- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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Two events left in the year. Did you hear Conor is coming back to box Petr loving Yan? Jesus christ.
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 84: MISSED CONNECTIONS
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9 FROM THE VIOLENT DARKNESS OF THE UFC APEX
PRELIMS 4:30 PM PST / 7:30 PM EST | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM
I was going to make a fake comedy poster about how unfinished and screwed up this card was, and then I saw the real poster and realized they'd already done it for me.
Remember how excited I was for last week's card? Remember how fantastic it turned out to be (aside from Kerry Hatley trying to get a man killed)? Remember how great mixed martial arts can be when the matchmakers and fighters are both firing on all cylinders?
That was great. This is less great.
A couple months ago the UFC announced it was heading back to Shanghai for the first time since 2017, and it put together a card with a focus on regional talent and the end of this year's Road to UFC tournament and if this sounds kind of weak to you, you're right! And they knew it, because once Petr Yan dropped out of the main event they canned it at the last minute, cancelled half the card, moved it to the Apex and hastily reassembled it.
The best theory I've heard is the UFC had planned for Zhang Weili vs Yan Xiaonan when they booked Shanghai. That would have been nice. I like Song Yadong! I like Chris Gutierrez! But going from Beneil Dariush vs Arman Tsarukyan to Song Yadong vs Chris Gutierrez feels like switching channels to watch the PFL, and by god, we're supposed to be safe from the PFL until next year.
But it's December, and we've only got two events left, and next week is probably starting with the angriest essay I've written this year, so let's enjoy it while we can.
the subtle sound of window blowing can be heard
MAIN EVENT: HOLDING THE LADDER
 BANTAMWEIGHT: Song Yadong (20-7-1 (1), #7) vs Chris Gutierrez (20-4-2, #14)
There are two parallel stories about just how difficult it is to climb the rankings at 135 pounds at work in this fight, and there are a surprising number of parallels between them. They only started a year apart! They both had breakout performances by obliterating a past-his-prime champion who should have retired! They both had their momentum halted after unfortunate draws to entirely separate men named Cody! But these stories are taking place at two very different spectrums of competition, and thanks to the necessities of regional matchmaking--and most of the top ten being unavailable--we have to tie them together.
Seriously, though, look at the rest of the Bantamweight top ten right now. It's an insanely talent-rich division, but gently caress, it's kind of a mess.
- Sean O'Malley's the champ, but he got his shot through real weird means and is mysteriously not facing the top contender
- #1 Aljamain Sterling just lost the belt and is leaving the division altogether
- #2 Merab Dvalishvili is getting shoved down by the promotion for not fighting Aljamain, his training partner and friend
- #3 Henry Cejudo hasn't actually won a fight in the division since his retirement in mid-2020 and is ranked on account of losing the title fight he got for his grand return, except now he's injured again
- #4 Cory Sandhagen just beat the guy who's getting the next title shot and the UFC wants him fighting Umar Nurmagomedov, who is ranked #12, when he returns from injury
- #5 Petr Yan--who was supposed to be in this fight!--pulled out with an injury, meaning by the time he comes back he'll have spent a year+ on the shelf and be winless since 2021
- #6 Marlon Vera, who just lost to Sandhagen and probably should have lost to #10 Pedro Munhoz, is getting the next title shot
- #8 Rob Font just got beat by the not-yet-ranked Deiveson Figueiredo and will, presumably, be out of the rankings
- #9 Dominick Cruz hasn't had a fight booked in a year and a half and spends every other media appearance insisting he's not retired
- #10 Pedro Munhoz got screwed out of a fight with Sean O'Malley, beat Chris Gutierrez and should have beaten Marlon Vera, and is instead fighting the unranked Kyler Phillips next March
So if you're #7 Song Yadong, what can you do? You were supposed to get Petr Yan, the only available person ahead of you, and then his body exploded and Chris Gutierrez happens to be present. Sure, it means instead of a high-profile fight with a world champion that could establish you as a contender you're defending your position against someone as far down in the rankings as you could go without having to contend with the second of the two ranked Nurmagomedovs, but hey: You're Song Yadong and you haven't run from a fight yet.
And, y'know, getting paid is nice.
If anything, this is entirely in character. Nothing about Song's time in the UFC has been easy. Every bit of momentum he's gained since his 2017 debut has been repeatedly, irritatingly, stopped. He entered the UFC and rifled off a four-fight win streak, then got ground to a halting draw by Cody Stamann. He beat Marlon Vera, but found himself on the wrong side of a close decision to Kyler Phillips, who would be a contender himself if he could keep multiple fights in a single year. Knock out Marlon Moraes! Lose to Cory Sandhagen.
But boy, what a loss it was. Sandhagen is one of the absolute best in the division, a monster who arguably should have gotten a shot at the champion two years ago and is one fight removed from completely dominating the guy getting the next title shot, and Song gave him one of the toughest fights of his life. They were tied on 2/3 of the scorecards going into the final round, and Song had to be saved from coming out to fight that round because his eyebrow was hanging off of his goddamn skull, which, of course, had no impact whatsoever on his desire to go punch a man in the face.
That's Song Yadong. His boxing is incredibly dangerous, his toughness is off the charts, and he's perpetually just one great performance away from reminding people he could be a champion.
Chris Gutierrez hasn't made it that far yet. But, boy, it's not for lack of trying.
"El Guapo" didn't have the fast start Song did. He hopped into the UFC at the end of 2018 and, as a sign of things to come, his debut was heralded by Raoni Barcelos handing him the first and, thus far, only stoppage loss of his career, beating him bloody and choking him out in two rounds as the opening bout of the finals for The Ultimate Fighter 28 (jesus christ). Even in losing, Gutierrez demonstrated just how tough he was: When Raoni Barcelos hits you 60 times in one round and you don't fall over dead, even if you lose, that's a hell of a statement.
But it would take four more years for anyone to really give that statement the attention it deserved. Almost no one saw him kick Vince Morales' legs apart or get ground to a draw by his own Cody (this time, it was Durden). Chris Gutierrez didn't even get off the prelims--and not the sexy, well-advertised prelims, but the early prelims only the MMA equivalent of theater kids bother to watch--until late 2021, and even that only happened because the card was so badly gutted by injuries that just nine fights made it to air, so he was right the gently caress back to prelims immediately after. But the UFC had noticed his stiff leg kicks and his tough chin and, fortuitously, his very highlight-reel-marketable spinning backfist knockout of Danaa Bategerel, and they decided it was time to get him noticed.
Of all the people in the division, of all the fights they could have made, former 155-pound champion and legend of the sport Frankie Edgar, a visibly compromised fighter who thoroughly should not have been fighting anymore, got Chris Gutierrez for his retirement bout in November of 2022. I echoed the sentiment of more or less the entire mixed martial arts fanbase about it:
Bantamweight is one of the biggest shark tanks in the UFC; going 6-1-1 is in no way easy, and Gutierrez is in no way undeserving of laurels. He's fast, he's tough and he's incredibly scrappy; his leg kicking game is both quick and debilitating, his counter-grappling saves him from a lot of bad positions and his chin has yet to fail him.
He's skilled. He's vital. He's 31 and still fights like a man with years left in the tank. It's not his fault no one else wanted him in this fight, nor is it his fault he's the chosen executioner for one of the most beloved fighters in the sport. But it's no less difficult to feel good about it.
And then he immediately got controlled for three rounds by Pedro Munhoz and dropped right back out of contendership.
Whoops.
Both of these men are a fight removed from their losses--Gutierrez took a dominant decision over Alatengheili, Song knocked out the irrepressible Ricky Simón--and this isn't the fight it was supposed to be, but in its place, it's become a statement fight. Song was hoping to stake a claim to a title fight clear, but instead he's defending his place as a contender; Gutierrez, having flirted with relevance, is making the case that the Munhoz fight was a speedbump and he belongs at the top of the division. They both hit hard, they both recover fast, and they both deeply want to be the first to (truly) knock the other out in the UFC.
SONG YADONG BY DECISION. I'm a big fan of Gutierrez and his kicking game, but the Munhoz fight showed how open to counters he is, and Song's laser beam of a cross feels like bad news. Will he get Gutierrez out of there? I doubt it. Will he outstrike him and keep him too honest with counterpunching to sit down on his leg kicks? I believe so.
CO-MAIN EVENT: ANGERED BY THE MERE EXISTENCE OF LEGS
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Anthony Smith (37-18, #8) vs Khalil Rountree Jr. (12-5 (1), #11)
What were we just saying about weight classes in trouble?
I pick on Light Heavyweight so often that I feel some level of guilt about it. It's trying, man. They're trying! It's not the fault of the 205-pound fighters of the world that their division has been re-enacting the Sideshow Bob Steps On Rakes gag for the last eight years. Three stripped belts, four belt vacations, an ignominious title draw, and now the champion is a Middleweight whose first act as champion was calling out another Middleweight, the top contender just got arrested and Anthony Smith is fighting a man who doesn't want him to have functional knees.
And it wouldn't even be the first body part Smith has lost on his troubled path back to contendership, and I have to imagine that makes it even more irritating that people keep asking him when he's going to retire.
This sport isn't kind. It puts mileage on your body like few others. When you start accruing real noticeable damage, especially when that damage demonstrates how far away from contendership you really are, it makes fans uncomfortable. Few moments in mixed martial arts have been a more acute or more visibly uncomfortable example than Anthony Smith handing referee Jason Herzog his own knocked-out teeth for safekeeping in the middle of being mauled by Glover Teixeira. And that was three and a half years ago.
Smith's record since then is 4-3, but boy, it's not much better. He beat the now 14-8 Devin Clark, he got an injury stoppage over the now semi-retired Jimmy Crute, and he beat Ryan Spann--and then, having earned another chance at contendership, he got horrifyingly beaten out of it again, first pounded silly by Magomed Ankalaev and then kicked out of walking right by Johnny Walker. The UFC tested him by having him fight Ryan Spann again, and having easily defeated Spann just under two years ago, this time, Smith just barely scraped by with a split decision.
It's rough. It's rough when a former top contender seems like they're done and they don't want to be done. It's particularly rough when they start taking last-minute fights where they could get their limbs broken off.
This was not, in fact, Anthony Smith's fight. It was Khalil Rountree Jr.'s. Rountree, who is currently riding his best UFC winning streak in eight years of trying, was supposed to fight the undefeated, #12-ranked Azamat Murzakanov in a big, fun striking battle. But pneumonia took Murzakanov out of the running, and on two weeks' notice, Rountree got Anthony Smith instead.
In some ways, it's a blessing. Rountree's been a good soldier for the UFC. Three of his last four fights have involved great, highlight-reel knockouts, from stomping out Modestas Bukauskas' kneecap to kicking Karl Roberson's abdomen in half to punching out a truly inexplicably matched-up Chris Daukaus in one round. He fights whoever they put in front of him and, more often than not, he violently knocks them out. But you can only defend your position so many times. Rountree has found himself continually fighting backwards. Even his last two fights were examples. He beat Dustin Jacoby, got himself into the top fifteen, and immediately defended that spot against the unranked Daukaus. Even Murzakanov would have been, divisionally, a step backwards.
Anthony Smith is Khalil Rountree's chance at the top ten. It's his chance to prove his historic issues with stronger wrestlers are behind him. It is his chance to knock out someone Jon Jones took to a decision.
I would like to say that this is a difficult fight, and honestly, it should be. It takes a loving pounding to keep Anthony Smith down, and his grappling is, somehow, still underrated in the annals of the division. He's still got a solid jab, he's still got a tricky trip game within the clinch, and he's still tough as hell. But the word "still" keeps coming up because, objectively, talking about Anthony Smith's status as a fighter means talking about how visibly diminished he seems to be. For a man who went five rounds with Jon Jones back in the not-that-long-ago of 2019, he struggled to make it to the end of three with Johnny Walker and Ryan Spann. It's hard to watch Smith fight and not get the feeling his actual opponent is time.
But even in a kinder time period, this would still be a tough ask for him. Smith loves to open up his offense with jabs and leg kicks; Rountree's got much faster, harder kicks and counters dangerous enough to drop world-class kickboxers like Gökhan Saki. Smith was never a particularly fast fighter; he relied on his chin and his recovery instead. Those haven't been there for him in awhile, and I cannot help feeling this is the fight where they finally let him down entirely. KHALIL ROUNTREE JR. BY TKO.
MAIN CARD: IRON TURTLE ARMY
FLYWEIGHT: Sumudaerji (16-5, #12) vs Allan Nascimento (20-6, NR)Tim Elliott (19-13-1, #10)
Sumudaerji just cannot get past his own schedule. The last time we saw the great Tibetan sheepherder--just to be clear, that's not an MMA commentator racist stereotyping thing, Sumudaerji is literally a shepherd from Tibet--it was in preparation for a showdown with the top-ten ranked Matt Schnell, and I talked about what a shame it was that Sumudaerji, an incredibly tough, talented Flyweight, is buried in the sport's consciousness by his inability to fight more than once a year. That fight was, of course, in July of 2022. And it loving ruled! It was a fight-of-the-year candidate despite only being two rounds long, and it made both men look ridiculously good. But Schnell won. So, once again, Sumudaerji is back for his annual appearance to defend the ranking he still has despite having one fight, which he lost, in the last 34 months. Again: I love watching Sumudaerji. His leg kicks are murderous and his cross is vicious and he's so thoroughly unshakable as a fighter that nothing anyone does surprises him. But his inactivity--even when it's Manel Kape failing a drug test--hurts him.
Fun fact: Originally, these were the next two sentences of this writeup.
quote:
The Allan Nascimento story isn't much different, unfortunately. His ratio is a bit better, but thanks to injuries and happenstance and bad loving timing, "Puro Osso" himself has also only been managing one appearance a year. This fight will be the first time in his UFC career Nascimento has managed to break this streak.
On paper, I even favor his chances. He IS a good wrestler, he DOES take down everyone he fights, and, logically, it makes absolute sense for him to drag Sumudaerji through grappling Hell here. But, uh. SUMUDAERJI BY TKO. Sumudaerji isn't going to outgrapple Tim Elliott, and if Elliott winds up on top of him or at least on top of his neck he needs to be very, very concerned, and honestly, Elliott's only been knocked out once in his career and it was a decade and a half ago, so I'm not even sure what I'm doing, here. But Elliott seeming to slow down a little in his last couple fights, and the looseness of his standup, and the extreme short notice with which he signed up for this all give me Bad Feelings about this fight.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Nasrat Haqparast (15-5) vs Jamie Mullarkey (17-6)
Believe it or not, this fight has been in the works for an entire year. At the start of 2021 Nasrat was considered a potential top ten fighter at the shark tank of Lightweight; at the start of 2022 he was an afterthought. Nasrat's orthodox boxing and straightforward offense had gotten him attention and consideration, but getting completely dominated in consecutive fights by Dan Hooker and Bobby Green slammed the door on his ranked aspirations. A turnaround against the ever-faithful John Makdessi gave Nasrat the momentum to get booked against Jamie Mullarkey at the end of 2022; the booking lasted about a week. Haqparast wound up on the shelf for an entire year between fights. He had a great back-and-forth bout with Landon Quiñones this past September and ultimately won a decision, but, as much as I like Landon Quiñones, he's not going to get you back to your ranking.
Jamie Mullarkey is, but, respectfully, it's less about his victories than his style. Mullarkey has become a fan favorite for his tendency to have fun, wild fights, but the thing about having fun, wild fights is you generally lose a bunch of them. Mullarkey is great, and he's got a dedicated fanbase, and the UFC books him good and high as a result of it. He's also 5-4 in the company. Mullarkey's established himself as must-see TV, but half of that seeing involves seeing him get the crap beaten out of him. It's hard to talk about getting by the John Makdessis and Devonte Smiths of the world but being crushed by Jalin Turner and Fares Ziam without bringing up the dread curse of the Gatekeeper, but, however disrespectful the connotations can feel, it sure does seem to fit. Mullarkey's fun and more well-rounded than he gets credit for, but he's going on five years in the UFC and he has yet to make himself a threat to the division.
He's probably not going to do it here, either. Mullarkey's best performances come against people he can keep uncomfortable by falling back on his wrestling; Haqparast is real, real tough to take down, and his sharp boxing is problematic for a guy as hittable as Mullarkey. NASRAT HAQPARAST BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: André Muniz (23-6) vs Jun Yong Park (17-5)
I gotta be honest: I'm having a tough time with this one. At the outset of this year I was all aboard the André Muniz hype train. He broke Jacaré's arm! He saved us from two and a half unnecessary rounds of Eryk Anders! His grappling was legit as hell and his striking, particularly his kicks, were stiff and unpleasant, and I felt real, real confident he was going to beat Brendan Allen and establish himself as a Middleweight contender. And, uh, he sure didn't. He lost every round and got choked out. But, hey: It's Brendan Allen! Brendan Allen is a fantastic fighter who does that to an awful lot of people, even black belts. It's not like Muniz got wrecked on the ground by Paul Craig or som--what's that? His next fight, you say? Thank you for ruining the five months I've spent pretending that fight didn't happen, Me.
So what do you do when you get beaten bloody by the ground-and-pound offense of Paul Craig? Why, you fight Jun Yong loving Park, of course. I picked against Park when he fought Eryk Anders. I picked against Park when he fought Joseph Holmes. I picked against Park when he fought Albert Duraev. My friend, fellow writer and beloved internet MMA celebrity LobsterMobster/LegKickTKO/CHUNGUS SUPREME has reminded me, every time, that I am a sinner and a fool for not believing in the Iron Turtle, and I have persistently ignored her warnings, certain that this time, this time, his opponent's attributes are just too much. And I am wrong. I ignore Park's ridiculous clinch game and his horrifyingly persistent attacks in the pocket and his brutal ground and pound and I am just loving wrong.
And now I have to choose between the guy I thought would be fighting for the title by now and the guy I have continuously thought nothing of. And I must, at last, admit defeat. JUN YONG PARK BY TKO. Bury me softly, Turtle-brother.
PRELIMS: BIG PEOPLE UNWELCOME
WELTERWEIGHT: Song Kenan (21-7) vs Kevin Jousset (9-2)
The same shakeup that scratched Allan Nascimento also put this fight back on the prelims after I'd already given it the main-card treatment, so enjoy this special edition double-size prelim writeup.
Sometimes we fly so close to the sun it burns. Song Kenan had a good run as a borderline top fifteen Welterweight, thanks in no small part to his ability to break someone's skull by lightly flicking it with his fingertips, but after Max Griffin knocked him out in 2021 he fell off the face of the Earth. After two years of hiatus, the UFC very casually, subtly ordered Song back after 24 months on the couch to put over their favorite new Irishman, Ian Machado Garry. And Song almost saved us from some of the most grating pre-fight banter in years when he caught Garry overcommitting and sent him face-first to the mat with a huge left hook. Unfortunately: It was only almost. Garry rallied and knocked Kenan out in the third. Song's stayed off the shelf this time, though: He came back this Summer and outboxed Rolando Bedoya, and now he's trying to make it three in a year just to make up for all that lost time.
Kevin Jousset is a much newer quantity. The French-Australian fighter only made his UFC debut this past September as a hasty local-attraction addition to the Adesanya/Strickland card that personally poisoned the entire world's rainwater supply for the next three centuries. Jousset was there to welcome Kiefer Crosbie to the octagon, and I had started to write "the inexplicably hyped Kiefer Crosbie" before realizing with a deep sense of internal disappointment in our entire sport that "is Irish" is enough reason for anyone to get hyped right now. Crosbie made it very clear that he intended to knock Jousset out; Jousset made it very clear that he has a second-degree black belt in judo by pretty easily ragdolling Crosbie out of the clinch and choking him out within seconds.
I like Jousset's style, I'm a big fan of effective judo in MMA, and I look forward to seeing him fight again after Song Kenan punches him out. Jousset did get hit in the head 20 times in four minutes against Crosbie, and Song hits an awful lot harder, especially when people are trying to get into the clinch. SONG KENAN BY TKO.
FLYWEIGHT: Hyun Sung Park (8-0) vs Shannon Ross (13-8)
Remember midway through last year, when the UFC actually briefly perceived ONE as a threat and ran the Road to UFC tournament to scout talent out of the Asian scene? Those winners are 50/50 so far. Bantamweight champ Rinya Nakamura ran a clinic on Fernie Garcia this Summer, but Lightweight champ Anshul Jubli got himself comically hosed up by Mike Breeden for Halloween. Hyun Sung Park, our Flyweight winner, is next up on the proving ground. He won his bracket in style, either punching or choking out all three of his opponents, and the UFC would clearly like to give him another chance at a fun finish, because, objectively, that's what Shannon Ross has been doing. "The Turkish Delight" might be the biggest hard-luck case in the UFC right now. He got on the Contender Series, got knocked out by Vinicius Salvador, then almost died the next day after he went septic when it turned out he'd fought with a ruptured appendix. The UFC threw a contract at him in what was definitely a deep-seated appreciation for his warrior spirit and most definitely not an attempt to keep him from thinking about suing. Six months later, Ross made his UFC debut! And got knocked out in one minute. And then, five months later, he made his big comeback! And got knocked out in seventeen seconds.
I appreciate Shannon Ross. Part of it is admiring his persistence, part of it is enjoying his fighting style, and honestly, part of it is solidarity as someone else who almost died of sepsis because he didn't know his appendix had exploded. But he sure does get hosed up a lot. He tends to let his opponents dictate the pace and position of fights, and that gets him cracked upside the head, and I'm afraid it's going to happen again. HYUN SUNG PARK BY SUBMISSION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Steve Garcia (14-5) vs Melquizael Costa (20-6)
This is actually a rebooking of a fight that was meant to happen at last week's Dariush vs Tsarukyan, but a last-minute illness kept Garcia off that particular violence festival. Both guys fight at Featherweight but this is at 155, presumably so they don't have to cut weight twice in a week, but everything is otherwise the same, so enjoy my thoughts from last week:
Steve Garcia is trying as hard as he can. "Mean Machine" jumped into the UFC as a late replacement back in February of 2020--after having just knocked out current UFC prospect Chepe Mariscal barely a month earlier--and, like most late replacement contract fighters, he quickly went 1-2 and seemed like he was probably done. And then he knocked the gently caress out of UFC child soldier Chase Hooper in ninety seconds. At something of a loss, the UFC put him up against rising international star Shayilan Nuerdanbieke, and once again, Garcia obliged by nuking Shayilan in two rounds with body shots. Having recorded two fantastic, devastating knockout victories in a row that were unfortunately buried midway through the prelims, Steve Garcia is, uh, once again buried midway through the prelims. This time his dance partner is Melquizael "Melk" Costa, a fellow short-notice replacement fighter who's currently midway through his I-belong-here redemption tour. He lost his debut fight against Thiago Moisés, which is pretty understandable as Moisés is an absolute motherfucker to fight even with a full camp, but he made up for it by shutting out the ever-tough Austin Lingo in his sophomore appearance.
The clash in their respective styles makes this a real interesting fight. Garcia has vicious power and he's very good at using it to fight long, with particularly severe body kicks, but his defense tends to suffer for it. Melk likes to sling slapping headkicks and throw fun spinning poo poo, but he picks his spots and tries to keep himself defensively covered between his attempts. What I can't get out of my head is watching Costa smack Austin Lingo upside the head with a half-dozen kicks without putting him down, though, and compared to the opportunistic power Garcia carries, STEVE GARCIA BY TKO doesn't feel out of the question here.
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Stephanie Egger (8-4) vs Luana Santos (6-1)
Stephanie Egger is a fighter in search of a position. She came into the UFC as a grappler notable enough to have gone the distance with Gabi Garcia despite giving up an entire person's worth in mass, but in her debut she was immediately outgrappled by Tracy Cortez. She rallied and scraped some of that credibility back in her subsequent performances, but that, too, got washed away by controversy in her big, weird fight with Mayra Bueno Silva when an armbar she said she didn't submit to was confirmed not by video footage or a visible replay, but by the solemn word of judge Ron McCarthy, who swore he saw it, which was enough. (Ron McCarthy would go on to score Paddy Pimblett as the winner against Jared Gordon later that year.) She choked out a way-too-cocky Ailin Perez in her next fight, but her role as a prospect spoiler fell apart immediately when Irina "Russian Ronda" Alekseeva kneebarred her in two minutes. So her grappling is just good enough to make her a threat, but just touchy enough to be a liability against stronger, crisper grapplers. If you're thinking that makes her a measuring stick--congratulations, you have absorbed enough mixed martial arts to become a cynic. Luana Santos, or, to be precise, Luana do Valle Lopes Gonzales Santos, which I really wish she got to use instead, is a prospect in need of measuring. She's 6-1, but she's only fought one person with more than three wins. (For the record: It was four.) Her UFC debut was a real fun first-round knockout, but the woman she knocked out was The Ultimate Fighter 30 (jesus christ) winner Juliana Miller, who, and as an inexplicably large Juliana Miller fan this pains me to say, is a 3-3 fighter who does not really seem to fully yet know what to do with her hands. We know Luana can punch people out, and we know from her appearances in the Legacy Fighting Alliance that she'll crank a motherfucker's head off if given a chance, but we haven't yet seen her tested.
So, congratulations, Stephanie. You're the test. I'm sorry. LUANA SANTOS BY SUBMISSION. I don't think she's going to get outgrappled; I do think she's going to get stunned and choked out before she can recover.
FLYWEIGHT: Tatsuro Taira (14-0) vs Carlos Hernandez (9-2)
I was so happy last July when Tatsuro Taira finally got out of the curtain-jerking slots. Taira is, seemingly, the real deal: A young, tough, talented grappler with a secretly dangerous cross in his back pocket and an incredibly tricky submission game. And he was already 3-0 in the UFC, and by god, that meant it was more than time for him to get a highlighted spot, which he dutifully used to beat the always-tough Edgar Cháirez. Which is why, as a borderline-ranked Flyweight on a four-fight winning streak, Tatsuro Taira is...back to being second from the bottom on the card, in a fight almost no one will watch, against a 2-1 guy, and I will never understand. At risk of being disrespectful to Carlos Hernandez, his time in the spotlight is notable mostly for how loving weird it's been. He got on the Contender Series, almost got repeatedly finished, and still won a split decision. He got into the UFC, had a wildly sloppy fight with Victor Altamirano, and won a 50/50 coinflip with another split decision. He got choked out by our old buddy Allan Nascimento, came back five months later, and won a technical decision over Denys Bondar after knocking him out with a mid-takedown headbutt one second before the fight was actually going to end. His entire tenure is an experiment in chaos theory.
None of which makes him not the kind of scrambly grappler that could give Taira fits if he's not careful. We have seen Taira almost get caught by guillotines in his fights with Vergara and Cháirez, and if you roll the dice on those chokes often enough, you are, eventually, going to lose. This is probably not the night, though. TATSURO TAIRA BY SUBMISSION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Rayanne dos Santos (14-6) vs Talita Alencar (4-0-1)
This is a battle of women wronged by the Contender Series. Rayanne dos Santos--although it looks like the UFC's going to bill her as Rayanne Amanda, so I guess we'll see what comes up on the chyron--lost her shot at the UFC back in 2022, when her Contender Series appearance led to a loss against Denise Gomes. This wound up being fortunate for Rayanne: Instead of the UFC, she went off to Invicta and, within two fights, became the #1 Atomweight fighter in America after beating up Jillian DeCoursey. Of course, the UFC doesn't have an Atomweight division, because they want me, personally, to suffer, so they poached Rayanne and put her right back at 115. Talita Alencar is a genuinely accomplished grappler with multiple no-gi world championships, but most of her attention came from the bizarre circumstances of her signing. Her Contender Series shot came this past September, and she got off to an early lead against Stephanie Luciano, but Luciano rallied and ultimately fought Alencar to a draw. In reflection of their clearly equal performances, the UFC...told Alencar to go the gently caress home and just signed Luciano. And now it's three months later, and Talita Alencar got hurriedly signed after all because the UFC needed a warm body to fill out this card, and Stephanie Luciano is nowhere to be found. I have started to feel some level of self-consciousness over how frequently I complain about the Contender Series after two straight years of endless bitching, but in my defense, the Contender Series is a loving plague on the very concept of mixed martial arts and if it could achieve sentience and reach through the internet it would strangle us all for being complicit in its tortured existence.
Also Talita's grappling is fantastic but RAYANNE DOS SANTOS BY DECISION when Talita can't get her down and spends three rounds getting slugged in the face.
Card got bumped to 4:30 thanks to cancellations, so prelims begin in half an hour-ish.
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Dec 10, 2023 00:58
