- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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It is heavyweight contendership fight time and it is French-locals-you've-never-heard-of fight time.
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 73: BREAKFAST IN PARIS
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 FROM THE SINGAPORE INDOOR STADIUM IN KALLANG, SINGAPORE
 EARLY START TIME WARNING: PRELIMS 9:30 AM PDT / 12:30 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 12 PM PDT / 3 PM EDT
You know, the UFC holds International Fight Week in July, but somehow, International Fight Week is just a bunch of poo poo happening in Las Vegas while all the executives have parties. Last week's UFC was in Kallang, this week's UFC is in Paris, and next week's UFC is in Sydney. We are in the middle of multiple, actual international fight weeks. And do we get parties?
No. We get a card full of debuting French people you may or may not ever see again. Enjoy your complementary Morgan Charriere fight, free with purchase of one Ciryl Gane.
ALL THE STARS ARE HERE
MAIN EVENT: WRESTLING LESSONS
HEAVYWEIGHT: Ciryl Gane (11-2, #2) vs Serghei Spivac (16-3, #7)
Oh, hey, Ciryl Gane. It feels like it's been half a year since last we saw you. I forget, what was going on back then?
CIRYL GANE BY TKO. Look, it's a Jon Jones fight. Anything can happen, up to and including the fight never actually starting because Jones shot up a Vegas nightclub after the weigh-ins. If Jones can consistently catch Gane's kicks, or get inside and force him to fight at length in the clinch, Gane's in trouble. But Gane's control of range, Jones' historical trouble with anyone who can outbox him and the reality of having to fight a heavyweight who hits as hard as a heavyweight can for the first time make me desperately, desperately hope that finally, once and for all, we get to see Jon Jones eat poo poo. Jon Jones hasn't learned from a single mistake in his life and I'm hoping he'll continue that practice here.
Please don't gently caress it up, Ciryl.
Here's the thing: I'm not an optimist, I'm an optimistic realist. I like to find the best plausible outcomes and hope deeply that they will happen. Did I think it was plausible that Ciryl Gane could beat Jon Jones? Absolutely. Did I think it was necessarily likely? Middlingly so, at best. Do I think it's shameful for Ciryl Gane to get outwrestled by Jon Jones? Absolutely not. Olympic medalists get outwrestled by Jon Jones. There's no shame in that.
But there's a teensy bit of shame in being unequivocally one of the best kickboxers in MMA heavyweight history and having your entire performance in the biggest fight of your career consist of a few halfhearted jabs to the abdomen and then a naked left hand so awkward it actually spins you, the world championship kickboxer, around in place, leaving you conveniently exposed for your murder-grappler of an opponent.
Losing to Jon Jones is natural, even if you're the #2 heavyweight in the UFC. Becoming one of the fastest, easiest fights in the UFC career of Jon Jones, when you are the #2 heavyweight in the UFC? Arguably, that's just a natural part of cementing heavyweight's true place as the best comedy division in combat sports. But boy, it sure doesn't look or feel great for your legacy.
Like, getting outwrestled by Francis Ngannou, the actual #1 heavyweight on the planet? That's deeply excusable, because all of four people anticipated the sport's biggest puncher turning into a machine that spits out double-leg takedowns. Jon Jones? You had to know exactly what he wanted to do, and you had to have access to the numerous fights of his where people who could keep him at range gave him fits and, in at least one case, beat him in what was pretty clear to everyone who wasn't an official mixed martial arts judge.
So when you come into your heavyweight championship fight with one of the most popular fighters in the history of the sport, with a clear blueprint on how to apply your skills against him, and you promptly footwork yourself back into the cage, throw lunging punches and get immediately ragdolled, that raises questions. Questions about if you can beat powerful wrestlers, or if, whether it be skill, performance anxiety or just bad luck, you have an Achilles heel.
Sometimes, you have no choice but to answer those questions. Ciryl Gane, unfortunately, just doesn't have any strikers left to fight. Sergei Pavlovich is ranked above him and is deservedly awaiting the winner/waiting to be the drama-cancellation backup for Jones vs Miocic later this year. Tom Aspinall just made his comeback. Gane already beat Tai Tuivasa, Alexander Volkov, Derrick Lewis, and, just for good measure, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, currently ranked #12. There isn't a single striker left in the heavyweight top fifteen for him. He has no choice. He must wrestle.
And no one in the division is more singlemindedly wrestling-focused than Serghei Spivac.
Spivac's been in the UFC for almost half a decade, but it feels as though his entire career happened over just the last year and a half. When he joined the UFC back in 2019 as an undefeated Ukrainian champion and got absolutely flattened by Walt Harris in under a minute, it sort of consigned him to the great gray void the fanbase uses to store fighters they don't have any reason to believe in. That void was Spivac's home for years, and he couldn't get out of it. It didn't matter when he impressed people--choking out Tai Tuivasa, outgrappling Aleksei Oleinik--because he'd still get ground out by Marcin Tybura or nuked by Tom Aspinall, and that was that.
But he was able to capitalize on one of the greatest things the UFC's fanbase ever collectively did: Completely and utterly reject Greg Hardy.
Greg Hardy, for those who have thankfully forgotten, was Dana White's pet project to an extent rivaled only by Sean O'Malley. He was an American Football player who'd gotten suspended and ultimately dropped from his team thanks to a case of domestic violence that was auspicious even by the unfathomably low standards of the National Football League--although, it should be noted, not so auspicious that the Dallas Cowboys did not sign him for awhile afterwards, because gently caress you, we're Texas--and then he got bored of sports that disagreed with his pro-beating-people stance and decided to switch to mixed martial arts, where it would be encouraged.
He was in the UFC at 3-0. He got immediately disqualified for throwing an illegal knee, but he got more chances anyway. He got a fight expunged after, incredibly, thinking it was okay to use an inhaler between rounds; he got re-signed to a new contract. He went 2-3 on his new deal, but by god, Dana White was not going to give up. So he gave him Serghei Spivac--a guy who'd had trouble with knockout artists before, a guy who was coming off just being crushed in one round. They would rehab Greg Hardy on Spivac's bones.
And then Spivac just beat the absolute dogshit out of him. He chucked him to the ground three times and punched him senseless in two minutes, and in so doing, dealt Hardy the dreaded third loss in a row and drummed him out of the company. And the fanbase loved him for it, because no one loving liked Greg Hardy.
So the UFC gave him another match with another striker they kind-of sort-of wanted to rehabilitate, but this time, they cared an awful lot less: Augusto Sakai. Midway through 2020 Augusto Sakai was 15-1-1 and looked like a real prospect. By August of 2022, he had lost three straight knockouts. Spivac did what was necessary: Grabbed him, chucked him, punched him until candy came out. It was neither competitive nor close, and one way or another this seemed to be working, so the UFC did it one more time--this time, at the biggest scale yet.
Derrick Lewis, a two-time title contender and all-time knockout king, was also on the ropes, having gone 1 in 4 and taken all three losses by knockout. Once again, the UFC wanted to either rehabilitate a striking star or condemn him; once again, they picked Serghei Spivac; once again, Spivac lifted a terrifying man like a sack of potatoes and hurled him to the ground with ease. It only took three minutes for Spivac to choke Lewis out, giving him, at last, a win that propelled him into the top ten and the great contendership conversation. But what do you do with Serghei Spivac after that? What's next?
Well, hey, what do you know: A fallen striking star the UFC wants to figure out if it needs to rebuild or melodramatically destroy.
Make no mistake: The UFC needs help making up its mind. My earlier-stated highly-scientific breakdown of the available heavyweight division is defeated by the reminder that the UFC absolutely does not give a gently caress. Sean O'Malley got a title eliminator for poking Pedro Munhoz in the eye. Sean Strickland has a title shot next week because he beat a guy with one UFC fight. If the UFC wanted to protect Ciryl Gane, they absolutely had that option. They could have waited for someone to become available, or, hell, they could have booked Ciryl Gane vs Andrei Arlovski or Jake Collier or Chase loving Sherman if they really wanted to. I assure you the Parisian audience is not buying tickets for Serghei Spivac, and I promise you the UFC would not lose any sleep over booking a matchup that didn't make any rankings sense.
No, Ciryl Gane costs money. He's got actual leverage, he's got actual promotion, and if the UFC's going to keep paying him, let alone putting marketing money behind him as an international star, they want to make sure he's worth the investment. If he happens to get dusted by a Moldovan wrestler who costs 1/10 as much money to book, hey: That's just fine, too.
So that's the theory of this fight. I like Serghei Spivac a great deal, but it takes a "the sky is blue" level of observational power to note that he's no match for Ciryl in the striking department. This fight hinges entirely on whether Ciryl Gane is finally prepared to stop a powerful, talented wrestler from taking him down, and how well he can punish that wrestler's attempts at taking him out of his own element. Can he do it? Is this the fight where Ciryl Gane finally ascends and becomes a well-rounded heavyweight title contender?
Nope! SERGHEI SPIVAC BY SUBMISSION. Spivac's a big loving problem for Gane: He's large, he's strong, and he's just as comfortable executing a technically beautiful ashi-garuma throw as he is just using brute strength to hoist a motherfucker up and drop them, and he will do it, over and over, until it sticks. Derrick Lewis is an actually talented wrestler, and Spivac threw him down six times in three minutes. If Gane has done nothing but wrestle for the last six months and he comes out looking prepared for anything, I'll be deeply happy. But I'm so, so very rarely happy.
CO-MAIN EVENT: TESTING THE WATERS
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Manon Fiorot (10-1, #2) vs Rose Namajunas (11-5, #2 at Strawweight)
I'm not gonna lie: This fight actively angers me.
It's not because I dislike either fighter; I'm a big fan of both. I've had my eye on Manon Fiorot as a possible title contender for the last couple of years and anyone who likes mixed martial arts and doesn't like watching Rose Namajunas fight is an impossible stranger to me. These are both talented, world-class fighters with a fantastic amount of skill, and this fight between them could be very, very good.
And that does not make it anger me any less, because, boy, in the context of this division, this fight sucks.
Manon Fiorot is the rightful #2 contender at women's flyweight. She's a perfect 5-0 in the UFC, she made her debut behind two devastating finishes over well-regarded competition, and the UFC was more than happy to market a strong, scary French striking lady who kept very conveniently beating the poo poo out of everyone. When she was matched up with seemingly permanent 125-pound contender Katlyn Chookagian last October she came in as a sizable -225 favorite, and she justified the bill by outstriking Chookagian and winning a solid decision. She was the rightful top contender, and a fight with world champion Valentina Shevchenko seemed inevitable.
And then, instead of calling out Valentina, she talked about wanting to fight Alexa Grasso--or Rose Namajunas.
Which was baffling, because not only was Rose Namajunas not a flyweight, no one was even sure if they were going to see her again.
Rose, long one of the most popular women in the sport, was coming off of a very, very bad year. After a hall-of-fame worthy career--two-time world champion, seven world championship fights, a reputation as an incredible action fighter and two amazing knockouts over all-time greats in Joanna Jędrzejczyk and Zhang Weili--Rose came into her May 2022 title defense against Carla Esparza as a massive fan favorite and left it as one of the most maligned women in mixed martial arts. Rose and Carla put on one of the all-time worst title fights in the history of the sport--not the UFC, the sport--by taking nearly no action. Rose landed 38 strikes in 25 minutes and the internet feasted on replays of cornerman/husband/continual source of discomfort for the fanbase Pat Barry telling her that her inaction, and the crowd booing her, were signs that their plan was working.
Rose lost her title and just went away for awhile, and, eventually, mentioned a desire to return to competition up a weight class at 125 pounds.
And now we're here.
Erin Blanchfield and Taila Santos, the two other justifiable top contenders who've been working their way steadily along the ladder, had a closely-contested grappling match last week. It was the second fight on the main card on a broadcast live from Singapore. It was barely marketed and for most of the UFC's viewing audience it aired at about 6 in the morning.
Manon Fiorot could have been fighting for a title already, and instead she's sat out for almost an entire year, and now she's fighting Rose Namajunas, who has never appeared at this weight class and is coming off the single worst performance of her career, in a co-main event, with the winner very possibly getting the next shot at the champion.
I like both of these women. I hate this fight. MANON FIOROT BY DECISION. Rose isn't that much smaller than Fiorot--it's a couple inches--but unless she's spent the last year rebuilding herself completely she's going to be much less strong, and the technical striking advantages she had over a Weili or Andrade aren't going to be as present here. I don't think it's going to go her way.
MAIN CARD: BOG TIME
 LIGHTWEIGHT: Benoît Saint-Denis (11-1 (1)) vs Thiago Moisés (17-6)
Benoît Saint-Denis has been trying very, very hard to upset the golden rule of combat sports--you're only as interesting as the most interesting thing in your career, and you'd better pray that it's something you did as opposed to something that was done to you--and he's finally starting to get there. After a disastrous UFC debut in 2021 that saw him beaten halfway to death by Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos in quite possibly the worst-refereed bout in company history, Saint-Denis dropped to 155 pounds and has been thoroughly successful ever since. But it's not just the three-fight win streak, it's the way he's done it. His wrestling assault, and his ultra-aggressive grappling attacks, have completely dismantled all of his lightweight opponents, culminating in a career-best first-round submission over the massively hyped Ismael Bonfim who, admittedly, I thought would win.
I did not think Thiago Moisés would win his last fight, and said fight was against the short-notice, regional-circuit debut of Melquizael "Melk" Costa, which means I may just thoroughly underrate Moisés at this point in his career. In hindsight: Probably not fair. Thiago's a talented grappler and a solid striker, and while 5-4 wasn't a great UFC career on paper, those losses came against #2 contender Beneil Dariush, top ten lock Damir Ismagulov, future champion Islam Makhachev and Joel Alvarez, who is, himself, thoroughly underrated. Moreover, it's an interesting meeting of like styles. Both men have power in their hands, but both men vastly prefer to wrestle their opponent down and impose their top game. Saint-Denis seemingly has the more crushing grappling offense, but Moisés, historically, has the better sweeps and submissions off his back.
It's my favorite kind of fight, in theory. In practice, it could be a one-sided grappling contest or, worse, a tentative kickboxing match. But I think we're hitting the ground, and I think BENOÎT SAINT-DENIS BY DECISION is the outcome.
LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Volkan Oezdemir (18-7, #9) vs Bogdan Guskov (14-2)
Volkan Oezdemir has nowhere left to go. Once upon a time (that time being a fantasy year known as "2017") Volkan was the most-feared knockout artist at 205 pounds, a puncher with seven wins not just by knockout, and not just by knockout in the first round, but knockout in the first minute of the first round. He was terrifying right up until the moment he reached the top and fell all the way back down. By the end of 2017 he was 15-1; since the start of 2018 he's 3-6. His last finish was four years ago. The world caught onto his One Weird Trick and began gameplanning to disable him, and in turn, Volkan's visibly lost some confidence in his punches, which were the thing floating most of his career.
And the UFC was content to feed him to rising star Azamat Murzakanov, but then Murzakanov got injured and pulled out, so now, as you do, the ninth-best light-heavyweight on the planet is fighting Bogdan Guskov, a guy originally earmarked for the Contender Series but pulled into this instead because, let's be honest, it's what the light-heavyweight division deserves. The company will be happy to tell you Guskov is a massively successful fighter with a ton of regional victories and a 100% finish rate. Which is true! He has also spent most of his career fighting people who don't stand a chance against him. His 13th fight was against a guy who was 4-2, his 15th fight was a guy who was 4-1, and his last fight--well, hey, that was Brazillian veteran Carlos Eduardo, who was 20-10! And also 41. And also 1 for his last 7. And also known primarily for beating the poo poo out of overmatched rookies.
But, as is always true at light-heavyweight, that could all be completely meaningless. Guskov has big, fast hands and power enough to knock people out, and at a certain level, that's more than enough to win fights. I'm still siding with VOLKAN OEZDEMIR BY DECISION, primarily because he's shown more patience in his recent fights and Guskov hasn't seen a fight go more than five minutes since 2019, and I think the nerves will rattle him enough to gas out when Volkan doesn't drop in the first round. Unless, of course, he does.
FEATHERWEIGHT: William Gomis (12-2) vs Yanis Ghemmouri (12-1)
Literally as I was writing this poo poo William Gomis lost his scheduled opponent, Lucas Almeida. Will the UFC find him a new one? It's a tough call. On one hand, William Gomis is, unmistakably, one of the world's best French mixed martial artists. He's a tough wrestler and he hasn't lost a fight since 2016, which was a) the first year of his career, b) his second fight in a single night and c) his third fight in two weeks, and, y'know, that's pretty thoroughly forgivable. On the other, he is the UFC's absolute least favorite kind of fighter: A low-volume, low-impact grappler. Both of his UFC fights have gone the distance, and across those six rounds of fighting, Gomis has managed a grand total of 1.96 significant strikes landed per minute. To put this in perspective, that's slightly less than half of the divisional average. As a bonus, he falls off hard in the third round and gets his rear end beat.
But he's also French, and this is a French card. Will the UFC scramble to keep him on board? We'll update this when they either do or don't. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Not only did they keep him on board, they did it in the way that annoys me the absolute most: By tearing another fight in half and redistributing the fighters, meaning I have to rewrite multiple fights. gently caress you too, Sean Shelby. Yanis "The Desert Warrior" Ghemmouri is a French fighter by way of Algeria and he's been making a decent name for himself fighting out in Bahrain and the Emirates for the last couple years--which was deeply necessary, as up until that trip he'd been stuck fighting rookies who did very little for his development as a martial artist or a known quantity. He's set himself aside as a solid, traditionally orthodox fighter: No huge surprises, no standout skills, just a solid all-around approach with an unusually pleasant amount of patience in his approaches.
Which is unfortunate, because William Gomis has already established himself as a guy who can walk through that. I like what I've seen of Ghemmouri and I'd like it if Ghemmouri could keep Gomis on his toes and pick him apart from the outside, but WILLIAM GOMIS BY DECISION seems both likely and not a ton of fun to watch.
PRELIMS: AN AMERICA-FREE ZONE
FEATHERWEIGHT: Morgan Charriere (18-9-1) vs Manolo Zecchini (11-3)
Remember how I said double-debuts were incredibly rare? No, you don't, because that was the first line of a fight that stopped existing a day after I wrote about it because they shuffled the entire card around! It's an international UFC event, the gently caress're you gonna do. Morgan "The Last Pirate" Charriere, who should really watch some Tom Hanks movies, is also a French local, also a Cage Warriors veteran, and also a would-be knockout artist with persistent problems against strong grapplers that have kept him from ever reaching British title contendership. Which is, presumably, why he's fighting Manolo "Angelo Veneziano" Zecchini, which is maybe the most aggressively Italian name/nickname combination I've ever seen. Manolo has an armbar win in his history, but he really, primarily, wants to punch you as much and as fast as he possibly can. He does not like long fights, he historically does not do well in long fights, and he would rather gas himself out trying to end a fight in the second round than deal with a third.
So it's gonna be a brawl, and it should be a pretty good one. I think Charriere has the wider arsenal and the better defense, and Manolo's tendency to wing hooks and gas will lead to Charriere picking him apart down the line. MORGAN CHARRIERE BY TKO.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Taylor Lapilus (18-3) vs Caolan Loughran (8-0)
Boy, this turned into a serious mismatch. Loughran was originally scheduled to fight Yanis Ghemmouri up on the main card, and Taylor Lapilus was going to fight LFA champion Muin Gafurov. But Gafurov got injured, and Ghemmouri got pulled for William Gomis, and now Lapilus is here. Which is kind of hosed, because Taylor Lapilus is a genuinely good fighter who was inexplicably cut from the UFC back in 2016 despite being 3-1 and coming off of a win. Even during his time back on the regionals he's been fighting and beating UFC-tier competition--sometimes literally, as in the case of, say, Nate Maness, who got knocked out by Taylor Lapilus in 2019 and was somehow in the UFC the next year.
Caolan Loughran--try not to be shocked--is an Irish fighter from Ireland who really likes to punch people. I try to be honest, so let me say: From watching tape, I really dislike the way Loughran fights. He has almost no defense, he relies entirely on head flicks to avoid punches and his chin to get him through the punches he fails to avoid, which is most of them, and he throws lots of crosses with no setup while walking almost entirely flatfooted. Which generates a bunch of power, which works out great, as he's stopped 7 of his 8 wins! However: You know that whole "there are MMA jobber leagues that exist just to pad records" thing I complain about regularly? The combined record of Caolan's first five opponents was 4-75. And 70 of those losses came from just two loving guys.
Against Yanis Ghemmouri, I understood the matchmaking: Two young regional standouts making their debut against one another. I may be shortchanging Loughran here, because wild things happen in mixed martial arts, but this feels like it's going to be a loving murder. Lapilus has almost three times his experience, he's an extremely well-rounded fighter who never should have left the UFC in the first place, and in eleven and a half years of professional fighting he's never been stopped. Caolan is a guy who punches a lot and seems profoundly uncomfortable with concepts like blocking. TAYLOR LAPILUS BY TKO feels almost inevitable, but typically when I'm that confident it goes poorly, so we'll see what happens.
WELTERWEIGHT: Ange Loosa (9-3) vs Rhys McKee (13-4-1)
It's time for our annual Ange check-in. Ange Loosa is the Swiss veteran with the unfortunate luck of meeting Jack Della Maddalena in his shot at the Contender Series--but he took Maddalena to a decision, which has aged quite well. Unfortunately, his actual UFC debut in 2022 saw him get pieced up by Mounir Lazzez all night, but four months later he came back, defied my predictions, and somewhat surprisingly outwrestled grappling artist AJ Fletcher for his first UFC win. And then he went away for an entire year. Rhys McKee is here for his second UFC stint, having gone 0-2 and gotten released from the company back in 2020, which seems lousy on paper, but those two fights were against top fifteen welterweight Alex Morono and Khamzat goddamn Chimaev, which is some deeply unfortunate matchmaking for a prospect. After three more victories with Cage Warriors--the most recent being an April stoppage over "Judo" Jim Wallhead, who I cannot believe is still fighting--he's ready for his rematch with the company.
And I'm fairly high on it. McKee's a genuinely good and extremely well-rounded fighter, Loosa has some historical problems with people who can keep him at range and outwork him, and McKee has both. Loosa will likely have the wrestling boots back on for this fight, but I don't think it'll be enough. RHYS MCKEE BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Nora Cornolle (6-1) vs Joselyne Edwards (13-4)
Nora Cornolle is another debuting fighter from France. She has won most of her fights by TKO, which pleases the overlords. Her skills are difficult to evaluate because most of her fights are against people with almost no experience and she fought an 0-0 fighter just sixmonths ago. The sole loss of her career came against the aforementioned Jacqueline Cavalcanti, which might make for a marginally awkward locker room experience. Joselyne Edwards is one of the most successful women's fighters the UFC would probably be happy to get rid of. She went 1-2 in her rookie UFC year back in 2021, and made the very wise choice of moving up to 145 pounds to begin 2022, where she found immediate success--and was then quietly told to go the gently caress back down because the weight class wasn't going to exist anymore. But she's on a two-fight winning streak at 135 pounds! But both fights were split decisions and the latest was an absolute robbery and she also missed weight for both of them. She hasn't actually made the bantamweight limit since October of 2021.
All of that said: JOSELYNE EDWARDS BY DECISION. Cornolle's sort of stiff and I don't think she's going to be able to push through the volume-based spam Edwards likes to throw at fighters, nor is she a strong enough wrestler to reliably get Edwards on the floor--not that it matter sif she can, since apparently the judges don't give a poo poo about Edwards losing at grappling.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Farid Basharat (10-0) vs Kleydson Rodrigues (8-2)
Starting the show with a showstopper really isn't a terrible idea. Farid Basharat is the slightly smaller, slightly less experienced half of the undefeated Basharat brothers, an extremely solid, well-rounded, tactically-sound fighter whose UFC debut this past March saw him win a very close but still-unanimous decision over Da'Mon Blackshear, which, boy, if Da'Mon Blackshear was still "that guy who did a Twister" it would sound much cooler, as opposed to "that guy who got beat up by Mario Bautista." Don't do one-week fill-in fights, my friends. It's rarely a good idea. Kleydson Rodrigues is having a tough loving time in the UFC. He made his company debut as a hot flyweight prospect in mid-2022 and immediately lost a split decision he probably should have won, came back most of a year later and made a better accounting for himself by knocking out Shannon Ross in fifty-nine seconds--except Rodrigues missed weight, so no one really cared. Now he's fighting an entire weight class up, against one of bantamweight's top prospects, at a size and reach disadvantage.
Sorry, Kleydson. I really liked your fighting style, for what it's worth. But FARID BASHARAT BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Zarah Fairn (6-5) vs Jacqueline Cavalcanti (5-1)
I think the clock is running out on the Zarah Fairn experience. "Infinite" got signed to the UFC back in 2019--which was already a little odd, because she hadn't fought in almost two years--but she was 6-2, so what's the worst that could happen? As it turns out: Going 0-3 across four years of competition. She's spent the whole time at featherweight, where she served as a springboard for two separate title contenders. In fairness, her best performance in the UFC was her last fight--she was competitive with Josiane Nunes, stayed on the feet with her for three rounds, and even won a round, and Josi is undefeated in the UFC, so that's impressive! Zarah Fairn is also half a foot taller and rangier than Josiane and still got outstruck. Jacqueline Cavalcanti is your debuting fighter and the recently-crowned Women's Bantamweight champion of the Legacy Fighting Alliance, which sounds more impressive when you ignore both competing fighters being 4-1 and regional belts all being basically just bus tickets to the UFC or Bellator anyway. But she's well-rounded, she's got promise, and her only loss thus far was a split decision against the PFL's Martina Jindrová, who is, herself, a fairly decent talent.
JACQUELINE CAVALCANTI BY DECISION. Even the infinite must end.
Prelims begin in about half an hour.
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Sep 2, 2023 17:03
