#ill draw him the way I draw Finland eventually | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

how2to18 · 7 years

Link

IF YOU NEED to ask who Konstantin Batyushkov is, this is the book for you. For fans of Russian poetry, and especially for Russophone poets, Batyushkov (1787–1855) is a vital figure who wrote exquisite verse and helped to usher in what is known as the Golden Age of Russian poetry. Admired by contemporaries, he is read and cited by later poets as well. Peter France, framer of this book, notes that Batyushkov is too often mentioned or discussed merely as a precursor of the best-known Golden Age poet, Aleksandr Pushkin (1799–1837); Pushkin is a relatively minor presence in this narrative, though often “name-checked” to provide context. This selection-cum-biography of Batyushkov is part of the Russian Library now emerging from Columbia University Press, underlining the commitment of that series to making Russian classics available in English. The cover describes Peter France as presenter and translator, which understates what he has done: besides introducing the volume, he is the author of a substantial artistic and intellectual biography of the poet that provides a large selection of Batyushkov’s own writings in France’s translation. The verse is set apart graphically, making it easy to flip through the book following the poetry — ideally after reading the whole thing through.

Batyushkov was a translator of note, as Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry often reminds us. The attention to Batyushkov’s poetic sources suggests interesting ways to compare his translations or adaptations with the originals in Greek or Latin, English, French, or Italian. Of course, it also means looking at a translation of a translation, something of a mise en abîme. It is refreshing that France’s book makes the role of translation explicit (while sometimes offering the original, as with a late stanza or two from Byron’s Don Juan). The approach is valuable for poetry of the early 19th century, and especially for Russian literature, which has on the whole been much readier than most European literatures to acknowledge its foreign sources and their arrival via translation.

France stresses Batyushkov’s dual role both as gifted individual author and as shaper of what quickly became a world-class literature with a more flexible system of poetic genres. This entailed assimilating and recreating poems from other languages as part of his own poetry: “through translation, Batyushkov could create his own individual voice, something different from existing Russian poetry [which was a] still young poetic culture.” As France reminds us, “the first great poet in modern Russian, Lomonosov, preceded [Batyushkov] by only two generations.”

In the first two decades of the 19th century, Russian poetry was indeed a small and largely private scene, featuring almost exclusively aristocratic authors. In this era, poetry often spread in manuscript and could build a reputation without being published, like Batyushkov’s mocking “Vision on the Banks of Lethe.” Batyushkov knew everyone who was anyone at least well enough to exchange letters or to tease in a poetic parody. The likes of Nikolay Karamzin, Vasily Zhukovsky, and Pyotr Vyazemsky make frequent appearances in this volume as friends, authors, and correspondents. (It is too bad that there is no index to help retrieve these moments, especially given the solidity of many of the text’s insights and summaries, but that adds value to the searchable ebook.)

Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry interweaves translations of poetry (plus excerpts from prose essays and personal letters) with history and biography. This usefully lets France prepare his reader for a work’s significance before its translation appears. It also lets him select only high points, whereas the usual poetry anthology would be obliged to include complete poems. The welcoming narrative presentation of information, explanation, and interpretation opens the work to understanding while still putting the poetry at center stage. By the time we reach the poem “My Penates” on page 85, for instance, we know it is important, and reaching it even feels like a reward. This is a wise choice for the first significant presentation of the poet in English. (There have been PhD dissertations on Batyushkov in North America, but they appeal to a different readership.)

Historical background includes Batyushkov’s time in the army, with visits to Finland, Germany, and France, and details of the Napoleonic era as a whole. Batyushkov did much of his best work in isolation in a village, for financial reasons. Some background is left unmentioned; we hear, for instance, that Batyushkov inherited a village from his mother, and that he often stayed there, especially when he was short of money, but not that the village came with serfs, whose labor made living there so much less expensive for him. Many Russians at the time considered serfdom distinct from slavery, indeed a sensible way of caring for the land and accommodating the various roles of the different “estates” (aristocrats, clergy, merchants, and — the huge majority — peasants). Batyushkov probably shared that way of thinking; France notes his conservative tendencies and cites some distinctly unrevolutionary comments from his letters. In fairness, one volume cannot do everything, but social background is particularly important, since the Decembrist movement was brewing, even if the 1825 uprising and Tsar Nicholas I’s response came after Batyushkov had left public life. We do hear about the poet’s more radical cousin, Nikita Muravyov, who was condemned to death in 1826 but had the sentence commuted to exile in Siberia.

France clearly likes Batyushkov as a person. Without smoothing away contradictions, he draws attention to the poet’s wit, cleverness, and congeniality, stressing the elevation of friendship in his elegies and the importance of his friendly missives (as the Formalist critics of the early 20th century pointed out, these were an active part of the literary system at the time, meant to be read aloud in salons). The narrative cherry-picks the most interesting parts of Batyushkov’s letters to fellow poets like Nikolay Gnedich, the translator of the Iliad into Russian and Batyshkov’s close friend, and prepares the reader to appreciate their significance.

These letters [from 1811] to friends are real works of art, frequently prefiguring the new kind of poetry that Batyushkov was writing. They are written from the heart, with frequent complaints about illness, boredom, poverty, and other woes, as we have seen. But they are also performances, full of zest, veering from familiarity to mock pomposity — the sort of letter that needs to be read aloud.

As that excerpt demonstrates, France’s text is highly knowledgeable but refreshingly unacademic. Poets and general readers should appreciate this volume as much as teachers and scholars who can now quote elegant translations. When a work must be seen as a whole to be appreciated, the volume gives it, be it short or long; these include adaptations/translations from the anthology that Batyushkov translated from Sergey Uvarov’s French versions of classical poems and “Tasso Dying,” one of Batyushkov’s masterpieces.

Batyushkov’s connection with Italian language and literature was (and is) unusual in Russia. Tasso (1544–1595) was his favorite, and the Russian poet’s friends sometimes called him Torquato in tribute to this enthusiasm. The attraction to Italian was not just an example of his use of significant foreign models; it expresses his quest for musicality, the sonorous acoustic quality for which his poetry has been noted ever since. Batyushkov eventually managed to get himself posted to Italy in the diplomatic service, though it seems to have happened too late: his health did not improve, he didn’t get along with his first boss, and he was lonely (not many Russians in Naples). He asked to retire after two years and left even before that request was approved.

Among other helpful spoilers, the book quickly mentions and regularly repeats that Batyushkov went mad and wrote almost nothing (as far as we know) in the last three decades of his life. For a reader unaware of this, the retroactive foreknowledge may create tragic suspense, the question of when and how it will happen. Surely the eventual madness has attracted some later readers (especially poets): more than a personal tragedy, it somehow suggests the risks poets (or any sensitive artistic souls) run in Russia, even if, like Batyushkov, they are not at all political radicals or dissidents. His last “sane” poem was written between 1821 and 1824:

Reader, have you not heard

Of gray Melchisedec’s last words?

Man is born a slave,

A slave goes to the grave,

And can he hope that death will say

Why he walked through this lovely vale of tears

Suffered, complained, accepted, disappeared?

We get a compressed picture of the “mute” final decades, as the poet strolled in the provincial city of Vologda, attended theater, smiled at children. One “crazy” poem has survived, and is extremely interesting from today’s point of view, informed by Russian Futurism and other avant-garde movements. France wisely offers both a literal translation of the phonetic play at that poem’s end (“Tsaritsas, rule as tsars, and you, the empress! / Tsars, do not rule as tsars, I myself am a tsar on Pindus! / Venus my sister, and you my little sister. / But my Caesar is the holy reaper [a kesar’ moy — svyatoy kosar’],”) before giving his freer version, which creates similar phonetic play in English (citing the same final four lines):

Be stars for us, my empress, my tsaritsas! Tsars are not stars: Mount Pindus is my state, Venus my sister, you my little sister, My Caesar — scissors in the hands of Fate.

In his translations France strives for metrical and rhyming equivalence, though never at the cost of poetic quality. He uses slant rhyme frequently, and he employs a rich vocabulary. His gift for scansion results in effective and sophisticated deployment of rhythm — whole long sections read without “jingling” or growing monotonous. Given the typically shorter length of common English words, the lines in translation are often a foot shorter (e.g., pentameter rather than hexameter). The reader may find herself settling into the longer translations and wishing there were more, even of a long poem. France is very responsive to form and addresses it explicitly here and there, though in other places a curious reader would have to pick up or look up the original to check for differences (Batyushkov’s work is widely available online, like other Russian poetry of every era). It would be worth citing much more than space will allow here.

One early example, excerpted from a letter, France calls doggerel:

I’m shivering with cold, Though I’m sitting by the stove, Lying under my coat I see the fire’s glow, But I tremble like a vole, Or like a wretched mole, I love the warmth of coal But I wander through the cold, Only verse keeps me whole.

Humor flashes again in a longer complaint about village life: in one stanza, the village doctor “Treats me with wormwood potions / And soups made out of bone, / And with these clever notions / He’ll see me dead and gone.” The poetry rests firmly in its context in Batyushkov’s career and in the whole development of Russian poetry: France notes that the 1813 epistle “To [Dmitry] Dashkov” “marks a turning point in his work. It deals with a subject — war — which in the traditional poetics would have been treated in a high formal ode; Batyushkov’s treatment shows his innovative genius, breaking down the barriers between genres, mixing different styles, solemn, lyrical, and familiar, to express an individual take on life.” The text dwells for many pages on the two-volume collection of Batyushkov’s work, Essays, edited by Gnedich, which included a volume of prose (largely essays: Batyushkov was a particular admirer of Montaigne) and one of verse. France writes:

The first and much the longest section is entitled ‘Elegies’ — and Batyushkov is often seen as a crucial figure in establishing the elegy as the central poetic genre of the Russian Golden Age. The term is a capacious one in Russian literature, but essentially it is distinguished from the more formal ode by its concentration on the expression of personal feelings.

Batyushkov’s groundbreaking anthology translations of classical poems emerge elegantly in France’s translations:

When a girl in agony is fading

and her body is blue and chilled,

it is in vain love pours out flowers

and amber; she must lie still,

pale as a lily of the fields,

like a waxen form; and now

flowers cannot warm her cooling hands

and perfume has no power.

The poem begins with appropriate stiffness, but its end is genuinely moving, an example both of Poe’s “most poetical topic in the world” and of Batyushkov’s ability to warm it into something vibrant.

France’s recurrent but non-irritating reminders of things and people already mentioned ensure that everything makes sense and resonates where needed with its proper significance. (This should be especially helpful for readers unfamiliar with Russian names.) After the biography ends, the last full chapter gives an evaluation of Batyushkov’s place in Russian poetry. As France suggests by opening his volume with the great Modernist Osip Mandelstam’s poem “Batyushkov,” the 19th-century poet is important enough merely for his impact on other poets, from Pushkin to the present day.

And let me say a few words about Peter France himself, who has translated Russian poets including Evgeny Baratynsky, Mikhail Lermontov, Osip Mandelstam, and Gennady Aigi, not even mentioning his work with French. Many of these turn out to be connected to Batyushkov in ways that are productive for this project; if France needs to cite a poet, he can usually do so in his own version. Toward the end of the volume, he cites Maria Rybakova’s 2011 novel in verse Gnedich, devoted to Nikolay Gnedich, who plays such an important role in this book, as well as Elena Dimov’s excellent 2015 translation of that work from the Russian. France generously credits Rybakova with inspiring his interest in Batyushkov, and thus the volume at hand.

Like the whole Russian Library series, Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry has beautiful production values, and its cover is especially successful, bringing out the best of perpendicular text and the pleasing geometric juxtaposition of a lyre and a cannon wheel. Almost at the end of the volume, following the notes, is a “Translator’s Note” in which France briefly discusses his work on Batyushkov and calls translation “this daunting but (for me) irresistible task.” This draws attention to the book’s double value: it treats an essential Russian poet, and it shows a master translator at the height of his powers.

Sibelan Forrester has published translations of prose and poetry from Russian and Croatian, and of prose from Serbian. She is professor of Russian Language and Literature at Swarthmore College.

The post “Reader, Have You Not Heard?”: On “Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://ift.tt/2BklmiP via IFTTT

#Blogger

0 notes

writingsubmissions · 7 years

Text

UFC 210 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Fight Night from London, once again, continued UFC's main trend of 2017, delivering a show that featured a bunch of fun, well-made fights despite not being all that overwhelming at the box office. And while people ragged on the choice for main event, it all worked out in the end, as the star of the show did indeed wind up being London's Jimi Manuwa, who knocked out Corey Anderson in scintillating fashion just three minutes into their fight. Manuwa's sneaky old for a relatively inexperienced fighter, as he's already 37, and after high-profile losses to Alexander Gustafsson and Anthony Johnson, he was looking like a bit of a bust, but after highlight-reel knockouts of Ovince St. Preux and Anderson, he's suddenly one of the top contenders at light heavyweight; honestly, if Jon Jones isn't ready to fight the Cormier/Johnson winner, the next title shot should probably go to Manuwa or, of all people, Shogun Rua. So it all worked out - admittedly, everything I said is more of an indictment of the depth at 205 than anything else, but a main event establishing an exciting title contender is pretty much exactly what you hope for. *The other big story on the night probably came third from the top, as Brad Pickett retired in pretty much the most deflating way possible, although it was still a great moment. Pickett had announced this was his retirement fight going in, and was pretty much handling late replacement Marlon Vera for the better part of the first two rounds. Vera came out more aggressive in the third and started getting the better of things, but after a bit, it looked like Pickett had pretty much stemmed the tide and would cruise his way to a decision victory...until Vera nailed Pickett with a head kick and put him out with just a minute left. It's an appropriate enough end for Pickett, whose late-career fights have been marked by sudden shifts in momentum against him, and it still wound up being sort of uplifting. First, Vera honestly probably gave a better speech than Pickett did, talking about how Pickett is a legend and how much this fight meant to him, as someone who watched a lot of Pickett fights growing up, and then Dan Hardy (who's particularly excellent at these post-fight interviews) did a masterful job of lifting Pickett's spirits and showing Brad how much his hometown crowd supports him. It looks like Pickett's already starting to corner fighters, so I assume he's going into coaching, and given his status as a British MMA pioneer, he should do quite well at it. *There were a bunch of standout performances on this card, and the most prominent was by Gunnar Nelson in the co-main - the Icelander's had an up and down UFC run, as his losses have been particularly disheartening, but this was one of those nights where he got to style on an opponent, as he absolutely ran through Alan Jouban in what might've been his best win to date. Nelson got things to the ground in fairly short order and kept them there for most of the first round, but then he stunned Jouban on the feet to open things in the second, then took him down again and slid on the fight-ending choke. Beautiful stuff, and at the very least Nelson should be prominently featured on European cards going forward. But while Nelson got the most prominent big win, the best performance was pretty easily by British prospect Marc Diakiese, who finally showed on the UFC stage what got people so excited for his arrival. UFC's been feeding him some solid grapplers, and Diakiese just blew the doors off of Finland's Teemu Packalen, using his athleticism to clown him with some flashy strikes before just destroying his consciousness with a vicious right hand in just thirty seconds flat. Diakiese still needs some seasoning, so I wouldn't rush him into deeper waters just yet, particularly in such a deep lightweight division, but Diakiese might have the highest ceiling of anyone at 155. *And there was a bunch of other fun stuff. Performance-wise, the next-best highlight was probably Joe Duffy pretty much dominating Reza Madadi, piecing up the Swedish grappler on the feet - Duffy's got top-ten level talent at the minimum and has proven himself quite well since a disheartening loss to Dustin Poirier, but the Irishman is now a free agent, and it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. One figures Japan and Russia won't particularly go after Duffy's services, so it really comes down to seeing if Bellator thinks Duffy is worth investing in as someone they can turn into a relative star. Two British prospects got big, if narrow, decision victories, as Arnold Allen and Leon Edwards beat Makwan Amirkhani and Vicente Luque, respectively. Amirkhani was able to show his prowess as a wrestler, but Allen proved to be more active and just the generally more well-rounded fighter, coming on more as the fight went on to eventually get the nod. And Edwards continues to look like a well-rounded stud, although he got himself in trouble at times unnecessarily going for takedowns - Luque pretty much showed he has a limited gas tank when he doesn't get the finish, so Edwards was able to control large swaths of the fight, though Luque did eventually bite down on his mouthpiece and sort of throw heat despite his exhaustion in the latter stages of the fight. Elsewhere on the card, Lina Lansberg beat Lucie Pudilova via decision in a really fun, bloody opener - Pudilova looked surprisingly game and had a really strong third round, but it wasn't enough to take the decision. Brad Scott beat Scott Askham in a battle of mid-tier British middleweights - like pretty much all their fights, it was a narrow decision that was pretty fun, but completely unmemorable. And the one rough stretch of the card saw Tim Johnson beat Daniel Omielanczuk in a fairly crap heavyweight fight, and Francimar Barroso once again neutralize an exciting prospect en route to a boring win, in this case over Britain's Darren Stewart. Stewart subsequently announced he was cutting down to middleweight - not a surprise, given his frame, but still disappointing given that 205 needs all the talent it can get. *Unfortunately, two of the more highly-touted prospects on the card were pulled at the last minute. Welsh bantamweight Brett Johns, who looked like a stud in his debut win over Kwan Ho Kwak, had his fight with Ian Entwistle scuttled for fairly unsurprising reasons - Entwistle, who's had weight issues in the past, missed weight and was subsequently deemed to ill to compete, enough so that Entwistle decided to retire on social media, citing the abuse he has put his body through. But the real worrisome one might have to do with Tom Breese, who's one of Britain's brightest prospects - this was slated to be Breese's debut at middleweight after moving up a weight class, but he got flagged for an elevated heart rate, and his fight was called off. The only real similar thing I could think of is Stefan Struve, who had anxiety issues before a 2014 fight, and Struve has gotten that taken care of and is now able to compete - hopefully the same winds up being true for Breese. *For once, a whole bunch of news is coming out of Bellator - I'm not sure if they're going to be an actual competitor to UFC just yet, but a whole bunch of interesting stuff is happening. The biggest one is probably Bellator announcing their own show in Madison Square Garden this June, headlined by Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva, and when that fight inevitably falls through, a second try at Fedor Emilianenko against Matt Mitrione. There's also showcase spots for two of Bellator's newest big signings from UFC, as welterweight contender Lorenz Larkin will get an immediate title shot against Douglas Lima in what should be a fun fight, and Ryan Bader will make his Bellator debut against "King" Mo Lawal. Add in a title defense for lightweight champ Michael Chandler and the debut of uber-prospect Aaron Pico, and Bellator has a fascinating card on their hands. Now, the question is exactly how it'll do business-wise - this is slated to be Bellator's second-ever pay-per-view, and I'm not sure Sonnen/Silva isn't just better off as a major TV draw. Plus I'm curious to see how well tickets move - Bellator seems to be charging Madison Square Garden prices rather than Bellator prices (for comparison, these prices are way more expensive than the Jon Jones/Sonnen UFC card that took place in Jersey in 2013), so...good luck with all that. Plus there's a whole bunch of other stuff with Bellator - they also signed former UFC bantamweight title challenger Michael McDonald, who successfully got his release from UFC, and also announced a partnership with Monster Energy to put on some fights at a few different NASCAR events this year. Alright then. And weirdly, it appears that Rampage Jackson is done with the company after losing to King Mo this past weekend - apparently Jackson is set to return to UFC, to fight out that weird deal he signed back in 2015, when UFC basically signed him to a contract even though he was under contract to Bellator, and the courts temporarily allowed it. *And just a few more news and notes to wrap things up, leading off with...hey, I guess that Conor McGregor/Floyd Mayweather fight is probably going to happen now? Somehow? UFC's basically that desperate for money, that as long as they get a solid cut, they'll basically let Conor go get slaughtered, with September being the working timeframe for that sideshow to take place. Nutritionist Dan Garner announced he is working with Ronda Rousey, fueling speculation that she might fight again - Garner's primarily been a nutritionist for MMA fighters, but mostly regional-level guys, so who knows if this means anything even though the rumors are now out there. Cris Cyborg officially vacated her Invicta featherweight belt, as expected. And in another sign that UFC is backing off its former goal of global domination, it appears the UFC Network in Latin America is no more, as a bunch of sudden shifts in UFC's television deals have left Mexico and Brazil as the only countries in Central and South America with UFC content. It appears the new ownership will start negotiating individual deals in each country, and I hope they figure something out soon, since we were starting to see trickles of talent out of places like Peru and Argentina. And I guess this means no TUF: Latin America season four. ------ BOOKINGS: *Alright, UFC announced a ton of stuff (including basically entire cards for this June) over the last three weeks, so let's do the run-through chronologically. Some upcoming shows each added a fun undercard bout - the Fox show from Kansas City added a bantamweight fight between Aljamain Sterling and Augusto Mendes, which is an interesting one; Sterling has kind of regressed a bit since signing a contract extension when it looked like he'd be the next big bantamweight contender, while Mendes is a raw, but interesting BJJ convert who's coming off a big win over veteran Frankie Saenz. Also, that stacked UFC 211 card in Dallas in May added a neat strawweight bout, as Jessica Aguilar returns from almost a two-year long layoff after a torn ACL to face Cortney Casey. Before UFC implemented a strawweight division, Aguilar was pretty much considered the top fighter in the division, but was stuck under contract to WSOF - but after losing her UFC debut to Claudia Gadelha and then suffering the ACL tear, she's been sort of a forgotten woman, and could use a win here. *From there, we head to Stockholm over Memorial Day weekend, and while I wouldn't say UFC added any major fights to this card, there's still some interesting stuff announced featuring some European favorites. The biggest fight of the four new ones is probably Peter Sobotta, a German-Polish veteran who looked excellent in his last fight against Nicolas Dalby, looking to continue the momentum by facing Ben Saunders in what should be a fun one. Former Bellator title contender Marcin Held returns to face Damir Hadzovic - while Held's last fight, a decision loss to Joe Lauzon that even Lauzon said he didn't deserve, was a robbery loss, Held still needs a win at 0-2 in the UFC, and Hadzovic seems to be a setup fight for that to happen. Ghana's Abdul Razak Alhassan, who's an exciting, reckless power striker, has his sophomore UFC effort against Omari Akhmedov, and Swedish prospect Nico Musoke, who's spent about two years away from the sport, returns to face Bojan Velickovic at welterweight. Also, Sweden's Magnus Cedenblad is injured and out of his fight against Chris Camozzi, so Camozzi will instead face Trevor Smith in a weird fight for a European card. This shouldn't be a bad card, but it's by far the worst of UFC's trips abroad this spring, at least as constructed, so I wonder if they'll put together another big fight or two for this one. *After that, it's UFC 212 in Rio, which didn't add anything that looks like a main card fight, but added a few neat undercard bouts. Paulo "Borrachinha" Costa, a raw, all-offense bomber who looked good in his UFC debut last month against Garreth McLellan, returns to face Oluwale Bamgbose in the perfect sort of low-level striking match that both guys need. And speaking of dynamic finishers, Erick Silva and Yancy Medeiros square off at welterweight, as UFC seems to finally be embracing Silva's destiny of being a flawed action fighter rather than trying to turn him into a Brazilian star. And there's an interesting fight between two mid-tier lightweights, as still-improving veteran and TUF: Brazil 2 winner Leonardo Santos faces Quebecois prospect Olivier Aubin-Mercier, who's coming off one of the more impressive performances of his career against Drew Dober. *Then we get into the meat of what UFC has announced, as they've basically filled out three straight cards taking place on three straight weekends in June, starting with a trip to Auckland, New Zealand. Mark Hunt seemed like an obvious choice to headline this card, but I figured he was out of the picture with the damage he suffered against Alistair Overeem - but nope, Hunt is not like most mortal men, and headlines the card against Derrick Lewis in what will be Lewis's toughest test to date. And in what appears to be the co-main, Australian judo dad Dan Kelly, fresh off his big win over Rashad Evans, gets a chance against someone in the top-fifteen proper, as he faces Derek Brunson in what, like all Dan Kelly fights, should be a weird one. And in what I'd call the third big fight of the card, Joseph Benavidez faces Australian favorite Ben Nguyen, as UFC just continues to throw people against Benavidez while never giving him a third crack at Demetrious Johnson. A few other undercard bouts got announced - former flyweight title challenger John Moraga, who's completely fallen off a cliff lately, gets what one would think is one last chance in the UFC against debuting Australian Ashkan Mokhtarian. New Zealand prospect Daniel Hooker moves up a weight class to take on Ross Pearson at lightweight, in what might be Pearson's own last chance for a UFC win. Light heavyweights Henrique da Silva and Ion Cutelaba square off in a fight originally slated for Fortaleza this past March, and lightweight Vinc Pichel, who's been out for almost three years with injuries after beating Anthony Njokuani in May of 2014, makes his return to face Australian vet Damien Brown. *From there we go to Singapore, and while it doesn't appear a main event has been announced yet, there's some interesting stuff going on. Top welterweight prospect Colby Covington finally gets the big fight he's been asking for, as he gets to challenge top-ten stalwart Dong Hyun Kim. This doesn't seem to be the main, though I haven't seen that confirmed, which makes me wonder what's going to be - Kim seemed like an obvious choice since UFC doesn't really have a ton of prominent Asian stars, but I guess not. Also, one of the men who headlined UFC's first foray into Singapore, Tarec Saffiedine, will be the man to welcome former lightweight champ Rafael dos Anjos into the welterweight division - Saffiedine needs a win, and this doesn't seem to be it, but I guess he does make a good benchmark to see exactly how far dos Anjos can go in his new weight class. And in the only other fight that seems like an obvious main card match-up, Andrei Arlovski looks to stop the bleeding of his sudden losing streak against rising Polish heavyweight Marcin Tybura. As far as undercard stuff, it's solid, led by Justin Scoggins returning to flyweight after a one-off fight at bantamweight, taking on Japanese prospect Ulka Sasaki, who looked good in a loss to current top contender Wilson Reis. Beloved Japanese vet Takanori Gomi makes his return against Jon Tuck at lightweight, heavyweights Walt Harris and Cyril Asker square off, and in a fun bantamweight bout, Russell Doane takes on Korean prospect Kwan Ho Kwak. Plus we get some debuts - Chinese featherweight Guan Wang, who UFC seems to be pushing as their new face of the country, gets a tough first test against Alex Caceres, and debuting flyweights Naoki Inoue of Japan and C.J. de Tomas from the Philippines square off. There was also talk of Holly Holm fighting on this card against Ji Yeon Kim, a relatively unknown Korean bantamweight (which yes, means I guess even Holm isn't in the featherweight division anymore), but apparently Holm's management turned that fight down - given that it was seemingly an easy win, I'm not really sure what other fight they're holding out for. *UFC also announced a June card in Oklahoma City that filled out pretty quick, led by a really fun main event, as rising lightweights Michael Chiesa and Kevin Lee square off. A perfect choice here, in my opinion, as both are marketable young guys that deserve this spotlight. And they're getting support from a bunch of weird, veteran-filled fights. B.J. Penn is going to fight again, though at least this time it's against Dennis Siver, who's the right kind of similarly shot opponent that shouldn't make the fight too depressing. Former welterweight champ Johny Hendricks, who has a bunch of ties to Oklahoma going back to his wrestling days, keeps working his way up the ladder at middleweight against Tim Boetsch, and in a weird one that's happening because light heavyweight is light heavyweight, Ilir Latifi is taking on Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. Given Latifi's status as a bit of a star in Sweden, this was a natural fit for the Stockholm card and was apparently initially slated for there, but it's unclear exactly what happened. Further down the card, we get two interesting strawweight bouts, as Felice Herrig takes on Justine Kish and Carla Esparza takes on Maryna Moroz, plus Clay Guida returns to lightweight to take on Erik Koch, middleweights Vitor Miranda and Marvin Vettori square off, and Jeremy Kimball and Josh Stansbury face each other at light heavyweight. *Past that, we have no official fight announcements, but stuff is leaking out and a few new dates and venues have been confirmed. UFC 213, this year's big July show in Vegas, apparently has two bouts already set - Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem will cap off a weird trilogy of fights at heavyweight, and we should get some awesome violence as Robbie Lawler and Donald Cerrone are slated to square off, in a fight that was initially targeted for Madison Square Garden last fall. Other than that, there's just a bunch of rumors that this will have some combination of GSP against Michael Bisping, Jon Jones against the winner of this UFC 210 main, and I guess Amanda Nunes/Valentina Shevchenko, since it appears that fight is taking place sometime around then. UFC also announced their first card from Long Island, as the July Fox show will emanate from the Nassau Coliseum - I assume you can pencil Chris Weidman into the main event, win or lose this weekend, but there's already one pretty awesome rumored fight that should be high up on the card, as "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung will apparently take on Ricardo Lamas on this card. And UFC also filled out some of its European slate for 2017, announcing two cards for the fall - the promotion will make their return to Rotterdam in the Netherlands this September, then follow that up with a trip to Gdansk, Poland in October, UFC's second card in the country. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Michael McDonald (17-4 overall, 6-3 UFC, last fought 7/13/16, L vs. John Lineker): As mentioned above, McDonald successfully asked for his release from UFC and signed with Bellator, ending a bit of a weird UFC run. McDonald, a California native, made his WEC debut at age nineteen and was absorbed into UFC shortly thereafter, looking like the future of the division - he had some solid grappling and some devastating knockout power in his fists, and given his age, the sky seemed to be the limit. In fact, after a breakout win over Miguel Angel Torres, it was initially McDonald who got the call when Dominick Cruz got injured before his title defense against Urijah Faber in 2012 - but reportedly right after accepting the fight, McDonald went and broke his hand in training, and that spot eventually went to Renan Barao. So instead, McDonald took on Barao about half a year later, and frankly, lost a fairly one-sided fight - but again, McDonald was still just 22 at this point, so it figured to be the first title shot of many. The rest of 2013 saw McDonald blow the doors off Brad Pickett, but then lose to Faber in shockingly one-sided fashion, and then...silence. Word would occasionally trickle out that McDonald was continuing to deal with broken hands, and after the Reebok deal, it sounded like McDonald was ready to retire due to the dire financial landscape of the sport before he eventually decided to return in 2016, after over a two-year layoff. And, well, McDonald didn't really look like he had evolved, and the narrative of his career went from him being a prodigy to someone who probably wasted his potential by not going to a bigger camp, as McDonald has basically decided to stay in his hometown and train with his brothers. A win over Masanori Kanehara was closer than it needed to be, and John Lineker did John Lineker things and knocked McDonald the hell out last July, and then it was radio silence once again before the whole release and move to Bellator was announced. McDonald seems like a nice enough guy, so I hope he does well, even though I'm worried his story will be one of squandered talent. 2) Brad Pickett (25-14 overall, 5-9 UFC, last fought 3/18/17, L vs. Marlon Vera): As said above, Pickett's heartbreaking loss to Vera was his retirement fight, though Pickett did go out in somewhat perfect fashion. A pioneer of British MMA, particularly in the lighter weight classes, Pickett came to WEC in 2009 and had a fairly solid run, including a 2010 win over Demetrious Johnson where Pickett was able to rely on his wrestling. From there it was on to UFC, and looking back, as fun as a lot of Pickett's fights were, he was probably coming in just as his career was starting to slide downwards. Pickett hung around as a contender for a bit, even losing a number one-contender's bout to Eddie Wineland, but a one-sided loss to Michael McDonald made Pickett consider a move down to flyweight, in the hopes he could repeat his win against Johnson. But the cut down never really took, and a 2014 loss to Ian McCall started a 1-6 run that ended Pickett's career, with close decision losses eventually giving way to more one-sided losses. So Pickett's getting out at about the right time after a great career, and it looks like he's already doing some corner work, which is good news for someone who deserves to have a safe landing in the next phase of his life. 3) Ian Entwistle (9-3 overall, 1-2 UFC, last fought 4/10/16, L vs. Alejandro Perez): Entwistle announced his retirement after getting pulled from his slated fight with Brett Johns thanks to weight-cutting issues, and that's probably the right move, given that this marked the second straight slated fight where he was unable to healthily cut weight. Entwistle was a fun fighter if only for how one-dimensional he was - a stocky former soccer player, Entwistle's entire game was basically hunting for leglocks, which would often make for a weird fight. In fact, the one fight where it worked, where Anthony Birchak just pretty much charged into danger, was the most normal fight of Entwistle's three UFC bouts - his UFC debut against Daniel Hooker ended in weird fashion, with the much taller Hooker just sitting up while in a leglock and deciding to elbow Entwistle into unconsciousness, and his last fight saw Entwistle strangely accuse Perez of greasing repeatedly during the fight. UFC kept trying to book Entwistle as an interesting test for prospects since his game is so unorthodox, but he'd almost never make it to fight night - between the health issues and the fact that, frankly, Entwistle's one-dimensional game had probably already reaches its ceiling, it was probably time to get out, and I hope at the very least he's alright health-wise going forward. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 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 5/13 - UFC 211 - Dallas, TX - Stipe Miocic ( c ) vs. Junior dos Santos, Joanna Jedrzejczyk ( c ) vs. Jessica Andrade, Demian Maia vs. Jorge Masvidal, Frankie Edgar vs. Yair Rodriguez, 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), Kelvin Gastelum vs. Anderson Silva, Claudia Gadelha vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz 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 - 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 7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler, Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum 7/22 - UFC on Fox 25 - Uniondale, NY - Chan Sung Jung vs. Ricardo Lamas ----- UFC 210 - April 8, 2017 - KeyBank Center - Buffalo, New York Well, this card is quite 2017 as hell. When UFC announced their return to Buffalo (UFC 7 took place there all the way back in 1995), people expected a big card, and rumors were flying pretty quickly - the Cormier/Johnson and Weidman/Mousasi fights were more or less confirmed for this card in pretty short order, but there were also rumors this would be where the Aldo/Holloway featherweight title bout would take place, as well as a rumored Frankie Edgar/Ricardo Lamas fight. But instead, fights just kept trickling about, and while every booking was pretty fascinating in its own way, eventually things just eventually got to thirteen fights with only the top two bouts as the "big" fights on the card. So, and it feels like I've been saying this for every card this year, we have a show that isn't that big on huge box office fights at the top, but continues the trend of UFC's matchmaking being quite fascinating and excellently done on the undercard. So, while this wound up being sort of a low-level offering for a UFC pay-per-view, once again, it should still wind up being a pretty fun show. MAIN CARD (Pay-Per-View - 10:00 PM ET): Light Heavyweight Championship: ( C ) Daniel Cormier vs. (#1) Anthony Johnson Middleweight (#4) Chris Weidman vs. (#5) Gegard Mousasi Women's Strawweight: Cynthia Calvillo vs. Pearl Gonzalez Welterweight: Thiago Alves vs. Patrick Cote Lightweight: (#9 Featherweight) Charles Oliveira vs. Will Brooks PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Featherweight: Mike De La Torre vs. Myles Jury Welterweight: (#11) Kamaru Usman vs. Sean Strickland Featherweight: Shane Burgos vs. Charles Rosa Light Heavyweight: (#12) Jan Blachowicz vs. (#12) Patrick Cummins PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:15 PM ET): Lightweight: Gregor Gillespie vs. Andrew Holbrook Lightweight: Josh Emmett vs. Desmond Green Women's Bantamweight: Irene Aldana vs. Katlyn Chookagian Flyweight: Magomed Bibulatov vs. Jenel Lausa THE RUNDOWN: Daniel Cormier (18-1 overall, 7-1 UFC, 8-0 Strikeforce) vs. Anthony Johnson (22-5 overall, 13-5 UFC): Ah, light heavyweight. While the division is thin and this is a fight that we've seen before, this should still be a pretty fun and solid fight. When Jon Jones started getting in his own way back in 2015, this time after a hit-and-run incident that got him stripped of his light heavyweight belt, this was the fight that UFC chose to crown a new champion - "Rumble" Johnson was already slated to fight Jones, and was pretty much the last man left for Jones to beat, and Cormier was still considered a top contender even coming off a one-sided loss to Jones in their big grudge match a few months prior. And it was a pretty binary fight - either Johnson would knock out Cormier in fairly short order, or Cormier would be able to get Johnson down, out-wrestle him on the ground, and eventually break him for a finish. The latter is what happened, and, well, little has changed since that fight about two years ago - Cormier has fought sparingly thanks to knee injuries and the continued misadventures of Jones, while Johnson went ahead and re-established himself as a dangerous and dynamic knockout threat with wins over Jimi Manuwa, Ryan Bader and Glover Teixeira. The stakes may be higher this time around - both guys are obviously two years older, and there are whispers the winner may get a returning Jones on the big July card this year - but in the cage, it's still pretty much exactly the same dynamic; Rumble's probably the most dangerous one-punch striker in the sport, but he also has a bully mentality that crumbles horribly under the first signs of pressure, which was essentially what happened in their first meeting. While Johnson seems to have cleaned some things up - Cormier was able to get the first big takedown of their first fight after Johnson basically swung and missed wildly going in for the kill, and I don't see Johnson allowing that to happen here - the real big factor in this fight is exactly what Cormier has left, which is somewhat hard to say. Since the Johnson win, Cormier's only had two fights - the first was a war against Alexander Gustafsson where Cormier still looked to be in peak shape, though taking the amount of abuse he did in the fight couldn't have helped DC, and Cormier's last fight was the weird one at UFC 200 against Anderson Silva. Cormier didn't really look all that hot, and some of that may have been knee surgery, but Silva coming in as a replacement for Jones on just a few days notice, and the emotional rollercoaster Cormier was likely going through as things shook themselves out, probably all contributed to the fight being kind of flat. So...now what. In the first fight, I was impressed by how Cormier basically just committed himself to walking through fire to take down Johnson, and was willing to absorb a few shots to do so (something Cormier criticized Ryan Bader for not doing in his fight against Rumble), but Johnson's also looked scarier than ever in just melting dudes, and Cormier's body seems to be betraying him as he turns 38 years old. Again, it's a fairly binary fight, and it wouldn't surprise me if it just looked exactly like the first one, but with the way everything seems to be trending, I really do have to favor Johnson to take this, and if he does so, the obvious manner seems to be via first round knockout. It'd be a sad deal, given how Jones has sort of been Cormier's white whale, and how Jones/Johnson would just be a weird-feeling fight thanks to the legal histories of both - but, well, this sport is weird and cruel. Chris Weidman (13-2 overall, 9-2 UFC) vs. Gegard Mousasi (41-6-2 overall, 8-3 UFC, 4-1-1 Strikeforce, 2-1 PRIDE): A really excellent fight here, as Gegard Mousasi looks to finally break into the ranks of the top middleweight contenders in what might be his last shot, but has to do so against Chris Weidman, who suddenly finds himself trying to hang onto his own spot in the title picture. Looking back, I don't think it's unfair to call Weidman's title reign a bit of a bust compared to what UFC may have expected - most people expected the Long Islander to be the man to finally unseat Anderson Silva as middleweight champion, a title that figured to create a future star whenever it happened. But for whatever reason, Weidman never really clicked - the way the two fights with Silva ended, with Weidman knocking out a showboating Silva in the first fight, then Silva breaking his leg in the rematch, kind of kept the focus on Silva and sort of deflated the impact of Weidman's win, and then Weidman just never really showed the personality to connect with the public at large despite some pretty fun title defenses, plus constant injury layoffs didn't help. And the last year and a half hasn't helped things for Weidman - first he lost his title to Luke Rockhold in a fight that has gotten remembered as more one-sided than it was, even if the ending was fairly drawn out and brutal, a rematch got called off thanks to another Weidman injury (opening the door for Michael Bisping, of all people, to win the title), and then in UFC's big debut in Madison Square Garden, Weidman basically got his head split open by a Yoel Romero flying knee in a fight that Weidman had been winning up to that point. So, suddenly, Weidman has gone from an important name for UFC - particularly as a guy they're trying to build their big New York cards around - to someone badly needing a win to stay in the title picture. And, well, Gegard Mousasi is no gimme, particularly in his current form. Mousasi was an interesting addition when UFC absorbed Strikeforce - the young veteran had been around forever, and it's crazy to think he's still just 31 years old. But losing two out of three to Lyoto Machida and Jacare Souza seemingly cast Mousasi's lot outside the title picture, and from there on he just sort of popped up in semi-prominent positions on random cards. That is, until a keep-busy fight against Uriah Hall went horribly wrong - Mousasi was using his wrestling and grappling to win rather handily through the first round, but the beginning of the second round saw Mousasi flukily dive right into a spin kick, giving way to a dynamic blitz of strikes that gave Hall the huge upset victory. It was a damaging loss, but it seems to have worked out in the end - Mousasi, who comes off as a fairly laid-back, monotone guy, has seemingly discovered his aggression since, reeling off a fairly dominant four-fight win streak over Thales Leites, Thiago Santos, Vitor Belfort, and a revenge win over Hall. So, suddenly, sixty fights and fourteen years in, Mousasi might be in the best form of his fighting career. It's a hard fight to call, simply because both guys are generally so well-rounded, but I tend to favor Weidman - he actually looked really good in his fight against Romero before that knockout, and without that one dynamic burst of offense from Romero (though admittedly that's Romero's entire game), the narrative around Weidman would be way different. Plus, looking at Mousasi's last real loss if we count the first Hall fight as a bit of a fluke, Jacare Souza was able to have a ton of success just pressuring Mousasi and keeping him against the fence, and I could easily see Weidman implementing a similar gameplan. Really, it's a coin flip, and I don't expect a finish either way - I'd say Mousasi's more of a finisher at the moment, but I see Weidman as almost too ridiculously tough for his own good a lot of the time - but I'll take Weidman via a narrow decision. Cynthia Calvillo (4-0 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Pearl Gonzalez (6-1 overall): Well, if nothing else, UFC seems to be firmly behind pushing Team Alpha Male product Cynthia Calvillo; when the Khabib Nurmagomedov/Tony Ferguson fight fell apart at UFC 209, it was Calvillo's UFC debut that surprisingly got moved to the main card, and as UFC was looking for another big main card fight for this show, they eventually wound up adding this fight, third from the top. And I can see what UFC likes about Calvillo - while she's only been a pro since late August, she has a long amateur career going back to 2012, and in that UFC debut against Amanda Cooper, she pretty much styled out when things went to the ground, using some sweet transitions to eventually clamp on the fight-ending choke. Admittedly, Cooper was pretty much the perfect type of fighter for Calvillo to look good against - Cooper's quite over-aggressive when things get to the ground, which basically left Calvillo some openings to try the weird, dynamic stuff that wound up working as good as it did. It'll be interesting to see if she can look quite as good against Chicago's Pearl Gonzalez, who's making her debut here, as while I couldn't find Gonzalez's most recent fight, there's a lot to like about her based off two fights from 2015 - she has a fairly solid submission game, and I was impressed by how much her striking had improved between the two fights I was able to watch, particularly in terms of output. Still, she seemed to have the decided physical advantage in both fights, so one wonders how she'll do against a higher-level athlete like Calvillo. I do still favor Calvillo, but she's not such an uber-prospect that it's a guarantee she'll run through Gonzalez - instead, I figure Gonzalez may give her some trouble (particularly if she can keep it standing), and Calvillo instead has to work for a decision. Thiago Alves (21-11 overall, 13-8 UFC) vs. Patrick Cote (23-10 overall, 10-10 UFC): This fight is sort of emblematic of the criticisms of this card - it's a pretty neat fight between two longtime veterans that should be kinda fun, but as possibly the third-biggest fight on a pay-per-view card, it's a bit stretched. Patrick Cote's recent resurgence was pretty fun - everyone loves the Canadian MMA pioneer, but for most of his career, he's been more or less a fringe UFC fighter, as that .500 record shows - Cote even found himself out of the UFC in 2011 and part of 2012. After cutting down to welterweight and just continuing to hang around, mostly in featured prelims on Canadian cards, Cote then went on a bit of a run - his fight against Josh Burkman was a fun brawl that Cote won with a brutal knockout, and his win over Ben Saunders to kick off 2016 was super-impressive, as Cote eventually went all hockey fight and just started punching Saunders in the clinch until he went down. But things came to a screeching halt against Donald Cerrone last June, as Cerrone pretty much dominated Cote as Cerrone spent 2016 proving himself as a welterweight contender. Still, even though Cote's 37, his striking game looks as sharp as ever, and he's still at the point where he can keep doing this as long as he wants to. Unfortunately, I kind of can't say the same for former welterweight title challenger Thiago Alves, whose career is in a bit of a weird spot. Alves was probably already trending a bit downward before an assortment of injuries caused a two year layoff from 2012 to 2014, but Alves hasn't really looked the same since he came back. Wins over Seth Baczynski and Jordan Mein were fine performances, but Carlos Condit pretty much wrecked him, and then after another year-long injury layoff, Alves made the surprising choice to try and cut down to lightweight. Given that one of Alves's calling cards was that he cut a bunch of weight for a welterweight, it wasn't surprising that he badly missed weight for his fight against Jim Miller last November, and the subsequent performance was just sort of flat. Alves can probably still beat some guys on the roster, but I haven't been all that impressed with him in the last few years, so unless Cote suddenly looks his age, this figures to be a win for the Canadian. I'll call for it to come via decision, but given that Cote's shown some more finishing ability in his recent fights, a late knockout also wouldn't surprise me. Charles Oliveira (21-7 [1] overall, 9-7 [1] UFC) vs. Will Brooks (18-2 overall, 1-1 UFC, 9-1 Bellator): A strange fight, but a fun one between two guys who suddenly need a win to get their careers back on track. As Eddie Alvarez was exiting Bellator, Chicago's Will Brooks was the guy that surprisingly took his place - Michael Chandler figured to be the new face of the Bellator lightweight division, but he just couldn't get by Brooks, who won a controversial decision in their first fight and then knocked Chandler out the second time around. And then, well, Brooks pretty much followed on Alvarez's path, defending his title a few times while grousing at his treatment from the company before fighting out his contract and heading to UFC last year. Brooks's ascent up the ladder was always going to be an interesting one - he's a guy that looks much better in five-round fights, since he's a slow starter who tends to break down his opponents as the fight wears on. And indeed, Brooks has already had a bumpy path in his two three-round fights in the UFC - his debut win over Ross Pearson saw Brooks overcome a lackluster first round to take a narrow decision, and his last fight against Alex Oliveira was just a complete disaster. Oliveira, who's a natural welterweight, basically blew his cut down to 155 and came in way overweight, and was pretty much able to bull around Brooks, even breaking one of Brooks's ribs before getting a late finish. The size difference basically makes that loss a mulligan, but still, Brooks could really use a win - and amusingly, UFC decided to book him against another Oliveira that has problems making weight. It's crazy that Charles Oliveira is still only 27 years old, since he's already had a long, strange trip of a UFC career. Oliveira came into UFC as a fresh-faced wunderkind of a prospect, tapping out his first two opponents in dynamic fashion and looking like a prodigy. So UFC immediately threw him in the deep end, and after losses to Jim Miller and Donald Cerrone, Oliveira decided to cut down to 145. And UFC repeated their matchmaking mistakes again - rather than move him slowly up the ladder, UFC gave him two more lower level wins, and then immediately rushed him to the top of the division again, where Oliveira lost to Cub Swanson and Frankie Edgar. Since then it's been a weird ride - Oliveira has alternated dynamic performances where he looks like the most dangerous grappler in the company with fights where he just starts to crumble at the first sight of danger, and his weight has been all over the place, with Oliveira sometimes coming in two pounds underweight, but sometimes missing weight completely, which really suggests the problem isn't diet or anything, but just a complete lack of understanding from Oliveira's camp about how to cut weight. And his last fight was probably the most egregious of all, as Oliveira missed weight so badly against Ricardo Lamas that the fight had to take place at lightweight - and after using the Alex Oliveira gameplan of trying to pull Lamas around, Lamas eventually reversed things into a fight-ending guillotine that gave Oliveira his second straight loss. So UFC has forced Oliveira back up to lightweight, at least for the time being, and he badly needs a win himself. It's a strange fight, and I'm concerned that Oliveira's kind of hitting the point of diminishing returns - his loss to Lamas was deflating, and his fight against Anthony Pettis before that was a weird one, where Oliveira suddenly looked shockingly solid on the feet, but was surprisingly unable to contain Pettis with his high-level submission game. Oliveira's probably still ridiculously dangerous, but the odds are probably higher than they've been in a while that Brooks will probably just be able to work his game a bit and basically just win rounds to earn a decision. Hopefully this will wind up matching up like Oliveira's surprisingly excellent fights with Nik Lentz, where Oliveira's grappling dynamism basically kept Lentz honest and active, but Brooks is savvy enough that I don't see a finish, and if anything, I could see Brooks eventually breaking Oliveira, who's one of the more notorious crumblers in the game, if things get fairly one-sided later in the fight. But my pick is Brooks via decision, and with a surprising amount of confidence given what I thought of this fight going in. Mike De La Torre (14-6 [1] overall, 2-3 [1] UFC) vs. Myles Jury (15-2 overall, 6-2 UFC): Well, judging by this fight's status as the featured prelim, UFC is still trying to make Myles Jury a thing, huh? UFC has kept giving Jury a bunch of prominent opportunities, like showcase wins over Diego Sanchez and Takanori Gomi, and I've always found it a bit weird - Jury has always been a highly touted prospect, yes, but he's not particularly charismatic and his fights aren't particularly memorable, so he's just been an odd choice for UFC to put their matchmaking muscle behind. And in 2015, things completely fell apart for the Michigan native - Jury was put against Donald Cerrone in the co-main of the Jones/Cormier pay-per-view, and wound up getting completely embarrassed, then mostly made headlines outside the cage, griping about the Reebok deal and then his fight against Charles Oliveira being slotted underneath Karolina Kowalkiewicz's debut. And speaking of that Oliveira fight, that went poorly as well - Jury was making his debut at featherweight, and we didn't really get a chance to see how well he'd do in his new weight class, as Oliveira got his hands on him and tapped him out in fairly short order. Since then, Jury pretty much dropped off the map, and he finally returns about sixteen months later, still at featherweight, to face California's Mike De La Torre. De La Torre's pretty much just fun roster fodder - he's fairly well-rounded, but aggression is pretty much the key to his game, and De La Torre's ensuing defensive lapses pretty much result in either a fun fight that goes to decision, or De La Torre just getting his doors blown off in fairly quick fashion. This really feels like the former - Jury's only real flashes of dynamism were knockout wins over Ramsey Nijem and late-career Gomi, neither of which are particularly durable - so while it's possible that Jury just catches an unawares De La Torre with a knockout blow, I see this as more of a workmanlike win for Jury. Since I don't really know where Jury's head is at, since he comes off like one of those guys who's just sort of unhappy with the current MMA financial landscape, I could see De La Torre's constant aggression giving Jury problems if he comes in flat, but even as uninspired by Jury as I've been, he still has enough natural talent that he should win a decision fairly easily. Kamaru Usman (9-1 overall, 4-0 UFC) vs. Sean Strickland (18-1 overall, 5-1 UFC): I'm not sure how exciting it'll be, but this is the sleeper fight on the card, pitting two of the best under-the-radar prospects at welterweight against each other. Kamaru Usman's been on top prospect lists for a while, and not really done anything to dissuade that - the Nigerian's an excellent wrestler and I guess would be considered the winner of that weird camp versus camp TUF 21 season, and he's pretty much dominated his four UFC fights since. Meanwhile, California's Sean Strickland didn't come into UFC with nearly as much hype - even if he did rack up a 13-0 pre-UFC record - but has had pretty much every bit the success, getting wins over a bunch of fellow prospects like Luke Barnatt, Alex Garcia, and Tom Breese. Strickland's an interesting fighter, and indicative of a trend a lot of MMA analysis community is starting to pick up on, that a lot of fighters who started MMA as teenagers are more concerned with surviving in moments and individual exchanges, rather than coming in with a gameplan of winning rounds. Strickland seems to be one of the better examples of this, though that still hasn't prevented him from winning fight after fight, albeit often by a decision and a margin closer than it needs to be. Still, I favor Usman in this fight - I tend to pretty much always favor the wrestler if a fight is close, since they can dictate where the fight goes, and while Usman flashed some pretty good striking in his last bout against Warlley Alves (who can be an explosive submission threat on the ground), Usman's been more than willing to just use his wrestling to dominate foes if it's obvious to do so. And Strickland's takedown defense is pretty much a question mark, since he hasn't really faced many opponents looking to take him down, and particularly ones as good at that skill as Usman. Strickland's enough of a talent that I wouldn't be surprised if he's just drilled takedown defense and is able to keep things standing (in which case I'd favor Strickland, albeit once again by a narrow margin), but I'll give Usman the benefit of the doubt and say he's just able to get takedowns and cruise to a rather one-sided decision. Either way this fight goes, I'm still interested to see where the ceiling is for both, though. Shane Burgos (8-0 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Charles Rosa (11-2 overall, 2-2 UFC): A fun featherweight prospect battle here, with the additional bonus of pitting New York against Boston. New York's Shane Burgos made his debut last December on that godforsaken Albany card, and looked good - while it was the first non-finish win of Burgos's career, he handled Tiago Trator pretty easily, showed off his crisp striking, and even got a haircut in-between rounds, as his cornermen cut off his ponytail after it was coming undone and getting into his eyes. Burgos is an interesting talent, and he gets a solid second test against Boston's Charles Rosa, who's fairly underrated. Rosa had a solid UFC debut, flying to Stockholm and losing a close decision to Dennis Siver on about a week's notice, and after a win over Sean Soriano, also took Yair Rodriguez to the limit in May of 2015, earning a scorecard in a split-decision loss to the Mexican uber-prospect. Rosa then fought on his hometown card when UFC came to Boston at the beginning of 2016, going through seemingly a million opponent changes before beating Kyle Bochniak, and has been off the radar since, apparently taking a while before deciding to re-sign with UFC. It's a weird fight for me to call - I do think Rosa is the much better fighter, but when I envision the fight in my head, I do see Burgos winning based on the style matchup. Rosa should be able to dominate if this goes to the ground, but Burgos's takedown defense looked good in that fight against Trator, and Rosa does seem like the type of fighter who can get lured into a brawl, which could get him knocked out against someone like Burgos. Basically, it comes down to if you think Rosa is just a level above Burgos to the point that the style matchup doesn't matter, which is entirely possible - but I'm not willing to go quite that far, so Burgos by second-round knockout is my pick. Still, it should be a fun fight, and of any of my picks on this card, this feels like the one I might come to regret the most. (Well, that or Patrick Cummins, but we'll get to that...well, now.) Jan Blachowicz (19-6 overall, 2-3 UFC) vs. Patrick Cummins (8-4 overall, 4-4 UFC, 1-0 Strikeforce): Ah, light heavyweight, you delightful(?) mess. In another division, both of these guys would sort of be afterthoughts, but here, they're somewhat appropriately enough tied for the #12 ranking in the division. Patrick Cummins had a notorious UFC debut - when Daniel Cormier was set to debut at light heavyweight against Rashad Evans in 2014, Evans dropped out of that fight at the last minute and in stepped Cummins, who talked enough trash to get himself noticed...and absolutely destroyed by Cormier in his UFC debut. Still, Cummins had made a name for himself, and the Pennsylvania native wound up looking like a solid prospect, using his high-level wrestling background to pretty much wreck some lower-level opponents. But once Cummins got into deeper waters, it became apparent that he has probably the worst fatal flaw someone can have in a heavier division - the dude just can't take a punch. Fights against Ovince St. Preux, Glover Teixeira, and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira all saw Cummins doing fairly well until getting wobbled with the first solid punch he took, at which point each bout was over in fairly short order. So, well, he'll obviously try to avoid getting hit by Poland's Jan Blachowicz, who's had a bit of a disappointing UFC run himself. Poland has a pretty solid MMA scene, and Blachowicz had a bunch of wins over UFC vets before entering the promotion, so when Blachowicz made his debut by knocking out Ilir Latifi, the thought was he should be able to make a name for himself in the division fairly quickly. But that all ended pretty suddenly - for his second fight, Blachowicz was the big featured local hero for UFC's debut card in Poland, and Blachowicz just completely failed under the pressure, losing an awful fight by doing not doing much of anything against an injured Jimi Manuwa. Blachowicz then looked fairly poor in a loss to Corey Anderson, but was kept around for another shot, at which point he beat Igor Pokrajac, only for UFC to turn around and pretty much feed him to Alexander Gustafsson. Blachowicz has some solid individual skills - he's got some solid power striking, and some surprising submission skills for someone who doesn't look particularly fluid or flexible - but at the UFC level it just doesn't really turn into much of anything, as Blachowicz just kind of reacts and drifts through fights rather than imposing a winning gameplan. This is a pretty binary fight - if Cummins gets his takedown game going, he should be able to dominate, particularly in the later rounds, as Blachowicz hasn't really shown much of a gas tank even when things are going his way. Except, well, fights start on the feet, and before Cummins wears Blachowicz out (and hell, maybe even after he does), there's the constant risk that Blachowicz can connect with Cummins's chin, at which point the fight should be over. I'll favor Cummins by decision, just because I don't think Blachowicz has the craft to pull the knockout off - hell, Cummins is actually a pretty solid striker, all things considered, despite his complete lack of durability - but if Cummins just gets his lights put out during a fight that he's winning, well, that'll be par for the course. Gregor Gillespie (8-0 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Andrew Holbrook (12-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): This should be a solid showcase fight for Long Island's Gregor Gillespie, who's one of the better under-the-radar prospects in UFC. Gillespie came in with some hype, as the former collegiate wrestler was regarded as one of the better prospects in the Northeast, but he drew a horrible style matchup against Glaico Franca for his UFC debut - Gillespie has more of a frame for featherweight, while Franca is a massive grinder who's gigantic for the lightweight division. But after some early trouble, Gillespie was surprisingly able to get the wrestling advantage, and pretty much wore down Franca to score a super-impressive debut win. Honestly, I don't really see how Andrew Holbrook is going to give Gillespie any more trouble than Franca did - Holbrook's also a grappler by trade, but he's had a weird UFC career to date; Holbrook got a debut win over Ramsey Nijem mostly by working submissions, even though nobody thought he actually deserved the nod, then got his doors blown off by Joaquim Silva before scoring an upset decision win over Australian prospect Jake Matthews, which had more to do with Matthews looking flat than anything else. So Gillespie should be able to out-wrestle Holbrook rather handily, and maybe even get the better of things on the feet, and should eventually coast to a rather one-sided decision win. Josh Emmett (11-0 overall, 2-0 UFC) vs. Desmond Green (19-5 overall, 3-2 Bellator): Count me among the many that UFC signed Desmond Green - it isn't that Green is a bad fighter, as he's had a bunch of success in Bellator and Titan FC, but it's that stylistically, he's a fairly boring grinder, who looks to take down his opponents and not do much else. Then again, his wrestling days date back to his time at the University of Buffalo, so given the location of this card, I guess signing a local favorite trumps all. Anyway, Green gets a solid first test in the UFC in Josh Emmett, a Team Alpha Male product who's done a bit better than expected in two UFC fights, beating Jon Tuck in Europe on extremely short notice, then getting a fun win over Scott Holtzman in his hometown of Sacramento. This fight pretty much all comes down to if Green can get the takedown, and while I like Emmett as a fighter and think he's pretty well-rounded, I'm not really sure he can. If he can keep this standing, I'm interested in seeing how it goes, particularly since Emmett's last bout was so fun, but it is with a heavy heart I pretty much have to predict Green taking this by decision. Irene Aldana (7-3 overall, 0-1 UFC, 4-1 Invicta) vs. Katlyn Chookagian (8-1 overall, 1-1 UFC): A really interesting fight here, as both Irene Aldana and Katlyn Chookagian are interesting talents in a thin women's bantamweight division, but both are badly in need of a rebound win. Aldana came in with a solid amount of hype - while she's typically been regarded as the lesser prospect between her and teammate Irene Aldana, everyone's been high on both for a while as Mexican fighters who have both the good looks and the exciting boxing style to help MMA make some inroads into Mexico. But Aldana's UFC debut didn't really go all that well - Leslie Smith just decided to constantly pressure her, and Aldana didn't really handle it all that well; while the fight was a fun brawl and probably the best fight on December's show from Sacramento, Aldana still got hit a lot more than she hit back, and got a clear decision loss. So she'll look to rebound against New Jersey's Katlyn Chookagian, whose UFC debut went much better, as she was mostly able to keep Lauren Murphy on the outside and box her way to a decision win. Sadly for Chookagian, things went worse against Liz Carmouche, who was successfully able to implement her wrestling game, so now Chookagian is in need of a win of her own. This might be the hardest fight on the card to call - Chookagian's proven to be better against pressure fighters, but since both her and Aldana fight more from the outside, I don't really see that as a factor here. So this'll probably just be the two of them striking at range without much else in the way of ideas, and I suppose I'll favor Aldana, even though this is probably going to be a split decision that could go either way - I just hope it's more a fun back-and-forth rather than a staring contest. Magomed Bibulatov (13-0 overall) vs. Jenel Lausa (7-2 overall, 1-0 UFC): Well, UFC went ahead and signed Magomed Bibulatov, who's been regarded as one of the better flyweights outside of the UFC for a while now - Bibulatov's yet another of those Russian hard-ass grapplers to come out of Caucuses, and he's also pretty far up on the list of those guys whose connections are fairly worrisome, with some rumors even suggesting that Bibulatov might be a trigger-man for certain regional dictators. Anyway, this figures to be a layup win for Bibulatov against Jenel Lausa, who was pretty much signed to be on last year's scuttled Manila card and is just sort of hanging around on the roster. Lausa was able to beat Zhikui Yao last November in his UFC debut, but he's still an undersized striker whose overall MMA game doesn't really seem all that developed, so I expect Bibulatov to take him down and pretty much have his way with him in pretty short order. So my pick is Bibulatov by first-round submission, and then we can all feel really weird about that.

#ufc210 #ufc 210 #ufc #mma

0 notes