- CarlCX
- Dec 14, 2003
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It is UFC time. Well, it's UFC time in like thirty minutes.
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 91: LET'S TRY THIS AGAIN
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24 FROM LA ARENA CIUDAD DE MÉXICO 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
 FLYWEIGHT: Brandon Moreno (21-7-2, #1) vs Brandon Royval (15-7, #3)
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
FEATHERWEIGHT: Yair Rodríguez (18-4 (1), #2) vs Brian Ortega (15-3 (1), #4)
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 Côté'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 Rodríguez 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:
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 Brandão, 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.
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 Rodríguez. 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 RODRÍGUEZ 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.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Manuel Torres (14-2) vs Chris Duncan (11-1)
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 CHÁIREZ VS DANIEL LACERDA UNTIL IT WORKS
BANTAMWEIGHT: Cristian Quiñonez (18-4) vs Raoni Barcelos (17-5)
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 Quiñonez 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 Quiñonez 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.
FLYWEIGHT: Jesus Aguilar (9-2) vs Mateus Mendonça (10-2)
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 Mendonça, 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 Mendonça 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 Mendonça out in a single round.
On paper, Mendonça 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 Cháirez (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:
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 Cháirez 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 Cháirez 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 CHÁIREZ 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 Rodríguez (16-2) vs Denys Bondar (19-4)
This is your 'the UFC addresses a missing piece' fight for the night. Luis "Lazy Boy" Rodríguez 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; Rodríguez 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 Cháirez) 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.
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Feb 24, 2024 23:47
