UFC/MMA February: a longer tongue than himself

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Hammer House: Stinger Splash Zone > UFC/MMA February: a longer tongue than himself

On a scale of one to ten, how excited are you for Jack Hermansson vs Joe Pyfer? This poll is closed.
I have mixed feelings about the dilution of the roster but I like up-and-coming fighters	1	3.23%
Remember when Jack Hermansson heel hooked Kelvin Gastelum! That was cool! Oh my god that was four years ago	10	32.26%
The Apex is the nadir of martial arts and we never truly left its darkened clutches	6	19.35%
Is Joe Pyfer, like, a thing	6	19.35%
3	8	25.81%
Total:	31 votes

[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

_{Do you want a do-over on the start of the year? Go back to January here.}

Welcome to February, the month of love. Our sleepy beginning to 2024 is over and we're off on the road to neverending fightland, for better or worse. We've got events every weekend, we probably will for at least the next five months, we still don't know the main event of UFC 300, the UFC is going to court two days after it happens, the future of Bellator is unknown and John Lineker just fought a Welterweight. Mixed martial arts, folks. This month's title courtesy of Merab Dvalishvili.

If this is your first time here you should stop and say hi so we know it's not just the same couple dozen of us cussing each other out all the time, but you may want to start with The General Q&A Thread for the basic gist of mixed martial arts. Yes, I'm still doing the new one.

If you want to talk about MMA or combat sports events that aren't included in this breakdown: Please do. In a world of Road FC and Rizin events that don't actually air in America and the WBC threatening to rank Jake Paul, there's space for everything. And if there's an event you want to make a GDT for, go right ahead, just make sure to link it here so everyone sees it and basks in the joy of violence.

THIS MONTH'S PUNCHSPORTS EVENTS

PFL vs Bellator: Champs, February 24

ONE Fight Night 19: Haggerty vs Lobo, February 17

IS THERE ANY NEWS

Vince McMahon, who thanks to the WWE/UFC merger was a chief executive above the biggest mixed martial arts promotion in the world, 'voluntarily' resigned from his position after news broke that he was, in fact, a horrible monster. For anyone who has ever paid attention to professional wrestling this was not news, and despite what parent company Endeavor's PR people say, this wasn't news to them, either, as McMahon had already nearly lost his position in the WWE after the beginning of this very scandal. It was, in fact, Vince McMahon's power grab that enabled the corporate merger that led to Endeavor paying him hundreds of millions of dollars, because they don't care about his sex crimes until they no longer have a choice.

Towards the end of January, they no longer had a choice. News broke that one of his victims was suing him, credibly alleging not just coercion, but assault and straight-up sex trafficking. I'm not going to go into the details here, because there's some genuinely awful, triggering poo poo in there. If you want to read them, the Wall Street Journal's summary is here. gently caress Vince McMahon, gently caress the WWE executives and employees who enabled him, gently caress the TKO/Endeavor executives who are feigning shock despite having paid him a fortune in mid-allegations, and gently caress all of us for watching products made by some of the worst people on Earth.

Oh, in the middle of all of that happening, the UFC failed in its bid to have its antitrust lawsuit either delayed or killed altogether. The trial that could theoretically damage or break the UFC's stranglehold on the mixed martial arts industry will now commence on April 15. Bit of a rough legal start to the year for TKO.

But hey, it's not all bad news! They signed Kayla Harrison! That's a big deal, right? You guys remember how much you liked Ronda Rousey, right? What if we did that again? Just, y'know, this time with less people paying attention. Kayla's a two-time Olympic gold medalist in Judo and a two-time tournament champion in the Professional Fighters League, who brought her in as a big mainstream-friendly star, which, clearly, worked out fantastically. The rub here is Kayla's spent almost her entire career fighting at Women's Lightweight, which is, of course, a weight class that does not actually exist outside of the PFL. She made Featherweight once, but, uh, the UFC doesn't do that anymore, either. So Kayla will be fighting at 135 pounds, a weight she's spent her entire career swearing she cannot make. She'll be meeting Holly Holm at UFC 300, in case the Ronda Rousey comparisons weren't already clear enough.

MONTHLY RETIREMENT CORNER

The mixed martial arts world is writ large with people who struggled to make the jump from the regional circuit to the international.

Before it was the terrible new name for a terrible new international fight conglomerate, TKO was best known to combat sports as the name of Canada's biggest mixed martial arts organization. Over the years it brought the world Canadian (or French-Canadian, or just French) stars like Ciryl Gane, Patrick C�te, Mark Hominick and, of course, Georges St-Pierre. As its first--and only--Flyweight champion, back in 2019, Malcolm "X" Gordon was 12-3 and considered one of the best 125-pound fighters outside of the UFC, to the point that they weren't even the first big players to try to bid for him, as Bahrain's money-laden BRAVE Combat Federation booked him to fight for their Flyweight division in early 2020.

Unfortunately, 2020 had other plans. COVID killed everything, contracts got voided, and later in the year Gordon wound up fighting in the UFC against the also-debuting, also-BRAVE-contracted Amir Albazi. Albazi stopped Gordon in one round and that would, overwhelmingly, become the story of his UFC tenure.

Which is pretty unfair. 2-5 looks like a pretty bad record on paper, but when you look at the kind of competition Gordon was facing--current top contender Amir Albazi, future title contender Muhammad Mokaev, even bruisers like Jake Hadley--it becomes hard to imagine things going much differently. Malcolm was good! Like all Flyweights, he was extremely well-rounded and well-conditioned, and people who trained with him called him outright exceptional.

But that just doesn't always translate into international success, and as Gordon entered his thirties he stopped being able to make the weight cut, and that meant the writing was on the wall, and when he missed weight for the second consecutive time for his January 20 showdown with Jimmy Flick, that writing became a giant, flashing neon sign. Gordon put up a good fight, but Flick's grappling was too much and he got choked out in the second round. He took off his gloves and made it pretty clear he was retiring, but, unsurprisingly, the UFC didn't see fit to give him a moment in the spotlight in front of his country to say goodbye. He had to retire on fuckin' Instagram.

It's not the way he wanted to go out, but hey: He got to the drat show. He made it to the biggest organization in the world, he even managed a couple wins, and at the very, very least, he got to fight in front of his Ontario faithful one last time. He got out young and healthy, he can say he won on the biggest stage in the sport, and honestly, everyone in MMA should be so lucky. Malcolm Gordon retires at 14-8.

WHERE ELSE CAN I TALK TO LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE ABOUT VIOLENCE?
Any of the following hangouts:

Sumo: Sumo loving rules and has been enjoying an internet popularity renaissance and you should 100% go watch giant naked men throw other giant naked men.
Grappling: This thread is for both discussing grappling as a sport and grappling as a thing a ton of us do for fun. Go learn about choking people. For fun.
Boxing: The place to discuss the sweet science of Youtube stars outearning 99% of actual professional fighters.
Kickboxing: At this point you can talk about kickboxing here too, being as two kickboxing things happen per year, but this thread stays forever as a tribute to our lost boy, duncan.

DO WE HAVE OTHER COMMUNAL THREADS?
So many.

Drew McIntyre's Official General Thread 2: Every forum needs a random community bullshit thread. This is the best one. Go make friends with some wrestling posters.
MMA's Best & Worst of 2023: LobsterMobster's thread for tracking the best and worst things happening this year, now in 2023 flavor.
Bet On MMA:The jase1 gambling memorial thread. Remember: Don't bet on MMA.
This Sport Can't Be Legal: This is the official zone for discussing the dregs of combat sports. Slap fighting, X-ARM, ShockFights, it's all good here. This means you WILL see gross stuff if you go in it. Be warned.
The Tank Abbott Tournament: I'm running a forum game to determine which Tank Abbott is, in fact, the true Tank Abbott.
Let's Remember Some Guys: A thread for fond or simply random reminiscing about anything that has ever happened to anyone in punchsports.
Dumb Combat People On Social Media: Almost everyone in combat sports is an idiot and almost everyone on twitter is an idiot. Talk about it here.
MMA Title Belt History: Mekchu is curiously examining the way every single championship in MMA winds up in the loving UFC.
A Bellator Eulogy: LobsterMobster remembers the now-departed Bellator, an MMA organization that, it can be said, existed.

WHERE ELSE DOES FIGHT CHAT EXIST?
Our community output has grown enough that we've got a few other places things get posted:

MMAtt B.: Boco_T's substack, where his JMMA writeups and Tape Delay Kickboxing episodes get posted.
The Punchsport Report: This is my substack, and you're basically reading it now, but it feels weird not to put it in the rolodex.
Fight Island: A collaborative aggregator of sorts. We're working on some stuff.

And if you just want to find some fun people to talk to:

The #MMA IRC Channel That Will Never, Ever Die: Point your client of choice to irc.synirc.net and go to #mma!
The Stockton Athletic Commission: Forums superstar DigitalJedi started a Tapology picks group some of us compete in, feel free to join the club. #1 picks winner for pay-per-views gets to rename the group for the month.

Disclaimer: These are unofficial offsites, somethingawful's rules and liability do not extend to them, and complaining about discord stuff is still offsite drama posting :catdrugs:

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 20:05

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 09:19

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

WHAT HAPPENED IN JANUARY

The major-league combat sports year started with ONE Fight Night 18: ~~Superlek vs Mahmoudi~~Gasanov vs Oh on January 12. Even by ONE's Lumpinee standards this card was already a bit half-baked, but once they stopped pretending their superfight with Takeru and Rodtang later in the month was still happening. Superlek got pulled to take Rodtang's place, and their freakshow co-main event featuring John Lineker fighting Liam Harrison in Muay Thai fell through after Harrison's knee imploded, and suddenly this card was nine fights long and kind of didn't have a headliner anymore. I still don't really know what I'm doing covering ONE, being as it's barely MMA anymore, but then, I don't know if ONE really knows what it's doing anymore either. Are there rankings? Are there ladders? The biggest MMA story coming out of the card was Kwon Won-Il knocking out Shinechagtga Zoltsetseg and calling for a championship match with Fabricio de Andrade. Zoltsetseg is 1 for his last 4 and his last good win was four years ago. Won-Il got knocked out in a minute by Fabricio de Andrade almost two years ago, and in those two years Andrade fought John Lineker twice and then got knocked out by Muay Thai fighter Jonathan Haggerty in a Kickboxing match, after which Haggerty called him out for MMA. Is any of this real anymore? Shamil Gasanov beat Oh Ho-taek in the main event. Congratulations.

The UFC's year began the next day, January 13, with UFC Fight Night: Ankalaev vs Walker 2. This card also got real messed up by various cancellations and reschedulings that climaxed in losing its co-main event 24 hours before showtime after Manel Kape, fresh off twelve straight months of complaining about how everyone but him is an unprofessional coward, missed weight by almost four pounds. (He contends his opponent should have accepted the fight anyway.) It wound up being a fairly fun time, in the end. On your prelims: Joshua Van knocked out Felipe Bunes, Nikolas Motta scored an upset knockout over Tom Nolan, Jean Silva notched an incredibly inevitable knockout over Westin Wilson, Farid Basharat got a shut-out decision over Taylor Lapilus, Marcus McGhee put an absolute beating on Gast�n Bola�os en route to a second-round TKO and Preston Parsons outwrestled Matthew Semelsberger for a decision. On your main card: Waldo Cortes-Acosta got a deeply unimpressive decision over Andrei Arlovski, Brunno Ferreira knocked out Phil Hawes, Mario Bautista put on a great performance in a decision over Ricky Sim�n, and Jim Miller pushed the UFC record forward by tapping out Gabriel Ben�tez. Your main event was a rematch of last year's No Contest between Magomed Ankalaev and Johnny Walker, and this time, Ankalaev knocked Walker dead in two rounds.

And its month concluded on January 20 thanks to UFC 297: Strickland vs du Plessis. What began as a really great card became slowly, gradually worse as the night wore on. Down on your early prelims Jimmy Flick submitted Malcolm Gordon, Jasmine Jasudavicius laid a ridiculous, 326:26 beating on Priscila Cachoeira en route to a third-round submission, and Sam Patterson pretty effortlessly choked out Yohan Lainesse in two minutes. The regular-flavor prelims started strong with Gillian Robertson pounding out Polyana Viana, then Serhiy Sidey and Ramon Taveras put on a real good show that ended with Taveras taking a decision 0% of the media scored for him, then things slowed down even more as Sean Woodson won an uneventful decision against Charles Jourdain, and then Garrett Armfield beat a Brad Katona who, despite outwrestling him at every turn, inexplicably refused to wrestle enough to win the fight. The main card opened with Movsar Evloev winning a close decision over Arnold Allen, but then Chris Curtis had to pull a split decision away from a Marc-Andr� Barriault who inexplicably decided not to show up for work that day, and then the night's comedy award went to Neil Magny vs Mike Malott, which saw Malott win 14 minutes of a 15-minute fight, gas, jump a guillotine and get pounded out for his troubles 15 seconds before he would have won a decision. The night's co-main event saw Raquel Pennington vs Mayra Bueno Silva to finally fill the Women's Bantamweight throne Amanda Nunes left vacant, and after a gritty performance, Pennington won a unanimous decision and the right to be called champion. And, finally, after one of the worst press seasons in UFC history, award-winning rear end in a top hat Sean Strickland turned out to be a one-and-done champion, as despite a pretty fun fight he lost his title to Dricus du Plessis, who outworked him to a split decision victory.

But final event honors went to ONE's swing at a big supercard, ONE 165: Superlek vs Takeru, on January 28. The event was both a genuinely big deal and a completely unprofessional clusterfuck: Multiple main-card matches only came together on short notice, the main event, itself, was swapped on short notice despite ONE knowing well in advance it wasn't going to happen, and one feature fight had an opponent change in the middle of the broadcast. The first half of the card was fairlyh smooth sailing: Gustavo Balart beat Hiroba Minowa, Bokang Masunyane outwrestled Keito Yamakita, Rade Opačić had a workmanlike victory over Iraj Azizpour in kickboxsing, Yuya Wakamatsu beat Danny Kingad, Ayaka Miura defeated Itsuki Hirata, Garry Tonon choked out Martin Nguyen, and Marat Grigorian knocked out Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong in their neverending series. And that's where things get screwy. Nieky Holzken, a championship boxer and kickboxer, fought the 48 year-old Yoshihiro Akiyama, a lifetime mixed martial artist and judoka who'd never engaged in a striking-only contest in his life. But it was a special rules bout with a mixed martial arts round! The third round. Also, Akiyama only found out about the fight two weeks before the show. Holzken knocked him dead in two minutes. Next, a special attraction bout between Japanese legend Shinya Aoki and G.I. Joe model Sage Northcutt got rebooked midway through the show, because Sage's cornermen couldn't get visas--which, again, ONE had to know--so instead, John Lineker, who mysteriously weighed in the day before despite not being attached to a bout, filled in. To be clear, Shinya Aoki held a Welterweight world championship and John Lineker competed at Flyweight in the UFC. Aoki submitted him in three minutes. In your co-main event, Kade Ruotolo defended his grappling championship against Tommy Langaker without much fuss, which was a nice change of pace, because the main event was hosed. ONE contracted Japanese kickboxing star Takeru Segawa a year ago, sat him on the shelf for eleven months, booked him against their top striking star Rodtang Jitmuangnon, swore the fight was still happening despite mountains of public evidence showing Rodtang was injured, and finally announced Superlek Kiatmuu9 as a replacement three weeks before the fight. All the bullshit aside, the fight was great, and Superlek put up the best performance of his career, survived a scare midway through after Takeru almost finished him with body shots, and ultimately won a decision.

WHAT'S COMING IN FEBRUARY

The month of lovers begins with UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs Imavov on February 3. It's a bit of a giveth-and-taketh-away card. You get Viviane Ara�jo vs Nat�lia Silva! But you also have to deal with Thomas Petersen vs Jamal Pogues. Gilbert Urbina is fighting Charles Radtke! But Luana Carolina is fighting Julija Stoliarenko. Molly McCann is back! It's against Diana Belbiţă. Pete "Dead Game" Rodriguez, the man who finally did Dana White's dirty work and took out Mike Jackson, is back to fight Themba Gorimbo, and the mixed emotions you're feeling are real. The top of the card is pretty killer, though: Randy Brown vs Muslim Salikhov, Renato Moicano vs Drew Dober, and in your main event, Roman Dolidze vs Nassourdine Imavov.

And we're back a week later with UFC Fight Night: Hermansson vs Pyfer on February 10. At fourteen fights this is currently the most heavily-loaded card the UFC has on the schedule, which makes sense, because its headliner is Jack Hermansson vs Joe "I Don't Rate a Wikipedia Page" Pyfer. Does that mean he doesn't deserve a main event? I dunno, man. The better question at this point is probably what the hell a main event is anymore. Brendan Allen vs Paul Craig was a main event last year. Mackenzie Dern vs Angela Hill was a main event last year. If someone's in the marketing hopper, we're gonna get 'em, and the UFC's been trying to put Joe Pyfer in top ten fights for more a year already. But Dan Ige vs Lerone Murphy and Brad Tavares vs Gregory Rodrigues and Rodolfo Vieira vs Armen Petrosyan and Loma Lookboonmee vs Bruna Brasil should be great, so gently caress it.

ONE is back for their monthly event with ONE Fight Night 19: Haggerty vs Lobo on February 17. As I am writing this, "Haggerty vs Lobo" is both the title and a thorough description of the card, because this event is one month away and that is the one and only match announced. Am I going to update this closer to the end of the month in case this changes? No. You're doing great, ONE. Don't let anyone tell you different.

The UFC's big show comes later that day: UFC 298: Volkanovski vs Topuria. It is a pay-per-view and it is, in all fairness, pretty stacked. Zhang Mingyang vs Brendson Ribeiro, A.J. Dobson vs Tresean Gore, Danny Barlow vs Josh Quinlan, Oban Elliott vs Val Woodburn, Rinya Nakamura vs Brady Hiestand, Andrea Lee vs Miranda Maverick, Marcos Rog�rio de Lima vs Justin Tafa make for some decent prelims, but the main card is loving stacked: Anthony hernandez vs Ikram Aliskerov, ~~Tatiana Suarez~~Mackenzie Dern vs Amanda Lemos, Geoff Neal vs Ian Machado Garry, Robert Whittaker vs Paulo Costa (maybe!), Merab Dvalishvili vs Henry Cejudo, and the greatest there is, Alexander Volkanovski, tries to shake off his Lightweight knockout loss by defending his Featherweight title against Ilia Topuria. Unironically amped for this one.

And, rounding out our very busy weekend, we have the much-anticipated first event in the PFL vs Bellator series. The Professional Fighters League has vowed to treat their newly-acquired Bellator brand respectfully, and their first priority is to run a champions vs champions card as soon as possible. Your undercard includes Claressa Shields vs Kelsey DeSantis, Biaggio Ali Walsh (did you know he's related to Muhammad Ali?) vs Chris Morris, and Aaron Pico vs Gabriel Alves Braga. Your main card starts with three non-championship interpromotional bouts: Clay Collard vs A.J. McKee, Thiago Santos vs Yoel Romero, and Bruno Cappelozza vs the newly-Heavyweight Vadim Nemkov. The top four are your clashes between 2023 PFL winners and Bellator champions: At Welterweight, PFL's ~~Magomed Magomedkerimov~~Ray Cooper III vs Bellator's Jason Jackson, at Featherweight, Jesus Pinedo vs Patr�cio Pitbull, at Middleweight, Impa Kasanganay drops down from 205 to face Johnny Eblen, and at Heavyweight, Renan Ferreira faces Ryan Bader. Not gonna lie: This is actually pretty cool.

The month comes to an end on UFC Fight Night: Moreno vs Royval 2 on February 24. This is the UFC's first event in Mexico since 2019, and they are getting as much of their regionally appealing talent on the card as possible. Victor Altamirano vs Felipe dos Santos, Edgar Chairez vs Daniel Lacerda, Luis Rodriguez vs Denys Bondar, Manuel Torres vs Chris Duncan, Yazmin Jauregui vs Sam Hughes--you may notice a pattern. But your main-card fights are Raul Rosas Jr. vs Ricky Turcios, Daniel Zellhuber vs Francisco Prado, Cristian Qui�onez vs Raoni Barcelos, the re-do of Yair Rodr�guez vs Brian Ortega, and thanks to Amir Albazi having to pull out for reasons that have inexplicably not been named, the main event has gone from a for-sure Flyweight title eliminator to a maybe-maybe-not between former champion Brandon Moreno and most recent title challenger Brandon Royval.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 20:05

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

CURRENT UFC CHAMPIONS
Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Jon Jones - 27-1 (1), 0 Defenses
Very few things in combat sports reach the crossroads of awe-inspiring and unfathomably frustrating as Jon Jones. In 2020, Jon Jones notched the third defense of his second light-heavyweight championship reign after an exceedingly contentious decision against Dominick Reyes, only to abdicate the title because the UFC wasn't paying him enough, and he was bored of 205 pounds and wanted to move up to heavyweight like he'd been planning to for nearly a decade, and he needed more time to cement his place as not just one of the sport's greatest pound-for-pound fighters, but one of its biggest pound-for-pound pains in the rear end. On September 23, 2021, Jon Jones was inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame; on September 24, 2021, he was arrested (for the fifth time!) after his daughter called the police on him for beating her mother, during which he antagonized the police and, inexplicably, headbutted a police car. Because this is Jon Jones, of course, the primary charges were dropped, he paid $750 for the hood of the police cruiser, and got a stern warning to stay out of trouble, young man, because there is a money-powered reality-distorting field around Jon Jones whereby nothing matters. After a year of rumors, and after the unconscionable firing of heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, the UFC gleefully announced Jon Jones vs Ciryl Gane to fill the vacant heavyweight throne. Did it matter to the matchmaking that there were more deserving candidates? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He deserves the spot for his earlier success. Did it matter to his public appearances that when last we saw him he was arrested for beating his fiancee? Of course not, because it's Jon Jones: He was, if anything, more up his own rear end with self-righteousness than ever before. Did it matter to the fight that he hadn't competed in more than three years and looked terrible at the time? Of course not, because it's Jon loving Jones. Ciryl Gane looked too nervous to use footwork let alone throw anything, and he should have been, as Jones effortlessly threw him to the canvas and choked him out in two minutes. The longest-running, most dominant and yet most persistently annoying show in mixed martial arts is back. And in the most predictable thing possible, some bullshit happened, he got injured, he's going to be gone for at least eight months, and the UFC is not only not stripping him of the title like they've done to everyone else, they've already gotten out ahead of themselves and made clear that when he comes back, he will be fighting Stipe Miocic, not whoever the interim champion is at the time. Funny, that.

Interim Heavyweight Champion

Tom Aspinall - 14-3, 0 Defenses
The UFC's Heavyweight division got itself into a weird spot in 2007. Randy Couture was the rightful, reigning, defending champion, but he and the UFC had a dispute that stretched out more than a year. The UFC couldn't strip him--it would have made it easier for him to get out of his contract--so they made an interim title. By the time Randy came back they had already made big plans for him and Brock Lesnar, but the interim title had gotten wrapped up in The Ultimate Fighter 8 (jesus christ) and it, too, had to be defended, meaning there were two championships being defended simultaneously: The Undisputed Championship, which was the 'real' belt despite being held by a guy trying to leave the company and contended for by someone with only two victories in the sport, and the Interim Championship, which was being fought over by the actual, legitimate top contenders. At UFC 295 on November 11th, 2023, Tom Aspinall, the rightful #4 contender, fought Sergei Pavlovich, the rightful #2 contender, for a new interim championship. And he won. On two weeks' notice! Aspinall's been one of the most promising heavyweight prospects in the world for years, his only loss in the UFC came from his knee tearing itself apart fifteen seconds into a fight, and he went toe-to-toe with one of the scariest punchers in the history of the sport and knocked him flat in just barely over a minute. He is, indisputably, the real deal. And now he gets to be the interim champion of a Heavyweight division in which the real champion, Jon Jones, is going to be out injured well into next year and, the UFC has made clear, will be returning to defend his title against Stipe Miocic, who by that time will have been on the shelf for 3+ years and will be going on 42. So congratulations, Tom. You're the real Heavyweight champion. I hope you get some credit for it.

Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

Alex Pereira - 9-2, 0 Defenses
Conflicting things can be simultaneously true in this sport. It is true that Alex Pereira was brought into the UFC as a 3-1 rookie based on his history as a kickboxer rather than his accomplishments in the sport. It is true that he was fast-tracked to a title shot against the primary focus of that history, megastar Israel Adesanya, after beating just three fighters, none of whom had any hope of testing his grappling. It is also true that he rendered that discourse ultimately irrelevant by not just beating but stopping Adesanya in his title shot anyway, in the process becoming the fastest Middleweight to go from debut to champion since Anderson Silva. It was more or less an open secret that he wasn't going to stay there: Being bigger than most Heavyweights in the UFC, the weight cut to 185 was always a short-term thing. Luckily for the UFC, he got knocked out by Adesanya and gave him the title right back on his way up to 205. Once again, he got fast-tracked, this time by happenstance. A split decision victory over Jan Błachowicz made Pereira a top five contender, and when Jamahal Hill was forced to vacate his title thanks to an ankle injury--and the previous champion, Jiř� Proch�zka, was back from his own title vacation and injury--Pereira was slotted right back into championship place. They met at UFC 295 on November 11th, and after two back-and-forth rounds, Pereira punished a Jiř� who dared to grapple by elbowing his skull until he briefly stopped moving. The commentary and audience thought it was an early stoppage, but Jiř� Proch�zka didn't, so gently caress 'em. It is true that Alex Pereira has fought seven UFC fights without having to fight an actual grappler, and that was an intentional choice by matchmaking. It is true that getting the chance to win championships in two weight classes within just two years and seven fights in the UFC is not a thing that happens to most fighters. But it is unavoidably true that Alex Pereira is a two-division champion and no one can take it away from him. But because Light Heavyweight cannot be allowed to be good or stable, Alex Pereira, despite being the champion, called out his first desired contender: Israel Adesanya. Congratulations, everyone.

Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Dricus du Plessis - 21-2, 0 Defenses
Middleweight's loving wild, man. Generally when a belt changes hands repeatedly in a short period of time you can blame injuries and strippings and title vacations, but recent history has simply been a case study in how goddamn weird things can get at 185 pounds. As of this writing (February 1, 2024) we've had five separate Middleweight champions in less than fifteen months. Divisional king Israel Adesanya dropped the belt to his nemesis Alex Pereira, Adesanya dropped Pereira himself in an immediate rematch, and in one of 2023's bigger upsets, Adesanya lost his belt to human exclusion zone Sean Strickland. But that shot, initially, didn't belong to him: It belonged to Dricus du Plessis. Dricus joined the UFC in 2020 as one of the international scene's best prospects--a two-division champion in his native South Africa's Extreme Fighting Championship, a Welterweight champion in Poland's Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki, and a finishing machine who'd never gone to a decision in his life. The spotlight of the UFC gave him two new reputations: For one, as an exceptionally awkward-looking fighter who could appear shaky and exhausted and still easily knock anyone out, and for two, as a guy with real uncomfortable feelings about his homeland. Shortly after his debut Dricus du Plessis began making comments about becoming the first "real" African champion in the UFC, citing the way fighters like Kamaru Usman, Israel Adesanya and Francis Ngannou had left the country, and, boy, there's just no way to get around the topic that isn't gross as hell. But du Plessis knocked #1 contender Robert Whittaker dead, so it didn't matter. He was in pole position. And then he lost it, because he wanted more than a month to prepare for a world championship fight and the UFC decided that just wouldn't fly. A fully-trained du Plessis stepped into the cage against his replacement and now-champion Sean Strickland on January 20 at UFC 297, and after a close fight and a split decision, du Plessis brought the belt back to South Africa just like he promised. The UFC would really like to make good on their initial du Plessis/Adesanya plans, but we'll see if they can work it out.

Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Leon Edwards - 22-3 (1), 2 Defenses
It took half a decade to get the world to notice, but everyone sees Leon Edwards now. "Rocky" came from the kind of circumstances sports movies are made of--a poor kid from Jamaica who moved to England, lost his father to gang violence, nearly lost himself to it as a teenager and found a healthy outlet for his anger in mixed martial arts. Edwards made his debut in 2011 as a prime example of the modern generation of fighter, cross-trained from the beginning in every discipline, and in just three years he was the welterweight champion of Britain and off to the UFC. Entering 2016, Leon had suffered the first true loss of his career--he was 10-3, but one of those losses was a DQ for an illegal blow and the other a coinflip decision that could easily have gone either way--at the hands of the newly-crowned Ultimate Fighter 21 winner, Kamaru Usman, making his debut as an official UFC competitor. It took ten fights without a loss for Leon to get his rematch. The UFC seemed especially resistant to his title contendership, pushing him down in favor of the ostensibly more marketable UK star in Darren Till and booking him against numerous other contenders and gatekeepers while repeatedly elevating less deserving fighters to the championship. He wouldn't have gotten it at all, in fact, had Jorge Masvidal not gotten arrested. On August 20, the UFC acquiesced and granted the clear #1 contender his shot at the championship, and at revenge against Kamaru Usman--and after getting dominated for three and a half out of five rounds, with the commentators openly opining on the likelihood that he had given up, with just fifty-six seconds left in the fight, Edwards uncorked a headkick that shocked the world and knocked Kamaru Usman out for the first time in his career. The rubber match was inevitable, and once again, Edwards opened as an underdog, and once again, he proved everyone wrong. Instead of a last-minute comeback Leon simply shut Usman down for the majority of the fight, stuffing eleven of his takedown attempts, outstriking him in four out of five rounds and landing an absolutely wild 75% of his strikes in the process. It was an incredible performance against one of the greatest welterweights of all time, marred only by Leon losing a point for fence grabs. The decision was unquestionably his, and now legitimized as the champion of the world, Leon found himself dealing with the UFC's bullshit insistence that his first defense came not against the top contender, but rather, the UFC's favorite bigot, Colby Covington. Edwards dominated him and sent him away 4-1, finally ending the bullshit. At which point he, immediately, brought the bullshit back by talking down a fight with #1 contender Belal Muhammad, after naming him repeatedly as the man he should be fighting instead of Colby.

Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs

Islam Makhachev - 25-1, 2 Defenses
Destiny has come. When Islam Makhachev made his UFC debut in 2015, Khabib Nurmagomedov, considered by most to be the #1 contender and soon to be the best in the world, swore up and down that Makhachev, not him, would be the best lightweight champion of all time. Coming from him, the praise made sense: Khabib and Islam have trained together since they were children growing up and learning to wrestle in Makhachkala. Islam learned under Khabib's father, trained with Khabib's team and even made the pilgrimage to America to join Khabib at the American Kickboxing Academy. And then, two matches into his UFC tenure, Islam got knocked the gently caress out in the first round by the little-known Adriano Martins, who hasn't won a fight in the six years since. Even as Makhachev racked up wins, the memory of his loss and his wrestling-heavy approach to his fights let people cast doubts on him. Sure, he's good--but he lost, so he's not as good as Khabib. Islam Makhachev, as his trainer tells it, never wanted to be Khabib. He loves fighting, but he doesn't love the spectacle or the glory or the attention. So when, after ten straight wins, Makhachev was picked to challenge Charles Oliveira for the vacant title he never truly lost, a lot of folks just weren't quite sure what to think. Sure, he was an incredible wrestler, but Charles Oliveira is a submission wizard, and sure, he's on a ten-fight streak, but he hasn't fought a single person actually IN the top ten, and Oliveira represents a huge, dangerous step up as a man who's been destroying some of the most accomplished lightweights in the sport's history. Analyst opinion was split right down the middle; the fight, as it turned out, was nowhere near that competitive, and the only analyst who was entirely correct was Khabib. Islam demolished the former champion, outstriking him, taking him down at will, controlling him in the grappling, and ultimately dropping him with punches and choking him out in the second round. His first defense was a different story. Islam faced featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski at UFC 284 on February 12th in a rare best-of-the-best, champion vs champion match, and this time, his team's prediction of domination was thoroughly incorrect: It was a pitched battle that ended with Makhachev visibly exhausted and Volkanovski pounding on his face. Islam took an extremely close decision and the divisions will remain separate, but his aura of invulnerability has been thoroughly punctured. Or, at least, it was. In one of those funny moments of sport deterioration, his title defense against Charles Oliveira got scratched thanks to Oliveira busting his eyebrow in training, and on less than two weeks' notice the UFC ran Makhachev/Volkanovski 2, and with no hype, no marketing and no time to prepare, a visibly depleted Volkanovski got dropped by a headkick in the first round. Having now abruptly vanquished his rival, Islam Makhachev is...calling out the winner of the Leon Edwards vs Colby Covington welterweight title bout. God dammit.

Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Alexander Volkanovski - 26-3, 5 Defenses
Sometimes, things get ruined for no good reason. Three things are true. 1: Alexander Volkanovski is one of the best fighters on the planet, and has proven it, repeatedly, over the last near-decade. His featherweight reign is second only to Jos� Aldo in history, and he stands a great chance of surpassing him. 2: Alexander Volkanovski had one of the best performances of his career in February of 2023, when he met lightweight kingpin Islam Makhachev, took him to his limit and nearly knocked him out in the fifth round. Even though he lost a decision his stock rose considerably, and a rematch between the two seemed inevitable. 3: When the UFC called Volkanovski to step in and make that rematch happen as a short-notice replacement 13 days before fight night, he should have said no. For every fantastic story in mixed martial arts there are a thousand dreams crushed by reality. In reality, Islam Makhachev got most of a year to recover before training his rear end off to fight Charles Oliveira for months, and Alexander Volkanovski had just fought three months prior despite having a crippling arm injury, had just gotten surgery for said injury, and had only just finished his post-op recovery in mid-September. The Alexander Volkanovski who stepped into the cage on October 21st could have beaten up 9/10 of the planet, but he still looked diminished, and unfortunately, a fully-healthy, fully-trained, fully-prepared Islam Makhachev is firmly in that 1/10 even on a good day. It wasn't competitive, it wasn't dramatic, and it didn't take long. Islam domed Volk with a headkick and pounded him out in three minutes. In the post-fight interview an emotional Volkanovski talked about taking the replacement thanks to the psychological need to get back out there and fight again, and insisted that despite rushing back into the cage, and despite getting concussed, he still wanted to defend his featherweight title against Ilia Topuria at UFC 297 on January 20th. I say this as an enormous fan of the man: I really, really hope there's someone in his camp who can talk him out of it. It would be his fourth top-level world title fight in eleven months, and it would be his second in a row that would leave him with barely any time to prepare--given that, having been knocked out, he shouldn't have any sparring contact until the end of December. We all need time to get healthy. UPDATE: Well, I kind of got what I wanted. Volkanovski's defense got pushed back one month: He'll now face Ilia Topuria at UFC 298 on February 17th.

Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Sean O'Malley - 17-1 (1), 0 Defenses
The house always wins. I have spent years being mad about Sean O'Malley. Very few people get the red carpet rolled out for them without having some other previous success to draw on, but Dana White seemingly hand-selected Sean O'Malley as The Guy back in 2017 when he won a contract on the second-ever episode of the Contender Series, and from the second he first stepped into the octagon, he was treated like a Big loving Deal. His matchmaking was favorable, his marketing was endless, and even when he hosed up--getting his leg broken against Andre Soukhamthath, pissing hot for ostarine and missing a year, getting knocked out by Marlon Vera--the UFC was there to pick him up and keep pushing him up the ladder. He went from fighting regional fighters and flyweights to a top ten matchup, and when that match ended with him poking out Pedro Munhoz's eye, he was catapulted into a title eliminator against the #1-ranked Petr Yan, and when he got one of the year's worst decisions against Yan, he was allowed to sit on his hands for almost a year to wait for a title shot against a champion who was given three months and no injury recovery time to prepare. Is it fair for me to dislike Sean O'Malley for decisions the UFC made? Absolutely not, and I don't blame him for them whatsoever. Fortunately for me, Sean O'Malley also has a great love of making public hot takes like "here's my power ranking of my female coworkers by how fuckable I think they are" and "publicly avowed rapist Andrew Tate is a great guy I want to co-promote and advertise with" and "convicted child molester Tekashi69 is my homeboy" and "I have an open relationship with my wife where I get to bang other people but she doesn't because I'm the man" that make me feel deeply, thoroughly at peace with disliking him for other reasons. But none of that means he isn't a hell of a fighter or he didn't absolutely loving flatten Aljamain Sterling with a picture-perfect counterpunch in their title fight. Did he deserve the shot? Not even a little. Did he prove he belongs at the top? Undeniably. However much of a shithead he may be, he's the champion of the goddamn world. Just in case his status as a marketing favorite had not been made abundantly clear, the UFC announced he will have his first title defense not in a rematch with Sterling, or a meeting with top contender Merab Dvalishvili, or even a bout with the streaking Cory Sandhagen, but--of course--a rematch with Marlon "Chito" Vera, the #6 contender on a one-fight win streak who knocked O'Malley out back in 2020. Neat. They'll fight at UFC 299 on March 9th.

Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Alexandre Pantoja - 27-5, 1 Defense
Sometimes, you just have someone's number. Brandon Moreno spent years fighting through a quadrilogy with Deiveson Figueiredo, and unfortunately for him, he had another trilogy waiting for him the second it was over. Alexandre "The Cannibal" Pantoja was Moreno's personal bogeyman, a man who'd fought and beaten him twice. But one of those fights was an exhibition on The Ultimate Fighter, and the other was against a Moreno with five less years of evolution and growth. Surely, a third fight in 2023 would be different. And it was--unlike the previous, one-sided dominations it was a fight-of-the-year candidate that took both men to their limit and led to a split decision--but its ending was not. Alexander Pantoja scored a third victory over Moreno, and with it, after sixteen years of competition, he finally became the clear, unequivocal best in the god damned world. Which was made even more poignant when he used his post-fight interview to ask if his absentee father was proud of him--and was made even more irritating when he also revealed that despite having eleven fights in the UFC at the time, he was paid so little that he'd been part-timing as a Doordash driver just to make ends meet right up up until 2022. The idea that one of the absolute best fighters on the planet, after years and nearly a dozen fights in the world's biggest, most profitable fighting organization, would need to take on a gig-economy job to make money is outright offensive, and in a better world, it would have launched a furor. In this one, all we can do is be happy he's got the belt and will, hopefully, make some actual loving money. His first title defense came against Brandon "Raw Dawg" Royval as the co-main event to UFC 296 on December 16th, and it was a wild affair with a couple scary moments, but Pantoja emerged victorious and notched the first successful defense of the title in three years. His next contender is, in all likelihood, the winner of the Brandon Moreno/Amir Albazi fight this February--or it would have been, until Albazi got injured. Now Moreno's fighting Brandon Royval, and I can't imagine the UFC wants to do Pantoja/Royval again even if he wins, so we'll see what happens.

Women's Bantamweight, 135 lbs

Raquel Pennington - 16-8, 0 Defenses
The throne is once again full. Amanda Nunes left a gaping void in the world of women's mixed martial arts when she retired last Summer, and it took the UFC seven months to do something about it. The Women's Featherweight title? That's just gone, man. The patient could not be resuscitated. There's still life in Women's Bantamweight, though, and with Nunes gone and Julianna Pe�a injured, there was only one sensible match to make. Raquel Pennington should have gotten her title shot more than a year ago. "Rocky" is one of the UFC's longest-tenured women, at this point--her debut came more than a decade ago as a runner-up on The Ultimate Fighter 18 (jesus christ)--and the millstone weighing down her championship aspirations was the fact that more than five years ago she had a title fight, and it saw Amanda Nunes just beat her to a pulp. Despite being on the division's longest winning streak at the start of 2023, this loss was commonly cited as reason enough to deny Pennington the shot, and given that she's a generally affable, no-nonsense fighter with a grinding wrestling style, she is, categorically, the UFC's least favorite kind of person, which meant getting passed up over and over and having to settle for serving as a backup challenger for Irene Aldana--whom Pennington had already beaten. But with the top prospects out and Aldana having just gotten beaten even worse by Nunes than Raquel had, there was nowhere left for the company to hide. Mayra Bueno Silva had established herself as one of the division's most dangerous fighters after tearing apart Lina L�nsberg's knee and nearly popping Holly Holm's skull out of her head with a ninja choke, and there were quite a few hoping she'd stop Pennington in her tracks when the two met at UFC 297 on January 20, but they were gratifyingly incorrect. Pennington outwrestled Silva, escaped her submission attempts, outstruck her 265 to 96, and finally, on a night where the UFC loudly celebrated bigotry, sexism and homophobia, took the belt home to her wife. Raquel's the first post-Nunes champion, and godspeed to her. The UFC is almost certainly waiting to see if either Pe�a gets healthy or the newly-signed Kayla Harrison beats Holly Holm to figure out what's next for Raquel.

Women's Flyweight, 125 lbs

Alexa Grasso - 16-3-1, 1 Defense, Sort Of
Every once in awhile someone gets to shock the combat sports world, and in 2023, it's Alexa Grasso. The UFC has been high on Grasso since she left Invicta for her company debut back in 2016--she's been one of the most consistently featured fighters in ANY women's division, be it her time at strawweight or her move up to flyweight--but her two bids at the top of the mountain at 115 pounds met with disaster, once in Tatiana Suarez handing her the only stoppage loss of her career and once in Carla Esparza outwrestling her to a decision, and watching her manhandled by 115-pound fighters left the world doubting her 125-pound chances. But thanks to her solid boxing and her ever-improving ground game she ran up a four-fight winning streak, and when the UFC announced that she'd be taking on divisional queen and one of the greatest of all time in Valentina Shevchenko, the collective fan reaction was a unanimous "sure, okay," because Valentina disposing of people was a generally accepted phenomenon and she needed a warm body. The first round was a slight surprise, with Grasso stinging Shevchenko on the feet, but as so often happens, by the fourth round Valentina had taken over the fight, was ahead on every judge's scorecard and looked poised to cruise to her eighth title defense. And then, she was struck down by the bane of the sport: Spinning poo poo. Backed into the fence, Shevchenko did what she does entirely too often--a spinning back kick--and in the half-second she was turned away Grasso leapt to her back, dragged her to the floor, and became the first person to ever submit Valentina Shevchenko. Alexa Grasso, after years of work, is the Women's Flyweight Champion of the World. A rematch was inevitable, and it came at UFC Noche on September 16th, and, like everything does, it ended in controversy. After an incredibly close fight that the media had split almost cleanly down the middle, the judges ruled the contest a split draw. Which wouldn't be crazy--were it not for said draw hinging on Mike Bell, who is typically one of MMA's most reliable judges, giving Grasso a completely, utterly inexplicable and inexcusable 10-8 score in the final round, without which Valentina Shevchenko would have won a split decision. So Grasso did not win, in the end, but she did defend her title, technically. But unless Valentina turns out to need an extended break for hand surgery, we're going right back to the rematch well.

Women's Strawweight, 115 lbs

Zhang Weili - 24-3, 1 Defenses
Are you really surprised? There's a long tradition of underestimating unlikely champions in mixed martial arts, particularly when they're not the fan-friendliest in style or personality, from Michael Bisping to Frankie Edgar, only to have those demeaned champions remind the world that they didn't reach the peak of their divisions by mistake. Many of the wise, studied scribes of the sport warned the foolish masses against assuming the same about Women's Strawweight Champion Carla Esparza: She was no pushover, they said, and Zhang will have real trouble. And then, come fight day, we unwashed masses pulled them from their ivory towers and forced them to run in the streets amongst the mud and filth so they, too, could feel the unburdened joy of being, because Zhang Weili, as basically every fan had assumed, did, in fact, beat the absolute tar out of Carla. It wasn't particularly close: Carla got outlanded 37-6, hurt several times on the feet, and choked out just a minute into the second round. The inexplicable, season-long Cookie Monster subplot is over, Zhang Weili is now a two-time world champion, and things are back as they should be. What comes next, however, is tricky. Carla was blown out, so a rematch is out of the question. Rose Namajunas, the only person in the UFC to beat Weili, is a likely candidate--but after her disastrous performance against Carla, it remains to be seen how much faith the UFC has in her. J�ssica Andrade has a claim, but she's splitting time between 115 and 125, and probably needs to pick a weight class if she wants a shot. So the UFC solved the problem by picking Amanda Lemos. In a surprise to no one, Zhang absolutely dominated Lemos, outstriking her 296-29, smashing her to the tune of multiple 10-8 rounds, and winning a very, very wide decision. The next step is, in all likelihood, a China vs China championship showdown against Yan Xiaonan.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 20:06

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

NOTABLE CHAMPIONS ACROSS THE WORLD

ONE Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Anatoly Malykhin - 13-0, 0 Defenses

ONE Light Heavyweight Champion, 225 lbs

Anatoly Malykhin - 13-0, 0 Defenses
Anatoly Malykhin's bizarre two-year journey through ONE Championship has finally come to a place of rest. Ascension in the heavyweight division has never been the longest road in the world, but in ONE, where they don't actually bother with divisional rankings past lightweight and there have somehow only been five undisputed heavyweight championship bouts in eight years, the road is very short and easily traversed through violent punchings. Thus, when Anatoly Malykhin arrived in 2023 and punched two men out in five minutes, that was more than sufficient. But the standing champion, Arjan Bhullar, just couldn't make it to the cage. They were supposed to fight in February of 2022, but Bhullar was hurt, so Malykhin got an interim title by destroying Kirill Grishenko. They were supposed to unify the belts in September, but Arjan was hurt, so they pushed it to December--and then Arjan played contractual hardball, so in a truly baffling reversal, ONE had Malykhin drop to 225 pounds and destroy double-champ Reinier de Ridder instead. The heavyweight unification got rebooked for March of 2023--and then Bhullar pulled out again. It wasn't until June 23rd, with their bout unceremoniously placed smack-dab in the middle of a Friday Fights Muay Thai card, that the match two years in the making finally happened. And it was...massively underwhelming, with Bhullar seeming alternately frozen and as though he wanted to be absolutely anywhere else in the world. Malykhin used him as a punching bag for two and a half rounds, with Bhullar at one point penalized for trying to escape the ring, and Malykhin put a stamp on it with a TKO in the third round. Finally--mercifully--the heavyweight championship is unified. And now, rather than defending either, he's going to fight de Ridder for his 205-pound belt in March. Jesus wept.

ONE Middleweight Champion, 205 lbs

Reinier de Ridder - 16-1, 2 Defenses
There's a long tradition of B-league hype in mixed martial arts. The hardcore fanbase chafes under both the total ubiquity of the UFC as a product and the way they set themselves up as the end-all be-all of the sport. As the B-leagues create dominant champions of their own, the fanbase inevitably rallies behind them as equal to, if not greater than, the UFC's equivalent titleholder, and further, as evidence of other companies having even better talent. And once or twice a generation, they're right! But most of the time, they're not. Fighters who destroy their B-league equivalents will commonly take a step outside their comfort zone and get immediately rolled by reality. Reinier de Ridder, more than any other competitor, was the popular argument for ONE's supremacy over the UFC: An undefeated ultra-grappler with belts at two divisions, one of which happened to be the UFC's permanently embattled light-heavyweight class. The remarkable ease with which he ragdolled and submitted his opponents, and the shaky nature of his UFC peers, led to wide exultation of his skills and regular comments from ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong about his prospects against the best the world had to offer. It was consequently something of a bummer when he fought Anatoly Malykhin, the first opponent in years he didn't have a strength or grappling advantage over, and looked immediately lost when his takedown attempts did nothing. He had no visible striking defense to speak of and was ultimately, and distressingly easily, destroyed. And now he's going to do it again! On March 1, de Ridder will defend his belt against Anatoly Malykhin. Again.

ONE Welterweight Champion, 185 lbs

Christian Lee - 17-4, 0 Defenses

ONE Lightweight Champion, 170 lbs

Christian Lee - 17-4, 0 Defenses
It took three tries, but by god, Chatri gets what Chatri wants. Christian Lee, the male half of the first family of ONE Championship and its homegrown golden boy, was very mad about losing his lightweight championship in a controversial decision to Ok Rae Yoon last year. He demanded the decision be reviewed and overturned and his championship reinstated. Unsurprisingly: This did not happen. After months of complaining and just shy of a year of waiting, the two had their long-awaited rematch and Lee left nothing to chance, knocking Yoon out in six minutes to reclaim his belt. Having finally retrieved his title, Lee, being a responsible champion, proceeded to immediately challenge ONE'S 185-pound champion, Kiamrian Abbasov, for his title, a move that was definitely in no way influenced by ONE's repeated attempts to get his sister Angela Lee double-champion status. Fortunately for Christian, Abbasov horribly botched his weight cut: He came in overweight, lost his title on the scale, and was visibly depleted in the fight. Which is particularly lucky, because Abbasov beat Lee senseless in the first round to the point that a standing TKO would not have been an unreasonable stoppage. But whether from his failed weight cut or simply from punching himself out, Abbasov was exhausted by the second round, and Lee mounted a gutsy comeback and ultimately stopped him with ground-and-pound in the fourth round. After three attempts, ONE has succeeded in getting two belts on a Lee. Unfortunately, it was followed by tragedy. After the passing of his younger sister Victoria, Christian took the whole of the year to, understandably, grieve. He's planning his comeback for February of 2024.

ONE Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs

Tang Kai - 15-2, 0 Defenses
Tang Kai has been flying under the radar for some time, and in hindsight, that was clearly a mistake. He made his professional debut as a 20 year-old collegiate wrestler and won a rookie featherweight tournament in China's WBK (after investigating, we THINK it's World Battle Kings), but his stylistic limitations became apparent when he moved up to Kunlun Fight--and stopped fighting rookies. Dominant decision losses to ACA standout Bekhruz "Ong Bak" Zukurov and Road to UFC runner-up Asikeerbai Jinensibieke made Kai's weaknesses too apparent to ignore, and he made the tough call to commit to his dream, pack up his life, and move away from home to start training with real fight camps, most notably Shanghai's Dragon Gym and Phuket's legendary Tiger Muay Thai. It's worked out quite well: He hasn't lost a fight in five years. Three knockout wins in China's Rebel FC got ONE's attention, and since debuting with the organization in 2019, Kai has soundly defeated everyone in his path. He claims his wrestling base makes him impossible to take down and he proves it by using it almost entirely defensively, vastly preferring to bludgeon his opponents on his feet. His fight against Thanh Le, while blistering and difficult, was proof: He evaded every takedown attempt, widely outstruck him, dropped him with punches and leg kicks alike, and took the belt he's held for two years. And then, absolutely nothing else happened. It took ONE almost a full year to book another match for Tang Kai, and it was just an instant rematch with Thanh Le with no fanfare. And then Tang Kai busted his knee and announced he was out with no definite return date. They'll try again in March.

ONE Interim Featherweight Champion, 155 lbs

Thanh Le - 14-3, 0 Defenses
Well, we're right back here again. Thanh Le was considered a potential breakout star for ONE during their own breakout in 2020: A genuinely skilled, hard-punching, well-rounded, charismatic, American star who only won by stoppage and almost never lost. Moreover, he was a black eye for the UFC, as they had him not once, but twice--first on The Ultimate Fighter 22 (jesus christ), where he lost in the semifinals, and second on the Contender Series in 2017, where he scored a vicious headkick knockout. But they only offered him short-notice replacement debuts, and when ONE came calling, they simply let him go. Within a year, Thanh Le was 4-0 and had knocked out Martin Nguyen to become the new featherweight champion. And then, as ONE does, they fumbled the ball. Thanh twiddled his thumbs for a year and a half for a fight with the 6-0 Garry Tonon, whom he dispatched in less than a minute. Five months later, he lost his title to Tang Kai. He waited an entire year for a rematch--and when Kai got hurt, he took an interim title fight with Ilya Freymanov on October 6, 2023, and tapped him out in 1:02. We're trying Kai/Le 2, again, in March.

ONE Bantamweight Champion, 145 lbs

Fabricio Andrade - 9-2 (1), 0 Defenses
The second time was the charm. When Fabricio "Wonder Boy" Andrade joined ONE Championship back in 2020 he was a virtual unknown in the mixed martial arts world, a 20-3 kickboxer but only a 3-2 mixed martial artist who'd been fighting out in the regional circuit of China. His association with Tiger Muay Thai put him on ONE's radar, and his visible striking skills despite being just 21 at the time made him interesting enough for a developmental contract. Said contract proceeded to develop into Andrade going on a five-fight winning streak that only got more dominant as he met tougher competition, and three straight first-round knockouts punched his ticket to the championship picture. His first appearance in the spotlight, unfortunately, went a touch awry. First, bantamweight champion John Lineker lost his title on the scale after missing weight, meaning only Andrade was eligible to become champion, and he was well on his way to doing so before hitting Lineker with an errant strike to the groin so hard it shattered his cup, and with the fight not yet halfway complete, it had to be rendered a No Contest. It took four months to get to the rematch, and it was much more closely contested, but after four rounds Lineker threw in the towel, his face having been punched too swollen to continue. Fabricio Andrade is 25 and a world goddamn champion. He promptly skipped away from MMA completely and faced Jonathan Haggerty for ONE's Featherweight Kickboxing Championship on November 3rd, where he was immediately destroyed. Haggerty wants an MMA fight next.

ONE Flyweight Champion, 135 lbs

Demetrious Johnson - 31-4-1, 0 Defenses
The king has returned. Demetrious Johnson's 2019 debut with ONE Championship was essentially scandalous. "Mighty Mouse" had long been a fan favorite of the lighter weight classes, a 5'3" combat machine who had been going the distance with world champions like Kid Yamamoto and Dominick Cruz while still working a day job in a warehouse, but it was only in 2012 when he dedicated himself to mixed martial arts as his full-time job that he became a star. He won the UFC's flyweight tournament and became its inaugural champion, and his talents are the reason a division that has existed for a decade has only had five champions--three of whom came in the last two years after he left. By 2018, Johnson had one of the longest winning streaks in the UFC, was the all-time recordholder for championship defenses in the UFC and had recorded some of the most outstanding finishes in the history of the UFC. By 2019, he was out of the company. Johnson and the UFC never got along--or, to be blunt, Johnson was one of the few publicly calling the UFC out on its bullshit. When he won the flyweight title and became a world champion while only getting paid $23k/23k he let it be known, when the UFC cut sponsorship money in the Reebok era he noted the raw deal it gave the fighters, and when Dana White tried to force him to take fights up at bantamweight by threatening to kill the flyweight division if he didn't, he told the world. After Henry Cejudo beat him in a razor-close coinflip decision and took the bargaining leverage of his championship away, it was over in a heartbeat. Dana White personally disliked him enough that he traded him to ONE Championship in exchange for their welterweight champion, Ben Askren. Johnson proceeded to immediately win ONE's flyweight grand prix, but took the first stoppage loss of his entire career in his shot at Adriano Moraes and his world championship and engendered a thousand MMA thinkpieces about if his time as a top fighter was over. A year and a half later, he got his rematch, and on August 27 at ONE on Prime Video 1 he returned the favor, handing Moraes his own first stoppage loss after knocking him out with a flying knee. The trilogy match was inevitable, and on May 5th, Johnson beat Moraes by a comprehensive decision, ending the story--and maybe his career. He says he's not sure if he's coming back yet. Fingers crossed.

ONE Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs

Jarred Brooks - 20-2 (1), 0 Defenses
Jarred Brooks dealt with some crap on his way to a title. By 2017 he was one of the most-heralded flyweight prospects in the sport: An undefeated 13-0 multi-champion as an amateur, an undefeated 12-0 as a professional with fights across three separate weight classes, his heavy wrestling-and-grappling grinding style ground most of his opponents to dust. He took the moniker of "The Monkey God" thanks to his unorthodox striking and wrestling entries--when you're not afraid of grappling, you can get creative with the striking. And then he hit the UFC in 2017 and everything kind of went to hell. Three of his four UFC bouts went to split decision: A debut victory against Eric Shelton Brooks probably should've lost, a followup loss against future champion Deiveson Figueiredo Brooks probably should've won, an intervening bout where Brooks was easily dominating Jose Torres only to score the rare MMA own goal and knock himself out after smacking his head on the ground doing a big, showy slam, and a third and final split decision victory over Roberto Sanchez that really, really shouldn't have been split at all. And then the UFC cut him, despite being 2 and 2 and having gone the distance with the biggest new prospect in the division, because the UFC Doesn't Like Flyweights. So Brooks went over to Rizin, where he intended to build his way up as the next big foreign threat to top star Kyoji Horiguchi--and it was over in eleven seconds, after an inadvertent headbutt cut his opponent's eyebrow open and the blood-unfriendly Japanese network called a no-contest. His international comeback was further destroyed by COVID, and Brooks found himself iced for two straight years as he waited for the dust to settle. By November of 2021, he was making his long-delayed ONE debut; by June of 2022, he was 3-0 and the top contender. And then, of course, his title fight got delayed another six months thanks to an injury. On December 3rd, 2022, he finally got his long-belated shot at a major title, and shocking no one, he wrestled the poo poo out of Joshua Pacio for five straight rounds. Four years later than expected, Jarred Brooks has international gold. And because this is ONE and nothing matters, he called out 23-pound champ Mighty Mouse, unsuccessfully had a grappling match with Mikey Musumeci, and will now rematch Pacio in March.

ONE Women's Strawweight Champion, 125 lbs

Xiong Jing Nan - 18-2, 7 Defenses
Xiong Jing Nan dreamed of lifting weights. She'd enjoyed sports as a child, and when China started its national push for Olympic supremacy she began training heavily in hope of joining the national weightlifting team. But then she met aspirants for its boxing team and fell in love with the idea of living out a martial arts movie and getting to hit people for fun and profit and she never looked back. She turned pro in 2014 and immediately became a standout, going 9-1 in China's Kunlun Fight promotion with wins across three separate weight classes. What made her truly dangerous wasn't one-punch power, but the ability to break her opponents with constant pressure striking, scoring TKOs with combinations stretched out across dozens of consecutive, unending strikes. The story was no different when she moved to ONE in 2017, and she was strawweight champion within two fights. ONE's women's MMA divisions have been its most stable, each having had exactly one champion, and they were so dominant that they inevitably had to fight each other--and, hilariously, traded wins back and forth in the process. 115 lbs champion Angela Lee went up to 125 to challenge for Xiong Jing Nan's belt but Nan stopped her with body kicks in the fifth round, and half a year later Nan dropped down to 115 to challenge for Lee's belt only for Lee to choke her out with twelve seconds left in the fight. Xiong has notched three successful title defenses since, which set her up for her greatest challenger yet: Angela Lee, again, apparently. Despite ONE's best attempts, Xiong successfully defended her title against Lee again, nearly finishing her in the first round and ultimately winning a decision. An entire 364 days later, she had her next fight: A special rules match, with MMA gloves but only punches and no takedowns or clinching allowed, against Muay Thai champion Nat "Wondergirl" Jaroonsak. Xiong knocked her out in the third round. What are we loving doing here?

ONE Women's Atomweight Champion, 115 lbs

Stamp Fairtex - 10-2, 0 Defenses
It was slightly awkward when Seo Hee Ham and Stamp Fairtex were booked to meet at ONE Fight Night 14 in an interim atomweight title match, given the longstanding rumors of Angela Lee's retirement, and boy, it didn't get any less weird when ONE, which clearly knew what was going on, had Angela Lee announce that retirement just minutes before said match, which was promptly changed to an undisputed championship bout. But that's just part of how ONE rolls, as is their blatant attempts at favoritism, and boy, Stamp Fairtex is their most successful case study thus far. ONE signed her back in 2017 as a Muay Thai stadium champion, and within one fight in ONE she was their Atomweight Kickboxing Champion, and within two fights she was their Atomweight Muay Thai champion. Is this a statement about how quickly they push people they want or how thin their divisions can be? The answer, as always, is Yes. But none of that stopped Stamp from being really loving good at fighting, and as she transitioned to mixed martial arts she ran up a great record--with the sole exception of a two-fight series with Alyona Rassohyna, where she tapped out in the first and attempted to deny it, then won a real close split decision in an immediate rematch. ONE did not feel the need to book a rubber match, for some odd reason. Stamp won the 2021 Atomweight Grand Prix, got her shot at Angela Lee, and got choked out for her troubles, but a year and two wins later, she was good to go for another championship showdown. It wasn't easy--Seo Hee Ham dropped Stamp in the second round and, for some mysterious reason, when recapping the round, ONE chose to highlight Stamp's offense and not show it--but she stopped Ham with body shots in the third round, and in doing so became not just the undisputed champion, but the first person to ever actually knock Ham out in a fight. (Before you say it: No, Ayaka Hamasaki doesn't count, that was a corner stoppage.) ONE has their new star, and she's a hell of a striker. The question is: Will they actually book more MMA fights for her?

Rizin Lightweight Champion, 156 lbs

Roberto de Souza - 15-3, 2 Defenses
Roberto "Satoshi" de Souza is trying to become the new Gegard Mousasi. On April 17 he had the chance to avenge the only loss of his career, a half-knockout half-injury against "Hollywood" Johnny Case back in 2019, and he succeeded in emphatic fashion, climbing Case's back, locking him in an inverted triangle choke and eventually forcing an armbar. He's now 14-1 and inarguably one of the best lightweights outside of the UFC, but unlike most of the other fighters to bear that title, he has made it clear he has no interest in changing that. Where the A.J. McKees and Michael Chandlers of the world want to test free agency and notoriety, Roberto de Souza is happy in Japan, both because his Rizin pay is fairly lucrative and his entire family jiu-jitsu business is based in the country. This is admirable, but it's also a little unfortunate: Rizin really only has around a dozen lightweights under contract, and "Satoshi" has already beaten a third of them. He may be waiting for a Spike Carlyle or a Luiz Gustavo to work their way into contention, but the Rizin ranks hold few surprises for him at this point. It was thus of particular interest when the main event for the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin card was announced as Roberto de Souza vs AJ McKee--a test of where Souza ranks with the rest of the world's competition. Unfortunately for him and Rizin, the answer was "under them." He positionally threatened McKee and was able to land some solid strikes in the final round, but was otherwise controlled and lost a decision. On May 6th, Satoshi beat Spike Carlyle in a fantastic fight--but it was a non-title fight, because Japanese promoters are still real scared of their own belts. Satoshi fought Patricky Pitbull at Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 29th--in another non-title fight, naturally--and took the first definitive beating of his career, getting utterly outclassed and ultimately stopped on leg kicks in three rounds.

Rizin Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Chihiro Suzuki - 12-3 (1), 0 Defenses
Chihiro Suzuki has had a very fortunate year. Suzuki rose to Rizin's notice not through MMA, but after winning Japan's KNOCK OUT Super Lightweight Kickboxing championship. He made his Rizin debut six months later--and got knocked out in twenty seconds. He spent the next two and a half years simultaneously rounding out his MMA game and annually defending his kickboxing gold, and by 2023, he was one of Rizin's top Featherweight contenders, more than ready for his shot at Kleber Koike Erbst's Rizin championship. And--he got armbarred in three minutes. However, hilariously enough, Erbst lost his belt on the scale after missing weight, meaning the title was vacant and the fight, by Rizin rules, was a No Contest, so Suzuki didn't even technically lose. He then proceeded to get the biggest break of his career. At Bellator x Rizin 2 on July 30th, 2023, despite having just lost a five-round fight to Sergio Pettis a month prior, Patr�cio Pitbull was thrown onto the card against Suzuki on four days' notice--and Suzuki not only beat him, he became the first person to ever knock out Bellator's GOAT. Rizin immediately booked Suzuki in against new champion Vugar Keramov for their debut in Keramov's home country of Azerbaijan, and Keramov looked poised and powerful and was in the process of ragdolling Suzuki like he does everyone else--and Suzuki caught him with an upkick on the jaw and punched him the rest of the way out from his goddamn back. Chihiro Suzuki, you are Rizin's new star. Hold onto it as long as you can and pray they don't book a Kleber rematch.

Rizin Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Kai Asakura - 21-4, 0 Defenses
Rizin's Bantamweight title is snakebitten as hell, and, somehow, so is Kai Asakura. Kyoji Horiguchi was the first man to win it back in 2018, and a year later he gave it up, having been too injured to compete--in part thanks to fighting while injured and being defeated by, in fact, Kai Asakura, but only in a non-title fight. Asakura was a lock and a favorite to win the vacant belt that December--so he got immediately knocked out by Manel Kape. Manel Kape left Rizin for the UFC, leaving the belt once again vacant, and Kai won it after knocking out Hiromasa Ougikubo, meaning Kai was not only the champion, but he also got his rematch with Kyoji Horiguchi--only this time, Kai was defending his belt, and could finally show Horiguchi it wasn't a fluke! And then Horiguchi knocked him out in three minutes, and then the belt went into torpor for two whole years, after which Horiguchi gave it up to go be a Flyweight instead. Luckily, Rizin knew this was coming, so they booked a Bantamweight Grand Prix to crown a successor, with the explicit intention of crowning Kai Asakura. And he made it to the finals! Where he got revenge-stomped by Hiromasa Ougikubo, who then went on to lose badly to former Bellator champion Juan Archuleta, who became Rizin's first American titleholder. Archuleta was oddly at home in the pomp and circumstance of JMMA, and he promised big things for his future, and then he came into his New Year's Eve match sick, missed weight by six pounds, lost his belt on the scale, and thanks to Rizin's rules, was left with a fight where not only was he ineligible to win the title, he was ineligible to win the fight. And as sick as he was, he probably shouldn't have fought anyway! But he did, and Asakura dropped him in two rounds. Thus, for the second time, Kai Asakura is the best Bantamweight in Japan. I beg him not to walk under any dangling pianos.

Rizin Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Kyoji Horiguchi - 32-5 (1), 0 Defenses
Well, this was a long time coming. Before Rizin even existed, Kyoji Horiguchi was the consensus #2 Flyweight fighter on the planet. He'd won Shooto's 125-pound title, he'd come to America half to face the best in the world and half because Japan's MMA scene was in a real, real bad place at the time, and by mid-2015, he was 15-1 and ready to fight for a world championship. Unfortunately, said championship was held by Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson, the best Flyweight of all time. Johnson dealt Kyoji his second-ever loss and first-ever stoppage, and it stopped Horiguchi's dream of being the best, but it also opened him up to becoming a star. A year later he was out of the UFC, back home in Japan, and, immediately, one of Rizin's top attractions. But Rizin didn't have a 125-pound division--so he settled for just winning is 135-pound belt instead. When Rizin began cross-promoting with Bellator, he went and took their belt, too, just for good measure. But his strength of schedule and his own injuries caught up with him: He ultimately vacated both belts without ever recording a title defense. By the time he came back in 2021, things had changed. He'd been knocked out for the first time in Kai Asakura back in 2019, but he was fighting hurt and on short notice, so that was excused. When Sergio Pettis knocked him out in his 2021 return fight, it was a warning; when Patchy Mix dominated him in his first match in the Bellator Grand Prix of 2022, it was a sign. Horiguchi needed to be back at 125. Bellator opened a Flyweight division more or less just for him, and at Bellator x Rizin 2 in the summer of 2023, Horiguchi faced Rizin star Makoto "Shinryu" Takahashi to crown the company's inaugural champion--and the fight ended in a No Contest after Horiguchi poked Shinryu in the eye twenty-five seconds into the first round. And then Bellator got sold and stopped operating as an independent entity. Whoops! Rizin decided to just make the goddamn belt themselves, and on New Year's Eve of 2023, Horiguchi and Takahashi had their rematch, and this time, Horiguchi choked him out. Eight years after his first attempt, Kyoji Horiguchi has a Flyweight world championship. Now, let's see Rizin give him some competition.

Rizin Women's Super Atomweight Championship, 108 lbs

Seika Izawa - 12-0, 1 Defense
All hail the new queen. After years of reigning as Japan's best atomweight, the legendary Ayaka Hamasaki fell not once but twice to the rookie Seika Izawa. A 24 year-old who was pushed into judo as a child by a frustrated mother who was tired of her constant fighting with her brothers, Izawa discovered a love for grappling that led her to win junior championships in judo, wrestling and sumo alike. She would still be pursuing judo had the pandemic not shut down much of its competitive scene, but fortunately, mixed martial arts is a terrible sport run by monsters who don't care about things like deadly diseases, which made it a tempting professional prospect. Four months after her formal MMA training began Izawa was winning fights in DEEP, less than a year after that she was DEEP's strawweight champion, and one year later she was dominating one of the best women's fighters in history on Rizin's New Year's Eve special. As Japanese organizations tend to do, frustratingly, the fight was a non-title affair, meaning Izawa had to come back and do it again on April 17. After a scary moment where Hamasaki almost stole an armbar, Izawa resumed her wrestling domination and formally took Rizin's atomweight championship. As entirely fresh blood, the world of Rizin's talent is open to her--but that also means she's got a real, real big target on her back. Rizin's Superatomweight Grand Prix was both a big coming-out party for Izawa and a series of opportunities to look shockingly mortal: She had a fair bit of trouble with Anastasiya Svetkivska in the semifinals before ultimately submitting her, but her berth in the finals against former rival Si Woo Park proved the toughest fight of her career, ending in a split decision victory she easily could have lost. Seika was supposed to face Miyuu Yamamoto at Rizin 42, but after Yamamoto had to pull out with an injury, Izawa was instead scheduled to face...the last person Yamamoto beat, the 5-3 Suwanan Boonsorn, at DEEP Jewels 41 on July 28. Izawa choked her out, shockingly. It took more than an entire year, but Izawa finally had a title defense against the 8-4 grappler Claire Lopez, and Izawa scored the fastest championship victory in Rizin history, choking her out in just barely one minute. Seika scored one more win on New Year's Eve, choking out Miyuu Yamamoto in her retirement bout, and while it was an honor, it does sort of emphasize the problem with Seika's position. She's unquestionably the best Atomweight in the world, but the last real top fighter she faced was more than a year ago. Will Rizin bring her real competition, or are they trying to simply build a star?

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 20:06

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

THE BELLATOR CHAMPIONSHIP GRAVEYARD

Bellator Heavyweight Champion, 265 lbs

Ryan Bader - 31-7 (1), 3 Defenses
Ryan Bader is the greatest Bellator Heavyweight Champion of all time, and on a dairy farm somewhere in Wisconsin, Cole Konrad feels a pang of regret. Bader made his name as the winner of The Ultimate Fighter: Nogueira vs Mir all the way back in 2008, but his UFC career proved to be one of Sisyphean torment and humiliation that included, somehow, impossibly, being the only man to lose a UFC fight to Tito Ortiz during his last six years in the company. Bader left for free agency and Bellator in 2016 and became its light-heavyweight champion on his first night with the organization, and just two years later he became its first-ever simultaneous double-champion after knocking out the legendary Fedor Emelianenko and taking the heavyweight title. Bader would go on to lose his 205-pound crown, but Fedor never forgot his 35-second drubbing at the American wrestler's hands, and for his retirement fight, he demanded a rematch. Thus it was that the entire mixed martial arts community watched with bated breath as on February 4th, 2023, Fedor Emelianenko walked into the cage one last time and promptly got the absolute crap beaten out of him again. Ryan Bader remains undefeated at heavyweight. He was to defend his title against Linton Vassell at Bellator's series finale-sounding Bellator 300, but Vassell got injured and, as Bader himself put it in a reddit post, Viacom is done with Bellator and didn't want to pay for a replacement. Ryan Bader is the best heavyweight champion outside of the UFC, and it's anyone's guess if he'll still be champion of anything by January.

Bellator Light-Heavyweight Champion, 205 lbs

VACANT - The torch song no one ever sings
Let the records show Light-Heavyweight was the first to fall, and in hindsight, who else could it have ever possibly been. After recording his fourth successful title defense against Yoel Romero in June of 2023, reigning champion Vadim Nemkov talked about the possibility of departing the division and moving up to Heavyweight to ruin Ryan Bader's life all over again, but didn't commit to the change, whether because he was waiting for a potential challenger or he knew at that point that Bellator's days were numbered anyway. Bellator got bought out by the Professional Fighters League at the end of the year and the PFL's first act was to vow a PFL Champions vs Bellator Champions card, and it was through this announcement that Nemkov's move was finally made official. He's left the division, he's moving up to 265, and he's facing 2021 PFL Champion Bruno Cappelozza on February 24. This means, at last, the 205-pound belt is vacant, but it won't be for long. The first nu-Bellator event is currently scheduled for March 22 in Belfast, and Corey Anderson, the top contender, will be facing Karl Moore to fill the void.

Bellator Middleweight Champion, 185 lbs

Johnny Eblen - 14-0, 2 Defenses
There's an old combat sports tradition whereby a champion isn't really a champion until they defend their title. Gegard Mousasi has been established as the best middleweight outside the UFC that, despite the one-sided nature of their fight, Johnny Eblen's victory over him was treated as an aberration rather than the passing of a torch. It didn't matter that Eblen was undefeated, widely considered one of the absolute best by his cohort at American Top Team or that he'd dropped Mousasi on his face with his bare hands, the world needed verification. On February 4th at Bellator 290, they got it. Fedor Emelianenko's team was intending to pull one big, beautiful night of success out of the ether for their leader's retirement fight, but it was not to be: Vadim Nemkov had to pull out of the card thanks to an injury, Fedor himself was crushed for the second time by heavyweight champion Ryan Bader, and middleweight hopeful Anatoly Tokov was competitive for the first couple of rounds but was subsequently washed out by Eblen's overwhelming assault. Johnny Eblen is a defending champion now, and as things always seem to go, the conversation changed overnight from his being overrated to his being better than everyone in the UFC. This mindset only grew again after Bellator 299 on September 23rd, as Eblen faced Fabian Edwards, knocked him out in the third round, and nearly got into a post-fight brawl with his brother, UFC champion Leon Edwards. Eblen admits he has no idea what his future is or if Bellator will still be around, but he's considering a move to light-heavyweight with Vadim Nemkov leaving the division wide open.

Bellator Welterweight Champion, 170 lbs

Jason Jackson - 17-4, 0 Defenses
Getting in right before the buzzer is one of the best times to get in. Jason Jackson does not win any points for having "The rear end-Kicking Machine" for a nickname, but his successes speak for themselves. Jackson actually had two run-ins with the UFC early in his career--since he got his start training with the short-lived Blackzilians team, he was part of The Ultimate Fighter 21 (jesus christ): American Top Team vs Blackzilians, where he was choked out in the second round. He didn't get invited to the UFC, but two years later he was on the third episode of the Contender Series, which saw him spend the first round mostly cage-clinching before breaking his ankle out of nowhere twenty seconds into the second round. He was in Bellator a couple years later losing a decision to Ed Ruth, and that was about the point the world decided to ignore him. As it turns out: A mistake. His path through Bellator was slow--to the point that he's only had one fight a year for the last three years--but by this year he was on a six-fight winning streak and a sensible opponent for Yaroslav Amosov. Very few people gave him a chance, but having not knocked anyone out since mid-2018, absolutely no one expected him to knock Amosov, the best Welterweight outside of the UFC, the gently caress out in the third round. Jason Jackson is, officially, the Bellator Welterweight Champion. Whether there will still be a division for him in a month, we'll have to wait and see.

Bellator Lightweight Champion, 155 lbs

Usman Nurmagomedov - 17-0 (1), 2 Defenses
If there's a single, developing throughline of mixed martial arts in 2022, it's the growing power of the Dagestani wrestling brigade. Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov built an army of ultra-grapplers, and after his passing the American Kickboxing Academy's Javier Mendez and Adulmanap's son and protege, the now-retired Khabib Nurmagomedov, unleashed them on the world. Usman, Khabib's cousin (as well as the younger brother of Umar Nurmagomedov, undefeated and ranked UFC bantamweight), took to Bellator in April of 2021 and proceeded to burn an undefeated path through the Manny Muros and Patrik Pietil�e of the world. His style was a little more eclectic--lots of spinning kicks, lots of stick-and-move jabs and stomps to the leg--but the resemblance became uncanny once he inevitably, and easily, ragdolled his opponents to the canvas and generally choked them out in short order thereafter. When he was announced as the #1 contender to Bellator's lightweight title, I was somewhat miffed: He hadn't beaten any top contenders, Bellator had already held a title eliminator and it was won in a crushing thirty-second knockout by Tofiq Musayev, the whole thing smacked of a pathetic attempt to glom onto some of Khabib's mainstream attention. I at no point said that he wouldn't very, very easily win. At Bellator 288 on November 18th, Usman very, very easily won, defeating Patricky "Pitbull" Freire at every aspect of the game and leaving him sans both his championship and one eyebrow. Usman's first fight as champion was both a defense and an entry into the first round of Bellator's Lightweight Grand Prix on March 3rd at Bellator 292, where he met, crushed, and retired former UFC champion Benson Henderson, handing him just the third submission loss of a 17-year, 42-fight career. He faced fellow tournament semifinalist Brent Primus at Bellator 300 on October 7th, and it was as one-sided and yet uneventful as you can imagine. Until Usman failed his drug test. Bellator says it was for medication rather than PEDs and thus he won't be stripped, but the fight's a No Contest and they need a rematch, which seems awfully selective.

Bellator Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Patr�cio Pitbull - 35-7, 1 Defense
Patr�cio Pitbull had a weird goddamn 2023. Pitbull has long been the GOAT of Bellator, sometimes to the company's open chagrin--there were definitely times they would have vastly preferred a Pat Curran or a Michael Chandler to carry their banner, and Patr�cio had this unfortunate habit of not just beating them but making them look like poo poo. By mid-2021, he was Bellator's dual featherweight and lightweight champion, he was on a seven-fight win streak, and he was a finalist in their Featherweight Grand Prix. And then undefeated rising star A.J. McKee dropped him and choked him out in two minutes. Bellator, clearly, felt they had hit the jackpot and were going to be riding the McKee train for some time, as by their rematch ten months later, McKee was the centerpiece of all of their advertising. It was somewhat awkward when, as he had done to so many before, Patr�cio took him to a victorious decision that made McKee kind of look like poo poo, neutralizing his offense in the clinch, jabbing under his range, and grinding away the clock. Bellator pushed for a trilogy, but McKee, pissed off, tired of cutting weight and worried about having it happen all over again, declined and moved up to lightweight. Instead of a big-money rematch, Patr�cio was left to face top contender �d�m Borics, and the match, while hard-fought, was not particularly entertaining or memorable. Pitbull's next fight was the rare cross-promotional bout, facing Rizin's featherweight champion Kleber Koike Erbst on the New Year's Eve Bellator x Rizin special. It was the only fight on the card that wasn't particularly competitive: He shut Kleber down completely and won a wide decision. There is only one featherweight king outside the UFC. And he's now on a two-fight losing streak, with one of those fights being a bantamweight loss to Sergio Pettis and the other a lightweight knockout to Chihiro Suzuki that he took on four days' notice. Bellator: Please stop killing Pitbull.

Bellator Bantamweight Champion, 135 lbs

Patchy Mix - 19-1, 0 Defenses
It took a long goddamn time, but Patchy Mix is finally getting the credit he deserves. Fans had already singled out Patchy as a uniquely talented fighter by 2019, when he signed to Bellator as the 10-0 King of the Cage Bantamweight Champion who'd submitted almost everyone he faced, but it wasn't really until he choked out Yuki Motoya at Bellator's first co-promotion with Rizin that people really paid attention. Which was unfortunate, because his next fight was a shot at Juan Archuleta for the vacant Bellator Bantamweight Championship and Archuleta schooled him on their feet, ending both Mix's title hopes and his undefeated streak. It didn't help matters when, two fights later, he blew his weight cut for a big Dublin match against James Gallagher. But Mix kept winning, and when he entered the Bantamweight Grand Prix and promptly stormed the bracket by beating Kyoji Horiguchi and choking out Magomed Magomedov, suddenly, people paid attention again. When he fought interim champion Raufeon Stots and knocked him out cold with a knee in less than a minute and a half, people began wondering if maybe he was the real champion and Sergio Pettis, who'd been out for a year and a half and returned to a vanity fight with Patr�cio Pitbull, wasn't the fake. The two met at Bellator 301 on November 17th, and Mix left no doubt: He outwrestled Pettis and choked him out in the second round. Patchy Mix is, finally, the undisputed Bellator Bantamweight Champion. It remains to be seen if his division continues to exist.

Bellator Women's Featherweight Champion, 145 lbs

Cris Cyborg - 27-2 (1), 5 Defenses
Yup. It's 2024 and Cris Cyborg is still out there. For those who don't know, Cris Cyborg was the canonical women's featherweight fighter, a Muay Thai wrecking machine who didn't just beat but brutalized essentially all of her opponents, including ex-Star Wars Gina Carano, and her popularity as a destroyer of humans is the only real reason women's featherweight even exists as a division, to the point that the UFC added it when she was the only actual fighter at the weight class they employed. She was 20-1 (1) when she passed the torch to Amanda Nunes, who slew her in just fifty-one seconds. She took one more fight in the UFC to complete her contract, but left for Bellator almost immediately afterward with uncharacteristic cooperation from the UFC itself--after all, they'd gotten what they wanted out of her. Her first Bellator fight was a one-sided destruction of their featherweight champion, and she's defended it three times since. At this point in Cyborg's career the problem isn't her or her fighting or her age, but simply that there's no one in Bellator for her to fight--after just five fights she's already hitting rematches, having just recorded her second one-sided bludgeoning of a very game but outmatched Arlene Blencowe. Cyborg decided her next fight would be a boxing match, and on September 25 she faced Simone da Silva, a jobber to the stars coming off twelve straight losses who had been knocked out just one month prior. Undeterred, she had her second boxing match on the undercard of December 10th�s Crawford/Avanesyan card, taking a unanimous decision over Gabrielle �Gabanator� Holloway, who is 6-6 in MMA and 0-3 in boxing. After a year and a half of inactivity, Cris Cyborg returned to MMA to defend her title against Cat Zingano at Bellator 300 on October 7th. It lasted four minutes. She'd like to go back to boxing now, if you don't mind.

Bellator Women's Flyweight Champion, 125 lbs

Liz Carmouche - 20-7, 3 Defenses
It took more than a decade and some controversy, but Liz Carmouche got her flowers. "Girl-Rilla" was just as present a figure in establishing women's MMA in the mainstream, but she's the most consistently forgotten because she was the losing fighter in all of those establishing moments. She was a challenger for the early, pre-fame Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Championship, and was winning on the scorecards before Marloes Coenen choked her out. She was a central part of the inaugural Invicta FC card, and was planned as a title contender before the big show came calling. She became one half of the first women's fight in UFC history, and at one point had Ronda Rousey in a nearly destiny-defying neck crank, but was ultimately submitted in the first round. She's one of two women to ever defeat Valentina Shevchenko, but when given a second chance at the now-UFC champion Shevchenko, she fell short. Despite her powerful wrestling and submission skills, she was eternally denied the top of the mountain. So it was both particularly appropriate and particularly cruel when she finally won a championship on April 22, 2022--in a way that displeased everybody. Standing champion Juliana Velasquez was winning on every scorecard, but Liz Carmouche got her in the crucifix position and landed a number of, respectfully, small elbows, but referee Mike Beltran called a TKO to the immediate chagrin of the entirely safe ex-champion. The controversy made a rematch all but mandatory, and it took Bellator most of the year to do it, but the two met in the cage to run it back at Bellator 289 on December 9, and this time there was no controversy, as Velasquez submitted to an armbar two rounds in. The weirdness didn't stop there: Liz's next title defense against Deanna Bennett also hit the skids, as Bennett missed weight and was thus ineligible to win the championship. Carmouche put it on the line anyway, and fortunately, she choked Bennett out in the fourth round. She defended her title against Ilima-Lei Macfarlane at Bellator 300 on October 7th, and it was one of those fights where friends don't really want to hurt each other--until Ilima got kicked enough that her leg collapsed in the fifth round.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 20:06

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

And, finally, where the last thread left off because I would've made this a news item if it didn't happen literally this morning:

MassRafTer posted:

Incredible how this company works these days.

https://twitter.com/bokamotoESPN/status/1753119535186747592

It turns out this is also why Sean Brady vs Vicente Luque fell through. Benoit Saint-Denis didn't even know he was fighting until he saw the Poirier fight announcement on twitter.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 20:08

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Yeah, the UFC has done this stupid dance for a very long time, it's just been awhile since they got caught so flatfooted.

LobsterMobster posted:

add mark o madsen to the retirement corner

Kevin Lee just announced his unretirement and sometimes I wonder why I pretend retirement corner is a real place

# ¿ Feb 1, 2024 20:59

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Digital Jedi posted:

Let's say this is true

What's the implications and movements of the divisions?

I have doubts about this happening, but if it did, I'd assume 175 would be the Edwards/Usman/Chimaev/Shavkat/Garry/Holland division and there's a good chance Whittaker and Chris Curtis would drop down, 165 would be the Conor/Chandler/Belal/Maddalena/Burns division and there's a good chance Poirier, Jalin Turner and Dan Hooker would come up, and the UFC would try as hard as loving possible to make Conor win and laud him with a huge marketing campaign as the first ever triple champ in UFC history.

But I dunno. I've seen this rumor float around here and there for a couple years now, and I don't think it's out of the question, but I have my doubts they'll pull the trigger here.

Oh, also, fun fact courtesy of statmaster Andy Hickey: After tomorrow's event, despite the Apex arena having only existed for three and a half years, it will have held 14% of all events in UFC history.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2024 00:29

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

That is a subtle but excellent upgrade, thank you, mewse. We should do something to distribute those again.

Also, GDT for Dolidze/Imavov is up. Be there or be not there.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4053491

# ¿ Feb 3, 2024 21:32

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Pereira/Aspinall has been floating around as a rumor since mid-January, so it's definitely in the realm of possibility, and I have been quietly preparing myself for the most sardonic writeup of my life just in case.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2024 00:23

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 89: THE GREAT CURVE

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10 FROM THE SPIRALING CLOUD OF THE UFC APEX
PRELIMS 1 PM PST / 4 PM EST | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM

Two ranked fighters. There are fourteen fights currently scheduled for this card, which means a total of twenty-eight fighters, and two of them are ranked. The ranked fighters aren't even fighting each other. One of the fighters fighting a ranked fighter made news last year for turning down ranked fighters because the UFC wasn't paying him enough, and tonight, he is fighting to enter the top ten of his division.

It is, in theory, impossible to watch something disappear into a black hole. You can watch the initial entry, but as it gets closer you'll lose the ability to perceive its fall. It will shrink, and redden, and fade, but you could never actually see, and know, that it was too late and the thing you'd spent years watching was lost.

This is the ninety-third mainline UFC event in the Apex. There are two ranked fighters on it.

It is too early to know, but it is too late to look away.

_{i might actually, finally have a template to replace these.}

MAIN EVENT: WARNING SIGN
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Jack Hermansson (23-8, #10) vs Joe Pyfer (12-2, NR)

Honestly, the real issue with this fight is how much worse it could have been.

Joe "Bodybagz" Pyfer won his Contender Series contract in the Summer of 2022. It was his second attempt--his first shot was back in 2020 and he dislocated his elbow posting against a Dustin Stoltzfus slam--and less than two months had passed before Pyfer made his UFC debut. Who was he fighting, again?

CarlCX posted:

Alan Amedovski, with respect, is someone the UFC is trying to get rid of. He was signed as a last-minute replacement for Krzysztof Jotko in 2019, he lost, badly, twice in a row, and he spent the subsequent two and a half years pulling out of fights. This is why his return to the sport is against someone with half a foot of height and reach on him.

Oh, right. Amedovski was 0-3 in the UFC by the time he fought Pyfer, and two of those three losses came in the first round, and one of them only took a minute, and the other only took fourteen seconds. This may shock you: Joe Pyfer knocked him out in 3:55.

Is that bad matchmaking? Speaking as someone who has inexplicably chosen to devote years of his life to complaining about mixed martial arts booking, I would say: Ehh. No, Amedovski wasn't a serious matchup for Pyfer; he was very clearly chosen as a job guy to make the hot new Contender Series winner look good. But that's normal. Pyfer wasn't a bigshot international champion like Anderson Silva or a sports celebrity like Brock Lesnar, giving him a soft introduction for his rookie fight is by no means uncalled for.

Joe Pyfer's revelation that they tried to follow the Alan Amedovski fight by booking him into the top fifteen rankings, though? Now we're fuckin' talking.

For clarity's sake, at the time, the #15-ranked Middleweight in the UFC was Edmen Shahbazyan. Edmen was eight fights deep in the UFC. He'd been in the ring with folks like Derek Brunson and Nassourdine Imavov and--hey, look at that, Jack Hermansson--and was one of just three fighters to ever knock out Brad Tavares. Let's go a step further: Right now, this second, the #15-ranked Middleweight is Caio Borralho. Borralho hasn't lost a fight since 2015, had to get to 5-0 in the UFC before he got ranked, and won his ranking by beating fighters with a combined UFC record of 17-10. The last man he beat, Abus Magomedov, was the man Sean Strickland defeated right before fighting for the UFC championship.

I've spoken with no small amount of dread of the inevitably future when Contender Series fighters get pushed straight to the top as soon as they're in the UFC. Pyfer would have been--but he said no. One unranked victory later the UFC wanted him fighting Nassourdine Imavov for a #11 berth, and once again, Pyfer declined, and once again, Pyfer got an unranked guy instead. Was this a testament to a fighter wanting to be better prepared? Did someone believe in divisional structure?

No! Of course not. Joe Pyfer was just smart enough to want a better deal than the poverty wages a Contender Series contract pays you before he began risking his health and career against the top ranks. Which, honestly: Great move. More fighters should know their worth. But, gently caress, it is distressing to realize we're already at the point where the UFC is willing to jetpack Contender Series guys all the way to the top and we were spared it only because Joe Pyfer has some money sense.

But clearly they've come to terms, and clearly the UFC is happy with them, because Jack Hermansson is a recurring problem they would like to be rid of.

High-level gatekeepers are management's least favorite types of fighters. Once upon a time, Jack Hermansson was kind of a big deal. One of the best mixed martial artists in Sweden! Potential international draw, particularly in a post-Alexander Gustafsson world! Ran up a real impressive 7-2 record in his first couple years in the UFC and, after dominating Jacar� Souza, could have been a genuine title contender!

But that was 2019. On one hand, five years later, Jack Hermansson is still in the top ten and that's impressive as hell. On the other hand: It's five years later, and Jack Hermansson is only #10. And he keeps that ranking by being a persistent spoiler for the UFC's plans. When he was supposed to become a title contender he got blasted to hell by Jared Cannonier. When he was supposed to be a stepping stone for promotional favorite Kelvin Gastelum, Hermansson suddenly remembered his grappling and heel hooked him in just over a minute. Edmen Shahbazyan needs a comeback fight after losing his undefeated streak? Let's give him to Jack Hermansson for rehabilitation, and--whoops, Hermansson just mauled him 141-42.

Chris Curtis was a streaking contendership prospect until Jack Hermansson got through with him. Hell, Sean Strickland beat Hermansson pretty handily, and somehow Hermansson still almost won a split decision.

Jack Hermansson is a very good fighter. Jack Hermansson has definitively proven he's never going to be a champion. He couldn't stop Sean Strickland's punches, he couldn't stop Marvin Vettori's clinches, and Roman Dolidze turned him into a pretzel on the ground. The holes in his game are visible and exploitable, and multiple men have laid out fairly clear blueprints for neutralizing his bread-and-butter boxing and halting his wrestling. Or, alternatively, you can just make like Jared Cannonier and punch his god damned head off.

But the UFC has to be real, real sure someone can do one of those things. Jack's proven himself an unsafe investment for real top-card marketing dollars, but he's also proven more than capable of spoiling plans for the fighters they'd like to put on billboards. Is Joe Pyfer tall enough to ride the rollercoaster?

It's an interesting matchup. I called Hermansson's striking "bread-and-butter" a few sentences ago, and if that sounded like an insult, I assure you, it wasn't meant to be. A deceptively crisp jab and well-honed basics are still shockingly rare in mixed martial arts, and they've been enough to interrupt the rhythm of many a striker and, more importantly, open them up for the takedown. Joe Pyfer pretty unquestionably has a power advantage, and given room to land he could turn Hermansson's lights out, but the last time we saw him lose was from a wrestler throwing him like a sack of bricks, and in his three UFC fights thus far, Pyfer has yet to have to defend a takedown attempt.

Unless he drops Hermansson in the first round he's inevitably going to have to defend one here, and that's where the fight will get interesting. Pyfer's no slouch as a grappler, but he makes mistakes--arm-posting, almost-getting-guillotined, fight-ending mistakes--and Hermansson's entirely capable of capitalizing on them.

But, as much as my heart is telling me otherwise, I still think JOE PYFER BY TKO is too likely to ignore. It'd be real fun to see Jack Hermansson derail yet another prospect, but I don't feel comfortable betting against the house this time.

CO-MAIN EVENT: SLIPPERY PEOPLE
:piss:

FEATHERWEIGHT: Dan Ige (17-7, #13) vs Andre Fili (23-10 (1), NR) :piss:

Funnily enough, this, too, was supposed to be a promotional ascension bout. This was arguably the most interesting match on the card! But fate is fickle and so are fights.

Dan Ige is one of the UFC's steadiest hands. He was part of the first wave of Contender Series winners that damned us all back in the Summer of 2017, he was a Featherweight mainstay almost immediately and he's been a top-fifteen competitor ever since. After dozens of fights and nearly a decade of professional competition no one's ever stopped him, few people have so much as wobbled him, and he's long established himself as the rocky shoals on which prospects get dashed.

If that sounds like a redux of the backhanded-compliment Jack Hermansson gatekeeper description, Dan Ige is one of the rare fighters who wears it with pride, which, honestly, makes him more graceful than the vast majority of fighters who have ever existed. It's also objectively true. Losing a fight here and there by no means forces someone out of contention; going 1 for 5 in your career prime is a different story. At the height of his power, when the Featherweight division was at its most open, Ige fell all the way out of contendership after losing to Calvin Kattar, Chan Sung Jung, Josh Emmett and Movsar Evloev in just under two years. That's the kind of streak you have to work for years to come back from. Unfortunately, Ige's comeback tour got squashed under the suspiciously flat thumb of Bryce Mitchell last September, which firmly seals him in the gatekeeper coffin.

The UFC wanted to use him that way, here. Ige was going to be a stiff prospect test for the undefeated* British sensation Lerone Murphy, but Murphy had to pull out, further delaying British Invasion 4.0: This Time Paddy Pimblett Gets To Use An Axe.

_{*offer does not apply to Zubaira Tukhugov and Gabriel Santos, both of whom beat Murphy but got boned by the judges}

Thus, Andre Fili, and thus, this fight enters stasis. With the turn of the calendar into 2024, Andre "Touchy" Fili has passed 10 years in the UFC, and drat near that entire run has been spent trading wins and losses back and forth, over and over, into infinity. His time in the octagon has spanned multiple terrible presidencies. A half-dozen of his UFC opponents have retired, at one point one of his eyes ceased to function for awhile, and even his home school, Team Alpha Male, has aged enough to finally, reluctantly, allow its training participants to wear shirts.

Which means there's a certain level of reverse-privilege in being Andre Fili. After 10+ years in the UFC, Fili is 10-9 (1). He's as close to 50/50 as you can get while still retaining plausible deniability. He's only strung back-to-back wins together twice in his whole career, I'm not actually sure if he's ever beaten a ranked opponent, there isn't a matchmaker alive who sees him becoming a late-blooming title contender, and that has absolutely no impact on his career because he's a bad motherfucker who's been catching people unawares for underestimating him since the Zune walked the Earth.

It's a stasis fight. It's a fight between stasis fighters. No one expects title aspirations or world-beating performances from them, they just know Dan Ige's gonna throw some ultra-stiff jabs and Andre Fili's gonna sneak a foot upside his head at least once and it's going to be fun.

Fun. What a loving concept. DAN IGE BY DECISION. Fili's style is actually tougher for Ige's than most, so I cannot help expecting this to be an awful lot closer than a lot of folks seem to think it will be, but I agree Ige should keep Fili stuck on his back foot and ultimately walk away with the fight.

MAIN CARD: NOTHING BUT FLOWERS
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Ihor Potieria (20-5) vs Robert Bryczek (17-5)

I laughed like a goddamn hyena when I saw this fight come together.

Let's not delay on the lede: Robert Bryczek is the story here. In a world where the UFC is Contender Series-sourcing most of their roster, Bryczek is the increasingly rare international talent they went out of their way to sign. He's a heavy-punching standout from OKTAGON, better known as the Polish MMA organization that doesn't have Mariusz Pudzianowski in it, and the UFC poached him on the strength of a five-fight knockout streak (and as a late replacement) in the hopes of getting another big Polish knockout machine for their international marketing efforts. But that poaching happened half a year ago. Bryczek was supposed to fight Australian wrestling pariah Jacob Malkoun back in September, but he couldn't make it to the cage; take two was to be against ground-and-pound extraordinaire Albert Duraev here, but Duraev had to pull out (and is now, apparently, fired). Bryczek needs a dance partner and the UFC needs a late replacement.

So it's Ihor Potieria. Pick on the desperate! Potieria was a product of the Contender Series, and he's one that, as of yet, has not paid off. Once upon a time, all the way back in 2021, Ihor was 18-2 and a champion in his native Ukraine: Two and a half years of good ol' America later he's 1-3 in the UFC and all three of those losses were devastating knockouts. The victory, of course, was a brutal knockout of MMA legend Mauricio "Shogun" Rua in his retirement fight in front of a cripplingly depressed Brazilian crowd that would later take out their emotions by pelting Brandon Moreno with empty beer cans. This is because, and I say this with the utmost respect, Ihor Potieria is not great. He was a champion in Ukraine, but in Ukraine he was also fighting guys who were 0-3 or sometimes just 0-0 when he was almost twenty fights deep into his career. He attacks like a man whose hands know only rage, and he defends like a man who is trying to carry six bags of groceries at once so he doesn't have to make a second trip.

Realistically, Bryczek should win this fight. Potieria's cutting to 185 for the first time, he's a late replacement, and he is terminally addicted to catching punches with his face. But Bryczek is also adjusting to a striker after preparing for a grappler, and it's a bigger, rangier striker, and when the opportunity arises I always want the funniest possible thing to happen. IHOR POTIERIA BY TKO.

:piss:

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Brad Tavares (20-8) vs Gregory Rodrigues (14-5) :piss:

This is a battle of my two princes, and like the Spin Doctors before me, I, too, have got to believe in something.

Brad Tavares is one of those fighters I feel irrationally attached to. Some of it is my respect for longevity, some of it is an appreciation for his level of competition, and some, assuredly, is my desperate need to hang onto a fighter from one of the last times I felt truly invested in The Ultimate Fighter without a championship belt or Roxanne Modafferi being involved. Brad Tavares is such a generational bridge that his record includes Dricus du Plessis and Israel Adesanya, the top Middleweights of the 2020s, Chris Weidman and Robert Whittaker, the top Middleweights of the 2010s, and, somehow, Phil Baroni, the most promising prospect of the year 2000 (and probable murderer). His gameplan has been the same since the Bush administration: Sling some leg kicks, pump some jabs, bully into the pocket, and succeed by being tougher than almost anyone on the loving planet.

Being tougher than Gregory Rodrigues is a big ask, though. "Robocop" made a name for himself in the UFC almost immediately upon arrival for his implacability. By the beginning of 2023 he was 4-1 in the company, his only loss was a split decision that could easily have gone the other way, and his reputation as one of the toughest men in mixed martial arts had ascended to legend after a particularly horrifying fight with Chidi Njokuani that saw him end the first round with his face busted open so badly a major artery was plainly visible, and not only did he still come out for the second round, he pounded Njokuani out a minute and a half later. A fan favorite! An icon of grit! So he was, of course, immediately knocked out cold in his next fight thanks to Brunno Ferreira's insane punching power. This is, as always, the problem with having toughness as your defining feature: Not only does it mean you clearly get hit a lot, it predestines your inevitable fall.

But then, that's both men. Both guys suffered a knockout loss two fights ago--although Rodrigues got knocked out cold and Tavares has a pretty solid argument he was the victim of an early stoppage--and both had a comeback victory on the same card, with Rodrigues taking out Denis Tiuliulin and Tavares outworking the aforementioned Chris Weidman. I'd like to say Chris Weidman is a better victory than the 1-4 Tiuliulin, but in 2023, honestly, I'm not sure. I do think Gregory's clinch game and punching power are going to be hard to exert on a guy as mobile and difficult to contain as Tavares, though. Let's call it BRAD TAVARES BY DECISION.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Michael Johnson (21-19) vs Darrius Flowers (12-6-1)

I don't know what to say about Michael Johnson anymore, man. I just don't. I just finished talking about Brad Tavares as a relic from the days of The Ultimate Fighter I still cared about; Michael Johnson was on The Ultimate Fighter 12 (jesus christ) in that same calendar year, just one season later, and that was almost fourteen years ago, and not once in that decade and a half have I fallen into sync with the Michael Johnson wavelength. It was really cool that he beat Dustin Poirier! That was eight years ago. He's been this unpredictable force of irregularity since the Digital Underground still roamed the Earth, he was a coinflip away from beating Jamie Mullarkey two fights ago and being on his longest winning streak since 2015, but after multiple decades of competition he's still Michael Johnson, and we know this because the last time we saw him he put together a great first round against Diego Ferreira, looked fast, strong and on his game, and proceeded to get knocked dead with a single punch in the second.

Darrius "Beast Mode" Flowers is still an unproven quantity. The Contender Series victory that won him a contract was one of the coolest the show has seen--he countered an inverted triangle choke by hitting the one and only shoot tombstone piledriver I've ever seen--but everything since has been a story in bad scheduling. His UFC debut against Erick Gonzalez got scratched after an injury, he got tapped for a late replacement fill-in fight against Jake Matthews and tapped again two rounds in, and his followup fight with Ottman Azaitar this past November got cancelled for no apparent reason. Flowers has been a UFC fighter for a year and a half, but we've only seen him once, he barely had time to prepare, and he got folded by a kick that kind-of sort-of hit him in the junk. So we know he hits really hard, and we know he can deadlift a man and drop him on his shoulder, and we know he is vulnerable to dubiously legal kicks. But can he beat Michael Johnson?

I mean, roll a goddamn D6. Tell me which Michael Johnson we're getting. Michael Johnson, at his best, is still fast and accurate and a solid wrestler and a terrifying counterpuncher. But Michael Johnson is also about to turn 38. The likelihood that his fights go well is only narrowing, and it was never particularly broad to begin with. DARRIUS FLOWERS BY TKO.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Rodolfo Vieira (9-2) vs Armen Petrosyan (8-2)

gently caress yes. This is a hilarious fight and I don't care. Mixed martial arts was built on the bones of style vs style matchups, but generations of development and modern-day cross-training means most fighters these days (below 205 pounds) are pretty good at everything and unlikely to be baffled by the enigmatic nature of things like "kicking someone in the leg" or "getting choked by a man." And then, like a bolt from the blue, we get Rodolfo Vieira. Rodolfo is one of the world's most accomplished Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu artists, a man with more than a dozen world grappling championships, some of the best guard passing in sport jiu-jitsu history, and exactly one submission loss in competition, ever, to the equally legendary Dean Lister. And two fights into his UFC career he got choked out in two rounds by a guy named Fluffy. Rodolfo has been grappling his whole life. It's all he does. When he cannot grapple, he gets exhausted and falls apart. He's dominated the grappling in most of his UFC fights, and his takedown accuracy is still a depressing 26%, because he went 1 for 7 desperately trying to get Cody Brundage on the floor the last time we saw him, and, one fight before that, went 0 for 20 while a bemused Chris Curtis repeatedly slugged him in the face.

So what do you do with him? Why, you have him fight the purest kickboxer you have left in the division. Armen Petrosyan does not Do grappling, to the point that he, on average, completes one quarter of one takedown per fifteen-minute fight, meaning if you start watching The X-Files this very second, by the time the pilot is over and you, too, have remembered how attractive David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson really were, you will suddenly find yourself on the floor, as Armen Petrosyan will have completed his slow-motion takedown aggregation process and awkwardly picked your ankle. But he won't feel good about it, and, honestly, neither should you, because you got taken down by Armen Petrosyan. Re-examine your life, think about the choices that led to Armen Petrosyan being on top of you, and question your career path. If you think this entire paragraph might secretly be one big subtweet directed at Christian Leroy Duncan, the only man to ever lose a wrestling contest against Armen Petrosyan, it means you, clearly, aren't deep enough into your X-Files rewatch.

Every non-Duncan fighter in the UFC who has attempted a takedown on Armen has succeeded. He's good at getting up from them, some of the time, but we're also only a year and a half removed from watching Caio Borralho treat him like a grappling dummy, and Rodolfo may not be as athletic as Caio, but he's got a much tougher top game. RODOLFO VIEIRA BY SUBMISSION. Disclaimer: This offer applies only to the first eight minutes of this fight. If it winds up going to a third round, that round is going to be very, very funny to watch.

PRELIMS: SEEN AND NOT SEEN
WELTERWEIGHT: Trevin Giles (16-5) vs Carlos Prates (17-6)

At some point, the phrase 'x veteran journeyman is getting fed to y Contender Series winner' has to become meaningless, right? Because I've said it a lot, but it's not only becoming more frequent and less avoidable, this is, like, the third time I'll have said it just about Trevin Giles specifically. Giles went 50/50 at Middleweight and decided his best career path laid down 15 pounds at Welterweight, and the UFC's response was 'cool, we have this undefeated guy who just won a Contender Series fight named Michael Morales.' After recovering from his thrashing Giles managed to string together two wins, and in return, the UFC gave him Gabriel Bonfim, another, different undefeated guy who'd just won a Contender Series fight and had a successful UFC debut. And now, half a year later, it's time to rebound--with another Contender Series winner with a near-total stoppage rate. Your contractually obligatory corporate push of the week is Carlos "The Nightmare" Prates, a striker so striking-centric in his striking that he stole Johnny Eduardo's giant "Muay Thai" chest tattoo but he moved it from his abs to his pecs and redid it in cursive to make sure Nova Uni�o's lawyers didn't send him to the same hell where Renan Barao's ability to cut weight is hidden. (If nothing in that flurry of references meant anything to you, congratulations on using your early 2010s more wisely than I did.) Prates is on a six-fight knockout streak, he's got one of those irritatingly lanky builds and he's really slick at finding ways to get headkicks onto target with an extremely small amount of space, and he's not great at avoiding takedowns, but he's fast at scrambling to his feet.

Trevin Giles gets knocked out a lot. Carlos Prates knocks out a lot of people. Who do you think this prelim headliner is actually for? Prates could turn Giles off in any exchange of this fight, but he's also been fighting the caliber of competition for whom 'wing hooks while walking straight forward' is an acceptable tactic, and this is, genuinely, a step up in competition. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say TREVIN GILES BY DECISION here, but if he catches an ankle upside the head I will deny all awareness of this writeup.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Bolaji Oki (8-1) vs Timothy Cuamba (8-1)

This fight changed this very morning, and generally-speaking, when a fight changes during fight week, it does not improve. That meaningless Contender Series vs Journeyman sentence I was just talking about overusing was going to be the story of this contest, too, with Belgian-Zimbabwean knockout-artist champion Bolaji Oki as your debuting contract mill champion and Damir Had�ović as your beleaguered 4-5 veteran/victim. But as of this morning Damir is out, and in his place we have Timothy "Twilight" Cuamba. Cuamba, ironically, also won a Contender Series fight last August, but the UFC didn't pick him up because a) he went to a decision and b) Dana White didn't agree with it. But hey, Cuamba scored a knockout win he regionals afterward! A lot afterward, actually. It was four days ago. Timothy Cuamba was signed to fight in the UFC this coming weekend despite having just had a two-round fight four days ago. What are we even doing here anymore? Did this fight really need to be maintained so badly that you just had to go out and pick up one of the Contenders you negged out of a contract because you didn't like their haircut even though they just fought last loving week? For one, was that truly necessary, and for two, you're telling me it just had to be yet another new guy with no choice but to say yes if he ever wants in the UFC? You couldn't get any of the forty-eight unbooked Lghtweights you already have under contract who didn't get punched in the skull a week ago on the phone? It's not even his weight class! He's a loving Featherweight!

This is one of those things that's always been lionized in the sport--look at this guy taking this short notice fight, it's so badass--and there's absolutely a legitimacy to that, but I have also always hated it, and I hate it even more now that the UFC has fully established a funnel specifically for picking off fighters before they can build any leverage or name for themselves. This isn't a cool aspect of the sport, it's a persistent managerial failure. I hope Cuamba's wrestling beats Oki's striking and this works out well for him, but BOLAJI OKI BY TKO feels irritatingly likely.

WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Loma Lookboonmee (8-3) vs Bruna Brasil (9-3-1)

I'm going to say this up front, just so it is clear: There is no Earthly force that will keep me from picking LOMA LOOKBOONMEE BY DECISION, and I am actively defying the universe by doing so. Why? Let me refer you to the last time we saw her, almost exactly one year ago at UFC 284:

CarlCX posted:

Nothing Elise Reed does in this fight matters. I could tell you about my suspicions that her tentative speed and poor reactions to aggression will hurt her against Loma's fluid assaults, but truthfully? That doesn't matter either. Loma Lookboonmee has been fighting for five years, and those five years have established a simple, universal pattern: Two wins, one loss. Every time, without fail. She will defeat two women only to be felled by a third, and the universe will send the Reapers to take her and return her to the dark, unknowable space between spaces, and after time has readjusted itself she arises, better than before, to reap the wheat and return order to the universe.

The planets spun, the sun set, and Loma choked Reed out. Having received her reward, Loma is now obligated to return her luck to the coat check, lose, and begin the fifth intergalactic cycle. But today, we resist the stars. Today, we declare our independence. Our extremely small, specific independence. Some of this is because my brain has, for whatever reason, decided to latch onto Loma Lookboonmee's success as one of those points of irrational joy you get about sports, some of this is because we've seen Bruna Brasil's fighting style get disrupted into dysfunction by pressure-centric games and Loma is real good at refusing to leave the vicinity of directly in an opponent's face, and, if I'm being really honest, some of this is because Bruna Brasil uses "The Special One" as a nickname and I simply cannot sanction that. It gives me a feeling I can only describe as akin to being forced hands-first into a slurry made of thick water and sawdust.

I know the stability of the universe itself is predicated on Loma obeying the prophecy and getting outworked for fifteen minutes, but honestly, if what we're all collectively experiencing is the universe's concept of stability, burn it to the ground and let Loma's winning streak thrive on the ashes.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Devin Clark (14-8) vs Marcin Prachnio (16-7)

With as much respect as I can muster to surround an inherently disrespectful statement: This is the most "These guys are still here?" fight I can remember coming across in some time. And I actively hate having that reaction, because both of these men have solid, recent victories! Alonzo Menifield is the #12 Light Heavyweight in the UFC right now and Da Un Jung was in the top fifteen just a couple years ago, and Clark handily beat both of them. Khalil Rountree Jr. just made it to #8 and is agitating for a championship match, and Marcin Prachnio outstruck him 2:1 back in 2021. Clark is a solid wrestleboxer and Prachnio is a talented kickboxer. But Light Heavyweight is a goddamn wasteland that exists to consume meaning and extrude darkness, and in a sport that judges people for their worst performances, floundering is a crime. Devin Clark getting dominated by Ion Cuțelaba? That's bad. Marcin Prachnio getting knocked out by Sam Alvey? That's bad. But Marcin Prachnio being unable to finish a seemingly mentally unwell William Knight who landed only 1-3 strikes a round while combat sports veterans got bad Oliver McCall flashbacks? That's historically relevant levels of bad.

Prachnio does his best work against people who let him work at range. Devin fights in the pocket and likes to bull people to the ground. DEVIN CLARK BY DECISION is the betting line favorite and I do not at all disagree.

WELTERWEIGHT: Jeremiah Wells (12-3-1) vs Max Griffin (19-10)

As much as I complain about short-notice replacements, every once in awhile they work out. Jeremiah Wells was a minor blip on the UFC's scouting radar when Mickey Gall couldn't make it to his fight with Miguel Baeza all the way back in 2020, and Wells was the regional talent tapped to sub in on short notice, and then Baeza couldn't fight either. It took the UFC nine months to get back to Wells about his contract--not because they had a good fight lined up for him, but because they needed a short-notice replacement again. Come to think of it, his next fight was a short-notice replacement, too. God, this fuckin' company. It's particularly grating because Wells turned out to be a genuinely decent prospect: A heavy-handed puncher with solid wrestling and enough heart to get knocked down twice and still win a decision. He pounded out Warlley Alves, he choked out Blood Diamond, he became the first man to knock Court McGee out cold in a decade and a half of combat and he was building one of the division's better winning streaks until last year, when Carlston Harris averted a two-round beating and managed to choke him out. Max Griffin has, at this point, entered Honored Elder status in the UFC, and it's hard not to read that was an epitaph. He's 7-8 in the company, he's turning 39 this year (you and me both, buddy), he's been around since 2016, and in all that time he's been big and strong and scary enough to elbow a man's goddamn ear off and none of that has gotten him remotely close to contendership. The UFC gave him one last shot in 2022, capitalizing on a rare three-fight winning streak by forcing him to take the only test of Welterweight contention that matters, but like so many before him, Max Griffin simply could not pass the Neil Magny exam. So now he's stuck with prospect duty. First it was Michael Morales, now it's Jeremiah Wells.

And it is, in fairness, a solid test. Not only is Griffin still a difficult fighter to conquer, he's good at everything Wells is good at too. The primary difference here is likely to be pace. Griffin likes to pick and choose his spots; Wells likes to push and force things. Which is, of course, where Griffin kicks your leg in two or elbows your ear off. Should be fun! Still going with JEREMIAH WELLS BY DECISION.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Zac Pauga (6-2) vs Bogdan Guskov (14-3)

I cannot help feeling that my constant refrain of exhaustion about the Light Heavyweight division is repetitive and grating to read, and yet, I cannot help feeling exhausted by Light Heavyweight, and moreover, I have no idea how one could not be. Genuinely, stop and dissect the circumstances of this fight for a moment. Zac Pauga is 1-2 in the UFC. He ended The Ultimate Fighter 30 (jesus christ) in second place, but that was at Heavyweight. He dropped back to his home class at 205 afterward and picked up his first UFC win over Jordan Wright--who is a Middleweight. So finally, three fights into his UFC career, he had his first Light Heavyweight fight against a Light Heavyweight last June, where he struggled with Modestas Bukauskas, who is 3-4 in the company, to the point of nearly knocking himself over throwing punches, and then he lost a decision anyway. Bogdan Guskov, like so many, was a late replacement pickup. The UFC wanted Volkan Oezdemir to stay on their big Paris card after Azamat Murzakanov dropped out, so they took Bogdan "Czarevitch" Guskov, who had won his way onto the Contender Series after defeating--who was it again, Past Carl?

CarlCX posted:

His 13th fight was against a guy who was 4-2, his 15th fight was a guy who was 4-1, and his last fight--well, hey, that was Brazilian veteran Carlos Eduardo, who was 20-10! And also 41. And also 1 for his last 7. And also known primarily for beating the poo poo out of overmatched rookies.

Oezdemir beat him. It wasn't difficult, and is notable only because, rather than pounding him out, Oezdemir submitted him, making Guskov the first person to get tapped out by Volkan Oezdemir since France's Mamadou Cisse, who retired one fight later in 2012.

This is a fight between two Light Heavyweight prospects, one of whom has yet to beat a Light Heavyweight, the other whose sole UFC appearance involved becoming the first man to get tapped by Volkan Oezdemir since the XCOM reboot came out. Two fights ago, Zac Pauga was co-main eventing cards. This is what you have to be invested in to care about the full divisional picture of the 205-pound division. And this is why I weep. BOGDAN GUSKOV BY TKO.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Hyder Amil (8-0) vs Fernie Garcia (10-4)

Let me go back to Past Carl for a second, by which I mean Past Carl of Five Fights Ago.

CarlCX posted:

At some point, the phrase 'x veteran journeyman is getting fed to y Contender Series winner' has to become meaningless, right? Because I've said it a lot, but it's not only becoming more frequent and less avoidable, this is, like, the third time I'll have said it just about Trevin Giles specifically.

I was such a naive, carefree person five fights ago. Fernie Garcia has seamlessly transitioned from being the Contender Series winner to being the journeyman. The Fern Era began with his anointment in 2021 and it ended with his UFC debut that following May, where he was given his journeyman sacrifice in the form of the 0-2 (1) Journey Newsom and lost. And then proceeded to lose more, repeatedly, without exception. Now the once-hyped prospect is the gritty, weathered, veteran journeyman, 0-3 after a long eighteen months in the UFC, and with the flipping of the hourglass, he has become the hunted. Hyder "The Hurricane" Amil is your shiny new undefeated Conter Series toy, a California prospect who spent the first half of his career as a local in the eighteen prelims on every Bellator card and the second working his way to the top of the Legacy Fighting Alliance, and he was, in all fairness to him and the UFC, supposed to have an (on-paper) stiffer test here. Twice. His debut was initially booked against 3-2 Chinese prospect Shayilan Nuerdanbieke, but Shayilan couldn't make it work, and then it was 3-1 kickboxer Melsik Baghdasaryan, but the same shakeup that cost us Albert Duraev and Damir Had�ović yesterday scratched Melsik. We almost escaped the sacrificial orbit. We were so close.

HYDER AMIL BY DECISION. I'll always remember the year of ferns fondly.

:piss:

BANTAMWEIGHT: Daniel Marcos (15-0) vs Aoriqileng (25-11) :piss:

My complaints about card placement are legion, but I've been a professional wrestling fan long enough to understand the urge to book an opening match people might actually want to see. Daniel Marcos is an intriguing prospect: A patient counterstriker who likes to work behind heavy kicks on the outside and abrupt, flying-knee blitzes once he thinks he can fit them in. This worked out great for him in his debut, where he became the first man to ever stop Saimon Oliveira after redecorating his abdomen to have a more 'what if you didn't have any bones or organs' kind of aesthetic. Oliveira gave him some trouble in the first round with a higher-pressure boxing approach, though, and that came back to haunt Marcos in his last fight against Davey Grant this past July. He got outstruck, he got outpunched, and he realistically should have lost a close but fairly clear decision, but he was rescued by questionable judging. So now he gets to defend his still-undefeated record against Aoriqileng, who I tried my best to finally break up with the last time we saw him:

CarlCX posted:

I got emotionally invested in his potential as a real tough, hard-hitting wrestler, and, hey, you burned me once by getting beat by Cody Durden, I can cope with that level of sadness. But when Aiemann Zahabi knocks you cold in sixty-four seconds? By god, I turned on Drako Rodriguez and I'll turn on you, too.

I tried to get out. I really did. I've liked Aoriqileng's gritty all-around approach to fighting for three years, now, but at a certain point even I must admit defeat. And then Aoriqileng's crisp counterpunching hurt Johnny Munoz Jr. enough that Munoz turned into a desperate takedown machine, which only got him hurt even more, and god dammit, I'm only human. I'm sorry I doubted you, Aoriqileng. You body-punched your way right back into my heart.

Marcos is a pretty solid favorite here and he probably should be, but what is life without commitment. AORIQILENG BY DECISION.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2024 22:23

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

I am ashamed of the death of democracy.

Also, GDT is up.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4053978

# ¿ Feb 10, 2024 21:33

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Helwani is reporting the current main event for UFC 300 is scheduled to be Leon Edwards vs Khamzat Chimaev, with Dricus/Khamzat or Dricus/Izzy as backup plans. Belal Muhammad will never know justice.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2024 22:58

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

kimbo305 posted:

backups as in no deal has been signed?
Or backup fights to a signed deal? I don't get the latter, or at least why there's not a backup fighter for Leon.

No deal signed yet. So presumably it's whomever's most willing to agree/wants the least money.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2024 23:29

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

LobsterMobster posted:

bummer alert

Bigfoot Silva is unretiring to fight Juan Espino in the Canary Islands. Will Bigfoot score his first win since 2015? Most assuredly not

honestly, should I just stop writing retirement corner, it almost never stays true

Also, on the topic of thinking about uncomfortable truths:

# ¿ Feb 14, 2024 21:12

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 90: OR, THERE AND BACK AGAIN

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17 FROM THE HONDA CENTER IN ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA
EARLY PRELIMS 3 PM PST / 6 PM EST | PRELIMS 5 PM / 8 PM | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM

Man, I don't wanna do this. I really don't. And I do! And I don't. But at least it's for the good reasons.

Last week, I mentioned/whined to a friend that I've come to dislike the negativity in my MMA writing. Not because it's undeserved--trust me, it's thoroughly deserved--but because I do, still, love mixed martial arts, just as I have for almost thirty years. It's the most interesting sport in the world, it provides some of the most interesting clashes of talent in the world, and there is an immediacy and relatability to the lack of obfuscation surrounding the way it is performed that's still incredibly unique.

It's never been the mixed martial arts I hate; it's the everything else. The bad matchmaking, the promotional favoritism, the bigotry as advertising, the laundering of toxicity into product, the million things that get in the way of the best thing combat sports has created. But a few times a year, the UFC manages to get out of their own way and put on the kind of main event that reminds you why you ever started watching in the first place.

It's cleansing. It's refreshing.

And all I have to do to finish enjoying it is choose between my two favorite fighters.

Goddammit.

_{i wanted to test the new format this week but i am too busy to be bad at photoshop}

MAIN EVENT: THE POSTURE OF A KING
:piss:

FEATHERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Alexander Volkanovski (26-3, Champion) vs Ilia Topuria (14-0, #3) :piss:

Eight months ago, when Ilia Topuria fought Josh Emmett, I introduced the card like this:

CarlCX posted:

Objectively, this card has all of those issues. I could tell you this card has an extremely high fun potential and a lot of interesting people on it, and both things are true. But I would still give it a pass anyway, because it is Ilia Topuria fight night, god dammit.

I think it's deeply necessary to be wholly in the tank for a fighter here and there. I think combat sports are such an inherently cruel, irrational and often outright arbitrary thing that you need the anchoring influence of an equally irrational force to stay afloat in its terrible seas. The day there isn't at least one fighter that you, as a diehard fan, want to aggressively root for above their peers, it's probably time to take a break.

I feel this way about a number of fighters--Loma Lookboonme gang, we are thriving--but none so profoundly or centrally as Ilia Topuria. I had a good feeling about Ilia after he beat Youssef Zalal in his debut in 2020, and I felt confident in my appreciation for him after he knocked out Damon Jackson, but turning grappling ace Ryan Hall into a human pretzel and detaching his face from his skull with ground and pound? That's where I fully, wholly got on board.

He hasn't disappointed me since. He briefly concerned me by going up to 155 pounds on short notice and almost getting knocked out by Jai Herbert, but Ilia folded him like a deck chair with punches a few minutes later; Topuria almost got wrestled by Bryce Mitchell in their fight at the end of 2022, but promptly destroyed him immediately thereafter. His big contention-earning main event with Josh Emmett was fun, incredibly one-sided (judge Chris Lee's 50-42 is still one of the most brutal scorecards I have seen), and a thorough proof of concept for Ilia Topuria's worthiness as a top contender.

Honestly: I never stood a chance. A heavy-handed wrestleboxer who always wins and he knocks out flatearthers? Who else is it even possible for me to like more?

I mean.

There's this one guy.

At this point it's almost pass� to talk about Alexander Volkanovski's greatness. He's the second-most accomplished Featherweight champion in history (and, while he still hasn't quite matched Jos� Aldo's career record, he did beat the crap out of him), he's the fifth-longest reigning male champion in UFC history, he's a goddamn phenomenon. A number of fans liken him to Georges St-Pierre and that comparison is typically interpreted as a statement about dominance, but their real likeness comes from visible, ongoing improvement.

A bunch of fighters get to the main event, a score of those fighters become champions and a number of those fighters get to actually defense their belts. Only a handful manage to reach the peak and find ways to climb higher. Alexander Volkanovski was already the best Featherweight in the world when he was squeaking past Max Holloway in 2019, but Volk's entire career has been defined by constant improvement. He was predominantly a wrestler in the mid-2010s, he was a wrestleboxer with a solid leg kicking game when he became the champion, and by 2022 he had developed into such a smart, tactical striker that he punched Chan Sung Jung, a man defined by his toughness, into an existential crisis about the future of his career.

In 2020, Max Holloway, the consensus #2 Featherweight in the world, came so close to beating Alexander Volkanovski that the champion was dogged for years by claims that Holloway was the better man. In 2022, Alexander Volkanovski beat Max Holloway so thoroughly and unquestionably that even his most ardent detractors gave up on one of the most contentious rivalries in the sport.

He's the best. He's been the best for years.

At Featherweight.

Volk going up to 155 pounds to challenge Islam Makhachev for the Lightweight championship was huge. Their fight was a genuine superfight both on paper and in execution: Both men looked amazing, both posed one of the toughest challenges either had ever seen, and both came away looking better for it. But Islam won. Volk returned to 145 to fairly easily defeat interim champ Yair Rodr�guez, but he made it clear his eyes were on a Makhachev rematch.

Unfortunately, he got it.

Islam was supposed to fight Charles Oliveira, Oliveira busted his face open in training, the UFC needed someone willing to fight the dominant Lightweight champion with ten days to prepare.

I wasn't happy.

CarlCX posted:

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.

In all likelihood, Islam Makhachev would have won their rematch anyway. He beat Alex once, he hasn't gotten any worse, and as he demonstrated, he'd learned to exploit some of Alex's own weaknesses. But the Alexander Volkanovski who showed up for the rematch was visibly not in prime fighting shape, visibly slower than he should've been, visibly should not have taken the fight, and, consequently, he was visibly knocked the gently caress out in three minutes. He'd later admit he was nowhere near fighting shape, he'd been drinking and relaxing more or less every day, and he did it half for what was apparently a shitload of money and half because he was going stir-crazy without a fight to the point that he almost broke down crying talking about it.

Now, I want to be clear: There's absolutely nothing wrong with having, or discussing, those feelings as a professional fighter. It would be a better sport if everyone were as open about the mental struggles that go into participating in combat sports. There is no shame in it.

But Volkanovski's identity as a fighter is so tied into his never-die, always-improve mindset that a whole bunch of folks were convinced he only took the short-notice rematch because he'd stayed constantly prepared and was at the top of his game. It humanized him by showing he could still make mistakes. And, unfortunately, when you're the longterm kingpin of an entire division and have superpowered human howitzers like Ilia Topuria gunning for you, that starts to make people worry your eye has fallen off the ball.

Which, to some extent, feels inevitable. Long-term champions finally cracking a little under the myriad pressures of age, expectation and young barbarians at the gate is another of those classic combat sports stories. Anderson Silva spoke of finally losing his title as an outright relief. Amanda Nunes was overjoyed to finally rest and relax with her wife and child. Fighters like Jon Jones and Conor McGregor who were adamant they were perfectly fine with their lengthy stays in the spotlight at the top of the sport more or less immolated their careers and personal lives. Being the best is hard. Staying the best, when you have to deal with press and celebrity and corporate obligation, is drat near impossible.

Even the best collapse. The ones we remember most fondly tend to get out on top and ride away in peace. The others get punched out by Matt Mitrione. Taking a doomed short-notice fight and getting your head kicked in by a higher-weight champion by no means heralds the end of a run.

But it does explain why despite dominating the division for half a decade he's at completely even odds with Ilia Topuria.

Make no mistake: Ilia Topuria is an extremely live challenger. In some ways, it's easy to read him as the newer, better version of Volkanovski: A compact, explosive power wrestler with great boxing and underratedly devastating leg kicks, only this time he's a better knockout puncher, a more credentialed wrestler, and a more dangerous grappler. He's younger, he's stronger, and he's got the confidence that comes from having never lost a fight in his life.

That examination underrated Volk's best asset: His defense. He's made himself progressively tougher and tougher to reach, let alone hurt, whether it's thirty seconds into a fight or twenty-three minutes into a grueling fight with a wrestler almost half a foot bigger than him. Topuria's confidence also plays against him. He swings for the fences, he misses regularly, he gets caught for his troubles, and he fatigues as fights wear on.

Alexander Volkanovski has been making fun of the media's focus on his age and tenure, but the last time he was knocked out in a fight was an entire decade ago, when he was a 24 year-old rookie fighting as a 5'6" Welterweight. Coming back after getting dropped after so long is going to be a daunting task, and doing it against someone as dangerous in every aspect of the game as Ilia Topuria takes this out of the realm of comparing skills and theorycrafting results and makes it more of an epistemological question:

Do you still believe in Alexander Volkanovski?

Because I'll tell you, I've watched Ilia Topuria outgrapple one of the world's greatest grapplers, outwrestle one of the sport's best wrestlers, and outpunch one of MMA's biggest punchers. I've believed in Ilia as a future champion for years. Do you still believe, after watching Alexander Volkanovski show up out of shape and unprepared and pay for it, that he's capable of turning back the scariest young lion in the division? Do you still believe Alexander Volkanovski is the best Featherweight in the world?

Because I do.

ALEXANDER VOLKANOVSKI BY DECISION.

CO-MAIN EVENT: NOT APPEARING IN THIS FEATURE
:piss:

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Robert Whittaker (24-7, #3) vs Paulo Costa (14-2, #6) :piss:

I give this fight at best a 30% chance of actually happening.

Robert Whittaker! He's great! He's doomed to go down in history as one of the most unfairly unheralded Middleweights the UFC ever saw, and it loving sucks! While Michael Bisping was figuring out how to successfully hold onto the Middleweight championship without ever facing any of its top contenders, Robert Whittaker was force-feeding all of those contenders his goddamn shins. He was the best 185-pound fighter on the planet for years, and he didn't get a title out of it until way too late, and despite winning multiple championship fights he never got to record a title defense because Yoel Romero couldn't stay on weight.

And then Israel Adesanya came around, and suddenly, Robert Whittaker's time was up. Losing his title to Adesanya was a blow, but not as big a blow as almost beating him in their rematch. The near-loss seemingly cemented Rob as the second-best Middleweight in the division and an inevitable future challenge to Adesanya's throne--right up until Alex Pereira showed up. Suddenly, Adesanya had been knocked out, too, and suddenly, Robert Whittaker was struggling to reclaim the space he occupied in the notoriously short memory of not just the mixed martial arts fanbase, but the UFC's marketing department, who were all-in on Adesanya, Pereira, the bad bigotry takes machine that was Sean Strickland, and new top contender Dricus du Plessis and his quest to determine the validity of African identity.

I picked Whittaker to beat du Plessis. Almost everyone picked Whittaker to beat du Plessis. And then Dricus flattened Rob in two rounds, and now he's the champion, and Rob is left desperately trying to claw his way back into contendership.

On the other hand, however troubled, that is, at least, an identity as a fighter. Paulo Costa's predominant reputation within the sport is never loving showing up.

Paulo Costa was a big deal! He was a legitimate top contender when he challenged Izzy for the title. He was an undefeated 13-0, he'd knocked out four of his five UFC opponents, and he'd just taken a decision off Yoel Romero, who was seemingly the division's top contender for about five straight years. He talked absolute rafts of trash, but he backed them up in the cage by being an unending punching and grinding machine whose forward momentum was nearly impossible to stop. The world saw him as a potential foil for Adesanya, and I'd like to note that I am on the record on the internet disagreeing and am thus clearly very smart, but even I was not prepared for how one-sided it would be. Adesanya humiliated Costa, took his undefeated streak, and knocked him out in two rounds.

And, uh, that's it. No, really. That's basically the entire relevant career of Paulo Costa. And that fight happened three and a half loving years ago.

Costa was supposed to fight Robert Whittaker in 2021: He pulled out. He was scheduled against Jared Cannonier four months later: He pulled out. He fought Marvin Vettori at the end of the year, but not without an incredible debacle where he didn't even try to come close to the weight limit and demanded progressively higher and higher catchweights until they finally met twenty pounds up in a loving Light Heavyweight fight--which Vettori easily won. It would be almost a full year before Costa came back again, and this time it was against, of all people, Luke Rockhold, who Costa still somehow struggled with. And that was the last time we saw him. He was going to fight Ikram Aliskerov, it fizzled; he was supposed to fight Khamzat Chimaev, he pulled out thanks to an infection.

Let's be completely clear, here: Paulo Costa is the #6 Middleweight in the UFC, and as of this weekend's fight his last ranked victory will be 1,645 days old, and in those intervening four and a half years he has won only one fight, and it was against a fighter who had been retired for more than three years who came off the shelf to finish his UFC contract, went 'boy, that sure was a mistake,' and went off to fight in bareknuckle boxing, and that was his last fight and it was still a year and a half ago.

So if analyzing and predicting fights is about comparative performance, honestly, what on Earth are we comparing? You could pretty easily point out that Rob almost beat Izzy and did beat Vettori and both of them made Paulo look silly, but what kind of point of analysis is a bout that had to be moved up 20 goddamn pounds because Paulo Costa was too busy calling Vettori a coward to make weight? Exactly how nervous do we get about Rob getting punched out by Dricus, particularly after watching Dricus run an athleticism clinic on Sean Strickland last month?

And does any of this matter when it's just as likely the fight gets cancelled after Paulo Costa decides he'll only come out if it's rebooked at Heavyweight and he's allowed to strap knives to his hands?

ROBERT WHITTAKER BY TKO or we riot.

MAIN CARD: ONLY THE RIGHT KIND OF WRESTLING
:piss:

WELTERWEIGHT: Geoff Neal (15-5, #8) vs Ian Machado Garry (13-0, #10) :piss:

We're here for unfinished business. Geoff Neal, whether he necessarily agrees or not, has been cast in the role of Welterweight gatekeeper over the last four years. He's established himself as far, far too good to ignore--a tough, ultra-composed fighter with an equal distribution of granite across his hands and chin, capable of giving the best incredibly difficult fights--but he's just not quite capable of cracking the ceiling. His five-fight debut winning streak got him shut down by Stephen Thompson and Neil Magny, his 2022 resurgence got him choked out standing by Shavkat Rakhmonov, and the UFC wanted to finish the job last August by having him fight and/or get destroyed by Ian Machado Garry last August, in a not-too-subtle attempt to capitalize on a faltering top ten fighter. Neal pulled out, Garry mocked him endlessly over it, and unwittingly set the groundwork for the downfall of his own public figure.

Because, boy, the internet sure has turned on Ian Machado Garry. Up until August of last year Garry was a fairly popular figure; a big, young, undefeated knockout artist who was wholly committed to the UFC's attempts to market him as yet another in the endless experiment to clone more Conor McGregors, and his utter thrashing of Neil Magny in Neal's stead proved he was more than his hype and did, in fact, belong in the top ten. And then everything else kind of fell apart. Garry's attempt to poo poo-talk Neal by walking around wearing his mugshot on a t-shirt managed to actually crack his goodwill with the fanbase, but they didn't turn on him until he committed the ultimate of internet crimes: A perceived failure of masculinity. He's married to a gold-digger who wrote a book about manipulating athletes into marrying you and she's sleeping with her ex! She groomed Garry as a teenager when he didn't know any better! The entirety of the brash male fanbase he'd been pursuing (read as: shitheads) flocked to Sean Strickland instead, who joined in on the chorus of detractors. When Garry pulled out of his December showdown with Vicente Luque citing pneumonia it only reinforced the mass opinions about his failures as a man.

Was any of it true? Of course not. They met when Garry was 23, his wife's 'book' was an eleven-page article featuring advice like 'set aside a savings account for breast implants' and 'embrace a future of having no talent' that could not have been more clearly satirical without Mel Brooks doing a softshoe in the background while you read it, which any of the breathless talking heads discussing it would have noticed had any of them bothered to, and all of it was the kind of misogynist internet rage-bait surrounding combat sports that's so painfully close to the incel movement that you can hear Elliot Rodger's manifesto echoing in the voices of a thousand lovely podcasters.

All of it's stupid, none of it matters. Geoff Neal is easily the toughest test of Garry's career, but IAN MACHADO GARRY BY TKO still feels predictable. Neal's only been stopped on strikes once, and it was Kevin Holland all the way back in 2017 showcasing what range management, countering and throwing in combinations could do against Neal's defensive plan of shelling up and waiting to throw back. Neal's offense has improved since then, but his defense hasn't, and Garry is legitimately very, very good at timing his openings. I think Neal scares him early and Garry picks him apart by the third.

:piss:

BANTAMWEIGHT: Merab Dvalishvili (16-4, #2) vs Henry Cejudo (16-3, #3) :piss:

Remember when I waxed ecstatic about how great the sport could be sans bullshit? You can't ever get rid of it completely.

Let's not waste time getting to the point, here: Merab Dvalishvili is the division's true top contender. He's a funny, charismatic, world-class pressure wrestler who drowned Petr Yan in an ocean of offense, outstruck Jos� Aldo, arguably hasn't truly lost a fight since 2014, and is currently riding the division's best winning streak. He even has a built-in feud with new champ Sean O'Malley, half to avenge his fallen training partner Aljamain Sterling, half because he stole O'Malley's jacket and O'Malley paid a lot to cosplay Shinsuke Nakamura. And the UFC does not want him anywhere near the title. You can take your pick as far as reasons go--he's a wrestler, he's only got one finish in the UFC, he refused to fight Aljo and they haven't forgiven him--but it's hard to avoid their fear of the very real possibility that Merab would win, and by god, they just got the belt on O'Malley and they're not done basking in the afterglow yet.

Which is why he has to fight Henry Cejudo. If you're just joining the sport now, the marketing will gladly tell you Henry Cejudo is one of the greatest fighters of all time! An incredible Olympic gold medal wrestler and two-division champion who defeated the best and retired on top and then came back and picked up right where he left off! Which is true, for an interpretive permutation of the truth. A competing permutation would say Cejudo tried to power play the UFC by retiring with a belt unless they gave him big money fights, they waved politely and moved on to promoting other people, and then, years later, a combination of Cejudo lowering his price, the UFC getting desperate for name value and Cejudo's late-career turn to right-wing agitprop as personality created the sort of corporate synergy combat sports loves to roll around in until it smells familiar again. An objective truth would be Henry Cejudo is ranked #3, hasn't won a fight in 45 months, doesn't have a single win over a currently active UFC fighter, and is following a failed title shot by fighting the #1 contender.*
_{*It's been two years, Dominick Cruz, poo poo or get off the pot.}

I just don't see this going Cejudo's way. He's got better technical wrestling and he does have punching power, but he's always struggled to land with it and he's always had difficulty dealing with people who can physically overwhelm him. Physically overwhelming people is all Merab does. We just saw him do it effortlessly for twenty-five minutes. This being a fifteen-minute exhibition in stifling a man seems entirely likely. MERAB DVALISHVILI BY DECISION.

:piss:

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Anthony Hernandez (11-2 (1), #14) vs Roman Kopylov (12-2, NR) :piss:

Middleweight prospects! Middleweight prospects I actually like! Christ, it's refreshing. I'll wholly admit I was not an early passenger on the Anthony "Fluffy" Hernandez hype train--my friends were more into Jun Yong Park, so Hernandez beating him was more of a disappointment, and following it up by getting crushed in under a minute by Kevin Holland felt like a bit of a nail in the coffin. But Hernandez scored a lifetime achievement in mixed martial comedy by choking out world-class jiu-jitsu monster Rodolfo Vieira in his next fight, and he's been blazing a path of sharp combination boxing and deeply fun chokeholds ever since, and in a world as devoid of joy as the 185-pound division, it was not hard to win me over. He's on a real good four-fight streak, he got into the top fifteen after elbowing Edmen Shahbazyan's face off, and he's entirely ready to make his run for the belt.

But he's not the only Middleweight prospect I like, and hell, he's not even the only Middleweight prospect on a four-fight winning streak I like. Roman Kopylov might be my favorite striker to watch in the UFC right now. Often, striking descriptor words like 'tactical' and 'patient' can be translated with uncharitable accuracy as 'ineffective,' but Kopylov is an actual case study in effective patience. He sticks, he moves, he times his strikes and finds openings for his combinations and he does helpful corrective surgery on abdominal organs. His last UFC losses were back-to-back in 2019 and 2021 against tough, gritty grapplers who were able to power through his strikes and shut down his gameplan, and it's, uh, not coincidental that the UFC hasn't matched him with another grappling-focused fighter since.

Anthony Hernandez is probably going to want to take that approach. He's got great, long, fluid punches, but he's also a tenacious grappler, and there's only one realm of this fight in which Kopylov poses a threat to him. As I say this, I can feel internet mixed martial arts celebrity Chungus Supreme/LegKickTKO/LobsterMobster's voice ringing in my head like a warning siren:

But I cannot change my ways. ANTHONY HERNANDEZ BY SUBMISSION.

PRELIMS: CONSTANTLY FAILING UPWARD
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Amanda Lemos (13-3-1, #3) vs Mackenzie Dern (13-4, #7)

Amanda Lemos, welcome to the back of the line. When last we saw "Amandinha" she was booked into the biggest fight of her career, a shot at Zhang Weili's Women's Strawweight Championship. It was, respectfully, a bit of a stretch--Lemos was on a two-fight winning streak and only one of those wins was contender-worthy--but the division was in a weird place, Zhang needed an opponent, and Lemos' heavy-handed boxing had a number of people expecting an upset. The result was one of the most one-sided beatings in a championship fight in MMA history, as Zhang outstruck Lemos 296 to 29. It's not just the kind of fight that bounces someone from top contendership, it's the kind of fight that makes it abundantly clear they have virtually no chance of becoming a champion. Which means the UFC has a top contender to sacrifice. Lemos was supposed to fight Tatiana Suarez here, but her fantastic career comeback from injury was delayed by another injury, and that means Lemos needs an opponent, and that means the UFC has a top contender to sacrifice, and that means there's only one woman to call.

Let's rewind to November for a second.

CarlCX posted:

If you're the UFC, this is when you call Mackenzie Dern and tell her she's got a live one. Management has been trying to fast-track Mackenzie into title contention for four straight years, and the last year has been no different. She was supposed to beat Xiaonan Yan at the end of 2022 and skate right into title contention--in a fight where it was made clear only Dern was up for a shot--but getting outstruck to a majority decision set her back. The UFC gave her seven months to recover, then booked her against the woman they use to put over everyone they want to succeed, Angela Hill. And it worked!

That was the background to the UFC putting Mackenzie Dern up against J�ssica Andrade, a former champion and two-division contender who was fresh off getting violently stopped three times in five and a half months. A better organization might have given Andrade some time off or at least a tune-up fight to recover; the UFC booked her against every fighter they wanted to get an advertising push behind, and the endless quest to vault Dern into contendership meant she was selected to pick the bones. And then J�ssica Andrade, during the worst year of her career, punched Dern four dozen times and knocked her out in two rounds. For the third time in a row, a Dern marketing push ended with Dern following a win with a loss, only this time it was the first stoppage of her career.

Which you'd think would mean taking a step back and rebuilding! But, no. Instead, having been violently knocked out by the #5 fighter in the division just three months ago, Mackenzie Dern is now going to fight the #3 fighter in the division, because half the UFC's booking plans for Women's Strawweight revolve around a big flashing sign that says "MACKENZIE DERN TITLE FIGHT" and no one gets to go home until it happens.

Which is unfortunate for a whole slew of interns, because AMANDA LEMOS BY TKO is the pick. Dern can absolutely submit Lemos given a chance, but for one, Lemos isn't easy to take down and Dern's takedowns are the weakest part of her offensive grappling, and for two, we've seen Dern's attempts at evolving her striking and all of them involve spamming offense instead of improving her defense. It's what gave her trouble with Yan, it's what got her caught against Andrade, and with Lemos slinging leather at her, I think it's a matter of time.

HEAVYWEIGHT: Marcos Rog�rio de Lima (21-9-1, #15) vs Justin Tafa (7-3, NR)

You know, this is going to be just the third Heavyweight fight promoted by the UFC this year. We had Waldo Cortes-Acosta vs Andrei Arlovski, which was awful in both concept and conception, and we had Jamal Pogues vs Thomas Petersen, which the UFC had so little faith in they made it a curtain-jerking fight despite having Flyweights on the card, and now we have this. Marcos Rog�rio de Lima has been in the UFC for nearly a decade, he finally got his crack at the top ten last July against a Derrick Lewis the world was quietly worried needed to retire after getting repeatedly and completely destroyed, and Lewis promptly knocked de Lima down with a flying loving knee two seconds into the fight and pounded him out after another thirty. Back down the mountain you go, to the periphery of the rankings, where the UFC can try to have prospects climb your corpse. Justin "Bad Man" Tafa has had a profoundly weird time in the company. They signed him in 2019 as a 3-0 prospect because a) Australian/New Zealander market and b) Heavyweights, he was knocked out immediately, and he spent the next two years going 1-3 and dropping bouts to storied Heavyweight fighters like Carlos "Boi" Felipe and Jared "Got Knocked Out By Chase Sherman" Vanderaa. And then he knocked out Harry Hunsucker, one of the least successful fighters in company history, took a year and a half off, came back to drop Parker Porter in a minute, spent most of an entire year rematching Austen Lane after their first fight ended in a thirty-second eyepoke, and now Tafa is fighting for a top fifteen ranking! Based on his incredible victory over a guy whose UFC record is 0-1 (1) with both fights being Justin loving Tafa.

It's Heavyweight, man. What can you do? I'm going to say MARCOS ROG�RIO DE LIMA BY SUBMISSION, but what's even the point of predicting? A butterfly could float past a spotlight and Tafa could drop Marcos in four seconds with a shovel hook or both men could clinch on the cage for fifteen minutes without landing a strike. The pickings are slim and the likelihoods are dry.

:piss:

BANTAMWEIGHT: Rinya Nakamura (8-0) vs Carlos Vera (11-3) :piss:

For all that I complain about sacrificial lamb fights I am an enormous hypocrite, because every once in awhile a fighter I like will get one and I will watch it with folded hands like Gendo Ikari and feel nothing but contentment. Out of the entire four-class field of contestants the UFC slung contracts to during the pan-Asian scouting tournament that was 2022's Road to UFC Rinya Nakamura retained the most hype. Between his history as the son of one of the fathers of Shooto and his atomizing every one of his tournament bouts via first-round stoppages his potential as a serious prospect was immediately evident, and his utter domination of Fernie Garcia last Summer cemented the case. He was supposed to follow that up with a very interesting fight against Brady Hiestand, the runner-up from The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ), but Hiestand had to pull out, and in his stead, the UFC has tapped Carlos "Pequeno" Vera as a fill-in. Vera was one of Fury FC's better Bantamweight fighters before he got the call up to the big show's little-show variant, and he became the proud owner of a first-round loss on The Ultimate Fighter 31 (jesus christ) after being outgrappled by eventual tournament winner Brad Katona in a fight that was less notable for being competitive than for coach Conor McGregor, whose team was now 0-5, complaining afterward that the show needed to change its rules because he was losing too much. The UFC signed Vera later in the year anyway as an opponent for Daniel Marcos, but Marcos couldn't make it, meaning Vera has exactly ten minutes of fight time in the last seventeen months.

And those ten minutes were spent getting absolutely grappled to death, which is a pretty unfortunate thing when your opponent is a man who grapples people to death. RINYA NAKAMURA BY SUBMISSION.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Zhang Mingyang (16-6) vs Brendson Ribeiro (15-5)

Not all of those Road to UFC fights were tournament bouts. Truthfully, I'm not sure you could do a particularly successful Light Heavyweight tournament through Road to UFC; the air around the higher weight classes starts to get very, very thin. Zhang Mingyang is an excellent case study. He's arguably the best 205 AND 265-pound fighter in the entirety of China, he's on a nine-fight first-round stoppage winning streak, he's got big ol' hands and he hasn't lost a fight in almost five years. On paper, it's a fantastic record. Except, gee, a whole lot of his opponents have pretty awful records, and boy, the guy he beat on Road to UFC sure did flame out of Bellator pretty spectacularly, and golly, the last two people Zhang lost to were Luan Aguirre Elias, a man with no fights, and Askar Mozharov, who you may recognize as the guy who got kicked out of the UFC for falsifying his entire fight record. Brendson Ribeiro, by contrast, is just your run of the mill Contender Series winner. He was a champion in Shooto Brasil, he's got a fairly well-rounded fighting style, you at least have to go back to 2018 to see the last time he got matched with a rookie who had no business fighting him save for the institutional practice of record-padding, and when he got knocked out, he at least did it against guys who didn't lie about winning Steven Seagal underground fights in the Far East where no one owns video cameras.

But mostly, even in that Road to UFC victory, Mingyang was catching almost every punch thrown at him with his face. His tape shows an active disdain for defense, and that only works until it doesn't. BRENDSON RIBEIRO BY TKO.

EARLY PRELIMS: HUDDLE AROUND THE WOODBURNING STOVE
WELTERWEIGHT: Josh Quinlan (6-1 (1)) vs Danny Barlow (7-0)

Man, Contender Series favoritism is a hell of a thing. Josh Quinlan got booked onto the contract sideshow in 2021 as a 5-0 prospect, knocked out Logan Urban in under a minute, then immediately had the fight scratched from the records after testing positive for steroids. The UFC signed him anyway and booked their fancy new knockout artist against a guy who almost solely lost by big-punching knockouts, and then the fight had to be postponed when Josh Quinlan, shockingly, failed another steroid test. They rebooked the fight, Quinlan effortlessly murdered his delicious tomato soup dinner, and then we didn't see him again until last April, where he fought last-minute replacement Trey Waters, and, uh, got completely handled. Waters battered Quinlan to a unanimous decision. And that was almost a year ago, and there hasn't been so much as a peep about booking Trey Waters since, but hey--we got Josh Quinlan again, baby! And he's fighting another Contender Series guy! And this time Quinlan is the late replacement! Aren't you excited by the knowledge that nothing will ever change? Danny "LeftHand2God" Barlow, who has my new least favorite nickname to type in the entire world, got his Contender Series contract last September after knocking out Raheam Forest (if you remembered Raheam Forest from two weeks ago as the guy who got choked out by Charles Radtke, please get yourself something nice for dinner) and was intended to fight the 0-2 Yusaku Kinoshita here, which would have been--try to be surprised, here--a Contender Series knockout artist making his debut against a guy who's gotten knocked out repeatedly in the UFC! But Kinoshita is hurt, so we're doing Contender Series knockout winners against one another instead.

Except we're not, because legally, Josh Quinlan never won his Contender Series bout. Also, we just watched Quinlan struggle with a longer, rangier fighter, and Barlow has an even larger 8" reach advantage and hits much harder, too. Barlow's less experienced and most of his competition is bottom of the barrel fare, but in all of Quinlan's appearances thus far he's been too in love with brawling to really worry about defending, and punches bouncing off his skull from three states away concerns me. DANNY BARLOW BY TKO.

WELTERWEIGHT: Val Woodburn (7-1) vs Oban Elliott (9-2)

Do you remember Val Woodburn? Let me remind you about Val Woodburn. Last year, ultra-hyped superprospect Bo Nickal needed an opponent, and this is what happened.

CarlCX posted:

The UFC has 60-70 middleweights under contract. Most of them are comparably unsuccessful. The UFC did not pick any of them to fill in. They picked Valentine "THE ANIMAL" Woodburn, the 7-0, 5'8" champion of the prestigious COMBAT NIGHT PRO, one of the many, many regional organizations that helps young fighters puff up their records by feeding the rookie prospects of the world a steady diet of professional jobbers named Ramon Butts with 1-15 records. Just so we're clear, that's not me putting funny words together: Ramon Butts is real, and he's really 1-15, and he really lost to a 1-0 guy on Woodburn's last fight card. Woodburn himself is coming off a decision victory over Luis "Sergio Junior" Melo, a 42 year-old veteran with a 1-7 record in mixed martial arts over the last decade who hadn't competed in the sport in four years. Before that? The 17-11 Wesley Martins, who scored 16 of those victories over people with either 1 or 0 wins.

This was the problem with CM Punk and Mickey Gall, and it's only becoming a bigger problem as the Contender Series claims ownership of more and more roster space. The UFC wants to get fighters young, half to maximize the amount of time they have with them, half to get them for minimum wage before they have leverage. But when you bring in fighters at certain levels of inexperience--as the UFC openly advertised with Nickal--you run headlong into the UFC not being a developmental league. What do you do with those fighters? You feed them the worst-performing fighters on the roster--and when you don't have any available, you import 5'8" middleweights from the Contender Series.

Am I being self-indulgent by re-quoting that whole thing? Absolutely. Am I doing it because it still infuriates me that the UFC set up an entire secondary feeder system that doesn't actually work as a feeder system? Absolutely. Am I also doing it because there's literally nothing else to say about Val Woodburn in the interim? Absolutely. I'm glad he's a Welterweight now. That's a much saner place to be. But guess what: Instead of being a 5'8" Middleweight facing a 6'1" wrestling prospect, you're now a 5'8" Welterweight facing a 6'0" wrestling prospect. Oban "The Welsh Gangster" Elliott is, I mean, gently caress me, you read his nickname. Do you even need me to say anything else? Is there any additional context that was not already imparted by that sentence? Do you need me to say he fought for Cage Warriors? Where the hell else would a guy named The Welsh Gangster fight?

OBAN ELLIOTT BY DECISION. We are all eating our own tails.

WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Andrea Lee (13-8, #15) vs Miranda Maverick (12-5, NR)

This may be the end of the line for Andrea Lee. It's been a long, difficult run in the UFC for "KGB" thanks half to some horrible issues with domestic abuse from her husband and trainer that dominated her public identity early in her tenure, and half for judges who inexplicably hate her style. Lee's 5-6 UFC record looks fairly poor on paper, but in practice three of those losses were split decisions, two of them could have seen a coin flip either way and one of them was an out-and-out robbery, meaning but for marginally different judging, Lee is 8-3 and one of the most successful female fighters in company history. It doesn't help that one of those questionable split decisions was last year's loss to current #6 in the world Maycee Barber, who earned the ire of the mixed martial arts fanbase after taking one of, without hyperbole, the worst decisions in UFC history--over Miranda Maverick. Maverick has long been frozen at the periphery of Women's Flyweight, and while her loss to Maycee Barber and subsequent demotion was bullshit of the strictest order, her followup loss to Erin Blanchfield felt more like an inevitability, and getting shut out of the top ranks that badly put her in a precarious position. She's stuck around thanks to her continued disposal of the less successful women in the field, but last year's shellacking at the hands of Jasmine Jasudavicius hasn't helped her case as a contendership prospect.

I want to root for Andrea Lee here. She's doomed to be underrated in the annals of Women's Flyweight, and it's a shame, and I would like to see her succeed. But her style hasn't gotten any more likely to curry favor, and Maverick's also adept at the same gritty, cage-clinching grinding that Lee uses to space out her striking. MIRANDA MAVERICK BY DECISION and Lee's subsequent pink slip feels unfortunately plausible.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2024 21:12

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

First off, thanks, glad y'all liked it.

Second, the UFC is in a weird holding pattern right now where most of the fight nights are, uh, lamentable, but the PPVs scheduled for the year thus far are pretty stacked. 298 this weekend rules and UFC 299 next month has O'Malley/Chito, Poirier/Saint-Denis, Holland/MVP, Burns/Maddalena, Yan/Yadong and Gamrot/RDA on it, which also rules, and while the main event of UFC 300 is still up in the air the card is about as balls-out as the company is capable of being.

But aside from Moreno/Royval 2 + Yair/Ortega 2 next weekend, the TV cards for the next few couple months are, like, Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs Shamil Gaziev, Tai Tuivasa vs Marcin Tybura and Amanda Ribas vs Rose Namajunas. And those are the main events, so you can extrapolate what the rest of the cards are like. It's not great.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2024 22:41

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

This closes the Tafa Circle. Junior was supposed to fight Austen Lane and Justin had to do it in his stead, now the debt is repaid.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2024 22:18

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

BlindSite posted:

Still tafa to fight on short notice.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2024 23:33

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Because this weekend's card is being held in California Manouk Akopyan was able to file a request for the rare actual, legitimate minimum payouts on the card with the commission, and from greatest to least:

quote:

Alexander Volkanovki - $750,000

Ilia Topuria - $350,000

Robert Whittaker - $300,000

Paulo Costa - $250,000

Mackenzie Dern - $200,000

Henry Cejudo - $150,000

Geoff Neal - $108,000

Merab Dvalishvili - $105,000

Marcos Rogerio de Lima - $100,000

Amanda Lemos - $80,000

Roman Kopylove - $80,000

Miranda Maverick - $75,000

Andrea Lee - $70,000

Anthony Hernandez - $66,000

Ian Machado Garry - $55,000

Junior Tafa (that's Pascall Saumani) - $23,000

Rinya Nakamura - $23,000

Val Woodburn - $15,000

Carlos Vera - $12,000

Josh Quinlan - $12,000

Danny Barlow - $10,000

Brendson Ribeiro - $10,000

Zhang Minyang - $10,000

Oban Elliott - $10,000

I may have mixed feelings on Mackenzie Dern, but whoever her manager is, they're the best in the business.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2024 04:46

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Put the GDT up a little early 'cause I have to run pre-fight errands.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=4054544

Prelims got moved up to 3:30/6:30, so show starts in an hour.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2024 23:32

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

According to Dana they had three separate offers on the table for Leon Edwards, he accepted all three of them, and none worked out.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2024 07:48

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

It also appears none of the three people the UFC offered a shot against Leon Edwards were Belal Muhammad. God bless the endless attempts to destroy the welterweight division.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2024 10:02

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Mr. Nice! posted:

I was really surprised at how Topuria just outclassed Volk from the get go. I've never really seen that. This was the first fight I've seen of Topuria's. I haven't watched fights in a while.

I dunno, Volk was doing a good job in the first round. Topuria was swinging the bigger hammers, but Volk had already put in good work chipping at his leg and busting up his nose. It was by far the most patient Topuria's been in his UFC tenure, though, and it worked out gangbusters for him.

Digital Jedi posted:

I wonder if he just made it known he won't fight, like Khamzat , cause Ramadan. Still crazy it wasn't even offered but given how they treat him not too crazy.

So which 3 fighters they offer? I just assumed it was Belal, Khamzat and Shavkat. I don't know if Shavkat is a Muslim but he had an injury last fight to recover from.

Belal was agitating for the fight on twitter, so he's at least acting like he'd have been up for it had they asked him.

I'd bet Khamzat, Shavkat, and a 185 non-title fight with Strickland, personally.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2024 21:08

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Imagine being someone who cares about divisional structure in 2024. Imagine how much the constant ignoring of Belal Muhammad would bother you. COULDN'T BE ME

# ¿ Feb 19, 2024 21:25

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 91: LET'S TRY THIS AGAIN

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24 FROM LA ARENA CIUDAD DE M�XICO IN MEXICO CITY
PRELIMS 4 PM PST / 7 PM EST | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM

Just shy of half a year ago, the UFC went all-in on its attempt to capture the South American fighting market by promoting Noche UFC, a card booked on Mexican Independence Day and crammed with as much regionally appealing talent as possible. And it went fantastically! Massively acclaimed by critics and fans, very successful for the fighters they wanted to push, all in all an enormous get.

Except it was in Nevada.

Noche UFC 2 is happening this year, too! They've vowed it was such a success that they're going to do it all over again!

In Nevada.

This card, which is packed even more tightly with Latin-American talent, could see Mexican fighters entering pole position for title shots in two separate weight classes, and is being held in Mexico, is not, in fact, Noche UFC 2. It's just a Fight Night.

Marketing is mysterious, and ours is not to reason why.

_{we're getting there slowly.}

MAIN EVENT: REPEATEDLY BATTLING BRANDONS
:piss:

FLYWEIGHT: Brandon Moreno (21-7-2, #1) vs Brandon Royval (15-7, #3) :piss:

The UFC's Flyweight division just dug itself out of a mineshaft made of endless rematches, and by god, we're jumping right back down into the darkness.

For those who are just tuning in, the last few years have seen one of the densest packs of title rematches in the history of mixed martial arts championships. Divisional monster and now 135-pound contender Deiveson Figueiredo won the title after a pair of fights with Joseph Benavidez, managed one title defense, then embarked on an epic series of four consecutive and progressively more unlikely fights with Brandon Moreno. They drew, then Moreno choked him out, then Deiveson outpointed him, then Moreno punched his eye shut.

It took two years of rematches to resolve the Moreno/Figueiredo feud, but by god, they got there. It's a wonder to watch not just for the quality of the fights themselves, but for the way both fighters continually adjusted to one another and evolved their own skillsets through their repeated meetings. Moreno learned to control Figueiredo on the ground, so Figueiredo forced him to defend grappling exchanges instead of instigating them. Figueiredo began countering Moreno's entries, so Moreno tightened his technique stepping into jabs. They made each other better fighters, and by the end of their series, Brandon Moreno was finally, unquestionably, the best Flyweight on Earth.

And all he had to do to stay that way was win another rematch.

Alexandre Pantoja had beaten Brandon Moreno twice before: Once in an exhibition on The Ultimate Fighter 24 (jesus christ) in 2016, once more in the UFC proper in 2018. Circumstances had kept Pantoja out of the title picture, but there was nothing keeping him from getting his third crack at Moreno, and for the third time, he won. Just like Moreno he'd come out of a lengthy series as the best Flyweight alive, and just like Moreno he'd have to defend the belt against someone else to maintain his status, and just like Moreno, that fight, too, would be a loving rematch.

Brandon Royval has been a top ten fighter in the UFC since his debut. Back in early 2020 he traded his Legacy Fighting Alliance title away for a ticket to the big show, and he choked out Tim Elliott in his debut, which is a damned hard thing to do. He picked up an almost immediate reputation for being fast, explosive and dangerous; a constant hunter for finishes who would jump guillotines and swing flying knees and risk losing positions if it gave him a chance to hurt someone.

It was exciting! It was scintillating! And it was an instinct that got him choked out by Alexandre Pantoja in 2021. His furious offense and wild scrambling only led to giving up his back. It took two years and a three-fight winning streak to get back into contendership, and on the UFC's final show of 2023 Royval got his second crack at Pantoja, and this time, he took a much more patient, much more measured approach. It was a brave new world for Royval, and a much smarter competitive attitude, and it, uh, led to him getting blown out on the scorecards, with two judges scoring a total shut-out for the champion. Good try; back of the line.

At least, that's what was supposed to happen. This fight was originally scheduled to be Brandon Moreno vs Amir Albazi to determine a new #1 contender, but midway through January the UFC's doctors decided the neck injury Albazi had chosen to work through was too severe a risk. So Albazi went off to surgery, and Brandon Royval came right back to the plate.

And, of course: Who do you think Brandon Moreno beat in 2020 to get his title shot in the first place?

That's right! This, too, is a rematch. 39 months ago Brandon Moreno and Brandon Royval engaged in the first ever semi-quadrennial Battle of the Brandons. It was a case study in exactly how Royval's ferocity came back to haunt him; he couldn't stop chaining attacks into spinning elbows, Moreno caught his timing and threw him to the ground, and while frantically scrambling to avoid getting submitted Royval dislocated his shoulder. Moreno was fighting for the belt less than a month later.

In other words: This is a rematch between two people who just lost rematches, one of whom is coming off a lengthy series of rematches, and the winner of this rematch will be rewarded with a championship rematch, which will be either the third or fourth rematch they will have had with the champion.

And it's awesome. It's all awesome. You'll just have to trust me.

Seriously. For as much as I complain about rematches, this is one of those cases where it's understandable. Both Brandons have been sharpened into the best versions of themselves by their challenges. The Brandon Moreno who got crushed by Alexandre Pantoja in his first two attempts gave him five rounds of hell in their title match. The Brandon Royval who gave up his back and got choked out made it to the bell and numerically outstruck Pantoja. As much as I get tired of rematches, with Amir Albazi out, Kai Kara-France still recovering and Manel Kape having disgraced himself, this is the best #1 contendership match they could feasibly make right now.

But I don't see it ending with a different hand raised. Royval, while measured, still likes to swing wide. Moreno has only become sharper, and his jabs alone are going to be a big problem for Royval to get around. I do think Royval's ground game has improved enough to avoid Moreno's submission assaults, but BRANDON MORENO BY DECISION is still the call.

CO-MAIN EVENT: INJURIES DON'T COUNT
:piss:

FEATHERWEIGHT: Yair Rodr�guez (18-4 (1), #2) vs Brian Ortega (15-3 (1), #4) :piss:

Fresh off of all that rematch chat, let me present you with: Another rematch. I briefly considered being a huge smartass and just reposting the writeup I did for Yair/Ortega 1 from the summer of 2022, but the fight did start and end with a winner, so that just would've been too cheap.

You wouldn't know it from the way the fight has been written into history, though. There's this tendency in mixed martial arts to write injury stoppages off as flukes, but just as not all tall men are doctors, not all injuries shouldn't count. When Patrick C�t�'s knee implodes while walking across the cage towards Anderson Silva? That's a fluke. When Shogun Rua bends his arm the wrong way failing to defend a Mark Coleman takedown? That's a TKO.

The story heading into Yair Rodr�guez vs Brian Ortega in July 2022 was, ostensibly, the classic striker vs grappler conflict. Yair's fast, springy Tae Kwon Do kicks vs Ortega's killer jiu-jitsu. But Yair's ground game has always been a touch underrated, and no one learned this better than Ortega, as he took Yair down, got almost instantaneously caught in an armbar, and found himself stuck so tightly that in his attempt to free himself he succeeded only in wrenching his shoulder out of its socket.

The UFC played it off as a deeply unfortunate, unforeseeable injury, but respectfully, if you get stuck in an armbar and as a result of fighting that armbar you break your arm, that's not a fluke, that's just finding a fancy, circuitous way to be submitted. Which is deeply appropriate for Brian Ortega, whose time as a UFC contender has been, objectively, weird as poo poo. This is the part I will actually quote:

CarlCX posted:

Everyone remembers Brian Ortega's path upwards to title contention, but his repeated victories have done an excellent job of overshadowing the thing that made him really notable: How constantly close he was to losing. He knocked out Thiago Tavares, but only after getting beaten violently through the second round. He choked out Diego Brand�o, but only after getting shut out for the entire fight. Clay Guida was twenty seconds away from winning a decision against him, Renato Moicano was touching him up and had a potential decision in his hands, even Cub Swanson was styling on him before Ortega caught and choked him out.

Even his victories bear this out. Brian Ortega has exactly one win in the last six years, and it's over the now-retired Chan Sung Jung, and Ortega is the only person in the last twelve and a half years of Jung's career to beat him but not finish him. Which is especially wild when you consider Jung professes to have been more or less knocked out by an Ortega spinning elbow in the first round, thanks to which he has no memory of the fight.

Is Brian Ortega a bad fighter? No, of course not. He's got an incredible chin, he capitalizes on his awareness of his grappling advantage by swinging for the fences, and given a chance he can, and will, choke out anyone on the planet.

But Brian Ortega is also the #4 Featherweight on the planet despite not having a single win over a currently active UFC fighter since 2017, and boy, that's problematic, not just for what it says about the division but for Ortega's strength of schedule. He hasn't managed multiple appearances in a single year since 2018 and he's been on the shelf rehabbing injuries for more than a year and a half, and when you can say that about a fighter three times and they're only 32, that is, generally, a bad sign.

Particularly when your opponent has been as active as Yair Rodr�guez. After going through his own bit of perdition leading up to his 2021 showdown with Max Holloway Yair has been consistently active against the top of the division, including briefly holding an interim championship after choking out Josh Emmett, which only earned him the chance to be the last man Alexander Volkanovski successfully defended his title against. With Volk now finally dethroned the division is once again wide open, and that means Yair and Ortega are both up for another shot at the top if they win, here.

But I just don't feel like the math on this fight has changed. I picked Yair in 2022, and with Yair's improvements vs Ortega's layoff, I only feel better about the idea. Unless Ortega has spent his recovery fixing his footwork so he doesn't flatfoot his way into strikes, he's going to have to try to wrestle his rear end off again, and Yair already showed him how poorly that can go once. I said it in 2022, I'll say it again: YAIR RODR�GUEZ BY DECISION.

MAIN CARD: REGIONAL APPEAL PART TWO: THE APPEALENING
LIGHTWEIGHT: Daniel Zellhuber (14-1) vs Francisco Prado (12-1)

Daniel Zellhuber is almost there. The UFC was real excited about Zellhuber when he made his debut a couple years ago--big, marketable 6'1" Lightweight striking artist from Mexico with an undefeated record, who could ask for more--and after watching Trey Ogden fail to navigate the striking expertise of Jordan Leavitt, they were confident in booking him for Zellhuber's big coming-out party. And they were wrong! Ogden took Zellhuber's 0, for which he has been thoroughly condemned to seven hells of hot-prospect matchmaking and terrible refereeing. Zellhuber was given a more traditional striking test against good ol' "Groovy" Lando Vannata, whom he picked apart from the other side of the cage thanks to a half-foot's reach advantage, and he followed it with by far the best performance of his career at the aforementioned Noche UFC, which is to say he spent the first round getting punched around the octagon by Christos Giagos but zeroed in during the second round, found his range, and forced Giagos into taking desperate wrestling shots, for which he was summarily choked out. If that sounds like I'm trying to backhandedly complain about Zellhuber still dropping a round, I mean the precise opposite. After seeing him struggle with Trey Ogden's pressure, it's an exceptionally good sign that Zellhuber was able to adjust to adversity and find a way to win.

Francisco Prado has been much more consistent, and by 'consistent' I mean he began throwing spinning attacks sometime in 2019 and by god, he has yet to stop. Prado became one of the most notable finishing artists to come out of the vaunted Samurai Fight House, an Argentinian record-padding circuit that fed him a steady died of typically hopelessly overmatched opponents he could crush within a round, and being as that's what really fuels the Contender Series, Prado was a natural fit. But his contract test was cancelled in favor of just giving him the drat thing, because Jamie Mullarkey needed a late replacement, and who better to fight a well-rounded Lightweight veteran than a guy who averages seventeen full rotations per round? Unsurprisingly, Prado got ground into dust. He came back last July for a much more evenly-matched tilt against fellow brawling enthusiast Ottman Azaitar, and if you remember how I praised Daniel Zellhuber just a few sentences ago for coming back from a loss and demonstrating a new sense of patience and well-rounded strategy, Francisco Prado succeeded by doing the exact loving opposite. He swung for the fences, he spammed spinning elbows, and because our sport is the best, that was enough: He cracked Ottman's goddamn head open with one of those spins and pounded him out in the first round.

Which probably doesn't leave a lot of doubt about my pick, here. DANIEL ZELLHUBER BY DECISION. Prado could force punches into his face and shock him early, but Zellhuber's recovery against Giagos gives me faith in his ability to settle into his range and pick Prado apart.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Raul Rosas Jr. (8-1) vs Ricky Turcios (12-3)

Man, being a management marketing darling must be nice. Raul Rosas Jr. came off the Contender Series in 2022 as an undefeated 18 year-old and the UFC immediately rolled out the red carpet for him. He's the youngest fighter ever! He's our big new Hispanic star! He's going to beat Aljamain Sterling! After getting the 0-3 Jay Perrin for his debut the UFC tried to feed him the often-outgrappled Christian Rodriguez in the opening fight of the Adesanya/Pereira 2 pay-per-view, and instead, Rodriguez put an incredibly, ridiculously uncomfortable beating on Rosas, ultimately outstriking him 83 to 2. Christian Rodriguez, for his victory over this rising star, has been and continues to be booked against prospects on prelims. Raul Rosas Jr., coming off his loss, was booked third from the top of Noche UFC and given the not-at-all-UFC-caliber Terrence Mitchell to effortlessly destroy.

Ricky Turcios is, at least, a step up from Terrence Mitchell. "Pretty Ricky" was the Bantamweight winner of 2021's much-maligned The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ), but he earned that title alongside an awful lot of good will from the fans after a knock-down, drag-out tournament final with Brady Hiestand that saw both men fighting into total exhaustion en route to a split decision that favored Ricky's output. It was a stellar, starmaking performance that provided the exact sort of wild energy TUF finals had lacked for years. And it was followed by Turcios getting excruciatingly slowly picked to pieces by Aiemann Zahabi in a fight where Turcios whiffed on an incredible 89% of his strikes while getting visibly frustrated. The UFC, to their credit, tried to rehabilitate Turcios by giving him Kevin "Quicksand" Natividad in his next fight, a soft target with an 0-2 record in the company who'd gotten violently knocked out in both fights with the company--and Turcios just barely survived getting dropped and outwrestled to cling to a skin-of-his-teeth split decision.

In a way, this fight feels like fate. We've talked about the Contender Series supplanting The Ultimate Fighter as the UFC's main source of talent: This is the company taking it out of the realm of abstraction and forcing the embattled TUF winner and the astroturfed Contender to fight it out and see who's really better. Rosas is a fast, strong wrestler and Turcios has demonstrated just how much of a problem that can be for him, but I'm real concerned the steady diet of soft foods the company's fed Rosas is going to get him hurt by a scrappy veteran again. RICKY TURCIOS BY DECISION.

WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Yazmin Jauregui (10-1) vs Sam Hughes (8-5)

Yazmin Jauregui was supposed to be a new UFC star. The company picked her up from Combate Global and put an unprecedented level of support behind her--how many other female fighters can you think of who made their debut third from the top of a main card and figured heavily into its advertising--and Jauregui made good on it by winning a barnburner of a fight with Iasmin Lucindo and disposing of a woefully clear sacrificial lamb just three and a half months later after pounding out Istela Nunes. Denise Gomes was supposed to be a safer step up for Yazmin; a shorter fighter with a shakier record and a weakness for takedowns. Instead, Gomes walked right through Yazmin and ended her undefeated streak by knocking her out in twenty seconds. This is, marketing-wise, less than ideal.

Which makes Sam Hughes an interesting choice. Hughes has been power-wrestling her way around the UFC for going on four years already with limited success, as her 3-4 record with the company shows, but the company also just finished paying for its reliance on her tendency to lose fights. She was booked into two straight get-this-prospect-over-with-your-blood fights, and the first time out she came dangerously close to derailing the undefeated Piera "La Fiera" Rodriguez after going toe to toe with her and nearly trouncing her in the third round. The last time we saw her, she did, in fact, derail the similarly hyped-and-undefeated Jacqueline Amorim, overcoming a +250 odds deficit and showcasing her scrappiness and her relentless grappling by outworking Amorim to a broad decision victory.

Yazmin Jauregui, historically-speaking, seems better than Jacqueline Amorim. Hughes hasn't shown the sort of knockout power Gomes used to shock Yazmin, and her persistent takedown game will be much harder to implement on someone with Yazmin's mobility. This should, by all rights, be YAZMIN JAUREGUI BY DECISION. But I have one of those funny feelings.

:piss:

LIGHTWEIGHT: Manuel Torres (14-2) vs Chris Duncan (11-1) :piss:

This, though: This is good. Manuel "El Loco" Torres rolled off the Contender Series assembly line in 2022 and began immediately, dutifully punching the poo poo out of people. His first-round knockout over Frank Camacho was enough for the UFC to try to use him to avenge Daniel Zellhuber by having Torres face Trey Ogden, the murderer of managerial joy, but injuries kept Torres grounded until last Summer, where he faced and erased Nikolas "Got Knocked Out By Jim Miller" Motta instead. Torres has two mods of fighting: Face-first striking and vigorously jumping on submissions when someone's too hurt or preoccupied to stop him. Defense: Less of a priority.

And that makes Chris Duncan a great match for him. Duncan's first stab at the UFC ended before it began, with Viacheslav Borshchev crumpling him on the Contender Series in 2021. Duncan's 4-0 since that loss, and a big part of that has been choosing to entirely ignore the lessons of a knockout loss in favor of internalizing that no one can knock him out if he smothers them with offense first. Sometimes, as in his knockout of Charlie Campbell, it pays dividends; sometimes, as in his UFC debut against Omar Morales, it gets him nearly knocked out a half-dozen times and he has to wrestle for his life.

But the key there is he could change tracks and force his opponent to wrestle. Torres has two losses on his record and both were kneebars that came from getting too deep into grappling situations where he wasn't comfortable. Torres wants to smash people and he'll put his limbs at risk to do it; that makes him a prime target for single-legs. CHRIS DUNCAN BY SUBMISSION.

PRELIMS: WE WILL KEEP BOOKING EDGAR CH�IREZ VS DANIEL LACERDA UNTIL IT WORKS
:piss:

BANTAMWEIGHT: Cristian Qui�onez (18-4) vs Raoni Barcelos (17-5) :piss:

The fall of Raoni Barcelos is nearly complete. Barcelos was a highly-heralded Featherweight prospect when the UFC signed him back in the ancient days of 2018; two years and one weight class change later he was on a five-fight winning streak, had just kicked a Nurmagomedov off the ladder on his climb to the top, and was on the cusp of a ranking. After that, well, choose your own adventure. He:

Began fighting a higher level of competition
Ran into judges who inexplicably hated him
Entered his mid-thirties, the point of no return for fighters below 185 lbs
Was abducted by aliens and replaced with a guy who loses a lot

Raoni's now 1 for his last 5, and that win is sandwiched between back-to-back losses, meaning another drop puts him in the dreaded three-loss pink-slip position. That's where Cristian Qui�onez comes in to clean up. Cristian was brought in through the Contender Series in 2021 as yet another in Dana White's private army of wrestling-allergic Latin-American strikers. The company introduced him to the world by letting him dispose of the embattled, hadn't-legally-won-a-fight-in-three-and-a-half-years Khalid Taha by way of Punching Him A Lot, but last summer's matchup with ten-year veteran Kyung Ho Kang saw Qui�onez ending up on the wrong side of a gunfight, with Kang dropping him and choking him out in two and a half minutes.

I'm not sure I'm ready to close the Book of Barcelos just yet. He's allowed a lot of losses lately, but getting knocked out by Umar Nurmagomedov is considerably different than getting dropped by Kyung Ho Kang. Barcelos still hits like a motherfucker and his grappling is dangerous as hell; I'm betting he'll be able to stun Cristian long enough to use it. RAONI BARCELOS BY SUBMISSION.

:piss:

FLYWEIGHT: Jesus Aguilar (9-2) vs Mateus Mendon�a (10-2) :piss:

I'm not going to say this is necessarily a great fight, but it should be a really fun one. This is still Flyweight, and both men, like most Flyweights, are well-rounded fighters with killer chokes and solid gas tanks. But there is an inherent unfairness to biology, and it shows here: Jesus Aguilar is a 5'4" man with 62" of reach, and Mateus Mendon�a, despite being just two inches taller at 5'6", has a 71.5" reach. (This spectrum of exceptional reach variance is commonly referred to as the Ape index, but I am not loving calling it that.) Aguilar has dealt with this in his career by trying as hard as possible to emulate Wanderlei Silva: Violent leg kicks, driving, leap-in hooks, and jumping on guillotines whenever he thinks he has a chance. Most of the time, this has worked fantastically! Against Tatsuro Taira in his UFC debut he got submitted in minutes. But he made up for it with a stellar, one-punch, 17-second overhand right knockout against Shannon Ross last July, so hey, he's trying. Mateus Mendon�a has not been so lucky. He joined the UFC as--say it with me--an undefeated Contender Series prospect back in 2022, and they inexplicably fed him to Javid Basharat in his debut, who dominated him. Rather than letting him try a gentler target in his followup, Mateus got booked against genuine prospect Nate Maness in the latter's Flyweight debut, and Maness promptly knocked Mendon�a out in a single round.

On paper, Mendon�a feels like a bad matchup for Aguilar. He's a cleaner grappler, he's less prone to giving up position chasing chokes, and he can also jab him from halfway across the cage. In practice, this is one of those times I Just Have A Feeling, and goddammit, I refuse to let it go. JESUS AGUILAR BY TKO.

FLYWEIGHT: Edgar Ch�irez (10-5 (1)) vs Daniel Lacerda (11-5 (1))

This cursed loving fight. This is actually a rematch from Noche UFC, where the fight wound up a No Contest after referee Chris Tognoni botched the stoppage after mistakenly thinking Lacerda had passed out in a guillotine choke. They rebooked the fight just four weeks later, only for it to get scratched during fight week thanks to an open infection on Lacerda's face. So we're here, again, as both men have been twiddling their thumbs for almost half a year waiting on the rematch, and as neither the math nor my thinking has changed at all I give you what I previously wrote, which wound up drat near coming true anyway:

CarlCX posted:

Sometimes, you get a great matchup for your UFC debut and you get to flourish in the spotlight as you dispatch your competition with style and ease. Sometimes, you get served up to a monster. Edgar Ch�irez is a good, solid flyweight with quick striking and real aggressive chokeholds, and that ultimately meant nothing, because his debut came against the undefeated Tatsuro Taira, one of the most promising prospects in the entire division. It's a credit to Ch�irez that he gave Taira his most consistently competitive fight in the UFC thus far, but that wasn't enough to stop him from dropping a 10-8 round and losing a decision. He did, however, come back from that 10-8, win the third round, and almost choke Taira out, which is even more impressive. Daniel Lacerda, unfortunately, has not impressed. After two years he's 0-4 in the UFC, and not only has he lost every fight, he's been stopped every time. In his last appearance this past March he looked poised to finally end the losing streak, dropping C.J. Vergara with a spinning wheel kick and almost choking him out, but Vergara survived the round and Daniel was dead tired in the second and incapable of making it to a third. He's fast, and he's powerful, and he's athletic, and he just can't seem to control himself well enough to win a fight in the UFC.

I don't anticipate this being different. He's too loose, he's too open, and against a guy like Edgar who jumps on every opportunity presented it will, eventually, cost him. EDGAR CH�IREZ BY SUBMISSION.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Claudio Puelles (12-3) vs Fares Ziam (14-4)

The swings in this sport are wild. We haven't seen Claudio Puelles in almost a year and a half, but the last time he was around, he was on a five-fight winning streak featuring a plethora of horrifying submission victories by kneebar and was featuring on a pay-per-view alongside Dan Hooker as just a teensy-weensy underdog. And he almost did it again! He was inches away from propelling himself into the Lightweight rankings by using Hooker's knee ligaments like a slingshot during the first round. But Hooker got out, and then he pieced Puelles up so badly he fell apart before the second round was over. Fares Ziam, by contrast, has established himself as one of those fighters who has been around for years and somehow remains so difficult to notice that fans tend to assume he's a debuting fighter despite already having a half-dozen UFC bouts under his belt. He's French! He beat up Jamie Mullarkey! He uses "Smile Killer" as a nickname and it makes me feel like replaying Killer7 for the fourth time! But his losses are much more memorable than his competent, well-rounded but frictionless victories, and I can prove it to you, because the last time the UFC was in England Ziam walked into London and beat one of their best Lightweights in Jai Herbert on a main-card bout and I would bet absolutely nobody reading this remembers it. And I can say that with some level of confidence, because I didn't remember it. That's the Fares Ziam promise.

FARES ZIAM BY DECISION just seems predictable. Ziam's very good at maintaining distance, controlling the clinch and dictating the pace of the fight--the very slow, languorous pace--and Puelles is a give-me-submissions-or-give-me-death kind of fighter, which means he could get boxed up for three rounds fairly easily. Imanari rolls are unlikely to help here. But if Puelles blasts power doubles in the first round and just tries as hard as possible to take Ziam's leg off, he's got a shot.

FLYWEIGHT: Luis Rodr�guez (16-2) vs Denys Bondar (19-4)

This is your 'the UFC addresses a missing piece' fight for the night. Luis "Lazy Boy" Rodr�guez was on the company's radar enough to get on the Contender Series back in 2020, but he couldn't get past Jerome Rivera and had to return to Mexico. Rivera proceeded to go 0-4 in the UFC in a blistering 10 months, after which he seemingly retired; Rodr�guez picked up five straight victories over the Jamie "Kraken" Londonos of the world down in the Lux Fight League. But he might still not have made it to the UFC were it not for scheduling necessities. Denys Bondar was a hyped Ukrainian prospect when the UFC signed him, which was technically also in 2020, but thanks to three straight injury reschedulings Bondar didn't actually fight until 2022, where Malcolm Gordon promptly broke his arm in a minute and a half. That meant another year on the shelf, and midway through 2023 Bondar finally returned and immediately regrouetted the decision, as Carlos Hernandez beat multiple shades of hell out of him in a fight that would have been just a garden-variety stoppage had it not been for a weird asterisk: Bondar was knocked out by a slam, but in replay, a clash of heads during the slam caused the actual knockout, which meant the fight went instead to a technical decision--which Bondar still easily lost.

The sport is weird. Fighting is weird. Denys Bondar isn't nearly as bad as his recent history would lead one to believe, and I'm not convinced Luis can deal with his pace or his wrestling. DENYS BONDAR BY DECISION.

FLYWEIGHT: Victor Altamirano (12-3) vs Felipe dos Santos (7-1 (1))

I have to let go of my anger at Victor Altamirano. The last time we discussed "El Magnifico" I was still hung up on his early-2023 fight with Vinicius Salvador that was essentially a sloppy 205-pound brawl as re-enacted by 125-pound fighters, and I had a crisis of faith watching it and pondering the post-Contender Series future of one of my favorite fighting divisions on the planet. The UFC tried to strangle Flyweight so many times, goddammit; it did not survive just to become a brawl factory. But I cannot hold that against Victor forever, and the thorough wrestling defeat he took against Tim Elliott a few months later must, by nature, exorcise my distaste for the man. Be free, Victor. Felipe dos Santos has just been getting a series of raw deals. He was supposed to fight on the Contender Series, but the UFC signed his opponent (the aforementioned Edgar Ch�irez) instead, and then his replacement hosed up his weight cut and got the fight cancelled, and the UFC, in their boundless charity, offered dos Santos a UFC contract instead--if he instead fought top ten Flyweight Manel Kape two weeks later. Unsurprisingly, dos Santos said yes, and unsurprisingly, two weeks was not enough time to beat one of the best fighters on the planet. But he put up a hell of a fight, showed off a fantastic chin, and even took a round off Kape on two scorecards.

For all the bullshit surrounding it, it was a great debut. I'm very, very curious to see what dos Santos can do with a full camp, this time. FELIPE DOS SANTOS BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Muhammad Naimov (10-2) vs Erik Silva (9-2)

And here, at last, we have our weirdly booked fight for the night. Muhammad "Hillman" Naimov lost on the Contender Series back in 2020, but that didn't stop him from getting the call up as a short-notice replacement in 2023 and absolutely loving flattening Jamie Mullarkey in two rounds. To be clear: That's pretty hard to do. You have to be pretty goddamn good at punching to hurt Jamie Mullarkey, let alone drop him on his face. Naimov followed it up last October by demonstrating the rest of his skillset, both outpunching and repeatedly outwrestling Nathaniel Wood en route to a 29-28 decision. On one hand: Good performance! On the other hand: He flagged real bad in the third round and got beat up pretty badly for it. On the third, secret, robot hand: He cheated to extents that would make Eddie Guerrero blush, got away with three or four groin strikes without losing a point, and clung to the fence and Wood's gloves like a newborn koala. Erik Silva's story thus far is much more straightforward. He came up as the Featherweight champion of Lux Fight League in Mexico, he committed legal murder on the Contender Series to win his contract (over a guy who was 3-0, which, admittedly, was pretty weird), and then, in his big, hyped UFC debut, he laughed at "Downtown" TJ Brown's attempts to outgrapple and submit him right up until Brown, uh, successfully outgrappled and submitted him.

As a general rule, we here at the Punchsport Report do not condone the hilarious and totally cool crime of cheating. But at a certain level, I cannot help admiring dedication to craft. MUHAMMAD NAIMOV BY TKO after somehow sneaking brass knuckles into the cage in his shorts.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 21:00

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

LobsterMobster posted:

1. smart to keep these fights 155 and below

I hadn't thought about it until this writeup, but obviously excluding Brazil, I think the only two South American fighters in the UFC above 155 pounds are Santiago Ponzinibbio and Michael Morales. I cannot think of a single dude higher than 170.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 22:14

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Brut posted:

Quoting from the Sumo thread:

What is this exactly? I heard it was supposed to be MMA but they're getting separated from clinches and knockdowns so I guess it is kickboxing?

I found the promotion on Tapology but it only lists the first event and I guess this was the 11th?

Also: 4 judges and crowd tiebreaker? weird but sorta...good?

From machine translating their rules page they apparently do both MMA and kickboxing, they just all use small gloves. But in MMA rules, no matter what's happening, you are automatically stood up after ten seconds.

Having an entire federation that's built around one-minute rounds seems like a great way to ruin any future prospects for outside competition.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2024 22:29

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

LobsterMobster posted:

B-League Round-Up

The thing I miss most about Bellator's existence is your b-league roundups.

It would be very funny if Bellator completely rinsed the PFL the whole way through, but it would be loving hilarious if Bellator won every fight and then Ryan Bader got knocked out in twenty seconds.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 08:56

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

There is a possibility that Ryan Bader could become the genuine #1 heavyweight on the planet, and some terrible part of me craves this.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2024 20:00

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Fozzy The Bear posted:

fighters testifying on the UFC's side: Michael Bisping, Donal Cerrone, Michael Chandler, Chael Sonnon, Meisha Tate

Seems pretty gutsy to make the starting lineup for your legal defense team include

a guy who on-the-record lied to every sports commission in the country
a guy who says he once publicly supported unionization 'by mistake'
a guy whose entire career is a testimony to the contract terms you're denying exist
a guy who plead guilty to federal money laundering
miesha tate

But beggar cannot be choosers, I guess.

Also, previously on the 'this rematch is stupid' show:

CarlCX posted:

This cursed loving fight. This is actually a rematch from Noche UFC, where the fight wound up a No Contest after referee Chris Tognoni botched the stoppage after mistakenly thinking Lacerda had passed out in a guillotine choke. They rebooked the fight just four weeks later, only for it to get scratched during fight week thanks to an open infection on Lacerda's face.

Today Lacerda missed weight at 127 and then Chairez missed weight by drat near an entire weight class at 131.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2024 19:30

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Here's the deal: All of this is hosed up. This card is such a historical tire fire of reschedulings and cancellations that when I started writing it on Sunday there were only nine confirmed fights, and one of those was actually also off and hadn't been announced by anyone, and the UFC had done silly things like announcing Raul Rosas Jr. vs Ricky Turcios for this card when Turcios hadn't even been sent a contract.

But, because I live in California and thus under the auspices of Pacific Gas & Electric, a utility company that has somehow exploded multiple people without anyone going to jail over it, I have been informed I will not have power for somewhere between eight and thirty hours starting Wednesday morning. Which is usually when I check for final card updates, make necessary changes, and publish these! Which is unfortunate.

So I'm putting this out early with all of the information currently available about this card, what's on it, and where. This information has already changed five times in the last forty-eight hours, and I'm sure it will change again by Saturday. If it does so substantively, presuming I have power and am not foraging berries to survive, I will try to put out an update. If not: Remember me as I was and not as I am.

CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 92: PERFUNCTORY PUNCHINGS

SATURDAY, MARCH 2 FROM THE BLINKING BLACK OF THE UFC APEX
:siren:

EARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 10:30 AM PST / 1:30 PM EST | MAIN CARD 1 PM / 4 PM :siren:

There's a lot about this card that's only ever going to be known in terms of scuttlebutt, so we're going to have to talk about what, allegedly, happened here.

Allegedly, this card was intended to be the UFC's big debut in Saudi Arabia. It took all over a month post-closing of the WWE/UFC merger into TKO for the UFC to get in on the 'doing cards for the house of Saud for a shitload of money' game the WWE has been up to for years.

Allegedly, Saudi Arabia is very picky about their needs for these big-money cards, because there is no point in paying to do PR by way of sportswashing if that PR ain't poo poo. Allegedly, Saudi Arabia's demands for their first WWE card were so wild that they wanted star wrestlers on it who had in reality been dead for almost twenty years.

Allegedly, the Saudis took one look at the card the UFC planned to put on, balked at how lousy it was, and told them to get the gently caress out because they weren't paying for bullshit. Dana White denies this, of course, because the UFC doesn't have weak lineups, it's just, you know, a couple fights didn't pan out and they didn't tell the KSA about one killer fight they had planned and also why would you listen to those lying MMA reporters anyway.

The UFC's still going to Saudi Arabia. It's going to be a Fight Night on June 22, and at that point we'll know exactly how alleged all of this was, based on what goes on that card.

Because this one, as of this writing six days ahead of the card on Sunday the 25th, only has nine fights, and one of them is an Eryk Anders fight, and the main event is Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs a guy who just made his UFC debut in December, and that stinks to all hell.

Allegedly.

_{IS this the card? who can say.}

MAIN EVENT: CUTTING THE ROAD IN HALF
HEAVYWEIGHT: Jairzinho Rozenstruik (13-5, #12) vs Shamil Gaziev (12-0, NR)

Remember that long, faraway era of three weeks ago, when I brushed aside my Flock of Seagulls haircut and tapped out a missive on my Royal Classic about how narrowly we avoided the UFC trying to get Joe Pyfer from the Contender Series to the top fifteen in the space of two fights?

We're here! We're doing the thing! Boy, that didn't take long at all.

But, admittedly, it's a lot harder to care because it's Heavyweight. Heavyweight has always been a division you have to approach with either a sense of humor or a solid case of cirrhosis if you want to survive, and at this current point in the history of the abusive father of mixed martial arts it's goddamn near impossible to address the division AS a division without laughing like Sam Neill at the end of In the Mouth of Madness.

The UFC's heavyweight champion, Jon Jones, is 1-0 as a Heavyweight, has only fought that one fight in the last four years, and is on the shelf. When he returns, he will be facing Stipe Miocic, who has not had a professional fight in three years, has not won a fight since August of 2020, and has not won a fight against someone other than the now-retired Daniel Cormier since January of 2018.

For this reason, the UFC has an interim Heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall. Said interim championship was created and rewarded for a match made on two weeks' notice. It will almost certainly be defended before the undisputed championship is.

The actual #1 Heavyweight on the planet, Francis Ngannou, was stripped and let go from the UFC because he wanted fighters to make more money. He proceeded to walk into boxing, knock Tyson Fury on his rear end, and make himself a multi-millionaire overnight.

And now he's going to fight Renan Ferreira, the guy who fake-tapped against Fabricio Werdum, because he beat Ryan Bader on a pay-per-view nobody watched.

See? That's what I mean. It's Heavyweight! I know I'm the guy who gets constantly mad about the divisional fuckery and the obvious favoritism involved in something as vaunted as the number fifteen position in a promotional ranking made for marketing purposes by journalists who aren't even real, but even I cannot find it in me to care, because it's loving Heavyweight. The UFC is the biggest mixed martial arts organization on the planet and even they only have like thirty Heavyweight fighters under contract and at least five of them are just Mortal Kombat palette-swaps of Josh Parisian.

Losing to prospects is also more or less Jairzinho Rozenstruik's entire career arc, at this point. It's hard to remember, but four years ago Rozenstruik looked like he might actually be kind of a big deal--the guy who smashed a somehow still-relevant Andrei Arlovski, the guy who put a permanent split in Alistair Overeem's face, the guy who ended the diaper-fetishist reign of the long-forgotten J�nior Albini--and his mixture of actual kickboxing skill, decent distance management and turn-on-a-dime knockout power made him an actual, legitimate threat to the belt. He was undefeated, he was devastating, he had honest to god hype.

Then they had him fight Francis Ngannou and he got squashed flat in twenty seconds by a guy doing the Bart Simpson windmill.

And that was it! That was the end of Top Heavyweight Contender Jairzinho Rozenstruik, just like that. "Bigi Boy" spent the first seven years of his MMA career going undefeated and knocking out all but one of his opponents, and it's been almost four years since that Ngannou fight and he has yet to manage a single set of back-to-back victories. It is, in fact, his still being good enough to stay in the mix that keeps getting him in so much goddamn trouble. Jairzinho is still a powerful striker with murderous power and technique enough to guide his fists to a man's chin given half a chance, and that has kept him permanently above the Augusto Sakais and Chris Daukausi of the world, but that also means there's nothing keeping him from being thrust into the fold against actual contenders, where he is, inevitably and repeatedly, crushed.

All the UFC can do is keep booking him into prospect matches and wait for someone to finally knock him out of the top fifteen. In the age of the Contender Series, there will always be at least one large, dubiously qualified man to try.

This year, that large man is Shamil Gaziev. Gaziev is one in the similarly neverending army of Dagestani supersoldiers, but because of his size he is left at odds with himself. He cannot just be a wrestler, because Heavyweight can only support three wrestlers at a time and Curtis Blaydes, Serghei Spivac and Alexandr Romanov already called those slots. Subsequently, begrudgingly, Gaziev must double-spec for the traditional art of fistic man-bludgeoning. And, on paper, he's very good at it! He's an undefeated 12-0 and only one of those wins wasn't a finish. That's impressive!

Right? That's impressive? Well, here's the thing.

Greg Velasco, the man Gaziev beat on the Contender Series, is a career can-crusher with 70" reach, which, for those keeping track, is just slightly below the average reach of a UFC Featherweight
Darko Sto�ić, the man Gaziev beat to get on the Contender Series, is a UFC veteran! at Light Heavyweight, where he went 1 and 3
Kirill Kornilov, the best win on Gaziev's record, was not only his only non-finish but was an ultra-tight split decision

Because, once again: It's Heavyweight.

But there was nothing fake about the beating he put on Martin Buday back in December. I thought Buday's clinch control would tire Gaziev out, and Gaziev didn't give it the chance to; he walked Buday down, outworked him in the grappling, and ultimately butchered Buday in just six minutes with the rare standing TKO. And Buday was 4-0 in the UFC! That's impressive!

Right? That's impressive? Well, the combined UFC record of the four men he beat was 9-18, so, I mean. No?

Or maybe yes! Because, to bring it around again: It's loving Heavyweight. When half of the world's supply of Heavyweights are Light Heavyweights or even Middleweights in denial and half of the remainder are doomed to get cut after going 0-3 and suffering a devastating knockout loss to a 22 year-old Contender Series winner named something like Marty "Bone Fingers" Ribeiro, having any kind of winning streak at all is probably good.

Hell, it's more than Jairzinho Rozenstruik has managed in almost half a decade.

I like Jairzinho. I like his striking. But almost everyone who's been able to take him down has been able to beat him, and every man in the UFC who's tried to take him down in a fight has, inevitably, succeeded. He's a dyed-in-the-wool kickboxer and he's fighting a man who just outclinched a jiu-jitsu champion. If Rozenstruik can keep Gaziev off him, if he can force Gaziev to chase him around the cage, if he can intercept his charges with punches, he's got a chance. Hell, when he can do that, he has a chance against everyone on the planet.

But SHAMIL GAZIEV BY TKO thanks to good ol' ground and pound is way, way more likely.

CO-MAIN EVENT: AT LEAST IT'S NOT ERYK ANDERS
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Vitor Petrino (10-0) vs Tyson Pedro (10-4)

Boy, some things feel kind of pointless, don't they?

Vitor Petrino is one of the UFC's big hopes for the Light Heavyweight division. He joined the Contender Series after an undefeated run as a crusher of the intentionally outmatched (his third professional fight was against a guy who was 1-17! He's 2-24 now!), but his actual physical talents carried him through into the world of genuine competition. He knocked out Rodolfo Bellato on the Contender Series in 2022--actually the second time they'd fought, which is some real bad luck for Bellato--and spent the last twelve months running up a 3-0 win streak in the UFC. He met THE PLEASURE MAN Anton Turkalj, who gave him the toughest fight of his career because the sport is hilarious, he choked out Marcin Prachnio in the third round after dominating him the whole way through, and the last time we saw him, he demolished Modestas Bukauskas with a left hook.

Tyson Pedro's story is a little more mixed. Pedro joined the UFC as a 4-0 rookie during their early expansion into Australia, and the best year of his career was actually that rookie year in 2016-2017. He choked out Khalil Rountree Jr.! He knocked out Paul Craig! Those wins aged real, real well. Unfortunately, nothing else in his career has. He went 1-3 in his next four fights, including becoming, canonically, the last person to ever be knocked out by Shogun Rua, and then he went on hiatus for three and a half years. His 2022 comeback was triumphant! And all it took was the UFC booking him against their least successful fighters. His winning streak came to an end, unfortunately, thanks to the devastating striking techniques of one...uh...Modestas Bukauskas.

I feel like I've had to say "MMA math is only applicable when two fighters fought the same fighter at nearly the same time but that's incredibly rare" an awful lot, recently. That's not actually supposed to happen that often! Your roster is supposed to have enough biodiversity going for it that people who orbited around the same fighter in opposite directions don't end up colliding!

But here we are. In February of last year, Tyson Pedro fought Modestas Bukauskas, struggled to grapple him, struggled to catch him, and ultimately lost a decision to him. Nine months later in November Vitor Petrino fought Modestas Bukauskas, ragdolled him, controlled him for most of the first round and knocked him out cold in the second.

Does that mean Vitor Petrino will win? I mean, it's never that simple. Tyson's tall and rangy, he could keep him at range and hurt him with counters if he stays up on his feet. You should never count out Tyson Pedro! It's mixed martial arts! Anything can happen! Foregone conclusions are lies and you should never count anyone out!

Anyway, VITOR PETRINO BY TKO.

MAIN CARD: PEOPLE YOU'VE HEARD OF
:piss:

FLYWEIGHT: Alex Perez (24-7, #7) vs Muhammad Mokaev (10-0 (1), #8) :piss:

Yeah, no. This fight ain't happening. No way.

It's not Muhammad Mokaev's fault. He's been a steady performer for the UFC: Two to three fights a year, always on weight, always winning. He's inescapably one of their big future title prospects, but this being the Flyweight division, rather than hype jobs and easy matchups, it just means he's had a ton of incredibly fun fights with tough loving opponents. Flying knees for Cody Durden! Sweeping armbars for Malcolm Gordon! Jafel Filho almost beat him and, despite having one leg hyperextended, Mokaev came back from the brink of defeat to choke Filho out twenty-eight seconds before he would have lost a decision. Mokaev punched his ticket into the top ten by steamrolling former title contender Tim Elliott just this past October, outgrappling him for nearly the entire fight before hitting an arm triangle with two minutes to spare. He is a very real talent and a very real threat to the top.

Alex Perez is a talent, but not a threat. This is because Alex Perez is not actually, demonstrably, real. Alex Perez is more known for cancelling fights than holding them, at this point. The last time I wrote about Alex Perez was this past March, when he was slated against Manel Kape, and this was my extremely professional fight analysis:

CarlCX posted:

The gods allowed one Alex Perez fight to happen. They will not brook another. Manel Kape will fall through a crack in the sidewalk that leads to a hidden subterranean society of mole people who need him to be their savior. Perez will get into the shower the morning before the fight and undergo ultra-rapid carcinization and evolve into humanity's final form, the crab, and lawyers will spend the next decade arguing about the ability of crabs to legally consent to cagefights. Sealife activists will abduct him in the middle of his horizontal cagewalk and the UFC will go under from the ensuing lawsuit.

This fight cannot happen. Mixed martial arts itself would crumble.

The fight was cancelled during the prelims when Alex Perez said he suffered some undisclosed type of seizure backstage.

Let me be crystal clear, here: No fighter should fight when it's medically inadvisable. No fighter should come out and fight if they can't do it. I am in no way saying Alex Perez is at fault for his bodily issues. I am saying Alex Perez has fought once out of ten attempts at fight booking in the last 40 months. His success:failure ratio is 1:9. That is the point at which the universe is sending you a message.

I hope Alex Perez makes it to the cage. I hope his cagewalk is not interrupted by an alien abduction. I hope security does not mistakenly lead him to a mineshaft that takes him down to the den of the Morlocks where he is forced to spend the next three years fighting in a civil war across time itself.

But if he does, MUHAMMAD MOKAEV BY SUBMISSION anyway.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Umar Nurmagomedov (16-0, #13) vs Bekzat Almakhan (17-1, NR)

Every goddamn fight on this card is carrying some level of "What the gently caress is this?" but this is pushing it, man.

Umar Nurmagomedov is a genuine title prospect. He's an undefeated killer who's finished almost everyone he's faced in the UFC, he's got the grappling chops that run in the entire Nurmagomedov family, he's never lost a fight in his life, and the last time we saw him he took on a hugely dangerous knockout puncher in Raoni Barcelos and flatlined him in one round. Which was great! And then the UFC decided to book him to leapfrog the entire Bantamweight division, proceed straight to Go, and fight Cory Sandhagen, the #3 Bantamweight in the world--soon to be #2, when Aljamain Sterling goes up to 145 pounds. This was received with no small amount of skepticism and disdain as to the favoritism involved, and when the fight got scratched anyway after Umar had to pull out, everyone wondered which ranked fighter the UFC would match him up with instead, and if it would be a more equitable matchup.

So, uh, he's not! He's fighting Bekzat Almakhan. You might be thinking Bekzat Almakhan is one of those endless legions of fighters who come into the UFC without people noticing thanks to its ever-cramped schedule; he's not. You might be thinking Bekzat Almakhan is a Contender Series winner the company is showing favoritism to by booking directly into a high-profile fight, but no, he's not that either. Maybe you're looking at his name and his record, giving the UFC credit, and assuming he's an international champion out of his native Kazakhstan, and it's close--he's definitely Kazakhstan's best Bantamweight--but nope, not a single international belt to his name. He's just a guy. He was recently fighting on a mat made out of a bunch of rugs put on top of each other, and in case you're thinking that's me trying to make some kind of funny joke about the state of international MMA, I assure you:

It's not.

None of this means Bekzat Almakhan is bad. He seems quite sound and like a perfectly sensible talent for the UFC to sign, honestly. But nothing underscores how pointless rankings are becoming like the #13 guy the UFC was just about to jetpack all the way to the top of the heap instead getting a fight with a guy who's never fought in the company before, who is, now, up for a top fifteen ranking. The entire thing is becoming meaningless and it makes me crazy. UMAR NURMAGOMEDOV BY SUBMISSION.

FLYWEIGHT: Matt Schnell (16-7 (1), #9) vs Steve Erceg (11-1, #12)

This is cool, though. Matt Schnell is a very good Flyweight who's been having a very difficult time. He spent four months repeatedly having to reschedule fights with Tyson Nam only to scrape a barely-there split decision, he got beat by Rog�rio Bontorin only for the fight to be voided thanks to Bontorin failing a drug test, he had four separate fights with Alex Perez cancelled for various reasons, and after missing an entire year of his career over it he came back to get choked out by Brandon Royval and knocked out by Matheus Nicolau, between which he managed to tap Sumudaerji. But even that latest fight is almost a year and a half old because, once again, he's been unable to make it to the drat cage. He pulled out of a fight with David Dvoř�k in June and even this fight is a rescheduling of their original booking from last November.

Steve Erceg doesn't mind, though. Steve Erceg owes his UFC success entirely to Schnell's troubles. Erceg was a little-known standout of the Australian regional scene when the UFC tapped him as a late replacement for Schnell in that aforementioned David Dvoř�k fight, and despite being a huge underdog, Erceg overcame the odds, outworked Dvoř�k, and earned a ranking in his very first fight with the company. Schnell cancelling on Erceg himself led to Erceg fighting last-minute replacement Alessandro Costa, who'd garnered some actual hype after giving top contender Amir Albazi a tough battle and knocking out Jimmy Flick--which put him in a great position to lend credence to Erceg as a contender after Erceg beat him up on the ground and against the fence.

STEVE ERCEG BY DECISION. Erceg's scrappiness and grappling game make him a tough ask for Schnell as it is; with how Schnell's been dealing with injuries and inconsistency, I only see it getting worse.

PRELIMS: OH, GOD drat IT
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Eryk Anders (15-8 (1)) vs Jamie Pickett (13-10)

No, come on. Come on. Why would you do this to me? Why would you do this to anybody? I try in general not to fall into the trap of being one of those wildly gesticulating internet critics who just shits all over everything but by god there are standards and we live in a society.

Eryk Anders is a hole in space and time. Eryk Anders is the void into which we all fall when we are forgotten by everyone who ever knew us. Eryk Anders is the last dying memory you have of what your father's face looked like. It has been almost eight years of Eryk Anders and after waiting most of an entire decade the only thing that has materialized around him is the horrifying awareness of all the loving time we've lost. He's not good, he's not bad, he's not a big knockout striker, he's not a big wrestling threat, he loses too much to be ranked, he wins too much to get cut, and his entire career is a neverending clinch on your soul.

And now he's fighting Jamie Pickett. Jamie Pickett! Jamie "The Night Wolf" Pickett, owner of a four-fight losing streak, is fighting. The UFC released Augusto Sakai, Vince Morales and Kanako Murata, but by god, Jamie Pickett beat Joseph "Ugly Man" Holmes two years ago, and what would our roster be without him? He throws superkicks in real life, he pushes into clinches at weird angles, he's recorded one stoppage in almost five years and he's just three fights away from a perfectly clean, 50/50 record. Some people are gatekeepers for title contention or gatekeepers for the top fifteen; Jamie Pickett is a gatekeeper for simply belonging in the UFC.

Belonging in the UFC is basically all Eryk Anders does. It's the only defining feature of his career, the one and only handhold on a smooth wall of glass. ERYK ANDERS BY DECISION and pray even a lick of it finds purchase in your slowly slipping memory.

LIGHTWEIGHT: L�udovit Klein (20-4-1) vs AJ Cunningham (11-3)

I don't really know what to do with L�udovit Klein, and the UFC doesn't either. Klein spent his first UFC year as a faltering Featherweight prospect and was on the verge of getting cut before making the wise decision to move up to 155 pounds and abandon the great Satan that is cutting weight. The good news: He's undefeated in his new division! He's gone four fights without losing! He's a genuine prospect! The bad news: He absolutely would have lost a decision to Jai Herbert if Herbert hadn't lost a point for repeatedly attempting to destroy his balls. For lack of a place to put him or strong feelings about marketing him the UFC's had him fighting an ongoing rotation of prospects, and that wasn't going to change here--he was booked against the perennially-one-fight-away-from-a-ranking Joel Alvarez--but now, on short notice, he's fighting AJ "The Savage" Cunningham. Traditionally, this is where I discuss whatever Contender Series winner they've tapped, and how they have a decent on-paper record but it's padded by subpar competition. This is the rare exception: AJ Cunningham has a decent on-paper record padded by subpar competition and he got the poo poo kicked out of him on the Contender Series. He fought Steven Nguyen, he showed more or less no defense and opted for catching punches with his face, he got folded in half by a right hand and saved by the bell, and proceeded to catch such a sustained beating in the second round that the referee had to save him from himself.

Does this mean AJ Cunningham is a bad fighter? Definitely not. Does this mean AJ Cunningham has no hope of making the UFC? Absolutely not! Is AJ Cunningham's best hope of getting into the UFC winning a fight against the 8-12 Justice "The Gavel" Lamparez and then going straight into a fight with one of Lightweight's trickiest strikers with three days to prepare? Probably not. L�UDOVIT KLEIN BY TKO.

:piss:

BANTAMWEIGHT: Aiemann Zahabi (10-2) vs Javid Basharat (14-0 (1)) :piss:

Sometimes I really look forward to a fight because it's going to be really fun. Sometimes I really look forward to a fight because it's going to be a very interesting match for its division. This is an extremely interesting fight, and there's a very good chance it's going to be pretty low-action, and I'm looking the gently caress forward to that. Aiemann Zahabi, after a shaky start and two separate near-two-year layoffs, has established himself as a genuine prospect for the Bantamweight division. He's very good at managing his range, he's very good at getting opponents to bite on his feints, and he's very, very good at not caring if he fights so strategically that it pisses off an entire audience so long as he wins, and I, personally, appreciate that. And yet, his last fight also demonstrated he's tightened his counterstriking enough to flatten the never-knocked-out Aoriqileng, so there's always hope for the highlight-reel makers. Javid Basharat has been one half of the hyper-prospect Basharat brothers, both undefeated Contender Series prospects taking their divisions by storm, but after rattling off a three-fight winning streak he's become the embattled brother, as his last fight with Victor Henry ended in a No Contest when he kicked "La Mangosta" right in the jimmy. (Underrated MMA comedy moment of 2023: The ringside doctor trying to tell a Victor Henry who was holding his broken groin and moaning that he didn't actually get hit in the groin and he's fine.) Basharat, too, is an ultra-patient fighter who uses his skillset to control the fight at multiple angles, and is in absolutely no hurry to try to end a drat thing.

This could be incredibly tentative, and that's okay. This could have an exchange rate of twenty feints to every strike thrown, and that's okay, too. I lean JAVID BASHARAT BY DECISION, but he's a massive, -500 betting favorite, and that seems real generous.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Christian Leroy Duncan (9-1) vs Claudio Ribeiro (11-4)

This is a battle of men trying to dig themselves out of hype trenches. Christian Leroy Duncan was a Cage Warriors champion and a big, hyped prospect coming into the UFC; he proceeded to win his debut fight when Du�ko Todorović's leg abruptly imploded in mid-step, and then he lost his undefeated streak after being outwrestled by Armen Petrosyan, a kickboxer with zero completed takedowns in any of his other fights. He came back by knocking out Denis Tiuliulin last November, which he is hoping will get him back in the world's good graces. Claudio Ribeiro was a big-swinging knockout machine coming off the Contender Series when he made his 2023 UFC debut as a kind of vengeful throwback to an earlier time that throws punches all the way from the hip and swings his arms like he has rocks tied to his wrists. He proceeded to get completely destroyed by both Abdul Razak Alhassan and Roman Kopylov, who were both cleaner, faster strikers. But between them he got a win over a man I cannot believe I am referencing for a second time in this writeup, Joseph "Ugly Man" Holmes, whom I doubt I will ever have to bring up again.

This is difficult for me, because, frankly, I don't have a lot of faith in either of these guys. Duncan has trouble with pressure, Ribeiro has trouble with technique, both men can be dangerous for the other. But Christian throws straighter punches and Ribeiro likes his lunchbox fists, and I know what side of the angle war I'm on. CHRISTIAN LEROY DUNCAN BY TKO.

:piss:

BANTAMWEIGHT: Vinicius Oliveira (19-3) vs Bernardo Sopaj (11-2) :piss:

Vinicius Oliveira is nicknamed "Lok Dog" and it mostly makes me want to go watch Don't Be A Menace again. Which is a shame, because he's actually a pretty interesting prospect. He hits exceptionally hard for a Bantamweight, he's surprisingly good at making combinations flow together, and anyone who can chain a haymaker into another haymaker into a roundhouse kick to the face without losing their balance is worth a goddamn look. If there's a downside to his style, it's the toll it takes on his stamina. His last loss to the equally promising Ali Taleb came after repeatedly wobbling him for two rounds, flagging from the effort of beating his rear end, and slowing down just enough to get knocked out on a counter he had been slipping up to that point. Bernardo Sopaj, who adopted the nickname "The Lion King" after his father was murdered by wildebeest, was scheduled to defend the Allstars Fight Night Bantamweight Championship he holds in his native Sweden next weekend, but when the UFC calls and asks if you'd rather fight in front of your countrymen or fly across the world to do battle in the Apex on a week's notice for $12k/12k, by god, you'd better know where your priorities are.

Sopaj seems fine. He's well put-together, he's real good at springing into flying knees when he sees an opening for them, and his defense is actually fairly sound. He's also a 5'6" fighter who likes to work from range fighting a longer, taller fighter who slings headkicks like jabs. VINICIUS OLIVEIRA BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady (15-3) vs Loik Radzhabov (17-5-1)

The Tajik Tank is in trouble with the UFC. Loik Radzhabov came into the company as a last-minute replacement to keep undefeated Contender Series prospect Esteban Ribovics on the card last March, and not only did Loik spoil the party by ending Ribovics' streak, he did it through the forbidden art, Wrestling. Three months later Loik committed his second cardinal sin against the company: He missed weight by a whopping 1.3 pounds. The rear end in a top hat. He proceeded to get knocked out by Mateusz Rębecki anyway. These sins are presumably why he's now facing Abdul-Kareem Al-Selwady, the latest in a quickly-growing history of fighters trading in Fury FC championship belts for Contender Series matchups. He's been fighting a lot of iffy competition but he did just fine against a legitimate challenge in England's George Hardwick on the contract show, his top game is pretty solid, his ground and pound is dangerous, and there's a part of me that wonders if they booked him for this card hoping it would appeal to Saudi Arabia in its original configuration, and that feels racist, and I hate the UFC for making me think about it.

LOIK RADZHABOV BY DECISION.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2024 06:33

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

this post is here to ensure we also continue the chain of mocking brendan schaub, MMA's most evergreen tree of comedy

# ¿ Feb 28, 2024 06:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 14, 2024 09:19

CarlCX: Dec 14, 2003

Leap day gave us one more beautiful day of February, but the time has come to move to March.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2024 19:02

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Sports Argument Stadium > The Hammer House: Stinger Splash Zone > UFC/MMA February: a longer tongue than himself