- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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This is maybe the least hype there's ever been for a Rafael dos Anjos fight card, which is kind of tragic, in a way.
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 70: CHECK EXPIRATION DATE
SATURDAY, AUGUST 12 FROM THE SCREAMING HOLLOWS OF THE UFC APEX
PRELIMS 1 PM PDT / 4 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM VIA ESPN+
Often, when I write about cards and the way they have been put together, I feel I am intimating the cards will not be fun. This is not the case. This card could be incredibly fun. Vicente Luque vs Rafael dos Anjos alone is one of those fireworks-factory fights that could potentially be nuts, let alone Khalil Rountree's exhibitions of violence or Terrance McKinney's wild ride.
But that does not mean this card was not put together to figure out who the UFC thinks isn't worth investing in anymore.
I love words, and I abhor math, but I do think there are lessons to be found in numbers. For instance: You can get a decent--not necessarily precise, but decent--idea of how heavily a card is tilted towards fighters the UFC actually cares about by adding up the UFC records of all of the fighters on the card and seeing what kind of ratio of wins to losses you're left with. After its conclusion, last week's Sandhagen/Font card has a combined record of 119-67-5 (1), for a losses-to-wins ratio of 56%. The previous week's pay-per-view, Poirier/Gaethje 2, hit 171-97-2 (2), for a Goldbergian virtually-identical 57%.
This week's card has a combined record of 87-69. That is 79%. If you remove the main event and leave the rest of the card to find for itself, it falls to a perfect 52-52.
Below the main, this card has a 50/50 win/loss record.
Which means there's a very good chance this is the last time you will see some of the people below in the UFC.
it's like looking at a painting of a vase.
MAIN EVENT: PUNK ROCK REVIVAL
 WELTERWEIGHT: Vicente Luque (21-9-1, #10) vs Rafael dos Anjos (32-14, #9 at Lightweight)
Neither of these guys, of course, will be getting cut. Honestly, at this point envisioning the UFC without Rafael dos Anjos in it feels somehow grossly incorrect. Dude's been in the company since 2008. The UFC tenure of Rafael dos Anjos predates weight classes below 155 pounds by two goddamn years. The fact that he's still ranked in the top ten after this long is genuinely insane.
Unfortunately, that ranking is at 155 pounds. Whether he belongs in a top ten fight at 170 pounds is questionable.
Vicente Luque unquestionably belongs here. He's still one of the most accomplished finishers in UFC history--both in terms of his actual finishing percentages and the simple emotional pleasure of how brutally he destroys people--and his only losses in the last eight years came against current champion Leon Edwards back in 2017, perennial contender Stephen Thompson back in 2019, and over the course of a very difficult 2022 he was dominated by rightful #1 contender Belal Muhammad and punched out for the first time in his career by welterweight's ever-dangerous gatekeeper, Geoff Neal.
Everyone else, Luque has defeated; most of those times, he has absolutely loving crushed his opponent. He choked out Michael Chiesa and Tyron Woodley, he knocked out Randy Brown, he pounded Niko Price's eye shut. He's so brutal and so effective in his brutality that it's goddamn near impossible to keep him out of the top fifteen.
I love Rafael dos Anjos. He's one of my favorite fighters in the history of the sport. His direct, orthodox effectiveness, his exceedingly dangerous jiu-jitsu, his 32-punch combinations and the fact that he almost hit an inverted STF in an actual fight make him, easily, one of the greatest to ever do it. He's been a constant presence in the top ranks of the sport's toughest division for more than a decade, and over the course of that decade he's only lost to two people who weren't destined to be world champions--and the jury's still out on Rafael Fiziev.
He's an amazing fighter with an amazing career.
He's also only had one victory at welterweight in the last four years, and that was against Bryan Barberena.
Rafael dos Anjos moved up to 170 pounds because after losing to Khabib Nurmagomedov, Eddie Alvarez and Tony Ferguson he was as locked out of title contention at 155 pounds as it was possible to be at the time. And it was a very big deal that he made the jump up in weight and was competitive with top fighters at an entirely bigger weight class. And it's very, very easy to pick records apart in hindsight. But it's also informative and fun, so we're going to do it anyway. At welterweight, dos Anjos has claimed victories over:
- Tarec Saffiedine, a former Strikeforce world champion, who at the time was 1 for his last 5 and retired after the dos Anjos fight
- Neil Magny, one of god's most perfect creations, who is legit as hell but has struggled to get out of being a top 15 gatekeeper
- Robbie Lawler, who just two fights prior had been UFC champion, but who was in fact starting the losing slump that would end his career
- Kevin Lee, who himself was making his welterweight debut after struggling at 155, and who dropped right back down to 155 afterward
- Bryan Barberena, who was 50/50 in the UFC and riding high after knocking out Robbie Lawler, who was one fight from retirement
That's it. That's the list. And, again: I love Rafael dos Anjos, and most of those accomplishments were great at the time. Beating the hell out of Robbie Lawler one year after he'd been a champion? Crazy poo poo, especially for a career lightweight.
But none of it has aged well. And in a UFC where contenders are getting passed over for Colby Covington, it's weird to say going-on-39 Rafael dos Anjos, the guy who got beat by both Leon Edwards and Kamaru Usman already, the guy who dropped down to 155 again because he was frustrated after being manhandled by barely-clinging-to-a-ranking Michael Chiesa, is the guy who gets to fight for a spot in the top ten.
Which is, in its own way, a sort of lifetime achievement award. He's Rafael dos Anjos. You only have so many fights with him left, you want to make them count, and that's probably more important than making him fight Alex Morono or Mike Malott to see if he belongs in the division. He's been swimming for decades; it's a waste of everyone's time to do anything but throw him in the deep end.
And this is, definitively, the deep end. Vicente Luque represents considerable threats to dos Anjos. Rafael has historically succeeded by drowning opponents in offense, chipping them down and either cracking their jaws or throwing them down and choking them out once they're too worn to fight back. Luque, arguably, does all of those things much, much more efficiently. He's brutally powerful and more than willing to engage in wild, flurrying combinations to stack damage atop damage, his offensive grappling is incredibly aggressive and his defensive grappling is incredibly effective unless you happen to be a world-class wrestler.
In my heart, this is a dream fight. Luque and dos Anjos are both scrappy, gritty, well-rounded fighters with fantastic chins who love brawls, and the two combining could be wonderful and explosive and memorable.
But in my brain, the more time I spend writing about it, the harder it is to escape the feeling that this is a deathtrap for dos Anjos. He's a better wrestler than Luque, but is he going to have better takedowns and ground control than Belal Muhammad, who struggled to keep Luque on the floor? He's a great combination striker, but is he going to be more powerful on the feet than Geoff Neal, who had to hit Luque a hundred goddamn times to put him down?
If he can keep Luque worried about the wrestling--if he can keep Luque engaged in the clinch--if he can drag Luque into the championship rounds, where he starts to falter--if, if, if. Every argument my heart makes for dos Anjos is predicated on the hope that he can impose his gameplan entirely effectively on a bigger, stronger, more dangerous man.
Because he used to, and it was amazing.
And now 16 of the 21 men Rafael dos Anjos has defeated in the UFC have retired from MMA competition, because time, on a long enough line, always wins.
VICENTE LUQUE BY TKO.
CO-MAIN EVENT: WEC NEVER DIE
FEATHERWEIGHT: Cub Swanson (28-13) vs Hakeem Dawodu (13-3-1)
And then, there's Cub Swanson. Let's look back at our last visit to Palm Springs, from this past October:
Cub Swanson has fought the best fighters on the planet. Unfortunately, more often than not, he has lost. He's been a top 20 fighter virtually his entire career, sometimes even top ten, but he's never been able to break past the top of his division. Which is why, at 38, he's giving a new one a try. This fight marks his first-ever appearance at 135 pounds.
It was an understandable experiment. It did not work out. Cub dropped down a weight class and got savaged anyway. He's back at 145 pounds, he's hungry, he's motivated, he's ready to make another run, and he's turning 40 in November.
I dunno, man. I just don't know. I've loved watching Cub Swanson fight for a long time, but most of his great performances in the last five or six years have come against people whose striking is, respectfully, not their forte. Styling on wrestlers and grapplers is one thing; dealing with kickboxers is another.
Hakeem Dawodu is not a kickboxer. He's exactly the kind of all-around good-at-everything-but-not-great-at-anything fighter who's about to have his tenth fight in the UFC and most folks struggle to remember if they've watched any of them. Which is a shame, because Dawodu's solid as hell. He's never been knocked out, he's only been submitted once, he's incredibly tough and he's had some really fun brawls with the likes of Julian Erosa and Julio Arce.
He's got sharp leg kicks. He's got a quick jab. He's got a hell of a chin. He's very good at scrambling out of bad positions on the ground.
And he's fighting Cub Swanson, and once upon a time I would have talked about how much I love Cub's unpredictable footwork and unorthodox striking angles and the way he chains his punches and kicks together and what an impact they'll have on this fight. But I'm just not convinced that's true anymore. Hakeem likes to overcommit and he often gets pasted for it, but the thing is, he takes said pastings and keeps coming. Cub would have to hit him very, very hard, or string together a bunch of very, very clean shots to hurt him the way he's hurt other fighters in the past.
Dawodu is not inclined to give him that chance. HAKEEM DAWODU BY DECISION. I'm sorry, Cub. I'd be happy if you proved me wrong.
MAIN CARD: THE CHRIS DAUKAUS CONSPIRACY
LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Khalil Rountree (11-5 (1), #13) vs Chris Daukaus (12-6, #14 at Heavyweight)
The UFC loves Chris Daukaus, but their love is killing him at an accelerated pace.
As a general rule, if the UFC doesn't like you, they don't book you into bad fights--they simply don't book you at all. They freeze you out and sit on you and condemn you to preliminary fights no one will watch until your contract expires. Chris Daukaus is experiencing the polar opposite of this phenomenon. As 2021 came to a close, Chris Daukaus was riding high as a heavyweight prospect: He was on a four-fight winning streak, he'd finished everyone he'd faced in the company and he'd made it into the top ten in just one year. They jumped at the chance to book a hard-punching ex-cop heavyweight into contendership bouts. And then he got his first-ever UFC main event and got knocked the gently caress out by the #3-ranked Derrick Lewis. And the UFC immediately booked him into a second main event where he got knocked the gently caress out by the #4-ranked Curtis Blaydes. And the UFC immediately booked him into a PPV prelim where he got knocked the gently caress out by the #9-ranked Jairzinho Rozenstruik--in twenty-three seconds. Despite getting repeatedly, violently trashed by better, stronger strikers, the UFC just kept booking him into ranked fights and getting him crushed over and over. So when Chris Daukaus announced he was dropping to the 205-pound division, I thought it represented, at the least, a new chance for him to dip his toes into a different subset of fights and fighters.
And the UFC immediately booked him into a high-profile fight against a top fifteen fighter who is--you guessed it--a better, stronger striker. Khalil Rountree Jr. is not a perfect fighter. He can get outwrestled, and he can get overwhelmed, and he can sometimes fight like he's stuck in his own head and just doesn't know how to get out. He can also fold Karl Robertson in half with rib-breaking punches. He can knock out Gökhan Saki, one of the world's best heavyweight kickboxers, in a minute and a half. He can kick Modestas Bukauskas's kneecap out with a single strike. When Khalil Rountree is on his game, he's one of the scariest strikers in the entire light-heavyweight division: A terrifying combination of vicious power, incredible timing, and the simple, unquestioned will to do things like stomp a man's loving knee into multiple pieces if he sees an opening and knows it'll end a fight. When he's not unfocused and questioning his own gameplans he's one of the quickest, most successful trigger-pullers in the sport.
That quickness is the thing I keep focusing on. Chris Daukaus is strong, but his real standout feature at heavyweight wasn't his power, it was his speed. He wasn't a one-punch knockout artist, he was the guy who lands and keeps landing until your legs give out. Even his 45-second knockout victory involved landing a dozen consecutive blows. By dropping to 205 pounds, he's entering the land of people who are equally fast--and in Khalil Rountree's case, not only is Daukaus losing that speed advantage, he's losing it to a guy who still hits as hard as heavyweights. KHALIL ROUNTREE BY TKO and I don't think it'll be pretty.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Polyana Viana (13-5) vs Iasmin Lucindo (14-5)
Polyana Viana is trying very hard to become a thing. She's got the chops for it: She's finished every fight she's ever won, she's snatched multiple armbars out of the aether the last time we saw her back in November she faced down the exceptionally tough Jinh Yu Frey and punched her silly in under a minute. Her skills cannot be questioned. But her ability to apply them to high-level fighters, unfortunately, can. She's 4-4 in the UFC: The four women she beat have a combined UFC record of 5-13, and the four women who beat her have a combined UFC record of 15-15. Which, if we're being honest, really ain't that great either. And that's the problem. Against fighters she can overwhelm, Polyana Viana is a monster. Against fighters who can outpower her, or outgrapple her, or simply deny her the chance to floor them, she tends to get lost.
In other words: She's a measuring stick, and the UFC wants to see where Iasmin Lucindo falls. Even though she lost her UFC debut in the great Similar Name War against Yazmin Jauregui last August she impressed both the fans and the UFC brass with her sheer refusal to take a step backwards even against a fighter who was beating her to the punch, and she was even beginning to get the upper hand before she ran out of time. Her appearance against The Ultimate Fighter 30 (jesus christ) runner-up Brogan Walker this past April was considerably more successful, as she took Brogan down at will, outworked her on the feet, and won an extremely wide decision. Which I picked against her in, and I am ashamed. I thought Brogan's clinch attacks would make life difficult for Iasmin, and I could not have been more incorrect.
Which makes it difficult to see this not being IASMIN LUCINDO BY DECISION. She'll still have to be careful, Viana could knock her cold given a chance, but her mobility and her grace under pressure don't give me much faith in Viana's approach rattling her into making the mistakes Viana's other victims have.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Tafon Nchukwi (6-3) vs AJ Dobson (6-2)
Here, we have what is in all likelihood a loser-leaves-town match. Tafon Nchukwi is desperately trying to avert a contract-threatening skid--he's 1 for his last 4, he was violently knocked out in his last two fights, and the last one was a particularly effortless, one-minute thumping at the hands of one of the UFC's most currently-favored toys, Carlos Ulberg. If Tafon were a grappler this might be understandable, but he's never recorded a submission in his career. He likes to strike, he likes to grate people against the fence, and he likes takedowns only when he particularly needs them. And that makes things tricky, because boy, when you start getting hosed up that badly at your own game, you don't really have anywhere to go--except, say, down 20 pounds to the middleweight class, where he's hoping he'll have the physical advantage.
Which is problematic, because AJ Dobson is bigger than he is. Dobson IS more of a career grappler than a striker, and that has, unfortunately, not panned out for him at all in the UFC. He's 0-2, with that first loss being a grinding, one-sided loss to a superior wrestler in Jacob Malkoun--who the UFC hasn't booked for another fight in almost a year, for some strange, definitely-not-wrestling-related reason--and the second, and probably more indicative, an equally one-sided loss to a superior kickboxer in Armen Petrosyan, who kicked Dobson's legs and chest apart while Dobson tried and failed to keep him grounded in an attempt to stop him from hitting him so goddamn much. He was by no means defenseless, and he scored a few good punches here and there, but it was largely one-way traffic and a blowout of a decision.
Tafon Nchukwi is not as sophisticated a striker as Armen Petrosyan. But he is a strong, dangerous guy with long kicks, and moreover, he's tough enough to take down that Dobson's wrestling assaults aren't likely to bear fruit for him here, either. TAFON NCHUKWI BY DECISION, and we may be bidding farewell to Dobson.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Josh Fremd (10-4) vs Jamie Pickett (13-9)
I must atone for my sins. I have written about Josh Fremd three times, and at the end of those three times I simply did not believe in him. I had him pegged as a sacrifice for Contender Series winner and noted jerk Sedriques Dumas in the latter's company debut this past March, and to be fair, the UFC most certainly had him pegged that way, too. And he proved all of us wrong by striking with Dumas, frustrating his attempts at jumping on submissions, and ultimately choking Dumas out midway through the second round. For derailing the Sedriques Dumas experiment before it could even start, I am ethically and honorably obligated to side with Josh Fremd in this fight no matter who he is facing.
Fortunately, he is facing Jamie Pickett. Pickett was a successful sacrificial lamb for the UFC, who elected to use him and his 2-5 record in the company as an incredibly soft landing pad for superprospect Bo Nickal in the latter's debut this past March, and Pickett obliged by getting ragdolled and choked out in under a round. This is, realistically, most of his UFC career. Pickett's two wins were over UFC fighters even less successful than him, both of whom proved not to be long for the company after Pickett's eclectic mixture of grinding clinch attacks, rangy jabs, and inexplicable attempts to hit superkicks in real life took them to decision losses.
And that's the tragedy of Jamie Pickett. He's not a bad fighter! He's athletic and he's got power and he's got talent and he's got a wide range of attacks and it just doesn't matter. He struggles to compete with the level of competition offered by the UFC. And now, tragically, I cannot pick him in a fight he has a chance at winning. JOSH FREMD BY SUBMISSION because the universe wills it.
PRELIMS: ONE OF THESE THINGS IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER
BANTAMWEIGHT: Marcus McGhee (7-1) vs JP Buys (9-5)
Okay, this one's just an attempted murder, though. Marcus "The Maniac" McGhee had one of the more memorable UFC debuts of the year, having been called up in April to fight Journey Newson as an injury replacement with just three days to prepare, and unlike the vast majority of regional fighters who dutifully lose to their UFC counterparts, McGhee made the move up from fighting 50/50 guys on the regional circuit to beating and choking out a UFC fighter with surprisingly little difficulty. The UFC was immediately curious to measure him against another of their recently successful debuting prospects, the striking expert Gaston Bolaños, but Gaston had to pull out back in July, and in his place the UFC has substituted JP Buys, who, as of yet, is one of their least successful fighters. He's 0-3, he's been knocked out twice, and across 15 minutes of combat within the UFC he has thus far averaged just about ten significant strikes per fight and, uh, 1/3 of a takedown. It's not like he's losing to schlubs--there's no shame in getting knocked out by Cody Durden or Bruno Silva--but his inability to muster any effective offense is more damning.
MARCUS MCGHEE BY TKO. JP Buys desperately needs this win to stay in the UFC, and I don't think he's going to get it.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Terrance McKinney (13-6) vs Mike Breeden (10-5)
I'll be honest, I did not expect to be writing a 'might need to win to stay in the UFC' fight preview about Terrance McKinney and the reality is deeply disconcerting. After McKinney's first three UFC fights I--and, in my defense, most of the MMA world--had him set aside as a fighter to watch. His destructions of Matt Frevola and Fares Ziam were both deeply impressive and his near-miss against Drew Dober was still wildly promising. And then Ismael Bonfim destroyed him on the feet, and then Nazim Sadykhov destroyed him on the ground, and quickly, suddenly, Terrance McKinney has gone from a nearly-ranked lightweight to 1 for his last 4 and fighting to stave off both a questionable future with the UFC and a questionable reputation as yet another skilled fighter who can't keep it together. "Money" Mike Breeden has had a less memorable run with the company. He was brought in as an injury fill-in against Alexander Hernandez, he was dutifully knocked out in a single round, and half a year later he put up a fantastic brawl against Natan Levy but ultimately still got outfought. And the UFC, respectfully, had him pegged as potential enhancement talent for fighters they care about anyway: He was originally supposed to fight the ever-tricky Lando Vannata here, another fighter the UFC would like to rehab, and McKinney stepped in after Vannata pulled out early last week.
Wary as I am about siding with my irrational love for Terrance McKinney after the last couple fights, I'm doing it again. Breeden could outwrestle him or even simply break him with pressure, but I think McKinney's power is the differencemaker here. TERRANCE MCKINNEY BY TKO.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Francis Marshall (7-1) vs Isaac Dulgarian (5-0)
Sometimes it's the little things that make me feel old. Every time I see Francis "Fire" Marshall, I am reminded of Eliot "The Fire" Marshall, a UFC fighter and The Ultimate Fighter runner-up who used the same silly nickname->surname gag. I remember that the group of internet fight nerds I ran around with would joke that he should fight the similarly-new-at-the-time Jon Jones because the two names combined to make a semi-obscure comic book gag that was much less clever than we thought it was. That TUF season was 8. The current season is 31. Eliot Marshall's entire UFC career happened between 2008 and 2010. The guy he lost his last UFC fight to, Vladimir Matyushenko, had his first fight in 1997, which was the year the Spice Girls made their debut in America. It's 2023, and Francis Marshall and Isaac Dulgarian are both quality fighters with potential promise, and I look at them and all I can think about is the UFC back when Forrest Griffin was a world champion, and the world back when Titanic was new, and I wonder if, in thirteen years, I'll remember any of what's happening now as well as I remember what happened then.
The first CD I ever personally chose to buy came out in 1997. It was Everclear's So Much for the Afterglow. FRANCIS MARSHALL BY DECISION.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Josh Parisian (15-6) vs Martin Buday (12-1)
I wrote about Josh Parisian just last month for his cancelled fight with Walt Harris, and I'm going to revisit it for a second.
Parisian has established himself as the you-must-be-this-tall-to-ride line for the UFC's Heavyweight division: He's 2-3, and those two victories were over Roque Martinez and Alan Baudot, both of whom fell to 0-3 with the company (with one additional No Contest, in Baudot's case) and both of whom were immediately released following the fight. In that same timeframe, he's managed to get outfought by a 4-3 Parker Porter, a 3-3 Don'Tale Mayes, and a debuting Jamal Pogues in one of the least eventful heavyweight bouts of the year, as Parisian landed a dozen strikes per round and Pogues did even less, but also managed to wrestle him thoroughly enough to win anyway, much to Parisian's chagrin. This is, after all, heavyweight, and there's a gentlemen's agreement to grade on a stand-and-bang curve. Parisian's tough--he's only been stopped once in the UFC, and that was less about concussive damage than mercy from a referee who knew Parisian was done and would never escape the crucifix--but he's also a warm body whose only stoppage in the last three years came from stopping Alan Baudot, after which he was so exhausted at three minutes of the second round that he collapsed. It's not a great look.
And after all of that, I was still nervous about the possibility that Walt Harris was deteriorated enough that Josh Parisian could beat him. I--and I apologize to Walt Harris, whom I like, for this--do not have that concern about Martin Buday. Buday's a tough, straightforward heavyweight who's still in his prime and exhibits the classic Randy Couture style of grating motherfuckers against the fence while hitting them with short uppercuts repeatedly. He did it to Chris Barnett, he did it to Jake Collier, and I don't see Josh Parisian stopping it. MARTIN BUDAY BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Montserrat Ruiz (10-2) vs Jaqueline Amorim (6-1)
EL CONEJO! I had started to wonder if we'd ever see Montserrat Ruiz again. She had a great UFC debut back in 2021 against Cheyenne Vlismas, and then she got flattened by current title challenger Amanda Lemos in thirty-five seconds a few months later, and--that's it. She had one more scheduled fight that December, she pulled out, and we now haven't seen her in 25 months. Moreover, I cannot find a single interview about where she's been or what happened. Was she recovering from injuries? Was she fighting crime? I don't know, and may never know. We first met Jaqueline Amorim at her UFC debut this part April, where she showed up as an undefeated strawweight champion out of the Legacy Fighting Alliance, was a -300 favorite, put up a dominant round against Sam Hughes, and then promptly got rolled for ten straight minutes of vintage Sampage wrestling control. By the third round she was outstruck 29-2. No more undefeated record, no more LFA title, it's just the UFC, where Sam Hughes punches you in the face forever.
We didn't get to see a lot of Montserrat Ruiz, and as I find myself saying an awful lot lately, after a two-year layoff, it's anyone's guess how she'll actually look. But her scrappy throwing game, her gas tank and her willingness to threaten to follow her opponent home after the fight to continue beating them up make me think the betting lines being so heavily in Amorim's favor here are a mistake. MONTSERRAT RUIZ BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Da'Mon Blackshear (13-5-1) vs Jose Johnson (15-7)
I was about to publish this thing and then this fight got added at the last minute. Thank you! Da'Mon "Da Monster" Blackshear had an incredible amount of hype coming into his UFC debut last summer--grappling monster, tons of submission victories, Cage Fury champion, trainee at the legendary Jackson Wink camp out of New Mexico--and then he got taken to a draw by Youssef Zalal, and then he got soundly beaten by Farid Basharat, and all that hype more or less evaporated. He began clawing some of it back by knocking out Luan Lacerda back in June, and he was hoping to continue that process against The Ultimate Fighter 29 runner-up Brady Hiestand this week, but Hiestand had to pull out thanks to a staph infection and the fight looked like it was simply not going to happen. Until Contender Series winner Jose "Lobo Solitario" Johnson stepped up. Johnson's been waiting on his shot at the UFC for a long time: He had his first shot at the Contender Series in 2020 but got outwrestled by Ronnie Lawrence, who was signed instead, and he was at the UFC-scouted Fury FC 46 the next year but got knocked out by Mana Martinez, who was signed instead, and he finally won a 2022 Contender Series bout and got his long-awaited shot at the big show--and then spent the entire next year struggling with medical issues and repeatedly pulling out of fights.
It's rough. It's unfair! And it's probably going to lead to him losing his UFC debut. I get why he'd jump at the chance to finally fight, and I'm sure the UFC was gently prodding him along to take it, but Blackshear's a tough motherfucker on a full camp's notice, let alone when you were on the couch three days before the fight. DA'MON BLACKSHEAR BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Juliana Miller (3-2) vs Luana Santos (5-1)
Juliana Miller will win. I don't care that she's 3-2. I don't care that she just got trounced by Veronica Hardy. I don't care that her big strength is her grappling and Luana Santos is probably better at it and Miller's backup plan is profoundly awkward striking. I have chosen this. I have chosen to be all in on the Juliana "Killer" Miller train. This is my life. Get those headlocks and hit those clinch trips and drag this fight to the ground where you can rain small hammerfists on people, Juliana "My Nickname Might Be Literal" Miller. I have faith in you and your unorthodox grappling, Juliana "Please Don't Ask Me About The Crawlspace Under My House" Miller. You're going all the way to the top, you're going to guillotine Erin Blanchfield, and you're going to become a world champion, Juliana "Records Indicate I May Have Been Involved In The Mysterious Disappearances Of Multiple Bodies In The Everglades" Miller.
JULIANA MILLER BY SUBMISSION. Please remember to be irrational about your fighting fandom sometimes. It keeps us sane.
Prelims in 25-30 minutes.
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Aug 12, 2023 20:38
