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tocinephile · 5 years ago

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The Morning After - The Year the Oscars Got it (mostly) Right Edition

The 92nd Academy Awards kicked off looking an awful lot like the Grammy’s with a splashy musical performance by Janelle Monae and Billy Porter, the first of a night’s performances/presenters/commentary designed to include all the groups it seemingly excluded in it’s nominees list. Meant to poke fun at themselves or a gesture delivered a little too overt and a little too late? Either way, I think in the end, the artistry of the South Korean-made foreign language film that swept the night’s awards won one back for every group that was overlooked.

Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite took home awards for Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature, Best Director, and Best Picture, making it the first South Korean film to win in all these categories. To do it all in a single evening is astounding.

Here’s a look at all the winners of the night:

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Best Picture:

“Ford v Ferrari” — Walt Disney “The Irishman” — Netflix “Jojo Rabbit” — Fox Searchlight “Joker” — Warner Bros. “Little Women” — Sony Pictures Releasing “Marriage Story” — Netflix “1917” — Universal/Amblin Partners “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” — Sony Pictures Releasing “Parasite” — Neon (WINNER)

Most deserving win of the night!!! Of course many of us hoped Parasite could be the underdog to win it all, but a more realistic prediction to win would be 1917. Thrilled to be wrong on this one.

Also, while I liked 1917 (more for its execution than story), even if Parasite had not been in the mix, I would have been rooting for The Irishman to win.

Lead Actress:

Cynthia Erivo, “Harriet” Scarlett Johansson, “Marriage Story” Saoirse Ronan, “Little Women” Charlize Theron, “Bombshell” Renée Zellweger, “Judy” (WINNER)

I am also in full agreement with this category and with Renee sweeping this category this awards season as well.

I have not seen Harriet, but if Renee hadn’t been in the race, Charlize would have been the best of the bunch.

Lead Actor:

Antonio Banderas, “Pain and Glory” Leonardo DiCaprio, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” Adam Driver, “Marriage Story” Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker” — (WINNER) Jonathan Pryce, “The Two Popes”

Again, no question this was the right winner. If only every win didn’t mean we’d have to roll the dice to see what kind of acceptance speech we’d have to endure... While I didn’t appreciate being chastised for adding milk to my coffee, Joaquin closed out his remarks by quoting his late brother River and I thought that was beautiful.

Director:

Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman” Todd Phillips, “Joker” Sam Mendes, “1917” Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” Bong Joon Ho, “Parasite” — (WINNER)

Another category that I thought the Academy would give to Sam Mendes, but nonetheless put my bets on Bong Joon-ho. Some big competition in this category (except Phillips... sorry, I’m not saying he’s bad, but he has yet to prove to me he’s a contender).

Original Song:

“I Can’t Let You Throw Yourself Away,” “Toy Story 4” “I’m Gonna Love Me Again,” “Rocketman” — (WINNER) “I’m Standing With You,” “Breakthrough” “Into the Unknown,” “Frozen 2” “Stand Up,” “Harriet”

Talk about a year of forgettable film songs. I think I left the room for every one of these performances except Elton’s. Did I miss anything?

Original Score:

“Joker,” Hildur Guðnadóttir — (WINNER) “Little Women,” Alexandre Desplat “Marriage Story,” Randy Newman “1917,” Thomas Newman “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” John Williams

As part of the montage for this category, the orchestra accompanies with each film’s original score. This segment, as they proudly pointed out, was being conducted a female for the first time in Oscar history (I’d like to shallowly add that she was also wearing the most amazing gold jacket to do it!). Now I don’t know if she also arranged it or whether she was just conducting, but I have to say, I don’t think the arrangement did the scores any justice whatsoever.

Luckily they were not being judged on this particular performance, and Hildur Guonadottir once again took home the accolade for Joker. I agree with this win. Little Women and 1917 also had impressive scores. Marriage Story didn’t particularly catch my attention, and while Star Wars’ themes will always be among my all time favourites, The Rise of Skywalker wasn’t particularly outstanding out of the saga.

Best International Feature Film:

“Corpus Christi,” Jan Komasa “Honeyland,” Tamara Kotevska, Ljubo Stefanov “Les Miserables,” Ladj Ly “Pain and Glory,” Pedro Almodóvar “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho — (WINNER)

If anyone else had won we would have rioted right?

Makeup and Hair:

“Bombshell” — (WINNER) “Joker” “Judy” “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” “1917”

Got this prediction correct, while not the most obvious frontrunner perhaps, a lot of subtle effort was put in to transform cast into their characters.

Visual Effects:

“Avengers: Endgame” “The Irishman” “The Lion King” “1917” — (WINNER) “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”

It’s naive of me, but seeing 1917 win for Visual Effects almost takes away from my appreciation of the film in some ways because in my head, I’d still like to think of all films outside of fantasy and sci-fi as largely real. I know it’s not the case and that even your average period drama is created largely with effects these days, it can’t help but ruin the magic a little.

Also I had guessed Avengers: Endgame would win.

And we all think that The Irishman is on this list for de-aging technologies alone right?

Film Editing:

“Ford v Ferrari,” Michael McCusker, Andrew Buckland — (WINNER) “The Irishman,” Thelma Schoonmaker “Jojo Rabbit,” Tom Eagles “Joker,” Jeff Groth “Parasite,” Jinmo Yang

This entire list is on par with each other I think, with Ford v Ferrari just edging out the rest. Also the editing is what made the film so dynamic, there was little room for a bad cut, whereas the others might have little bit more room to err.

Many might disagree but I think Little Women should have been considered in this category. The film’s editing choices was one of its main criticisms, but I think it actually made the film much more dynamic and differentiated it from previous adaptations. (If only they’d used a bit more of The Irishman’s aging/de-aging effects)

Cinematography:

“The Irishman,” Rodrigo Prieto “Joker,” Lawrence Sher “The Lighthouse,” Jarin Blaschke “1917,” Roger Deakins — (WINNER) “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Robert Richardson

Agree! Cool camera work in 1917 for sure.

Sound Mixing:

“Ad Astra” “Ford v Ferrari” “Joker” “1917” — (WINNER) “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

Um ok, if you’re going to split the sound categories between two films. I would’ve said Ford v Ferrari for both.

Sound Editing:

“Ford v Ferrari,” Don Sylvester — (WINNER) “Joker,” Alan Robert Murray “1917,” Oliver Tarney, Rachel Tate “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Wylie Stateman “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” Matthew Wood, David Acord

Agree. Hopefully everyone who wanted to see this film caught it in theatres, the sound was a huge contributing factor to the enjoyment of this film.

Supporting Actress:

Kathy Bates, “Richard Jewell” Laura Dern, “Marriage Story” — (WINNER) Scarlett Johansson, “Jojo Rabbit” Florence Pugh, “Little Women” Margot Robbie, “Bombshell”

Little surprise when Laura Dern swept this category, even though I maintain she wasn’t better than the rest. That said, I’m not sure who I would pick in her place, I say share the love between Laura Dern, Scarlett Johansson, and Florence Pugh (yes, I just said Amy March should get an oscar... I see the irony of this too)

Best Documentary Short Subject:

“In the Absence,” Yi Seung-Jun and Gary Byung-Seok Kam “Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone,” Carol Dysinger — (WINNER) “Life Overtakes Me,” Kristine Samuelson and John Haptas “St. Louis Superman,” Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan “Walk Run Cha-Cha,” Laura Nix

I didn’t see any of the shorts this year, my bad. The winner sounds hella interestering!

Best Documentary Feature:

“American Factory,” Julia Reichert, Steven Bognar — (WINNER) “The Cave,” Feras Fayyad “The Edge of Democracy,” Petra Costa “For Sama,” Waad Al-Kateab, Edward Watts “Honeyland,” Tamara Kotevska, Ljubo Stefanov

I only saw American Factory and The Cave and I actually liked The Cave better. That said I felt strongly that American Factory had the edge, for starters it was backed by the Obamas’ production company. I didn’t love American Factory but I do feel it’s a timely piece that shows two sides of the story, inevitable prejudices based on what we’ve become conditioned to physically, mentally, socially, and also how important it is that we try to overcome or build a bridge to find solutions for the greater good.

Costume Design:

”The Irishman,” Sandy Powell, Christopher Peterson “Jojo Rabbit,” Mayes C. Rubeo “Joker,” Mark Bridges “Little Women,” Jacqueline Durran — (WINNER) “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Arianne Phillips

For a historical drama, I really didn’t find the costumes of Little Women to be that spectacular (I’m having visions of The Age of Innocence when you say Best Costume), though a part of me knows the period films win more often than not. While I think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is strong contender, Jojo Rabbit should have won.

Production Design:

“The Irishman,” Bob Shaw and Regina Graves “Jojo Rabbit,” Ra Vincent and Nora Sopkova “1917,” Dennis Gassner and Lee Sandales “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Barbara Ling & Nancy Haigh (WINNER) “Parasite,” Lee Ha-Jun and Cho Won Woo, Han Ga Ram and Cho Hee

Yes! Once Upon a Time was a bit overrated (sorry Quentin) but this was one category where it really deserved to win, from the western sets, film studio lots, to the wardrobe and streets of the 60′s, lots of fun and spirit captured in the production design.

Best Live Action Short Film:

“Brotherhood,” Meryam Joobeur “Nefta Football Club,” Yves Piat “The Neighbors’ Window,” Marshall Curry — (WINNER) “Saria,” Bryan Buckley “A Sister,” Delphine Girard

Adapted Screenplay:

“The Irishman,” Steven Zaillian “Jojo Rabbit,” Taika Waititi — (WINNER) “Joker,” Todd Phillips, Scott Silver “Little Women,” Greta Gerwig “The Two Popes,” Anthony McCarten

I love that Taika Waititi is an Oscar winner. Also shouts to Greta Gerwig for making Little Women almost tolerable in her script! The Two Popes could not have been an easy adaptation either. Now can a comic book expert please tell me, how much of Joker is really from existing stories in comics, and how much was filled in by the writers? I understand why it was an adapted screenplay, but I feel like material like this almost completely open to interpretation and could easily be written anew as an original screenplay.

Original Screenplay:

“Knives Out,” Rian Johnson “Marriage Story,” Noah Baumbach “1917,” Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Quentin Tarantino “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho, Jin Won Han — (WINNER)

Just for fun, my ranking of the original screenplay nominees from best to alright:

1) Parasite, 2) Knives Out, 3) Marriage Story, 4) 1917, 5) Once Upon a Time

Animated Short:

“Dcera,” Daria Kashcheeva “Hair Love,” Matthew A. Cherry — (WINNER) “Kitbull,” Rosana Sullivan “Memorable,” Bruno Collet “Sister,” Siqi Song

I keep hearing great things about this short!

Animated Feature:

“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” Dean DeBlois “I Lost My Body,” Jeremy Clapin “Klaus,” Sergio Pablos “Missing Link,” Chris Butler “Toy Story 4,” Josh Cooley — (WINNER)

I clearly didn’t watch any animated films this year because I didn’t even know there were new How to Train Your Dragon and Toy Story films released.

Supporting Actor:

Tom Hanks, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” Anthony Hopkins, “The Two Popes” Al Pacino, “The Irishman” Joe Pesci, “The Irishman” Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” — (WINNER)

Overall, if Brad Pitt sweeping this category means I get to hear at least one great speech per awards, then I’m ok with this. My personal ranking:

1) Al Pacino, 2) Joe Pesci, 3) Tom Hanks, 4) Brad Pitt, 5) Anthony Hopkins. I had to debate over Pacino and Pesci’s performances, I feel like this is one of the best problems in the world.

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Prior to the start of the show, I made a mess of notes about who I thought would win, who I thought should win, and shared my Oscar Pool Picks which were based on a mix of the two... My Oscar pool are an extremely knowledgeable bunch, and with 18/24, it only put me in a 3-way tie for third place (there were also three winners who split the winnings), I need to move back to the baby leagues!

If you were following my Twitter (or care to check in hindsight...@palindr0me) I also shared a little additional commentary and photos of some of my favourite dresses of the evening.

My personal top 3 moments during the Awards Ceremony were:

1) Every time Parasite won an award - Give this man all the statues he wants! lol

2) Billie Eilish’s rendition of Yesterday (I wish this was an actual recorded track so I could play it over and over)

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3) When Eminem took the stage at the end of a montage to perform “Lose Yourself” and my phone exploded with all these messages of “ Whaaat is happening???” LOL! Believe me friends, I was as confused as you were.

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Aaand, that’s a wrap on awards season! Looking forward to a new year and new decade in film!

#oscars #oscars2020

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writingsubmissions · 8 years ago

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UFC Fight Night 106 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Oh, if only UFC 209 had a decent main event. After a 2017 slate that has mostly been fine, UFC 209 was well on its way to being the first standout event of the year thanks to an exciting undercard filled with some interesting results. But that's pretty much out the window, since the main event between Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson was the worst UFC title fight in years, possibly ever. It's a testament to the weirdness of MMA that the same two guys, who, in November, had the standout fight on the most stacked card in UFC history, gave us whatever the hell this was just four months later. Thompson fought conservatively, which is fine, but given that Woodley has a somewhat narrow game consisting of takedowns and a strong right hand, Thompson didn't really give him many options in terms of doing anything. So the two just, well, didn't do anything for pretty much five rounds - Thompson controlled most of the fight, but didn't really do much in terms of offense, and while Woodley got a takedown in the third round, that was pretty much it. And in what seemed like the MMA gods mocking the fans who had sat through twenty-four minutes of a horrible fight, Woodley managed to turn things on in the last minute of the fight, blitzing Thompson and almost finishing the fight multiple times before the horn sounded. The consensus was that the fifth was a 10-8 round for Woodley, which, amazingly enough, meant that most people had the rematch as a draw, just like the first time around. But the judges awarded Woodley the decision, and while the chaos scenario of a draw in such a bad fight would've been amusing, thankfully this seemingly closes the book on Woodley/Thompson. I wrote last week that the great fight the two had was just the kind of performance that Woodley needed to legitimize his title reign in the eyes of many fans, but this undid all that and then some - Woodley's now got the rep once again as a boring fighter who probably doesn't deserve to be champ, and even worse, pretty much any exciting challenger is currently coming off a loss. Just a disaster all around. *Adding insult to injury, the other big title fight on the card wound up not even happening at all, as Khabib Nurmagomedov had weight-cutting issues and was sent to the hospital, cancelling his interim lightweight title fight against Tony Ferguson the morning before it was slated to take place. A lot of damning stuff about UFC and how they take care of fighters came out as part of this - the most egregious was Dana White apparently saying that UFC could've saved the bout if Khabib's camp had contacted them and not taken their fighter to the hospital. There's...really no way to make that sound good, and is pretty obviously just endangering one of their top fighters. Michael Johnson, who's responsible for Ferguson's lone UFC loss, was in Vegas and willing to step up on a day's notice, but Ferguson turned down the bout, mostly because UFC both refused to make Ferguson/Johnson a title fight, and offered Ferguson less money than he would've made against Khabib. So I have no idea where you really go from here, since it's unclear if Khabib has a future going forward at lightweight - and if he does and UFC wants to keep this pairing intact, they better do so quick, since Ramadan is coming up and would put Nurmagomedov out of action for a few months. Also swirling above all this is that this was theoretically going to determine a future opponent for Conor McGregor, and now that's out the window - plus if Khabib does in fact establish himself as the top lightweight contender going forward, McGregor now has the weight issues to point to as a reason to not to take the fight. Sigh. Just a disaster all around. *Well, enough negativity - despite the top of the card going horribly, the rest of UFC 209 was pretty damn fun, and the most notable result was probably Alistair Overeem scoring a third-round knockout of Mark Hunt. It was a surprisingly resilient performance from Overeem, who ate a bunch of hard shots from Hunt before coming back and finishing a fight that he was winning most of the way through. I have no idea where Hunt goes from here, given that he's lost two straight, is well into his forties, and is currently suing UFC, but Overeem might be the rightful top contender for the heavyweight title with Cain Velasquez seemingly eternally in surgery. The only problem is that Overeem just lost to title-holder Stipe Miocic in September, so Overeem will probably be the loudest guy cheering on Junior dos Santos when he fights for the belt in May, given that Overeem knocked out JDS in late 2015. *The other big name on the card, Rashad Evans, finally made his debut at middleweight, and...well, it didn't stem the downward tide of his career, as he lost a narrow split decision to Dan Kelly. It was a weird one - Evans looked in excellent cosmetic shape, but he just really never put his stamp on the fight; he hit some solid shots, but Kelly just kept pressuring forward and dictating the terms of the fight, and while I thought Evans won, it was one of those bouts that could go either way. It's a huge win for Kelly, an aged Australian judoka who nobody was expecting much from, and I have no idea where Evans goes from here - Kelly was about as good a style matchup that Evans could ask for as far as credible middleweights, and I don't really feel like seeing him get knocked out by other fighters in the division. *The rest of the card was highlighted by two of the more ridiculous comebacks in UFC history. Luke Sanders was handling Iuri Alcantara in a pretty one-sided fight until, for some reason, Sanders decided to knee Alcantara in the head while the Brazilian was obviously down, causing a halt to the fight and giving Alcantara time to recover and make it into the second round. From there, Sanders was still dominating, but then Alcantara rolled for a desperation kneebar that actually worked, earning a submission in what figured to be one of the better comebacks of the year...for about twenty minutes. That's because the next fight was stud Bosnian prospect Mirsad Bektic taking on veteran grinder Darren Elkins - and while it seemed absurd that Bektic was the biggest favorite on the card against someone as tough as Elkins, it looked pretty smart for most of the fight, as Bektic just repeatedly took Elkins down and absolutely mauled him. But Elkins was eventually able to stop one takedown, and that gave him enough of an opening to hit a punch and kick that sent Bektic crumbling to the ground, ass over tea kettle, for what's going to go down as one of the most memorable comebacks in the history of the sport. Ridiculous. *And there was more good stuff - the co-main saw Lando Vannata and David Teymur have a pretty great striking match for three rounds, with Teymur surprisingly getting the upset win in a fight that pretty much could've gone either way. This is really a fight where both guys came out of it the better, since Vannata was able to show off a lot of his funky offense, and Teymur obviously got a big win. With the cancellation of Nurmagomedov/Ferguson, a deep undercard bout between Amanda Cooper and the debuting Cynthia Calvillo was surprisingly promoted to the main card, but Calvillo looked excellent, exploiting Cooper's over-aggressive grappling game with some impressive submission work and eventually earning a quick choke. Marcin Tybura won a heavyweight bout over Luis Henrique that only I seemed to like, as it was a weird, sloppy bout where both guys had their moments. Tyson Pedro beat Paul Craig in a battle of light heavyweight unbeatens - Pedro's still raw, but the Australian seemingly has a ton of potential. Albert Morales won a fun decision over Andre Soukhamthath to open up the show, and in the one particularly bad undercard fight, Mark Godbeer just sort of cruised to a decision over the debuting Daniel Spitz at heavyweight. *Albert Tumenov signed with top Russian promotion ACB, continuing the trend that Nikita Krylov has seemingly started. Russian promotions have money and will pay huge for their local heroes, so as contracts come up and WME-IMG continues to try and run UFC on a budget, it won't be surprising to see all these Russian fighters leave UFC as suddenly as they all seemingly appeared. Welcome to the new normal. It'll be interesting to see if UFC still continues their plans to move into Russia in the coming year or two, since given the current environment, I really don't see how they're able to make it profitable. *Marloes Coenen retired after losing Bellator's inaugural featherweight title fight to Julia Budd. Coenen's pretty much the O.G. of female mixed martial arts, as the Dutchwoman was fighting in Japan as a teenager all the way back in 2000, but she never quite broke through stateside. Her two biggest fights were probably against Cris Cyborg in Strikeforce and Invicta, and, to her credit, she managed to last into the third and fourth rounds, respectively, before getting finished. Coenen had a brief run at bantamweight, taking the Strikeforce championship from Sarah Kaufman and defending it against Liz Carmouche before losing it to Miesha Tate, but after that she moved back up to 145 and was sort of on the outside looking in for major American MMA before Bellator picked her up. After seventeen years, retiring after this loss is probably the way to go, and since I've never heard anyone ever say a bad word about Coenen, hopefully retirement suits her well. *And let's end things, seemingly like always, with a flagged drug test. This time it's Ben Rothwell that's been flagged, and his UFC 211 bout with Fabricio Werdum is suddenly in doubt. Rothwell's had this issue once before, as he had a flagged test at UFC 164, which took place in his native Wisconsin. But Wisconsin pretty much let Rothwell off easy - Rothwell explained the test failure went back to some testosterone treatment he's been receiving ever since a car crash he was in as a teenager, and the state more or less let him off with only a slap on the wrist. So, maybe this has to do with that, and given that Cris Cyborg was able to get a TUE, who knows how USADA is going to treat this. ------ BOOKINGS: *UFC finally got around to announcing some big fights for that Kansas City card on Fox in April, and the promotion showed they're still capable of pulling the occasional rabbit out of their hat. Demetrious Johnson will attempt to tie Anderson Silva's record of ten UFC title defenses against Wilson Reis, who Johnson was scheduled to fight at UFC 201 this past July before getting injured. Johnson's expressed a desire to get the record out of the way before moving up to bantamweight or pursuing other challenges, so it'll be interesting to see where "Mighty Mouse" goes if he wins here and then gets one more victory (perhaps a long overdue trilogy fight with Joseph Benavidez?). Also added to that card is a pretty awesome middleweight fight, as Jacare Souza returns to face Robert Whittaker in what figures to be both Souza's toughest test in a while as well as the biggest fight of Whittaker's career. That said, it's pretty amazing that even if Souza wins here, he's still no better than third in line for a title shot, thanks to all the Bisping/GSP madness. *UFC really isn't screwing around with UFC 211, as they continue to stack the card up. After Demian Maia/Jorge Masvidal got announced for the pay-per-view in Dallas, there were some questions about if UFC would still throw the rumored Eddie Alvarez/Dustin Poirier fight on the card, but that bout did officially get confirmed even after some rumblings the fight was off. (As Alvarez tells it, he initially turned down the fight to pursue a bout with Nate Diaz, but when Diaz turned THAT down, Alvarez turned around and took the Poirier fight again, though there were rumors of Poirier being matched up with Michael Chiesa.) And 211 also got what figures to be two pretty solid undercard fights - top flyweight contenders Henry Cejudo and Sergio Pettis square off in what's a huge chance for Pettis, and former two-division WSOF champ David Branch makes his return at middleweight to take on rising Polish fighter Krzysztof Jotko. Adding to all this, there's some rumblings that the Khabib Nurmagomedov/Tony Ferguson fight may land here if Khabib thinks he can healthily make the weight cut - it'd give the card three title fights, which seems ridiculous, but given that Ramadan is coming up, options for a Nurmagomedov fight are limited. *UFC announced two more cards for June and July, as it looks like the promotion is deciding to run a bunch of shows abroad in mid-2017. On June 10th, UFC will return to Auckland, New Zealand - it'll be interesting to see who gets tabbed for a main event slot there, since the promotion typically relies on one of two guys; but Mark Hunt figures to be out with injuries sustained in the Overeem fight, and Robert Whittaker is fighting on that Fox card in April. UFC's first offering in New Zealand was built around James Te Huna, of all people, but given that this card is on FS1 and not Fight Pass, you'd expect something more credible. And on July 16th, UFC is coming back to Glasgow, Scotland, which is good news - in July of 2015, the company put on a card there with a Michael Bisping/Thales Leites main event. and the crowd was one of the best of the year. *Let's run through some of the other fights that have been announced. The Nashville card is shaping up pretty nicely, adding three solid undercard fights. Jake Ellenberger and Mike Perry square off in a battle of welterweight knockout artists, Joe Proctor moves up to 170 to take on Bryan Barberena, and in a pretty fun lightweight bout, Joe Lauzon returns to take on Scotland's Stevie Ray. With the Glasgow card coming up, a win here could put Ray in a pretty big fight come July. UFC 210 in Buffalo added an undercard bout between Mike De La Torre and Myles Jury, a former top lightweight prospect who cut down to 145, got tapped by Charles Oliveira, and hasn't been seen in about fifteen months. UFC's apparently seeking another main card bout for 210, but damned if I know what that could be at this point, since time is running out. Russian's Gadzhimurad Antigulov and Denmark's Joachim Christensen are facing off at UFC 211 in Dallas, which is strange, since UFC has a card in Europe just two weeks later. UFC 212 in Brazil added two undercard bouts - middleweight submission artists Antonio Carlos Junior and Eric Spicely square off, and bantamweight, and bantamweight Deiveson Alcantara, best known for a "pimp slap" KO that went viral, debuts against Mexico's Marco Beltran. And in an interesting booking, the May card in Stockholm adds Russian striker Mairbek Taisumov against Brazilian prospect Joaquim Silva. It's interesting because Taisumov had long been tied to a bout against former champ Anthony Pettis, a long overdue big test for the Russian knockout artist, who's been racking up win after win. But as fun as a fight against Silva is, this is a huge step down for Taisumov, and one wonders if UFC sees the writing on the wall with Russian fighters returning home and just doesn't see building Taisumov up as worth it. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Albert Tumenov (17-4 overall, 5-3 UFC, last fought 10/8/16, L vs. Leon Edwards): As mentioned above, Tumenov signed with Russian promotion ACB, becoming the latest of what might set up to be a mass Russian exodus from American MMA. Tumenov had an unimpressive debut loss to Ildemar Alcantara, but rebounded to become one of the more exciting prospects at welterweight, showing off a brutal array of striking skills, highlighted by him absolutely melting Alan Jouban in October of 2015. That knockout really put Tumenov on the map, and a win over Lorenz Larkin kept that momentum going, but Gunnar Nelson eventually exploited Tumenov's fatal flaw - while the Russian's takedown defense was solid, if you were able to get him there, the fight was pretty much over, as Tumenov didn't really have a ton in the way of grappling skills. This past October, Leon Edwards was losing the fight on the feet, but got it to the ground and pulled off the same trick, and that seemingly cemented Tumenov's ceiling, at least in the short term. Tumenov's loss won't kill UFC all by itself, but given that it's just more of the promotion losing both Russian talent and exciting mid-card talent, it's not a great sign. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 3/18 - UFC Fight Night 107 - London, England - Corey Anderson vs. Jimi Manuwa, Alan Jouban vs. Gunnar Nelson 4/8 - UFC 210 - Buffalo, NY - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Anthony Johnson, Gegard Mousasi vs. Chris Weidman 4/15 - UFC on Fox 24 - Kansas City, MO - Demetrious Johnson ( c ) vs. Wilson Reis, Rose Namajunas vs. Michelle Waterson, Jacare Souza vs. Robert Whittaker 4/22 - UFC Fight Night 108 - Nashville, TN - Artem Lobov vs. Cub Swanson, Al Iaquinta vs. Diego Sanchez, Sam Alvey vs. Thales Leites 5/13 - UFC 211 - Dallas, TX - Stipe Miocic ( c ) vs. Junior dos Santos, Joanna Jedrzejczyk ( c ) vs. Jessica Andrade, Ben Rothwell vs. Fabricio Werdum, Demian Maia vs. Jorge Masvidal, Eddie Alvarez vs. Dustin Poirier 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 ----- UFC Fight Night 106 - March 11, 2017 - Centro de Formacao Olimpica do Nordeste - Fortaleza, Brazil Well, UFC quietly put together a pretty excellent TV card here - while there's no particularly huge main event, if you threw a title fight on top of it, I could easily see this as one of those lower-level pay-per-views out of Brazil that, say, Jose Aldo used to headline. But in 2017, it's pretty rare to see a card this deep, so this is apparently the first sign the cupboards are getting close to re-stocked. In the top two fights, we have Brazilian legends trying to fend off up-and-comers (or, well, whatever you consider Gian Villante), and after that we just have a bunch of interesting action fights. Should be a good one. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 10:00 PM ET): Middleweight: (#9) Vitor Belfort vs. (#10) Kelvin Gastelum Light Heavyweight: (#6) Mauricio Rua vs. (#12) Gian Villante Lightweight: (#5) Edson Barboza vs. (#9) Beneil Dariush Flyweight: (#3) Jussier Formiga vs. (#8) Ray Borg Women's Bantamweight: (#9) Bethe Correia vs. (#13) Marion Reneau Welterweight: Tim Means vs. Alex Oliveira PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Lightweight: (#11) Francisco Trinaldo vs. Kevin Lee Welterweight: Sergio Moraes vs. Davi Ramos Bantamweight: (#14) Rani Yahya vs. Joe Soto Lightweight: Joshua Burkman vs. Michel Prazeres PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 7:00 PM ET): Featherweight: Rony Jason vs. Jeremy Kennedy Middleweight: Paulo Costa vs. Garreth McLellan THE RUNDOWN: Vitor Belfort (25-13 overall, 14-9 UFC, 5-3 PRIDE, 0-1 Strikeforce) vs. Kelvin Gastelum (14-2 overall, 8-2 UFC): Oh, what a long strange trip it's been for Vitor Belfort. Belfort made his UFC debut all the way back at UFC 12 in 1997, and we've had iteration after iteration of the strangely charismatic, mentally fragile Brazilian legend. The most notorious of these versions, at least recently, has probably been "TRT Vitor", whose peak was 2013, where he knocked out Michael Bisping, Luke Rockhold, and Dan Henderson in fairly short order, all while looking way more jacked to the gills than anyone in their late thirties should, and all in Brazil, where drug testing at the time was suspiciously lax. After that, subtext became text, as Belfort apparently failed a random drug test in February of 2014, and Josh Gross did some excellent reporting about how UFC had pretty much swept Belfort's elevated testosterone levels for a 2012 fight against Jon Jones under the rug, but after about a year and a half of waiting, Belfort did eventually get a title shot at then-champ Chris Weidman, where he, well, suddenly looked like a late-thirties Vitor Belfort. Belfort actually shocked him early - "The Phenom" was always been dangerous in the first round, even in a diminished state, but Weidman was able to recover in fairly short order, and, as always, when things start crashing down at Belfort, they fall apart quickly, in this case for a first-round knockout loss. Belfort was able to rebound with another quick win over Henderson, but losses to Jacare Souza and Gegard Mousasi in 2016 were fairly rough, and it looks like without being able to use testosterone, Belfort is just circling the drain. And that's why I suppose this fight had enough risk/reward ratio for Kelvin Gastelum to try and stick at middleweight, rather than try another ill-fated cut to welterweight like he had threatened. UFC pretty much lucked into Gastelum, who came out of nowhere to upset Uriah Hall and win season 17 of TUF in 2013, when Gastelum was barely old enough to legally drink. And suddenly having a young star that, as a Mexican-American, could serve a potentially giant market, UFC did the smart thing and pushed him to the moon, with mixed results. Gastelum killed it early, with a winning streak that included guys like Rick Story and Jake Ellenberger, but his first fight in 2015, against Tyron Woodley, wound up being a bit of a disaster. Gastelum had enough trouble cutting weight that he had to be sent to the hospital, and in something that looks even more insane with time, UFC allowed Gastelum to return from the hospital and basically weigh in ten pounds overweight just so the fight could go on. Gastelum, unsurprisingly, looked terrible in the fight, and UFC basically punished him by forcing Gastelum to have a one-off fight at middleweight, where he finished Nate Marquardt. Then it was back down to 170, where Gastelum's momentum seemingly stalled with a close decision loss to Neil Magny, but a rebound win over Johny Hendricks seemed to have Gastelum as a top prospect once more...until he blew weight once again, forcing a fight at Madison Square Garden with Donald Cerrone to be called off. So, back to middleweight it was, and after some early trouble, Gastelum looked excellent in putting away Tim Kennedy, though he expressed a desire to return back to welterweight until this fight opened up. And Gastelum's not wrong for wanting to do so, provided he gets his diet under control, since he is fairly undersized compared to the top middleweights, but I don't really see that as much of a concern here. I mentioned before that Belfort has always, at the very least, been dangerous early, been in his last two losses, he hasn't even been that - it's basically been a decent feeling-out process, followed by Jacare or Mousasi getting the advantage and not really giving it up until Belfort is lying bloody on the ground. And, well, I don't see things going much differently here. If Belfort does have anything left, Gastelum's a bit of a slow starter that he could at least physically overwhelm, but outside of the early Hail Mary finish, there's really not a ton to recommend Belfort and this could turn into a mauling pretty quickly. I'll at least say Belfort survives into the second round before Gastelum gets some sort of stoppage finish, and honestly, I don't really know where either guy goes from there. Mauricio Rua (24-10 overall, 8-8 UFC, 12-1 PRIDE) vs. Gian Villante (15-7 overall, 5-4 UFC, 3-2 Strikeforce): A well-matched, but strange fight, as this one could go in any number of directions. I suppose late-career Shogun Rua hasn't gone quite as poorly as it could've - a former champion and legend of the sport, Rua was always pretty much dependent on his power and athleticism, and brutal knockout losses to Dan Henderson and Ovince St. Preux in 2014 suggested that as both of those fell off and Rua's chin seemingly went, he was falling off in pretty quick fashion. But Rua's been able to recover - I'm not sure he actually deserved the decision in either fight against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira or Corey Anderson, but looked solid in each fight, won both, and now, given the state of the light heavyweight division, is probably closer to a title shot than anyone would've figured. But first he has to get through Gian Villante, who'd be one of the more frustrating talents in the division if anyone had any faith left in him. It's easily to see why it was Villante, and not longtime friend Chris Weidman, who was considered the top prospect when both were coming up on the scene - Villante's a top-flight athlete going back to his days as a fringe NFL prospect, has some solid striking fundamentals and some knockout power. But Villante's badly lacking in all the stuff that's essentially not on paper - his fight IQ isn't the best, as he can easily be lured into brawls with guys he should be able to out-wrestle, and his fatal flaw is probably some ridiculously inconsistent defense; once Villante gets into a groove, he tends to kind of zone out on defense, at which point his opponents have been able to blast him - Tom Lawlor knocked him out in 2015, and in Villante's last fight, Saparbek Safarov, a trashy brawler who Villante should've easily beaten, even got a few good shots in after Villante was winning the balance of the fight. There's just a ton going on here - Rua's the better technical fighter, Villante's the better athlete, and while Villante theoretically has the power to knock Rua out, Villante's defensive lapses make it just as likely that Rua can turn around and do the same thing. Nothing here would really surprise me - I could see either guy knocking the other out (and knowing Villante, he'll probably be winning the fight if Rua knocks him out), or a decision that winds up being either a fun brawl or either guy just pecking at the other with leg kicks. I'll favor a narrow decision and say that Rua takes it, but this should be fascinating, even though I'm hesitant to say it'll be good. Edson Barboza (18-4 overall, 12-4 UFC) vs. Beneil Dariush (14-2 overall, 8-2 UFC): A really excellent fight here, between two former blue-chip prospects that are hitting their stride. Looking back, the hype train for Edson Barboza probably left the station a little too early a few years back - while Barboza did look awesome in destroying lower-level foes with his ridiculously fearsome kicking arsenal, including the most brutal leg kicks in the business, he did make his UFC debut only a year and a half into his career. So it's pretty understandable that Barboza has had a fairly rocky path - his memorable 2012 upset loss to Jamie Varner is still a bit shocking in retrospect, but you can see Barboza's slow ascent up the ladder, as while he continued to fall against top-flight opponents like Donald Cerrone and Michael Johnson, his wins were slowly getting better and better. After losing to Tony Ferguson at the end of 2015 in what was a pretty awesome fight, 2016 looks like it might be the year that Barboza finally broke through, as he pretty much handled former champ Anthony Pettis at his own game and temporarily sent him down to featherweight, and followed that up with a shellacking of Gilbert Melendez. So it'll be interesting to see how Beneil Dariush fares against him, since the California native is on a similar sort of career path. Dariush came into UFC as a blue-chip prospect, primarily thanks to an excellent BJJ career, but also suffered a shocking loss early in his UFC career, surprisingly getting starched by Ramsey Nijem in a 2014 fight in Abu Dhabi. But Dariush recovered and was reeling off a solid win streak - including an iffy decision win over Michael Johnson - before shockingly getting submitted by Michael Chiesa this past April; between that and the sudden comeback loss in the Nijem fight, whispers started that focus in the cage and overconfidence might start to be a problem for Dariush. But Dariush took a quick-turnaround fight against James Vick and knocked him out, and then scored a solid win over Russian prospect Rashid Magomedov to regain his momentum, and now he gets the toughest test of his career. The Magomedov fight might be instructive as far as how Dariush is going to approach this fight - Magomedov's a similarly talented distance striker as Barboza, even though Barboza throws a much higher output and is much more physically intimidating. Dariush was mostly able to hang on the feet - and his striking has been an extremely pleasant surprise as his UFC career has progressed - but succeeded a lot in just clinching up Magomedov and making it an ugly fight to win rounds. I could see that happening here - Barboza has struggled in the past with opponents who have pretty much ignored the risk of his power and kicks and just decided to pressure him - but Barboza's game feels like it's clicking as well as it ever has, and as I mentioned, Barboza's way harder to handle than Magomedov. I do expect Dariush to acquit himself well and make this what might be a surprisingly close fight, but I'll still take Barboza by decision. Jussier Formiga (19-4 overall, 5-3 UFC) vs. Ray Borg (10-2 overall, 4-2 UFC): One of these days, Jussier Formiga will get a flyweight title shot...probably. The Brazilian has been one of the top flyweights in UFC for as long as they've had the division, and seemingly every other top fighter has gotten a crack at Demetrious Johnson, but for whatever reason, the timing just never worked out for Formiga - he's just never been the best option available, and instead he's been the guy that John Dodson, Joseph Benavidez, and Henry Cejudo have had to beat to get title shots. But outside of those fights, Formiga has just kept plugging along, using his grappling-heavy style to send back all other comers. He gets another solid test here in New Mexico's Ray Borg, who at 23 years old remains one of the more intriguing young talents in the division, though as it seems with pretty much every flyweight nowadays, that comes with the caveat that he can actually make the weight. Borg had an impressive UFC debut at age 20, losing a narrow decision to Dustin Ortiz in a fight a lot of people thought he won, and then UFC brought him along slowly, pretty much allowing him to style out on some lower-level competition. 2016 figured to be a breakthrough year for Borg, but Justin Scoggins ended that fairly quickly, using his size to keep Borg at bay and win a decision, though then Scoggins was pretty much forced to move up to bantamweight because of said size. And, funnily enough, Borg blew weight for his follow-up bout against Louis Smolka this past December, so while Borg looked good in a big rebound win, his future in the division is now even more in question. It's a hard fight to call, mostly since I'm not sure how Formiga's game is going to play against Borg - Borg's striking is improving at a rapid pace, and while Formiga's one of the better submission artists in the division, Borg is both a solid scrambler and a pretty good wrestler, which matters even more since Borg actually figures to be the bigger, thicker guy here. I could look pretty dumb, since maybe Formiga's just that good and just takes Borg's back at will and controls most of the fight, but I'll actually take Borg to control most of the fight and take the win, even though I expect it to be a close decision. Bethe Correia (10-2 overall, 4-2 UFC) vs. Marion Reneau (7-3 overall, 3-2 UFC): Bethe Correia both probably deserves to be a punchline and remains quite underrated - while it's easy to make fun of her, since she basically looks and acts like a cartoon character, seems fairly delusional as far as her place in the division, and is, frankly, probably the worst athlete on the UFC roster, she's actually a pretty solid fighter despite all that. Correia started out fighting when she was training to lose weight while working as an accountant, which explains that lack of athleticism, but she's more or less become the best damn Bethe Correia she's ever going to be, since she's a fairly solid boxer who makes it work despite no physical gifts whatsoever. And as a result, her loss to Ronda Rousey is the only one where she's been blown out - though, amazingly, Correia seemed to have the right idea as far as boxing Rousey up, although the athleticism gap meant Ronda still destroyed her in half a minute - as her last loss saw her lose a narrow fight to Raquel Pennington. And that's really the tightrope that Correia walks - since she doesn't really have any sort of dynamism, her wins are pretty much destined to be decisions, and often narrow ones, since while she can win rounds, she can't really put her stamp on a fight. After beating Jessica Eye to stay afloat in the UFC, Correia gets an interesting test here in Marion Reneau, who's also probably done better than anyone could've expected on the big stage. Reneau, who's already in her late thirties, was deemed too old to be on the Rousey/Tate season of TUF, but eventually earned her UFC shot anyway and made up for lost time, destroying Alexis Dufresne and then turning around on short notice and getting a surprising submission of Jessica Andrade. But Holly Holm's boxing pretty much flummoxed Reneau and put an end to that run, and after what was more or less a robbery loss to Ashlee Evans-Smith, Reneau found herself on the cut line before getting a rebound win over Milana Dudieva. It's an interesting fight, particularly since Reneau figures to be the first opponent to really try and clinch up Correia and maybe take her down - outside of the Rousey fight, Correia has pretty much faced a steady diet of strikers, so we haven't really seen any sort of grappling game from Correia, and frankly, I'm not really all that optimistic that she has one. If Reneau just chooses to box with Correia, I see this as a pretty winnable fight for the Brazilian, but since Reneau seems to have more options than that, I'll favor her to win a decision, though like a lot of fights on this main card, it's a close one. Tim Means (26-7-1 [1] overall, 8-4 [1] UFC) vs. Alex Oliveira (16-4-1 [2] overall, 5-2 [1] UFC): I'm glad UFC ran this one back after a controversial no-contest last December, since it was a fun as hell fight on paper, was good in practice, and now might be even better with some bad blood. Tim Means has always been one of my favorite fringe-top fifteen guys; his story's great enough, as Means did a whole bunch of drugs, got shot, spent some time in jail and then turned his life around, but he still basically fights like the cage is a strip club parking lot, as he's a giant, mean dude who's quite liberal with throwing giant elbows and knees. And that made for a fun fight against Alex "Cowboy" Oliveira, who's been an interesting prospect - when he came into UFC, he figured to be a more of a striker, and he does have some natural fluidity there, but he's been at his best when he's been able to get his wrestling game going, as Oliveira basically just has enough farm strength to overwhelm and control most of his opponents. So the two fought at UFC 207, and the initial returns were pretty much the opposite of what I kind of expected - Oliveira actually got the better of things on the feet, landing a big kick to the liver that sent Means flying, but when things got into the clinch, it was actually Means who had the advantage, as he was pretty much able to power out of and reverse everything that Oliveira attempted. But then Means landed a knee to Oliveira's head while Oliveira had a knee on the ground, and then Oliveira pretty much oversold it in order to try and get the fight called a disqualification win for the Brazilian. And it probably should've been - Means apparently misunderstood the rule for a downed opponent, as while Oliveira was lifting his hand up off the ground, the supposed "three points of contact" rule doesn't actually exist - if your knee is on the ground, you're automatically downed. And while Means didn't properly understand the rules, he did fairly obviously intentionally throw the knee that ended the fight, which means it should have been a DQ loss. But the referee ruled the knee was unintentional - somehow - and we get a no contest, which hey, at least means we get to see this fight again, and now Means is pretty pissed that Oliveira tried to bullshit his way to a victory. It's as solid a matchup as it was the first time around, and like last time, I favor Means. Who knows if it holds, but a big takeaway from the first fight was that Oliveira won't be able to control Means in the clinch, which is somewhat unsurprising - Means is a giant welterweight, even if Oliveira does also have a huge frame for a former lightweight. And hey, maybe that won't matter - Oliveira did land by far the biggest blow of the first fight for as briefly they were striking with each other - but I trust Means's size and reach there as well, and say he wears down Cowboy and gets the finish in, say, the third round. Still, this is a sleeper choice for the best fight on the card. Francisco Trinaldo (21-4 overall, 11-3 UFC) vs. Kevin Lee (14-2 overall, 7-2 UFC): While this is a pretty fun fight, one wonders exactly what Francisco Trinaldo needs to do to get a big fight, particularly since he's already 38 years old. When he came onto the UFC scene via the first season of TUF: Brazil, Trinaldo figured to be a cult favorite in his homeland and not much else - he was a popular personality from his time on the show, but already an older prospect, and the thickly muscled lightweight's game didn't really seem to be much past trying to take his opponents down, clamp on some sort of choke, and essentially try to use his strength to squeeze their head off. But after a fairly middling start to his UFC career, Trinaldo was one of the more shining examples of a trend you can see with a lot of Brazilian fighters - once they get UFC money and can actually train full-time, improvement comes rapidly, and Trinaldo suddenly started showing a much-improved striking game, reeling off a seven-fight win streak. You would've thought a pretty great 2016 would've gotten Trinaldo a shot at a top fighter - he beat solid vets Ross Pearson and Paul Felder pretty handily, and had one of the more underrated fights of the year in an awesome brawl against Yancy Medeiros - but instead he serves as the big fight for someone else, in this case top prospect Kevin Lee. Lee is only 24, and quite fun, since, simply put, he's a bit of a motherfucker, calling out pretty much anyone he can over social media and always seeking to show the world how great he is. And after looking promising in a UFC debut loss to Al Iaquinta that was way too much, too soon, UFC's pretty much brought Lee along slowly (not unlike Ray Borg, who's fighting further up the card) and allowed him to develop his game and have a few showcases. Lee's overconfidence can get the best of him at times - Leonardo Santos got a stunning knockout win when Lee was pretty much caught with his hands down - but he's come along nicely, primarily as a powerful wrestler with some solid submissions in his bag. After beating Magomed Mustafaev, Lee called out pretty much the entirety of the Russian grappling community (since that's what Kevin Lee would do), which would've made for some interesting matchups, but instead UFC decided to give him Trinaldo. And I think it still might be too much, too soon - for as good as Lee's looked, there hasn't really been a ton of striking in his last two fights. Admittedly, he overwhelmed Jake Matthews quickly enough that there wasn't really the chance for much, and Mustafaev is much more dangerous on the feet, but I would've liked to have seen more from Lee standing since the Santos loss to be confidence he can beat someone like Trinaldo. I could see Lee having flashes of success going for the takedown - though Trinaldo's enough of a powerhouse that who knows - but I figure this to be a lot of Trinaldo just outboxing Lee and throwing a lot of stuff at him that the prospect can't yet answer. Still, it's a well-made fight, even if I'm pretty sure it'll be a clear decision win for Trinaldo and a marker of where Lee needs to improve rather than the crowning of a new rising contender at 155. Sergio Moraes (11-2-1 overall, 5-1-1 UFC, 1-0 Bellator) vs. Davi Ramos (6-1 overall, 0-1 Bellator): A funky little undercard fight with some potential to be interesting. Sergio Moraes probably has the most under-the-radar success in the UFC - he's been undefeated since his UFC debut, the TUF: Brazil middleweight final against Cezar Ferreira all the way back in 2012, but Moraes doesn't really get big fights or prominent spots, and isn't really talked about as any sort of contender. That's understandable - first, a string of injuries took Moraes out of action for pretty much two years, from 2013 to 2015, and killed any momentum his career might've had, and his wins are mostly either ugly or unmemorable affairs. The BJJ ace has rounded out his game with just enough striking to be dangerous, but still, Moraes's fights just sort of...happen, rather than impress. Here, he faces late notice replacement Davi Ramos, a fellow BJJ stud who's an interesting matchup thanks to those grappling credentials. Ramos had a long layoff of his own after a one-off loss in Bellator to David Rickels, but has impressed in his two fights since then. But Ramos is a natural lightweight and was small even there, so he figures to be dwarfed here by Moraes. I kind of have to favor Moraes by decision thanks to the size and experience advantages, plus Ramos only having about a week to prepare, but Ramos's striking is coming along well enough and both guys' skill-sets are similar enough that this could wind up being a fairly even fight. Still, that may not be the best thing, since I sort of see this as a fight where we just get two grapplers trying to kickbox for the better part of fifteen minutes. Rani Yahya (23-8 [1] overall, 8-2 [1] UFC, 4-3 WEC) vs. Joe Soto (17-5 overall, 2-3 UFC, 4-1 Bellator): I was going to say how impressive it was that Rani Yahya is still going strong at his age, but he's somehow only 32 years old - but still, it's impressive he's been doing this for fourteen years, given that he started shortly before his eighteenth birthday. Yahya's a weird fighter, a fireplug that pretty much just looked to wrestle foes to the ground and play the BJJ game with them, but it's been effective and somewhat entertaining - lately, UFC's basically just taken submission-based prospects and matched them against Yahya, and as a result we've gotten some fun grappling exchanges, all in fights that Yahya has won. But this time around, Yahya's facing Joe Soto, a well-rounded vet - a former Bellator featherweight champion, Soto had a weirdly memorable UFC debut; he was scheduled for an undercard bout in August of 2014 when Renan Barao had weight-cutting issues, so Soto got the call to fight bantamweight champ T.J. Dillashaw on just a day's notice. Soto acquitted himself well, making it to the fifth round before losing, but after losing two more fights, it looked like that might be the highlight of Soto's UFC career. But Soto rebounded with two wins, including a win over Marco Beltran where Soto took the fight on late notice and won via a sweet leglock, and he's finally carved out a niche on the UFC roster. Soto's a bit more well-rounded, and could win this if it turns into a striking match, but at this point I need to roll with Yahya, since I don't really see anything that suggests Soto can stop Yahya from dictating where the fight takes place. Like a lot of Yahya's recent fights, we should get some fun exchanges since Soto's quite savvy on the ground, but at the end of the day I'm taking the Brazilian by clear decision. Joshua Burkman (28-14 [1] overall, 6-9 [1] UFC) vs. Michel Prazeres (21-2 overall, 5-2 UFC): Well, UFC's apparently still in the Josh Burkman business, even though I'm not really sure what they see in him at this point. Burkman definitely earned his way back into the UFC with some big wins in WSOF, but his second tenure has been a whole bunch of nothing - a 2015 fight with Patrick Cote was a surprisingly fun loss, and Burkman followed that up by cutting down to lightweight and getting a lackluster win over K.J. Noons, but every other fight Burkman has been in has been a boring loss, and we're six fights in. But whatever, Burkman's back for another shot after losing two straight, and he faces Brazil's Michel "Trator" Prazeres, who's had a surprising amount of success. Prazeres is extremely short and stout for a lightweight, and as one would expect, he's pretty much just a power grinder, which has worked, including a surprising win over Mairbek Taisumov that keeps looking better as time goes on. And Prazeres's last fight, against Gilbert Burns, showed that Prazeres also has some solid defensive wrestling - Burns, a BJJ ace, kept trying to get things to the ground, but Prazeres prevented him from doing so and pieced up the top prospect with a solid striking game. Shockingly, I actually think Burkman has a shot here given the size difference, but I'll still take Prazeres to win the decision, since I just sort of trust him to, well, do more stuff, as Burkman can be fairly inactive at times looking for an opening. Either way, neither guy is particularly exciting, so this may be your window to take care of some other things. Rony Jason (14-6 [1] overall, 4-3 [1] UFC) vs. Jeremy Kennedy (9-0 overall, 1-0 UFC): A really interesting fight here, since both guys get a big chance to prove themselves. Rony Jason was the featherweight winner of TUF: Brazil 1, and figured to be the biggest star coming off the show, but his UFC tenure has been a mixed bag - Jason got some impressive wins early, showing both some dangerous submission skills and knockout power, but Jeremy Stephens absolutely wrecked him, and since, Jason has been pretty much been trading wins and losses, with a suspension for a failed drug test causing a year-long layoff in between. After weirdly getting thrown in against fringe contender Dennis Bermudez and losing rather handily, Jason looks to rebound against Jeremy Kennedy, one of the more intriguing entrants in UFC's recent wave of Canadian signings. Kennedy has one of the better nicknames on the UFC roster - "JBC", thanks to his love of Wendy's junior bacon cheeseburgers - and has an intriguing skill-set, as he's tall and long for the division and has some solid grappling, but is mostly known as a striker thanks to his time training in Thailand. It's hard to know what to make of this one, mostly since Kennedy is still sort of an unknown - again, striking is apparently his strong suit, but he spent most of his UFC debut just grinding out Alessandro Ricci, which was a smart move since Ricci's striking is also the best part of his game. But given that Jason's a completely different style matchup, who knows what Kennedy will bring and if his striking is up to snuff. With Kennedy being a question mark, I'll just sort of rely on Jason's dynamism to get the job done here - I'll say he gets things to the ground and clamps on some sort of submission in, say, the second round, since that's the best part of his game, but if Kennedy's striking game turns out to be legit, it wouldn't surprise me if he just outboxed the Brazilian for three rounds. Paulo Costa (8-0 overall) vs. Garreth McLellan (13-5 overall, 1-3 UFC): Paulo "Borrachinha" Costa didn't make much of an impression on TUF: Brazil 3, but he rebounded fine after not getting the UFC call, continuing where he left off, as all eight of Costa's pro MMA wins are by knockout. That eventually earned him the call here, about three years later, and he faces South Africa's Garreth McLellan, who surprisingly got another shot with the promotion. McLellan's faced the same problem as a lot of his countrymen, as well as guys from some other countries, in the UFC - on their local circuit, guys like McLellan are the best wrestlers around, so they have those skills as a bit of a fallback, but at the UFC level, pretty much everyone has a plus level of grappling, negating that failsafe and basically causing the games of guys like McLellan to completely fall apart. Still, if nothing else, McLellan is ridiculously tough, so while Costa figures to be able to tee off on the South African at will, if he doesn't have much of a gas tank or much in the way of other skills, McLellan's more than capable of just hanging around enough to eventually take advantage. Still, I'll call for Costa to eventually wear McLellan down and stop him in the third round, but at this point, anything past round one is more or less untested waters for the Brazilian.

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