- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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This card starts at seven in the morning here, so I'm putting this up before I go to bed so I don't have to write it after waking up at 6:30 on a Saturday. I'll bump it for primetime as long as I don't sleep through my alarm, in which case someone must pay for my sins.
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 79: HALF FULL VS HALF EMPTY
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21 FROM THE ETIHAD AREA IN ABU DHABI, UAE
 EARLY START WARNING | PRELIMS 7 AM PDT / 11 AM EDT | MAIN CARD 11 AM / 2 PM VIA PAY-PER-VIEW
Boy, this sure got nuts.
For those who do not obsessively follow this sport: Up until last week, this card looked very, very different. Not terrible--but different. Your co-main event was Khamzat Chimaev's return to 185 pounds against Paulo "Cake_-_Never_There.mp3" Costa in a kind-of sort-of top five fight, and your main event was the rematch between lightweight champion Islam Makhachev and #1 contender Charles Oliveira. Which was simultaneously great, because Oliveira rules and is absolutely the rightful challenger, and underwhelming, because Makhachev absolutely destroyed him in their first fight. It's not that people weren't looking forward to the fight, it's that people--justifiably--saw it as a foregone conclusion.
And then: Chaos. Paulo Costa pulled out of the fight--his sixth rescheduling in his last five bouts--to deal with medical issues and get surgery, and Charles Oliveira split his eyebrow in half in training. Suddenly the card's big attractions were gone, and this being an Abu Dhabi card, which the UAE very handsomely pays the UFC for, that's a problem. Luckily, there are plenty of contingencies. The UFC had already announced #6 lightweight Mateusz Gamrot as their official backup fighter, and #7 middleweight Roman Dolidze made it clear he was absolutely willing to step in against Khamzat on short notice. No problems!
No problems except the UFC not wanting to do either of those things. No, the man they wanted facing Khamzat Chimaev? Former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman, who's never competed at middleweight in his life, with the winner getting an immediate title shot. And for Islam Makhachev? The much-hyped theoretical rematch with featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski, who came inches from beating him back in February.
Does any of it really hold muster? Not enormously. Does it matter? Not even slightly. Does it make the card more interesting?
Do you like watching things burn?
is this the most Vs ever in a UFC main event
MAIN EVENT: TAKING THE GOOD WITH THE BAD
 LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Islam Makhachev (24-1, Champion) vs Alexander Volkanovski (26-2, NR)
I love this fight, and I hate this fight, and I don't think you can extricate the love from the hate without missing a key part of the greater tapestry of mixed martial arts.
Combat sports, more often than not, are disappointing. They're wonderful and there's nothing else on Earth like them, but god, they fall short. Dream matches fall through, unscrupulous promoters push down deserving contenders, talented fighters underperform their abilities, drug tests and weight misses and bad judges and backstage shenanigans torpedo the things that should have been. Dominick Reyes didn't get the decision over Jon Jones. Khabib Nurmagomedov never fought Tony Ferguson. José Aldo never got his rematch with Conor McGregor. Jerome Le Banner never won a K-1 World Grand Prix. Guy Mezger got screwed out of Pride's 2000 Grand Prix.
It's a frustrating and often outright insufferable world to follow. But when combat sports are good, they're great, and when combat sports are great, they're amazing. And if you stick with them, every once in awhile, you will get a perfect moment. The best of the best will fight each other, and the promoter will line up behind them to actually make it matter, and they'll both come in at the top of their game and give the world a fight for the ages, and for a moment, as a fan, you get to remember why you started watching this cruel, beautiful sport in the first place.
When Islam Makhachev and Alexander Volkanovski met in the cage this past February it was, unequivocally, one of those moments. Islam was the newly-crowned lightweight champion, an incredibly dominant fighter with only one loss in his career who'd just won the title by destroying a man who hadn't lost a fight in almost half a decade. Alexander Volkanovski was the featherweight champion and pound-for-pound best, a man who hadn't lost a fight in an entire decade, and never in the UFC. There were considerable doubts about his ability to perform against Makhachev: It was a new weight class, it was a much bigger, stronger opponent, and said opponent happened to be one of the best grapplers in the sport.
As the fight began, those fears appeared entirely warranted. Makhachev grounded Volkanovski, held him down and wore on him with elbows for minutes at a time, and, as in so, so very many champion vs champion matches over the years, the smaller fighter simply got bullied. But as the fight wore on, something began to turn. Volkanovski began to pick up on Makhachev's timing. He got harder to get down; harder to keep down. And he punished Islam for every attempt. By the third round Volkanovski was suddenly piecing him up, by the fourth, Islam was desperately holding back control for position but unable to get his offense straight, and by the fifth, Volkanovski was shrugging an increasingly flagging Makhachev off and slugging him in the face. In the waning minute of the fight he dropped Islam on his face with a right hand and, for one brief moment, looked poisoned to score an impossible TKO.
But Islam is still Islam. He held on, he survived, and ultimately, he won. It was a close--but correct--decision. By the rules, he'd won three out of five rounds. But the world had been waiting to see if Alexander Volkanovski could beat the unstoppable lightweight champion, and the answer, clearly, was Yes. Before either man was out of the cage the commentators were bubbling about a rematch. Both men needed to return to their divisions and take care of their business, but one day, inevitably, the two best fighters were going to fight again.
I have heavily anticipated that day. The entire MMA world has been eager for that day.
And now, suddenly, unexpectedly, it's here.
And boy, that loving sucks.
This is a great fight. In a company that is absolutely addicted to rematches it is, easily, the most anticipated rematch they could possibly promote. And the fact that it is happening here and now is an absolute failure on the UFC's part.
There's a lightweight division. There are other lightweight contenders. The UFC straight-up announced that, should Islam Makhachev or Charles Oliveira be unable to fight, Mateusz Gamrot, one of the UFC's best lightweight contenders, would step in to take their place. Alexander Volkanovski, too, had already been confirmed to be defending his featherweight championship against top 145-pound contender Ilia Topuria in January. The fight was going to be officially announced this very week. All of that was immediately thrown out the window in favor in the name of this rematch, because divisions are, of course, meaningless, and we need to get the bigger names in there if we can.
Which is insane, from both a fight quality perspective and a marketing perspective. Ideally, ethically, you should want fighters to be able to prepare! You shouldn't have championship matches on a week and a half's notice unless you absolutely have no choice! This is only more important for a best-of-the-best fight! But even if you discount that, even if you accept that the UFC very clearly has not given a crap about those kinds of matters in quite awhile and will do whatever gets them the most money, this is a huge money match with a ton of hype, and the UFC as a fight promoter is throwing away their chance to actually, say, promote a loving fight. Instead of months of run-up, anticipation and time to get fans excited to spend pay-per-view money, we now have a week and a half and barely enough time for the interns to even drum up new promo packages.
Amidst all of that, in the middle of the matchmaking and the marketing and the defiance of weight divisions altogether, it sucks because it introduces doubt into the equation. Islam vs Volkanovski 1 was a best-of-the-best fight in every sense of the term: The two best at the top of their game with ample time to prepare. But, as Volkanovski himself pointed out, taking the fight on short notice entirely changes its expectations. If Islam beats him again, it'll be handwaved away as Islam beating an unprepared fighter rolling off the couch. There's a flip side to that: If Volkanovski wins, after Islam beat him the first time, Islam's lack of time to adjust and prepare for him will, inevitably, be cited as a differencemaker.
Which is bullshit. It's bullshit that a fight this good and important is getting thrown together this way, it's bullshit that fighters who were promised things by the UFC had them taken away, and it's bullshit that half the consideration for this fight is no longer how much Islam learned about wrestling Volkanovski the first time around, or how much confidence Volkanovski got from going the distance and nearly knocking Islam out, or how Islam's adjusted his cardio, or how Volkanovski's prepared for yet another rematch, one of his specialties.
It sucks to have this rematch in any way compromised when it was completely, totally unnecessary.
But we're here. And I'm still excited for this fight. And I still don't regret picking Alexander Volkanovski to win the first time around, and I'm not going to change course based on something as silly as his having lost. I hope he's in five-round shape, I hope he's healed up from the surgery he had just a few months ago, and I hope he's sharpened his counter-wrestling even more, because ALEXANDER VOLKANOVSKI BY DECISION is a course from which I will never be moved.
CO-MAIN EVENT: DANA WHITE'S CONTENDER SERIES
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Khamzat Chimaev (12-0, #4 at Welterweight) vs Kamaru Usman (20-3, #1 at Welterweight)
Fortunately, I don't have to couch my anger with love this time because this fight just sucks. To discuss it, we're gonna have to digress for a second.
The UFC's middleweight division is unique. Every other weight class has drifted between periods of dominance and instability, long, singular champions interspersed with councils of top-flight fighters all beating each other and trading the belt back and forth. For every monolithic Jon Jones or Georges St-Pierre title reign, there's a period of Forrest Griffin, Rashad Evans and Lyoto Machida all killing each other.
But outside of its very first opening gasps of life, this has never been true at 185 pounds. Rich Franklin was one of the UFC's most constant stars during their breakout. Anderson Silva had one of the greatest title reigns in the history of the sport. Chris Weidman took his title and reigned as a champion for years. When Weidman finally fell, there was hope this pattern might change, thanks to the rapid-fire reigns of Luke Rockhold and Michael Bisping--but then things fell apart. Bisping wouldn't fight top contenders, just Dan Henderson and Georges St-Pierre, who won the belt and immediately retired. Robert Whittaker, the true king of the era, spent all that time with an interim title and never recorded an actual, technical, title defense. And then Israel Adesanya came along, and suddenly, the entire division was his. Alex Pereira could have been a thorn in his side--but he was already planning to leave the division, even as its champion. When Israel Adesanya beat him and won back his title, it was perfect for the UFC. Their king was back on his throne, his conqueror was up at a new weight class, and everything could go back right to the way it was.
And then Sean Strickland beat Izzy on a month's notice. And then, this past week, Izzy announced he was taking a long hiatus from the sport to recover from his ultra-heavy strength of schedule.
And, suddenly, the UFC no longer had either of the only two middleweights it had invested any marketing energy into whatsoever for the last four years.
Welcome to the instability era, motherfuckers. We finally got here, and boy, it's starting as stupidly as it possibly can. The UFC has stated, on the record, that the winner of this fight will get the next shot at the middleweight championship. And, boy, that's exceptionally loving dumb, but not in any way surprising.
Khamzat Chimaev, after all, has been the heir apparent for years. The UFC loves him: He's an undefeated, weirdly charismatic wrecking ball of a fighter with a lot of marketing promise for an international market the UFC would love to corner and he's willing to do things like fight twice in ten days for pennies if it makes him look good. They've wanted a belt on Khamzat for three years, as proven by the way that Leon Edwards, the clear-cut #1 contender at welterweight on an eight-fight win streak, was booked to fight Khamzat three times despite Khamzat having only one 170-pound fight in the UFC at the time.
But Khamzat couldn't get over COVID, and the difficulty getting him back in the cage would prove to be prophetic. He nearly retired thanks to his illness, the UFC had to pull the dump truck of money to his door to get him back, and his return ended in one of the biggest debacles of 2022 after he missed weight so ludicrously badly for a fight with Nate Diaz that an entire card had to be shuffled around him. That was a full year ago. The UFC, understandably, demanded Khamzat move up to 185 pounds. The UFC, understandably, wanted him fighting in the top five immediately. And when Paulo Costa, shockingly, dropped out of this fight, the UFC had plenty of middleweights to tap as replacements.
They, of course, picked Kamaru Usman.
Kamaru Usman has never fought at 185 pounds in his life. Kamaru Usman was, famously, the owner of the UFC's second-longest welterweight championship reign right up until Leon Edwards kicked him in the head in the summer of 2022. After losing a rematch this past March, Usman talked about a possible jump up in weight, which makes sense: He's turning 37 next year, cutting weight isn't getting any easier, and after two straight title losses he's out of championship contention unless he goes through all its contenders or someone else gets the belt. There's nowhere to go but up.
Conveniently, it repurposes someone the UFC already marketed. Funny how that goes. Besides, Kamaru Usman already fought and beat Sean Strickland once! Sure, it was seven years ago and at a different weight class, but hey, since when does that matter?
Khamzat Chimaev hasn't fought at middleweight in three years, and has never fought a ranked middleweight in his life. His last intentionally scheduled fight was supposed to be against Nate Diaz. Kamaru Usman has never fought at middleweight, period. His last victory of any kind was two years ago.
When this fight ends, one of these men will be the #1 contender for the middleweight division.
Everything is silly. Nothing matters. And Kamaru Usman, who has already seemingly been slowing down an awful lot and had a whole mess of trouble trying to wrestle Leon Edwards and Colby Covington, is going to fight a bigger, stronger, faster, younger middleweight with vicious knockout power and ridiculously dangerous submissions.
If Usman survives into the third round he'll have a major advantage, because Khamzat got tired as hell against Gilbert Burns. I don't think we're getting that far. Kamaru's been showing his mileage and KHAMZAT CHIMAEV BY TKO after chucking him to the floor and punching him into paste feels too depressingly likely.
MAIN CARD: MAYBE ALSO TITLE ELIMINATORS, WHO REALLY KNOWS
LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Magomed Ankalaev (18-1-1, #2) vs Johnny Walker (21-7, #7)
Magomed Ankalaev has had a rough year. It took a nine-fight winning streak for Magomed Ankalaev to get a shot at the light-heavyweight title, which is an absolutely absurd number for a weight class that barely has a top fifteen, and even then, his opportunity only came because champion Jiří Procházka had to abruptly relinquish the belt. Ankalaev did the UFC a favor, stepped up to a five-round main event on short notice, fought the top contender in Jan Błachowicz, and should have won the fight--only for the judges to instead score a good ol' Nobody Wins split draw. The UFC, in its eternal sensitivity, responded in the form of Dana White making GBS threads all over Błachowicz and Ankalaev in the post-fight presser for leaving it up to the judges in the first place. Both men were thrown aside and the next title shot was given to Jamahal Hill, who won the belt--by decision--and, six months later, gave it up after blowing out his ankle playing basketball. It's been almost an entire year since we last saw Magomed Ankalaev; almost a year since he was robbed of the world championship he rightfully deserved. Is he facing a top contender? Is he getting a shot at the somehow once again vacant belt?
No! He's fighting Johnny Walker, because gently caress you, that's why. Walker is one of the UFC's favorite guys--a 2018 Contender Series winner who, much like Khamzat Chimaev, had a weird charisma, a penchant for fast finishes and a willingness to take fights on extremely quick turnarounds--and they were happily jetpacking him straight to a title shot right up until Corey Anderson knocked him out in one round. Anderson, of course, would be cut one fight later, but Walker spent three years working his way into relevancy again after constant, repeated setbacks. It wasn't until this year that he finally managed to string back-to-back wins together again, thanks half to slightly less stiff competition and half to a renewed focus on taking his time, executing more tactical gameplans and finding his way to power shots rather than trying to force the finish as fast as possible. Which, for a fighter so built on impulsiveness that he once dislocated his shoulder doing The Worm during a post-knockout celebration, is no small accomplishment.
A year ago I would've had this marked as an easy night for Ankalaev. Today, I'm significantly less certain. When last we saw him, while he still should have won the fight, he nearly got his legs kicked in half by Jan Błachowicz. His inability to find Jan's timing let alone defend himself ably is already concerning against Johnny Walker's greater speed, power and range; the Johnny Walker we saw in his last fight out who hobbled Anthony Smith with calf kicks is particularly concerning. But Walker still has trouble with pressure, and Ankalaev is more than willing to grind him into the fence until he can drag him to the floor, and I'm still going for MAGOMED ANKALAEV BY DECISION at the end of the day. But Walker kicking Magomed's legs off is an entirely real possibility.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Ikram Aliskerov (14-1) vs Warlley Alves (14-6, NR)
So, here's a funny thing. According to the UFC's card listing, Ikram Aliskerov, who made his UFC debut this past summer by blitzing and destroying Phil Hawes in two minutes, is listed as the #11 middleweight in the company. But according to the UFC's official rankings, he's not! Nassourdine Imavov, the man he was supposed to fight this week, is. Did the UFC pull a fast one, or is their stylesheet so screwed up they couldn't take the number out of it? Whichever case it is, they can't be that bothered, because they were very happily trying to get him to fight for that number up until Imavov pulled out. It's no real wonder why, either. Ikram's a Contender Series baby, he's a big Russian fighter, he's a strong first-round finisher and his one and only career loss came against Khamzat Chimaev back in 2019. Just like Khamzat, he's threading the needle on marketable traits the UFC currently holds in high regard, and I'm sure they would absolutely love to book a rematch between the two.
If it sounds like this is all disrespectfully overlooking Warlley Alves, that's because it is. I've liked Warlley ever since he won The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3 (jesus christ) back in 2014, with his ultra-aggressive tendency to hunt for chokes and his deceptively dangerous striking in the pocket, and I particularly liked him for choking Colby Covington the gently caress out in ninety seconds, because even then, I was pretty sure he sucked. Unfortunately, that was also the last time Warlley managed to do anything divisionally relevant. In the eight years since that fight he's 4-6, he's only managed two back-to-back wins and he's suffered the first knockout and submission losses of his career. Alves just hasn't managed to develop into a world-class fighter. He's very, very good--no one has an easy night against Warlley Alves and even now he's only been blown out of the water once--but he just hasn't been able to rise up to the threats posed by people on the periphery of the rankings.
In other words: He's a late replacement because the UFC's pretty sure he's going to get thrashed by Aliskerov, and they're probably right. Ikram's faster, stronger and a much more dangerous striker. As quick as Alves can be when he thinks he has a choke, jumping a guillotine on Ikram will get him pounded on the floor for the remainder of the round. IKRAM ALISKEROV BY TKO feels inevitable.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Said Nurmagomedov (17-3) vs Muin Gafurov (18-5)
Here, we have the battle of massively hyped prospects who are trying to get back on the tracks. Said Nurmagomedov--this is your contractually obligated reminder that he's the one who isn't related to Khabib--was brought into the UFC back in 2019 as one of the best bantamweights outside of the company, and after scraping by Justin Scoggins and dropping Ricardo Ramos in a round he seemed poised to jump the rankings. And then Raoni Barcelos outwrestled him and ended his streak. Said weathered the speedbump, resumed his winning ways, and scored four more wins over the next two years, and once again, he was poised to take his well-mixed offense into the top ten, and once again he was rejected, this time by Jonathan "The Dragon" Martinez. Said was supposed to make his comeback against Kyler Phillips this past August, but he couldn't make the fight.
Conveniently, The Tajik Tank himself Muin Gafurov had also just pulled out of a September clash with Taylor Lapilus, and he, too, needed a rescheduled dance partner. Gafurov got his first real international notoriety out in ONE Championship, where he destroyed Leandro Issa and made it a full three rounds against John Lineker, even if he ultimately lost the decision. His toughness and his passionate love of throwing unnecessary spinning poo poo all got him noticed by the UFC--which earned him a split decision loss on the Contender Series and got him kicked right back to the regionals. But two good knockouts and a Legacy Fighting Alliance championship later got him right back in the dance! And then his much-hyped UFC debut ended in double disappointment: Gafurov lost a point for what was deemed intentional headbutting, and while Gafurov protested both during and after the fight, he also lost by a wide enough margin that the point made no difference.
Both guys need a win to prove their relevance to the division, and both guys are sharp, aggressive fighters with styles that veer into fun spinning poo poo, which could make this an excellent showdown. Said likes a little more lateral movement, Gafurov likes to charge and brute force his way in, both guys like to throw enough that they're kind of uncomfortable by the third round. SAID NURMAGOMEDOV BY DECISION feels appropriate, given his greater control of his distance and weapons, but Gafurov could run him down and simply refuse to let him breathe.
PRELIMS: THE LAST STAND OF JINH YU FREY
FLYWEIGHT: Tim Elliott (19-12-1, #10) vs Muhammad Mokaev (9-0, #11)
Tim Elliott is a fighter in search of a space. His life over the few years hasn't been easy: He went on a three-fight losing streak, he nearly got cut, he survived a pink slip by way of a particularly dodgy decision over Tagir Ulanbekov, and this past summer he discovered his wife (a UFC fighter!) had cheated on him (with another UFC fighter!). Truthfully, the dodginess of his career's trajectory only stands out if you followed him outside of the UFC. In the Resurrection Fighting Alliance and Titan FC Tim Elliott wasn't just an undefeated champion, he was one of the sport's most fun fighters to watch, an incredibly weird, eclectic fighter who punched like he was dancing and threw out chokes like missing a guillotine would end his life. But within the walls of the UFC, he's 8-10 and his best achievement is putting up a better-than-most fight against Demetrious Johnson most of a decade ago. He's there as a measuring stick for the new, and Muhammad Mokaev is the absolute shock of new. Mokaev was already one of those people internet MMA nerds were excited about thanks to his unusually lengthy, 22-0 amateur career, but after the UFC pitched him a legitimately tough challenge in Cody Durden for his 2022 debut and Mokaev dropped him with a flying knee and squeezed his head off in under a minute, the hype train officially hit the tracks. It's been a great 4-0 run altogether, save for one moment in his last outing against Jafel Filho where Mokaev got his MCL torn up by a kneebar, but the stubborn refusal to tap meant he fought on and, even more impressively, choked Filho out just thirty seconds before he almost certainly would have lost a decision. Everyone has him pegged as a future contender and an awful lot of folks have him holding the belt before 2024 is over.
Fighting Tim Elliott is a very good way to test exactly how close he is. Hell, this is just a great stylistic matchup in general. Both men have power and speed but tend to get loose and loopy with their strikes, both men are incredibly aggressive grapplers with great submission offense but a problem with losing position chasing down a finish. Either man finding an opening could end this fight immediately, but I cannot help thinking, at this stage in their careers, Mokaev's fast enough and vicious enough to catch Elliott with one of those guillotine chokes while he pushes for a takedown. MUHAMMAD MOKAEV BY SUBMISSION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Mohammad Yahya (12-3) vs Trevor Peek (8-1-0 (1))
I cannot communicate to you how excited I was by the possibility that there was another member of the Rani Yahya fighting family I had somehow missed for more than a decade, nor how disappointed I was to discover they were not, in fact, related. I'm sorry, Mohammad. I know how unfair that is to you. You seem like a perfectly capable fighter. But for one, I love Rani Yahya more than I enjoyed watching tape on your fights, for two, said tape mostly made you seem like a pretty normal bread-and-butter fighter with very little to make you stand out, and for three, your championship out in Abu Dhabi's UAE Warriors federation doesn't do a lot for me when they had you fighting guys who are 5-4-1. But, mostly? Despite your attempts to keep a high boxing guard you sure do get hit with a lot of big, slinging haymakers, and that's basically the only thing Trevor Peek does. That's what Trevor Peek is. Trevor Peek is what happens when a child builds a robot, gets bored after finishing the torso, and just gives it clotheslines with boxing gloves attached for arms. Trevor Peek throws punches like he's hucking a garbage bag full of bad romantic memories off a bridge in an early-90s Meg Ryan film. Trevor Peek throws punches like someone is puppeteering him from the audience using a remote control made out of a spirograph. Trevor Peek is going to punch you by making his arm travel through the Mariana Trench before it reaches your chin and the additional weight of fish he hits you with will only make him happier.
TREVOR PEEK BY TKO. I don't think it will take long.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Javid Basharat (14-0) vs Victor Henry (23-6)
The UFC's pretty sure they have something in the Basharat brothers. Javid and Farid both made their way through the Contender Series, hopped into the UFC proper and tore off on immediate undefeated winning streaks. Javid's 3-0, having used the family's traditional mixture of evasive defense, sharp outside striking, and positionally-focused grappling to stifle all three of his opponents and leave them more or less lost. I would like to say this fight is a step up in competition for Javid, and Victor Henry is by no means a slouch, but truthfully, I'm not convinced. Henry is a tough-as-nails motherfucker who's made it through 29 fights and 13 years without ever being stopped, and his gas tank and grit are both impressive, but he's also had a real rough go of it in the UFC thus far. He walked down Raoni Barcelos in his short-notice debut, which is by far his best performance, but he followed it up by getting outworked completely by a 40 year-old Raphael Assunção one fight away from retirement and followed THAT up with an incredibly close coinflip of a split decision over Tony Gravely that could very easily have gone the other way.
And that's bad, because Javid Basharat fought Tony Gravely and manhandled him. The transitive property doesn't exactly carry--Henry's got more endurance and an even harder head--but there is a direct analogue in the wrestling, and that's where Javid's going to have a very, very big advantage. JAVID BASHARAT BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Sedriques Dumas (8-1) vs Abu Azaitar (14-3-1)
And here, we have the requisite squash match, because no pay-per-view is complete without one. Sedriques Dumas is a pet project in process: A Contender Series winner with a huge height and reach advantage, a tendency to finish almost all of his fights, and a collection of bad takes, lovely attitudes and domestic assaults, just the way Dana White likes them. The company's attempt to give him a soft debut against the 0-2 Josh Fremd failed, as Fremd choked him out in two rounds. Dumas went back to the drawing board and looked better against Cody Brundage this past June--but it was an uneventful, unimpressive win, mostly spent with Dumas riding out top position and mustering little in the way of effective offense. Lucky for him, the UFC has a fighter at an even greater disadvantage to throw into the cage, and conveniently, it's a contract they're trying to get rid of. Abu "Captain Morocco" Azaitar has been in the UFC for more than five goddamn years: This will be his third fight. He made his debut in 2018, he beat Vitor Miranda--who retired and never fought again--and, for three and a half years, that was it. In early 2021 he showed up again at middleweight, put up one good round against Marc-André Barriault, and then took an absolutely murderous beating that went on for minutes more than it should have. And that was it. Two and a half years on the shelf again, and Abu Azaitar is back to fight in Abu Dhabi.
Abu Azaitar is 5'9". Abu Azaitar had almost all of his real career success at welterweight in the World Series of Fighting. In his one UFC contest at middleweight, Abu Azaitar received a life-altering beating. Abu Azaitar is turning 38 next March. Abu Azaitar is being set up to make a favored prospect who is half a foot taller than him look good, and given that Abu Azaitar's success comes from just viciously punching people to death up close and Dumas does a lot of his best work in the clinch, Abu Azaitar, unfortunately, is almost certainly going to do the job. SEDRIQUES DUMAS BY SUBMISSION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Anshul Jubli (7-0) vs Mike Breeden (10-6)
In mid-2022, in the brief window of time the UFC perceived ONE Championship as a threat, they launched the Road to UFC tournament as a great big talent-scouting experiment across most of Asia. Anshul Jubli was both its lightweight champion and one of its luckiest participants, as his first-round opponent, the highly-touted Japanese kickboxer Sho Patrick Usami, screwed up his weight cut badly enough to have to pull out of their fight, giving Jubli a free pass to the semifinals. Jubli made the most of the opportunity, won an absurdly close split decision over Kyung Pyo Kim, and made short work of Jeka Saragih to take the finals. Impressive performances and well-rounded skills made him, officially, the first Indian fighter to get a UFC contract. The UFC would really like to give him a chance to establish himself, because Mike Breeden, respectfully, is here to get hosed up. He was brought into the UFC on a late replacement contract because Alexander Hernandez needed a body, he's 0-3 in the company, everyone he's been matched against--Hernandez, Natan Levy and Terrance McKinney--was a company favorite who needed to right the ship after taking a hard, unexpected loss, and 2/3 of those losses were violent knockouts in under ninety seconds. Just to hammer the point home? That McKinney TKO was 70 days before this goddamn fight. He got outstruck 30-1 and stopped on his feet with his arms over his head just barely two months ago, but hey, wouldn't you just know it: The UFC has this big, strong wrestler they'd really like him to fight in Abu Dhabi.
Not subtle and not hard to predict. ANSHUL JUBLI BY TKO.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Nathaniel Wood (19-5) vs Muhammad Naimov (9-2)
Okay, look, Nathaniel. You're 30 now. You're about to have your twenty-fifth professional fight. You've been in the UFC for more than five years. As a representative of the anal-retentive mixed martial arts internet police, I have to confiscate your "The Prospect" nickname. I'm sorry! I'm sorry. It's just too silly to keep going. We let BJ Penn be "The Prodigy" right up until his thirtieth consecutive loss and now he's spreading flat earth conspiracies and we can't do anything about it. We can't risk another containment-breach event like that. But it's fine! You're on a three-fight winning streak, you don't need to be The Prospect anymore. You could be Pitbull! Or The Soul Assassin! I mean, Muhammad Naimov's nickname is "Hillman" and he's doing loving fine. Hell, he walked into the UFC as a last-minute replacement no one had ever heard of, he was just a few months removed from fighting 4-3 guys for Tuff-n-Uff (which is called Dead Dance Fighting Championships in Japan, and if you understood that joke I'm very sorry) and he knocked Jamie Mullarkey the gently caress out! Take inspiration from your competition and embrace a brave new world of alias-based wonder.
NATHANIEL WOOD BY DECISION. Wood's got real good takedowns and he should keep Naimov defending them for the duration of the fight. Please consider "Teak" or "Ply" when you put in your name change application.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Jinh Yu Frey (11-9) vs Victoria Dudakova (7-0)
In another reality, Jinh Yu Frey was a pretty big deal. Believe it or not, 11-9 Jinh Yu Frey has competed for three different, relevant world championships across South Korea's Road FC, Japan's Rizin, and America's Invicta. She even won Invicta's! Here's the thing, though: All of those fights were at the 105-pound atomweight division, which the UFC does not promote. Which is, still, loving crazy. When they're so desperate to market belts that they periodically make them up to pop buyrates, and so eager to push fighters like Michelle Waterson-Gomez who excelled at atomweight, and were more than willing to run a 145-pound women's division that only ever had five or six people in it, it's absolutely wild to me that it's 2023 and we still don't have a 105-pound UFC championship. In this reality, Jinh Yu Frey is 2-5 in the UFC's strawweight division. One of those losses really should have been a win were it not, as usual, for judging--but the fact remains, her power, her grappling threat and her ability to control opponents simply hasn't been there at the higher weight class. Victoria Dudakova is one of the UFC's new prospects, a young, undefeated Contender Series-winning grappler with a world of promise and years to capitalize on it. Dudakova's debut against Istela Nunes this summer was intended to be as much showpiece as test--Nunes, while tough, is 0-4 in the UFC and if you can't beat her there's a good chance you're not going to go very far in the company--but, through no fault of Dudakova's own, it proved very little, as Nunes blew her elbow out defending a takedown thirty-four seconds into the fight.
Frey is the UFC's second take at establishing Victoria as a prospect. It's probably going to work. Frey is, as ever, tough as nails, but she's always struggled with stronger grapplers. Victoria might be her strongest yet. It's been real, Jinh. I hope you kick some more rear end in Invicta. VICTORIA DUDAKOVA BY SUBMISSION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Bruno Silva (23-9) vs Sharabutdin Magomedov (11-0)
Very few fighters have had UFC tenures as wildly swingy as Bruno Silva's. He got on the radar for The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3 (jesus christ), got eliminated in his first fight, and wasn't touched again until five years later, when the UFC signed him as the 19-6 world champion of Russia's M-1. Which is great! And then he pissed hot for steroids before his first fight and got legally suspended for two years. But he did his time, came back, and rifled off three fantastic knockouts in a row! And then, as one of the scariest punchers in the division, he promptly went 1-3 over the next year and a half and at his lowest point got dropped by Gerald goddamn Meerschaert. One fight ago, Silva was opening a network television broadcast in a top-fifteen matchup against Brendan Allen. Now he's curtain-jerking in Abu Dhabi against Sharabutdin Magomedov, an undefeated, one-eyed kickboxer from Russia who once beat BLOOD DIAMOND and fought a full third of his career under weird pseudo-World Combat League rules where you got stood up automatically if you spent more than thirty seconds on the ground.
Do I want a guy with one functioning eye fighting in major mixed martial arts? Not really, it seems like a massive liability. Am I going to pick against a guy who lost an eye to Muay Thai training, shrugged, and continued fighting for another four years anyway? Not on your life. SHARABUTDIN MAGOMEDOV BY TKO.
See y'all in five hours. Goddammit.
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Oct 21, 2023 10:07
