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writingsubmissions · 8 years ago

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UFC Fight Night 103 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, UFC 207 didn't go exactly as planned. UFC 208 was built around "Ronda Rousey: She's Back", and it wound up being "Ronda Rousey: She's Gone" quicker than anyone could've expected, as Amanda Nunes got her out of there in just 48 seconds, pretty much bashing Rousey's face in at will until the referee stopped the fight. And oh, how the hot takes rained down, from Rousey's mental state to her coaching to the bizarre viewpoint that she was an all-hype creation of the liberal feminist agenda, because people like that exist now - the whole thing just brought out the worst in MMA fans and sports media in general. But anyway, I lean towards this being more of a coaching problem, and, well, we should all pretty much just listen to Nunes, who criticized Edmond Tarverdyan for convincing Rousey she was a boxer - even if Tarverdyan was a good coach (which an increasing amount of data suggests he is not, at all), he's a horrible fit for Rousey's skill-set, as she is at her best when using her physicality to just bull-rush opponents, while Tarverdyan was trying to train her to become...some sort of outside boxer? The fight was so quick and one-sided it's not even clear, but it appears the gameplan was for Rousey to hang back and wear out Nunes, which is fine in itself, but it didn't really appear that Tarverdyan really gave Rousey any tools to actually do that, and once she got hit, Rousey showed the same flaw as in the Holm fight where she becomes sort of like a video game boss, becoming enraged and letting down her defenses as soon as her weak point is hit. So that just left her more hittable, and Nunes hits like a truck, and with her coaches not really offering up much of a plan B, things just sort of careened out of control with Rousey being too tough to go down but too out of it to not keep getting hit until things mercifully got stopped. In the immediate aftermath, my concern was for the mental health of Rousey, but it does seem like she's taking this loss a lot better than the Holm one, if still not particularly well. And, honestly, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if she's back again - the one-sided nature of his loss makes me wonder if a lot of her non-MMA marketing opportunities might dry up, and if she's willing to rebuild her game from the ground up, find a new coach that suits her skills, and is willing to change her mental approach to the game, she can actually probably be a championship-level fighter again. Hell, I think she can still probably beat anyone in the division who doesn't have the combination of great athleticism and a great camp, and that alone still makes her about a top-five fighter. But if this is it, hopefully she won't be remembered as a hype job or a flash in the plan or anything, but instead as someone who marked an inflection point in the progression of women's MMA as it moved from the pioneers of the sport into the top-level athletes, similar to, I don't know, a Mark Coleman or someone on the men's side, although Rousey had both the benefit and the downside of doing it on a much bigger stage. And as for Nunes, hopefully UFC does something with the sudden new face of the women's bantamweight division - Nunes came off outstandingly well in what little media she did leading up to the card (oh, yeah, the card also did on par with Rousey's biggest fights on pay-per-view despite being on Friday with little promotion) and gave a pretty great performance after the fight, first shushing Rousey's corner in the immediate wake of the knockout, and cutting an interview that was both jovial and completely ice cold about how she's the new face of the division, she always knew she was going to "beat the shit" out of Rousey, and that Rousey has her money and can go do movies, so everyone should recognize herself as the new queen of the bantamweight division. Nunes obviously won't draw the same that Rousey did, but with Nunes's poise, violent fight style, and even the angle of being the first openly gay champion in UFC history, UFC has someone they can market if they, for once, think a little bit outside the box. *In the wake of UFC 207, where the buyrate came in at probably mattered more for Cody Garbrandt than anyone else - Nunes was going to get headlines no matter what for running through Rousey so quickly, but it was Garbrandt that had the starmaking performance on the show, completely dominating Dominick Cruz at his own game en route to a fairly one-sided upset for the bantamweight championship. Garbrandt was unproven rather than showing off that he outright couldn't do what he did here, but it was still a shocking virtuoso performance, as Garbrandt proved to be the first guy too quick for Cruz - while Cruz typically relies on darting in and out without getting hit and often waiting for his opponents to initiate, it was Garbrandt that was dodging Cruz's offense and hitting back with power. It was just shocking to see Cruz basically in the role of a lot of his past opponents - too scared off to really do anything without getting hit on the counter, but needing to do something in order to win the fight. To his credit, Cruz tried - and showed some ridiculous toughness in getting back up from shots that have stopped a lot of other fighters - but Garbrandt looked so quick here that I'm honestly not sure how a second fight between the two looks much different. Garbrandt also came off quite well in his post-fight interview, giving his belt to Maddux Maple, a young cancer survivor that Garbrandt befriended a few years back, and it was really just perfect - Garbrandt's a guy with a marketable look (good looks plus neck tats), an exciting fight style, and enough poise to handle himself well. It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here, in what's quickly becoming one of UFC's most interesting divisions, and he seems to have a pretty fascinating first opponent already lined up... *It's hard to argue with Garbrandt getting the title shot here in retrospect, but former champ T.J. Dillashaw, who most felt deserved it, confirmed that he's among the elite 135ers with a one-sided win over John Lineker. Lineker was streaking towards a title shot of his own, but Dillashaw showed he could sort of turn back the clock a bit, relying more on his wrestling in just overwhelming and pretty much beating the shit out of Lineker, who, to his credit, broke his jaw early yet was still seemingly unfazed as he repeatedly got hit in the face. But anyway, if it wasn't for Garbrandt, Dillashaw probably had the best performance on the card, so it seems like that's the fight to make, though Garbrandt also still seems open to a Cruz rematch. And to his credit, Dillashaw is actually already trying to sell the fight, citing that he knocked out Garbrandt in training when they were sparring partners back at Team Alpha Male. Given that there's ready-made drama, with Garbrandt taking the spot as prized pupil at Alpha Male that Dillashaw had before he turned traitor, and the fact that it'd be an awesome fight, let's do this. *There honestly wasn't a ton else going on on this card in terms of action - Dong Hyun Kim won an absolutely dreadful decision over Tarec Saffiedine that rewarded his aggressiveness instead of any real effectiveness, and the opener of the main card saw Ray Borg get an impressively one-sided win over Louis Smolka, though Smolka looked oddly flat and Borg's win was marred by him missing weight. Speaking of missing weight, Johny Hendricks blew weight again for his first against Neil Magny and then lost a close decision - basically, the fight was a lot of Hendricks relying on his wrestling to control Magny, but not really do much of anything while Magny remained quite active. Hendricks apparently plans to move up to middleweight, which he kind of has to at this point, but he was already undersized for 170, so I'm not really sure how well that's going to go. As far as other stuff, Alex Garcia knocked out Mike Pyle in rather brutal fashion as Pyle's age has seemingly finally caught up to him, the debuting Niko Price tapped out Brandon Thatch, continuing to show Thatch's complete lack of grappling skill, and what looked to be a fun opener between Tim Means and Alex Oliveira just got weird. Means nailed Oliveira with an obviously illegal knee while Oliveira was kneeling on the ground, but both Means and Joe Rogan on commentary (along with Marc Ratner, who's there to clarify the rules despite never seemingly knowing them) cited the "three points of contact" rule, saying that Means's knee was in fact legal, since Oliveira had neither a hand or his other foot down at the time he got hit. But, well, the problem is that rule doesn't actually exist, and it's pretty unclear where anyone got that idea from. Anyway, Oliveira milked the knee, even getting taken out on a stretcher despite being fine shortly thereafter, but didn't get the disqualification win he probably hoped for, as the referee ruled the knee was accidental (though Means later said it was intentional, which it obviously was, even though he probably wouldn't have thrown it had he known the actual rules), and thus the fight was ruled a no contest. Just an absolute masterpiece of stupidity all around. *So, Mark Hunt is suing UFC. Hunt was announced for a fight with Alistair Overeem at UFC 209 a few weeks back, but that got thrown into question for a bit, as Hunt insisted on a clause that he would get Overeem's purse if Overeem popped for any drugs. But, eventually Hunt took the fight, citing a need to keep getting income, and now this lawsuit is happening, as he's suing UFC, Brock Lesnar, and Dana White for a number of charges, including racketeering and fraud. Basically, Hunt cites the 2012 controversy involving Vitor Belfort's fight with Jon Jones, where UFC officials apparently ignored multiple notices that Belfort's testosterone levels were illegally high, and the fact that Hunt is coming off fighting three straight drug abusers, as a pattern of UFC continually ignoring a level playing field and fighter health in favor or just getting money-making fights done. He also alleges that the Lesnar fight was in the works as far back as March of last year, but UFC knowingly held off on Lesnar officially signing to protect him from drug testing, knowing they could waive a USADA provision that requires a fighter returning to UFC to undergo four months of drug testing. Also, he cites the incentive structure in place that, given the one-off nature of Lesnar's fight, basically gave him the ability to profit by millions of dollars if he juiced, without affecting any future job prospects. Now, I'm not sure how Hunt is going to go about proving a lot of this - there's evidence UFC and Lesnar were talking as far back as March, but I'm not sure how you can prove the deal was ever one hundred percent certain - so I don't think he has much of a chance of winning, but given some of the crazy court cases we've seen lately (like Hulk Hogan apparently being able to argue his sex tape wasn't a concern because his character, Hulk Hogan, has a different sized penis than Terry Bollea the man), who knows how this all shakes out. *UFC 207 wasn't the only big MMA event happening around New Year's, as a few groups ran big shows around the same time, led by RIZIN's doubleheader on the 29th and the 31st. It was PRIDE matchmaking at its...finest?, so let's go through some of the bizarre highlights. Mirko Cro Cop became suddenly resurgent in Japan, without drug testing - funny how that works - winning RIZIN's big openweight tournament; he knocked out King Mo, the favorite to take the whole thing, in the main event of the first night, which was impressive, and then ran through a 400-pound Estonian sumo and an Iranian wrestler who had been banned from the sport due to repeated steroid violations, because Japan. Cro Cop then announced his retirement - yet again - after the tournament took place, but he's already talking about one more farewell fight in Japan, which may be a new record for him. As far as relevant fights, the biggest result on the card was probably Kron Gracie tapping out Tatsuya Kawajiri in the co-main of night two - as a reminder, Kawajiri was just fighting toe-to-toe with Cub Swanson just this past August, so for Gracie to get him down and submit him in only his fourth professional fight is a huge accomplishment; it looks like we have a Gracie that's relevant in 2017, and he might just be the best prospect in the sport at the moment. And on the complete opposite spectrum, we had Gabi Garcia, an absolutely massive (roided-out) former BJJ champ, against 48-year old former professional wrestler Yumiko Hotta. Hotta decided to play to the crowd and run the ropes, but Garcia just grabbed her and beat the piss out of her for a 41-second beating, so, yeah, that was weird. And then we wound up getting a battle on the mics between Garcia and Cris Cyborg, who was cornering Garcia, against Hotta and Shinobu Kandori, the 52-year old former professional wrestler who was Garcia's original opponent. And then another former professional wrestler, giantess Marie Gabert, apparently now going under the name "Jazzy Alpha Female", stormed the ring and challenged Garcia as well. It was...something I couldn't turn my eyes away from, I'll give them that. Japan. *World Series of Fighting also ran a show on New Year's Eve, which was...something. WSOF's probably the number three promotion in the US, but its existence has always been weird, as they've paid out big-money contracts thanks to a whole bunch of mysterious owners, which suggests the promotion may just be an entire pyramid scheme, and there's been a ton of conflicts of interest with MMA manager Ali Abdelaziz acting as a matchmaker and front office executive. Not to mention all the weirdness of Abdelaziz's past, which suggests that he's in tight with a number of Russian oligarchs and various terrorist organizations, and may have been recruited by the United States government to act as a mole in some Middle Eastern terrorist groups before they decided he may have turned double agent. So, yeah, WSOF's weird. Anyway, in good news, Steve Case, co-founder and former CEO of America Online, is apparently in talks to buy a big chunk of the company, which would give them more to stay afloat. On the downside, well...this show, from the theater at Madison Square Garden, featured four title fights, with all four of the featured champions retaining. So that's good. But lightweight champ Justin Gaethje, bantamweight champ Marlon Moraes, and Dave Branch, who holds both WSOF's light heavyweight and middleweight titles, are all apparently free agents, with Branch rumored to have already signed with UFC. And the fourth champ, former UFC contender and welterweight champ Jon Fitch, had a fight with Jake Shields that was about as boring as you wound expect, and after winning a decision, said he's pretty much retiring due to a bunch of injuries, compounded by the fact that apparently some scans of his brain have come back with some concerning results. So, WSOF just showcased a bunch of their top talent that may no longer be with the promotion after this, though the Case deal at least gives them enough money to offer Gaethje and Moraes to stay, particularly Moraes, who's an Abdelaziz guy. World Series of Fighting is weird, man. *Let's do a bunch of quick hits: Along with his suspension by the state of Nevada, Brock Lesnar has also been suspended for one year by USADA, allowing him to fight when...basically, he was going to fight anyway. Good work, guys. UFC officials apparently met with officials at the Kremlin to discuss bringing UFC to Russia - I hope we get an episode of Dana White's reality show where he has to fight a bear. Leister Bowling, the head of the Elevation Fight Team in Denver, which has developed guys like Matt Brown and Neil Magny, and became the landing spot for T.J. Dillashaw after his exodus from Team Alpha Male, is retiring and handing down the business to his sons. Former WWE and ESPN announcer Todd Grisham is getting a tryout with UFC, doing studio work and announcing for a few events starting with this Phoenix card. And, former lightweight champ Rafael dos Anjos has announced that he'll be moving up to welterweight. ------ BOOKINGS: *Not really a whole ton outside of the Tyron Woodley/Stephen Thompson title rematch finally being made official for UFC 209 in March, so let's do the chronological rundown once again: *I normally don't go into cancellations for cards that I'm currently previewing, since it being off the card should be apparent, but the situation with Jimmie Rivera on this Phoenix card was a bit interesting. Rivera was slated to face fellow top bantamweight contender Bryan Caraway in what was probably the best fight on this Phoenix show, but with Caraway hurt, UFC apparently came up with two replacements: John Dodson and Marlon Vera. Rivera chose Vera, and then about a day later, just decided to back out of the fight entirely, citing that a win over Vera, a non-contender, wouldn't do him any good, and with Vera fighting to get surgery for his daughter's rare nerve disease, he didn't want to stand in his way. Which...if he wanted to fight a contender, I'm not really sure why he didn't choose Dodson, though I will admit it doesn't seem one hundred percent concrete that fight was offered, even though Dodson was down for it on social media and it seemed to have at least been discussed. Anyway, Vera's now offended, and Rivera handled the whole thing poorly, though pretty much all of this is his right - I do hope we get that Caraway fight, since that did look to be an interesting one. *We move on to Denver in two weeks, as UFC realized they had yet to fill out an entire card for their Fox show and threw a whole bunch of stuff together. The most interesting new fight is featherweights Alex Caceres and Jason Knight squaring off in what looks like it might be the opener for the Fox card proper - Alan Belcher protege Knight came out of nowhere to have an impressive 2016, and as inconsistent as Caceres is, it should be Knight's toughest test yet in an exciting fight. A middleweight bout between Hector Lombard and Brad Tavares is off completely, so UFC added two other middleweights in Eric Spicely, who's coming off one of the biggest upsets of 2016 over Thiago Santos, and Italian prospect Alessio Di Chirico. And then there's some prospect fights - with Yancy Medeiros out, Chinese fighter Jingliang Li instead faces newcomer Bobby Nash, and with a fight against Ion Cutelaba in Brazil getting scrapped almost as quickly as it was announced, Henrique da Silva steps up here to face Jordan Johnson, considered one of the best prospects at light heavyweight outside of UFC. *Then we get some stuff for February - the Houston card over Super Bowl weekend has apparently just lost Evan Dunham, who's injured and out of his bout with Abel Trujillo, but added two fights - blue-chip Brazilian prospect Ricardo Ramos making his debut against Michinori Tanaka, and what's probably the last chance for Khalil Rountree, a talented striking prospect whose lack of a grappling game has been completely exposed, against Daniel Jolly, who was last seen getting beaten by Misha Cirkunov in his UFC debut in August of 2015. And UFC 208 in Brooklyn and the Fight Night show in Halifax added one fight each, both of which are a bit baffling - Brooklyn will see Jacare Souza step in against Tim Boetsch, who I guess was the best guy available, while former strawweight champ Carla Esparza will return in Halifax to face Randa Markos. Souza/Boetsch is a mismatch, but I can at least see how it happened - Souza was grousing for a fight, and Boetsch is least kind of a relevant concern as a well-known vet coming off two wins, the last of which was an impressive knockout over Rafael Natal. But Esparza/Markos baffles me - Esparza has been asking for a fight for months, and is one of the best fighters in the division, but needs to rack up some big wins in order to get anyone excited for a rematch with Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who took the belt from her in a rather one-sided destruction. But a fight against Markos does nobody any favors - Markos is coming off a loss and a bunch of flat performances and just obviously struggling, so I don't really see the point in giving her her toughest opponent yet when it also does nothing for Esparza. The one thing that literally just came to mind is that these two looked to be building towards a title fight back in late 2014, when they were at each other's throats while on the cast of TUF 20, but while there was a bunch of heat for that fight at the time, it's hard to see how much anyone can care about that now, particularly with Markos's struggles since. Hell, I wanted to see that fight as much as anyone at the time, and it says something that I've completely forgotten about it until about a week after this fight was booked. *The three cards in March added a bunch of stuff. As mentioned, the rumored Tyron Woodley/Stephen Thompson fight for UFC 209 is finally a reality, but it looks like the rumored Nick Diaz comeback won't be, as he's apparently uninterested in fighting Robbie Lawler, which was the fight UFC was trying to make. But we're getting some other fun stuff for that card, even if nothing is as big as that fight. First up, Mirsad Bektic, long considered one of the best prospects in the sport, will face Darren Elkins at featherweight - Elkins is pretty much the prospect-killer at 145 with his grinding style, but Bektic is an explosive wrestler, so it'll be interesting to see how those two fighters interact. Plus enigmatic heavyweight Todd Duffee returns to face Mark Godbeer, and we get a pretty solid fight between two light heavyweights coming off impressive debuts, as Scotland's Paul Craig faces Australia's Tyson Pedro. Two fighters, four first names. Oh, and Ed Herman returns to face Igor Pokrajac, which...certainly is a fight. After that, we head to Brazil, where two fights were announced, but Henrique da Silva/Ion Cutelaba, as mentioned above, was scrapped right after it was announced thanks to a Cutelaba injury. So that leaves an interesting fight at light heavyweight between Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and Gian Villante, a fight that's probably more relevant at light heavyweight than anyone wants to admit. Shogun is still dangerous, but shopworn and old at this point, while Villante is talented, but so defensively error-prone that either guy could win this fight and it wouldn't be surprising. And then we head to London, which added four bouts. The biggest fight is light heavyweights Jimi Manuwa and Corey Anderson going at it in a bout that may actually get the winner pretty close to a title shot - I don't think it's the main event, but given that the bout hasn't officially been announced yet and it's only a Fight Pass show, there's an outside chance it might be. Anyway, the other fights are all fairly interesting - Brad Pickett, fresh off losing to Urijah Faber, gets his retirement fight in his hometown against Mexico's Henry Briones, blue-chip British prospect Tom Breese moves up to middleweight to face Nigerian knockout artist Oluwale Bamgbose, and Vicente Luque, who's quietly putting together a really solid run at welterweight, faces top British prospect Leon Edwards. *And one last housekeeping note - it was kind of forgotten, since UFC never bothered announcing anything for it, but a slated show in Vegas on March 3rd, the day before UFC 209, has been cancelled, or per UFC, "postponed." That's not huge news in and of itself, but it does say something that given how rarely UFC has outright cancelled shows in the past, things have gotten so thin that they've now scrapped two cards just three months into 2017. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Sean Pierson (14-6 overall, 4-2 UFC, last fought 6/15/13, W vs. Kenny Robertson): Pierson quietly confirmed his retirement on Twitter when someone asked him a few weeks back, though at forty and having not even been scheduled for a fight for over three years, it was all but a formality. Pierson never really stood out for anything - he was probably most notorious for getting fired as a police officer in Toronto once his employers discovered he used to go by the moniker "Pimp Daddy" Pierson. But Pierson had a sneaky amount of success - he won a late-notice debut over Matt Riddle, and then lost two tough fights against Dong Hyun Kim and Jake Ellenberger, both big asks. But he actually retires riding a three-fight winning streak, getting decisions over Jake Hecht, Lance Benoist, and Kenny Robertson. Pierson probably could've seen how far that momentum would take him, but he seems happy just chilling with his kids and being a normal guy, so good on him. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 1/28 - UFC on Fox 23 - Denver, CO - Julianna Pena vs. Valentina Shevchenko, Donald Cerrone vs. Jorge Masvidal, Andrei Arlovski vs. Francis Ngannou 2/4 - UFC Fight Night 104 - Houston, TX - Dennis Bermudez vs. Chan Sung Jung, Alexa Grasso vs. Felice Herrig 2/11 - UFC 208 - Brooklyn, NY - Germaine de Randamie vs. Holly Holm, Travis Browne vs. Derrick Lewis 2/19 - UFC Fight Night 105 - Halifax, NS - Junior dos Santos vs. Stefan Struve 3/4 - UFC 209 - Las Vegas, NV - Tyron Woodley (c) vs. Stephen Thompson, Mark Hunt vs. Alistair Overeem 3/11 - UFC Fight Night 106 - Fortaleza, Brazil - Vitor Belfort vs. Kelvin Gastelum, Edson Barboza vs. Beneil Dariush, Mauricio Rua vs. Corey Anderson 3/18 - UFC Fight Night 107 - London, England - Corey Anderson vs. Jimi Manuwa ----- UFC Fight Night 103 - January 15, 2017 - Talking Stick Resort Arena - Phoenix, Arizona Well, the post-UFC 205 and post-UFC 207 hangover is officially here, as what was turning into a fun little tradition is instead giving us this weird, not particularly inspiring, card to kick off 2017. The last two years, UFC has run Boston over Martin Luther King weekend, and both times they pretty much hit it out of the park - 2015 gave us Conor McGregor's jump onto the big stage, as he was all over the media before knocking out Dennis Siver in the second round, and 2016 was a fun show from pretty much top to bottom, headlined by Dominick Cruz's insane comeback from injury to unseat T.J. Dillashaw as bantamweight champ. And while this show will probably still do huge ratings thanks to being plugged during NFL playoff football, UFC isn't exactly putting their best foot forward - they've ditched Boston for Phoenix, and the big hook here is the return of two-weight class legend B.J. Penn, who somewhat amusingly has gone from pay-per-view undercard to Fight Pass headliner to FS1 headliner as his comebacks have repeatedly been scuttled. It's still a somewhat forgivable main event, if only because Penn is still a big name and a legend of the sport, but UFC didn't really try with the rest of this card, as only five of the twenty-four fighters on the card are coming off UFC wins, plus there's a weirdly high number of large Europeans. Just a weird show with not much excitement or much starpower - though, with what said, sometimes those shows with no names wind up being fun ones, even if I'm not particularly optimistic in this case. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 10:00 PM ET): Featherweight: (#10) Yair Rodriguez vs. B.J. Penn Lightweight: Marcin Held vs. Joe Lauzon Welterweight: Court McGee vs. Ben Saunders Flyweight: (#8) John Moraga vs. (#15) Sergio Pettis PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Bantamweight: Augusto Mendes vs. Frankie Saenz Heavyweight: Aleksei Oleinik vs. Viktor Pesta Lightweight: Tony Martin vs. Alex White Lightweight: Drakkar Klose vs. Devin Powell PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:15 PM ET): Women's Strawweight: Nina Ansaroff vs. Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger Heavyweight: Walt Harris vs. Chase Sherman Light Heavyweight: Joachim Christensen vs. Bojan Mihajlovic Heavyweight: Cyril Asker vs. Dmitrii Smoliakov THE RUNDOWN: Yair Rodriguez (9-1 overall, 5-0 UFC) vs. B.J. Penn (16-10-2 overall, 12-9-2 UFC): Well, it looks like we're finally getting the B.J. Penn comeback on the fourth try, even though I'm not really sure who wants it at this point outside of Penn. Penn was pretty much a legend from the instant he started combat sports - the Hawaiian earned his BJJ black belt in only about three years, thought to be a record (hence the "Prodigy" nickname), and was one of the first guys, post-infancy of the sport, to just straight up debut in UFC, where he had a ton of success pretty quickly. And Penn soon became a cult hero for his "just scrap" mentality, not really caring about the size or the skill of his opponent, but willing to just fight whoever, whenever, in the name of the fight - when UFC's first effort at starting a lightweight division centered around Penn fell apart, as Penn got upset by Jens Pulver, who then left for Japan, and a tournament for the vacant title ended up in a draw between Penn and Caol Uno, Penn just decided to move up to welterweight and tapped out Matt Hughes, then thought to be possibly the best fighter in the sport, in the first round. But then Penn left for more money in Japan himself for a few fights - including a fight against then-light heavyweight Lyoto Machida - and when he came back, Penn dropped fights to Hughes and upstart Georges St. Pierre. I think it's at this point we really started to get the narrative that would pretty much define Penn's career, that he was possibly the most naturally gifted fighter in the sport, but just never really motivated himself to work hard, since I think the first time we were promised "motivated B.J." was his return to lightweight against Pulver. Penn handled Pulver rather easily, and ran roughshod over the lightweight division for a bit - though in the interim he once against lost to then-welterweight champ St. Pierre in UFC's first champion-versus-champion fight - until 2010, when he met Frankie Edgar. Edgar wasn't really seen in Penn's league, having only really gotten the shot since Gray Maynard's wins were just too boring to reward with a title fight, and after a controversial decision to take the lightweight title from Penn, "The Answer" left no doubt in the rematch, winning a one-sided decision and, in retrospect, pretty much putting an end to Penn's career as an elite fighter. Penn rebounded with a 21-second win over what turned out to be a shot Hughes and a draw against Jon Fitch that was somewhat of a gift, and at this point we would get promised over and over that this time Penn was motivated, only for the results to fall kind of flat in the cage. Plus Penn kept insisting on fighting at welterweight in order to chase St. Pierre, and he was too stubborn to realize he was physically outmatched - Nick Diaz absolutely destroyed him, and after taking over a year off, Rory MacDonald beat Penn rather handily as well. Things remained rather silent, until it was announced in mid-2014 that Penn was going to now cut to featherweight, and coach a season opposite Frankie Edgar that would result in a third fight between the two. And...things were not pretty. Penn did look lean, but also suddenly looked rather gaunt and old, and he weirdly chose to use a strange, upright striking stance that pretty much just gave Edgar the opening to take Penn down at will and pretty much maul him in what was a pretty depressing scene before it got stopped. After the fight, it seemed like Penn had finally closed the book on his career in an emotional press conference, talking about how he needed the fight against Edgar to see if he could still do this, and even after doing everything right, realizing that with the result, he couldn't, and that he was comfortable with that. And, well, that lasted a little over a year. By late 2015, there were rumblings of a Penn comeback as he entered in his late thirties, and when it got confirmed come 2016, things turned into a bit of a disaster. First, Penn decided to challenge Nik Lentz of all people, as Penn apparently had come to blame dietitian Mike Dolce for his last loss to Edgar, and got it in his head that Lentz and Dolce were somehow friends, which just seemed to confuse Lentz. Talk of that fight fizzled out, and Penn was then scheduled to fight Dennis Siver at UFC 196, though that soon fell apart due to an investigation into a pretty gross incident where a drunken Penn apparently decided to throw himself at the girlfriend of a friend. Penn was cleared in dubious fashion to fight at UFC 199, first against Siver and then Cole Miller, but then that fell apart, since Penn apparently admitted to out-of-competition use of an IV, without realizing that IVs were banned no matter what. So UFC tried again to book him, and this time it just seemed cruel, as Penn was matched against perennial top contender Ricardo Lamas in the main event of a card in Manila - but once again Penn became unavailable, this time due to injury, and UFC wound up scrapping the card entirely. So, finally, I think, here we are, as Penn's pretty much in the set-up role to make stud Mexican prospect Yair Rodriguez look good. After winning season one of TUF: Latin America, there was some thought that Rodriguez could be a future star for UFC in the growing Mexican market, but he's gotten there way quicker than anyone expected - Charles Rosa is a solid fighter, but he was thought to be too much for Rodriguez to handle in his first post-TUF fight, and instead Rodriguez has just put together a huge highlight reel in wins over Rosa, Daniel Hooker, Andre Fili, and Alex Caceres, highlighted by a switch-kick knockout of Fili that was among the best finishes of 2016. Rodriguez comes from the school of fighting that's more like a martial arts movie at times, with a focus on throwing big, flashy knockout strikes, though Rodriguez has a ridiculous amount of athleticism and a preternatural ability to chain strikes together in weird combinations, as well as backing this all up with a pretty solid submission game. Rodriguez's game definitely feels like something that will hit a ceiling - at some point he's just not going to be able to connect with enough crazy spinning stuff to win rounds when he can't get the finish - but guys like Anthony Pettis have shown that you can win a title and become a bit of a star before people start to figure you out. Since we don't really know where Rodriguez's ceiling is yet, for better or for worse, Penn does definitely have a chance, since even in his current form, he still might be the best fighter Rodriguez has faced yet, and it's not completely out of the question to imagine Penn using his years of experience to somehow score a submission on the sometimes over-aggressive Rodriguez if things go to the ground. But there's just too much going against him - Rodriguez's professional career started a year after Penn got his last win, and while Rodriguez's style sometimes isn't conducive to winning rounds, it's hard to see how Penn is going to able to win them, either, given that Rodriguez is big, athletic, quick, and seems to have a pretty solid gas tank. Frankly, even if Penn is in the best shape of his life, finally - and even then, it's unclear how much he's been training with Greg Jackson's camp in Albuquerque, as was expected - in his fight against Edgar, Penn just looked like a relic from a bygone era, a guy who just didn't really have the sort of well-rounded game and strategy that MMA needs in 2017 rather than 2007. And the sad part of this, is I think Penn's actually tough enough to last all the way to a decision - Penn was basically stopped by Edgar because Edgar just kept mauling him, while Rodriguez doesn't really throw the type of volume you need to get the referee to step in for a finish. So while there's a chance that Rodriguez just uses some highlight-reel strike to put Penn's lights out - which may be a mercy kill - I'll say we instead just get five rounds of Penn being too tough for his own good, and probably being a little bit depressed after a Rodriguez decision win. Marcin Held (22-5 overall, 0-1 UFC, 11-3 Bellator) vs. Joe Lauzon (26-12 overall, 13-9 UFC): A really interesting, well-matched fight here that should provide some pretty fun action. Joe Lauzon has officially spent over a decade on the UFC roster, and it's pretty amazing how long of it he's spent as sort of an action fighter and gatekeeper emeritus. For years, it's seemed like the Massachusetts native has been somewhere between the tenth- and twentieth-best lightweight in UFC, matched with rising fighter after rising fighter and losing against guys as they eventually headed towards title shots, but also turning away about as many guys, and always being a threat to have the best fight on the card in the process. At the tail end of 2015, it looked like Lauzon might finally be shopworn after a flat loss to Evan Dunham, but he rebounded in pretty great fashion by becoming the first man to crack the chin of Diego Sanchez at UFC 200, and then taking Jim Miller to a close decision loss that most felt Lauzon had won. Lauzon finds himself in a familiar spot here, against a talented young fighter, and in this case it's a guy who badly needs a win in Marcin Held. Held came into UFC with a ton of expectations - despite somehow still only being 24, Held had spent the last few years as one of the top lightweights in Bellator, beating all but the promotion's elite fighters with a solid, well-rounded game and a funky submission game centered around an array of leglocks. Held made his debut on the Mexico City card this past November against Sanchez in what figured to be a solid opportunity for Held to make a big splash with a win over a big name, but none of that really happened - after some early success, Sanchez was able to take over with his wrestling and neutralize Held's submission game, and by the third round, the Pole seemed absolutely exhausted and out of ideas. There was some talk of Held cutting down to 145, but instead he stays at lightweight here, and UFC didn't really do him any favors here - while Lauzon probably doesn't have the control-heavy wrestling that Sanchez pulled out, he's probably a step up in competition at this point in the game. It's a really fascinating matchup - both guys are perfectly fine strikers, and I'm not really sure who the grappling favors - Lauzon likes to create chaos, and that can probably allow Held to catch some sort of funky technique, but Lauzon also has so much veteran savvy when it comes to submissions that I can't really see Held flummoxing him with something that might lead to a finish. I'll favor Lauzon to win a decision if only because his performances have impressed me more lately, but with the way these guys' styles might interact, I'm sort of expecting the kind of nip-tuck split decision fight that'll cause some discussion about exactly who won. Court McGee (18-5 overall, 7-4 UFC) vs. Ben Saunders (20-7-2 overall, 7-4 UFC, 7-3 Bellator): A solid fight between welterweight vets here. I think everyone likes Court McGee - the Utah native has been pretty open about his crazy life story, as he struggled with drugs and alcohol for years, to the point that he was even clinically dead for a bit, before getting his life back together through fighting. And as a fighter, he's a perfectly solid meat and potatoes kind of guy - he can do a little bit of everything, and while I can't really think of an exceptionally amazing Court McGee fight, he's rarely gotten blown completely out of the water. McGee took about two years off - from December of 2013 to December 2015 - to heal what was apparently an injured everything, and he's picked up about where he's left off, alternating wins and losses; McGee lost to Santiago Poniznibbio pretty quickly in what was probably the most one-sided loss of his career, but that was sandwiched between wins over Marcio Alexandre and Dominique Steele, the latter of which was a pretty neat moment, as McGee was the big hometown favorite for UFC's debut in Salt Lake City. Anyway, McGee fights Ben Saunders, who starts his third UFC stint here - it's a bit amusing looking back that someone as talented as Saunders was cut after two straight losses back in 2010, when UFC was in a position where they could do so. Saunders then signed with Bellator, which was then still a bit of an upstart, and had a bunch of success - he fell short of title contention, but Saunders continued evolving as a Muay Thai specialist with some solid submission skills. After a few Bellator contracts, Saunders then decided to return to UFC in 2014, and continued having success, running through Chris Heatherly and Joe Riggs and earning a close decision over Kenny Robertson before losing to Patrick Cote and hitting a bit of a contract snafu. So, the Cote loss happened last January, and apparently that was the last fight on Saunders's contract, and he decided to take a bit of a break with the understanding a new deal would be worked out. But when he stepped up for a late-notice fight against Tim Means at UFC 202, Saunders fell victim of the same weird rule that took Angela Hill off UFC 207, where fighters deemed to be returning to the UFC (unless they're Brock Lesnar) have to undergo a four-month drug testing period before they're cleared to fight. So, Saunders took one more fight outside of UFC to make some money, tapping out fellow UFC vet Jacob Volkmann in just seventeen seconds, and now he's officially back. It's an interesting fight that could be fun or could be ugly - both guys are typically fairly entertaining fighters, but McGee is willing to just grind on an opponent if need be - he mostly won the Steele fight by neutralizing Steele for long blocks of time, but it didn't get too boring since the Utah faithful were behind him the whole way. And that's probably McGee's best path towards winning this fight - if he can just hold Saunders against the fence, he can win a boring decision, yet unlike a lot of strikers, taking down Saunders doesn't really work thanks to Saunders's aggressive submission game from the bottom. I actually could see this looking a lot like Saunders's fight against Kenny Robertson, where Robertson wrestled a lot, but Saunders just did a lot more while being controlled and took the close decision. Add in that Saunders probably has the advantage on the feet, and I'll say he takes a narrow decision, though I'm not really confident in this fight either way. John Moraga (16-5 overall, 5-4 UFC) vs. Sergio Pettis (14-2 overall, 5-2 UFC): Flyweight is weird, man. There's dominant champ Demetrious Johnson, a few contenders, and then just a whole lot of guys whose careers are going in a bunch of different directions, yet all have trouble separating themselves from each other. And this fight sort of fits that - the matchmaking is sort of thrown together and doesn't make much sense, as both guys missed more preferred bookings with injuries in late 2016, and hell, Moraga's even an injury replacement here, but it's also as natural a fight as any to make at 125 at the moment. I think we're at the point where we've accepted that Sergio Pettis isn't his brother - back when UFC signed him in 2013, he was just twenty years old and earmarked as a future star, since he was succeeding at both flyweight and bantamweight and came from the same stock as his brother Anthony, who by then was UFC lightweight champ and considered one of the top fighters in the sport. But Sergio's career has had some fits and starts, first at bantamweight and now down at 125, and in pretty much complete contrast to Anthony's hyper-athletic style built around flashy finishes, Pettis is just a fairly well-trained fundamental fighter, with a solid wrestling game and a striking game that rarely gets into second gear. So, weirdly, Pettis is somehow both sort of a disappointment and one of the better rising talents in the flyweight division, since he's still just twenty-three, and he gets what might be the toughest test of his career in John Moraga, who suddenly finds his back against the wall. When UFC first added flyweight, Moraga was an early standout in a thin division thanks to his grappling skill and knockout power, even earning a title shot in one of Johnson's first defenses, and from then on Moraga established himself as sort of a top-five to top-tennish gatekeeper - he was obviously one of the better fighters in the division, but against top contenders like John Dodson or Joseph Benavidez, Moraga was simply overmatched. After taking about a year off after a loss to Benavidez, Moraga returned for what figured to be a bit of a tune-up fight against Matheus Nicolau, but instead Moraga just looked fairly flat and fought fairly conservatively and just limped to a narrow decision loss. And that's pretty much the key thing in this fight - was that just a one-off awful performance for Moraga, or has he suddenly entered the decline phase of his career? I'll still put some faith in Moraga, since at his best he still has enough grappling skill to handle Pettis's wrestling and could actually knock him out on the feet, but this feels like a fight that has a bunch of questions leading up to it, but could be going in a pretty obvious direction as soon as the actual fight starts. So I'll say Moraga takes a decision, particularly since he should be motivated here since he's in need of a win and fighting in his hometown, but Pettis taking control of the fight immediately and winning from there wouldn't be too shocking. Augusto Mendes (5-1 overall, 0-1 UFC) vs. Frankie Saenz (10-4 overall, 3-2 UFC): A strange bit of matchmaking here at bantamweight, unless it's just a way for Frankie Saenz, a Phoenix native, to just get a bounce-back win at home. Saenz is a former Arizona State wrestler who was picked up when UFC was signing pretty much everyone in 2014, and as someone not particularly notable and in their mid-thirties, he's already exceeded expectations - Saenz first really got on the radar with a win over veteran Iuri Alcantara that was one of the biggest upsets in UFC history per betting odds, and capped off 2015 by showing quite well in a narrow decision loss to Urijah Faber. But now Saenz suddenly has his back against the wall - a knockout loss over last summer to the suddenly resurgent Eddie Wineland made it two straight losses, and while Saenz is a talented fighter, three in a row means he's probably being shown the door. So he'll look to get that crucial win against Augusto "Tanquinho" Mendes, who's being thrown into the fire a bit. Mendes was a blue-chip prospect when UFC signed him as a late-notice injury replacement, as he's a former world BJJ champion who had been progressing quite well in MMA for someone so raw, but that late-notice fight wound up being against Cody Garbrandt, and while Mendes survived well on the feet for a few minutes, he eventually got knocked out by the future bantamweight champ. So after about a year off, Mendes gets underdog duty here once more, and while it probably won't be as bad as the Garbrandt loss, I still think Saenz should win - at this point, he just has more of a well-rounded skillset and should be able to outbox Mendes rather easily for three rounds, with the caveat that Tanquinho's striking did look much improved even from his independent days to the Garbrandt fight, and he's had another year to improve. So yeah, Saenz by decision is the rather uninspiring pick, and I hope that UFC at least gives Mendes a third fight against someone easier, since he does look like one of the better raw talents in the division. Aleksei Oleinik (50-10-1 overall, 2-1 UFC, 1-1 Bellator) vs. Viktor Pesta (10-3 overall, 1-3 UFC): The first three fights announced for this card were all between European fighters at 205 and above, and while this isn't the bout's original incarnation (Oleinik is filling in for the injured Damian Grabowski), that doesn't make it any less weird. Aleksei Oleinik is a strange fighter to begin with - he has 61 fights over 20 years, and 40 of his 50 wins have come via submission. And that's pretty much his game - everyone knows one of a variety of chokes is coming, but Oleinik's such a massive bear of a man that it doesn't really matter, and he's been able to tap out foe after foe. He can trade a bit, too - Jared Rosholt dumbly decided to brawl with Oleinik in a late 2014 fight and got knocked out for his troubles, and Oleinik hasn't really capitalized on the momentum that win should've given him. Basically, Oleinik spent about two years on the shelf thanks to some botched knee surgeries, though he remained active during that time, as the gym he was running in his native Ukraine turned out to be a front for pro-Russian military forces, resulting in him being subsequently banned from the country. And as far as inside the cage, Oleinik didn't really impress in his comeback - against Daniel Omielanczuk, Oleinik had some success wrestling early, but gassed out and looked fairly horrible in pretty quick fashion en route to a decision loss. So, nearing forty, Oleinik probably has his back against the wall when it comes to his UFC tenure, and Czechia's Viktor Pesta is in the same boat. Pesta's most notable moment was probably during his lone UFC win over Konstantin Erokhin, where his corner memorably forced Pesta to repeat that he is a "takedown machine" in stilted English, and, well, that's pretty much an apt description. Pesta is purely a grinder, and it's earned him that win over Erokhin, and he's overperformed in losses to Ruslan Magomedov and Derrick Lewis, the latter of which he was winning rather handily with wrestling before Lewis put his lights out. But he mostly tried to box with Marcin Tybura during his last fight, and ate a highlight-reel head kick for his troubles. So, yeah, this is probably going to be fifteen minutes of large Eastern European men wrestling with each other, and I guess I'll favor Pesta via decision - I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Czech, and Oleinik looked so old in his last fight I think the end might be near for his career. But, unless Oleinik gets one of his signature chokes early and makes this a quick fight, this will probably be a fairly boring, drawn-out affair. Tony Martin (10-3 overall, 2-3 UFC) vs. Alex White (11-2 overall, 2-2 UFC): A solid enough fight here at lightweight between two evolving fighters, even though it's kind of like a welterweight fighting a featherweight. Minnesota's Tony Martin is pretty giant for lightweight, and he's shown the usual trade-offs for cutting so much weight - Martin's an effective grappler overall, but he'll inevitably tire out by sometime in round two, and often starts giving away fights late. Though, amusingly, even though Martin is a giant 155er at six feet tall, White is six feet tall and has fought most of his career at featherweight, where he's obviously had a massive size and length advantage. It didn't really give the Missourian much of an advantage, though, as he's run into a lot of trouble by relying on his size and athleticism rather than any actual strategy, but White's coming off the best performance of his career last February against Artem Lobov, where White actually used his reach to fight a smart fight and mixed in takedowns where needed. Still, I don't really see White having the strength or the tools to stop Martin from doing what he wants to do, and while there's a chance Martin can get a submission, I'll say Martin just mostly out-wrestles White en route to a one-sided decision. Drakkar Klose (6-0-1 overall) vs. Devin Powell (8-1 overall): This could be fun, as two debuting lightweights get a chance to show their stuff. Maine's Devin Powell is the latest guy to join the roster off of Dana White's YouTube reality show where he scouts talent, and Dana finally broke from his usual mold - instead of a projectible athlete, Powell is instead sort of a lanky scrapper who focuses on the finish but seems to have both power in his hands and some decent submission technique in a scramble. Powell was initially supposed to face Jordan Rinaldi, but with Rinaldi hurt, Drakkar Klose, a Michigan native who's been training in Arizona for a while, steps in to make his own UFC debut. Klose looks to be more of a powerhouse, scoring some knockouts in some 2015 fights I watched while showing some solid technique. This is really a pick 'em, but I liked what I saw on tape from Klose more, and that's with two fights in the ensuing year where he's had the chance to improve, so I'll pick Klose to win a decision victory. That said, Powell is the much taller, lankier fighter, and he's ridiculously tough - he fought back from a brutal broken nose to score the KO in his last fight - so a win either way wouldn't surprise me. Nina Ansaroff (6-5 overall, 0-2 UFC, 1-0 Invicta) vs. Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger (6-3 overall, 0-2 UFC, 1-0 Invicta): This should be a perfectly fine fight, but it says something about the depth of this card that the slot of Fight Pass headliner, which had seemingly becoming a priority in 2016, goes to this bout between two strawweights each seeking their first UFC win in their third UFC fight. Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger is the hometown fighter here, fighting out of Phoenix, and honestly, she hasn't really shown much in her two UFC fights - her late-notice debut against Tecia Torres was a tough ask, especially for someone who relies on their strength to bully around their opponents, but she didn't really look much better in the follow-up fight against Randa Markos; she looked a bit more comfortable when she was able to strike from a distance, but for the most part it was a sloppy decision loss in which neither woman looked all that great. On the other hand, at least Nina Ansaroff has shown some improvement over her UFC career, although she's had more time to do so and probably started from a much lower spot - Ansaroff just got out-wrestled by Juliana Lima in her late 2014 debut, but after missing all of 2015, showed some decent, high-output striking in a narrow decision loss to Justine Kish about a year ago. Jones-Lybarger should probably have more success here than in her last two fights since Ansaroff seems to the worst-equipped to deal with her grinding game, but I still pick Ansaroff to win a decision, since she's the higher-output fighter and really just plain impressed me more. Plus Ansaroff is the girlfriend of Amanda Nunes, so it can't hurt to have pillow talk with one of the best female fighters in the world. Walt Harris (8-5 overall, 1-4 UFC) vs. Chase Sherman (9-2 overall, 0-1 UFC): UFC keeps churning through heavyweights, and these two guys are currently on the lower tier, though this could be a pretty fun fight while it lasts. And hey, it's basketball versus football, as Walt Harris was a former basketball player at Jacksonville State, while Chase Sherman played football for Delta State. Anyway, both guys are top-level athletes, but have struggled to turn that into anything too productive, at least as of just yet. Harris is in his second UFC stint and hung around a while thanks to some layoffs in between fights, but he really has little to show for it, outside of a knockout win over Cody East - Harris seems to be well-trained technically by American Top Team, but he's just not aggressive enough for it to matter, doesn't seem to have that great a defensive game, and doesn't seem to have much in terms of wrestling either. So we just have a guy who can move well and can hit hard, but doesn't really do much of anything. On the plus side, I doubt Sherman will try to grapple with Harris at all - the Alan Belcher protege spent his pre-UFC career just piling up quick knockouts, and in his UFC debut, when Justin Ledet kept tagging him, Sherman's defensive strategy was just to talk more and more shit as Ledet just continued to punch him in the face. Questionable. Anyway, this fight is pretty much just a question of who hits the knockout shot, and while Sherman is the guy that still has potential, I'll pick Harris to score the second-round knockout, if only because I think he's the better technical fighter at this point, as long as he actually throws. This is a coin flip, though, and I'm not sure if I hope this somehow goes into a third round, as both guys will probably be hilariously exhausted. Joachim Christensen (13-4 overall, 0-1 UFC) vs. Bojan Mihajlovic (10-4 overall, 0-1 UFC): Well, this is certainly happening. When UFC decided to run a show in Croatia, I guess they decided they needed more ex-Yugoslavian fighters, so they signed Bojan Mihajlovic, who was one of the better heavyweights on a not-particularly-great Serbian scene. Mihajlovic, an undersized heavyweight who basically got by on trying to bull opponents down and throw volume from top, was set to be thrown to the wolves against Francis Ngannou, and when Mihajlovic was pulled from that fight due to undisclosed reasons, UFC just re-booked it for Chicago in July and Mihajlovic, as expected, got destroyed by Ngannou. Alright then. Meanwhile, Joachim Christensen's another late-thirties European, in this case from Denmark, and he showed some solid kickboxing but mostly looked uninspiring in a submission loss to Henrique da Silva this past October. I guess I'll go with Christensen here, and I guess via decision, since he seems to be the better fighter and should be able to just pick Mihajlovic apart for three rounds. But that's more a vote against Mihajlovic than any sort of confidence in Christensen, so if the Serbian just rushes him and gets a quick finish or something, it's not like that'd shock me either. Cyril Asker (7-2 overall, 0-1 UFC) vs. Dmitrii Smoliakov (8-1 overall, 0-1 UFC): I am not sure if this or Christensen/Mihajlovic is rock bottom. Cyril Asker's a Frenchman, but made his name in South Africa, and he showed pretty much nothing in his UFC debut - most South African fighters have trouble in the major leagues since their wrestling doesn't translate to a level where people can actually wrestle, and Asker didn't even get the chance to show that before getting knocked out in short order by Jared Cannonier. Meanwhile, Russia's Smoliakov came in with some hype, but put on a putrid performance against Luis Henrique, getting outwrestled, gassing out immediately, and basically looking helpless for about two rounds before getting tapped out. So, who knows - Smoliakov had a bunch of quick knockouts all over Russia, but it turns out that's about all he has the gas tank to do, while Asker's a wrestler who may not be able to wrestle, but might be facing someone who can't really wrestle either. Fun. Smoliakov by first-round knockout, I guess, but it's really up to both guys to just show something, anything this time around.

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