirely in favor of standing and trading with the striker. The result was a razor-close fight that had media scores split an absolutely perfect 50/50 down the middle, and the consequent coinflip split decision went Paulo's way. Just two years into his UFC career he was 5-0 in the company, 13-0 overall, and had punched his ticket to a shot at the hottest rising star in the sport, champion Israel Adesanya. Two young, undefeated bruisers would do battle, the poo poo-talk from Costa's camp was unstoppable, and everyone was prepared for hotly contested fight.
And it, uh, was not that. In what would still be considered the worst championship fight performance of the modern era were it not for the dadaist masterpiece that was Namajunas/Esparza 2, Paulo Costa poo poo the best entirely, landing nothing of consequence, getting easily and repeatedly ducked and countered, taunting constantly only to get hit every single time while firing nothing back, and ultimately, getting knocked out in two rounds after being outstruck at a 5:1 ratio. And then, as payback for his homophobic poo poo-talk, Adesanya dry-humped him before walking away. While a devastating loss, many top fighters have taken devastating losses and returned to prominence. A devastating loss alone does not a career ruin.
And then Costa demanded an immediate rematch with Adesanya, whom he claimed was ducking him. And then he cancelled two fights claiming injury, only to have it turn out he had, in fact, been getting hairplugs. And then, most infamously, he got on-schedule for his return fight against top middleweight contender Marvin Vettori only to announced, three days before the fight, that he wasn't going to make the 185-pound middleweight limit and the fight would need to be at 190. Later that day, he changed his mind, said it wasn't enough, and that Vettori needed to agree to 195 or he was a coward. A day later, Costa announced he wasn't going to bother trying to make 195, and the fight needed to be at the light-heavyweight limit of 205 pounds. An exasperated Vettori agreed one final time and then proceeded to punch Costa in the head 154 times, winning a wide decision and leading Dana White to proclaim Costa would never be allowed to fight at middleweight again.
And yet, here we are.
Luke Rockhold has never had a nickname. His career origins are almost comically on the nose for the aloof yet high-achieving career he would have: The son of a professional basketball player and a tennis player, from a long lineage of surfers and beach bums, he took judo as a child, got bored, stopped, went to high school, smoked a bunch of weed, walked onto the wrestling team and immediately became one of its best athletes, stopped, became a jiu-jitsu black belt, won some tournaments, stopped, walked into the American Kickboxing Academy having never done a striking martial art in his life and immediately got the attention of their coaches as one of the hardest kickers they've ever seen. Also, in mid-career he signed up with a modeling agency, having never done any work in the field before, and immediately became a repeatedly-booked fashion model and an advertising face for Ralph Lauren. Oh, and he dated Demi Lovato.
Boy, sometimes life doesn't seem fair, does it?
It's hard to overstate just how smooth Luke Rockhold could look as a fighter. His wrestling was deceptively quick, his submission grappling was crushing, his irritatingly long legs allowed for some absolutely crushing kicks to the body and his quick, darting backsteps let him slip out of the way of incoming offense. He ragdolled wrestlers, out-kicked kickboxers, and just eight fights into his career he was the Strikeforce middleweight champion after neutralizing the jiu-jitsu of Ronaldo "Jacaré" Souza, one of the best middleweight fighters in the sport and one of the best grapplers on the entire planet. He'd go on to defend his title against Tim Kennedy and Keith Jardine--don't ask why Keith Jardine was getting title shots in 2012, it was a weird time for the sport--before Strikeforce was folded into the UFC. He was considered a potential title contender to Anderson Silva, but first the UFC wanted him to fight a resurging legend in Vitor Belfort, who at the time was on so many steroids it would make Amir Aliakbari blush, and a spinning heel kick to the dome ended Rockhold's 9-fight winning streak in dramatic fashion, and with it, his UFC title hopes.
At least it did for, like, five minutes. Six months later Rockhold was right back to his winning ways and was crushing everyone he fought, culminating in a string of three fantastic submissions that included a guillotine over Michael Bisping and a rear-naked choke over Lyoto Machida, and, finally, two years after it was originally intended, Rockhold got his shot at new king of the middleweight mountain Chris Weidman. He made the most of it, handing Weidman such a horrifying beating that many to this day wonder if it permanently ruined his career. A rematch was slated for June of 2016, but two weeks before the fight Weidman herniated a disc in his back and was replaced by last-minute substitute Michael Bisping. Maybe it was Rockhold being cocky, maybe it was Bisping having improved, maybe it was payback for his luck, but Bisping knocked Rockhold out in the first round and became the first (and as of now, only) British UFC champion. A rematch to round out their trilogy seemed inevitable--and, being one of the smartest champions, Bisping refused it and in fact refused all of the vital, interesting contenders at middleweight in favor of a grudge match with a retiring, 46 year-old Dan Henderson.
And that started the downslide. First Rockhold missed a year with an injury, then he got knocked stupid by late-replacement Yoel Romero in what was supposed to be a fight against Robert Whittaker, and then he missed another year with leg injuries, and then he moved up to light-heavyweight because cutting weight was too difficult, and then in his 205-pound debut he was once again knocked out by future champion Jan Błachowicz, and then he missed two years thanks to COVID and a herniated disc. Luke Rockhold hadn't won a fight against a top contender since 2015, and he hadn't fought at all since 2019, and he apparently wasn't capable of fighting at his weight class anymore, and one of the most fascinating careers in MMA seemed to have ended quietly in the shadows.
And yet, here we are.
Luke Rockhold vs Paulo Costa. This is an aggressively silly fight. Paulo Costa is the #6 ranked fighter in a weight class his promoter banned him from attempting to make. Luke Rockhold is unranked and hasn't won a fight at middleweight, or any other weight class, since 2017. This could, very realistically, be a title eliminator anyway. Israel Adesanya is booked against Alex Pereira, but if Izzy wins, that leaves a top ten where he'll have already beaten everyone in the top 6 and no one below has made a case for contendership--meaning the one and only fighter in the top ten with any momentum whatsoever will be the winner of Paulo loving Costa vs Luke loving Rockhold.
It's almost pointless to even try to pick apart the technique battle here. Who is Paulo Costa in a post-"I can't make weight, fight me at heavyweight or you're a wimp" world? Who is Luke Rockhold as a fighter when he hasn't actually made middleweight since Black Panther was new and exciting? I can tell you that Rockhold was always good at catching pressure punchers with takedowns and body attacks and that Paulo Costa's weakness for strong kicking games seems like a massive problem on paper, but in practice, it's fully conceivable Rockhold's legs don't even work anymore. Are they still there? Have you seen them in the last three years? Did he sell his own kneecaps to give money to the #freecain legal fund?
This fight isn't going to make any sense until it happens, and there's a real good chance it won't really make much more sense after it's done. But I'm rooting for Luke Rockhold by submission, because the idea of Israel Adesanya vs Luke Rockhold for a world championship in 2023 is so god damned stupid that I have to use every erg of power in my body to will it into existence.
MAIN CARD: THE HUNSUCKER PROXY
BANTAMWEIGHT: José Aldo (31-7, #3) vs Merab Dvalishvili (14-4, #6)
What, in 2022, can you the gently caress say about José Aldo? Greatest-of-all-time discussions tend to happen in retrospect, or when fighters are in the twilight of their careers and fans want to look back to better days; José Aldo won his first world championship almost thirteen years ago, when he was 22, and he held onto it for six years, and in the six years since then he's challenged for two more. Outside of his rookie year as a competitor he has six losses, and every single one of them was to a world champion, and one of them was a split decision he debatably won, and the others saw him giving best-in-class greats like Petr Yan and Max Holloway fits before they eventually cracked him.
What can you say? He's José Aldo. He's been a top contender in the sport since George W. Bush was in office. He's faced some of the best wrestlers in the history of the sport and only given up ten takedowns in his last thirty fights. He's not just defeated but dominated top contenders and world champions across three separate weight classes. He kills people with flying knees and breaks livers with fantastic boxing and his kicks are so ludicrously violent that Urijah Faber fought him in 2010 and still gets leg pains to this day. He's somehow still underrated even to this day, and it's a testament that when nearly all of his peers from those halcyon days are retired or in the process of retiring, José Aldo is fighting in what will almost certainly determine who's on deck for a shot at the champion.
And then, we have Merab Dvalishvili. A master of sport and world champion in Combat Sambo, a regional bantamweight champion out of the deeply intense New Jersey fight scene, a competitor known as much for his almost unbelievable toughness as his grappling supremacy, Merab joined the UFC back in 2017 and, uh, repeatedly lost in weird fashion. First it was a split decision against Frankie Saenz that 70% of the media thought he won, and second, in what remains one of the most bizarre fight endings I've ever seen, Merab won every round of a fight against the absurdly tough Ricky Simón but ended the fight trapped in a guillotine choke, and he made it to the final bell and should theoretically have won a clear decision, but the referee retroactively decided that he had been unconscious and awarded the fight to Ricky.
In other words: Merab Dvalishvili should probably be undefeated in the UFC. But just to make sure, he put absolute clinics on his opponents after that point, winning his next six fights by extremely clear decisions and, for good measure, overcoming an early knockdown against Marlon Moraes and rallying back to TKO him--after punching him in the god damned head 224 times in just two rounds. Merab has never looked invulnerable, he's been caught many times, but his strength isn't in invulnerability but rather his ability to win no matter how hurt he is. His more accurate record would be 16-2, his only losses coming in his first and third-ever fights, and every fighter who's ever put him in trouble has paid for it in blood.
Having laid all of that praise upon him: José Aldo by TKO. This is a bad, bad matchup for Merab. His successes come from the mixture of his insane toughness in the face of adversity and his ability to rattle his opponents by forcing them to either worry about his wrestling or get taken down. Aldo is notoriously one of the toughest men not just to take down but to KEEP down in mixed martial arts, and not only is his striking much sharper than Merab's, he's got some of the best killer instincts in the sport. Merab can't let Aldo clip him and survive the way he has against so many other fighters. And I don't think Aldo's going to give him the choice.
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Wu Yanan (12-5) vs Lucie Pudilová (13-7)
This is a weird fight. It's a housecleaning fight, but it's a housecleaning fight where there's a good chance neither fighter should be here.
Lucie Pudilová is making her UFC re-debut. She came to the UFC as a promising 6-1 bantamweight back in 2016 with a penchant for long right hands and lots of circling; she was released in 2020 after going 2-5, and one of those wins was a shaky decision over the perennially-screwed Ji Yeon Kim. She went home to her native Czech Republic and its OKTAGON promotion and racked up an on-paper respectable 5-1 record, so I get the UFC giving her a second look, but, uh, she doesn't look like she's improved all that much, and the only woman she lost to was also, coincidentally, the only one who'd reached the UFC before--from which she also got released after three losses.
Yanan Wu...she tries, man. She's very tough, she's only been finished once in her career, and unlike many of her peers she has fully grasped that throwing strikes in combinations is a good, sensible thing you should do as often as possible. But she's just not very good at it. She swings wildly and inaccurately, when she does get takedowns she has a lot of trouble holding position, she's 1-4 in the UFC and she's consistently outstruck, outwrestled and outgrappled by people at considerable size and experience disadvantages. And that's the dark secret of being a regional fighter: Most of Wu's experience, with all of the respect in the world to anyone who fights, isn't worth a lot. 13-5 is an impressive record on paper: In practice, eleven of her victories came against fighters with 0 wins. If you count Bo Meng, who had 1 win at the time, it's twelve. Yanan Wu's record against opponents with more than one victory is 1-5, and Lauren Mueller, said victim, is currently 5-4.
I don't think either of them is long for the UFC, but I think Lucie's straight counters and footwork are still enough for fifteen minutes of effective kiting, and that means Wu leaves first. Lucie Pudilová by decision.
LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Tyson Pedro (8-3) vs Harry Hunsucker (7-5)
I have no idea who's representing Tyson Pedro, but every fighter in the UFC needs to call them. "Star Boy" was something of a name back in 2017--a charismatic Australian brawler-grappler with a 6-0 record and UFC wins over Khalil Rountree and Paul Craig that have subsequently aged very, very well, but a 1-3 skid under the spotlight and the dual struggles of injuries and the COVID pandemic left him on the shelf for almost four years. After that kind of hiatus, the UFC tends to throw oddly stiff matchups at people, almost as if exacting some form of punishment--instead they gave him Ike Villanueva, one of the UFC's statistically worst fighters, and Pedro dusted him in one round (and kicked him in the dick twice). Having returned and re-established himself, you would think now is the time for a competitor who can gauge where Tyson Pedro really is in 2022.
But he's not getting that. He's getting Harry Hunsucker, who is, once again, one of the UFC's statistically worst fighters. Hunsucker is 0-2 under the promotion's banner, signed solely because he served as a last-minute replacement for Don'Tale Mayes back in early 2021. He got his shot at the Contender Series: He lost. He has not only been knocked out in the first round of all two (or three, if you count said Contender Series appearance) of his fights, his UFC average as of now is 3.5 strikes landed per fight. As if to thoroughly underline the extremely clear intentions of this fight, Hunsucker's two UFC losses were against fellow Australians Tai Tuivasa and Justin Tafa. Harry Hunsucker is a jobber to the Australian stars.
There are times the UFC is subtle: This is not one of them. Tyson Pedro is a -800 favorite: He should be. Tyson Pedro by KO. If he CAN'T put Harry "The Hurricane" Hunsucker away, he should consider returning to semi-retirement.
PRELIMS: LARGE MAN WRESTLING TIMES
HEAVYWEIGHT: Marcin Tybura (22-7, #11) vs Alexandr Romanov (16-0, #13)
Marcin Tybura is trying very hard not to become a gatekeeper. He's actually midway through his seventh year in the UFC at this point, and on one hand that's an impressive amount of time to stay relevant in a division as constantly churning as heavyweight, but on the other, after six and a half years and fifteen fights in the UFC, he still hasn't managed to break into the top ten. His crushing top game and his power punching are forever a threat, and just last year he was on a five-fight win streak and seemed poised to finally break the cycle--but then he was once again stymied by Alexander Volkov, forcing him all the way back to the unenviable position of fighting down in the ranks to justify his place within them.
The world's still trying to figure out where to place Alexandr Romanov. A highly-decorated wrestler, a regional heavyweight champion and a European champion in Sumo, the holiest of martial arts, "King Kong" is undefeated, terrifying, and somehow, at 16-0, still kind of untested. He was a regional terror in his native Moldova, but he was fighting similarly unproven regional talents. He's 5-0 in the UFC, but the only fighter in that run you could respectfully call particularly good was Juan Espino, and that's a decision Romanov should almost assuredly have lost. He's an undefeated #13 in the world and this is, in all likelihood, the first fight of his career that will shed light on if he is, in fact, actually particularly good.
Fortunately: I believe he is. Or more accurately, I think Marcin Tybura gets in trouble against fighters he can't outwrestle, and he will have an absolutely terrible time trying to outwrestle Alexandr Romanov. This does, unfortunately, mean there's a high chance of this fight consisting of a lot of clinching on the fence and fighting for trips. But at the end of the day, Alexandr Romanov walks away with the decision.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Leonardo Santos (18-5-1) vs Jared Gordon (18-5)
I had championship hopes for Santos once upon a time. Leo Santos is a BJJ champion so thoroughly decorated he bounced Georges St-Pierre out of the most prestigious grappling tournament in the world in fifty seconds by flying armbar. Despite being a career lightweight he holds a decision victory over Thiago Santos, the guy who almost beat Jon loving Jones. He knocked out Kevin Lee. He beat the guy who beat Islam Makhachev. He's secretly had a killer career! And he's also turning 43 in February and he just got choked out by Clay loving Guida.
Jared "Flash" Gordon is the UFC's favorite kind of fighter: A very skilled, well-rounded athlete who could approach fights in any number of tactical ways and generally chooses not to, because slinging punches is more fun and less likely to harsh Dana White's buzz. He's had a rough, 6-4 run of it in the UFC thus far, but those losses are thoroughly understandable--no one's going to be ashamed of getting knocked out by Charles Oliveira now that he's the best in the world.
I want to give this fight to Santos. This fight SHOULD belong to Santos. He's a deceptively hard, accurate puncher, he's a monster on the ground, he's a much larger man and he's got a 7" reach advantage. He should be able to pick Gordon off at distance and wrap him up on the floor. But he's also far past 42 and starting to look it, and a guy like Gordon who will get in his face and make him work for fifteen straight minutes is a big, big ask. Jared Gordon wins a decision and I get kind of sad about it.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Sean Woodson (9-1) vs Luis Saldaña (16-7)
When we talk about style clash fights we typically mean striker vs grappler or wrestler vs submission artist: This is puncher vs kicker. Sean Woodson is still kind of skating under the radar, but I doubt it's going to last much longer: He's a fascinating prospect, an insanely large, 6'2" featherweight who at 79" of reach outranges not just every other featherweight in the UFC but every lightweight, just for good measure. Worse yet: He's genuinely good at using it. He keeps people at the end of his jab, he works punches in vicious combinations, and he destroys livers. Luis Saldaña likes to kick people. A lot. He can punch, and he will, but his happy place is just outside of jab range where he can kick you in the chest. He will chain leg kicks into body kicks into headkicks into spinning kicks, as much because he's good enough at it to easily hurt people as that it gives him just enough range to stay out of trouble.
Both guys have historical trouble with pressure fighters, but Woodson's pressure is much more likely to defuse Saldaña's. For one, walking through kicks to land punches is easier than walking through punches for kicks, and for two, at 79", Woodson probably doesn't need to come into Saldaña's range to punch him. Sean Woodson by decision.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Miranda Maverick (10-4) vs Shanna Young (8-4)
The UFC used to like Miranda Maverick. She's borderline top 15, and should already be there were it not for one of the most egregiously bad decisions in years against Maycee Barber back in 2021. As a tough, powerful bully of a grappler, Maverick could easily have gotten matched up with someone who's actually in the rankings as a real test of her mettle. But then she decided not to preemptively agree to terms on a new contract, wanting more money, and announced her intention to fight her contract out and get offers from the market. Suddenly she is, instead, fighting Shanna "The Shanimal" Young buried low on the prelims, who is not only not near the top 15, but they actually fought each other already--and not even that long ago, it was 2019 in Invicta's weird one-night tournament Phoenix Series experiment--and Maverick pretzeled and choked her out in two and a half minutes. Shanna has not looked much better since.
Shanna has a big size advantage and she can be a berserker on the feet who can catch anyone, but Maverick's got very, very good composure and is very, very good at bullying people to the floor. She did it once and I don't think she'll have trouble doing it again. Miranda Maverick by submission.
WELTERWEIGHT: AJ Fletcher (9-1) vs Ange Loosa (8-3)
We're in for an interesting grind, here. AJ Fletcher is a Contender Series baby who had the misfortune of running into a bigger, stronger fighter in Matt Semelsberger in his UFC debut; Ange Loosa would have been an alumnus alongside him, but had the similar misfortune of meeting Jack Della Maddalena, maybe its most-hyped competitor. He still made his way to the UFC, but it was as a last-minute replacement against Mounir "The Sniper" Lazzez, a much more multifaceted striker who beat several shades of crap out of him. Two fighters, two failed UFC debuts, two guys who are very accustomed to getting into nose-grind brawls.
The separation, as it so often is, is the wrestling. AJ Fletcher is a wrestling machine who, even while losing, was repeatedly blast-doubling a much larger, stronger man in Semelsberger to the floor; Ange Loosa isn't wrestling-deficient, but he's struggled with it. Tack on that Loosa carries a metrid ton of muscle on his frame and tends to visibly tire as fights wear on, and it doesn't look good for him. AJ Fletcher by decision.
FLYWEIGHT: Amir Albazi (14-1, #11) vs Francisco Figueiredo (13-4-1 (1))
Boy, this is too good a fight to be buried three from the bottom on the early prelims. This is a top fifteen fight, man. And as with so many at flyweight, it's pointless to try to break down deficiencies in either man's skillset. They're flyweights. They're great at everything. The greatest separation between them is their use of momentum. Francisco Figueiredo likes to work from the outside in single, specific attacks. He picks his shots, he times out counters, and when he springs a cross or a headkick or a takedown, he virtually always lands it. Amir Albazi likes to work with fluidity. He throws in long combination strings, he uses jabs and leg kicks as rangefinders to set up takedowns, he once transitioned a flying knee into a takedown attempt in midair. Amir Albazi attempted more strikes in his last UFC fight than Francisco has in his entire UFC career.
Ultimately, I think that volume will be a problem for Francisco. He'll have a lot of countering opportunities, but Albazi's the kind of pressure fighter who'll be more than happy to keep him working too hard to sit down on any of them. This fight is inevitably going to wind up on the ground, and both men have deadly submission games from the bottom, so any single mistake could end the fight in seconds. At the end of the day, though: Amir Albazi by decision.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Aoriqileng (23-9) vs Jay Perrin (10-5)
Jay Perrin is trying very hard to be remembered. Perrin tried and ultimately failed to win on the Contender Series back in 2019 and had to soothe himself by becoming the bantamweight champion of Connecticut's CES MMA (it stands for "Classic Entertainment and Sports," which is such a classy way to describe people in a cage bludgeoning each other) before joining the UFC as a last-minute replacement signing this past February. It didn't pay off, unfortunately: He was very one-sidedly dominated by wrestleboxer Mario Bautista. Aoriqileng, one of the UFC's numerous pickups from the Chinese fight scene, has had a rough go of it in the UFC; he's 1-2, having gotten two tough competitors in the form of Jeff Molina and the lamentable dustman Cody Durden. He stayed staunchly competitive with both, however, and was a hair's breadth from knocking Molina dead even at the very end of their match.
And more importantly: He's a really good wrestleboxer. He hits hard, he punches straight, and he's obscenely tough. Even in his regional fights Perrin struggles with that kind of pressure, especially when he has takedowns to worry about. I don't see this being different. Aoriqileng by decision.
FLYWEIGHT: Victor Altamirano (10-2) vs Daniel da Silva (11-3)
I feel for Daniel da Silva. He was a hyped talent out of Shooto Brazil whose only loss came from a freak shoulder injury when he signed with the UFC, and in his first stab at the international talent level, he was soundly, thoroughly outfought by Jeff Molina, and suddenly, he was no longer virtually undefeated. He had to follow up by fighting Francisco Figueiredo, one of the most dangerous finishers in the division, and he was submitting to a kneebar in sixty seconds, and suddenly, he was 0-2 and facing a possible release if he loses again. And Daniel da Silva--a man of sufficient desperation that his training partners nicknamed him Miojo after the ramen packets he carried in his backpack because he couldn't afford anything else--took a replacement fight on six weeks' notice against Victor Altamirano, a remarkably well-rounded fighter and Contender Series winner who lost his UFC debut by a razor-close split decision. And where normally I talk about tune-up fights or how you build and market fighters and express sympathy or anger that a fighter I like is getting stiff matchmaking--it's flyweight. There are no tune-up fights at flyweight.
This is a coinflip fight. Da Silva's the more aggressive fighter and should have an edge in the grappling but his aggression leads to a lack of control (and, sometimes, his shoulder spontaneously exploding); Altamirano's the more well-rounded fighter who's rarely ever caught out of position, but his lack of aggression leaves volume openings that, clearly, judges don't like. Both guys are assuredly making adjustments after their troubled debuts, and I'm choosing to believe Daniel's got the space to improve. Daniel da Silva by decision.
Prelims begin just about an hour from this post. Join the party.
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Aug 20, 2022 22:37
" lmao
