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writingsubmissions · 7 years ago

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Fights to Make: UFC Singapore

Holly Holm (beat Bethe Correia) vs. Liz Carmouche: Well, that was...something. At least Holm provided the lone highlight of the main card, kicking Bethe Correia’s head off after Correia prompted her to do something. But besides that...woof. This may been Holm’s most boring fight yet, as pretty much literally nothing happened until that third-round knockout. Horrifyingly, Holm may actually be in line for a title shot given the state of things - she has the highest name value of anyone left in the division, Sara McMann already has a fight booked, and it’s really just Raquel Pennington left as the only other obvious contender - but I’m not willing to go that far just yet. But...jeez, what else do you do with Holm? There are fights like Julianna Pena or Cat Zingano, who are coming off losses, and Holm/Pennington’s already been done, so...let’s go with Liz Carmouche, even though in the real world, it doesn’t appear Holm’s management wants her anywhere near someone who can wrestle.

Rafael dos Anjos (beat Tarec Saffiedine) vs. Jorge Masvidal: Dos Anjos’s welterweight debut was one of the highlights of the main card, at least relatively - it wasn’t a particularly great fight, and kind of ugly, but the former lightweight champ looked good and should be at least be a top ten or so fighter in the division at worst. There’s really no sense in wasting time trying to move dos Anjos up the ladder in his new division, so I’d do a fight with Masvidal next; it’s probably the best way to immediately establish dos Anjos as a contender, since Masvidal is also lightweight-sized and my main concern for RDA is when he faces some of the more giant guys at welterweight.

Colby Covington (beat Dong Hyun Kim) vs. Kamaru Usman: Well, Colby Covington won, at least. It was absolutely unwatchable - Covington is a relentless wrestler and damn good at it, but as he’s started facing decent competition, it feels less and less like we’re getting anywhere, as Covington is unable to work for a finish. But I’m not sure who the guy is who can shut down Covington’s wrestling - let’s try Usman, who’s currently the top rising welterweight in the company. Usman’s had a similar run up the ranks, dominating people with his wrestling, but he’s at least shown some vicious striking to go along with that in his last few fights. Ideally, I’d hope for Usman to get a big win and try and convince Covington to develop a more well-rounded game, but if Covington can use his wrestling to get through Usman, shit, good on him.

Bethe Correia (lost to Holly Holm) vs. Cat Zingano: I’m not sure what Bethe Correia did in a past life to be reincarnated as a human meme, but she lost in embarrassing fashion once again, taunting Holly Holm to do something and then immediately getting her head kicked in. Correia’s complete lack of athleticism just gives her a clear ceiling, even though she does have some smart gameplanning, so I don’t really know where you go from here. Cat Zingano needs a win. Cat Zingano can probably beat Bethe Correia at this point, unless her game is completely broken. So Bethe Correia it is!

Dong Hyun Kim (lost to Colby Covington) vs. Ryan LaFlare/Alex Oliveira (Jul. 22) winner: Kim’s been a stalwart of the welterweight top ten for years now, but this loss to Covington suggested that he may be aging into more of a gatekeeper role at this point. Whoever wins the fight in Long Island between LaFlare and Oliveira deserves a ranked opponent, and have enough strength and/or straight-ahead wrestling to provide a similar test to Covington, so Kim’s as solid a choice as any for that winner to break through against.

Marcin Tybura (beat Andrei Arlovski) vs. Walt Harris (beat Cyril Asker): Hm. Marcin Tybura got what, on paper, was a big win over Andrei Arlovski, but it wasn’t all that great in practice - Tybura abandoned his recent striking gains and just went back to his old wrestling-heavy game, which worked like a charm, even if it wasn’t all that exciting. So there’s not a ton that suggests Tybura is a future contender, even if he is really good. You could move him up the ladder if you wanted to, but instead I’ll put him against Harris, who’s a more interesting prospect; I’m not entirely sure Harris has finally figured things out, but as a 34-year old athlete, his time is now and he’s looked good thus far in the year, so Tybura’s a solid fight for Harris to see if he can become a thing while the opportunity is ripe.

Ulka Sasaki (beat Justin Scoggins) vs. Ben Nguyen: Welp. That was something. Justin Scoggins continues to Justin Scoggins, dominating a fight before getting choked out, and Ulka Sasaki was the beneficiary in this case. Sasaki’s such a fascinating prospect because he somehow makes 125 while still being 5′11″, and he has the slick submission skills he showed off here. Nguyen probably deserves a bigger fight, and I liked Nguyen/Scoggins as a rising contender fight if Scoggins would’ve just won the damn thing, but Sasaki/Nguyen is a fun, scrambly matchup that could fit in on an Asian card.

Andrei Arlovski (lost to Marcin Tybura) vs. Mark Godbeer: Well, I don’t think Andrei Arlovski can get a win that matters anymore - this was a good matchup, since Tybura’s on the slow side and doesn’t have much knockout power, but Arlovski still mostly got out-wrestled en route to a flat loss. Ideally, retirement would be next for Arlovski at this point, or UFC may just cut him coming off five straight losses (though Bellator would gladly have him) - of people on the roster, I guess Godbeer is the most winnable fight that wouldn’t be too sad, as he’s an undersized guy as well, but doesn’t have near the wrestling Tybura does.

Tarec Saffiedine (lost to Rafael dos Anjos) vs. Leon Edwards: Saffiedine’s UFC run continues to be kind of blah - he’s technically sound, but not particularly imposing, and tends to try and neutralize opponents rather than offer much resistance; and even then, Saffiedine doesn’t really seem to neutralize high-level opponents enough to actually get a win. Saffiedine’s at the point where I feel like there should be one of those fights we’ve seen a lot more of lately, between a veteran trying to avoid his worst loss and a prospect trying to get his best win, and I like British prospect Leon Edwards, a well-rounded athlete, as a fight for Saffiedine in that vein.

Justin Scoggins (lost to Ulka Sasaki) vs. Louis Smolka: Oh, Justin Scoggins. The shame of it is that he’s a good wrestler, but as soon as he started grappling with Ulka Sasaki, it was pretty much inevitable that he’d dominate until getting tapped out, which is exactly what he did. Sigh. Scoggins is an excellent prospect with a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and I have no idea what you do with him at this point, given that he’s also been around long enough to face a lot of his fellow mid-tier flyweights. I guess go with Smolka? I feel bad, since Smolka’s on a losing streak of his own and needs a win, but it’d be a solid fight and an opportunity to see if Scoggins can actually not find himself getting choked out against someone who can do so.

Alex Caceres (beat Rolando Dy) vs. Kyle Bochniak/Jeremy Kennedy (Jul. 22) winner: Alex Caceres remains impossible to figure out, as he looked good here, even if part of that was an exceptionally poor performance from Dy. Anyway, Caceres is fairly settled into an action gatekeeper spot, so he’d be a good next fight for either Bochniak or Kennedy, depending on which prospect wins on the Long Island card, to keep moving up the ranks.

Russell Doane (beat Kwan Ho Kwak) vs. Tom Duquesnoy: Doane’s a talented fighter who’s been hurt by some tough matchmaking, so it was nice to see him hang on the UFC roster in what was certainly his last shot by starching top Korean prospect Kwak. So, let’s throw him back in the deep end! Tom Duquesnoy’s the consensus best prospect in all of MMA, and Doane’s the perfect step up for his next UFC fight.

Jingliang Li (beat Frank Camacho) vs. Luke Jumeau: Li remains the one good Chinese fighter, and fun as hell, though the first round of this fight with Camacho showed his flaws as far as being able to get rocked early. So, yeah, Li’s pretty much a fun mid-tier fighter to try and put in exciting brawls, and Luke Jumeau, who made a successful debut in his native New Zealand last week, has some solid potential for a fight like that.

Lucie Pudilova (beat Ji Yeon Kim) vs. Lauren Murphy: I didn’t think she won, but Pudilova’s fight with Ji Yeon Kim was close enough that her getting the nod wasn’t a robbery - plus it assures a fun fighter stays on the roster. Pudilova against Lauren Murphy would be a fun fight between two hard-nosed competitors, so let’s do that.

Naoki Inoue (beat Carls John de Tomas) vs. Eric Shelton/Jarred Brooks (Jul. 29) winner: So, Naoki Inoue is fairly awesome - it’s hard not to look at his long frame and ridiculous ability to transition submissions and see him developing into, at worst, a flyweight version of, say, Charles Oliveira. But I have no idea where you go next, since UFC’s flyweight division is fairly thin and pretty much entirely a shark tank. So ideally UFC would just have him face a newcomer, but of anyone on the roster, I suppose go with the winner of the Shelton/Brooks fight at UFC 214, since those guys are as low on the totem pole as anyone.

Ji Yeon Kim (lost to Lucie Pudilova) vs. Cindy Dandois: Like countrywoman Chan Mi Jeon the week before, South Korea’s Kim fought her smartest fight yet in her UFC debut, abandoning the relentless wrestling game I’d seen in the past and instead flashing a surprisingly excellent boxing game. Still, she surprisingly lost the decision, so let’s get back on the horse and put her against Cindy Dandois. This could be a fun fight if it goes to the ground, but Dandois is, to put it simply, a god-awful striker, so Kim should be able to win this on the feet.

Jon Tuck (beat Takanori Gomi) vs. Devin Powell/Darrell Horcher (Jun. 25) winner: Well, Jon Tuck got a first round finish of Takanori Gomi, which was nice in that it kept Tuck on the roster, but it really just says more about how shot Gomi is at this point. Tuck’s purely a lower level guy until he shows any signs of his game clicking, so let’s put him against the winner of a pink-slip derby against Powell and Horcher next week, since that’ll be a fun lower-level fight where maybe someone can show something.

Takanori Gomi (lost to Jon Tuck) vs. Joe Ellenberger: As for Gomi, he should retire or at least be back in Japan crushing cans or something. The lightweight legend can’t take a punch anymore, and there’s no obvious one-dimensional submission specialist in the lower ranks of the division who just won’t punch Gomi in the face. Joe Ellenberger hasn’t fought since 2014, so he may be retired, but...I have no other options. I have no options! Gomi fights just make me sad.

Frank Camacho (lost to Jingliang Li) vs. Charlie Ward/Galore Bofando (Jul. 16) loser: I don’t know how much success Camacho will have in the UFC, but I hope he sticks around, since he’s a fun, undersized brawler. Conor McGregor teammate Charlie Ward - who is not good - is facing newcomer Galore Bofando on the Glasgow card, as UFC tries to find someone for Ward to beat, so whoever loses that, Camacho would make for a fun scrap against ‘em.

Cyril Asker (lost to Walt Harris) vs. Jarjis Danho: Asker’s pretty much just cannon fodder - he’s not bad or anything, but he’s not particularly big, he’s not particularly athletic, and that’s a problem with a game more focused on finishing things on the ground than anything. Jarjis Danho is massive but not particularly good, and has negative cardio, so Asker/Danho could just be a weird, entertaining trash fire, which I’m down for.

Kwan Ho Kwak (lost to Russell Doane) vs. Andre Soukhamthath: Kwak’s loss to Doane was a bit disappointing - Kwak’s an elite athlete, but just tries to out-athlete his way out of any tough situations, which got him knocked out when Doane was able to corner him. Hopefully Kwak gets a third UFC chance, and if it does, Soukhamthath, a Laotian-American fighter who had a fun UFC debut loss against Albert Morales, would make for a fun fight.

Carls John de Tomas (lost to Naoki Inoue) vs. Jenel Lausa: It was a one-sided loss, but de Tomas did well to survive against Inoue, although he’s also in the same boat as his opponent - I like them both as prospects, but don’t see an obvious winnable fight going forward on the roster. Let’s put de Tomas against Filipino countryman Lausa, an undersized boxer, since he’s one of the few lower-tier guys I think de Tomas could beat.

Rolando Dy (lost to Alex Caceres) vs. Patrick Williams: I liked Dy’s pre-UFC tape, but this was very much a “8-4 Filipino fighter” performance, as Dy got punched in the eye early and just mostly got dominated by Caceres, showing little in the process. Patrick Williams is apparently moving up to featherweight - that’s a fine lower-level action fight where hopefully Dy can show off some of his skills.

#ufcsingapore #ufc singapore #ufc fight night 111 #ufcfightnight111 #ufn 111 #ufn111 #ufc #mma #matchmaking

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writingsubmissions · 8 years ago

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UFC 211 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, the Fight Night card from Nashville was pretty weird, though moreso in retrospect, since enough impressive performances were peppered throughout the card that things never really dragged all that much, despite some clear lowlights on the card. The main event between Cub Swanson and Artem Lobov wasn't one of those lowlights, but it was pretty weird, and I'm not exactly sure how to feel about it, since Lobov hung in there for twenty-five minutes and actually looked kind of good at times, considering. Swanson was clearly the better fighter, but Lobov threw a bunch of volume and whenever it looked like Swanson was finally ramping things up to put Lobov away, the Irish-Russian would land some solid blows and gain back a bit of momentum. So this fight really did more for Lobov than for Swanson - while there seemed to be some momentum behind Swanson after that fight of the year contender over Doo Ho Choi, not being able to put away Lobov just sort of confirms that Swanson's sort of the best of the non-contenders rather than someone who can provide a challenge for the belt. Meanwhile, this probably took Lobov from, say, a guy who should be a gatekeeper to stay in the UFC from someone who can be a gatekeeper for actual prospects - though I worry an impressive performance here means, given his friendship with Conor McGregor, that we're going to see Lobov in undeserved big fights from here on out. *And the co-main was a little from column A, a little from column B when it comes to combining an impressive performance with some weirdness. Al Iaquinta pretty much picked up where he left off, knocking out Diego Sanchez in about a minute and a half (side-note - while Sanchez has been more offensively potent than he has been in a while, his chin being so done means he should probably retire pretty much immediately, even though he won't), and then after the fight seemed more interested in plugging his real estate business rather than any future fights, so...yeah. Iaquinta's already openly feuding with UFC management again and, while not outright retiring again, doesn't seem like he'll be fighting again anytime soon - but more on that a bit further down. *Let's address all the impressive performances first, led by Mike Perry, who's quickly becoming a problematic fave. Perry's essentially the human embodiment of Florida and sort of a garbage person, but he can crack - he was having some trouble early on with Jake Ellenberger, but as soon as Perry got into a groove, it was all over in brutal fashion, as Perry got into the clinch and destroyed Ellenberger with an elbow that made for one of the scariest knockouts of 2017. And then he breakdanced. This guy. Joe Lauzon and Stevie Ray had one of the best fights of the night - Lauzon exposed the main flaw in Ray's game, taking him down and dominating things on the ground in the first round, but the longtime vet tired out and from there Ray pretty much took over, turning things around and dominating the third round on the feet. Ray got the decision win and gave a pretty charismatic post-fight interview after the fact, and he's already booked for a fight against Paul Felder in his native Scotland that should be a firecracker of a bout. On the undercard, Mexico's Brandon Moreno is quickly rising up the ranks at flyweight once more - Tennessee native Dustin Ortiz was doing quite well controlling him with wrestling and clinch-work, but Moreno nailed one big kick and then immediately jumped onto the fight-ending choke. Moreno's exciting and has a ton of charisma, and he should be given some pretty big fights next to see how far he can take this, even though this probably sadly ends with him being rushed into a fight with Demetrious Johnson due to a lack of other options. And the other two impressive performances kicked off the card, as rugged welterweight Bryan Barberena scored an uncharacteristic first-round knockout over Joe Proctor, and a fun flyweight sprint to open the show saw Team Alpha Male product Hector Sandoval knock out Matt Schnell with some hammerfists on the ground. *And then there was the rest of the card. There were two more fights that were alright - Ovince St. Preux got back on track, tapping out Marcos Rogerio de Lima as soon as de Lima gassed, and Tennessee's Scott Holtzman got a workmanlike win over Michael McBride to stay afloat - and then a few absolute stinkers. I suppose the best of that bunch was Danielle Taylor beating Jessica Penne at strawweight - this was Penne's best performance since one-sided beatdowns at the hands of Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Jessica Andrade, who square off for the title on Saturday - but Taylor's slowly starting to figure out how to make her style work in the UFC. Taylor's absolutely tiny and packs a bunch of power, so she just sort of circles at a distance and divebombs in with combinations, which threw Penne off enough that she was able to win a narrow decision. A bantamweight fight between John Dodson and Eddie Wineland was the huge disappointment on the card, as this was the worst of Dodson - he was just too fast for Wineland to do much of anything, so Dodson just sort of did just enough to coast to a boring victory, pretty much undoing all the gains he had done in looking fairly aggressive since moving up to 135. Thales Leites and Sam Alvey was another bad fight - Leites injured Alvey's ankle fairly early on with some leg kicks, which prevented Alvey from effectively pressuring and just let Leites coast to an ugly win. And Alexis Davis and Cindy Dandois had just a gong show of a fight at women's bantamweight - Dandois is a talented submission artist, so the scrambles on the ground weren't that bad, but she got exposed as, by far, the worst striker in the UFC here and the whole thing was just uncomfortably bad to watch. Ick. *So, yeah, Al Iaquinta. Apparently the reason he seemed so unenthused after his fight is that according to him, after seeing Ellenberger get knocked out so brutally on the monitors backstage, Iaquinta pretty much reconsidered if this whole fighting thing was worth the effort, and almost left the arena. And then things went completely to hell after Iaquinta wasn't awarded a post-fight bonus (though, admittedly, Perry and Moreno were probably the right choices), as Iaquinta cursed out the UFC, management, and has pretty much been going off on Twitter in the weeks since, declaring himself President of the UFC and throwing barbs at Dana White and guys like Sage Northcutt. The whole thing essentially stems back to Iaquinta being on bonus probation (which nobody realized was a thing until Iaquinta brought it up) from a number of incidents, like Iaquinta trashing a hotel room and skipping out on a fighters' meeting in Las Vegas, though Iaquinta claims he told the company about the latter in advance. But the real messiness came when Iaquinta needed knee surgery - Iaquinta claimed it was chronic and dated back to his days on TUF, and thus should be covered by the UFC's insurance policy, but UFC (or, according to them, the insurers) pushed back, and things got really messy from there. An unnamed UFC official who is almost surely Dana White tried to throw Iaquinta under the bus this past week, saying that he didn't even thank UFC or the doctors once he got the surgery, which...really, we're going there? Anyway, it's not like anyone on either side of this argument is consistent, so we'll probably see Iaquinta back in the cage at some point, but right now, it's a mess. *And speaking of messes when it comes to fighter relations, Anderson Silva's UFC 212 fight turned into a bit of a disaster, and now it's off. About a week ago, Silva came out and said that he wanted an interim title fight with Yoel Romero on the card, or else he would retire. Apparently UFC had offered him a bunch of different opponents that Silva all turned down - Luke Rockhold was confirmed as one, and the latest rumor was Ovince St. Preux at a 195-pound catchweight for some reason - so it's not all their fault, but they decided not to give in to Silva's demands, and now it appears he's off the card, though him retiring still seems fairly unlikely. Middleweight's just become a mess, particularly with Georges St. Pierre filming a (frankly uninspiring) callout video of Michael Bisping that says he's ready to fight him...sometime after October, which one assumes will be UFC's return to Madison Square Garden in November. So we have to wait even longer for a fight nobody really wants to see beyond it being GSP's return, and we're getting a belt with a ton of contenders held up in the process, causing an absolute chaos in a division. Great. For better or for worse, this'll probably be the long-lasting influence of Conor McGregor - as the guy who showed fighters their own worth and how to get paid. Add in the rise of McGregor happening just as UFC ownership cashed out and showed that the promoters are, in fact, not the friend of the fighters, and it's just been a toxic combination for fighter relations at a time when UFC needs big fights to happen. Sigh. *Ronda Rousey and Travis Browne have apparently gotten engaged. Hopefully it goes better than Browne's last marriage. *ESPN laid off about a hundred employees a few weeks back, as it looks like the sports bubble is finally bursting, which should have some effects on UFC business. WME-IMG bought the company at a premium, assuming a few different things - one, that buyrates would stay at their current levels thanks to Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey (whoops), and cashing it on UFC's next TV rights deal. Live sports are still the big ticket items in the cable world, since they're one of the few DVR-proof things out there, but as more and more people live without cable, it's making a lot of these expensive long-term deals somewhat untenable. When UFC's deal with Fox comes due at the end of next year, they'll still be the biggest property on the market, but it's unclear now what that's worth - UFC banked that they'd be able to be the last big property to get a TV deal before the bubble burst, but instead it looks like they'll be the first one to get a deal under this new landscape. They may still get bigger money out of the deal - maybe even enough to eventually shift UFC's big money source from pay-per-view to TV rights fees - but if ESPN can't pony up the cash, it'll be tough to ignite a bidding war that can cause a huge windfall for the new ownership. *TUF 26 has a point! UFC is officially adding women's flyweight, which I have mixed feelings about - on the one hand, it's the women's division to add, since there's a bunch of talent currently on the roster and available from Invicta, even if Bellator has gotten a bit of a head start, but on the other, at a time when the belts are getting rapidly devalued, adding yet another championship is probably an iffy move. But TUF 20, crowning the first women's strawweight champion, was a pretty great season, so hopefully TUF 26 does the same thing to get 125 off to a good start. *Miguel Torres retired, ending what's probably going to wind up being an underrated and somewhat forgotten career given how suddenly he dropped off the radar. Urijah Faber gets all the credit for starring in WEC and basically making weight classes under 155 viable, but Torres was right there with him, reigning over bantamweight while Faber reigned over featherweight. There was always talk of a dream match between the two, but it never materialized after Faber lost his title to Mike Brown. After winning an instant classic over Takeya Mizugaki, Torres suddenly went from champion to out of the title picture, losing his title in a shocking knockout loss to Brian Bowles, then getting tapped out by Joseph Benavidez for only his second and third losses in a forty-fight MMA career. Then came his UFC career, which frankly wasn't much - his most notable fights were losses to Demetrious Johnson and Michael McDonald, the latter in an obvious attempt to make a name for a talented prospect, and then Torres got cut for a misguided tweet about a "rape van" that was honestly almost too unfunny to really be offensive, particularly given that other UFC fighters have said or done much worse. But even though the reason was kind of eh, UFC cut him at the right time, since Torres signed with WSOF and washed out of it soon after, then just kind of bummed it around his native Indiana and the occasional fight in Asia before calling it a career. Farewell to one of the best mullets in the game. *Things got a bit weird between Brian Stann and Cris Cyborg - essentially, in a radio interview, Stann seemingly confirmed a lot of the whispers going around about Cyborg - that she basically never really made a good faith effort to try and cut down to 135, as her and UFC both agreed to, and a lot of the stuff about her ditching promotional stuff that UFC would throw her way, then complain about how UFC doesn't promote her. In response, Cyborg (or whoever runs her Twitter account - probably her boyfriend/manager Ray Elbe) posted a thing about Stann not liking Brazilians because he got knocked out by Wanderlei Silva, which...not the best look going after the war hero there. *Let's do some quick hits to finish things up. UFC finally signed former WSOF lightweight champ Justin Gaethje, who immediately becomes one of the best action fighters on the roster. It'll be interesting to see how they book him - they could easily throw him right into the fire, but it'll be interesting to see how Gaethje's all-offense no-defense style plays with a step up in competition. Kelvin Gastelum has been suspended for a few months and had his win over Vitor Belfort overturned to a no contest after failing a pot test. The fact that this happened, but Belfort was never flagged while fighting in Brazil, just kind of makes you laugh, then cry. Frank Mir got the full two-year suspension for doping stemming from his March 2016 loss to Mark Hunt - Mir's excuse that it must have been tainted meat or something fell apart once USADA improved their technology and was able to see that samples going back a few months before also tested positive for the drug in question - whoops. Former bantamweight champ Renan Barao is dropping back down to 135 after a two-fight experience at featherweight. And Paige VanZant posted a sexy video on Twitter to sell some Reebok stuff, and then everyone basically got all weird about it and shamed her into taking it down, because that is what MMA fans and humans do. ------ BOOKINGS: *Not a ton of big stuff, save three title fights seemingly getting confirmed for July...kind of. It looks like the long-awaited Jon Jones/Daniel Cormier rematch is a go for UFC 214, which is in Anaheim at the tail end of June - the ball was previously in Jones's court if he wanted that fight or a tune-up match, but he's apparently chose to get his title back as soon as possible. Apparently the co-main of that fight will be Cris Cyborg against...somebody. Women's featherweight champ Germaine de Randamie is apparently going through some issues - there's the ongoing saga of her hand injury, plus apparently she has some problems involving fighting while serving as a police officer in her native Netherlands, so there's apparently the option that UFC may sign Invicta champ Megan Anderson and we get an interim title fight in a three-person division. And the women's bantamweight title fight between Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko, a rematch of the bout that got Nunes the title shot, is taking place on the big UFC 213 show after a few false starts - hell, given how things are shaping up, it may actually wind up being the main event. *Let's go event by event! UFC 212 has apparently lost Anderson Silva, so instead it'll get the retirement fight of Vitor Belfort, who takes on Nate Marquardt in what could conceivably be a retirement fight for both. Belfort's apparently training with Tristar in Montreal for this camp, which comes absolutely out of nowhere, but hey, Vitor's gonna Vitor. That card also adds a few undercard fights - bantamweights Iuri Alcantara and Felipe Arantes square off in a weird fight to make, given that it's a rematch and Alcantara is coming off a big win over Luke Sanders, while Arantes is coming off a loss, and action welterweight Luan Chagas returns to take on British vet Jim Wallhead, who showed little in his UFC debut this past September. *The Oklahoma City card weirdly hasn't gotten any additional fights, but a few undercard bouts have been added to the other June cards from Auckland and Singapore. Auckland adds three bouts - local fighter Luke Jumeau makes his debut against Dominique Steele, who after facing Court McGee in Utah, is apparently slotted as the guy who has to fly in and take on the hometown fighter. Also, Brazilian prospect Warlley Alves looks to rebound against Japanese vet Kiichi Kunimoto, returning from a two-plus-year layoff, and France's Thibault Gouti did in fact apparently negotiate another UFC fight in exchange for fighting an opponent who missed weight, as he takes his 0-3 record to New Zealand against "The Other" Dong Hyun Kim. As for Singapore, Jingliang Li, the one decent Chinese fighter UFC has been able to find, has re-signed with the promotion and will take on Quebec's Jonathan Meunier. Though, sadly, the Auckland card just apparently lost a big name, as Joseph Benavidez has announced he's hurt and out of his fight against Australian favorite Ben Nguyen. The hope was this was just something minor, which could clear the way for Benavidez, the deserving contender, to just get a third shot at Demetrious Johnson instead, but apparently it's an ACL tear that will keep Benavidez out of action for quite a while, which is fairly shitty. *The TUF 25 finale, which takes place the day before UFC 213, has added a bunch of fights, though nothing that figures to be too prominent on the card. The best of the bunch is probably British prospect Marc Diakiese, who's quickly establishing himself as maybe the rising lightweight to watch, taking on Drakkar Klose, who had a successful UFC debut over Devin Powell in January. Past that, we have Steve Bosse and Jared Cannonier squaring off in a battle of light heavyweight bangers, Angela Hill taking on Ashley Yoder at strawweight, Jessica Eye looking to stay afloat in UFC against debuting top prospect Aspen Ladd, and vets Ed Herman and C.B. Dollaway squaring off at light heavyweight. *Speaking of UFC 213, it added a few fights - past some stuff that was already rumored but just got officially announced, and the Nunes/Shevchenko fight mentioned above, Anthony Pettis and Jim Miller square off in a really fun fight between name lightweights, as Pettis looks to have a successful return to the division he was once champion of. Plus Thiago Santos and Gerald Meerschaert square off at middleweight in a pretty solid striker-versus-grappler match. *The card from Glasgow has had by far the most stuff announced, though no big fights yet - though I suppose there's a chance they put Stevie Ray, probably the best Scottish fighter in the promotion, against Paul Felder in the co-main event slot based off local interest. Past that bout, there's some fun stuff - light heavyweight Paul Craig, the only other Scot announced thus far for the card, takes on Khalil Rountree in a pretty neat grappler/striker fight. Both of UFC's Welsh fighters return - top bantamweight prospect Brett Johns gets a tough test in Canada's Mitch Gagnon, and Jack Marshman takes on Ryan Janes in what should be a fun middleweight bout. Ireland's Neil Seery will hopefully finally have his retirement fight, as it's fallen through twice, when he faces rising Brazilian Alexandre Pantoja. England's Mark Godbeer takes on Justin Willis at heavyweight, action welterweights Danny Roberts and Bobby Nash square off, and Conor McGregor teammate Charlie Ward is also on the card, as UFC continues to search for someone he can beat - so step right up British kickboxer Galore Bofando, if that is your real name. *And that leaves the Fox card from Long Island, which only has one fight confirmed thus far, and it's an awesome one, between top bantamweight prospects Jimmie Rivera and Thomas Almeida in what should be an excellent bit of violence. Past that, local boy Chris Wade takes on Jersey's Frankie Perez at lightweight, and rumored light heavyweight bout between Gian Villante and Steve Bosse was half-right - Bosse is instead facing Jared Cannonier in Vegas, as mentioned, and Villante is instead taking on Patrick Cummins, in a fight originally scheduled for the Albany card this past December. *Oh, and UFC announced one more location for a card in 2017, as the promotion will be making their debut in Edmonton on September 9th, for UFC 216. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Scott Askham (14-4 overall, 2-4 UFC, last fought 3/18/17, L vs. Brad Scott): There's really not a ton to say about Askham, as the Doncaster native wound up being a fine fighter, if a bit of a disappointing prospect. Askham came up as one of the best prospects in England who could do a little bit of everything, so there was some hype behind him when he debuted, but he just wound up being sort of an average fighter everywhere once he got to the UFC level. He handled lower-level guys like Antonio dos Santos and Chris Dempsey rather easily, but most of his fights were just kind of fun, if completely unmemorable affairs, that in a few cases easily could've gone either way. Askham's still just 28, and UFC still cares about England, so a return wouldn't be shocking, but if not, there's a solid career on the European circuit waiting for him. 2) Joe Proctor (11-5 overall, 4-4 UFC, last fought 4/22/17, L vs. Bryan Barberena): UFC brought the axe down pretty quickly on Proctor, given that he just lost on the Nashville card. The Boston native is sort of the American version of Askham, in that he was a jack of all trades, master of none type that never really had any standout performances, but was usually good for a fun fight and could handle guys that didn't really belong on the UFC roster. With some better matchmaking, Proctor easily could've kept hanging around, but Magomed Mustafaev and Bryan Barberena were two tough asks, so it's not a surprise Proctor lost two straight and then got cut. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 5/28 - UFC Fight Night 109 - Stockholm, Sweden - Alexander Gustafsson vs. Glover Teixeira 6/3 - UFC 212 - Rio De Janeiro, Brazil - Jose Aldo ( c ) vs. Max Holloway (ic), Claudia Gadelha vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Vitor Belfort vs. Nate Marquardt 6/10 - UFC Fight Night 110 - Auckland, New Zealand - Mark Hunt vs. Derrick Lewis, Derek Brunson vs. Daniel Kelly 6/17 - UFC Fight Night 111 - Singapore, Singapore - Bethe Correia vs. Holly Holm, Colby Covington vs. Dong Hyun Kim, Rafael dos Anjos vs. Tarec Saffiedine 6/25 - UFC Fight Night 112 - Oklahoma City, OK - Michael Chiesa vs. Kevin Lee, B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver, Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks, Ilir Latifi vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira 7/7 - TUF 25 Finale - Las Vegas, NV - Brad Tavares vs. Elias Theodorou, Steve Bosse vs. Jared Cannonier 7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Cody Garbrandt ( c ) vs. T.J. Dillashaw, Amanda Nunes ( c ) vs. Valentina Shevchenko, Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler, Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum 7/16 - UFC Fight Night 113 - Glasgow, Scotland - Paul Felder vs. Stevie Ray 7/22 - UFC on Fox 25 - Uniondale, NY - Chan Sung Jung vs. Ricardo Lamas, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones ----- UFC 211 - May 13, 2017 - American Airlines Center - Dallas, Texas Well, this is a pleasant surprise. It's been kind of a blah year thus far in UFC, and I'm not exactly sure why the company decided to make this May card such a big one, but it's amazingly seemingly held together, and the results are fairly ridiculous. Not only do we get two title fights, there's six fights here that could easily headline a card themselves, fairly consistent with when UFC really goes out of their way to stack a card huge. And this card isn't just stacked in quality, but also quantity - they've tried it a few times over the years, but this might be the card where UFC puts on 14 fights, which would be the most since UFC 2. Crazy stuff, in pretty much every aspect, so sit back and enjoy the ride. MAIN CARD (Pay-Per-View - 10:00 PM ET): Heavyweight Championship: ( C ) Stipe Miocic vs. (#4) Junior dos Santos Women's Strawweight Championship: ( C ) Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs. (#3) Jessica Andrade Welterweight: (#3) Demian Maia vs. (#5) Jorge Masvidal Featherweight: (#2) Frankie Edgar vs. (#7) Yair Rodriguez Flyweight: (#2) Henry Cejudo vs. (#6) Sergio Pettis PRELIMINARY CARD (FX - 8:00 PM ET): Lightweight: (#3) Eddie Alvarez vs. (#9) Dustin Poirier Featherweight: Jason Knight vs. Chas Skelly Middleweight: (#9) Krzysztof Jotko vs. Dave Branch Lightweight: Polo Reyes vs. James Vick PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:00 PM ET): Women's Strawweight: (#12) Jessica Aguilar vs. Cortney Casey Featherweight: Jared Gordon vs. Michel Quinones Heavyweight: Rashad Coulter vs. Chase Sherman Featherweight: Enrique Barzola vs. Gabriel Benitez Light Heavyweight: Gadzhimurad Antigulov vs. Joachim Christensen THE RUNDOWN: Stipe Miocic (16-2 overall, 10-2 UFC) vs. Junior dos Santos (18-4 overall, 12-3 UFC): For as much of an aging mess that the heavyweight division has become, title fights in the division as still pretty fun, and this should be no exception, particularly since these have already squared off in a really fun fight back in late 2014, which saw dos Santos get a narrow victory. That was the last loss for Cleveland's Stipe Miocic, who's been a pretty neat little story as he's ascended towards the title. Although he was pretty much always regarded as a top prospect at heavyweight, I don't think I was alone when I didn't really see a championship-level ceiling for Miocic as he rose up the ranks, and a 2012 knockout loss to Stefan Struve, of all people, seemingly cemented that. But Miocic plugged away, improving with win after win, and after narrowly losing that first war against dos Santos, he pretty much turned into a knockout machine, laying a beatdown on Mark Hunt and obliterating Andrei Arlovski before heading down to Brazil and unseating Fabricio Werdum in his own hometown. And Miocic's first title defense over Alistair Overeem was a pretty great moment - Miocic has been embraced by his hometown since winning the title in a city starved for championships (though the Cavaliers did soon overshadow that, though Miocic did take part in their championship parade), so UFC decided to run a card in Cleveland built around Miocic, and after a crazy brawl, the hometown crowd got sent home happy after Miocic scored the first-round KO. Since then, it's been kind of a mess finding Miocic a challenger - Cain Velasquez is always hurt, Fabricio Werdum is feuding with management at the moment, so UFC decided to go with the last guy to beat Miocic, and so Junior dos Santos gets the shot. It's been a weird few years for dos Santos, who seemingly cemented himself as the best heavyweight on the planet after a 64-second knockout of Cain Velasquez on UFC's debut on Fox, all the way back in 2011. But Velasquez absolutely dominated the next two fights of the trilogy, with the last fight being such a beatdown that many worried it was going to shorten dos Santos's career. And for a while, those people looked like they were right - the Brazilian took over a year to return for his fight with Miocic, in which he took a ton of damage, and then after another year-long layoff, dos Santos returned and got brutally knocked out by Overeem, the first clean KO loss of his career. It looked like dos Santos was rapidly falling from the ranks of the elite, so of course things turned completely around with his next fight, as dos Santos pretty much put on a virtuoso performance in keeping Ben Rothwell at bay for five rounds, suddenly re-establishing himself as a top contender. UFC tried to book a few fights for JDS in the interim, most notably a February fight with Struve that fell through, so as things have shaken out, dos Santos has gone through another year-plus layoff before fighting here. And this should be another fun one, as pretty much all dos Santos fights are - the challenger's as pure of a boxer as you'll find, and combine that with his takedown defense and the power that heavyweight brings, and you'll almost always get a fun chess match, if not just an outright slugfest. And though Miocic came up the ranks advertised as sort of a boxer-wrestler, he's also relied much more on the former in recent years, sparking fights into brawls for however briefly they last. As with pretty much all heavyweight fights, this is more or less an outright coin flip, given the fact that either can knock the other out at any second, and that their first fight was so close. I'll slightly favor Miocic - while dos Santos's win over Rothwell was a pretty excellent rebound performance, the former champ does look somewhat physically diminished from his peak before that last Velasquez fight, just in terms of athleticism and speed. And while I know "MMA math" doesn't really work like this, Miocic's only improved since their first fight, and when faced with a slower dos Santos, that should be more than enough to make up the difference in the rematch. I do expect a pretty great striking match, though I think Miocic will take over at some point, and in his last few fights once Miocic gets rolling, he pretty much hasn't given up the momentum. So I'll say things do roll downhill enough for Miocic to get the finish, and I'll say it comes via third-round knockout. Joanna Jedrzejczyk (13-0 overall, 7-0 UFC) vs. Jessica Andrade (16-5 overall, 7-3 UFC): Joanna Jedrzejczyk has pretty much dominated the strawweight division since UFC launched it in 2014, but this should be excellent, as Jessica Andrade may be her toughest test yet. Jedrzejczyk was an interesting prospect when UFC signed her, given her excellent muay thai background, but after a controversial decision win over Claudia Gadelha, most figured that inaugural champion Carla Esparza would be able to neutralize the striker and take her to the ground. Nope - despite just three months in between fights, Jedrzejczyk showed suddenly improved takedown defense, more or less annihilating the champ to take the belt, and then followed that up on another quick turnaround to absolutely beat the piss out of Jessica Penne, turning the challenger into a bloody mess in one of the more one-sided title fights you'll ever see. Since then, Jedrzejczyk's reign hasn't been quite as brutal, but no less dominant, with three clear decision wins - her rematch with Gadelha was an absolute war that pretty much confirmed Gadelha as the second-best fighter in the division, but Valerie Letourneau and Karolina Kowalkiewicz weren't really able to accomplish much against the champion. But now, we get something completely different in Jessica Andrade, who might be the biggest powerhouse in the strawweight division. Andrade came into UFC as a raw and young bantamweight, and was a frustrating prospect - she could excel pretty much everywhere, but was fairly undersized, and in fights against Marion Reneau and Raquel Pennington, she was seemingly cruising to a win before leaving herself open for a fight-ending submission. After that Pennington loss, Andrade announced she'd be moving down to strawweight, which was a bit surprising - Andrade seemed to be too stocky and muscular to cut much more weight, so there was some worry that Andrade would just drain herself and be ineffective in her new weight class. But thus far, the results have been excellent - she ran through Penne, then dominated Joanne Calderwood as soon as she got things to the ground, and her last fight against Angela Hill was a fun, but one-sided striking match against a tough opponent. Andrade poses a really tough fight for Jedrzejczyk - Gadelha has by far had the most success against the champion, mostly using her power and wrestling skill to just neutralize the champ for a few rounds, and that seems like a gameplan that Andrade can borrow a lot from, plus it's unclear if Andrade will gas as badly as Gadelha did come the later rounds. And on top of that, unlike Gadelha, Andrade has thudding power - she's not a one-hitter quitter (and I struggle to think of any strawweight that is), but Andrade's punches cause damage, and she's more than capable of hurting and overwhelming pretty much any opponent. Still, I'll favor the champ to get the win, even though I have surprisingly little confidence in the pick for such a dominant champion - I'm honestly not really sure how Jedrzejczyk will dissuade Andrade from wading in and throwing sledgehammers, which gives me pause, but I trust Jedrzejczyk's striking and length to keep Andrade at bay, at least somewhat, and pretty much just win rounds. In fact, I could see this looking a lot like the Gadelha fight, where the champion has to survive early, but either through Andrade exhausting or Jedrzejczyk adjusting, Jedrzejczyk wins the back half of the fight to take the nod. Anyway, this is a uniquely tough fight for Jedrzejczyk, but I'll take her by decision, even if, honestly, a shocking first- or second-round upset finish wouldn't surprise me all that much. Demian Maia (24-6 overall, 18-6 UFC) vs. Jorge Masvidal (32-11 overall, 9-4 UFC, 5-1 Strikeforce, 2-1 Bellator): Well, it wouldn't be a major UFC card in 2017 without a guy who's earned a title shot being forced into a tricky fight. Like Jacare Souza before him, Demian Maia probably should have been fighting for a title rather than fighting a rising contender, but he's somehow wound up on the outside looking in, between Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson fighting to a draw mucking things up, combined with UFC's complete lack of enthusiasm in giving Maia a title shot. I can see why some people might consider Maia's style boring - I believe it's Jordan Breen I'm stealing this from, but someone put it best when they described Maia's approach as a "citizen's arrest" style of fighting, but I think the fanbase has evolved enough that Maia's seen as sort of an entertaining throwback. Maia's creeping up on forty years old, but since cutting down to welterweight, he's been absolutely excellent and one of the best jiu-jitsu practitioners in the history of the sport - Maia's not just an excellent submission artist, but an excellent wrestler, and fight after fight, opponent after opponent, Maia just takes his opponents down and goes to work, even schooling guys as high-level as fellow BJJ ace Gunnar Nelson. He made Neil Magny look like an amateur, he dominated Matt Brown, and his last fight may have been the most impressive of all, as a dangerous fight with Carlos Condit turned into Maia immediately getting a takedown, working for a choke, and finishing one of the divisional elite in just a shade under two minutes. Ridiculous stuff. That seemingly earned Maia a winner at the Woodley/Thompson winner, and may have if there actually was a winner of that fight, but instead UFC forced him to keep busy and put him against Jorge Masvidal, who's no prospect, but is suddenly a rising contender. Masvidal's always been a fascinating character, as he came up in the same Miami backyard brawling circuit that birthed Kimbo Slice, but became legit and made a name for himself as a top lightweight fighting around the world, before landing in UFC about a decade into his career. But Masvidal has always been a frustrating talent - he's got solid boxing, wrestling, and grappling, but he became most notorious for his tendency to coast; maybe it's that old street fight mindset that causes Masvidal to focus more on surviving rather than winning rounds, but Masvidal can be winning a fight or various exchanges and then just take his foot off the gas pedal, making him kind of the king of narrow decision losses that a bunch of people felt he won. A loss in that fashion to Al Iaquinta was apparently one too many for Masvidal, and he decided the solution was to move up to welterweight, where things, for a while, were mostly the same - after a quick win over Cezar Ferreira (who looked horrible in his one fight cutting down to 170), Masvidal once again gave up narrow decision losses to Benson Henderson and Lorenz Larkin. But Masvidal's suddenly turned things around, tightening up his boxing and flashing a ton more power - I'm not really sure wins over Ross Pearson and Jake Ellenberger are worth much nowadays, but Masvidal was dominating those fights, and then Masvidal earned the biggest win of his career, obliterating Donald Cerrone for a second-round knockout this past January in Denver. Cerrone looked to be cruising to a welterweight title shot of his own, but Masvidal pretty much stole his spot, and should be an interesting test for Maia. Like a lot of Maia fights, this is a pretty binary in terms of results - while the Brazilian has improved a ton on the feet, he'll still get dominated if this stays standing, and while Masvidal is a surprisingly savvy grappler, Maia's chewed up and spit out much better guys whenever he's taken them to the ground. A finish could come at any time - either Maia by submission or Masvidal by knockout, and even if it doesn't, this probably comes down to each guy dominating in their phase, and just adding up at the end whether more of the fight took place on the feet or on the mat. While this reeks of another Jacare/Whittaker fight, where a deserving contender just gets knocked off thanks to UFC's promotional machinations, I'll have some faith and go with Maia to win this since, even at 39 years old, I frankly trust him a lot more - while Masvidal looked good against Pearson and Ellenberger, neither of those wins really impress me, and it's only the Cerrone knockout - which, admittedly, was a great performance - that suggests that Masvidal can hang at this level of top contender. But given the inconsistency of Masvidal's career, and that Maia's just on a roll of taking everyone down and dominating them, I'll go out on a bit of a limb and say that Maia pretty much duplicates the Condit performance, controlling a dangerous foe and slowly working towards a first-round submission. Though, admittedly, this could go in the complete opposite direction. Frankie Edgar (21-5-1 overall, 15-5-1 UFC) vs. Yair Rodriguez (10-1 overall, 6-0 UFC): It's pretty crazy that less than two years ago, there was a question if UFC was rushing Yair Rodriguez by putting their prized Mexican prospect against Charles Rosa - now, the question is if Rodriguez can beat an all-time great and make himself a championship contender, and a lot of people think he can. Rodriguez honestly wasn't even obviously the best prospect on season one of TUF: Latin America, but he joined his castmates in getting really good, really fast as soon as they all received UFC-level pay and training, with Rodriguez suddenly becoming UFC's biggest native star in a country with huge potential. Wins over guys like Rosa, Daniel Hooker, and Andre Fili - the last by highlight-reel switch kick knockout - showed Rodriguez to be a ridiculous athlete with an unorthodox striking style, somewhat similar to peak Anthony Pettis, but it was his five-round main event win over Alex Caceres that really drove home that Rodriguez is something special. It's not as if Caceres himself is an amazing win, as he's a talented, but inconsistent vet, but Rodriguez showed off a ridiculous combination of athleticism and cardio, fighting five rounds using his high-power, high-pace style, at elevation, and barely flagging over the course of the fight. After that was a win over B.J. Penn, which, the less said the better - Penn was just too physically outmatched for the fight to be anything but a blowout - and now Rodriguez gets thrown into the deep end against Frankie Edgar, who's probably one of the pound-for-pound greats of all time. Edgar first made his name unseating Penn for the lightweight title in a huge upset all the way back in 2010, and he's been regarded as an elite fighter ever since; there was his amazing pair of title defense against Gray Maynard, and then two narrow losses to Benson Henderson, either of which (particularly the second) you could've made the case that Edgar won. But rather than stick at lightweight, Edgar decided to cut down to 145, and the results have been fairly outstanding. Sure, Jose Aldo has turned him back twice - first in Edgar's debut in the division, and then in a shockingly one-sided fight that further cemented Aldo as an all-time great back at UFC 200 - but other than that, Edgar has pretty much wrecked all comers. Cub Swanson's career-best run towards the belt instead turned into Edgar beating him down for twenty-five minutes, Chad Mendes got knocked out in just two and a half minutes, and even if his last win over Jeremy Stephens was classic Edgar, getting in some trouble before fighting through the damage to win, the Jersey native doesn't really show any signs of slipping out of the elite. Still, it'll be fascinating just to see how Edgar handles someone as physically gifted as Rodriguez, who even past all his speed and cardio, also might be bigger than anyone Edgar has even faced at lightweight. And while guys like Mendes and Stephens also have knockout power - though Edgar's as good as anyone at recovering from damage - Rodriguez's unorthodox kicking game and tendency to throw out crazy combinations is also probably unlike anything Edgar has ever seen. Still, I have faith in Edgar to pull it out, even though I doubt it'll be easy - while Rodriguez is a ridiculous prospect who's making a charge towards a title sooner rather than later, his best wins at this point are inconsistent journeymen Fili and Caceres, and Edgar's toughness, veteran savvy, and just all-around good game is too much of a step up for me to have a ton of faith in picking Rodriguez to win. But again, I do think it'll be tough - while the obvious route would be for Edgar to just take Rodriguez down to neutralize and maul him like he did to, say, Swanson, Rodriguez has shown a pretty slick submission game that should keep Edgar honest, on top of having that speed and athleticism edge. Add in the fact that this is a three-round fight, and I could see the argument that Rodriguez is able to outquick Edgar for most of the fight, hit some crazy shots from a distance, and basically do enough before Edgar is able to adjust like he can in a five-round fight. Still, I'll go the opposite route, say Edgar mostly makes this ugly, taking things to the clinch and the ground - even if he's unable to keep Rodriguez there for long stretches of time - and earns a close decision. Still an excellent fight, though, and it speaks to how quickly Rodriguez has improved that we're even at this point just two and a half years into his UFC career. Henry Cejudo (10-2 overall, 4-2 UFC) vs. Sergio Pettis (15-2 overall, 6-2 UFC): Flyweight's a bit of a jumble - you have Demetrious Johnson, then Joseph Benavidez, then seemingly everyone through number three to number twenty can knock each other off - but it does make for a bunch of fun fights, and this is no exception. Henry Cejudo's had a bit of a strange run - a former Olympic gold medalist in wrestling at just 21 years old, Cejudo immediately became a blue-chip prospect as soon as he entered MMA, but the early portions of his career were marred with a bunch of questions about his dedication and his ability to make flyweight, as he missed weight a bunch of times and was forced to make his UFC debut at bantamweight. But Cejudo got his head on straight, and after a few wins, was pretty much rushed into a title fight with Johnson - a lot of people thought that Cejudo's Olympic wrestling pedigree and rapidly improving striking meant he could be the guy to finally unseat Johnson, so it was sort of deflating when Mighty Mouse went out there and obliterated Cejudo with some knees in the clinch in a shade under three minutes. Still, Cejudo recovered quite nicely, looking excellent in his last fight against Benavidez, which wound up being a decision loss that easily could've gone either way. This all leaves Cejudo in a pretty weird place - he's probably still the best bet to beat Johnson if you look a year or two out, and he's proven himself to be either the second- or third-best guy in the division, but his upward mobility in the division is fairly limited after those two losses, and at age 30, he's a bit older than you'd expect, even though he's still rapidly improving. But anyway, this is all moot if Cejudo doesn't get past Sergio Pettis, the young brother of former UFC champion Anthony. Pettis the younger was tabbed as a top prospect upon his debut, as he ran through smaller circuits while still a teenager, but he's not his brother, for better or for worse. While Anthony developed a style based off single, explosive strikes, Sergio's just a fairly solid, meat-and-potatoes striker and wrestler. And while Anthony pretty much burst onto the scene and charged towards the WEC lightweight title, Sergio's rise has been much more in fits and starts - while he's looked solid in every fight, losses to Alex Caceres and Ryan Benoit showed that Pettis can both leave himself defensively open and doesn't react well if he gets nailed, as both losses were "come-from-ahead" affairs. But Pettis continues to slowly move up the ladder, notching the biggest win of his career over John Moraga in January, and at just 23, he should be a concern at 125 for years to come. Still, I don't really see what Pettis can offer Cejudo here - for as flawed as Anthony's game has been recently, if Sergio was a more dynamic athlete with one-shot power, I'd at least give him a chance to hit something and finish Cejudo. But Sergio just breaks his opponents down, and, well, I don't see that happening - Cejudo is obviously the better wrestler and should be able to dictate where the fight takes place, and he's also the better boxer, and frankly, still might be the guy improving more from fight to fight. It's not like Cejudo's a particularly dynamic finisher either, so this is almost surely going to a decision, and while I don't expect this to ever really be a blowout, it should be pretty clear from the jump that Cejudo is the better fighter as he wins round after round. Eddie Alvarez (28-5 overall, 3-2 UFC, 9-1 Bellator) vs. Dustin Poirier (21-5 overall, 13-4 UFC, 1-1 WEC): It's been a long, strange trip for Eddie Alvarez - he spent years fighting around the world and establishing himself as one of the top action lightweights in the world before becoming a bit of a star in Bellator, who pretty much tried to build around him as they were finding their footing while replacing UFC on Spike. But things sort of went to hell once Alvarez tried to sign with UFC - Bellator used some contract matching provisions to try and keep him with the promotion, and Alvarez wound up missing out on an instant UFC title shot against Benson Henderson as things descended into a messy legal battle that threatened the prime of Alvarez's career. But things eventually worked out - thanks to a bunch of negotiations and Bjorn Rebney's ouster from Bellator, Alvarez eventually wound up winning back the Bellator lightweight title and then leaving the promotion as champ, finally signing with UFC in mid-2014. But Donald Cerrone beat Alvarez via close, but clear decision in Alvarez's debut, which was pretty deflating - it looked like Alvarez had pretty much missed out on his chance for glory in UFC, and had gotten to the promotion just a little too late. But things turned around pretty quickly after that - after wins over Gilbert Melendez and Anthony Pettis that went against type, seeing Alvarez fight smart and use wrestling rather than try to excite the crowd, Alvarez managed to shockingly upset Rafael dos Anjos last July to become UFC champion, and then somewhat improbably wound up headlining UFC's debut in Madison Square Garden against Conor McGregor. Admittedly, that fight went horribly for Alvarez, as McGregor dominated before getting a second-round knockout, but still, it was nice to at least see Alvarez get a big stage for once, as well as earning the big paycheck his entire career had been building towards. So, well, now what? Alvarez is probably still in the decline phase of his career, but he's got a bunch of fun fights left in a deep division, and Alvarez facing off against Dustin Poirier should be pretty awesome. Poirier's been one of UFC's most reliable action fighters since his debut back in 2011, and after stalling out a bit at featherweight (once again, thanks to McGregor), Poirier decided to move up to lightweight about two years ago. And the results have been pretty excellent - by draining himself less, Poirier has been able to lay on even more volume, and show even more power, and his whole game has clicked together at about the same time. There's the improved striking - even beyond just the physical improvements, Poirier's shown some better strategy - and he's gone back to relying on his grappling when needed, as he scored a big upset win over Joe Duffy to kick off 2016 mostly by using wrestling and submissions. Poirier probably does still have a clear ceiling - his one loss at lightweight, a quick knockout to Michael Johnson, showed that he still leaves himself defensively open on the feet, and his last win over Jim Miller showed that Poirier can still, against better judgement, be lured into a brawl - but if the Louisiana native settles in as a perennial top-ten lightweight and fight of the night contender here on out, there are worse fates. It's a hard one for me to call, particularly since I probably underrate Alvarez, but I do favor Poirier in terms of speed and volume, and think he should be able to win rounds. Still, Poirier's defensive issues give he pause - Jim Miller was able to clip him, and Alvarez showed against dos Anjos that he can still be a dangerous counter-striker, so I could easily see a scenario where Poirier gets over-aggressive and Alvarez just clocks him, either ending the fight or turning the tide of the bout for good. But Alvarez probably won't be able to use his wrestling as a safety valve like he did against Melendez and Pettis, given Poirier's submission skills, so what the hell - I'll take Poirier by decision in what hopefully winds up being Alvarez's best fight (if not performance) in UFC to date. Jason Knight (17-2 overall, 3-1 UFC) vs. Chas Skelly (17-2 overall, 6-2 UFC, 3-0 Bellator): A really excellent fight here between two of the more interesting talents bubbling under the top fifteen at featherweight. Mississippi's Jason Knight, an Alan Belcher protege, had a fairly forgettable UFC debut in a loss to Tatsuya Kawajiri, but established himself as a prospect to watch in pretty short order. Knight came in advertised as more of a submission fighter, and he's flashed those skills, but a majority of his success has come as a pressure striker, overwhelming his opponents with volume and trash-talking, like some sort of long-lost Diaz cousin. (Related: This caused me to coin the nickname "Hick Diaz" for Knight, which has stuck, which still makes me laugh and is super-weird. But he apparently doesn't like the nickname. Please don't hurt me, Mr. Knight.) In his last fight, Knight more or less handled Alex Caceres, who's quickly becoming a benchmark to see if featherweight prospects are decent, finally flashing those BJJ skills for most of the second round and scoring a rear-naked choke victory. There was some thought this would get Knight a shot at someone in the top fifteen, but instead he gets another interesting fighter putting it all together in Chas Skelly. Skelly's game is fairly straight-ahead, but successful, as he's probably the most exciting example of the grinder archetype out there - his game is pretty much predicated on taking his opponents down at will, which he's mostly done, but rather than lay and pray, Skelly mostly tries to go for some submissions, and had a bunch of success in doing so. Skelly already got a shot to break into the top fifteen against fellow grinder Darren Elkins, but Elkins turned away another prospect as he does, so Skelly decided to change camps and go to Henri Hooft, who's been working on Skelly's striking. And the results have been fairly solid - admittedly, you can't glean much from Skelly's win over Maximo Blanco, where he used a running flying karate kick and a choke to win in just nineteen seconds, but Skelly looked much improved in pretty much taking apart Chris Gruetzemacher this past February. It's a hard fight to call, but I'll favor Skelly - as impressive as Knight has looked in his recent performances, I just have flashbacks to that Kawajiri fight, where Kawajiri was pretty much able to hold Knight down and control him for three rounds. Admittedly, Skelly favors submissions over control, particularly compared to Kawajiri, but I can easily see a fight where Skelly dictates where things take place and wins rounds, even though Knight is quite comfortable off of his back and able to keep things quite entertaining. So I'll take Skelly to win a decision, although as with a lot of this card, it's a fun fight that could go either way. Krzysztof Jotko (19-1 overall, 6-1 UFC) vs. Dave Branch (20-3 overall, 2-2 UFC, 2-0 Bellator): Well, good for Dave Branch that he found his way back to the UFC. A New York City native and Renzo Gracie protege, Branch came into UFC fairly raw and had a fairly nothing first run with the company in 2010-11, most notable for Gerald Harris knocking him out with a slam in his UFC debut. But Branch eventually wound up in the fledgling World Series of Fighting an excelled from there, winning both their middleweight and light heavyweight belts and beating solid UFC vets like Yushin Okami, Vinny Magalhaes, and Jesse Taylor. It was a pretty solid deal - Branch's fights weren't particularly exciting, but he got some notoriety and was getting paid six figures per fight - but with the writing on the wall as WSOF collapsed, Branch finally makes his return to UFC here, and gets thrown right into the top ten against Poland's Krzysztof Jotko. Jotko looked like he'd just fall right into the morass of random European middleweights that UFC has a bunch of, particularly after an early loss to Magnus Cedenblad, but since then Jotko has been stringing together wins, most notably getting a big one over former contender Thales Leites this past November. Like Branch, Jotko's fights haven't really been all that fun, focusing on clinch-work and wrestling with some janky striking thrown in, even if he did have enough power to knock out Tamdan McCrory, but it's effective, as he's been able to control most of his foes. While the winner will probably get a pretty big fight next, as middleweight starts to turn itself over, this pretty much figures to be kind of a boring fifteen minutes of wrestling and grappling. And as impressive as Branch's WSOF run has been, Jotko has been looking more impressive and doing so at a higher level, so I'll favor the Pole to get the nod. Polo Reyes (7-3 overall, 3-0 UFC) vs. James Vick (10-1 overall, 6-1 UFC): A solid lightweight bout here, even as UFC once again seemingly doesn't know what to do with James Vick - though, oh well, it'll be fun. Vick's a strange fighter who's had a strange career - he's a 6'3" lightweight, which is absolutely ridiculous, and UFC's spent most of his tenure having him knock other prospects down the ladder rather than moving up it himself; essentially, the first few years of Vick's UFC career would see him beat a talented prospect, get hurt, be out of action for about a year, and then return to beat another prospect, get hurt, and repeat the whole process over. But since last year, Vick has finally been fighting rather frequently, and finally got a shot at a big opponent, even if it didn't go so well, as Beneil Dariush brutally knocked him out in the first round. But after a win over Abel Trujillo to rebound, Vick's kind of back where he started, facing a talented, fun prospect that he's probably going to beat. Meanwhile, Polo Reyes showed little on season two of TUF: Latin America - even as his castmates built him up as the toughest fighter in the house - but he's probably been the standout of the cast since they've all started in the UFC proper. Reyes's fight at UFC 199 against "The Other" Dong Hyun Kim was the rare deep prelim to wind up as one of the best fights of the year, and outside of that Reyes has established himself as a fun knockout artist and Mexican fan favorite. Still, he should be out of his depth here - Reyes struggled a bit with Jason Novelli in his last fight, and Novelli's outside of the UFC, while Vick is about a top-twenty fighter in a deep division. I just see Vick's length, which he's increasingly learning how to use, giving Reyes a ton of trouble and mostly keeping him at bay - there's also a pretty likely chance that Vick gets a submission if they start grappling at any point, between Vick's long limbs and skill on the mat and the fact that Reyes hasn't really shown a ton there. But Vick mostly gets his subs when opponents dive in for takedowns, and Reyes is about as pure a boxer as there is, so I just see this being a clear decision win for Vick, with Reyes hopefully being able to do enough to keep things interesting. Jessica Aguilar (19-5 overall, 0-1 UFC, 5-1 Bellator) vs. Cortney Casey (6-4 overall, 2-3 UFC): A really solid strawweight fight here, as it should show what Jessica Aguilar has left going forward. Aguilar's an interesting case - thanks to wins over Megumi Fujii and Carla Esparza, she was pretty much the consensus best strawweight in the world just four or so years ago, but wound up signing with World Series of Fighting right before UFC launched the division and signed pretty much all her potential opponents. After both sides agreed to part ways, Aguilar did finally make her UFC debut in 2015, but wasn't able to accomplish much against Claudia Gadelha - which isn't really an indictment, given that Gadelha's the obvious second-best woman in the division - and tore her ACL while training for her next fight. So at 35 and coming off a major injury, this is kind of surprisingly already a make-or-break fight against Cortney Casey, who's settling in as sort of a fun action fighter. I was glad UFC kept her around after losing her first two UFC fights - against Joanne Calderwood in Scotland and Seohee Ham in South Korea, both tough asks - since they were both the best fights on their respective card, and she rewarded the company's patience, running through Cristina Stanciu before scoring a big upset win over Randa Markos. Like Aguilar, she fought Gadelha in her next fight, and like Aguilar, she wasn't able to accomplish much, but Casey is big, athletic, and aggressive, so even if there's probably not a championship-level ceiling, she's one of the more exciting fighters to watch in an interesting division. It's a hard one to call, particularly since Aguilar's sort of a question mark coming off the injury - I've always worried a bit that women's MMA may be evolving a bit past her as younger, better athletes go into a sport that now has some viability, so while she's probably still the much better technical fighter, I'll say that Casey's physical talents are too much for her and Casey earns the decision. Jared Gordon (12-1 overall) vs. Michel Quinones (8-1 overall, 0-1 Bellator): This should be a fun fight between two debuting featherweights. Queens's Jared Gordon is the latest prospect off of Dana White's "Lookin' For A Fight" - he's an exciting fighter with an interesting backstory, dealing with drug addiction and multiple relapses and near-death experiences, so of course what Dana White focused on on the show was Gordon's lack of personality, because Dana White doesn't really know how to make people excited to see fighters anymore. But anyway. So Gordon makes his debut against Michel Quinones, a Florida native who was slated to fight on the Halifax card in February before getting hurt - watching some tape on Quinones, he's a fairly solid kickboxer who prefers to circle and sort of peck away at his opponents. You'd think this would lead to giving up rounds, but in what I've watched, he's precise enough to still cause damage and get knockouts, so, hey, it works. Meanwhile, there's little useful stuff on Gordon out there - there's a few highlight reels where he obviously looks good, but he's mostly fought for promotions behind paywalls, so I'm mostly relying on those highlights, where he looks like an aggressive and imposing boxer-grappler that can cause some damage as he moves up the ranks. I'm sure there are some flaws in Gordon's game that'll soon become apparent, and you can probably make a lot of money betting against fighters Dana White discovers, but based off hype and what little I've seen, I'll take Gordon via decision with pretty much no confidence. Rashad Coulter (8-1 overall, 1-0 Bellator) vs. Chase Sherman (9-3 overall, 0-2 UFC): This was originally supposed to be Germany's Jarjis Danho taking on Ukraine's Dmitry Poberezhets - a weird fit geographically for a card in Dallas - but thanks to injuries, it's now something more appropriate, as Dallas's own Rashad Coulter takes on Mississippi's Chase Sherman. There were some decent hopes for Sherman as he came into UFC this summer - he's a former football player for Delta State, so he has some athleticism, and he's young for the division - but he's been pretty much all potential and no production thus far in two UFC fights. Sherman fights kind of like fellow Alan Belcher protege Jason Knight, mostly striking with a ton of trash talking and machismo, but his defense hasn't really come around yet, which is a problem at heavyweight. Meanwhile, Coulter's sort of your standard UFC heavyweight signing - already well into his thirties, and a big dude with a ton of knockouts on his record and not much else. Sherman should have a clear edge in athleticism, but I don't really see anything that prevents Coulter from scoring another first-round KO, so that's my pick here, though as always, never make a pick in a heavyweight fight with any sort of confidence. Enrique Barzola (12-3-1 overall, 2-1 UFC) vs. Gabriel Benitez (19-5 overall, 3-1 UFC): A fun fight here between two TUF: Latin America alums. Gabriel Benitez was probably the consensus favorite to win season one of TUF: Latin America, and definitely left the most impression of anyone on the show personality-wise, as he's quite charismatic and got a ton of camera time. He wound up falling short in the semi-finals of the season, and Yair Rodriguez wound up being the potential superstar of the cast, but Benitez has wound up being a pretty fun mid-level action fighter when he's healthy, with some surprising wins over guys like Clay Collard and Sam Sicilia. He faces TUF: Latin America season two winner Enrique Barzola, who's probably the best fighter going out of Peru, which has more of a MMA scene then you'd think. Barzola was a surprise winner of the season, but despite being at some physical disadvantages, he's proven to be a tough wrestler with a ton of cardio, and enough janky striking to survive against lower-level opponents on the roster. But Benitez figures to be Barzola's toughest test to date, and while I could see a scenario where Barzola just takes Benitez down and controls most of the fight, I expect Benitez to win a striking match via decision that should be pretty fun. Gadzhimurad Antigulov (19-4 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Joachim Christensen (14-4 overall, 1-1 UFC): This is a weird fight for Dallas - Joachim Christensen's one of the few Danish fighters left on the roster, and the card in two weeks was initially supposed to be in Copenhagen, so I guess when those plans fell through they put that fight here, but I'm surprised they didn't just put it on what became a card in Stockholm rather than make it fight number fourteen on this card. Anyway, Christensen's shown to be a solid enough light heavyweight in his two UFC fights, even though his ceiling is fairly low - while he's a decent kickboxer with enough grappling to be dangerous, he's not particularly athletic and almost forty, so he just figures to be sort of a gatekeeper going forward. Meanwhile, Antigulov's an intriguing talent in a thin division that needs it - he's an aggressive bowling ball of a dude who just looks to take his opponents down immediately and then either get a ground-and-pound stoppage or the submission, the latter of which he did in his UFC debut against Marcos Rogerio de Lima. I'm not sure he'll ever be a championship-level fighter, but the state of the division is enough that those skills can probably get him close to the top ten. Anyway, I don't really see Christensen being able to stop Antigulov from what he's going to try and do, so my call is for the Russian to get a first round stoppage, likely by ground-and-pound TKO.

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