WHAT'S HAPPENING:
*Well, UFC 211 was stacked on paper, and it pretty much came through with flying colors, as this was pretty easily UFC's best show of the year. The undercard was particularly excellent, but the main card was mostly about some great individual performances, led by Stipe Miocic, who knocked out Junior dos Santos in just two and a half minutes to retain his heavyweight title. The fight was simple enough - dos Santos actually had a bunch of success early with a game focusing on leg kicks, but it appeared that damaging Miocic's leg just caused the champ to get more aggressive and try to end things, as he pretty much backed dos Santos against the fence and went to work for the knockout. There's not an obvious next challenger (unless Cain Velasquez is actually for once), but Miocic is suddenly among the ranks of UFC's greatest heavyweights - this marked four straight first-round knockouts, and if he retains his belt one more time, it'll be the most title defenses of anyone in UFC history - admittedly, that says a ton about how volatile the division has been, but a record is a record.
*The co-main may have had an even more impressive performance, though, as Joanna Jedrzejczyk absolutely dominated Jessica Andrade in her defense of the strawweight title. Andrade figured to be Jedrzejczyk's toughest test to date - she combined the wrestling power of someone like Claudia Gadelha, Jedrzejczyk's most difficult opponent, with some real knockout power - and while Jedrzejczyk did get hit with one or two hard shots per round, she mixed up her footwork and basically stuck and moved the whole fight, forcing Andrade to chase her and eat a bunch of shots in the process. Jedrzejczyk's now sort of entered that Demetrious Johnson territory where you pretty much have to pick her every time out regardless of style matchup - not that there are any difficult-seeming matchups on the horizon. In fact, this actually also reminded me a bit of Conor McGregor's second fight against Nate Diaz, where McGregor pretty much went against type and completely changed up his game for the challenge in front of him - Jedrzejczyk typically plants before she attacks, but here we saw none of that, with her cutting off angles and making her most dangerous foe look completely outclassed. At this point, it seems the only challenge for Jedrzejczyk is to move up to flyweight and see what new opponents are there for her, which I guess we'll see once that division gets up and running.
*Well, for the second (at least) fight in a row, it looks like Demian Maia has earned a title shot - and Dana White agrees - but now it's just a matter of seeing if Maia actually gets it. Maia's fight with Jorge Masvidal was an interesting one, and ridiculously difficult to score - the first round saw Maia get the back of a standing Masvidal early and work for submissions, but get shaken off in the last twenty seconds or so and hit a bunch of times on the ground, and the subsequent two rounds were pretty much split down the middle between two and a half minutes of Masvidal piecing Maia up on the feet, and two and a half minutes of Maia doing his submission wizard thing on the ground. But at the end of the day, a narrow Maia win was probably the right call (also - hey, Jorge Masvidal lost a close decision, you don't say), and hopefully, finally, Maia gets his long-deserved shot at Tyron Woodley. Even though, frankly, Woodley's tendency to stay defensive when he needs to may mean the fight is fairly awful, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
*And Maia may not have been the only guy to earn a title shot on the card, as Frankie Edgar absolutely beat the piss out of Yair Rodriguez. Rodriguez still remains an uber-prospect and potential star who'll be fine in the long run, but wow did this fight do nothing for him, as there were pretty much no positives to be taken away - Edgar just took him down, mauled him, and eventually brutalized Rodriguez's eye so much that the fight had to be stopped thanks to the ridiculous amount of swelling going on. I guess you could say this showed Rodriguez what he needs to work on, but...yeesh, you could've done that slowly working him up the ladder rather than throwing him to the wolves like UFC did here. If Max Holloway beats Jose Aldo for the featherweight title in a few weeks, Edgar's the obvious next challenger, and even if Aldo wins, an Edgar trilogy fight may still be the best option, even if Aldo dominated Edgar at UFC 200 - looking at the rankings, Aldo's also dominated everyone else who could realistically get a shot, and Edgar's the obvious next-best guy, so he's as good an option as any.
*And...then there was the opener of the main card between David Branch and Krzysztof Jotko, which was the clear lowlight of the card. People acted like the fight was absolutely awful, but, I don't know, I kind of expected worse, since neither guy is all that exciting to begin with, and at least there was constantly something going on, even if it wasn't particularly exciting. Anyway, Branch, a former two-division champ in World Series of Fighting, made a successful return here and got the decision win over a top ten guy, and rightfully so - his takedown game pretty much shut down Jotko's range kicking game, leaving Jotko to just sort of rely on clinch-work that didn't really get him anywhere against the stronger Branch. Given the reception towards the fight, I don't expect Branch to start moving up into big fights, but if this cements him as a top ten guy going forward, you'd have to say it was worth it.
*And then there were the prelims, which delivered every fight out, topped by two excellent brawls. Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier took a bit to get going, but the second round turned into what everyone expected, with both guys just winging punches at each other and sparking off into a crazy brawl. Unfortunately, the end of the fight was somewhat disappointing, as Alvarez kneed a grounded Poirier right in the head, ending the fight in a no contest after Herb Dean deemed the blow to be unintentional, since Alvarez wasn't looking at Poirier's knees. Poirier's appealing the result - not so much because he cares about the win, but because despite the excellent fight, UFC management apparently decided not to pay Poirier his win bonus, which is fairly bullshit and another reason why fighters aren't so quick to do the company favors at this point. On the plus side, though, at least maybe this means we can run the fight back. Low-level heavyweights Chase Sherman and Rashad Coulter had the best fight of the night, though, as Sherman pretty much destroyed Coulter's leg with kicks but had trouble putting him away - Coulter would keep fighting back, and eventually Sherman gassed, so things just turned into a back and forth slugfest between a one-legged man and a guy who was just all too willing to get hit, at least until Sherman finally put Coulter down with a standing elbow in the second round. Some mid-tier prospects also looked excellent, led by Jason Knight putting on a shockingly great performance against fellow rising featherweight Chas Skelly. Knight had a bit of trouble early with Skelly's wrestling, though he was able to mostly squirm out of trouble, but eventually Skelly tired and had nothing for Knight, who started putting volume on Skelly before finishing things early in the third. Texas's own James Vick firmed up his rep as a prospect-killer, knocking out Polo Reyes in the first round - UFC's weirdly just mostly used Vick to take out talented prospects rather than book him like a normal lightweight, so hopefully they finally do that and give Vick some higher-level competition. And Gadzhimurad Antigulov just ran through Joachim Christensen, as the Russian looks like an interesting talent in a light heavyweight division that badly needs it. Rounding out the card were two fun decisions - Cortney Casey more or less outclassing former top strawweight Jessica Aguilar, and Peru's Enrique Barzola showing off his relentless wrestling game in a win over Mexico's Gabriel Benitez - making the card pretty excellent from top to bottom.
*There's been so much drama since, but I guess I should start with the presser leading up to UFC 211. As UFC does every so often, they have a big presser to announce their lineup of big fights for the next few months, and this one was a fun one, as for better or for worse depending on the fighter, everyone seems to be willing to follow the Conor McGregor model and just talk a lot of shit. Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier, who were finally officially confirmed for the main event of UFC 214, took center stage, as both sniped at each other back and forth, Cormier for Jones's fakeness and drug use, and Jones for the fact that, well, he partied and did cocaine and still beat Cormier. Amusingly, Cormier seemed to finally embrace and be ready for the crowd to boo him, as they've done since Cormier won what was seen as a fake belt, but of course the crowd in Dallas was the first one in a while that was fully behind DC. Amanda Nunes and Valentina Shevchenko, confirmed for UFC 213, were probably the lowlight, as the broken English trashtalking between the two is fairly hit-or-miss in terms of charm, and I thought the breakout star of the whole thing might have been lightweight Kevin Lee. First, Lee was dressed fairly ridiculously, apparently paying homage to Russell Westbrook since Lee is headlining a card in Oklahoma City, but he continued his approach from social media of trash-talking in quantity, not quality, taking shots at everyone in the division he could. First, he had a pretty amazing line about Michael Johnson - paraphrasing, Johnson is on stage talking about killing people, but he's had thirty fights, lost half of them, and hasn't killed a motherfucker yet - but once he set his sights on his next opponent, Michael Chiesa, things heated up and the two got into a fight onstage, complete with Lee swinging at Chiesa. It wouldn't surprise me if this was somewhat pre-planned between the two - the line that set Chiesa off, where Lee said Chiesa's mother was going to be watching her son lose in person, didn't seem to be enough to warrant the overreaction, but given that the death of Chiesa's father and his closeness to his family was a huge part of Chiesa's season of TUF, it all could've been completely natural. At any rate, it helped greatly in terms of getting a bit of buzz around Chiesa and Lee's fight in late June.
*Two fighters who surprisingly weren't there were Cody Garbrandt and T.J. Dillashaw, who seemed to be an obvious late cut from the presser, given that the two factored in greatly on the promotional material UFC was airing during the presser, and that Dillashaw mused on social media that his flights to Dallas were suddenly cancelled. It came out shortly thereafter that Garbrandt was actually in Germany dealing with some severe back problems, and after about two weeks of UFC hemming and hawing about if the fight was still taking place, the title fight was taken off of UFC 213. This was apparently the third planned main event that fell through for that card - there was the obvious public hope that Michael Bisping/Georges St. Pierre would be ready by July, and when it became clear that wasn't happening, apparently UFC tried to put together a Nate Diaz/Tony Ferguson interim lightweight title fight before settling on Garbrandt/Dillashaw. So with Garbrandt/Dillashaw out, Amanda Nunes will wind up headlining the big July card two years in a row, this time against Valentina Shevchenko, and don't worry, we're still getting an interim belt, as Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker will square off for an interim middleweight title. Assumedly, that keeps the GSP/Bisping pairing alive for...whenever, even though Dana White said before all this shook out that that fight was dead and Bisping/Romero would be the next fight. Also, maybe UFC should've just caved in to Anderson Silva and done Romero/Silva if they were doing that interim belt, though that wouldn't have helped UFC 213. Anyway, middleweight's a mess, but at least we're getting on with our lives while Bisping does his UFC champion fantasy camp.
*The UFC 211 presser wasn't the only mess that happened when a bunch of UFC fighters got together, as the company also held a fighter's retreat last weekend. Things seemed to mostly go well, but there were a few exceptions. The one that got the most headlines was Cris Cyborg socking Angela Magana and getting cited for battery, which definitely looks like a situation where it's hard to root for either party. If you're not aware who Magana is, she's a shit-stirrer from season 20 of TUF who's shown little in two UFC fights to date but is still under contract, even though she hasn't fought since a July 2015 loss to Michelle Waterson - Magana then took some time off for a custody battle I assume must've gotten resolved, and then there's been radio silence regarding her career since then. So while Magana, from all accounts, is a person who's been through a lot of tragedy and crazy stuff in her life, and I do think there's some unnecessary slut-shaming going on over how she conducts herself on social media, she also seems to be, well, not a nice person, as this apparently all stemmed from a series of tweets where Magana was comparing Cyborg's appearance to Jigsaw from the Saw movies. Which is dumb enough, but adding fuel to the fire is that apparently, some of the pictures Magana used were from Cyborg visiting the children's ward of a hospital where Cyborg's father is currently receiving treatment for cancer. So there's a brief video going around of Cyborg confronting Magana, Magana saying she can post what she wants, and then Cyborg socking Magana in the mouth. Since then, there's been the citation for battery and Magana threatening to press charges - Cyborg's released a statement talking about being bullied and the UFC management culture allowing this all to go on, going years back to Dana White comparing Cyborg to "Wanderlei Silva" in a dress, while Magana's come back with a whole bunch of stuff about how Cyborg is the bully since she takes a bunch of steroids and beats up women much smaller than her. So, again, a situation where you can't really root for anyone, at least in my opinion, even if public opinion seems to be behind Cyborg. Anyway, the other big thing was some brief attention, once again, being given to a fighter union of some sort. The first incident that made some news was when WME-IMG brought in Kobe Bryant to speak to the fighters, and Leslie Smith asked Bryant about how important of a role the NBA players' union played in his career. Bryant talked positively about the union and how it looked out for the players, so, yeah, WME-IMG kind of cut their own throat there. There was also an incident when they had a Reebok rep speak, as undercard lightweight Kajan Johnson decided to speak up about how he knows the deal makes sense for UFC and Reebok, but it's badly hurt the fighters, and that a lot of them are unsure exactly where all the money promised to them has gone. You may remember Johnson from a similar incident over UFC 200 weekend, where he kind of crashed a Q&A with CM Punk and Donald Cerrone to ask Punk about a fighter union - anyway, Johnson was apparently escorted off by officials, whatever that means, but per Johnson, it apparently led to some productive discussions between himself, UFC, and Reebok reps. There were some other anecdotes - an Anheuser-Busch rep apparently came off horribly talking to the fighters, showing up drunk, then telling everyone they want fights to be themselves, like Conor McGregor (which, um, does anyone wanna tell him), and that they don't want to sponsor guys who want to get knocked out. Helpful. Also, Al Iaquinta apparently briefly showed up, then shit on the whole thing afterwards - Snoop Dogg did a concert at the fighter retreat, and Iaquinta made the point that hey, why can they afford to pay Snoop Dogg but now any of the fighters, but then he turned around and kept calling Kajan Johnson a "dork" on social media, so who knows what Iaquinta is looking for.
*Let's finish up with a whole bunch of quick hitters, starting with even more UFC programming. Also announced during the UFC 211 presser was "Dana White's Tuesday Night Contender Series", a weekly fight show on Tuesday nights, exclusive to Fight Pass. Essentially it'll be four or five fights at the Ultimate Fighter gym every week for a few weeks, featuring a combination of prospects looking to get into UFC and UFC fighters on losing skids fighting, essentially, to keep their jobs. Lesbian weddings! UFC got two of them during the UFC 211 card. After losing to Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Jessica Andrade proposed to her girlfriend inside the cage, and bantamweight Raquel Pennington and strawweight Tecia Torres, a known couple, announced their engagement the same night. MMA being, in its own way, one of the more LGBT-friendly sports out there amuses me. The California commission passed a whole bunch of new weight-cutting regulations, and it'll be interesting to see how this affects UFC 214. There's higher monetary penalties now, and while most of the other penalties seem to be rather toothless, apparently there will be a lot more periodic weigh-ins for fighters fighting in California, just to get an idea of exactly how much weight these people are cutting. If nothing else, that data will be interesting. At the fighter summit, UFC announced a partnership with the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City - essentially, HSS doctors will now be backstage at UFC events to check on fighters and recommend treatment, and UFC is going to steer fighters to get treated there. This was apparently another thing that sent Al Iaquinta off, as this was the hospital in question when Iaquinta feuded with the UFC over paying for knee surgery. Anthony Johnson's big post-MMA opportunity is apparently attempting to open weed dispensaries in Canada. Okay. In this week's drug failure, Jessica Penne is the latest fighter to be flagged by USADA - interestingly, this is apparently the first test to trip something up thanks to USADA's "biological passport" for fighters, flagging certain chemical changes that may cause USADA to go back and test a sample that once passed as clean, which is what happened here. And UFC also apparently signed its first fighter of Indian decent, as heavyweight Arjan Bhullar has signed a contract. Bhullar's a native of British Columbia who is of Sikh descent, and represented Canada in freestyle wrestling at the 2012 Olympics. Still, it'll probably be a while until we see a fighter from India proper, unless they moved to another country in their youth or just get signed based off anything but merit, as the scene there seems to be way behind even China, if there even really is one.
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BOOKINGS:
*So UFC announced a few main events for July and August, the biggest of which is probably what might be Chris Weidman's last shot to redeem himself as a middleweight contender, as he faces Kelvin Gastelum to headline the Fox card on his native Long Island. Weidman's suddenly lost three straight, and like the Mousasi fight before it, Weidman once again faces a rising talent (and in this case, a much younger one) trying to take his spot among the middleweight elite. The other big one is the headliner of the upcoming TUF finale, as Michael Johnson welcomes former World Series of Fighting champion Justin Gaethje into the UFC. This is a big test for Gaethje right off the bat - his brawling style is pretty much built around all offense and no defense, so seeing if Gaethje can get past a UFC-level athlete with quick hands like Johnson will pretty much immediately tell us if Gaethje is a contender or just a fun, violent addition to the roster. UFC's return to Scotland has a bit of a weird main event, as Gunnar Nelson takes on Santiago Ponzinibbio. Nelson headlining isn't much of a surprise, since he's a popular European fighter, but I'm surprised he didn't get a fight against someone considered either at or above his own level, like a Neil Magny or a Kamaru Usman, to try and break him into contention, rather than a fun veteran like Ponzinibbio. The more interesting fight might be the co-main, where Scotland's own Joanne Calderwood will take on rising prospect Cynthia Calvillo. UFC's putting all their weight behind pushing Calvillo, a Team Alpha Male product who has a long amateur career, but has been a pro for less than a year, and while I don't see it, a win here would go a long way towards making Calvillo a thing. And UFC announced their return to Mexico City on August 5th, and shortly thereafter, a pretty fun flyweight main event, as rising Mexican prospect Brandon Moreno takes on Sergio Pettis, who was slated to face Henry Cejudo at this UFC 211 card before Cejudo had issues with a hand injury. It's a solid next step up for Moreno, who keeps overachieving - might as well see how far you can take things for the time being.
*So, UFC is apparently returning to Seattle sometime in August, and native son Demetrious Johnson is likely to headline, but it's unclear exactly who the flyweight champ will be facing. Since Cody Garbrandt pulled out of his bantamweight title defense against former champ T.J. Dillashaw, Dillashaw's now angling for that slot. And it makes sense - it's not a money fight, but it's the best option available for either guy in the short term, and it'd be an awesome fight - add in the fact that Johnson's next title defense will break Anderson Silva's UFC record, and it's pretty much a perfect test to see if Johnson can make history. So everyone seems in, except for Johnson, who would like to see Dillashaw take at least one fight at 125 first, partially so that he can earn the shot, and partially to prove that Dillashaw can even make flyweight. Which makes sense, but it looks like the other alternative is Ray Borg - who's a fine fighter, but still more of a prospect at this point, and is really more of a "best challenger available" rather than someone who's actually gotten the big wins to actually earn a shot, at least as of yet. Add in that Borg has missed weight at 125 twice himself, and, well, it's kind of an eh option. So we'll see what happens come August.
*UFC 214 is rounding into shape with a pretty fun card supporting the big Cormier/Jones rematch. There were whispers a week or two ago about Cris Cyborg facing Cat Zingano at featherweight on this card, but there doesn't seem to be anything really to those rumors, though Zingano would apparently take that fight and Cyborg has been pushing a fight on this card. But what's there is pretty great, headlined by UFC's two most exciting Korean fighters. "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung faces Ricardo Lamas in a pretty awesome featherweight bout that was rumored for the Long Island card a week before, and "The Korean Superboy" Doo Ho Choi returns after his awesome fight against Cub Swanson to take on Andre Fili in another fun featherweight fight. Also, former bantamweight champion Renan Barao comes back to 135 after a two-fight experiment at featherweight to take on Aljamain Sterling in another main-card-worthy fight, even if it's a bit weird that this isn't on the Long Island card, given that's where Sterling is from. And then there's a bunch of weird undercard stuff featuring a bunch of fighters I didn't think we'd see again in the UFC. Josh Burkman somehow gets another fight against Drew Dober - Burkman's essentially 1-6 in his UFC comeback and has seemingly had diminishing returns with each fight, which makes this a weird deal, unless UFC is being nice and giving him a retirement fight or something. Dmitrii Smoliakov, a Russian heavyweight who had one of the more awful two-fight runs in recent UFC history, gets a third fight for some reason, as he takes on the debuting Adam Wieczorek of Poland, and hey, Aleksandra Albu is back on this card. Albu's had a bizarre career - she was signed in 2013 with only a 1-0 record, which wouldn't really make sense until, well, you do a Google image search for her. Then it makes a lot of sense. So she was supposed to fight Julie Kedzie at bantamweight, but pulled out of the fight with an injury (thus giving us Bethe Correia in the UFC), and then dropped off the face of the earth for about a year and a half, before debuting on UFC's 2015 card in Poland, beating Izabela Badurek (who was then cut from the promotion) at strawweight. And then Albu vanished again, this time for two and a half years, apparently to work on her doctorate. But anyway, she's back here, and she's taking on Kailin Curran, a Hawaiian strawweight who seems marketable and talented, but doesn't really ever seem to put it together - she's kind of like what people who hate Paige VanZant think VanZant is. And speaking of VanZant, her male counterpart is also back, as Sage Northcutt takes on TUF: Latin America 3 runner-up Claudio Puelles, as UFC once again turns to TUF: LA to find someone for Northcutt to beat.
*The rest is all mostly undercard stuff, so let's run through it all chronologically. UFC 212 has two late changes - injuries have scrapped an interesting lightweight bout between Leonardo Santos and Olivier Aubin-Mercier, and Iuri Alcantara will not face Felipe Arantes as reported, but instead the debuting Brian Kelleher, which, well, still seems like a waste of a veteran like Alcantara. Next month's card in Auckland added one fight and saw changes to two others - Australian strawweight Nadia Kassem debuts on that card to take on J.J. Aldrich, Tim Elliott steps in for an injured Joseph Benavidez again Ben Nguyen, and with frustrating Brazilian prospect Warlley Alves injured, it'll instead be Zak Ottow taking on Japanese vet Kiichi Kunimoto. That changes the dynamic of the fight quite a bit - rather than a redemption opportunity for Alves, it's probably going to be two nondescript guys fighting for their job. The Oklahoma City card finally got filled out, with the two biggest new fights probably being a fun welterweight bout between Tim Means and Alex Garcia, and a lightweight bout between Tony Martin and Johnny Case. Jared Gordon and Michel Quinones, taken off UFC 211 at the last minute thanks to Gordon having food poisoning, will instead take place here, and just weeks after getting tapped at UFC 211, Joachim Christensen returns to take on debuting Russian light heavyweight Azamat Murzakanov. Darrell Horcher, who you may remember from getting thrown in against Khabib Nurmagomedov last year in Khabib's comeback fight, returns from that and a near-fatal motorcycle crash to take on Devin Powell on this OKC card, and oh, shocker, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira has pulled out of his fight on this card against Ilir Latifi. From there, it's on to international fight week, where there's not much new - past the Gaethje/Johnson fight and the whole shuffle with Garbrandt/Dillashaw out and Romero/Whittaker in, the only new fight is Brazilian strawweight Amanda Ribas debuting against Juliana Lima. British heavyweight Mark Godbeer is out of the Glasgow card, so Justin Willis will instead face the debuting James Mulheron. Long Island added a few fights, two of which may be on the main card - hometown featherweight Dennis Bermudez will take on Darren Elkins in a solid bout between wrestlers, and UFC's rushing Australian light heavyweight Tyson Pedro up the ladder quickly, as he'll be facing Corey Anderson. Plus there's some undercard stuff - featherweight prospects Shane Burgos and Jeremy Kennedy get some interesting tests in Godofredo Pepey and Kyle Bochniak, respectively, and we get some trashy heavyweight fights - Tim Johnson faces debuting Brazilian Junior Albini, and a Damian Grabowski/Christian Colombo fight scrapped from this Stockholm card due to injury will take place here. And only two more notes - UFC 214 will see flyweights Eric Shelton and Jarred Brooks square off, and the company has announced a September 23rd return to Japan, even though, well, they don't really have many Japanese fighters left to headline.
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UPCOMING UFC SHOWS:
6/3 - UFC 212 - Rio De Janeiro, Brazil - Jose Aldo ( c ) vs. Max Holloway (ic), Claudia Gadelha vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Vitor Belfort vs. Nate Marquardt
6/10 - UFC Fight Night 110 - Auckland, New Zealand - Mark Hunt vs. Derrick Lewis, Derek Brunson vs. Daniel Kelly
6/17 - UFC Fight Night 111 - Singapore, Singapore - Bethe Correia vs. Holly Holm, Colby Covington vs. Dong Hyun Kim, Rafael dos Anjos vs. Tarec Saffiedine
6/25 - UFC Fight Night 112 - Oklahoma City, OK - Michael Chiesa vs. Kevin Lee, Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks, B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver
7/7 - TUF 25 Finale - Las Vegas, NV - Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Johnson
7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Amanda Nunes ( c ) vs. Valentina Shevchenko, Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker, Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler
7/16 - UFC Fight Night 113 - Glasgow, Scotland - Gunnar Nelson vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio, Joanne Calderwood vs. Cynthia Calvillo
7/22 - UFC on Fox 25 - Uniondale, NY - Kelvin Gastelum vs. Chris Weidman, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera
7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Chan Sung Jung vs. Ricardo Lamas
8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis
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UFC Fight Night 109 - May 28, 2017 - Ericsson Globe - Stockholm, Sweden
Well, this is the final nail in the coffin for Memorial Day being a big UFC weekend. UFC used to fairly reliably have a few tentpole events at certain times of the year - Super Bowl weekend, Memorial Day, July 4th or so, and sometime at the end of the calendar year - but now it looks like Memorial Day is out of that rotation. 2015 was the last big one - initially supposed to be the Jon Jones/Rumble Johnson fight that it looks like will never happen, it instead became Daniel Cormier beating Johnson for the vacant belt and Chris Weidman beating the TRT out of Vitor Belfort. Last year was a bit scaled down, with an FS1 card headlined by Cody Garbrandt beating Thomas Almeida - though that looks a bit bigger now with Garbrandt subsequently becoming bantamweight champ - and then there's...this. This was initially supposed to be UFC's debut in Denmark, but things got shifted for some reason and instead it's UFC's return to Stockholm, where the Swedish faithful have always been an excellent crowd. And for their trouble, they get hometown hero Alexander Gustafsson, and...a whole lot of nothing, frankly. There's some interesting prospects deeper on the card, but for the most part this is my least favorite type of UFC card, as a lot of the prominent guys are known quantities, and there's not a ton in terms of upward mobility or high stakes. The action probably won't be that bad - UFC has a deep enough roster that it's hard to put on an outright awful show nowadays - and the early Sunday start time means you can have the rest of the day ahead of you after watching it, but this is, frankly, the most skippable card of the year thus far, and I'm shocked it's on cable rather than Fight Pass. They can't all be winners!
MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 1:00 PM ET):
Light Heavyweight: (#1) Alexander Gustafsson vs. (#2) Glover Teixeira
Light Heavyweight: (#5) Volkan Oezdemir vs. (#7) Misha Cirkunov
Welterweight: Ben Saunders vs. Peter Sobotta
Welterweight: Omari Akhmedov vs. Abdul Razak Alhassan
Welterweight: Oliver Enkamp vs. Nordine Taleb
Middleweight: Jack Hermansson vs. Alex Nicholson
PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 11:00 AM ET):
Bantamweight: (#12) Pedro Munhoz vs. Damian Stasiak
Middleweight: Chris Camozzi vs. Trevor Smith
Lightweight: Reza Madadi vs. Joaquim Silva
Welterweight: Nico Musoke vs. Bojan Velickovic
PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 10:00 AM ET):
Welterweight: Jessin Ayari vs. Darren Till
Lightweight: Damir Hadzovic vs. Marcin Held
THE RUNDOWN:
Alexander Gustafsson (17-4 overall, 9-4 UFC) vs. Glover Teixeira (26-5 overall, 9-3 UFC, 3-0 WEC):
Well, this is certainly the right fight to make - these two are ostensibly the best fighters in the division save Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones, and somehow haven't faced each other yet, despite light heavyweight being so stagnant - but it's also a bit hard to get excited for this one, as neither guy has much momentum and have already pretty much proven themselves to be below the level of Cormier and Jones. It's still pretty crazy that Alexander Gustafsson is only 30 years old, since it's already almost been four years since his all-time great title fight with Jones, and it feels like it's been a slow decline since. Gustafsson earned a rematch with a win over Jimi Manuwa, but that's pretty much been forgotten in the years since for a few reasons - one, because Gustafsson got injured and replaced by Cormier, whose rivalry with Jones overshadowed everything else, and two, because when Gustafsson was ready to fight again, he got knocked out in deflating fashion by Anthony Johnson in front of the Swedish faithful. Amazingly, the state of the light heavyweight division (and UFC being loathe to give Ryan Bader a title shot) meant that Gustafsson still got a crack at the belt once Jones vacated it and Cormier beat Johnson to win it, and Gustafsson once against lost an excellent five-round war in a light heavyweight title fight. There were some talks after that fight that Gustafsson might retire after everything he's put himself to, but he returned last September, and while he beat Jan Blachowicz in what was obviously meant to be a tune-up fight, his performance wasn't overly inspiring - for someone with such a great reach, Gustafsson got hit a ton, and was only really to separate himself from Blachowicz by pretty much taking him down at will. Still, Gustafsson's still among the top fighters in the division, despite being sort of an unexciting known quantity at this point, and you could say the same about his opponent, Glover Teixeira. Teixeira spent years fighting in his native Brazil thanks to some visa issues, but UFC was finally able to bring him stateside in 2012, at which point Teixeira pretty much ran through the division, earning a title shot against Jones within two years. That was a one-sided loss, and by Teixeira's account, he came back too quickly thereafter for another decision loss to Phil Davis, but it looked like Teixeira was making another run after taking some time off to heal up, and beating Ovince St. Preux, Patrick Cummins, and Rashad Evans - all flawed opponents, but about as good as you can do at light heavyweight nowadays. But like Gustafsson, Rumble Johnson stopped that momentum dead - in this case with a 13-second knockout this past August - and while Teixeira rebounded with a win over Jared Cannonier in February, like Gustafsson's last win, it was sort of an uninspiring affair that saw Teixeira rely on his wrestling. It's a hard fight to call - I honestly have a bit more faith in Teixeira to be more consistent every time out, but the outlines of the matchup really do favor Gustafsson. Gustafsson has that super-long reach, and at his best, I can see Gustafsson just keeping Teixeira at range, and not letting him get in on any takedowns. But Gustafsson, as mentioned, also got hit a bunch by Jan Blachowicz, and while Daniel Cormier's quite a bit underrated as an all-time great, he's way smaller than any of these other guys mentioned, and was able to get inside and take down Gustafsson without much trouble. But Teixeira is no Cormier in terms of wrestling, and while Teixeira's also a much better fighter than Blachowicz, Blachowicz still might be a bit faster and more athletic at his best, which he seemingly brought against Gustafsson. There's a chance that Gustafsson just shits the bed and loses a lukewarm striking contest over twenty-five minutes, but I'll say he's buoyed a bit by his hometown crowd here in Stockholm and wins a clear decision. Hopefully it's fun, and hopefully Gustafsson looks good enough that this is the start of another run towards light heavyweight relevance.
Volkan Oezdemir (13-1 overall, 1-0 UFC, 1-1 Bellator) vs. Misha Cirkunov (13-2 overall, 4-0 UFC):
In contrast to the main event, this fight pits ostensibly the two best up-and-comers at light heavyweight against each other, even if it's kind of funny that Volkan Oezdemir is the higher ranked guy here, since Misha Cirkunov is obviously the much better prospect. Cirkunov, a Latvian judoka whose family relocated to Toronto when he was a teenager, came into UFC as the most hyped Canadian prospect in a while, and has pretty much lived up to it in the ensuing year and a half - UFC fed him a string of debuting opponents that Cirkunov mostly handled rather easily, and Cirkunov passed his first big test with flying colors, taking out fellow top prospect Nikita Krylov in just four and a half minutes with a guillotine choke. There's some concerns about Cirkunov - mainly, his striking remains a little bit stiff, and he's already 30 - but after the Krylov win, he looks like he can at least be somewhat of a star, either as a top Canadian attraction or a top light heavyweight. After a messy contract dispute, Cirkunov returns against Volkan Oezdemir, UFC's first fighter from Switzerland, who comes off a win over Ovince St. Preux that shot him up the rankings. I don't mean to rag on Oezdemir too much - the MMA bubble has already kind of done that enough - but that win, which Oezdemir probably didn't deserve in the first place, really said more about how much OSP has fallen than announcing the arrival of a new contender, as both guys looked sort of flat and the judges just sort of collectively shrugged and gave the nod to Oezdemir. Oezdemir's a perfectly fine fighter, but he's probably closer to the fringes of the top fifteen than a top-five contender, at least at the moment - if nothing else, Oezdemir is just 27 in an old division, so he'll probably work his way up into being a concern as time goes on and light heavyweight starts to turn over. Oezdemir ostensibly has a striking background, but I haven't really seen a ton of it - he did some striking in the St. Preux fight, but most of the pre-UFC stuff I watched saw him mostly focus on taking his opponent down and working from there, and that'll get him nowhere against Cirkunov. I could see this fight being a bit tricky for Cirkunov, if only because Oezdemir should be the much quicker fighter, but at some point Cirkunov probably catches him and then this fight is over. I'll just say things are over with quickly and Cirkunov gets the first-round submission, and then Cirkunov may surprisingly only be one or two wins away from a title shot.
Ben Saunders (21-7-2 overall, 8-4 UFC, 7-3 Bellator) vs. Peter Sobotta (16-5-1 overall, 3-4 UFC):
When UFC decided to break into Europe about a decade ago, they focused on two countries - and while the sport has taken off in the United Kingdom, things never quite took in Germany. It's easy to see why Germany would be a target for UFC - it's one of the richest nations in Europe per capita, but for whatever reason, unlike neighbors like the Netherlands and Poland, Germany's just never really had the appetite for MMA. Anyway, when UFC decided to run Germany for the first time - all the way back in 2009 - they signed a bunch of German fighters, including Peter Sobotta, a young submission specialist. And, well, Sobotta really showed nothing, going 0-3 against Paul Taylor, James Wilks, and Amir Sadollah. But Sobotta kept at it, going undefeated in his post-UFC career, and after UFC attempted international expansion once more in 2014, and that included a card in Germany, Sobotta was once again one of the first names they called. His second run has been a bit strange - UFC seemed to obviously be giving the hometown favorite some softball fights against Pawel Pawlak and Steve Kennedy on those German cards, an impression only bolstered when Kyle Noke then obliterated Sobotta with a body kick in just two minutes - but with his back seemingly against the wall, Sobotta put in a career-best performance in Hamburg last September, surprisingly cracking Nicolas Dalby on the feet before taking things into his usual grappling realm. The time has probably passed for Sobotta to be anything more than a European favorite who can have some fun fights, but that's perfectly fine, and his fight with Ben Saunders should be a fun one. Saunders is another guy who had to go outside of the UFC to improve, as he was cut after two losses back in 2010, back in the days when even being an excellent action fighter could still get you cut after two losses. From there, Saunders caught on with Bellator, which was still fairly new, and while he never quite reached title contention, he just kept improving as one of the more interesting threats out there, combining a vicious muay thai game with some venomous submissions from his back. His recent return to UFC has also gone surprisingly well - his lone loss was last year to a then-resurgent Patrick Cote, and besides that he's beaten some solid vets like Kenny Robertson and Court McGee. This should be a fine fight, but I'm not really sure what Sobotta can offer Saunders - Saunders should be the better fighter on the feet, and his physical gifts and willingness to go for submissions on his back should make things tricky for Sobotta even if he's able to take things to the ground. If this turns into a grappling match, I could see this becoming a close decision if Saunders just isn't able to get a ton going from the bottom, but I still think Saunders gets a decision win rather handily - and like a lot of fights on this card, I just hope it's a fun one.
Omari Akhmedov (16-4 overall, 4-3 UFC) vs. Abdul Razak Alhassan (7-0 overall, 1-0 UFC, 2-0 Bellator):
There are probably better prospects on this card, but Abdul Razak Alhassan might be the most interesting. A judoka out of Ghana, Alhassan's a freak athlete whose entire approach is to just throw bombs the entire time, and, well, it's worked, since he's 7-0 with seven knockouts, all within 86 seconds or less. Past that, who the hell knows, and even his lone UFC fight didn't really tell us much, as it was a sub-minute knockout over Charlie Ward, who's only in the UFC because he's a teammate of Conor McGregor and isn't particularly good. So, the first real test of Alhassan's MMA career will be Omari Akhmedov, who's fallen from top prospect status but should still be a tough first test. Akhmedov, one of many Dagestani fighters on the roster, followed a similar route as Alhassan to the UFC, racking up quick knockouts before getting signed. But after another first-round win over Thiago Perpetuo in his UFC debut, the finishes sort of dried up for Akhmedov, and the flaws in his game got exposed. Akhmedov, though not with the same frenzied flurries as Alhassan, throws heat behind everything, including some particularly vicious leg kicks, but the end result of this is that he inevitably wears himself out, which cost him third round losses in fights he was probably winning against Sergio Moraes and Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos. Akhmedov figured to be cut after that, but wound up getting one last shot against Kyle Noke and came through, still gassing but being able to rely on his wrestling to at least control things and minimize the potential damage late in the fight. This seems like a pretty binary fight - either Alhassan blitzes Akhmedov and scores yet another quick knockout, or then things fall apart quickly - you could make the case that maybe Alhassan has the judo to neutralize Akhmedov's wrestling and allow the Russian to tire himself just as quickly, but if Alhassan's gassed enough that he's stopped throwing, I figure the fight is pretty much over by then. I really have no idea if Alhassan can get Akhmedov out of there - Akhmedov does seem to have some ridiculous toughness, but his punches do have some wind-up to them and Alhassan could just nail him with ten punches for every one Akhmedov can throw - but Alhassan's such a question mark that I really can't trust him just yet. Not that Akhmedov isn't a fine next step - this isn't a case of UFC throwing Alhassan too much, too soon, but even this is a huge step above what Alhassan's faced to date with such a (seemingly) limited game. So I'll take Akhmedov to weather out the storm and grind out a decision, with a chance of a late finish, which is about the most disappointing way things can go.
Oliver Enkamp (7-0 overall) vs. Nordine Taleb (12-4 overall, 4-2 UFC, 2-1 Bellator):
Nordine Taleb is a perfectly fine fighter. And I kind of mean that as a compliment - after coming in through a surprisingly fun Canada versus Australia season of TUF, Taleb seemed like sort of a quadruple-A sort of fighter who'd wash out of UFC fairly quickly, but the Frenchman-turned-Quebec native turned out to be a pretty solid addition to the welterweight division. Taleb has some pretty well-defined strengths and weaknesses - he's extremely fundamentally sound, and he's gigantic for the division, but that comes at the expense of speed, which has cost him in losses to an explosive athlete in Warlley Alves and a speedy combination puncher like Santiago Ponzinibbio. Taleb figured to be an interesting test for Emil Meek, a charismatic Norwegian coming off a debut win over Jordan Mein in December, but Meek got hurt about two weeks out, and Taleb will now face the debuting Oliver Enkamp, who seems to be the consensus top prospect in Sweden. There's a lot to like about Enkamp - he was on UFC's radar for that McGregor/Faber season of TUF, but decided to take almost two years off because of injuries, and since coming back he's shown off both his solid karate base and some decent submissions. But I think Taleb is a tough ask at this moment in time - for one thing, Enkamp's going to be dwarfed here - again, Taleb's giant for the division, while most of Enkamp's fights before that injury layoff took place closer to lightweight. And Enkamp's grappling game seems more opportunistic than anything, and really just in general, I don't see Taleb giving Enkamp the sort of openings that the Swede needs to make a big debut. Taleb should win a fairly clear decision here - it's just of a matter of hoping that Enkamp impresses in the loss.
Jack Hermansson (14-3 overall, 1-1 UFC, 0-2 Bellator) vs. Alex Nicholson (7-3 overall, 1-2 UFC):
Mike Perry gets a lots of attention for basically being the human embodiment of Florida and sort of a garbage human, but teammate Alex Nicholson is the more insidious one of the two, with all the casual racism but with a 2016 domestic violence incident at a 7-Eleven hanging over his head, which got swept away when his fiance declined to press charges. As far as in the cage, like Perry, Nicholson is an excellent athlete, but unlike Perry, who just focuses on a fairly simple power boxing game, Nicholson uses his athleticism to throw all sorts of stupid stuff, like flying head kicks and spinning backfists and stuff. It's made for a weird UFC career - Misha Cirkunov destroyed him in his UFC debut, but Nicholson rebounded with a come-from-behind victory over Devin Clark via fluke knockout, then almost pipped a decision from Sam Alvey in November. Nicholson's walking a tightrope with a low-percentage approach, but if it ever suddenly mentally clicks, look for him to be yet another problematic fave on the UFC roster. Nicholson faces Sweden's Jack Hermansson, who figures to be the local favorite - Hermansson had a brief and unsuccessful run in Bellator when he was just 5-0 and two years into his career, but he recovered from that to become one of the best middleweights in Europe before signing with UFC last year. Hermansson beat Scott Askham in his UFC debut, and is seemingly set to settle in as one of UFC's random collection of decent European middleweights, as a loss to Cezar Ferreira in November stopped a bunch of Hermansson's momentum. Hermansson has a weird, movement-heavy striking game, and should be able to avoid Nicholson's big strikes - Ferreira only gave Hermansson problems once he decided to take things to the mat, and for all his dynamism, Nicholson has pretty much been out-struck in every UFC fight save that fluke finish of Clark. Hermansson's game is rather one-dimensional, so if Nicholson had a decent camp behind him I could see him adjusting between rounds and taking over, but given that Nicholson is training out of a UFC gym on the outskirts of Orlando that his father apparently owns, give me Hermansson by decision.
Pedro Munhoz (13-2 [1] overall, 3-2 [1] UFC) vs. Damian Stasiak (10-3 overall, 2-1 UFC):
It looks like Pedro Munhoz might finally be building some momentum, after a bit of a rocky start. Munhoz came into UFC as a highly touted prospect in 2014, but was pretty much thrown to the wolves right away, coming in as a late injury replacement against top contender Raphael Assuncao and getting outclassed. Munhoz then beat lower-level guys Matt Hobar and Jerrod Sanders, but the Sanders win wound up stalling his momentum once again - the athletic commission in Nova Scotia flagged Munhoz for some elevated testosterone levels, and what ensued was a long legal battle that ate up most of Munhoz's 2015; and one the Brazilian returned, he got another tough draw, losing a narrow decision to fellow up-and-comer Jimmie Rivera, who's since turned into a top contender himself. Meanwhile, Munhoz spent 2016 regaining his momentum with two solid wins over Russell Doane and Justin Scoggins, both via his lethal guillotine choke, and he'll probably make it three in a row against Poland's Damian Stasiak. Stasiak was one of a bunch of Polish signings UFC made when they debuted in Krakow in 2015, and he pretty much immediately disappointed, losing a decision to Yaotzin Meza in what was obviously set up to get Stasiak an easy win. Whoops. Stasiak then cut down to 135, and while he's gotten wins over Filip Pejic and Davey Grant, they weren't particularly great performances over lower-level guys. I can see why UFC did this matchup, though - Stasiak's a weird fighter, who relies on his grappling but has a funky, distance-based karate style, and while Munhoz is a solid striker with some power, guys who can move and keep a distance do seem to give him some trouble. We saw that in Munhoz's last fight against Scoggins, who was briefly fighting up from flyweight - Scoggins was doing pretty well just sticking, moving, and picking Munhoz apart at range until he slipped throwing a low kick, at which point Munhoz jumped on that guillotine for the win. But Stasiak isn't near the level of fighter Munhoz is, and given that Munhoz may have the quickest and most lethal guillotine in the UFC - seriously, watching him just immediately jump on that thing as soon as an opening comes available is wonderful - it's hard to envision any scenario other than Munhoz getting that choke and the tap; I'll say it happens in the second round.
Chris Camozzi (24-12 overall, 9-9 UFC) vs. Trevor Smith (14-7 overall, 4-4 UFC, 2-2 Strikeforce):
Oh, God. Existentially meaningless middleweight fights may have reached a new peak here, and there's not even a local rooting interest - Sweden's Magnus Cedenblad was originally supposed to be in this fight, but with him injured, it's Colorado's Chris Camozzi against the Pacific Northwest's Trevor Smith. Man, where to start with Chris Camozzi, who for being such a bland fighter has had a weird career spanning three different stretches with the UFC. His first stretch was just a normal post-TUF run where he was cut after his first loss, but he quickly earned his way back and then shockingly went on a four-fight winning streak. It was mostly just blah kickboxing match after blah kickboxing match, as Camozzi just kind of narrowly proved better than the rest of the mid-tier at middleweight, but that eventually earned him a spot against Jacare Souza...where Camozzi got absolutely smoked in just three and a half minutes. After that, Camozzi's luck suddenly swung the other way, as that started a four-fight losing streak - the last two by split decision - that eventually wound up with Camozzi suddenly finding himself out of the UFC. But he won a few fights, and, once again, when Jacare needed a late-notice opponent in 2015, Camozzi was the only man crazy enough to step up, coming in on about a week's notice and losing even quicker than he did the first time. From there, Camozzi actually started to gain some momentum with a three-fight win streak, including an impressive win over Vitor Miranda where Camozzi finally mixed in his wrestling, but Thales Leites and Dan Kelly more or less ran through him and now Camozzi suddenly finds his career stalled once again. He faces Smith, who there's not a ton to say about - he's just a big, veteran grinder who's not particularly athletic, but can hold his own against the lower reaches of the roster, taking out prospects like Brian Houston and Joe Gigliotti, and some low-level vets like Tor Troeng and Dan Miller. There's a chance he can do the same thing to Camozzi - if the last two fights have shown anything, it's that Camozzi is still helpless once he gets taken down, and has trouble with guys like Kelly who just lurch forward and keep eating damage, but Camozzi really should be too quick and athletic to prevent Smith from catching up with him. I predict a Camozzi win via unmemorable decision, and then we will all move on with our lives.
Reza Madadi (14-5 overall, 3-3 UFC) vs. Joaquim Silva (9-0 overall, 2-0 UFC):
Well that all sort of worked out - Sweden's Reza Madadi asked for a retirement fight on this card once it was announced, and most people figured he'd get it, given that UFC's been in the business of hometown retirement fights lately - but once this card was finalized, Madadi wasn't on the lineup until an injury to Mairbek Taisumov opened up a spot here. Madadi looked to be settling in as a local favorite on Swedish cards, particularly with a surprising submission win over Michael Johnson before Johnson broke out as a contender, but a 2013 arrest caused Madadi to be cut. Essentially, Madadi was implicated as an accomplice in a robbery of a luxury handbag store, and while his defense of "it wasn't me" wasn't enough to win over the Swedish authorities, it was apparently good enough for UFC, since the company signed Madadi right back up after he spent a year and a half in jail. And from there, Madadi's continued as a mid-tier guy on these European cards, sandwiching a win over Yan Cabral in between losses to Norman Parke and Joe Duffy. In his retirement fight, Madadi faces Brazil's Joaquim Silva, who's an interesting prospect. An alum of TUF Brazil 4, Silva's sort of like old-school Vitor Belfort in that he'll talk all about the power of jiu-jitsu, then go out there and just ignore his submission game in favor of knocking a dude out. He won a narrow decision over castmate Nazareno Malegarie, then obliterated Andrew Holbrook in just 34 seconds, so it's kind of hard to tell what Silva will have to offer in his toughest test to date. I think Madadi takes this one, unless the late notice takes its toll - Madadi's a controlling grinder, pure and simple, and there's nothing suggesting that Silva will have a ton to counter that. In the Malegarie fight, Silva just didn't really accomplish much when he was put on his back, for all his talk about BJJ, and Madadi should be stronger there - and while there's theoretically the possibility of Silva landing a knockout blow, Madadi's nothing if not ridiculously tough - Madadi's never been finished in his career, and that Joe Duffy fight basically turned into Duffy teeing off on Madadi's face while the Swede just stood there and ate it. Madadi should be able to walk through Silva's shots and just grind out a win here - it probably won't be too exciting if that's the way it goes, but hey, at least the fans should be happy with the result.
Nico Musoke (13-4-1 overall, 3-2 UFC) vs. Bojan Velickovic (14-4-1 overall, 1-1-1 UFC):
You'd be forgiven for forgetting that Nico Musoke used to be a thing, given that we haven't seen the Stockholm product since January of 2015. After upset wins over Alessio Sakara and Viscardi Andrade to start his UFC career, Musoke actually co-main evented a show in San Antonio in 2014, giving a then-raw Kelvin Gastelum a surprisingly strong test. After beating Alexander Yakovlev to rebound, it looked like Musoke would be a mainstay of these European cards, but then he lost a fight to Albert Tumenov on that January 2015 card, and hasn't been seen since thanks to a nagging back injury. So Musoke finally returns in his hometown against Serbia's Bojan Velickovic, who's looking at his last chance to stay in UFC. Velickovic came into UFC as a fairly regarded prospect, but he hasn't really done a ton - he beat Alessio Di Chirico, but then got a draw against Michael Graves and lost a fairly one-sided decision to Sultan Aliev in December. The way the Aliev loss played out was particularly deflating - Velickovic usually tends to rely on his size to give him in advantage in grappling work, but Aliev was mostly able to take him down at will. It's still a close enough fight, particularly with Musoke being such a question mark while coming back from injury - even at their best, both guys are sort of a jack of all trades, master of none type. Velickovic's size and reach may give Musoke trouble, particularly as he adjusts from a long layoff, but I'll still say Musoke squeaks out a decision, since it really does seem like Velickovic has trouble controlling things against UFC-level athletes.
Jessin Ayari (16-3 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Darren Till (13-0-1 overall, 1-0-1 UFC):
A fun fight here between two promising 24-year old welterweights, and it's good to see Darren Till finally back in action. Till was a pleasant surprise in 2015 - a native of Liverpool, England who's spent most of his career in Brazil, Till got the call as a late notice replacement on a card in Brazil that May. Not much was expected of Till - he came from a gym in Brazil somewhat notorious for feeding their prospects easy fights in order to inflate their records - but he impressed, not only scoring a second-round knockout of Wendell Oliveira, but also translating his own post-fight interview from English into Portuguese. Which, if you've never heard Portuguese in a scouse accent, it's...certainly something. Anyway, Till followed that up with a fight against Nicolas Dalby that was one of 2015's more underratedly fun fights, ending in a draw - Till was winning the first two rounds rather handily, but popped his shoulder out and then spent the third round just trying to survive. So Till has only now recovered from that shoulder injury, and hopefully he picks up where he left off, since he's a fun striker with enough swagger and personality to be a bit of a minor star on these European cards. Till faces Germany's Jessin Ayari, who's been just as effective, if not particularly interesting - Ayari just sort of cruises along as a distance kickboxer; he didn't really impress me much in his pre-UFC film, and his debut win over British vet Jim Wallhead was fairly boring. Again, not that it's not effective, but Ayari just never really elevates things above a mild simmer and seems fairly content to cruise to a decision. This could wind up being a distance kickboxing match, but wherever it is, I've liked what I've seen from Till a ton more thus far - Ayari might be able to survive, but I'll say that Till eventually lays on the volume and gets the third-round KO.
Damir Hadzovic (10-3 overall, 0-1 UFC) vs. Marcin Held (22-6 overall, 0-2 UFC, 11-3 Bellator):
Well, Marcin Held's UFC tenure hasn't gone quite as expected - the Pole was one of the top lightweights in Bellator when he decided to leave for UFC, and the struggles of both Held and former Bellator champ Will Brooks in the UFC thus far has led to a lot of questions about former Bellator guys being able to handle high-level UFC athleticism. Held's UFC debut, against Diego Sanchez, was pretty emblematic of this - admittedly, some of this was Held's fault, as he kept deciding to initiating grapples, but once he did, his tricky submission game was pretty much shut down by Sanchez's good old-fashioned powerful American wrestling. Held's last fight was much more of a mixed bag - UFC put him in a co-main event once again, and while he mostly controlled things in a pretty fun grappling match with Joe Lauzon, for whatever reason, the judges gave the nod to Lauzon, a poor enough decision that Lauzon himself immediately protested it. But even if the loss was fairly BS, Held suddenly finds himself going from the co-main event to the curtain jerker, likely fighting for his job against Bosnia's Damir Hadzovic. Hadzovic's had a tough draw of things - he got thrown against talented Russian Mairbek Taisumov and looked pretty good before getting knocked out, but it looked like he would face Yusuke Kasuya next in a winnable fight. But visa issues for Hadzovic scrapped that, and now Hadzovic gets another tough fight against Held. Hadzovic showed some pretty sweet striking in that Taisumov fight, but he'll probably be out of his depth as soon as Held decides to take things to the ground - if anything, the Sanchez fight showed that Held might grapple too much, and what was a weakness in that fight would become a strength here. I'll say Held goes ahead and just gets the first-round submission, but I do feel bad for Hadzovic, who probably has the talent to stick around as a lower-level action fighter similar to Polo Reyes, but just hasn't gotten the right fights to make that happen.
