#olynik

Joey

April 15th, 2019

The UFC is heading BACK to Russia! If January and February were a test of the UFC's depth and March was a test of their ability to put together loaded cards in back to back to back-ish weeks then April is all about proverbial pain tolerance. How much bad are you willing to endure to get to the good stuff? In a way I feel bad putting this card in that light because who knows if it'll actually be bad? This is a card with seven debuting fighters, a cool seven fights either cancelled or reshuffled, fights across two weight classes often derided for their lack of quality and a show that literally feels like an WMMA 4 stall show where you're just trying to turn a profit quickly to stay out of debt. This card could be amazing in quality and be one of those weird hidden gems or it'll turn into one of those Australia shows where it's 5 hours long and everybody is miserable when it's over. There is no quality to guarantee. Still we've got fights, we've got names, I've gotta do this so let's get right after it.

Fights: 12

Debuts: Arman Tsarukyan, Ivan Shtyrkov, Alen Amedovski, Seung Woo Choi, Movsar Evloev, Alex da Silva, Rafael Fiziev

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 7 (Alexander Volkov OUT, Alexey Olynik IN vs Alistair Overeem/Alexey Olynik vs Walt Harris CANCELLED/Roman Dolidze OUT, Roman Kopylov IN vs Gadzhimurad Antigulov/Abdul Karim-Edilov OUT, Ivan Shtyrkov IN vs Devin Clark/Sultan Aliev vs Emil Meek CANCELLED/Teemu Packalen OUT, Alex Da Silva IN vs Alexander Yaklovev/Roman Kopylov OUT, Michał Oleksiejczuk IN vs Gadzhimurad Antigulov)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 5 (Alistair Overeem, Sergey Pavlovich, Roxanne Modafferi, Shamil Abdurakhimov and Marcin Tybura)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 3 (Marcelo Golm, Krzysztof Jotko, Alexander Yakovlev)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 3 (Alexey Oleinik, Islam Makhachev, Shamil Abdurakhimov)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 15-13

Alexey Olynik- 4-1 Alistair Overeem- 3-2 Islam Makhachev- 3-0 Arman Tsarukyan- 0-0 Sergey Pavlovich- 0-1 Marcelo Golm- 1-2 Devin Clark- 2-2 Ivan Shtyrkov- 0-0 Antonina Shevchenko- 1-0 Roxane Modafferi- 1-2 Alen Amedovski- 0-0 Kryzstof Jotko- 0-3

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Lightweight-  3 (23) Heavyweight- 3 (11) Light Heavyweight- 2 (15) Women’s Flyweight- 1 (13) Featherweight-  1 (18) Middleweight- 1 (11) Welterweight- 1 (23)

Bantamweight- (19) Flyweight- (7) Women’s Strawweight- (9) Women’s Bantamweight- (2)

2019’s Records We Keepin Track Of:

Debuting Fighters (9-20): Arman Tsarukyan, Ivan Shtyrkov, Alen Amedovski, Seung Woo Choi, Movsar Evloev, Alex da Silva, Rafael Fiziev

Short Notice Fighters (7-9): Alex da Silva, Alexey Olynik, Michał Oleksiejczuk, Ivan Shtyrkov

Second Fight (25-5): Antonina Shevchenko, Sergey Pavlovich

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (8-14): Magomed Mustafaev, Alexander Yakovlev

Undefeated Fighters (12-15):  Ivan Shtyrkov, Antonina Shevchenko, Alen Amedovski, Mosvar Evloev, Rafael Fiziev

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (5-5): Krzysztof Jotko

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (13-8): Alexander Yakovlev

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- Most random MMA card ever?

2- Part of what makes heavyweight MMA so much fun (to me) is how renaissance-y it can be with its fighters. Alistair Overeem was smelted by Stipe Miocic, barely survived Fabricio Werdum, had his brain scrambled by Francis Ngannou, got Curtis Blaydes elbow'd into bolivian and then probably salvaged his long term future in the UFC with a win over hyped prospect and debuting talent Sergey Pavovlich. I think he has a pretty good chance to beat Alexander Volkov and then Volkov gets yanked for a medical issue, opening the door for MMA grandad Alexey Olynik to step up into the main event in Russia. It's hard to think of an easier matchup for Overeem than this one and if he wins, that's two in a row which qualifies as both a winning streak and "I'm gonna fight in the top 5 again pretty soon." On the other hand, Olynik has had one of the more surprising under the radar  runs in the entire division. He's just been quietly fighting all the dudes at the bottom half of this division (outside of Junior Albini, Olynik has not beaten a guy who remains in the UFC) before getting Mark Hunt in the ultimate striker vs grappler bout. He rocks Mark Hunt after getting leg kicked for three minutes straight and subs him to solidify himself as a big time player in a division where a fellow old man is ruling the roost. It's about as romantic as heavyweight MMA gets, my dudes.

3- Speaking of romantic, Shamil Abdurakhimov fights on this show.  Just sayin'.

4- So if you took even a cursory gander at the numbers I slaved over a hot stove to produce, you'll see that fighters in their second fight are a cool 25-5. Keep that in mind with Sergey Pavlovich who I think has super high upside at a division in serious need of it. The UFC thought Overeem was more cooked than he was and Pavlovich got checked pretty hard BUT this is a soft rebound vs Golm and it's in Russia where Pavlovich is from. I'm betting on a much better showing.

5- Why is Islam Makachev in the co-main? I know there's some talk that Makachev vs Trinaldo was supposed to be the co-main event here but even so, that's not a co-main event. It almost feels like this is to try and get some kind of a Khabib rub which is great and all but couldn't we find a better opponent than a solid prospect in his debut?

6- Congrats to Antonina Shevchenko and Roxanne Modafferi for being the first ever women's UFC fight in Russia.

7- Gimme a second to chit chat about Magomed Mustafaev. Magomed was seen as yet another really talented 155er popping up in the UFC and the next in a long line of good Russian lightweights who were popping up in the UFC. He was the last of the Makachev, Taisumov, Khabilov, Khabib types to roll through the door although I thought outside of Khabib, he was more impressive than either of the other two. Then came the Kevin Lee fight where Magomed fought really emotionally, got tired out by Kevin Lee and then got subbed after a pretty rough grappling fight. He apparently hurt his arm, hurt it again and has been out for over two years now. He's getting ultra violent Rafael Fiziev in what should be one of the best fights of the night.

8- 205 lbs tends to feel very much like a wasteland but I'm excited about the Devin Clark vs Ivan Shtyrkov. As we've seen consistently at 205 lbs, being really strong to the point where opponents are scared to get in your wheelhouse can absolutely be a benefit. I love the dude but Ilir Latifi's entire run at the weight class can be summed up as him just being SO strong that people have no clue what to do with him unless they take him out. Ivan Shtyrkov is.....well he's big. Big enough that it feels like he vs USADA is going to be a consistently rumored fight on the cards. In truth though this isn't a can crusher walking into the UFC with no major experience; Ivan has fought dudes like Fabio Maldonado, Phil De Fries, Big Foot Silva, Thiago Silva and Christian MPumbu. We can debate the quality of remains of said fighters after UFC and Bellator runs BUT that's still better comp than the dudes getting signed off of racking up wins over guys who are 5-10, 6-9 and 5-1. I also still haven't quite gotten off the Devin Clark bandwagon and thought he looked pretty damn solid in a wild loss to Aleksandr Rakic where he had Rakic in trouble but lost the firefight.

9- Krzysztof Jotko is 0-3 in his last three fights and if you want to take pride in how fast the MW division has grown, Jotko was like a pseudo top 10 guy for a good minute prior to 2017.

10- Keita Nakamura vs Sultan Aliev could challenge for the worst fight of 2019.

11- Whose feelings did Marcin Tybura hurt to go from consistent main card spots to "dude on the prelims of a filler Russia card"?

Dude’s cooked BUT kudos to Olynik who survived some scary moments, ate some KILLER headkicks and pushed through it to get an awesome submission win over a gassed Browne.