- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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The time has come. In a month with bullshit like Bader/Fedor 2 and Krylov vs Spann, we have one of the best main events of the year, a pretty good co-main event, and an otherwise not-so-great card, but it's packed to the gills with all the stars of Oceania.
A note to anyone who read this month's schedule: I, obviously, hosed up. I could have sworn that the ESPN schedule had this card on Sunday instead of Saturday when I wrote up the event schedule and its subsequent blurbs midway through January, but clearly, it is not. I'm guessing while exhausted I saw the Australian poster and my brain told me the ESPN schedule page said Sunday when it didn't. I'm sorry for the error. Future fight writers: Do not attempt to make event schedules after putting your dog down.
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 46: THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11TH FROM THE RAC ARENA IN PERTH, AUSTRALIA
PRELIMS 3 PM PST/6 PM EST VIA ESPN | MAIN CARD 7 PM PST/10 PM EST VIA PAY-PER-VIEW
Would you believe me if I told you this was, easily, one of the most important cards the UFC has booked in years?
Seriously. The biggest champion vs champion match the UFC has promoted in half a decade, the crowning of a new featherweight champion outside of the Aldo/Holloway/Volkanovski triumvirate for the first time since 2015 and the attempted launching of an important welterweight contender! And almost no one is talking about it, because the UFC, having truly abdicated any form of responsibility, has done almost no promotion for it. At the last post-fight press conference Dana White remembered to repeatedly plug his slapfighting league, but he could not remember the UFC Lightweight World Champion's name.
Some of the brightest stars in the sport are shining during one of its darkest times. This is the incredibly rare chance to watch two of them crash into each other. Don't ever miss out on enjoying the stars just because no one else is looking up.
this card was going to have robert whittaker on it, god dammit
MAIN EVENT: THE STUDY OF SEA CHANGE
 LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Islam Makhachev (23-1, Champion) vs Alexander Volkanovski (25-1, NR at Lightweight, Champion at Featherweight)
The simplicity of one-must-fall combat is the greatest strength of mixed martial arts. At its original, emotional core, before the term "mixed martial arts" was invented, the sport--whether you called it vale tudo, no holds barred, or ultimate fighting, the namesake that still anchors the UFC today--was the direct art of putting two people in a cage and watching what happened. Fights were won when opponents submitted or were rendered unconscious, and there were very, very few restrictions on the hows and whys. Martial artists who'd trained in highly technical arts for decades emerged victorious because they squeezed their opponent's crotch until they gave up. Igor Vovchanchyn, one of the sport's toughest stars, once submitted because Mikhail Ilyukhin was burying his chin in his eyeball.
It was wild, and brutal, and it could never last--should never have lasted. Whatever joy there is in the purity of combat, the necessities of regulation outstrip it. Beneficial abstractions--rounds, fouls, weight divisions, rankings, even the often-confounding world of judges all serve to create a better sport. Vale Tudo is fascinating in its brutality; Mixed Martial Arts is safer, more accessible, and, counterintuitively, more competitive. When fighters can focus on honing their craft against a field of equals rather than the possibility of fighting a 6'11" kickboxer at a 100-pound weight disadvantage, the fighter, audience and sport all benefit.
And yet, however true any of this is, there remains a certain yearning.
The introduction of rules creates the desire to see them broken. Competitors look at opponents a ten-pound fence away and think yeah, but I could win. The same way MMA exists as a simulation of a real fight, a theoretical killing, the simple act of a fighter crossing the boundaries of a weight class exists as a simulation of the old ways. In one small moment, in one small way, the abstractions are peeled back and we once again attempt to ask the question that defined an entire sport:
Who's really better?
I've written reams of complaints about the UFC's gradual cheapening of its matchmaking and even its championships, and this is no different--in the first twenty years of the existence of UFC weight divisions there were exactly two champion vs champion bouts and in the post-McGregor era of the last four and a half years there have been five--but the fights are, without fail, fascinating. Sometimes the reality of weight classes sinks in and you see Georges St-Pierre battering BJ Penn or Jan Błachowicz big brothering Israel Adesanya and sometimes a Conor McGregor or Amanda Nunes annihilates the bigger champion so effortlessly you wonder why they were ever a weight class down in the first place.
There is no greater peak in sports than the best fighting the best.
And this fight is, unequivocally, two of the absolute best.
There were still whispers of doubt about Islam Makhachev when he stepped into the cage against Charles Oliveira for the lightweight championship last year. For all of his hype, for the incredible wrestling and grappling he'd displayed in his career, he was fighting the best lightweight in the world after one top ten bout. It wasn't for lack of trying, he'd been scheduled against top dogs like Rafael dos Anjos and Beneil Dariush, but injuries kept scratching his chances to prove himself. His technique looked nigh-unto unbeatable in his fights leading up to the title bout, but there's a world of difference between looking good against Kajan Johnson and looking good against the best lightweight on the planet, and in a sport as rooted in experiential example as mixed martial arts, it was easy to foresee Makhachev running into trouble for just the second time in a twenty-three fight career.
Easy, that is, for anyone but the people who knew him. His training partners in Dagestan, his time-share comrades at the American Kickboxing Academy, his previous opponents: Not a single one of them doubted that Makhachev would not only win, but win decisively and easily. They had all the example they needed. The fanbase, which is often extremely prickly about seemingly unearned opportunities, was almost entirely just fine with Islam jumping straight to the belt. Everyone shared the feeling that for all he lacked in ranked experience, Islam had proven himself by sheer skill alone.
And they were absolutely right. Against the toughest threat to his career, a man who'd faced down, survived and defeated some of the toughest competitors in the sport, Makhachev turned out the best performance of his life. He outpaced, outpunched, outgrappled and ultimately submitted the UFC's most prolific submission artist of all time. Having fought no contenders, having had only one championship bout, his display of skill was so overwhelming the discourse immediately turned to wondering if there was anyone at lightweight who could even challenge Islam Makhachev.
As it turned out, we needed to search one weight class lower.
Alexander Volkanovski has had a very different path through combat sports. Islam Makhachev was a betting favorite in every fight of his career: Alexander Volkanovski was an underdog for his entire run through the top ten. In some markets, Volkanovski's first title defense--against a champion he'd just soundly beat--was an underdog affair. When he was booked into a trilogy match against that champion he'd now beaten twice, he was only barely a favorite. He's the most dominant male champion the UFC has to offer, he's entering his fourth calendar year as the best featherweight in the world and his tenth straight year without a defeat. Where most champions begin to decline and suffer after a few years on top 2022 was the best year of his career, a twelve-month period of such total domination that the entire world began wondering just how serious he could be at lightweight.
And now he's doing it.
And he's a +300 underdog.
It's not hard to understand why. We've seen Alexander Volkanovski in trouble on multiple occasions. Chad Mendes and Max Holloway stung him on the feet, Darren Elkins took him down, Brian Ortega was centimeters away from strangling him. Against a nearly-flawless fighter like Islam, particularly given his proclivity for throwing every single person he faces on their back and submitting them, it's hard not to find concerns in his history. But those concerns belie Volkanovski's greatest strength. He's laden with talent--his jab is an exceptionally accurate piston, his boxing is as vicious as it is defensively sound, his leg kicks are severely underrated, his wrestling is rock-solid and his cardio is the best in the business--but his greatest talent is his ability to adjust and simply not lose. He'll get wobbled only to hit back even harder, he'll nearly get submitted and be vengefully punching his attacker's face in seconds later.
He's proven, time and time again, that he's the best featherweight on the planet.
But he's also the shortest featherweight in the UFC. And this is the kind of fight where that starts to matter. The last time Volkanovski had to face a true wrestling threat it was Chad Mendes, the only wrestler in the division his size, and that still saw Volkanovski on his back three times. He got up--just as he did against Ortega--but inarguably, none of them have the kind of crushing top game Islam does. The same way that certain simplicity I spoke about separates the weight classes, it speaks to the intractable certainty that a bigger, stronger wrestler is a bigger, harder problem to solve.
And yet that, too, is an oversimplification. Islam isn't the biggest opponent Volkanovki's fought in the UFC; Max Holloway is. Islam doesn't have the complete size advantage; despite giving up almost half a foot in height Volkanovski has a slight reach advantage, because the human body is silly.
Chad Mendes outwrestled Volkanovski; that was more than four years ago, and the only man to take him down since got beaten so brutally for his efforts that it took six months just to recover from the damage.
Islam Makhachev should win this fight. It is my responsibility to tell you, as someone who at least pretends to have some idea how MMA works, that the statistically probable outcome is an anticlimactic wrestlefest where Makhachev turns Volkanovski into a pretzel as yet another reminder that weight classes exist for a reason. But Volkanovski's get-up game is continually shocking.
Islam Makhachev should win this fight. He's a larger striker with powerful hooks and no fear of takedowns keeping him from using them. But I have seen Volkanovski's timing turn from good to preternatural, and I have seen him study fighters so thoroughly he was able to shut down the sport's best boxer without breaking a sweat.
Islam Makhachev should win this fight. The first two rounds are going to be very, very scary, but his output lowers after that opening rush. If he cannot stop Volkanovski in the first ten minutes, the back half of the fight could become very, very problematic.
Islam Makhachev should win this fight.
Alexander Volkanovski by TKO.
CO-MAIN EVENT: STUMBLING TOWARDS GLORY
INTERIM FEATHERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Yair Rodríguez (14-3 (1), #2) vs Josh Emmett (18-2, #5)
It'd be impossible for this fight not to be overshadowed by the main event, but in some ways it's even more unfair that this fight is overshadowed by the way both fighters got to it.
Yair Rodríguez has been one of the UFC's most interesting fighters for just shy of a decade. His victory on The Ultimate Fighter Latin America immediately marked him as one of the sport's eclectic stylists, a striker whose primary martial background came from Taekwondo, leading to a striking method no one shy of Stephen Thompson could emulate: A stance that bounced fluidly between squared-up kickboxing orthodoxy and sideways martial arts traditionalism, enabling him to throw strikes from angles no one saw coming and kicks at angles no one had seen before at all. When he dropped Andre Fili with a jumping switch kick straight from the bowels of Tekken the UFC started pushing him to the moon. He got the first main events of his career against fan favorites Alex Caceres and (the horribly outmatched) BJ Penn, and suffered the first loss of his UFC tenure in a gutsy peformance against a former champion in Frankie Edgar.
And then a funny thing happened: They fired him.
They wanted him to fight Zabit Magomedsheripov, he didn't like their terms, and Dana White got to revisit his favorite chestnut, telling reporters that one of the best martial artists on the planet was a coward too afraid to fight real competition. A month later Yair was back on the roster, the two sides having worked out their differences and returned to pretending nothing was wrong, but Zabit's own injuries kept the fight from ever happening. Yair would, instead, fight Chan-sung Jung and knock him out with one of the most ridiculously improbable strikes ever thrown in any combat sport: An upside-down, no-look elbow-uppercut with two seconds left in a twenty-five minute fight. It was a viral, starmaking performance.
And then he spent an entire year dealing with Jeremy Stephens, after months of scheduling problems and an errant eyepoke forced a rematch that Yair won easily.
And then he was suspended by USADA for half a year because he failed to update his address in their smartphone app.
And then his return was pushed back another six months because Max Holloway got injured.
Three years! After scoring one of the most incredible knockouts in the history of the sport it took three years to get his career back on track, between Max Holloway's dumb injuries and USADA's dumb phone app and the dumb totality of Jeremy Stephens' existence. Holloway proceeded to hand Yair just his second loss, but it was a match so competitive that Holloway, the best boxer in the business, was forced to begin taking Yair down to avoid getting a shin upside the head. Yair's stock rose even in defeat, and a top contender match with returning titlist Brian Ortega made all of the sense in the world. It was, once again, the chance to launch Yair into the championship picture.
And then Ortega's shoulder popped out of its socket in the first round.
Josh Emmett had a much more traditional path to the UFC, which is fitting, as he's a much more traditional fighter. He broke out in the Sacramento fight scene of 2013 as a living avatar of the beachhouse Urijah Faber built, Team Alpha Male, carrying every aspect of their style into his bouts. High guard, big hands, big wrestling, big guillotines, not a lot of kicks. It fit him perfectly. Despite being the smaller man in every fight he was in at 5'6", Emmett crushed everyone on the regional scene, took a regional championship, and within a year of his inevitable UFC pickup was 2-0 in the organization and a perfect 10-0 overall. The world was his oyster.
And then future alleged multiple-manslaughterer Desmond Green outpunched and outwrestled him and ended his undefeated streak on a split decision.
Everyone loses eventually. Emmett--who had since embraced the unofficial nickname "The Fighting Falmer" thanks to his resemblance to the deformed cave elves of Skyrim--didn't even take time off. He had a championship to win. He was back in the gym a week later and back in the cage six months later, warding off a tough prospect in Felipe Arantes, taking the big ask of jumping into a top-three fight as a last-minute replacement, and beating the brakes off former titlist and perennial contender Ricardo Lamas in the process. Josh Emmett was in the top five and his dreams were coming true.
And then he got knocked out by, of all people, Jeremy Stephens, who would never win a UFC fight again.
Emmett only fell two places in the rankings, but in practice, he went all the day down the ladder. It would be four more fights before the topic of contendership was so much as raised again. In June of 2022, Emmett got his first main event since the loss to Stephens four and a half years prior: A showdown with fan favorite Calvin Kattar. It wasn't exactly a title eliminator, but it wasn't too far off--the whole world was waiting to see what happened with Volkanovski/Holloway 3 the next month before the title picture could even begin to make sense.
And then Josh Emmett--won!
Sort of.
It was an extremely close fight, the kind of bout that either fighter could realistically lay claim to winning. The official and media scorecards were both split. Josh Emmett winning the fight was not the problem. The problem was Josh Emmett's victory hinged on notoriously bad judge Chris Lee somehow awarding him a round in which he was dropped once, wobbled twice, had his entire face broken open, and was ultimately outstruck 2:1. It was an impossible card, and it was the most important of Josh Emmett's life.
And thus, we're here. Both Yair Rodríguez and Josh Emmett are incredible fighters, indisputably two of the best in the world. Both men deserve to be in the conversation for championship contention. Both men took such circuitous and uncertain roads to get here, and are only now getting this interim championship opportunity because the undisputed champion is challenging a weight class up, that it inevitably diminishes them whether it's fair or not.
And make no mistake: It's not. This is a great match between two evenly-matched competitors. Yair unquestionably has the advantage on the feet, but his takedown defense is a weakness Emmett can ruthlessly exploit. Emmett overcommits on strikes and gets cracked upside the head for it on a very regular basis, and a fighter like Yair who can connect a shin to his forehead within a second could easily destroy him. This is, like so many fights, a question of who is most likely to make a mistake. Yair has a solid bottom game, but it's not likely to threaten Emmett, and having to use it too often will cost him a decision. Emmett's faith in his hands lets him land devastating power punches, but every exchange he allows is a liability.
Unless one of these men pitches a perfect game, the fight will be decided by who loses focus.
Josh Emmett by decision. Yair's striking is a world beyond Josh's, but his pacing isn't, and while he was able to push very impressively against Max Holloway, he also got himself taken down and controlled every time he gained momentum. Josh Emmett is a fantastic pressure fighter and a much, much better wrestler. Unless he gets too open and loose and allows Yair to potshot him to death, he should be able to grind him out. And then the main event will determine what on Earth happens next.
MAIN CARD: ALL MY ROWDY FRIENDS
WELTERWEIGHT: Randy Brown (16-4) vs Jack Della Maddalena (13-2)
It's violence time, baby. Until last year, Randy "Rudeboy" Brown was a fighter perennially on the cusp of prospect status, a 6'3" knockout striker with powerful hands, a murderous clinch game and submission chops to be a persistent threat on the ground. What he lacked was consistent defense. He could stop anyone in the division given a chance, but those chances tended to come because of his aggression, and that aggression meant for the first five years of his UFC career he couldn't string more than two victories together at a time without getting outwrestled, or outboxed, or, somehow, knocked out by hammerfists from the bottom position, which is still an incredible feat of physics. But he's won four fights in a row since the beginning of 2021, and is only now, finally, being considered as a potential contender--but three of those four victories came against people who were cut from the UFC in short order.
Jack Della Maddalena might never get cut. Della is the precise thing Dana White's Contender Series was built to find: An international talent with a no-nonsense attitude towards combat sports who cannot, and will not, ever stop punching people. He made his UFC debut in 2022 and went 3-0 in just under eleven months, not just winning but knocking every single opponent dead in one round. Slip counters, atomizing punches to the liver, perfectly fluid boxing combinations; in his last bout he met Danny Roberts, a man who once took power punches from Mike Perry for three rounds without falling, and dropped him twice in three minutes. Even in his brief appearances he's visibly improved, having gone from leading with his head to approaching behind a high guard and picking spots to lower his defenses. In terms of pure, simple offense, he might be the scariest striker in the welterweight division.
In other words: Brown's gotta wrestle. Despite having 4" of height, 5" of reach and knockout power all his own, Brown is at a distinct disadvantage striking at range in this fight. His wrestling and his ability to force Maddalena to fight him in the clinch are his best chances for success here; forcing Maddalena to expend energy fighting takedowns and dealing with clinch strikes will lower his speed, and that's Brown's best chance of finding openings for offense.
But he's gotta get close to do it, and with the way Brown tends to get cracked in almost every fight, I don't think he'll get the chances he needs. Jack Della Maddalena by TKO.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Justin Tafa (5-3) vs Parker Porter (13-7)
You know, the best thing about heavyweight fights is how much easier, comparatively, it is to get picked up as a heavyweight in mixed martial arts. We just discussed multiple fighters who struggled through dozens of fights to get anywhere. Justin Tafa was an Australian heavyweight champion in his second fight and a UFC fighter in his fourth. Hell, he was supposed to be fighting alongside his brother Junior Tafa tonight--who is, also, 3-0--but injuries forced him out. It's heavyweight, man. Did you kickbox any? Can you hit people? You'll be fine. Come on in. Justin Tafa is 2-3 in the UFC and he's on the main card of a goddamn pay-per-view, don't worry about it. It's a head trauma party.
And your party host is Parker Porter! Who could ask for more. Porter is 3-2 in the UFC, but two-thirds of those victories came against my personal nemesis Chase Sherman and Alan Baudot, a top-ballot contender for the worst UFC heavyweight of the twenty-first century. If Justin Tafa is defined by his kickboxing, Parker Porter's sphere of influence is the fine art of moving forward. His punches aren't great, his kicks rarely rise above the knee and his takedowns are middling at best, but they work more often than they don't, simply because he can do all three of those things while exerting forward pressure on an opponent, and by god, that's more than most heavyweights.
This is an Australian card and Tafa is a New Zealand heavyweight, so the promotional intentions here are very clear. Consequently: Parker Porter by decision. Tafa's been stifled by fighters like Josh Parisian who can push through his kicks and take his space away, and unless he can get his feet on Porter's head before he closes range, he's in danger of falling into that trap again.
LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Jimmy Crute (12-3, #12) vs Alonzo Menifield (13-3)
Jimmy Crute was supposed to be a thing. A tall Australian fighter with multiple generations of boxing in his blood, a childhood history in martial arts and the personal tutelage of kickboxing legend Sam Greco, Crute was seen as a slam-dunk pickup for the UFC, a sure prospect with championship potential. And now he's fighting not to drop three in a row. Crute made it to 2020 with an 12-1 record, his only blemish a submission loss to the hot-and-cold grappling of Misha Cirkunov, but the late pandemic era has not been kind: He took the first (technical) knockout loss of his career when he broke his ankle trying to get away from Anthony Smith's jab, and eight months later, his injury comeback was ended by current champion Jamahal Hill knocking him cold in under a minute.
"Atomic" Alonzo Menifield's last couple fights were much more successful, but also much weirder. A devotee of the most holy of all martial arts, American Football, Menifield turned to mixed martial arts to pursue more fun and innovative ways to harm people, and it was going quite well for him right up until Devin Clark and Ovince Saint Preux fed him back-to-back losses in 2020. The UFC hasn't really known what to do with Menifield in the subsequent years, and on June 4, 2022, they unintentionally found the funniest possible answer: Matching him against Askar Mozharov, a hot new 25-7 knockout machine out of the Ukrainian fight scene. And then people dug and realized he was actually 21-12. And then people dug more, and it turned out they were wrong and he was 19-12. And then Tapology chimed in, and discovered he was 17-13 and may have fought under a different name to mask further losses. Having somehow lied his way into the UFC, Mozharov won the grand prize: Getting loving obliterated on international television by Actual Professional Fighter Alonzo Menifield, who destroyed him in one round. The UFC released Mozharov immediately, which he immediately took to social media to deny, insisting that he had chosen to retire from mixed martial arts. Alonzo Menifield shrugged and proceeded to destroy Misha Cirkunov four months later.
This fight is, by necessity, a statement on Jimmy Crute's future in the sport. He's two fights in the hole, one of them involved a violent injury and the other his first true knockout loss, and he stayed away from the sport for almost a year and a half afterward. Crute has the tools to win this fight--he's bigger, he hits just as hard, and his grappling is tricky enough to give Menifield fits. What Crute looks like coming back from his time in the darkness is the big question mark. If he's recovered and he's learned lessons about his defense, he should be able to outfight Menifield. If not, there are visible, gaping holes for Menifield to drive a haymaker through.
But I'm siding with faith. Jimmy Crute by TKO.
PRELIMS: NO MULLARKEY
LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Tyson Pedro (9-3) vs Modestas Bukauskas (13-5)
Oh, boy. We're in aggressively silly territory, here. Tyson Pedro disappeared from the sport after Shogun Rua felled him in 2018--the last person Shogun ever finished, canonically--and the world didn't really notice, as having lost three of his last four fights, his spotlight had dimmed considerably. His big combat sports comeback launched in 2022, and he's not just 2-0 since his return, he's 2-0 with two first round knockouts, which is great! Except they were over Ike Villanueva and Harry Hunsucker, who combine for a truly impressive 1-9 record under the UFC's banner. Modestas Bukauskas was a rising star when he joined the UFC in 2020, but he very quickly went 1-3 and got cut--somewhat rudely, right after Khalil Rountree kicked his goddamn kneecap in half in one of the most grotesque knockout finishes of 2021. Bukauskas went back to Britain, recaptured the Cage Warriors title in just two fights, and now the UFC has come calling to see how his leg's feeling.
I have never been a Tyson Pedro believer. Even in his comeback fight against Ike Villanueva, one of the biggest gimme fights in the sport, he managed to win only after drilling him with so many groin shots Villanueva abandoned all strategy in favor of charging at him like Bald loving Bull. Bukauskas and his bionic leg looked solid in his return to Cage Warriors, and I am choosing to believe that his skills will still be a touch too much for Tyson. Modestas Bukauskas by decision.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Joshua Culibao (10-1-1) vs Melsik Baghdasaryan (7-1)
Welcome to what will very likely be your fight of the night. Joshua Culibao is another local boy, a former featherweight champion in three different Australian promotions, a man who was a beautiful 1-1-1 in the UFC until he had the ruthless temerity to dare to win and upset the balance, and so specifically an adherent of the standup arts that he is a perfect 0 for 11 takedown attempts in the company, the universe having rejected his attempts to make friends with wrestling. Melsik "The Gun" Baghdasaryan has had a rocky time in the UFC, not for his performances but for the difficulties of booking him; he's 2-0 in the company, not including his contract-winning performance on the Contender Series, but his last fight was in 2021 and was thrown into chaos with a last-minute replacement who then proceeded to miss weight and, as a tribute to the blown weight, most of his attempted strikes, and Melsik's been on ice for the subsequent 14 months thanks to a persistent hand injury.
Both of these men are in love with the finer points of Standing and Banging, but where Melsik likes to kick, throw combinations and orbit, Culibao's a fan of wading in behind leg kicks, uncorking right hands, and resetting to begin the process all over again. Melsik's the much more consistently active striker, and I haven't picked enough anti-hometown fights yet, so Melsik Baghdasaryan by decision.
FLYWEIGHT: Kleydson Rodrigues (7-2) vs Shannon Ross (13-6)
I wrote a lengthy love letter to Jungle Fight champion Kleydson Rodrigues when he made his UFC debut last May, citing his ridiculously versatile kicking game and the quick, scrambling grappling he employed when need be. He proceeded to lose a split decision to C.J. Vergara, one of the most-disputed decisions of the year, after getting outgrappled for the entire second round. This, presumably, is why the UFC is softening things up for him. "The Turkish Delight" Shannon Ross is, despite the nickname, another Australian local, and he actually lost his bid for a UFC contract after getting knocked out on the Contender Series this past Summer, but his Fighting Spirit impressed the Emperor, so Dana shortlisted him for a future look. One need for local stars later, and Ross is getting his shot at the big time.
...and, uh, Kleydson Rodrigues by TKO. Sorry, man. Ross is a tough, scrappy motherfucker, but Kleydson is much faster and kicks much harder, and unlike C.J. Vergara, Ross is a fellow brawler and deeply unlikely to try to take him down. Kicks to the ribs, kicks to the head, go home and be a family man.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Jamie Mullarkey (15-5) vs Francisco Prado (11-0)
And now, the real main event. Jamie Mullarkey is 3-3 in the UFC, which means 33% of his fights have won Fight of the Night, because Jamie Mullarkey does not know how to do anything but push. Sometimes it's wild brawling, sometimes it's throwing fifteen takedown attempts just to land three, but whatever he's doing, he's going to keep loving doing it until either he or his opponent stops moving. Francisco Prado, his non-union Argentinian equivalent, is coming out of the vaunted halls of Samurai Fight House, the promotion that keeps on giving. SFH became an unofficial feeder league for the UFC by a) booking boxing-style squash matches and b) booking fighters who will swing like the dickens and to hell with everything else. Prado's all aggression, all the time; sometimes that means angrily pursuing Von Flue chokes or dump takedowns, but mostly, it manifests in the form of spamming the poo poo out of hooks.
These two are, in all likelihood, going to beat the piss out of each other. And in a piss-beating contest, I'm favoring Jamie Mullarkey by TKO. He's bigger, he's stronger, and more importantly, he's fought much better piss-beaters. Getting punched by Jamie Mullarkey is very different than getting punched by 4-13 Fernando "El Tito" Silveira.
EARLY PRELIMS: A SHOW WITH EVERYTHING PLUS ELVES BRENNER
FEATHERWEIGHT: Jack Jenkins (10-2) vs Don Shainis (12-4)
Back in October, "Shameless" Don Shainis, while referring to himself in the third person, predicted that he would not only win his UFC debut against the #12-ranked Sodiq Yusuff, but would crush him and announce himself to the world. Yusuff, who was very, very mad about losing the high-profile match with Giga Chikadze he was supposed to have, busted Shainis up with knees, flipped him over by his neck and choked him out in thirty seconds. And that's why Shainis--who also fought the man who constantly cameos in my writeups, the 16-106 super-jobber Jay Ellis--is matched up against "Phar" Jack Jenkins, an Australian standout who won a Contender Series contract this past September. Shainis likes to brawl, but Jenkins is a thoughtful counterstriker with a quick, popping jab, painful leg kicks, and a desire to stay off the mat as much as possible.
And that's probably enough. Shainis likes to get overaggressive and it cost him once. Jenkins isn't the type to snatch a guillotine on him, but he's very good at springing up to his feet and punishing takedown attempts with knees and kicks on the way in. I'm not sure that he'll stop him, but I think he'll do more than enough to win. Jack Jenkins by decision.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Loma Lookboonmee (7-3) vs Elise Reed (6-2)
Nothing Elise Reed does in this fight matters. I could tell you about my suspicions that her tentative speed and poor reactions to aggression will hurt her against Loma's fluid assaults, but truthfully? That doesn't matter either. Loma Lookboonmee has been fighting for five years, and those five years have established a simple, universal pattern: Two wins, one loss. Every time, without fail. She will defeat two women only to be felled by a third, and the universe will send the Reapers to take her and return her to the dark, unknowable space between spaces, and after time has readjusted itself she arises, better than before, to reap the wheat and return order to the universe. Fourteen months ago, Loma was outwrestled by Lupita Godinez. Five months ago, Loma returned and dominated Denise Gomes.
This is the fourth galactic cycle. The harvest cannot be stopped. The spirits must be consumed. Loma Lookboonme by decision.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Blake Bilder (7-0-1) vs Shane Young (13-6)
The house must feed. "El Animal" Blake Bilder is yet another shiny new Contender Series toy, a featherweight champion out of New Jersey's Cage Fury Fighting Championships who, like so many before him, traded in his belt to Uncle Dana for a shot at one of those sweet $12k/$12k contracts. "Smokin" Shane Young was actually Alexander Volkanovski's third UFC opponent, all the way back in November of 2017. He, shockingly, did not win. He eventually racked up two UFC victories by the old-fashioned 'fighting people who are about to be cut from the roster' method, but followed it with two consecutive losses, and now he is positioned not as a fighter, but as fodder for the great machine.
It's a more interesting match than most of these gimme fights, though. Bilder's victories come far more from his grappling than his striking, and Young's victories come from walking his opponents down and peppering them with punches and kicks until they break. If Bilder can't assert his own rhythm in this fight, it's very feasible Young could out-touch him. Still: Blake Bilder by submission.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Zubaira Tukhugov (20-5-1) vs Elves Brenner (13-3)
Zubaira Tukhugov cannot catch a loving break, but unfortunately, most of his misses are his own fault. Tukhugov has actually been signed to the UFC since the start of 2014, but in nine years of competition he's only managed eight fights--and that's largely because in that same timeframe he's had eight other fights pulled. He would get injured, he would be forced to withdraw thanks to COVID, he would get yanked at the last minute after botching his weight cut. In 2016 he tested positive for ostarine, missed two years, came back and promptly got suspended for another year thanks to his teammate Khabib jumping on a man's head and causing all hell to break loose. He's an extremely solid fighter with extremely solid striking and grappling, but he cannot stay healthy and active for the god damned life of him. Even here, he was supposed to battle lightweight standout Joel Alvarez, but one late-term pullout later and he's stuck with "Seen Any" Elves Brenner, a 16-fight veteran whose last bout was against guys with records like 3-1 and 7-5 in mostly-empty amphitheaters with maybe two dozen spectators and some very bored ring girls.
Zubaira Tukhugov by decision. Elves Brenner seems very capable, but that capability comes from fighting regional journeymen. Every real test he's had in the last several years, he has failed. Zubaira Tukhugov is too big a test.
Prelims begin in roughly an hour.
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Feb 11, 2023 23:03
