- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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It is fight day. it is a fight day. If you want to watch it, that option is available to you.
We lost a prelim and a main card fight and the UFC hasn't changed a single thing around and the start time hasn't changed, so I would expect some good ol' dead air.
Let me also throw this out here between running around doing poo poo today, which is kind of fitting for the card.
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 80: REMEMBER YOUR ROOTS
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4 FROM THE IBIRAPUERA GYMNASIUM IN SAO PAULO, BRAZIL
PRELIMS 3 PM PDT / 6 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 6 PM / 9 PM VIA ESPN+
Well, after the enormous clusterfuck at the end of October, we're going on the road. We're back in Brazil, we've got Bonfims and Breners and Borralhos galore, and we're going to make a new heavyweight star one way or a-goddamn-nother. No matter how far we come or how many deals we sign, the core of mixed martial arts still lives in angry Brazilian fans stabbing Renzo Gracie in mid-fight, and by god, we'll always be that sport.
I have nothing funny to say about any of this.
MAIN EVENT: STICKING THE LANDING
 HEAVYWEIGHT: Jailton Almeida (19-2, #9) vs Derrick Lewis (27-11, #10)
The time has come to complete the elevation of Jailton Almeida.
Almeida had his first-ever UFC main event this past May against Jairzinho Rozenstruik. At the time I spent several paragraphs reflecting on how bizarre the company's promotional focus on Almeida felt--not out of any distaste for "Maladinho" himself, as he's a hell of a fighter, but for how out-of-the-ordinary their appreciation for him seemed to be. There's a demonstrable pattern to the people the UFC pushes. Are you predominantly a striker? Are you still in your twenties or, if possible, younger? Do you happen to be from America, Ireland, Britain or Russia? Do you speak English to say really weird, bigoted, out-of-pocket poo poo? Do you have a big ol' Instagram following?
If you check at least three of these five boxes: Congratulations! You may qualify for promotional assistance from the UFC. Go find Sean O'Malley, he knows where the door to the clubhouse is.
Jailton Almeida was a surprising promotional choice because he carried none of the UFC's preferential-treatment traits. He's a Brazilian fighter in his thirties who almost exclusively prefers to grapple, speaks through a translator, doesn't have much social media presence and, as far as I know, has yet to say anything controversial or, indeed, say much of anything at all. Jailton Almeida is a pretty bread-and-butter fighter who just happens to be very, very good at it.
If it sounds like I am saying this to criticize the man or the UFC for promoting him, please be aware that I mean absolutely nothing of the sort. It's awesome to see the company get behind someone who isn't a problematic stand-and-bang elemental. It's just puzzling to see them put one of their biggest pushes in years behind him.
And make no mistake, it is, absolutely, one of the biggest. Jailton Almeida was getting ranked matchups two fights into his UFC tenure. He made it into the top ten on a steady diet of extremely favorable matchups--when you as a grappling specialist are matched up not against kickboxing-focused Jairzinho Rozenstruik, rest assured, the company is intensely aware of what it is doing. This bout, originally scheduled against repeatedly-failed top contender Curtis Blaydes, was supposed to place Almeida in the top five.
But Blaydes couldn't make it. So the UFC took a step down and replaced him with Derrick Lewis--the man who ended Blaydes' second run at contendership after launching his head into loving orbit with an uppercut.
Which probably doesn't sound like much of a step down, and in terms of visibility, if anything, it's a big upgrade. Derrick Lewis is one of the most popular heavyweights in the sport. He'll officially cross a decade in the UFC next April, and in those near-ten years he's become its all-time knockout leader. He's fought for the title twice, he's beaten multiple world champions, he even has a win over Francis goddamn Ngannou. Hell, he's coming off the fastest win of his entire career!
But it's about one fight beforehand that the world was wondering if Lewis was finally done. He's flirted with retirement a number of times, but by the summer of 2023 Lewis had finally crossed the threshold into double-digit losses, dropped four of his last five, and, most damningly, been stopped in every single one of those losses. Which, hey: It's one thing when Ciryl Gane picks you apart. It's not even that bad when Sergei Pavlovich kills you in a minute. But when you're getting outbrawled by Tai Tuivasa? When Serghei Spivac is ragdolling you and choking you out in a single round?
That's when things get touchy. And that's when the UFC starts thinking about your future not as a promotable fighter, but as a launching pad for the next generation. When I covered Lewis vs Spivac, I summarized it like this:
In other words: This fight isn't a referendum on if Derrick Lewis can still survive a brawl, it's a referendum on if Derrick Lewis can still stay on his feet.
Almeida's top control is very good. Almeida's ground and pound and submission offense are very, very good. He and Lewis both know this is another the-floor-is-lava fight. Almeida is going to want the clinch and drag, Lewis is going to want to check him with hooks and uppercuts when he ducks into takedowns.
I have long enjoyed Derrick Lewis. I want good things for Derrick Lewis. I do not think this is one of them. Almeida isn't the power-wrestler Spivac is, but he is smarter, faster and considerably more patient. Add in Lewis taking the fight on short notice and Almeida having prepared for the hardest fight of his life, and I just cannot see this ending any way other than JAILTON ALMEIDA BY SUBMISSION. The time of ascension has come.
CO-MAIN EVENT: CHOP loving CHOP
WELTERWEIGHT: Gabriel Bonfim (15-0) vs Nicolas Dalby (22-4-1 (2))
Remember how I said they weren't wasting any time with Jailton Almeida? That goes for Gabriel Bonfim, too. The UFC was very sure they'd found a real good thing with the Bonfim brothers after they made it through the Contender Series. Ismael, the older but smaller brother, was a hell of a lightweight on a nine-year winning streak who made a huge splash in his UFC debut by killing the seemingly sure-thing future contender Terrance McKinney in two rounds; Gabriel, his younger but taller brother, was an undefeated welterweight with a 100% finishing rate. They would fight on the same cards, they would beat people together, and one day, they would be Contender Series champions.
Except Ismael got hosed up by Benoît Saint-Denis in his last fight. Having possibly learned from that mistake, Gabriel is getting shot up the card, here. He had two UFC fights, they were both prelims; we're done with that poo poo, you're in the co-main event now. Bonfim's got four straight first-round submissions coming into this fight. His entire gameplan revolves around opening up opportunities to pop someone's head off with a guillotine or a rear-naked choke. He's not striking-deficient by any means: He in fact uses surprisingly good footwork and a quick back hand to open up his grappling attempts. But he wants to finish on the ground. It's where he lives.
Nicolas Dalby is absolutely fine with that. Nicolas Dalby is fine with most things, quite frankly. He's had a profoundly loving weird career. The first UFC run for "Danish Dynamite" came all the way back in 2015, and it was a weird, 1-2-1 run where he almost ground future contender Darren Till to dust but got completely dominated by Peter Sobotta. He went off to Cage Warriors and nearly won its welterweight title, only for the fight to be waved off as a No Contest not because of drugs or fouls, but because both men bled so much that the mat became a big red slip-n-slide and Marc Goddard ruled it no longer a safe fighting surface. Which was enough to get Dalby back in the UFC, because, gently caress, how can you not invest in that?
And it's been more successful--which is to say Dalby's actually won most of his fights, this time, including some sizable upsets over Daniel Rodriguez and Muslim Salikhov. Except for the part where Jesse Ronson choked him out but pissed hot for steroids so it didn't count. Or the part where, right after that big Rodriguez upset, Dalby promptly got outworked by, of all people, Tim Means. Dalby's late-career commitment to gritty grappling and up-close infighting has given him the best wins of his career, but it's also made him an odd puzzle piece for the UFC--a 38 year-old too good not to use, but not good enough to get ranked, who is heading into his dozenth UFC fight without ever finishing or being finished by anyone--at least, in fights we can still legally acknowledge to have occurred.
But I worry an awful lot about Dalby's love of up-close, head-first grappling against a guy with as much control as Gabriel Bonfim. He's demonstrated remarkable timing and precision with his submission attempts, and Dalby's reliance on scrambling for better positions is a liability against an opportunist like Bonfim. That said: We've never had to see Bonfim struggle. He wins so easily and so quickly that his stamina rarely gets tested. If he doesn't get Dalby out of there, that could very quickly become a problem. Dalby's gas is legendary, and his third-round beatings have been a predictable institution for the last eight years. I still think GABRIEL BONFIM BY SUBMISSION ending Dalby's never-finished streak is the right call, but if this fight gets out of the first round, it's time for the Bonfim brothers to get very nervous again.
MAIN CARD: VARIATIONS ON A THEME
HEAVYWEIGHT: Rodrigo Nascimento (10-1 (1), #15) vs Don'Tale Mayes (10-5 (1), NR)
We're in prime heavyweight territory here. Rodrigo Nascimento is a top fifteen heavyweight, which is impressive, because not only has he never beaten a ranked heavyweight, he's never fought a ranked heavyweight. In fact, 3/4 of Rodrigo Nascimento's UFC career thus far has come against people who aren't actually here anymore. And he only barely beats them. Six months ago he fought Ilir Latifi, got thoroughly outwrestled and scraped out a narrow split decision. Before that? He desperately wrestled Tanner Boser to, once again, a narrow split decision. He knocked out Alan Baudot before that--but for one, Alan Baudot is one of the least successful heavyweights in UFC history, for two, he was beating the crap out of Nascimento until he kicked Baudot in the junk, and for three, Nascimento pissed hot so the fight legally didn't happen anyway. And before that, Nascimento was getting knocked out in 45 seconds by Chris Daukaus. And none of those guys are in the UFC anymore! Who was, in fact, the only person Nascimento's fought who's still actually here?
Why, it was Don'Tale Mayes. That's right, baby, this isn't just a heavyweight bout, it's a heavyweight rematch. Back in May of 2020, at the Overeem/Harris card that was heavily advertised around Walt Harris making a comeback after the murder of his stepdaughter which made it really uncomfortable when Overeem beat him silly, the prelims opened with Nascimento outscrambling Mayes and choking him out in two rounds. The following three years have been a pretty mixed bag for "Lord Kong," too. He beat Roque Martinez and Josh Parisian--neither of whom were long for the UFC, either--but he got pretty thoroughly outwrestled by Hamdy Abdelwahab only for that, too, to be wiped from the record books after Hamdy failed a drug test, and the UFC tried to use Mayes to drum fallen star Augusto Sakai out of the company only for Sakai to outwork him to a shut-out decision. (After which the UFC released Sakai anyway, because gently caress you, that's why.) It's only Mayes' last appearance, where he ragdolled and choked out the legendary if thoroughly aged Andrei Arlovski, that propels him back towards the top fifteen.
And thus, the rematch. Has the math on this fight changed at all in the last three years? I am not convinced. Mayes spent two of his last three fights getting controlled in much the same way Rodrigo did to him in the first place. He's a powerful wrestler and a scary clinch grappler, but he's much more suited to being the hammer than the nail. RODRIGO NASCIMENTO BY SUBMISSION feels probable.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Caio Borralho (14-1 (1)) vs Abus Magomedov (25-5-1)
Caio Borralho's rise through the UFC feels like a slightly saner version of Jailton Almeida's. They graduated out of the Contender Series just two weeks apart from one another, and they fight similar, technical-grappling-focused styles, but where the company tried to ramp Almeida into contendership at top speed, Borralho's rise has been much more reasonable and measured. The undefeated but also-debuting Gadzhi Omargadzhiev, the upset-minded Armen Petrosyan, the always-tough Makhmud Muradov; even his last fight against Michał Oleksiejczuk was a solidly-matched test against a 6-3 veteran on a two-fight winning streak. Borralho's passed every test thrown at him with flying colors--even when it means, say, a fight with only 19 significant strikes in 15 minutes. Will the UFC keep ramping him slowly, or is it time to take the plunge?
Well, it's both. Because he's fighting Abus Magomedov, who has exactly two UFC fights: His debut, a 19-second knockout over the 1-4 Dustin Stoltzfus, and his followup a year later, which was a top-ten-ranked bout against Sean Strickland, who, after knocking out Magomedov, somehow wound up in a title fight and won the middleweight championship of the loving world. Could Caio Borralho beat the unranked, unheralded, 1-1 Abus Magomedov and get a title shot, too? Probably not, but honestly, who the gently caress knows! As it is, all we know about Abus after 15 months in the UFC is he hits pretty loving hard and accurately, and if you try to make him do it for longer than a single round, apparently, he falls the gently caress apart. Sean Strickland is a very tough person to look good against, but after the first five minutes of their fight in July Abus looked lost and exhausted.
Which is a bad loving set of traits to have against a guy like Caio Borralho, who is more than willing to grind you out for three straight rounds. Abus is secretly a good wrestler--he DID get Strickland down, which is not easy--but I don't think he's going to be defensively sound enough to ward Borralho off for fifteen minutes. CAIO BORRALHO BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Rodolfo Vieira (9-2) vs Armen Petrosyan (8-2)
It's Styles Make Fights time, baby. In the red corner: Rodolfo Vieira. One of the best grapplers in history! 100-9 in a decade of competition! More than a dozen world championships! By 2021 he was 7-0 in MMA and looked like a potential middleweight contender! And then he, uh, got choked out by a guy named Fluffy. Over the last two years, the story of Vieira's fighting has become very clear. If he can take you down, you are in massive loving danger. He will control you, he will submit you, and it will hurt. If he can't? He's got nothing. Never was this on better display than his 2022 fight against Chris Curtis, where he desperately spammed single-legs while getting boxed up for two and a half rounds and ultimately lost a decision after attempting 20 takedowns and completing 0. He does not want to strike with you. He's tried to display some newfound boxing abilities, but they're perfunctory at best.
Particularly against a guy like Armen Petrosyan, who is a kickboxer through and through. To put this in perspective: Rodolfo Vieira averages 3.7 takedowns per every 15 minutes in the UFC. Armen Petrosyan? 0.23. He completes a quarter of a takedown per fight. Every four fights someone punches his Subway card and he gets a free sandwich. But he's struggled to really hurt people in his UFC appearances, largely because his kickboxing focus means he spends goddamn near every fight trying to keep people from taking him down. And--generally speaking--he fails. Only one of Petrosyan's five corporate competitors has failed to ground him. Petrosyan's made all of them work for it, and he came back to win decisions against Gregory Rodrigues and AJ Dobson by outstriking them 2:1 between getting taken down, but he still wound up on his back, repeatedly.
For a guy like Vieira who will just exhaust himself trying to force you to the floor, that's a bad sign. If Petrosyan can keep his distance, jab Vieira and run like hell every time he sees a takedown coming, he's got a chance. Otherwise? RODOLFO VIEIRA BY SUBMISSION seems pretty inevitable.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Ismael Bonfim (19-4) vs Vinc Pichel (14-3)
You can't have one Bonfim without the other. Ismael's in the unfortunate position of trying to get his mojo back. His outboxing and flying-knee-flattening of Terrance McKinney was one of the UFC's best debuts in years, but five months later that hype train got violently derailed. After thirteen straight wins and nine straight years without a defeat, Ismael stepped into the cage against Benoît Saint-Denis this past July. A few seconds into the fight, Saint-Denis hit Bonfim with a kick to the body and Bonfim slapped his side and told him to try it again; Benoît replied by marching forward and kicking him in the ribs over and over without a care in the world. As it turns out, being a hard counterpuncher doesn't help when your opponent can eat your hooks and chuck you to the goddamn mat anyway. Bonfim tapped out with twelve seconds left in the round. He's very, very mad about it, and he wants revenge.
And the UFC wants to see if he can defend takedowns. When last we saw Vinc Pichel, I wrote this:
Vinc "From Hell" Pichel is one of those fighters people regularly forget exists. At 14-2 he's by no means bad: He's a very solid grappler and a decent striker. But he's gotten absolutely destroyed by superior wrestlers in his two cracks at the top ten, one of which was a very entertaining suplex knockout at the hands of poor lost Rustam Khabilov, and he's only managed one fight a year for the past four years, which has made it easy for him to slip through the cracks in the shark tank that is the lightweight division.
But he's a good test for Bonfim. Pichel's an incredibly tough motherfucker with just two stoppage losses in his entire career. He's not as clean or technical as Bonfim, but he's a better pressure fighter. My money's still on ISMAEL BONFIM BY DECISION, because we've seen Bonfim's gas tank before and I don't think he'll have stamina problems while he plays matador with Pichel, but if he focuses too much on countering instead of range management and winds up stuck on the cage, he could be in for a very long night.CANCELLED: Bonfim blew his weight cut and Pinchel refused to go on with the fight. Yay!
PRELIMS: WHERE MOST OF THE ACTUAL RANKING-ADJACENT FIGHTERS LIVE NOW
LIGHTWEIGHT: Elves Brener (15-3) vs Kaynan Kruschewsky (15-1 (1))
The last time we saw Elves Brener, he was facing the deeply underrated Guram Kutateladze, who was a fill-in replacement after both men had been rebooked over the past month. At the time, I was pretty low on his chances:
Kutateladze, seemingly unable to stay healthy, has pulled out of four fights in the last two years. He's one of the best lightweights in the world and he's so inactive that he doesn't even rate a Wikipedia page. And that's how you wind up fighting Elves Brener. Guram was supposed to fight Jamie Mullarkey last month, Guram got hurt and Mullarkey went on to get iced by Muhammad Naimov; Brener, who has decidedly not ensconced himself as one of the best in the world, was supposed to fight Jordan Leavitt tonight, Leavitt pulled out, and Kutateladze, now recovered, was rebooked here.
And now he's a -400 favorite against a guy who only has a win in the UFC thanks to a judging robbery. I have no doubts about the outcome of this fight, but I have plenty about it happening at all. Presuming he actually makes it to the cage, GURAM KUTATELADZE BY DECISION.
So I am once again in the position of casting severe personal doubts on a recent signing whose footage doesn't wow me. ELVES BRENER BY DECISION feels appropriate, but it's a last-minute change, anything can happen.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Daniel Marcos (15-0) vs Victor Hugo (24-4)
It's another Contender Series clash, and with it, another reminder of how frustrating I find the drat thing. Daniel Marcos won his contract last year and notched two victories in 2023: A knockout over Saimon Oliveira, who chose to eschew his grappling in favor of overswinging and getting repeatedly countered for it, and a split decision over Davey Grant, who outstruck Marcos in every round and had an easy shut-out victory on most media scorecards, and yet, somehow, still lost. Marcos was supposed to get tested against another promising-but-unproven Daniel here in Daniel "Willycat" Santos, but the council of nicknames decided to finally punish Santos for his sins, so he's out injured. Instead, we've got Victor "Striker" Hugo, so I can only assume the aforementioned council was so puzzled about why the Hunchback guy is a professional fighter now that they forgot to fine Hugo for that terrible name choice. Hugo's been cleaning up the Brazilian regionals for quite awhile, knocking people out and cranking heel hooks in places like Qualify Combat and Sicario MMA and a Serbian federation named Ad Astra per Aspera and whatever the gently caress a 'Pancrase' is--aside from a between-rounds corner stoppage thanks to a slipped rib, he hasn't been beaten since 2013.
Of course, Daniel Marcos hasn't been beaten period, according to judges. Dodgy decision or no, Marcos hung in there for fifteen minutes with Grant and made a good accounting for himself, which is more than most of his opponents can say. Hugo's got some real promise, and I appreciate anyone who's still throwing out kneebars in 2023, but Marcos seems like too much, too fast. DANIEL MARCOS BY DECISION.CANCELLED: Hugo couldn't make the weight cut and we're off.
WELTERWEIGHT: Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos (24-7) vs Rinat Fakhretdinov (22-2)
Why this isn't headlining the prelims, I have no idea. I'm not sure the UFC knows what it's doing with either of these fighters, quite frankly. Elizeu Zaleski is a hell of a fighter, a fun, powerful, scary striker with multiple fight-of-the-night awards, a knockout victory over Sean Strickland and one of the most uncomfortably one-sided beatings in MMA history against Benoît Saint-Denis. But he's also turning 37 this month, and he also just came back from a year off thanks to a failed test for ostarine, and he also struggled with Li Jingliang and Muslim Salikhov, so I get having some trouble placing him in the pecking order. Rinat Fakhretdinov, though? That I don't get. Fakhretdinov came into the UFC last year as a middleweight champion out of Russia on a 14-fight, eight-year winning streak, he pieced up Andreas Michailidis and Bryan Battle with relative ease, and management gave him a big ol' present by having him welcome Kevin Lee back to the UFC this past July, who retired after Rinat destroyed him in under a minute. So Rinat's 3-0 in the UFC, he just got the most visible win of his career and he hasn't lost a fight in drat near a decade.
So give him Elizeu Zaleski halfway through the prelims of a random Brazilian TV card? I guess? This is what I mean re: how weird the pushes for Jailton and Caio Borralho are. Why, it's enough to make one think they might be giving favorable treatment to Contender Series winners they can push as pet projects who just happen to also be ritualistically underpaid! But that'd be crazy. RINAT FAKHRETDINOV BY DECISION.
LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Vitor Petrino (9-0) vs Modestas Bukauskas (15-5)
This is one of those "the UFC knows exactly what they want" fights and that means I am deeply biased against it. Which is unfortunate, because Vitor Petrino is fun as poo poo to watch fight, in that he's big and powerful and athletically gifted, and he also just cannot stop having profoundly weird fights. He won his Contender Series debut by knockout despite being so tired a round and a half into the fight that he could barely keep his hands up, but his opponent was somehow even sloppier. He won his UFC debut against Anton "The Pleasure Man" Turkalj by grapplefucking him in a fight where, despite two groin shots and a half-dozen fence grabs, no points were deducted from Turkalj. Even in his most normal fight, his last outing against Marcin Prachnio, he still visibly tired himself throwing giant slams for little gain before snatching an arm triangle a minute before the fight would've ended. He's got big, powerful weapons, and he knows he has to use them, but he's not quite sure how they go together yet. Modestas Bukauskaus is the UFC's spoiler. After getting rid of him back in 2021 after Khalil Rountree Jr. kicked his knee in half, he was brought back as a short-notice, last-minute replacement the UFC could sacrifice to Tyson Pedro for a big, fun, hometown Australian win--except Modestas, who is actually pretty technically sound, outfought Pedro and won. So the UFC threw him at The Ultimate Fighter 30 (jesus christ) runner-up Zac Pauga, intending to rehab him into a potential light-heavyweight prospect--and it probably should've worked, because Pauga outstruck him and won on 90% of the media scorecards!--but Bukauskaus took home another decision. He's a smart, conservative, technical striker, which is, of course, less fun than slinging leather, and the UFC would very much like to stop paying him money to upset their guys.
Vitor Petrino is here to knock out Modestas Bukauskas. This fight has a scritped ending, and it's Petrino punching his face in while a Brazilian crowd loses its poo poo. I think this is likely: Modestas is good at playing keepaway, but he's historically struggled with fighters who can use their physicality to pressure him out of his gameplan, and few guys are as singleminded about their physicality as Petrino. But I cannot resist. MODESTAS BUKAUSKAS BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Angela Hill (15-13, #12) vs Denise Gomes (8-2)
The Angela Hill life is a rough one. Two fights ago? Headlining the prelims against Emily Ducote. One fight ago? A full-on main event showdown with Mackenzie Dern. Having done her job and gotten the permanently-marketed Dern a big, notable win? Get your rear end all the way down on the prelims and fight Denise Gomes. Angela Hill's great--fun, funny, rarely boring, always well-rounded--but after almost ten years and two dozen fights, she's one of the UFC's most-used and most-abused utility players. I'm sure they'd be thrilled if she went on a title run, she's got a big fanbase, but they're not doing her any matchmaking favors. This fight isn't much different. Denise Gomes got through the Contender Series, got into the UFC, and immediately lost her debut when the irrepressible Loma Lookboonmee managed to trip her to the ground and elbow her face for ten minutes. The UFC clearly lost some confidence in Gomes, as her next two bouts came against other women the company wanted to push, namely fellow Contender Series winner Bruna Brasil and the heavily-hyped Yazmin Jauregui, but Gomes walked Brazil down in a one-and-a-half-round TKO and blasted Jauregui flat in twenty seconds.
So now she gets the Angela Hill test. If Gomes can beat her, it's a big feather in her cap and a ranking in her future. I think she's got a chance--with her power and aggression she's got a chance against anyone, frankly--but Hill's grappling and clinch control are both solidly underrated, and we haven't seen Gomes have to fight off takedowns the way she did against Loma. I'm sticking with ANGELA HILL BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Montserrat Ruiz (10-3) vs Eduarda Moura (9-0)
I was thrilled to see Montserrat Ruiz back this past August. I had enjoyed her do-or-die fighting style back in 2021, and after Amanda Lemos sparked her out in a round and Ruiz disappeared for two years, I had assumed she was simply done with the sport. And then she came back! And, uh, looked bad. Really, really bad. Outstruck 141 to 20 bad. She was completely helpless under the ground assault of Jaqueline Amorim and wound up getting a TKO loss not so much because she was absorbing devastating blows, but because the referee was--correctly--tired of seeing her get helplessly mauled. So now, she gets to welcome Eduarda Moura to the UFC. Moura is an undefeated prospect with a grappling focus so strict that her nickname is Ronda--which makes her the second Ronda Rousey-themed female fighter in the UFC, and I cannot help wondering if this is a Khaleesi situation where a sea of Rousey-tribute grapplers will slowly overtake the women's division. But I thought it was cool when Kiichi Kunimoto did it, so I should probably shut the gently caress up.
After her last fight, I should probably--rightly--assume another ground-based mauling for El Conejo here. That's almost certainly the correct answer. I refuse to stop being a dumbass. MONTSERRAT RUIZ BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Kauê Fernandes (8-1) vs Marc Diakiese (16-7)
Oh, Marc Diakiese. You somehow fooled the UFC into signing you thinking you were an ultra-exciting British kickboxer, and then you actually turned out to really like wrestling. British wrestling! The most shameful kind there is. Now it's seven years later and you're a perfectly even 7-7 in the UFC, and you've been trading two wins and two losses apiece over and over since the dawn of 2019, and you've never been farther from a ranking, and you're once again desperately trying to stave off a contract-endangering third consecutive loss, and they're not even giving you established UFC fighters anymore. Hell, they're not even giving you Contender Series winners. Kauê Fernandes has one claim to fame, and it's winning Shooto Brasil's lightweight title back in 2018, and as much as I love Shooto and all it has done for the sport, Shooto Brasil is the company that brought you things like 'José Aldo fails to hurt a 130-pound boxer' and '22-7 world champion Dudu Dantas vs 3-5 Michel Costa' and three of the four social media links on their official page are dead.
I have no faith in the things Shooto Brazil brings to my doorstep. But I think Marc Diakiese losing is a lot funnier. KAUÊ FERNANDES BY SUBMISSION.
Broadcast begins in half an hour, but there may be a good amount of talking heads time to fill the void.
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Nov 4, 2023 22:32
