Writing Submissions.

Joachim Christensen (lost to Dominick Reyes) vs. Josh Stansbury (lost to Jeremy Kimball): I kind of hate just putting winner against winner and loser against loser for the two light heavyweight bouts on this card, but both work; I was hopeful Christensen and Stansbury could both hang on as gatekeepers in a division that could use some depth, but it’s looking more and more like both guys are just too slow to really hang at this level. Though, if there’s a last chance fight between the two, it’d at least guarantee one would survive on the roster for a little bit longer.

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, like the Auckland card the week before it, UFC's offering from Singapore was a tale of two cards, though this was the complete inverse, as a fun set of prelims gave way to an absolutely awful main card. The only real thing of note in the last four fights was Holly Holm finally knocking out Bethe Correia with a head kick, but how we got there was absolutely awful, as the previous two rounds of inactivity were so bad that the referee even stopped the fight to warn both fighters. And even in a fight where nothing happened, Correia continued her run as a human meme, as she taunted for Holm to do something right before Holm, well, did something, and knocked Correia completely loopy with the finishing blow. Coming off three losses and then a win that wasn't particularly impressive, Holm's management apparently feels she's earned a title shot, and the horrifying thing is women's bantamweight is thin enough she may actually get it. She's still the biggest name in the division, and I only see two other real contenders - Sara McMann is already booked for a fight against Ketlen Vieira this summer, and while Raquel Pennington is free, Holm did beat her for her UFC debut. If Valentina Shevchenko beats Amanda Nunes for the belt next month, I don't think UFC would run with a Shevchenko/Holm rematch from a one-sided Shevchenko win last year, but Nunes/Holm might be way closer than any of us expected. *And then there was the rest of the main card. Marcin Tybura beat Andrei Arlovski, but what should've been a career-making win over a big name just turned out kind of eh for Tybura. Tybura had been transitioning from a grappler to a striker now that he's facing better opposition, and the results have been interesting, but this fight just saw him take Arlovski down and work him over in fairly plodding fashion. In UFC wants to continue to push Tybura up the ladder, fine, and I do kind of like him as a fighter, but this wasn't the type of performance that inspired any sort of confidence in either fighter. Colby Covington's win over Dong Hyun Kim was even worse. Covington finally got his big win over a top-ten opponent, but all he did was grind Kim against the fence and take him down repeatedly. I'm impressed that Covington's one-dimensional game keeps working, but since he's stopped facing overmatched competition, his fights have been god-awful, as damage and finishes have been replaced by Covington just holding people down, not progressing, and really just making the fight feel like it's going nowhere. Covington's doing a good job outside the cage of annoying people as a cocky prick, but part of that is, again, that his fights are so awful, which makes things a double-edged sword. And the main card opened with what I suppose was its best fight, as Rafael dos Anjos beat Tarec Saffiedine rather handily as the former lightweight champ debuted at welterweight. It was an ugly fight, but an impressive enough performance, I suppose - dos Anjos should be able to become a contender, though I'm not sure he'll have either the success or the often-impressive performances he had at 155. *The prelims were mostly fun and action-packed, even if the headlining one was fairly depressing, as Jon Tuck stunned and tapped out Takanori Gomi in a little over a minute; Gomi was once the best lightweight in the world, so it's sad to see a living legend just be so completely done as a fighter. Walt Harris knocked out Cyril Asker in short order at heavyweight, as was expected, and Rolando Dy massively underperformed in his UFC debut against Alex Caceres. I actually liked Dy on film after dreading having to scout a 8-4 Filipino fighter, but this was, well, a 8-4 Filipino performance, as Dy apparently suffered an eye injury early and then just absolutely folded, getting nothing done before the fight got stopped after the second round. Justin Scoggins continues to be the most frustrating talent on the roster - Scoggins is at his best as a distance striker, but also has an excellent grappling game, so against a slick submission artist like Ulka Sasaki, of course Scoggins decided to wrestle. And he did really well for about a round and a half, until Sasaki managed to clamp on the inevitable fight-ending choke, as Scoggins has continued an amazing run of dominating fights only to get himself tapped out. Jingliang Li and newcomer Frank Camacho had the fun brawl that everyone expected, with Li winning the decision. Russell Doane stopped a four-fight skid with an impressive knockout of top Korean prospect Kwan Ho Kwak - Kwak's a ridiculous athlete, but always relies on that athleticism to get him out of trouble; Doane was able to eventually trap him in the corner, and then go to work to get the finish. Japanese prospect Naoki Inoue had an impressive debut against fellow newcomer Carls John de Tomas, relying on his shockingly slick submission game to take a clear decision - I actually like both guys as prospects, though in a division like UFC's flyweights where pretty much every fight is tough, I worry about their ability to stick on the roster as they develop. And Lucie Pudilova opened the show with a victory over Ji Yeon Kim that was fairly surprising - Kim was surprisingly patient and showed an excellent boxing game which figured to be enough to get the win, but in the end, Pudilova got the nod. *So, former UFC fighter Tim Hague died after suffering a knockout in a boxing match, and the whole thing just brings up a bunch of issues with the seedy underbelly of combat sports. Hague's UFC career was fairly brief, and his main claim to fame was being on the receiving end of a seven-second knockout by Todd Duffee, one of the quickest finishes in UFC history. But Hague, throughout his career as a whole, was pretty much known for that - a heavyweight brawler whose fights would end in a knockout in fairly short order, win or lose. But the losses kept racking up, and Hague would apparently do boxing or mixed-rules fights on the side in his native Canada to make some money. And then incompetence on every level pretty much led to Hague's death - frankly, watching the footage, the fight probably should've been stopped a few times, if only because Hague was overmatched and had already been knocked down three times in the first round. And while the booking of Hague as a tomato can wasn't egregious in a general sense, he shouldn't have been licensed in the first place - the medical suspension from Hague's last knockout had only just expired, and apparently even that was sort of iffy, as Edmonton rules state that anyone knocked out three times within a one-year period - as Hague was - shouldn't be licensed. The whole thing's a mess, and has brought the Edmonton commission, which has apparently been known for corruption and incompetence, into the spotlight. In a move reminiscent of UFC, the commission is appointing their own third-party investigator, but of course, they're the one selecting it, so don't expect justice to be served. UFC 216 is supposed to be UFC's debut in Edmonton, and it looks like that's full-speed ahead, as fighters, without a union, don't really have much of a recourse in refusing to fight on this card. And, as people have brought up, maybe having an overmatched MMA fighter die in a boxing match could make some people think again about Mayweather/McGregor, but, well, that fight just has too much money involved. *Well, UFC 208 was officially pointless, as UFC has stripped Germaine de Randamie of the women's featherweight title for her refusal to face Cris Cyborg, the only other woman in the division. Well, actually, UFC actually signed a third woman (or second I suppose, since de Randamie is probably moving back down to bantamweight), as Invicta champ Megan Anderson will make her debut to take on Cyborg for the vacant belt at UFC 214. I am rooting for nobody in this situation, except for Anderson, pretty much - while de Randamie's probably closer in the right than people like to admit in refusing to fight Cyborg because of all her drug issues, it's also unclear where de Randamie thought beating Holly Holm for the belt in this non-existent division was going to lead her. With Cyborg, I've always been baffled by the outpouring of support for her - she's a known drug cheat, and while UFC making her unnecessarily cut weight has been cruel, there's also the strangeness of her intending to cut down to 135, but rather than actually try and lean down, just continue to build muscle. And this only got more suspicious with her more recent drug test failure, which was basically waved off due to some depression issue that Cyborg, apparently, never thought to notify UFC of before filling out all her paperwork. And UFC's just made this whole situation a mess with how they've handled the division, from their bullying of Cyborg and de Randamie to, again, making UFC 208 completely useless, even in the moment. *So, Matt Hughes is still in pretty bad condition after his truck collided with a moving train last Friday, as one would expect. It could've been much worse, as he suffered no broken bones or anything, and is already out of a brief medically-induced coma, but it's unclear if he's currently awake, and there doesn't seem to be any word on if he's suffered any brain damage. I obviously hope for the best in his recovery, but I will say, Hughes is probably the first person who would call someone a dumbass for driving in front of a moving train. ------ BOOKINGS: *A whole lot of nothing for the second straight week, as the only completely new fight is the Cyborg/Anderson title fight mentioned above. Other than that, it's four injury replacements, though at least three of the four fights have actually gotten more interesting in their new forms. UFC seemingly has no idea what the hell they're doing with Sage Northcutt - his original opponent, Claudio Puelles, got injured, so it was assumed UFC would find some lower-level fighter or international TUF alum for Northcutt to gain experience against. But instead, he's facing longtime UFC vet John Makdessi, a skilled striker who's probably Northcutt's toughest opponent to date. Maybe Northcutt's size and athleticism just wins the day over the stockier Makdessi, but it's more likely that the Canadian just knocked Northcutt's head off with some spinning strikes. Northcutt's obviously a golden boy of the promotion, so this may be the biggest red flag yet in terms of UFC not having any idea what to do with prospects. Amanda Ribas got pulled from her UFC debut at next month's TUF finale, so rather than Juliana Lima grinding out a win against another overmatched newcomer, she'll take on top contender Tecia Torres in what suddenly becomes an interesting fight. A European heavyweight fight between Damian Grabowski and Christian Colombo, which had been scheduled a few times before incongruously winding up on the Long Island card, has fallen apart yet again thanks to a Colombo injury; so instead Grabowski will face Mississippi's Chase Sherman, coming off one of the best brawls of the year against Rashad Coulter. Grabowski has shown little in his two UFC fights, but he's still a tough vet and an excellent test for an athletic, but raw prospect like Sherman. And in the one fight to get a downgrade, a fun bantamweight fight between Leslie Smith and Lina Lansberg is off thanks to a Lansberg injury, so Smith will instead face Brazilian newcomer Amanda Lemos on the Glasgow card, which is a weird geographic fit. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 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, Dennis Bermudez vs. Darren Elkins, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Megan Anderson vs. Cris Cyborg, Jimi Manuwa vs. Volkan Oezdemir, Jason Knight vs. Ricardo Lamas 8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis, Sam Alvey vs. Rashad Evans 9/2 - UFC Fight Night 115 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Stefan Struve vs. Alexander Volkov 9/9 - UFC 216 - Edmonton, AB - Henry Cejudo vs. Wilson Reis, Rick Glenn vs. Gavin Tucker ----- UFC Fight Night 112 - June 25, 2017 - Chesapeake Energy Arena - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma A strange show, even beyond the fact it's on a Sunday and starts an hour earlier than usual. I love the main event, but it almost feels like this is the evil flip side of some of the "fun, but lacking in starpower" cards we've had over 2017; there are recognizable names, like Johny Hendricks, B.J. Penn, and even further down, a Clay Guida or a Carla Esparza, but, well, pretty much everyone is either shot as a fighter or just in an uninteresting matchup. There's some stuff here that could be neat, but nothing involving the name fighters - the two light heavyweight bouts could be fun brawls, and the prelim bout between Darrell Horcher and Devin Powell, two of the lowest guys on the UFC pecking order, should be a fun scrap, but overall a lot of this card is just sort of blah veterans. Though, in a past life, two of those blah veterans would be headlining, so good on UFC for at least giving a showcase main event spot to two interesting talents. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 9:00 PM ET): Lightweight: (#6) Michael Chiesa vs. (#11) Kevin Lee Middleweight: Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks Women's Strawweight: (#13) Felice Herrig vs. Justine Kish Light Heavyweight: Joachim Christensen vs. Dominick Reyes Welterweight: Alex Garcia vs. Tim Means Featherweight: B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 2 - 7:00 PM ET): Lightweight: Clay Guida vs. Erik Koch Middleweight: Vitor Miranda vs. Marvin Vettori Women's Strawweight: (#8) Carla Esparza vs. (#10) Maryna Moroz Lightweight: Darrell Horcher vs. Devin Powell PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 5:30 PM ET): Featherweight: Jared Gordon vs. Michel Quinones Lightweight: Johnny Case vs. Tony Martin Light Heavyweight: Jeremy Kimball vs. Josh Stansbury THE RUNDOWN: Michael Chiesa (14-2 overall, 7-2 UFC) vs. Kevin Lee (15-2 overall, 8-2 UFC): I love this fight. UFC is always in the business of looking for new stars, and while neither of these guys is going to be the next Conor McGregor or anything, I love that a fight between two marketable fighters rising up the ranks is getting a main event slot rather than a pat veteran hand, particularly when it's a really fascinating style matchup to boot. It's a shame Michael Chiesa didn't come around a few years earlier, when people were still watching TUF, because his arc on the show was one of the best in terms of getting you to care about a fighter. Chiesa was on the lone live season of the show - TUF even needed freshening up five years and ten seasons ago - and had left behind his ailing father, who died a few weeks after the show started. After flying out for the funeral and coming back, Chiesa then went on the underdog run of all underdog runs; Chiesa was nowhere near the top prospect on the show, as that honor probably went to Myles Jury or Al Iaquinta, but Chiesa just kept winning, often by rear naked choke, culminating in a first-round submission of Iaquinta to win the season. From there, pretty much everyone wrote off Chiesa as a fun story, but more a curio than anything else - his main skill was a knack for finding that rear naked choke, and that can only get you so far, and indeed, Chiesa lost a fairly one-sided fight and tapped out to Jorge Masvidal fairly early in his UFC career. But, somewhat amazingly, Chiesa has gone on to make his game work at a pretty high level - his striking game is purely perfunctory, but he's big for the division, so if he can't tap you out, he's more than willing to control you, and he can probably tap you out - in his last fight, when BJJ ace Beneil Dariush got a bit lazy, there was Chiesa to clamp on the rear naked choke for a shocking second-round submission. Chiesa was supposed to face Tony Ferguson shortly thereafter in what would've been an awesome fight, but instead a back injury has kept Chiesa sidelined for a little over a year, and he returns to face rising talent Kevin Lee. Lee's obviously been a bit of a pet project of UFC - the Detroit native came into the promotion as a raw 21-year old, but they immediately threw him into the deep end against Iaquinta. Lee acquitted himself fine in that loss, and even as UFC shunted him back down the ladder to start developing his game, they normally featured him in fairly prominent spots, like FS1 main card bouts against Michel Prazeres and James Moontasri. And there have been some fits and starts - his shocking knockout loss to Leonardo Santos at the tail end of 2015 being the main bump in the road - but Lee's developed a fairly interesting game; the finishes dried up a bit when he first came into UFC, but Lee's been able to make his submission game work once again to go along with his power wrestling. So it's an interesting fight between two guys most comfortable on the ground, who also might be the two most interesting talents moving up the ladder at lightweight - plus there's even a personal element, thanks to the presser that took place right before UFC 211. You see, Kevin Lee pretty much has a quantity, not quality approach to trash talk, as even moving up the ladder, he'd often go out of his way to throw whatever insult he could think of at everyone in the lightweight division, and during this presser, he obviously started talking to Chiesa. What Lee started saying wasn't even that bad - basically, that he heard Chiesa's mother had bought a ticket to watch her son lose - but it still set Chiesa off, the two charged each other, Lee even clipped Chiesa once, and then both got kicked off the stage. I'm not sure how much of it was staged, but hell, it worked and got people talking, and anything (to an extent) that gets eyeballs on this fight is fine by me. So as far as the fight goes, I'm kind of interested to see how Lee approaches this. While he's most comfortable when he gets his wrestling game going, that's obviously the last place he'd want to be against someone as slick as Chiesa, and while he's been doing more and more striking, it's still sort of a work in progress. It's solid, but Lee just seems to get caught a lot either unawares or overconfident, and frankly, he doesn't take a punch well when he gets hit; there was that Santos knockout, and there have been a few other instances where Lee is just sort of stunned and forced to recompose himself after he gets hit. But on the same end, I'm not sure Chiesa is the guy to take advantage of that - his striking is...functional at best, though while Chiesa can often get hit, he's also been tough enough to just sort of ignore it as he tries to get things to the ground. I'll laugh if this somehow becomes a weird five-round kickboxing match, since Lee will probably connect way more, but Chiesa will have more visible impact when he's actually able to get something through, and that probably is still Lee's best path to victory. And I suppose Lee could manage to control and hold Chiesa down for five rounds, too - Chiesa's crazy rear naked choke luck has to end sometime, right? - but between Chiesa's slickness and Lee's penchant for overconfidence, I just assume at some point Chiesa manages to find an opening, get Lee's back, and finish things from there. So I'll say Chiesa by submission, and I'll say it happens in the third round. Tim Boetsch (20-11 overall, 11-10 UFC) vs. Johny Hendricks (18-6 overall, 13-6 UFC, 2-0 WEC): A strange fight here, but one that makes a bit of sense - Johny Hendricks, a former star wrestler at Oklahoma State, figured to be on this card, and Boetsch is good a choice as any to see if the former welterweight champ can hang against bigger opponents at middleweight. Man, it's been a strange two years or so for Johny Hendricks. In mid-2015, he was pretty much the uncrowned welterweight champion - a lot of people felt he won his 2014 rematch with Robbie Lawler and should've retained his belt, and Hendricks rebounded with one of the better performances of his career, getting into excellent shape and showing off some of his excellent wrestling against Matt Brown. And then the wheels completely fell off. Hendricks was slated to face Tyron Woodley that October, and while there'd always been talk of how much difficulty Hendricks had cutting weight, that all came home to roost, as Hendricks suddenly developed kidney stones while trying to cut weight, and the fight was called off. Which, fine - this was probably a one-time thing, and guys have been able to come back from weird one-off weight cutting problems before. But then 2016 happened. First, Hendricks got knocked off that uncrowned champion pedestal pretty quickly, as Stephen Thompson more or less ate his lunch, dominating a short fight that ended via knockout in about three and a half minutes. And then after that, Hendricks's biggest enemy was the scale. For a fight with Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 200 - which, way to cheekily match two guys with weight problems against each other, UFC - Hendricks came in 0.3 pounds overweight, and looked horrible doing so, having to shave his facial hair and looking frail and shaken on the scale. And the performance wasn't too great either - while it wasn't a blowout by any means, Hendricks continued to look diminished from the peak form he had shown just about a year prior. And then things went off the rails with a flourish in December. During the media day for UFC 207, Hendricks looked visibly out of it while going on about how he was going to make weight, and how hard it is to make weight, and challenging the media to try and make weight - so, of course, when it came time to hit the scale, Hendricks came in two and a half pounds overweight. And while the performance was a slight improvement, as he leaned on his wrestling to take down Neil Magny, he also did little enough with those takedowns that he wound up losing the decision anyway. Despite saying he would retire if he lost the Magny fight, Hendricks decided to move up to middleweight, and while it apparently has been much better on his body, the results were...eh. It was pretty much the same diminished Johny Hendricks, facing a similarly welterweight-sized Hector Lombard, and while Hendricks clearly won the decision, it wasn't the type of runaway performance that made you think he was anywhere near recapturing his former glory. So now Hendricks faces Tim Boetsch, who's had a weird path of his own. Boetsch was quickly in and out of UFC as an undercard light heavyweight the first time around, but in stint number two, the Mainer quickly cut down to middleweight and suddenly had a bunch of success, reeling off a four-fight win streak that included a famous comeback knockout of Yushin Okami and a famously horrible split decision win against Lombard. But as questionable of a win as that Lombard fight was, that result pretty much made Boetsch, as he's kind of been the go-to for a bunch of middling, but prominent, middleweight fights. If Luke Rockhold needs to get back on track, if Dan Henderson needs to find some late-career knockout magic, and most recently, if Jacare Souza needs a fight to keep busy, Boetsch is there to lose to them, and he wins enough of his other fights to remain credible. So as far as the fight, this is weird as hell, because Hendricks is still welterweight-sized, and Boetsch is still giant enough to credibly compete at light heavyweight. And frankly, if your wrestling isn't up to snuff, Boetsch is not a guy you want to mess with; Boetsch's fight about a year ago against Josh Samman showed this, as Samman kept trying to mix in his grappling, only to eventually get turned around and eat enough fists for a ground-and-pound stoppage. Hendricks, given his status as one of the more decorated collegiate wrestlers on the roster, probably has the chops to take Boetsch down, but we didn't really see a ton of that wrestling game against Lombard, and, well, Boetsch may just be too big for Hendricks to get anything done. I suppose Hendricks may still have enough on the feet to win a boring kickboxing match, but again, Boetsch is going to have the longer reach and is just credible enough in terms of power that I'm not exactly sure what Hendricks can get done there either. Maybe I have this completely wrong, and Hendricks can just make up the size difference with his takedowns and grind out a decision, but I'm actually going to pick Boetsch to neutralize Hendricks enough to score the upset decision. Either way, though, I don't think this fight will be all that good. Just super weird. Felice Herrig (12-6 overall, 3-1 UFC, 0-1 Invicta, 3-0 Bellator) vs. Justine Kish (6-0 overall, 2-0 UFC): So...is Felice Herrig suddenly going to be kind of a thing now? Herrig's been somewhat unfairly maligned over her career, though somewhat understandably so - she's perfectly fine, but relied on her looks coming up through the ranks to, frankly, get more attention than she deserves, plus her motor-mouthed personality can sometimes be a bit exhausting. So when Paige VanZant pretty much dominated her in a 2015 fight, it was a pretty big deal for VanZant, and probably still the best win of her career, even though everyone sort of minimized it given both the personalities involved. But to her credit, Herrig took about a year off to get her mind right after the VanZant loss and came back in some of the best form of her career; first she blew through Kailin Curran, as most expected, but when UFC matched her up in a co-main against Alexa Grasso, in an obvious bid to give Grasso a showcase win, Herrig had an absolutely excellent performance, relying on her striking background to pretty much blow open the holes in Grasso's game. It kind of reminded me of Holly Holm running into Valentina Shevchenko, as Herrig just exposed Grasso as a fairly rote striker and hit a rhythm as things went on, countering everything with ease by the end of the third round. There was some thought that Herrig would get a big name opponent after this, but instead she gets a pretty fun fight against Russian-American Justine Kish. Kish was Herrig's castmate on TUF 20, UFC's tournament for an inaugural strawweight champion, but she didn't wind up making her debut for another year thanks to an ACL tear suffered on the show. Kish came in as a kickboxer, and in her wins over Nina Ansaroff and Ashley Yoder, she's been pretty much just that - solid, but not particularly awe-inspiring or anything. Though, that said, fighting a powerful grappler like Yoder did give Kish the opportunity to show off some ground chops and give notice that she can hold her own there if need be. This is a more even matchup than it appears at first blush - Herrig's wins have been in more prominent spots, but both fighters have done well since 2016 - but I do like Herrig a bit more everywhere and choose her to get the decision, even though I wouldn't be surprised if Kish gave Herrig more trouble than Grasso did and turned this into a nip-tuck, split decision type of affair. Joachim Christensen (14-5 overall, 1-2 UFC) vs. Dominick Reyes (6-0 overall): Joachim Christensen got into the UFC just a shade before his 38th birthday, but the Dane has been making up for lost time, as this'll be his fourth bout in a shade under nine months, and it comes on about a six-week turnaround from his last one. Christensen is a perfectly fine lower-level light heavyweight - he's technically solid everywhere, but not particularly athletic or physically imposing, so he can only really beat the lower-tier athletes of the division, and the matchmaking hasn't really done him a ton of favors. Christensen got a win in January over Bojan Mihajlovic, which is about as low as you can go on the UFC ladder, but UFC threw him to Gadzhimurad Antigulov, who ran through him, and now seemingly wants to use Christensen to showcase a top prospect - he was first slated to face highly regarded Russian Azamat Murzakanov here, but Murzakanov was forced out of the bout and Christensen instead faces another top prospect in Dominick Reyes. A native Californian who was on the NFL's radar after a career at Stony Brook, Reyes instead picked up MMA and has been off to the races, as all but one of his wins have come via first-round knockout. And his last win was a memorable one - Jordan Powell ate one of Reyes's shots, and nodded his head "no" to signal that it didn't hurt, so Reyes just decided to flatten him with a head kick and nod "yes" over his fallen opponent. You'd have liked for Reyes to get a bit more experience, since at this point it's an open question if he can handle adversity, but you also can't blame UFC for picking up one of the most promising prospects available to develop on their watch. Christensen's never been knocked out, so I could see a scenario where Reyes just doesn't get the early finish and it turns out he's basically a one-round fighter, but fights like the Antigulov one have shown that Christensen can just get run over if he's at a notable athletic disadvantage. So my pick is Reyes via first-round knockout, even if it's not quite a gimme. Alex Garcia (14-3 overall, 4-2 UFC) vs. Tim Means (26-8-1 [1] overall, 8-5 [1] UFC): An interesting fight here that hopefully promises some violence, though it's kind of impossible not to have any while Tim Means is around. Means has long been a favorite of mine - he was a bit of a prospect all the way back in 2005, but had his MMA career stopped for about four years after serving a prison sentence for assault, as Means had pretty much become a meth addict at that point. But Means turned his life around, channeled that aggression pretty wonderfully into MMA, and eventually made his way to the UFC. His first run was a bit short-lived, as Means was, and looking back this is fairly insane, cutting all the way down to lightweight and just absolutely draining himself in the process. But after getting cut, Means moved up to his more natural welterweight, got a few wins, and was back in the promotion in fairly short order, and eventually put together a four-fight win streak that affirmed him as one of UFC's most violent welterweights, particularly thanks to his absolutely brutal elbows. 2016 looked to be a bit of a breakthrough year for Means, but instead it turned out to be one of missed opportunity. First, Means was slated to welcome Donald Cerrone to welterweight in a FS1 main event, but instead Means was pulled thanks to a flagged drug test - though, eventually, USADA basically found Means without fault after the supply chain of the supplement in question turned out to be really sketchy. But that still burned about half a year of Means's career, and then another opportunity got pulled out from under him, as an interesting fight against Sean Strickland instead, thanks to injury, turned into Means beating newcomer Sabah Homasi in a fairly no-win situation. And then Means's last fight of the year, against Alex Oliveira, ended in short order thanks to an illegal knee, because nobody knows the rules for when fighters are grounded anymore. And this year hasn't been great either, as a rematch with Oliveira saw the Brazilian shockingly pretty much rag-doll Means en route to a submission. So Means looks to finally get some momentum back against Alex Garcia, who maybe, finally, might be turning the corner. Garcia came into UFC with a bunch of hype back in 2013 as a physical specimen who could be the next, say, Hector Lombard. But after a 43-second knockout of Ben Wall to kick off his UFC tenure, Garcia just suddenly settled into the groove of a middling fighter whose performances were fairly flat. And a lot of people began to wonder if Tristar Gym was the best fit for the Dominican, as coach Firas Zahabi prefers to mold guys into cerebral, all-terrain fighters, which seemed to just be muddling things for someone who could be an aggressive tank like Garcia. Garcia's fight last December against Mike Pyle seemed to be his last chance to impress people, so, of course, he did, remaining aggressive the whole fight before absolutely starching Pyle for a first-round knockout. Admittedly, a lot of this may have been Pyle's age finally catching up with him, since it looks like turning 41 is when Pyle finally got old, but any signals of Garcia living up to his promise are worth getting hyped about. That said, this is a bad matchup for him - Garcia's a fireplug, while Means is gigantic and knows how to use his reach, and if it comes to it, should be able to meet Garcia head on when it comes to aggressiveness. I suppose I could see Garcia just relying on his takedown game and seeing if he can get Means to the ground, but I think this fight is likely just Means piecing Garcia up on the feet before eventually putting him away. So my call is Means by second-round knockout. B.J. Penn (16-11-2 overall, 12-10-2 UFC) vs. Dennis Siver (22-11 [1] overall, 11-8 [1] UFC): Finally? A fight fifteen months in the making, that we weren't sure if we wanted to see in the first place, and is now only just depressing. So, the B.J. Penn comeback. It looked like it was a crisis averted when B.J. Penn seemed to be at peace with his retirement in 2014 - he had given it his all, he had gotten into good shape and cut down to featherweight, and he had gotten smashed by Frankie Edgar, and the last guy anyone would've expected to retire peacefully seemed to be doing just that. And then 2016 rolled around. Penn announced he was back, and wanted to fight Nik Lentz for some reason, but instead he was matched against Siver, who was aging rapidly himself, at UFC 196 that March. Which, fine. But then a sexual assault allegation from the previous summer became public, which got that fight pushed back to UFC 199 in June. And then both guys got hurt. And then UFC just seemed to lose all patience with Penn, booking him against Ricardo Lamas in a sure beating - but, of course, Penn got hurt again. So the Penn comeback finally actually happened this past January, as he faced Yair Rodriguez, and boy, did it...happen. Penn looked fine technically, a departure from the weird Edgar fight where he decided to fight as upright as possible, but physically he basically looked like a withered old man, getting rocked by every blow Rodriguez threw before getting finished essentially with the first strike of the second round. Nobody wants to see Penn again, but, welp, here he is, and I suppose Siver is as good of an opponent as any. Siver's rapidly hitting the point of diminishing returns - he's been a solid fireplug of a kickboxer for years, most notably spoiling George Sotiropoulos's run towards a lightweight title shot in 2011, but it was still weird when he was named the guy Conor McGregor had to beat to get a title shot. (Well, outside of the fact that it was an obvious setup win.) So McGregor ate Siver's lunch, and Siver turned around and looked flat in a loss to Tatsuya Kawajiri in his native Germany. That's been the last we've heard of Siver - thanks to injuries, he's coming back from a two-year layoff here, and at age 38, the same as Penn, it's hard to know how he's going to look. Still, I can't imagine him looking worse physically than Penn - like, I literally cannot picture it - even though I suppose it's possible, so I suppose I have to take Siver by decision. What are we doing here? Clay Guida (32-17 overall, 12-11 UFC, 1-0 WEC, 1-1 Strikeforce) vs. Erik Koch (15-4 overall, 4-3 UFC, 3-1 WEC): Well, this is a weird one, but sure, why the hell not? I have no idea what to think of Clay Guida anymore - about a decade ago he was possibly the biggest cult favorite on the roster, thanks to his absolutely relentless style and ability to bounce back from punishment, but as the game started to evolve, his frantic wrestling game started looking more and more like a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing, and Guida lost a ton of fans with his oddly defensive-oriented performance in a horrible main event against Gray Maynard. After that fight, Guida cut down to featherweight, and had seemingly pretty much settled in as a veteran gatekeeper - his wrestling still game some opponents fits, but Chad Mendes became the first man to crack Guida's legendary chin, and he got tapped out by Dennis Bermudez and Thiago Tavares. But then Guida moved to Team Alpha Male and had a surprisingly positive performance against Brian Ortega - admittedly, it was a weird fight where submission artist Ortega never chose to take things to the ground, but Guida looked pretty good being his usual manic self and keeping Ortega on his toes; at least until the last minute of the fight, where Ortega sensed he was losing, and was just able to chase Guida down and knock him out. So a year later, Guida is back and returning to lightweight, and he faces Erik Koch, who's in a super-weird place at the moment. The story of Koch's career has pretty much been injuries - he was actually slated to face Jose Aldo for the featherweight title a few times in 2012, but wound up getting hurt and missing the entire year, only to come back and lose to Ricardo Lamas and Dustin Poirier once other contenders had emerged. From there, Koch became one of the first guys I can think of to move up a weight class rather than down, and early returns at lightweight were fine - Koch blew through Rafaello Oliveira, but got knocked out by Daron Cruickshank in a fight that was just getting started. And from there, injuries took their toll again, as it was another two-plus years before Koch came back and ran through Shane Campbell. After dropping out of two more bookings - one in September, and one in January, Koch returns after only a thirteen-month layoff, which, progress I suppose. I really have no idea what to make of Guida fights anymore, unless he's at a clear advantage or disadvantage when it comes to being able to implement his wrestling - his stuff is more effective, if the Ortega fight is any indication, but Guida just kind of never stops moving, to the point where it's often hard to tell if he's having any success unless he's just controlling a guy from the top. And Koch, at his best, is an aggressive kickboxer, but it's also hard to tell what he has at this point with only eight minutes of fight time over the last three years. I'll go a bit outside the box and say Koch is able to pressure Guida and just run through him for a first-round knockout, but Guida could easily control things with his wrestling, or just evade Koch the entire fight and make this weird, or hell, any number of things could happen. Vitor Miranda (12-5 overall, 3-2 UFC) vs. Marvin Vettori (11-3 overall, 1-1 UFC): I like this as a pretty interesting middleweight fight, though since I do like both guys, it does make me a bit sad that the loser is going to wind up squarely on the cut line. Vitor Miranda was a fun, under-the-radar story for the bit - he came off as just the nicest guy on TUF Brazil 3, and despite being in his late thirties after a long kickboxing career, he had some surprising early success, scoring knockout wins over Jake Collier, Clint Hester, and Marcelo Guimaraes. But a one-sided loss to Chris Camozzi about a year ago put that to an end, and now Miranda gets a tough test in Italy's Marvin Vettori. Fifteen years younger than Miranda, Vettori's probably the best of this recent wave of Italian talent, although they're still mostly just raw athletes from a burgeoning fight scene. And Miranda's pretty much all horsepower with a driving grappling game at this point, which served him well in his UFC debut against Alberto Uda, but not so much against Antonio Carlos Junior, a bigger guy who also happens to be one of the best BJJ guys on the roster, although Vettori acquitted himself well. Miranda's fights, honestly, all play out the same - he looks to keep a distance to get his kickboxing game going, but inevitably his opponents succeed in pressuring him against the cage and taking him down. Against guys like Collier, Hester, and Guimaraes, Miranda knows enough and has enough strength to get out of trouble and turn things around, often being able to finish the fight close after, but against Camozzi and Carlos Junior (who Miranda debuted against himself), their athleticism and strength was enough to keep Miranda down. So this fight is probably going to look like one of those, and I lean towards the second thanks to Vettori being a physical specimen, though if he's raw enough that Miranda knows enough tricks to turn things around and keep the fight on the feet, I wouldn't be shocked. But still, my call is Vettori to wrestle enough to take a decision, though hopefully we get some fun back and forth swings in the action. Carla Esparza (11-4 overall, 2-2 UFC, 3-0 Invicta, 0-2 Bellator) vs. Maryna Moroz (8-1 overall, 3-1 UFC): A fairly interesting crossroads fight here, as former strawweight champ Carla Esparza is suddenly struggling to stay relevant. Esparza looked to reign over the division when it debuted, as she was the Invicta champ and odds-on favorite going into the inaugural championship tournament, then ran through Angela Hill, Tecia Torres, Jessica Penne, and Rose Namajunas without much trouble. But, well, Joanna Jedrzejczyk got really good, really quick, and in Esparza's first defense, Jedrzejczyk just shut down her wrestling game and beat the piss out of her on the feet. And since then, Esparza has struggled to find a foothold - after taking a year off due to shoulder surgery and getting a fairly uninteresting win over Juliana Lima, UFC basically just took their time booking her, viewing her as a boring fighter who wasn't much of a concern. And when Esparza finally did get a fight against Randa Markos this past February, Markos turned out to be surprisingly game, using a weird, hunched-over striking stance to keep Esparza's wrestling game at bay - most people think Esparza still won the fight, but Markos got the nod, which left Esparza only more rudderless. So Esparza looks to get back on track against Ukraine's Maryna Moroz, who's an interesting talent. Moroz came absolutely out of nowhere - she made her debut as an armbar hunter against weak competition, and Joanne Calderwood was expected to absolutely run through her. But Calderwood went through a messy breakup the night before with her boyfriend/coach the night before, which pretty much left Calderwood in the mental state where Moroz was able to rush her and get a shocking submission win. From there, it's been hard to kind of read how good Moroz is - she followed up the Calderwood win with a loss to Valerie Letourneau, and while she has looked better and relied on her boxing (which is actually her background, despite her early MMA career suggesting otherwise) against Cristina Stanciu and Danielle Taylor, though those two aren't exactly a murderer's row. Moroz is going to pose some problems - she's skilled, athletic, and long, but at the end of the day, Esparza's wrestling is such a plus skill, and I don't think Moroz can keep this on the feet. I expect Moroz to survive, and probably have some moments of her own both on the feet and working for submissions, but my call is Esparza via decision, in what's hopefully one of the more exciting ones of her career. Darrell Horcher (12-2 overall, 0-1 UFC, 2-1 Bellator) vs. Devin Powell (8-2 overall, 0-1 UFC): I'm surprised this isn't opening the card, since it's a bout between two guys who haven't really been able to show much at the UFC level, but it should be a fun way to kick off the televised portion of things, nonetheless. If the name Darrell Horcher rings any bells, it's because his UFC debut was notable, if not particularly successful, as he stepped in on a week's notice in April of last year to replace Tony Ferguson against Khabib Nurmagomedov. Horcher had earned his UFC shot, but, obviously, this was way too much for Horcher to handle, as Nurmagomedov pretty much just took him down and beat his brains in in the Russian's comeback fight from knee injuries. Shortly after that, Horcher was involved in a near-fatal motorcycle accident, so that's why he hasn't been heard from since, but he returns fourteen months later to take on Maine's Devin Powell. Powell's a signee from Dana White's reality show, and like pretty much all that show's alumni, disappointed in his UFC debut; it's easy to see what White liked about Powell, since he's a long, aggressive fighter with the ability to absorb a ton of damage and stage a comeback, but in his debut against Drakkar Klose, well, pretty much all he did was absorb damage from a more powerful athlete. Horcher's a fairly technical, well-rounded striker, so I like him to pick apart Powell here, though he's not so overwhelming that Powell can't win this by just turning things into a firefight, plus with Horcher coming back from such a brutal accident, it's hard to know exactly how he's going to look. But still, my pick is Horcher by decision in what should be a fun fight. Jared Gordon (12-1 overall) vs. Michel Quinones (8-1 overall, 0-1 Bellator): Well, second time's the charm for this fight, hopefully, as this was initially supposed to take place at UFC 211 before Jared Gordon came down with food poisoning - and third time's the charm for Michel Quinones's debut, as a slated debut on the Halifax card fell apart due to injuries. Anyway, Jared Gordon's another Dana White find, and appears to be one of the better ones based off the little film that's available, even if White has already proven he has no idea how to market him. Gordon has a crazy story involving multiple brushes with death thanks to drug addiction, but when White signed him, all he could do was focus on Gordon's lack of personality. Good work. Anyway, based off that film, Gordon's a powerful wrestler-grappler who could do some damage moving up the ranks, and he takes on Florida native Michel Quinones. Quinones is fine enough, and primarily a kickboxer who likes to peck at range at his opponents, but he can be scared off by power, and I figure that's what's going to happen here. Again, most of what's out there on Gordon is mostly highlights, so it's hard to know how good he looks over a full fight, but I'll take him via decision. Johnny Case (22-5 overall, 4-1 UFC) vs. Tony Martin (11-3 overall, 3-3 UFC): One of the more interesting fights on the card, though I understand why UFC has it this far low, since this could just wind up being a smothering Tony Martin win. It really feels like Martin's had more success than his 3-3 record, but a lot of that may be his losses all coming to pretty good guys in Rashid Magomedov, Beneil Dariush, and Leonardo Santos. But the Minnesota native uses a more dynamic version of the old Gleison Tibau gameplan, with some submissions mixed in - Martin cuts a ton of weight and just uses his size to grind out his opponents for two rounds, often giving up the third round (if it goes that far) due to exhaustion. So Martin's fights have been fairly binary - he's either faced easily overwhelmed lower-tier opponents, or faced guys who have either takedown defense or enough submission ability to keep Martin honest, who have taken him apart fairly easily. And I'm not sure which category Johnny Case falls into. Case had a nice under-the-radar run going - he racked up a ton of pre-UFC fights in his native Iowa, came in as a young, well-rounded veteran, and just racked up four straight wins on undercards while nobody was really paying attention. Case's biggest fight to date, against Australian prospect Jake Matthews in March of last year, was a fairly nip-tuck affair, which most people had Case winning the balance of - but Case was apparently down on the cards, and it all became moot when Matthews clamped on a fight-ending choke in the last minute of the bout. After a long injury layoff, Case returns here, and I'm not really sure what he can offer Martin - he might be the better fighter, but Case is more a well-rounded guy who's best on the feet, and I'm not sure he has either the athleticism or the submission chops to keep Martin from just laying on him. I'd like to be wrong - not that I don't like Martin, I just don't think it would be exciting - but I think Martin just takes a wrestling-heavy decision. Jeremy Kimball (14-6 overall, 0-1 UFC, 1-1 Bellator) vs. Josh Stansbury (8-3 overall, 1-1 UFC): It's a fight! Josh Stansbury is...perfectly fine. He came into UFC through TUF as pretty much a fully-formed, well-rounded vet, and he's the type of guy who can eke out a long UFC career on the margins by being a well-rounded test for newly-signed and lower-tier guys. Basically, you must be at least as good as Josh Stansbury to stick in the UFC. And to that end, Stansbury faces Jeremy Kimball, who lost his UFC debut and probably needs a win to stick in the company. Kimball, an undersized brawler out of Colorado, made his debut as a late-notice replacement in Denver this past January, and offered little to Marcos Rogerio de Lima. This is kind of like the Horcher/Powell fight above - Stansbury is the better technical fighter and has more to work with, but he's not so great that Kimball can't have some success just trying to turn this into a wild firefight. But I'll take Stansbury to earn a decision.

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

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, on paper, UFC's offering from Auckland looked like a bunch of nothing prelims giving way to a fun main card, and it followed that blueprint more than anyone really could've expected, as the prelims were absolutely nothing, but the main card did, in fact, offer up a stupid amount of violence. And that included the main event - while it didn't give us a particularly brutal knockout or anything, it was nineteen minutes of big, dumb fun heavyweight action, with Mark Hunt and Derrick Lewis exchanging massive blows. UFC probably figured this would be a chance for Lewis to get a big win and officially become a contender, while possibly marking the end of perennial contender Hunt, who's currently suing the company, but instead it wound up being pretty much exactly the opposite. Lewis has always been a flawed fighter - his cardio wears out quickly, and his fight IQ can sometimes go completely downhill, but as he's risen up the ladder, none of that has really mattered; yes, Lewis will look horrible for the balance of the fight, but he's such a massive, powerful athlete that as long as he's able to hit a big knockout blow, he's going to win the fight. And in this case, that finishing shot just never came - Hunt fought a smart fight and just let Lewis wear down and get tired, and eventually Lewis tired so much that Hunt was able to go in and get the stoppage without much trouble, landing a few punches before the referee stopped it more due to exhaustion than anything else. But the big surprise came after, when Lewis announced that, at least as of now, this was his last fight, which was in a way, both extremely surprising and not at all. Years back, when Lewis was first starting in UFC, he talked about pretty much quitting fighting as soon as he got enough money to pay off his house, but that talk quieted as Lewis reeled off his big winning streak and got what was apparently a decent-sized contract. Reading between the lines, it seems like Lewis was basically willing to continue as long as he kept charging towards the championship, but with that out of the picture for now, and Lewis getting married soon, that's apparently that. Lewis did leave the door just open enough that I'm not taking him off the roster just yet - and if he did indeed sign a fairly big-money deal, I assume he'll be back - but for the time being, heavyweight is down one of its few youngish, interesting fighters. *That main event came after a run of four finishes, three of which were absolutely brutal. Dan Kelly's miracle winning streak at middleweight came to a brutal end, as Derek Brunson absolutely annihilated him on the first real exchange of the fight, knocking him out in just 76 seconds. It's hard to even say that Brunson returned to his more aggressive form here, as the two guys just sort of felt each other out for a minute, and Brunson then finished the fight before he even really got the chance to get any sort of gameplan going. Local Auckland boy Dan Hooker absolutely annihilated Ross Pearson with a brutal standing knee right up the middle for a second-round knockout, proving that his lanky frame still an advantage, even as he moves up from featherweight to lightweight. This was looking well on its way to being a typical Pearson fight that goes to a close decision, but then Hooker uncorked that knee, and that was that. Pearson's been a reliable hand as an action fighter for years now, so it'll be interesting to see if UFC keeps him on despite four straight losses. Ion Cutelaba did not mess around in a light heavyweight tilt against Henrique da Silva, marching forward to stare da Silva down during fighter introductions, then charging forward and just obliterating the Brazilian in just 22 seconds with some brutal ground-and-pound. Even though he's just 23, Cutelaba hasn't shown much to suggest he'll ever be more than a fun, straight-ahead brawler, but when the Moldovan gets going like he did here, he's absolutely terrifying. And the fourth finish was definitely the biggest upset of the night, as Ben Nguyen was able to tap out Tim Elliott in just 49 seconds. Elliott started to initiate a grapple, but Nguyen just hopped on his back, and that was suddenly that - Nguyen continuing to exceed expectations has been a fun story, and I did like his post-fight interview where, when prompted to call out a next opponent, Nguyen threw some shade UFC's way about their talk of closing the flyweight division. Ben Nguyen is awesome, y'all. *As for the rest of the card, even the lone decision on the main card was an impressive performance, as Alexander Volkanovski affirmed himself as the best of the Australian prospects. I've generally been down on Volkanovski compared to the consensus, but he looked excellent here against a tough opponent in Mizuto Hirota, showcasing his powerful wrestling and some thudding power that would've knocked out anyone less tough than the Japanese vet. I tend to write off most Australian prospects as potential action fighters and not much else, but Volkanovski's the rare exception that looks like he could become an actual contender. The lone finish on the prelims saw Vinc Pichel return from a three-year layoff to knock out Damien Brown, in a nice moment for Pichel. Though, honestly, I was actually a bit more impressed by Brown - he's seemingly too old and late in his career to turn into a contender or anything, but as someone I had written off as a regional vet who wouldn't have much UFC success, he's supplemented his grappling with some nice striking and was hitting a groove here...until he ran right into a flattening uppercut from Pichel. Debuting New Zealander Luke Jumeau looked good in his UFC debut, as he proved to have enough power and athleticism to counter the rugged wrestling game of Dominique Steele. Australian newcomer Ashkan Mokhtarian looked awful, though, as John Moraga snapped a three-fight losing streak by absolutely dominating Mokhtarian. Mokhtarian's a powerful, if not particularly good, grappler, so maybe there's a lower-tier flyweight or two that Mokhtarian can overpower, but hoo boy was this a bad UFC debut. Zak Ottow defeated Kiichi Kunimoto by split decision in a fight that, as expected, saw nothing interesting happen. And the show kicked off with J.J. Aldrich getting a decision win over Korean newcomer Chan Mi Jeon. The fight didn't really do much to change my opinion of either woman - you can see Jeon's potential, but she's still so young and raw she doesn't really know what she's doing, although she did at least pace herself and fight a smarter fight here. Meanwhile, this really didn't do much to address my concerns of Aldrich being able to handle athletic wrestlers, and Jeon was so inexperienced that Aldrich was just able to pick her apart and keep her at bay. *So, holy crap! The Conor McGregor/Floyd Mayweather fight is...actually happening? August 26th is the date, and while there have been conflicting reports about which venue in Vegas is hosting the fight, it'll likely be the T-Mobile Arena. So, this is fairly nuts. It always made sense from the perspectives of both fighters, and Showtime as well, since Floyd figures to pick up an easy win, but I'm a bit surprised UFC went along with it, though I guess this speaks to how desperate new ownership is to pay off their debt. Although splits haven't been announced, UFC figures to make a ton of money of this fight - pretty much everyone involved is going to get around $100 million if you assume normal-ish splits, but they may really wind up hurting themselves in the long-term, since they may spell the end of McGregor. I doubt he'll be hurt by the loss, as expectations should be so low that he really has more to gain if he has any moments of success than lose with a loss, even if it winds up being one-sided, but it's becoming harder and harder to see McGregor fighting again for the UFC, even though the promotion is apparently hopeful to have him on UFC 220 on December 30th. But either one of two things is going to happen - either McGregor is just going to make so much bank he's not going to bother fighting again, or if he does want to fight, he'll probably ask for so much money that, frankly, it may not be profitable for UFC to even have him fight. And given that UFC's biggest business has been built on the backs of McGregor and Ronda Rousey, WME-IMG may be in a ton of trouble once this fight is done. And god help us all if he wins. And as far as details, this will apparently be an all-boxing undercard, and the bout is taking place at 154 pounds, which is a surprising win for the McGregor camp, since one figured that Mayweather would make the Irishman cut as much weight as possible. *Only a few other things in terms of news and notes. Sean Grande is out as Bellator's lead play-by-play announcer, and the promotion announced they've signed both Mike Goldberg and Mauro Ranallo to take over the announcing duties. Both men will debut on the upcoming show from Madison Square Garden, I assume in a three-man booth with Jimmy Smith, which will be...weird. It's all very unclear how this is going to work, but I'm assuming Goldberg and Smith will be the team for a lot of shows, since Ranallo seemingly splits his time between every fight promotion out there. The MMA Journalists' Association has launched - it's much needed, and hopefully lasts longer than recent attempts to unionize fighters have gone. Sage Northcutt has joined Team Alpha Male, apparently, which, frankly, is as good a choice as any - Alpha Male gets a lot of flack for not being the best when it comes to high-level gameplanning, but if Northcutt's just looking to learn a lot of stuff really quickly, there are worse places to go. And top British featherweight prospect Arnold Allen has found himself in hot water, getting a suspended five-month prison sentence for his involvement in a brawl around Christmas. Long story shirt, apparently Allen's girlfriend got into a fight at a Christmas party, and things escalated rather rapidly, with a drunk Allen basically trying to protect his girlfriend by punching everything that moved, including a few women. Apparently, his lawyer argued that Allen doesn't handle his alcohol well because he abstains from it during his fight camps. This did not work. Anyway, it's unclear what the fallout of all this is - Allen might face some restrictions when it comes to travelling outside Europe, and nothing's been said about the status of his UFC contract. The cynic in me says Allen probably won't garner enough headlines for UFC to bother reacting to this, but by the same token, as talented of a prospect as he is, he's probably expendable enough that UFC could cut him, like they did Michael Graves (who had an outright domestic violence arrest), without much of a fuss. ------ BOOKINGS: *Not a ton announced in UFC proper over the last week, outside of a ton of fights for that Tuesday night Dana White's Contender Series show starting up in July (which is apparently actually a completely separate promotion, so I won't be covering those here). In fact, there's only one fully new fight, and it doesn't even technically have an event yet - after teasing a fight with Al Iaquinta, Mike Perry is instead facing Thiago Alves in a bit of a weird prospect-versus-veteran fight, and it's set for August 19th, at...somewhere. It's fully expected this will be UFC 215 in Seattle, but the intention seems to be a show built around local boy Demetrious Johnson, and, well, things between UFC and the flyweight champ haven't been going great, apparently holding up that announcement. Past that, newcomer Azamat Murzakanov is out of his debut in Oklahoma City, so Joachim Christensen will instead face California's Dominick Reyes, a top light heavyweight prospect. Chad Laprise steps into the open spot against Brian Camozzi at UFC 213, and because we can't have nice things, Doo Ho Choi is injured and out of his UFC 214 bout against Andre Fili. *Also, Combate in Brazil leaked a bunch of dates for the rest of UFC's 2017 schedule, though it isn't completely finalized, and is probably missing a few things - there figure to be a few more Fight Night cards, plus I don't see the typical December card on Fox. As mentioned above, UFC 215 is still targeted for August 19th in Seattle, though the company's been waiting on that announcement. In between Edmonton and Japan, there's a yet to be announced Fight Night card on September 16th, from somewhere in the United States. October only has two cards at the moment - UFC 217 from Vegas on the 7th, and a Fight Night card from Sao Paulo on the 28th. November sees a card every weekend - November 4th is apparently the date of UFC's return to Madison Square Garden for UFC 218, and then the 11th sees a card from an undetermined American City. From there, UFC goes to Asia for cards on the 19th and the 25th - there's been talk of UFC returning to South Korea, as well as talk of a show in Perth now that Western Australia has lifted its cage-fighting ban, so I'd assume those would be your favorites. The first weekend of December sees back to back shows, as the TUF 26 finale to crown the first women's flyweight champion takes place on Friday the 1st, and the 2nd will apparently be UFC's return to Detroit for UFC 219. And, as previously announced, UFC 220 will take place in Vegas on December 30th. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 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, Dennis Bermudez vs. Darren Elkins, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Jimi Manuwa vs. Volkan Oezdemir, Jason Knight vs. Ricardo Lamas 8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis, Sam Alvey vs. Rashad Evans 9/2 - UFC Fight Night 115 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Stefan Struve vs. Alexander Volkov 9/9 - UFC 216 - Edmonton, AB - Henry Cejudo vs. Wilson Reis, Rick Glenn vs. Gavin Tucker ----- UFC Fight Night 111 - June 17, 2017 - Singapore Indoor Stadium - Kallang, Singapore A strange little card, but a fun one for a Fight Pass card taking place out of Singapore. For the last few years, Fight Pass cards have mostly been fairly nothing affairs, with main events like Derrick Lewis versus Shamil Abdurakhimov, or Paddy Holohan against Louis Smolka, but this one actually has a main card with both some starpower and some stakes. Admittedly, the main event isn't really that great of a main event, as Holly Holm is in the weird spot of being one of UFC's most recognizable faces while watching her career spiral downward, but UFC tried here, which is frankly more than I expected. Though, as for the prelim card, the best I can say is that typically one or two of these fights would be on a Fight Pass main card, and thankfully UFC didn't do that this time around. MAIN CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 8:00 AM ET): Women's Bantamweight: (#5) Holly Holm vs. (#11) Bethe Correia Heavyweight: (#8) Andrei Arlovski vs. (#13) Marcin Tybura Welterweight: (#7) Dong Hyun Kim vs. Colby Covington Welterweight: (#11) Tarec Saffiedine vs. (#5 Lightweight) Rafael dos Anjos PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 4:45 AM ET): Lightweight: Takanori Gomi vs. Jon Tuck Heavyweight: Cyril Asker vs. Walt Harris Featherweight: Alex Caceres vs. Rolando Dy Flyweight: Ulka Sasaki vs. Justin Scoggins Welterweight: Frank Camacho vs. Jingliang Li Bantamweight: Russell Doane vs. Kwan Ho Kwak Flyweight: C.J. de Tomas vs. Naoki Inoue Women's Bantamweight: Ji Yeon Kim vs. Lucie Pudilova THE RUNDOWN: Holly Holm (10-3 overall, 3-3 UFC, 1-0 Bellator) vs. Bethe Correia (10-2-1 overall, 4-2-1 UFC): When Ronda Rousey shockingly suffered her first defeat back in November of 2015, it looked like UFC might actually be fairly fine - obviously Holly Holm wasn't going to be quite the mainstream star that Rousey was, but she got a huge boost from her huge win over UFC's biggest mainstream star, and if she could hang onto the belt until Rousey came back, the rematch would do huge business. Whoops. Pretty much all was going to plan for about four and a half rounds when Holm was defending her belt against Miesha Tate, as save a second round where Tate exposed Holm's lack of a ground game, Holm was pretty much able to keep Tate at a distance standing and prevent her from doing anything. But in the last two minutes of the fight, Tate went for one more desperation takedown and got it, eventually choking Holm unconscious in memorable fashion and setting all of UFC's plans on fire. But hey, things would probably still work out in the long run - Rousey and Tate's rivalry was one of the best in the sport, and now between those two and Holm, you had three marketable rematches where you once only had one. Whoops. July came around, Tate got smashed by Amanda Nunes and would be retired by the end of the year, and Holm pretty much saw her career careen out of control. I could see why UFC thought Valentina Shevchenko would be a solid bounce-back win for Holm, as did most people; Shevchenko comes from a Muay Thai background, but Holm is one of the most decorated female boxers of all-time, so with striking being Holm's strength, she should be able to outbox Shevchenko fairly easily. And that held true for, well, about a round - in fairly short order, Shevchenko started to figure out and counter Holm's strikes, and from there Holm was fairly helpless; she was a fairly rote striker against someone who turned out to be more diverse in Shevchenko, and Shevchenko was even able to get inside and once again expose Holm's lack of a real grappling game. From there, it was onto the disaster that was the women's featherweight title fight against Germaine de Randamie; once again, Holm didn't really seem to have a plan B against a kickboxer that could pretty much match her, and once again, Holm lost a decision. So now losing three straight and not having won a fight since that huge upset over Rousey, UFC and Holm's management are trying again to get her a win, this time against Bethe Correia. Correia is a weird fighter. She's one of the bigger punchlines on the UFC roster, and in a sense, rightfully so; in most of her interviews, she comes off like a delusional loon, she might be the least athletic fighter on the roster, and she pretty much trash-talked her way into a 34-second knockout loss to Rousey. But, in a way, Correia's also kind of good, considering that she was discovered when she was a chubby accountant trying to lose weight who happened to hit a heavy big really hard; she's a solid, technical striker, and while that complete lack of athleticism probably won't get her much higher than number ten or so in the world, she's also basically become the best Bethe Correia she can be and gotten to about number ten in the world. As for the fight, Holm pretty much has to win this, although it's way closer than it has any right to be. Correia actually showed some wrestling in her last fight, a draw against Marion Reneau, and I could see a scenario where Correia has some success doing just that, and basically neutralizing Holm and her complete lack of a ground game. If this was a three-round fight, I might be more confidence in Correia stealing two rounds and getting a decision, but over the course of five, Holm's speed, athleticism, and pace should see her be able to pick Correia apart standing more often than not. Again, I think this could be closer than anyone thinks it should be, but my pick is Holm by decision to finally pick up another win. Andrei Arlovski (25-14 [1] overall, 14-8 UFC, 0-3 Strikeforce) vs. Marcin Tybura (15-2 overall, 2-1 UFC): Well, things sure turned around quickly for Andrei Arlovski, and it's not the first time anyone has said that. It was about a decade ago that Arlovski first left the UFC; he was still one of the top heavyweights in the world, but a boring loss in a title fight against Tim Sylvia and a horrible fight against Fabricio Werdum pretty much killed interest in him, so when his contract was up, UFC decided to let him go after the absurd money that Affliction was offering at the time. At first, Arlovski had some success, knocking out Ben Rothwell and Roy Nelson, but a quick loss to Fedor Emilianenko started a run where Arlovski's career just fell apart - Affliction folded, and Arlovski signed with Strikeforce only to lose three straight, most notably getting knocked out in just 22 seconds by Brett Rogers. So, cut from Strikeforce, and pretty much written off as a shopworn vet whose chin had cracked for good, Arlovski pretty much became a MMA vagabond, taking fights all over the world, wherever they were offered, including a few bouts in World Series of Fighting. And, well, Arlovski won a lot of fights, with his only loss coming via decision to Anthony Johnson - and even that showed Arlovski could hang with a power puncher like Johnson without getting knocked out. Still, it was a bit surprising when UFC re-signed Arlovski in 2014, and even more surprising when Arlovski reeled off four straight wins - including one of the better fights on 2015 in a brawl against Travis Browne - to suddenly become a title contender. After that fight, there was some talk of giving Arlovski a shot before his luck ran out, but that never came to pass - instead, he got an unwatchable decision win over Frank Mir, and then, well, that luck ran out pretty quickly. Stipe Miocic ran through Arlovski in just 54 seconds to earn a title shot at the beginning of 2016, and that started a similar run to what we saw in Strikeforce - a knockout loss to Alistair Overeem, a decent showing but eventual submission loss at the hands of Josh Barnett, and most recently, getting annihilated by rising prospect Francis Ngannou in just 92 seconds this January. So, at 38, Andrei Arlovski tries to resurrect his career once again, and hopes that starts against Poland's Marcin Tybura. Tybura's a pretty interesting fighter, as he established himself as one of the best heavyweights in Europe when UFC signed him, though there were some questions about how his game would translate to the UFC level. And indeed, he struggled in his UFC debut against Tim Johnson; at about 250 pounds, Tybura is undersized for a UFC heavyweight - which does remind me of the old adage about 6'6" basketball players going into the only job where they'd be undersized - and on a roster where UFC signs a lot of guys who cut down to the 265 weight limit, he had trouble getting any of his grappling going against Johnson. But Tybura's looked good since - he's improved his striking greatly, and while he got smothered a bit by Brazilian wrestler Luis Henrique in his last fight, Tybura got the better of things on the feet and was able to regain control late when Henrique started to tire. I'm not sure if he's a future contender, but at the very least Tybura is one of UFC's better heavyweight signings in the last few years, and should remain a divisional stalwart as guys start to age out. As far as the fight, it's a difficult one to call, since neither guy can really take advantage of the other's main weakness; if Tybura was more of a one-hitter quitter, I could easily see him knock out Arlovski, while Arlovski really works more in space than doing the type of bullying that can sometimes stifle Tybura. So this should be a close decision, and waffling back and forth on the pick, I'll take Tybura - while I don't think Arlovski is done or anything, Tybura's game does seem to be clicking on all cylinders, and I think he can be solid enough on the feet while having the advantage if the two ever choose to grapple. Dong Hyun Kim (22-3-1 [1] overall, 13-3 [1] UFC) vs. Colby Covington (11-1 overall, 6-1 UFC): A really interesting fight here, as Colby Covington finally gets a shot at a high-level opponent after some odd matchmaking in his UFC career thus far. Covington came into UFC fairly raw back in 2014, but with a bunch of hype - a former junior college wrestling teammate of Jon Jones, Covington bounced around a bit thanks to some, ahem, off-the-court issues, but eventually had a decorated wrestling career at Oregon State. And UFC brought him along rather slowly at first, not even really giving him anyone who would test him, allowing him to run through international TUF washouts like Anying Wang and Wagner Silva. But after a win over Mike Pyle and a quick loss to fellow prospect Warlley Alves where Covington pretty much dove right into a guillotine, UFC weirdly decided to start all over with Covington. The start of 2016 saw UFC just feed debuting guys Jonathan Meunier and Max Griffin to Covington, which pretty much accomplished nothing; Covington was just able to rely on his wrestling and dominate before finishing off each guy late. And even when UFC finally threw Covington a decent opponent, in tough prospect-killer Bryan Barberena, it was still pretty much the same story - Covington flashed a bit more striking, but just more or less wrestled his way to a victory. So, finally, we should be able to learn something about Covington, since I don't think he can just outright out-wrestle longtime welterweight contender Dong Hyun Kim. Kim was the first South Korean fighter or any real prominence in the UFC, which makes it kind of amusing in retrospect how much he fought against type; most Korean fighters are pretty much all-offense, no-defense, but Kim spent years as pretty much a boring judoka, neutralizing most of his opponents and just hanging around the fringes of the top ten. But, amusingly, Kim's November 2013 fight against Erick Silva saw him suddenly decide to reverse course and just start going bananas, and even weirder, it actually kind of worked. Kim knocked out Silva with a crazy overhand, and then uncorked what seems to be the consensus best knockout of 2014, putting away John Hathaway with a beautiful spinning elbow that sent the Brit crumbling to the mat. But then Kim was matched against Tyron Woodley, and flew a little too close to the sun - he went for that same spinning elbow, whiffed badly, and at that point was a sitting duck to get annihilated by Woodley in just 61 seconds. And since then, it's been sort of a weird run, not helped by a bunch of injuries to either Kim or his opponent that have made his appearances fairly rare; Kim looked like his more aggressive, inconsistent self in a win over Josh Burkman, and then just ran through overmatched injury replacement Dominic Waters, but his last fight against Tarec Saffiedine saw Kim kind of retreat back to his more boring, control-heavy style, even if it only got him a split decision this time around. It's a bit of a hard fight to call, if only because Covington's entire game is basically going to be trying to put Kim on his back, and the Korean hasn't faced anyone who's tried to do that since...Demian Maia in 2012? So there's a chance that for all his judo skill, Covington can still get Kim to the ground, and from there it's unclear exactly what Kim can do from the bottom. But, more likely, Kim can either neutralize that or, as the much bigger fighter, even take control of things in the grappling realm himself - and even it remains standing, as wild as Kim's striking can be, I still trust it more than Covington's completely unproven, if seemingly improving, offerings on the feet. It's an interesting test for both guys, even if I'm very unsure as to how entertaining it'll be, and I'll take Kim by a fairly clear decision. Tarec Saffiedine (16-6 overall, 2-3 UFC, 6-1 Strikeforce) vs. Rafael dos Anjos (25-9 overall, 14-7 UFC): It's funny to think that, at this time last year, Rafael dos Anjos was making his case as one of the most dominant lightweights in the history of the division, but now, he's not even a lightweight anymore. Dos Anjos's run came completely out of nowhere, as for the first few years of his UFC career, he was pretty much a mid-tier submission artist who'd alternate wins and losses. But under coach Rafael Cordeiro, his striking suddenly clicked, and dos Anjos started a run where he won ten out of eleven fights (Khabib Nurmagomedov is really good), culminating in a dominant five-round win over lightweight champ Anthony Pettis and a 66-second title defense over Donald Cerrone. From there, dos Anjos was slated to be the unlikely B-side to a huge Conor McGregor fight, as after dispatching of Jose Aldo, McGregor set his eyes on dos Anjos's lightweight title. But then dos Anjos broke his foot, Nate Diaz stepped in to spark one of the best rivalries in the history of the sport, and the lightweight title was temporarily an afterthought when it came to McGregor. But again, at this time last year, it looked like dos Anjos would get his big money fight soon enough; his next challenger, Eddie Alvarez, seemed to be getting more of a lifetime achievement title shot than anything else, and McGregor would eventually come calling for that lightweight belt again. Dos Anjos did in fact look well on his way to beating Alvarez in the first few minutes of their fight, but then Alvarez landed a perfect punch to stun dos Anjos and send things down the path of a first-round finish; and indeed, shortly thereafter it was Alvarez that was the unlikely headliner opposite McGregor at Madison Square Garden. After another loss to Tony Ferguson in a really close fight between two top contenders, dos Anjos surprisingly announced a move up to welterweight; surprisingly if only because dos Anjos still figured to have success at 155, and he wasn't really thought of as a particularly giant lightweight or anyone who had trouble cutting weight. So, seven months later, dos Anjos makes his welterweight debut against Tarec Saffiedine, who's badly in need of a win. Saffiedine was a nice story during the dying days of Strikeforce; the Belgian was a fighter that the promotion slowly developed, working his way up the card before eventually beating Nate Marquardt for their welterweight title in the last-ever Strikeforce fight. But Saffiedine has struggled to find a foothold since he came over into the UFC; injuries limited him to only two fights in his first three years with the promotion, and his technical kickboxing game has proven fairly low-ceiling, as guys like Rick Story and Dong Hyun Kim have been able to control him rather handily. And honestly, I see this matchmaking as UFC losing a bit of faith in Saffiedine, since coming off two straight losses, I'm surprised they'd give him a tough next fight if they wanted to keep him strong as a contender. On paper, this seems like a fairly clear dos Anjos win; dos Anjos and Saffiedine are roughly the same size, and the style matchup greatly favors the former lightweight champ, as he should be able to pressure and control Saffiedine fairly easily and just implement whatever offense he wants. And there's also an extremely low chance of something like the dos Anjos/Alvarez fight, since I doubt Saffiedine can hit a perfect knockout punch; Saffiedine only has one career knockout, and has always been a guy content to ride out a technical decision rather than press for any sort of finish. So my pick is dos Anjos by a fairly one-sided decision, with the possibility of a late stoppage. Takanori Gomi (35-12 [1] overall, 4-7 UFC, 13-1 [1] PRIDE) vs. Jon Tuck (9-4 overall, 3-4 UFC): So it's come to this. About a decade ago, Takanori Gomi was one of the consensus best lightweights in the world, and definitely the best in Japan; with his athleticism and a wild style, Gomi pretty much blew through the competition in exciting fashion. After a few losses, Gomi signed with UFC in 2010, and was considered to be just past his prime; and indeed, while he did decently enough for the first few years, he was mostly just an action mid-card fighter, a far cry from his glory days. But after a fun decision win over Isaac Vallie-Flagg in April of 2014, the wheels have completely fallen off for Gomi, who's been fairly notorious for not really taken care of his body - the athleticism has slipped, and so has Gomi's chin, which combined with his offensively wild, defensively open style, has resulted in a string of first-round losses, as he's dropped bouts to Myles Jury, Joe Lauzon, and Jim Miller in a combined six and a half minutes. So, we're at the point that UFC needs to go pretty far down the ladder to see if Gomi has anything left, and so he faces Guam's Jon Tuck, who's been on his way to sliding out of the UFC himself. Tuck had a decent showing on TUF 15 while losing to Al Iaquinta to get into the house, but he was brought in shortly thereafter as an obvious setup guy for a card in Macau, as he was put against Chinese fighter Tiequan Zhang. That did not work, since Tiequan Zhang is awful, and Tuck wound up winning the decision. From there, he's kind of hung around as a frustrating talent; he's athletic and dynamic enough to get some wins over roster fodder, but his overall game is just sort of a mess and not enough to beat anyone decent. His last two fights showed this - he faced a fight last May against Josh Emmett where he just kept getting beaten to the punch and didn't really pull the trigger, and then turned around and lost a fight to Damien Brown in the exact opposite fashion, as he roared out to a big first round and then gassed himself into losing the last two. Still, as broken as Tuck's game is, he still has those moments of dynamism, and Gomi looks completely shot, so this'll probably be a quick Tuck victory - I say the Guamanian stuns Gomi on the feet, then gets a submission in the first round. Cyril Asker (8-2 overall, 1-1 UFC) vs. Walt Harris (9-5 overall, 2-4 UFC): This should be a fun lower-level heavyweight bout. It remains to be seen if Walt Harris will ever put it together, but if he does, watch out - the former basketball player for Jacksonville State is a physical specimen and, for now at age 34, a top-shelf athlete, but for a while, that didn't really amount to much; Harris was a quick two-and-out in the UFC the first time around, and after picking up a regional win, got re-signed as a late replacement only to lose to Soa Palelei. And honestly, even Harris's 2016 wasn't super-amazing; he did pick up a win over Cody East, but that was the type of come-from-behind knockout that happens at heavyweight, and a loss to Shamil Abdurakhimov was fairly flat. But, this January, Harris did put together the best performance of his career against Chase Sherman, showing off some impressive combinations and finally pulling the trigger, so maybe there's hope just yet. And frankly, France's Cyril Asker probably won't be much of a challenge. Given that MMA is banned in France, Asker instead plied his trade in South Africa and did well there, but as expected, his wrestling hasn't really translated up a level, as Asker's just kind of overmatched as an athlete. And while Asker did rebound from a rough UFC debut with a ground-and-pound win over Dmitrii Smoliakov, Smoliakov also may be the worst of UFC's recent heavyweight signings. I do like Asker, just personally, since he does seem like a nice guy win some charisma, but I don't really like his chances to hang around in the UFC because there's going to be a lot of fights like these, where he probably can't get things to the ground and doesn't have much firepower on the feet. So I'm taking Harris by a fairly easy first-round knockout. Alex Caceres (12-10 [1] overall, 7-8 [1] UFC) vs. Rolando Dy (8-4 [1] overall): Well, this is a fight that's just sort of...happening now. Initially, this was supposed to be the debut of Chinese fighter Guan Wang - when the card from Singapore was first announced, Dana White said that it would feature their next Chinese star, and it came out a few weeks later that it was Wang, a veteran featherweight with a bunch of knockouts. In fairly short order, Wang was tied to a fight with Alex Caceres on this card, but when everything was finalized, Caceres was instead facing Filipino newcomer Rolando Dy without any explanation. So...this is just a fight, basically. Caceres is a frustrating talent - it was a bit surprising when UFC picked him up, but they must have liked his "Bruce Leeroy" persona on his season of TUF; but after a rocky start, Caceres paid off UFC's faith in him and went on a five-fight unbeaten streak, consisting of four lower-tier opponents and then a big submission win over Sergio Pettis. But as with a lot of fighters, a big win basically led Caceres being thrown into fights over his head, so that gave way to a three-fight losing streak. 2016 saw Caceres move up to featherweight, and results have been mixed - in general, he's still the same sort of mid-level fighter he's always been, but it's almost impressive how inconsistent Caceres is even in the same fight; his win at UFC 199 over Cole Miller was probably a career-best performance, but even that saw Caceres sort of careen out of control and lose a one-sided third round. As for Dy, I'm actually a bit impressed, since I was dreading watching tape of him - his record isn't exactly stellar, plus the Filipino scene often cranks out fighters that are more fun than good. But I saw some solid striking and power, plus some grappling that, while not great, was at least better than some of his countrymen. I'm still not predicting a ton of UFC success for Dy, but he could be a guy who sticks around picking off some of the other lower-level fighters on the fringes of the roster. But as for this fight, Caceres has enough talent and skill to win this fairly easily, though given how inconsistent he is, it'll almost surely wind up being a fight that's closer than it needs to be. Still, my pick is Caceres by clear decision. Ulka Sasaki (19-4-2 overall, 2-3 UFC) vs. Justin Scoggins (11-3 overall, 4-3 UFC): The clear highlight of this prelim card, this should be a fun scrap between two flyweight prospects looking for a win. Justin Scoggins is an interesting one - the South Carolina native is a former training partner of Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson, and looked like a future champion after two impressive wins upon his UFC debut. So, of course, UFC rushed him into fights with higher-level opponents, which was a mixed bag; Scoggins acquitted himself well, as he probably should've gotten the split decision nod against Dustin Ortiz, and he was beating John Moraga until he got himself tapped out, but at the end of the day it was two unnecessary losses. From there, Scoggins was sort of forgotten - he got a win over Josh Sampo to stay afloat, and then struggled with injuries, but then he used his striking game to pretty much entirely shut down rising contender Ray Borg, and suddenly Scoggins was a top prospect at flyweight once again. He was slated to face Ian McCall last summer, but, of course, Scoggins suddenly found himself unable to make flyweight, and a one-off bout at bantamweight turned out to be what's becoming a classic Scoggins loss - he was winning rather handily, but tripped while throwing a kick and got immediately tapped out by Pedro Munhoz. So Scoggins attempts to return to 125, and does so against Japanese prospect Ulka Sasaki. Sasaki was supposed to be help lead the next wave of Japanese prospects, but after two bad losses, his UFC career seemed basically dead on arrival. But a cut to flyweight turned things around; Sasaki is gigantic for the division at 5'11", and was able to beat Willie Gates and have a super-game showing against former title challenger Wilson Reis this past February. But this really does seem like a Scoggins win - admittedly, Scoggins is at his best when he's able to use his karate and keep opponents at a distance, and Sasaki's massive wingspan may make that a bit difficult, but Sasaki's size means he's always hittable on the feet, and Scoggins should be able to take full advantage of that. Though, that said, Sasaki is a dangerous grappler, so this figures to be one of those fights where Scoggins should dominate the balance, but is basically able to make either a dumb decision or a dumb mistake at any moment and find himself suddenly getting tapped out. But still, I expect that Scoggins decision win, and this should be a really fun fight. Frank Camacho (20-4 overall) vs. Jingliang Li (12-4 overall, 4-2 UFC): UFC tried unsuccessfully to break into China back in 2014 - and, given that they're signing some more Chinese talent, they might be going for it again - but all they really have to show for it is Jingliang Li, who, frankly, is still way better than anyone could've expected. Li's nickname is "The Leech", and when he came into UFC, that was pretty much fair, as he was just sort of a smothering wrestler, but as time has gone on and Li's been able to diversify his training, he's actually become a fairly fun mid-tier brawler. Add in some charisma that transcends the language barrier, and Li's an easy guy to like; plus there's some novelty to him being the one good Chinese fighter. Li was initially supposed to face Canadian prospect Jonathan Meunier, but with Meunier heart, Li instead faces UFC newcomer Frank Camacho, who, best I can tell, is UFC's first fighter out of the Northern Mariana Islands, an American commonwealth near Guam. Camacho was briefly on UFC's radar in 2012, as he lost a fight to get into the TUF house against Neil Magny, and since then he's been sort of a regional journeyman for cards out on the Pacific Rim. But as far as journeymen go, Camacho's a good addition to the roster; in his wins, he absolutely smokes opponents, and in general he's sort of a low-level brawler that throws a ton of heat and, given the level, has had a bunch of success. Between the recent track record of both Li and Camacho, this figures to be a ridiculous brawl, and while Li isn't such a world-beater that he can't lose here, he is the much better fighter and should be able to score a first-round knockout. Russell Doane (14-7 overall, 2-4 UFC) vs. Kwan Ho Kwak (9-1 overall, 0-1 UFC): A really fun fight here and, along with Sasaki/Scoggins, a clear highlight of the undercard, though it does suck a bit that the loser will likely be cut. And if that loser is Russell Doane, he'll almost surely be cut, as the Hawaiian gets the rare last shot at a win after losing four straight fights. 2014 saw Doane debut and go through the typical B-level prospect path at bantamweight, winning two fights and then losing to perennial division gatekeeper Iuri Alcantara. And then Doane followed that up with an immensely frustrating loss - facing powerful wrestler Jerrod Sanders, Doane kept trying to implement his scrambling submission game, only to keep getting reversed and shut down by Sanders. Doane then took about a year off thanks to injuries, and in that time, improved greatly, showing some much more fluid striking in the vein of his teammate, Max Holloway; but unfortunately, that coincided with a step up in competition that still prevented Doane from having much success. Doane was pretty much used as a bounce-back fight for top prospect Pedro Munhoz, and then accepted a late-notice fight a weight class up at 145 to take on, and lose in fairly one-sided fashion, to uber-prospect Mirsad Bektic. But taking that Bektic fight probably earned Doane this fifth shot at a win, and it comes against South Korea's Kwan Ho Kwak. Kwak was probably the top bantamweight free agent in Asia when UFC picked him up last year, and it's easy to see why he's a top prospect, as Kwak is a ridiculous athlete with a penchant for throwing flashy kicks. But he has a ton of trouble against straight ahead wrestlers - a lot of Kwak's fights that I've watched see him look awesome when his opponent is forced to stand with them, and then make you wonder how he even got into the UFC when he's trying to fight from the bottom. In some regional title fights, the game still held together since Kwak appears to have excellent cardio, leaving his opponents too exhausted to take him down by the later rounds, but his UFC debut was pretty much the worst possible matchup, as fellow newcomer and excellent grappler Brett Johns just pretty much took Kwak down and schooled on him. I go back and forth on this fight - for all his improved striking, and for how much Doane has been too eager to grapple in the past, he actually should rely on that old gameplan here, as if he can get Kwak to the mat, he should be able to win rounds fairly easily. But, of course, the question is if he can get him there, since Kwak is such a ridiculous athlete and can often use that athleticism, rather than any sort of technique, to escape when his opponent tries to shoot. I have the feeling this is going to be a close decision either way, but I'll go with a bit of an upset and say Doane ekes out a decision, though I hope Kwak can still stick on the roster if that's the case. C.J. de Tomas (8-0 overall) vs. Naoki Inoue (10-0 overall): Well, UFC continues to have no idea what the hell they're doing with the flyweight division, or if they even want to have one, but at least they signed two pretty good prospects to face each other here. Japan's Naoki Inoue figured to be the youngest fighter on the roster when he debuted, but with Chan Mi Jeon getting signed as a late replacement in the interim, he'll have to settle for second, as he's racked up a 10-0 record before his 20th birthday. (Which will happen when you start your career before you even turn 17.) Tape on Inoue is rather scarce, but based off what's there, he's kind of the opposite of his sister, strawweight prodigy Mizuki Inoue - Naoki's striking is sort of a wild work in progress, but as soon as things go to the mat, he's a ridiculously slick submission artist given his experience, as his long frame allows him to successfully try all sorts of aggressive stuff. He faces top Filipino prospect Carls John de Tomas, who at 20 years old, is the old man of this matchup. I like de Tomas as a prospect - like a lot of Filipino fighters, he has a solid striking base that should lend itself well to having action fights, and for the level of competition, he has a pretty effective wrestling game to fall back on if he ever finds himself in trouble. Still, I think the first time that de Tomas tries one of those takedowns, he's going to find himself getting tapped out, and I think he's going to try a takedown fairly early - so my pick is Inoue by first-round submission. Still, both guys are interesting prospects, though given that UFC's flyweight division is sort of a shark tank without many easy fights, I do worry about the ability of both guys to stick on the roster long enough to develop. Ji Yeon Kim (6-0-2 overall) vs. Lucie Pudilova (6-2 overall, 0-1 UFC): A solid enough women's bantamweight fight here, as it's always good to see two prospects in a thin division. Czechia's Lucie Pudilova acquitted herself well in her UFC debut - a late injury replacement, Pudilova was tabbed for a rematch of a regional fight against Lina Lansberg. And while the first fight saw Lansberg mostly just pin the 5'11" Pudilova against the cage, Pudilova showed off the improvements she made in the ensuing sixteen months when it was time for the rematch; she still lost the fight, but there were large swaths where she was just beating the piss out of Lansberg's face, bloodying her up while carrying herself with a ton of swagger. Pudilova looks to build off that and get her first UFC win against South Korean newcomer Ji Yeon Kim, who's a solid prospect in her own right. Kim was actually apparently UFC's first option to face Holly Holm before Holm's management turned it down, I guess figuring an easy win over someone with no name value wasn't something they were interested in. Kim pretty much fits in the Korean archetype of charging forward with little regard for defense, but she does so in the name of being a fairly dogged wrestler, looking to take her opponent down and work for all sorts of stuff. It's a pretty binary fight - if Kim can bull Pudilova to the ground and work from there, she should be able to roll, but if Pudilova can keep it standing, I see this as Kim just charging forward into all manner of strikes. I tend to lean towards Kim not being a strong enough athlete to dictate this fight, so I'll take Pudilova by decision, though this could wind up being a really fun way to start the card.

Kiichi Kunimoto (lost to Zak Ottow) vs. Dominique Steele (lost to Luke Jumeau): Now that he’s not on a weird winning streak, Kunimoto is fairly uninspiring, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he got another UFC fight; they’re coming to his native Japan in September, this was a narrow loss, and he is a solid vet to have around. I doubt Dominique Steele gets another bout, since he really can’t win at a UFC level, but they do have him going around and losing to people in their home town or nation, so there you go.

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *UFC 212 was one of the best cards of the year thus far, even if the Rio faithful probably wouldn't agree, as native son Jose Aldo finally turned mortal, and Max Holloway knocked him out to become undisputed featherweight champion. It was a strange sight to behold, given how good Aldo looked in his last fight against Frankie Edgar, and how good he looked in the first round here, uncorking a bunch of shots and generally making Holloway look like another streaking contender who would fall at his hands. But Holloway just hung in there and waited for his opening, and as the quick pace surprisingly began to tire Aldo, Holloway just started to take over, landing combinations and generally out-quicking Aldo before landing a quick combination of jabs that would mark the beginning of the end. Aldo just kept surviving to the end, as it seemingly took about a minute and a half for Holloway to finally put Aldo away, but at a certain point Holloway was landing so many shots that John McCarthy had no choice to stop the fight. So Max Holloway is primed to reign over featherweight for the next few years - though you never know with this sport - as he's somehow still only 25 years old and keeps looking better than ever. Frankie Edgar is the obvious next title challenger, and one wonders if Holloway will finally get the UFC card in his native Hawaii that he's been wanting for years, though the stadium situation there always makes the possibility somewhat iffy. As for Aldo, it's an open question as far as what's next - maybe it's finally time for him to move up to lightweight, so he can finally try and get revenge against Conor McGregor. *UFC 212 had a bunch of finishes, but the most unexpected might have come in the co-main, where Claudia Gadelha polished off Karolina Kowalkiewicz in a shade over three minutes via rear-naked choke. Gadelha winning wasn't a surprise to a lot of people (though I picked Kowalkiewicz), but she's mostly been a decision machine in the UFC, and if nothing else, Kowalkiewicz has proven both strong and durable despite looking so unassuming. But after a brief feeling out process, Gadelha scored big on her first takedown attempt of the fight, got Kowalkiewicz to the ground, and worked for the choke in fairly short order. A masterful, career-best performance, though I'm not really sure it closes the gap between her and champion/career rival Joanna Jedrzejczyk, since Jedrzejczyk's also coming off her own career-best performance against Jessica Andrade. But c'est la vie. *Well, Vitor Belfort's fight against Nate Marquardt turned out to be kind of pointless. Initially, this was supposed to be Belfort's retirement fight, but as we got closer to the bout, Belfort started talking like it was only going to be his last UFC fight. And then it came out that this wasn't even the last fight on Belfort's UFC contract, so as always, it's unclear exactly what Belfort was thinking. So anyway, Belfort's fight with Marquardt just sort of...happened - basically, Belfort might be a more technical striker than ever, but it's come at the cost of his finishing ability, so now he's just a dude who doesn't knock people out - and while most people had Marquardt winning a fairly nothing-happening fight, it was Belfort who, somehow, got his first decision win in the UFC after all these years. And then Belfort announced his intention to fight out his contract, which apparently contains five more fights. I have no idea where the hell you go from here. *The card also saw some big goings-on at bantamweight, even if the biggest thing was a veteran holding onto his spot. The worst case pretty much happened with the debut of former WSOF champ Marlon Moraes, one of the best bantamweights outside of the UFC and a guy who was expected to move up the ladder quickly. He faced Raphael Assuncao, who's been a top contender in the division for years, and rather than this being the usual violent Marlon Moraes fight, this instead became a Raphael Assuncao fight, with Assuncao basically neutralizing his fellow Brazilian's offense with his defense and counters. So the fight was a boring slog, but the strong consensus was that Moraes still did enough to win, so hey, all's well that ends well when it comes to creating a new contender, right? Wrong, as the judges rather stunningly gave the fight to Assuncao. So...great. But on the plus side, at least two other talents broke through on the card. UFC's matchmaking with Californian grappler Matthew Lopez has been oddly aggressive, pitting him against a bunch of tough vets, but Lopez has stunningly risen to the challenge and looked awesome here, knocking out Johnny Eduardo in under three minutes. Eduardo's primarily a Muay Thai artist, so it's no surprise that Lopez had the advantage grappling, but Lopez's hands are coming along nicely - he held his own here, and rather than going for submissions, Lopez unleashed some brutal ground and pound to finish the fight. And the most stunning result of the card was Brian Kelleher tapping out divisional stalwart Iuri Alcantara in his UFC debut. This was an odd bit of matchmaking, since it looked like UFC was just feeding Kelleher to a Brazilian vet, but the fight was seemingly just getting started when Alcantara left his neck open for a guillotine, and then suddenly tapped out in under two minutes. Kelleher then made the most of his mic time after the fight, antagonizing the Brazilian crowd to the point he needed extra security, and demanding a bit fight on his native Long Island this July - and while it's not a huge opponent, Kelleher did in fact get one of the last spots on that card, as he's slated to face Marlon Vera on about a two month turnaround. *There was some other interesting stuff up and down the card, including a bunch of finishes. Top Brazilian prospect Paulo Borrachinha looked surprisingly good against Oluwale Bamgbose; Borrachinha's a bit of a high-risk, high-reward prospect, as he's got a bodybuilder physique and has a career entirely consisting of quick knockouts, but this fight suggested he may actually have some fight IQ to work with. Bamgbose just came out throwing all sorts of ridiculous offense, and rather than spark his usual brawl, Borrachinha just sat back and let Bamgbose tire himself out, scoring a stoppage in the second round. On the other side of things, it looks like Erick Silva is now pretty much done as any sort of high-level fighter. Like Vitor Belfort above, but only more pronounced, Silva has become a more technical fighter, but it's too little, too late; now rather than a violent one-round danger, Silva's now less explosive on offense, but still as porous on defense, and Yancy Medeiros was able to eventually nail Silva for a second-round stoppage, even if the referee did definitely step in a bit too early. Middleweight prospect Antonio Carlos Junior looked good, getting a second-round sub after some fun grappling against Eric Spicely; this was pretty much a gimme of a matchup, since Spicely essentially does an inferior version of what Carlos is great at, but given "Cara de Sapato"'s tendency to lose winnable fights, nothing should be taken for granted. Luan Chagas showed some of the best form of his career against Jim Wallhead; like Paulo Borrachinha, Chagas is a young guy who has mostly just tried to throw heat for much of his career, but started to pace himself here en route to still getting the knockout. Deiveson Figueiredo looked good in his UFC debut, taking out Marco Beltran with a stoppage as the horn sounded at the end of the second round - it's hard not to feel bad for Beltran, though, as he lost a crucial fight just two days after the death of his mother. And in one of the more blah fights on the card - though it may have been the best of the three decisions - Viviane Pereira won a battle of strawweight prospects against Jamie Moyle rather handily. Pereira was just much better on the feet, and after getting shut down early, Moyle didn't really even try to impose her grappling game, so she just sort of coasted to a loss. *So, Demetrious Johnson has pretty much had it with UFC's bullshit, apparently. Between a statement to MMA Fighting and an appearance on Ariel Helwani's weekly interview show, there's a lot to unpack, mostly about Johnson's discussions with UFC about his next fight. So, apparently Johnson was offered - or, I guess in UFC's eyes, given - Ray Borg as a next opponent. Johnson offered some other options, as he preferred Sergio Pettis as a next contender, feeling Pettis (probably rightly) was a bit more marketable, or the Cody Garbrandt fight that the bantamweight champ had teased in some interviews. Johnson was still forced to take the Borg fight, essentially - UFC also refused his request for any future pay-per-view points, and also told Johnson that a fight with Garbrandt, basically, wasn't a marketable or money fight. Now, I understand that for UFC, the T.J. Dillashaw fight was the obvious fight, from both a sporting and a promotional standpoint, for Garbrandt to have next, but going so far as to say that Garbrandt isn't a money fight for Johnson was pretty unnecessary, particularly with how things played out. Admittedly, I'm not sure if any Johnson fight is all that marketable, but the Garbrandt one (or whoever is bantamweight champ, honestly) probably tops that list, so I have no idea why you'd tell Johnson that. So, UFC eventually strong-arms Johnson into taking the Borg fight, and shortly thereafter, Garbrandt hurts his back, his fight with Dillashaw is cancelled, and things go to hell. So, Dana White suddenly reverses course and wants Johnson to fight Dillashaw instead of Borg, even though, again, UFC basically forced Johnson to take the Borg fight, and apparently contracts were already signed. Johnson, rightfully, points out that UFC has already told him a fight with Garbrandt wouldn't draw, and then asks, in that case, why he should bother fighting a bantamweight who isn't even the champion. Plus, Johnson has concerns that Dillashaw can even make weight for a title fight, and says that he'll think about taking the bout if they guarantee that Johnson will get both his purse and Dillashaw's if Dillashaw can't make weight. Dana White apparently blows up at all of this. He goes on to say that Johnson is taking away Dillashaw's opportunity - which, as Johnson brings up, it's unclear why Johnson would care about T.J. Dillashaw's career - and actually threatened to shut down the entire flyweight division if Johnson refused to fight Dillashaw. So Johnson called the bluff, telling UFC to go ahead and shut it down, and...nothing happened, save White telling some media that a Johnson/Dillashaw fight was on, an obvious attempt to make Johnson look bad. In Johnson's telling of the story, the only UFC employee who comes off looking even decent is new matchmaker Mick Maynard, who comes off as a relatively rational guy forced in a tough spot by his bosses, White and fellow matchmaker Sean Shelby. Now, there are some assumptions of Johnson's that I disagree with, namely when it comes to his promotion. Johnson's griped for a while that UFC doesn't promote him as strongly as they should, which I do agree to to an extent, but I think Johnson makes the incorrect assumption that UFC promoting him will automatically make his fights a big deal. I think his last fight against Wilson Reis was fairly emblematic of this - consensus was that UFC did a pretty great job pushing Johnson as one of the greatest all time as he attempted to tie Anderson Silva's record for title defenses, but the result was a horrible rating that was one of the lowest in UFC's history on the network. But treating Johnson like this is fairly indefensible, given that he's mostly been a good company man. So it's unclear where this all stands, or what it means for UFC 215, which was assumed to be built around Johnson fighting in his hometown of Seattle. And, of course, since this is an industry of alpha males, Johnson has apparently already rebuffed the idea of MMA fighters needing a union, so none of these problems will probably ever change. *Not a ton else in terms of news, with the only other decent-sized story being War Machine finally getting put in jail for a whole bunch of assault and battery charges related to his ex-girlfriend, porn star Christy Mack. Machine (yes, it's dumb) has gotten a life sentence with a possibility of parole after 36 years, so we won't be seeing him again until he's into his seventies. Good riddance to bad rubbish. ------ BOOKINGS: *Not a ton of new bookings, with the biggest news related to such being that "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung's comeback is going to be a short-lived one for the moment. Jung pulled out of his fight at UFC 214 against Ricardo Lamas after completely tearing up his knee, blowing out both his ACL and MCL. It's similar to one of the many injuries that kept Dominick Cruz out of action, so it'll probably be until late 2018 - at the earliest - that we see Jung back in action. Damn. I hate to say there's a silver lining, but at least we still get a fairly fun fight, as rising prospect Jason Knight steps in to take on Lamas in the biggest fight of his career. Knight has looked excellent in his four UFC wins to date, all exciting affairs, so the chance is well-earned. *Mexico City got a few interesting fights, most notably Rashad Evans trying again at middleweight, this time against "Smilin'" Sam Alvey. Evans lost a narrow decision to Dan Kelly in his middleweight debut, and is just struggling to get any sort of momentum going, so pitting him against Alvey's weird, low-volume, counter-attacking style is...bizarrely perfect? Mexico City also adds lightweights Alvaro Herrera and Jordan Rinaldi, an obvious attempt to get lower-tier Mexican fighter Herrera a win, and, bizarrely, a middleweight bout between Sweden's Jack Hermansson and England's Brad Scott. UFC has a show in Scotland this July and a card in the Netherlands this September, so those would be more obvious fits for a fight between two Europeans...but I guess the Mexican fans demanded it? *A fight between Hector Lombard and Anthony Smith is scheduled for...sometime. It appears to be set for August 19th, which is assumed to be the UFC 215 card from Seattle that may include Demetrious Johnson, but nothing's been announced. But even though we have no UFC 215 yet, UFC 216 is starting to get some fights. Henry Cejudo and Wilson Reis square off at flyweight, as UFC looks to take advantage of the large Mexican and Brazilian populations in Edmonton, apparently. Canadian bantamweight Sarah Moras returns from over two years off to take on Ashlee Evans-Smith, and Canadian wrestler Arjan Bhullar, the first-ever UFC fighter of Indian descent, makes his debut at heavyweight against Luis Henrique. Alan Jouban is out of his UFC 213 fight with Brian Camozzi due to injury, scrapping a weird pairing that seemingly existed only to get Jouban a win. As mentioned above, Brian Kelleher gets a quick turnaround from an impressive UFC debut, getting a fight on his native Long Island against Marlon Vera next month. And highly touted Chinese featherweight Guan Wang is apparently off the Singapore card, with no reason as to why. When the Singapore card was announced a few months back, Dana White teased the signing of a potential Chinese star, who turned out to be Wang, and word got out shortly thereafter that he was slated to face Alex Caceres on this show. But the fight never got officially announced as best I can tell, as just two weeks before the card, UFC announced that Caceres was on the card, but facing newcomer Rolando Dy instead of Wang. Huh. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Chris Camozzi (24-13 overall, 9-10 UFC, last fought 5/28/17, L vs. Trevor Smith): Camozzi announced that his contract with the UFC is up, ending his third stint with the promotion and second one that saw some crazy up-and-down runs. Camozzi looked like he'd be sort of a footnote - he was on TUF 11, but got injured and never had a fight in the house, and his first UFC stint mostly saw him get fed to hometown fighter Kyle Noke on a card in Australia and then immediately cut. But Camozzi was signed back up within a year and after a loss to Francis Carmont, suddenly went on a four-fight win streak. None of them were particularly dominating - Camozzi would just sort of win a mediocre kickboxing contest via a narrow decision over and over, as I believe it was well into double-digit UFC fights before he even attempted a takedown, but four wins are four wins, and it eventually earned Camozzi a late-notice slot against Jacare Souza, who memorably choked Camozzi unconscious in about three and a half minutes. From there, Camozzi's luck pretty much ran out - he was still taking fights to narrow decisions, but this time he was on the losing end; and after a while, four straight losses were four straight losses, and Camozzi got cut once again. That figured to be that, but once again, Camozzi found himself back in UFC within a year, and this time in fairly amusing fashion, as he was crazy enough to step up and face Souza again on about a week's notice when a replacement was needed. And this time, Camozzi got tapped even faster, losing in just two and a half minutes. From there, things pretty much picked up where they left off, with Camozzi winning kickboxing contests, but 2016 saw him show some of the better form of his career, at least at first - he ran through a decrepit Joe Riggs, then actually mixed in some wrestling and looked excellent in a one-sided beatdown of Vitor Miranda. But like before, all those wins just earned Camozzi some ass-kickings, as his last three fights showed that for all his offensive improvements, Camozzi's defensive wrestling was still quite lacking. Thales Leites and Dan Kelly pretty much threw Camozzi around at will, and his last fight against Trevor Smith was an awful affair where Smith pretty much just held Camozzi down for three rounds. Camozzi's still 30, so I can't wait to see who he returns to take on in, say, February, given the way history has gone. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 6/17 - UFC Fight Night 111 - Singapore, Singapore - Bethe Correia vs. Holly Holm, Andrei Arlovski vs. Marcin Tybura, 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, Dennis Bermudez vs. Darren Elkins, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Jimi Manuwa vs. Volkan Oezdemir, Jason Knight vs. Ricardo Lamas 8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis, Sam Alvey vs. Rashad Evans 9/2 - UFC Fight Night 115 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Stefan Struve vs. Alexander Volkov 9/9 - UFC 216 - Edmonton, AB - Henry Cejudo vs. Wilson Reis, Rick Glenn vs. Gavin Tucker ----- UFC Fight Night 110 - June 10, 2017 - Vector Arena - Auckland, New Zealand So this is a pretty solid card, at least as far as UFC's jaunts to Oceania tend to go. UFC's card from Melbourne in November was a one-fight show, with Robert Whittaker against Derek Brunson and then absolutely nothing, and this marks a much better card on paper than UFC's first effort from New Zealand. That card, in June of 2014, was focused around James Te Huna of all people, as the veteran light heavyweight attempted to cut to middleweight and failed fairly miserably, getting tapped out in about four and a half minutes by Nate Marquardt. But even that card, which is among the lowest in terms of starpower in UFC history, was fairly emblematic of UFC's cards in Australia and New Zealand - no names, but usually some pretty fun fights, as regional fighters are just good enough on offense and bad enough on defense to make for some excitement. Plus add in some of the better crowds of the world, and pretty much every Oceania card is at least worth watching. And this should be no exception, at least as far as the main card, as we get an important heavyweight bout, the continuation of an unlikely underdog story, plus fights that either promise good action or showcase solid prospects. Just, uh, maybe ignore those prelims. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 10:00 PM ET): Heavyweight: (#6) Derrick Lewis vs. (#7) Mark Hunt Middleweight: (#8) Derek Brunson vs. (#15) Daniel Kelly Lightweight: Daniel Hooker vs. Ross Pearson Light Heavyweight: Ion Cutelaba vs. Henrique da Silva Flyweight: (#8) Tim Elliott vs. (#12) Ben Nguyen Featherweight: Mizuto Hirota vs. Alexander Volkanovski PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Lightweight: Damien Brown vs. Vinc Pichel Welterweight: Luke Jumeau vs. Dominique Steele Flyweight: (#11) John Moraga vs. Ashkan Mokhtarian Welterweight: Kiichi Kunimoto vs. Zak Ottow PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 7:00 PM ET): Women's Strawweight: J.J. Aldrich vs. Chan Mi Jeon Lightweight: Thibault Gouti vs. Dong Hyun Kim THE RUNDOWN: Derrick Lewis (18-4 [1] overall, 9-2 UFC, 0-1 Bellator) vs. Mark Hunt (12-11-1 [1] overall, 7-5-1 [1] UFC, 5-3 PRIDE): Derrick Lewis wound up being a bit of a breakout star in 2016, only a year or two later than expected. The gigantic Texan burst onto the UFC scene in 2014, obliterating Jack May and Guto Inocente within minutes and showing off some of the most brutal power in the entire heavyweight division. But a move up the ladder against Matt Mitrione resulted in a 41-second loss, and after a rebound win over Ruan Potts, Shawn Jordan also stopped Lewis rather easily, causing many to just sort of write Lewis off as a flawed knockout artist with too limited of a game to accomplish much. And, well, Lewis is still a flawed knockout artist, but he's gotten much better at making that game work, enough so that Lewis suddenly has a six-fight winning streak. Combine that with a pretty great social media presence - Lewis pretty much acts like the human embodiment of black Twitter, and at some point will surely cross a line he shouldn't, but in the meantime, it's quite entertaining - and Lewis has become a cult favorite who UFC is increasingly relying on to headline some of these small- to medium-sized shows. In fact, this seems like kind of an attempt at a changing of the guard, as the reigning king of the cult favorite knockout artists is the man in the other corner, Auckland's own Mark Hunt. Hunt's had a pretty crazy career path to get here, not even counting his fairly horrible upbringing - a kickboxing star with K-1, PRIDE brought Hunt into MMA for seemingly more freakshow reasons than anything, and after some early success, fighters figured out that if you could take Hunt down, you could submit him fairly easily. PRIDE was eventually absorbed by UFC, and Hunt was one of the few who refused to have his contract bought out, insisting UFC honor the last two fights on his deal. This dragged on, as Hunt fought elsewhere in Japan, and by the time UFC gave in and brought Hunt in, the "Super Samoan" was riding a five-fight win streak. And Sean McCorkle, of all people, made it six, following the blueprint and tapping out Hunt in about a minute. With one fight left on his deal, UFC decided to match Hunt up with fellow brawler Chris Tuchscherer, and Hunt scored the upset by getting a second-round knockout. And then, well, Hunt suddenly went on a winning streak. Some of it was Hunt being matched up with people who wanted to stand and trade, but as UFC put him against some guys with grappling skill, Hunt finally showed some takedown defense, at which point opponents were sitting ducks for Hunt's destructive power. The unlikely run finally ended against Junior dos Santos in a number-one contender's fight, but for the last few years, Hunt has mostly hung around as a top contender, even earning a spot in an interim title fight against Fabricio Werdum. But a one-sided loss to Stipe Miocic in 2015 has started to mark a decline for Hunt, who's 43 - there were quick wins over Bigfoot Silva and Frank Mir, but Brock Lesnar out-wrestled Hunt fairly easily (and then failed a drug test, leading to a Hunt lawsuit against UFC that is still ongoing, a weird detail hanging over this fight), and March's fight against Alistair Overeem made Hunt look fairly slow before Overeem cracked Hunt's legendarily tough chin. So in a deeper division, Hunt's probably the kind of guy who would be aging his way down the ladder, but those fighters don't really exist at heavyweight outside of, well, Lewis and Francis Ngannou. Before I attempt to pick a winner in this fight, first I must mention the caveat that this is pretty much a pick 'em - not only is it between two hard-hitting heavyweights, which is almost always a coin flip, this is also one of those deals where Hunt would be, by far, Lewis's best win, while all of Hunt's losses in the UFC (save the McCorkle fight) are to top-five heavyweights in the world. But I think I'll take Hunt. Lewis's last few fights, pretty much since UFC decided to run with one, have all been weird deals, with Lewis getting in a lot of trouble early. Roy Nelson and Shamil Abdurakhimov were able to control Lewis with wrestling and clinch-work, while Travis Browne was able to damage Lewis quite a bit with some outside kicks to the body. But, of course, these all eventually swung back Lewis's way - Nelson just couldn't really do much of anything offensively, giving away a decision to Lewis, and while Abdurakhimov and Browne continued to win the fights until they got knocked out, well, Lewis only needs a little bit of an opening to get the knockout thanks to his immense power. But I don't really see Hunt doing any of that - sure, he may use the distance a bit like Browne did, but Hunt is mostly there to bang it out, and counter-intuitively, that may be the best way for someone like him to handle Lewis. Someone like Abdurakhimov just respected Lewis's power too much to do much in the way of effective offense, which, admittedly, may have been the way to go for him, since Abdurakhimov doesn't really have one-hitter quitter power. But Hunt does, and Lewis is both there to be hit and, judging from those Mitrione and Jordan fights, doesn't really like to be hit, so I could see Hunt just wading in to try and score a big blow, and once he does, finish the fight in rather short fashion. Admittedly, this could just as easily go the either way - if Hunt's chin has in fact slipped even a bit, Lewis could just as easily knock him out, even when Hunt has an advantage - but give me Mark Hunt by first-round knockout. Plus, admittedly, Hunt knocking off UFC's top rising heavyweight at the same time he's suing the promotion would be pretty amusing. Derek Brunson (16-5 overall, 7-3 UFC, 3-1 Strikeforce) vs. Daniel Kelly (13-1 overall, 6-1 UFC): The continued success of Dan Kelly has been one of the better stories in the UFC over the last few years. Kelly seemed destined to be a footnote - a four-time Olympian for Australia in judo, he didn't even really pick up MMA in earnest until he was 35, and didn't really show much on a one-off Canada versus Australia edition of TUF, getting tapped out by Sheldon Westcott. UFC didn't even pick up Kelly immediately off the show; he went back to Australia for one more win, before UFC, figuring they would run Australia more as they continued to expand globally, decided to sign him for a card in Sydney. After some wins over guys with missable UFC careers like Luke Zachrich and Patrick Walsh, Kelly got knocked out rather quickly by Sam Alvey, seemingly resigning Kelly to be a regional fan favorite and interesting curio rather than anything else. But Kelly rebounded with a win over Steve Montgomery, and then it was off to the races, as that started a run of four straight underdog victories by Kelly - in fact, he's been an underdog in every UFC fight to date, including this one. The peak thus far was Kelly's last fight, a stunning win at UFC 209 over former light heavyweight champ Rashad Evans, in Evans's middleweight debut; while Evans did the best job of anyone during this run in dealing with Kelly's relentless pressure, Kelly was relentless enough to make it pretty much an even fight, and wound up getting the decision. So, amazingly, Kelly is getting a completely-earned shot at the top ten months before his fortieth birthday, and it comes against Derek Brunson, who could really use a win. Brunson was kind of a wrestling-heavy blanket during his days in Strikeforce, but once he came into UFC, the North Carolina native suddenly discovered his striking game and streaked towards becoming a top contender. Brunson did lose early on to Yoel Romero before anyone realized quite what an eater of worlds Romero would become, but outside of that fight, Brunson just pretty much blew through the competition, including a string of four first-round knockouts over Ed Herman, Sam Alvey, Roan Carneiro, and Uriah Hall. That earned him a main-event slot against Robert Whittaker, which, well, became quite an infamous performance. Brunson decided to go for an impressive knockout to cement himself as a top contender, but did so in about the dumbest way possible, spending the entire fight basically just charging at Whittaker while winging power shots as hard as he could. It actually worked for a few minutes because, well, what the hell, dude, but then Brunson ran at full speed into Whittaker's fist like he was Bald Bull, and that ended the fight rather quickly. From there, Brunson had another super-weird fight against Anderson Silva, since, well, all late-career Anderson Silva fights are pretty weird. The balance of the fight saw Anderson Silva doing Anderson Silva bullshit, but leaving out the part where he actually hits the other guy really hard - it wasn't like Brunson ever really pressed the action, but he was definitely doing more in terms of offense than Silva. Still, Silva got the decision, so now Brunson is looking to turn things around from a two-fight losing streak. And I think he has a good shot here, even if there is the chance Kelly can throw him off. I don't know if I've done justice just how strange Kelly's success is - his knees are completely shot and completely wrapped up (one knee is apparently barely functioning, but Kelly is so old that his career can't afford a surgery layoff, so he just guts through it), and his game is basically based completely off of ridiculous toughness and dad strength, as Kelly just kind of lurches forward through the abuse to get his hands on his opponent and muscle them around. But the Sam Alvey loss did show the secret to beating Kelly, and this is going to sound fairly dumb - you need to knock him the hell out, or at least on his ass. Alvey is the only guy that Kelly's faced who I'd say has knockout power, and while guys like Chris Camozzi and Evans couldn't put Kelly away, when the Aussie waded in, Alvey just used his main skill - power - and obliterated Kelly in under a minute. And, well, Brunson has power. Now, Brunson's last few fights have been weird enough that there's the chance that, for whatever reason, this is the fight where Brunson decides to abandon his aggression and let Kelly hang around to potentially steal a decision, but the knockout's there if Brunson wants it. It does pain me, since Dan Kelly really is one of my favorite stories, but this seems like a fairly easy pick - Brunson by knockout, and I'll say in the first round, though I suppose I do pick against Dan Kelly at my own risk. Daniel Hooker (13-7 overall, 3-3 UFC) vs. Ross Pearson (19-13 [1] overall, 11-10 [1] UFC): One of the highlights of UFC's first show in Auckland was the debut on Dan Hooker, who's turned out to be fairly solid for a guy probably signed only because UFC was going to be in his hometown. Hooker ended his fight with Ian Entwistle in fairly unique fashion - Entwistle, a stocky leglock specialist, tied up the leg of the lanky Hooker as he went to work, and Hooker basically realized he was tall enough to just sit up and elbow Entwistle in the head until he got the eventual finish. From there, the Kiwi's been a solid B-grade prospect - he's not athletic enough to really move much up the ladder, but he's fairly crafty and dangerous. After a loss to Jason Knight, Hooker basically decided to stop putting his body through the cut to featherweight, so he makes his debut at lightweight here against Ross Pearson, who's badly in need of a win. Pearson didn't quite turn into the UK star that UFC might have expected once he won season nine of TUF, but the Sunderland native has stuck around on the roster as a pretty fun mid-card action fighter. But we're starting to hit a period of diminishing returns, as Pearson has lost three straight to Will Brooks, Jorge Masvidal, and Stevie Ray; admittedly all of those save the Masvidal fight were fairly close losses, but losses are losses, and UFC rarely keeps a guy coming off four straight. Pearson's a solid enough fighter, but the story of his fights are fairly simple - he's pretty much just a somewhat quick straight-ahead boxer, but if his opponents can successfully pressure him and try to make him fight moving backwards, Pearson isn't nearly as successful - plus if his opponent can actually wrestle and take Pearson down, things also start to unravel fairly quickly. And honestly, I could really go either way on if any of that applies to Hooker - again, he's long and lanky, even moving up a weight class, but Pearson does figure to be the quicker fighter, and Hooker isn't exactly a guy who's been able to control where fights take place. Still, I'm assuming Hooker does have enough of a fight IQ to at least try and implement a grappling-based gameplan, since that's probably where he's strongest; and even if it isn't completely successful, just moving forward and trying to make things happen might be enough to scare Pearson off and prevent him from looking good either. So I expect, like a lot of Pearson fights, a fairly fun, if unmemorable fight that goes to a narrow decision, and by pretty much the slimmest of margins, I'm taking Hooker to get the decision win in his hometown. Ion Cutelaba (12-3 [1] overall, 1-2 UFC) vs. Henrique da Silva (12-2 overall, 2-2 UFC): Even though neither of these guys is from anywhere near Australia or New Zealand, this is the best type of fight you can hope for on a lot of these smaller Oceania cards - two guys who are near the cut line, but are pretty much guaranteed to have a fun fight. Brazil's Henrique da Silva goes by the nickname "Frankenstein", and it's fairly appropriate; he's big for the division, and his gameplan is pretty much all size, aggression, and a complete lack of defense, as da Silva just sort of plods forward through whatever shots his opponent throws and tries to just punch them or pull them to the ground. Add in the fact that da Silva seemingly knows just enough grappling to get both him and his opponent in danger, and it's a weird, sometimes effective game. But over the course of just about a year, da Silva has already had a UFC run of highs and lows - not much was expected of him at first, but wins over Jonathan Wilson and Joachim Christensen had people thinking of da Silva as a possible prospect, only for the Brazilian to get tapped out by Paul Craig and then pretty much dominated by top prospect Jordan Johnson. So da Silva looks to turn things around against Ion Cutelaba, who's struggled to gain a foothold in the UFC thus far. Cutelaba's been on the MMA radar for a few years, since he was a 19-year old knocking out guys in his native Moldova, but as he's gotten to the UFC level, the finishes have dried up. The approach still hasn't changed, as Cutelaba is still looking for the knockout at pretty much all times, but he's been 1-2 in the UFC and struggled to break out of the pack, even if all of his fights have been pretty fun brawls. This fight is going to pretty much be a fun trash fire that could go either way, but I like Cutelaba fairly considerably here - while there's the chance that da Silva is big enough that he can just march down Cutelaba, I think the Moldovan can also pretty much tee off on da Silva as he tries to do so. Add in the fact that da Silva appears to have the much worse gas tank, and I see a fun brawl where both guys have their moments until Cutelaba puts da Silva away with a knockout sometime in the third. Tim Elliott (14-7-1 overall, 3-5 UFC) vs. Ben Nguyen (16-6 overall, 3-1 UFC): So this was originally supposed to be Joseph Benavidez getting thrown yet another mid-tier flyweight in Ben Nguyen, as UFC continues to shy away from giving Benavidez a deserved third title shot - and while I'm not happy the injury that took Benavidez out of this fight looks to be rather serious, it did give us a more interesting fight between Nguyen and Tim Elliott. Elliott's had a bit of a strange career path - during his first UFC stint, UFC just kept matching him up against some of the toughest guys in the division, and while Elliott typically acquitted himself well, he racked up enough losses that UFC decided to cut him, even though he was ranked in their own top ten at the time. So Elliott went ahead and won a few fights outside of the UFC, and eventually got another shot via last winter's season of TUF, an all-flyweight show where the winner got a shot at Demetrious Johnson. Elliott won the season and gave Johnson his toughest test in a while - which, admittedly, means Elliott won the first round and then proceeded to get blown out for twenty minutes - and after a win over Louis Smolka, Elliott looks to get some momentum going for the first time in his UFC career with a win over Ben Nguyen. Nguyen's an interesting story of his own - he was a non-prospect in his native South Dakota, but eventually found his way to Southeast Asia and Australia, and improved enough once he put down roots in Brisbane, UFC signed him up. And Nguyen has had a fairly solid amount of success - admittedly, UFC hasn't put him against the best competition, but Nguyen has looked good in all of his fights, including his lone UFC loss to Smolka. So this should be a really fun style matchup - both guys are decent enough on the feet, but they're both at their best when scrambling for submissions, and both had pretty great fights against Smolka, a guy in a similar mold. I'm taking Elliott here, though not without reservations - he's the bigger guy, and in fact pretty massive for the flyweight division, and probably the better grappler, but Nguyen does have his avenues to victory. First, any scramble-heavy fight can be sort of a 50-50 proposition, given that enough chaos is happening that either guy can clamp on some sort of submission. And second, Elliott being big for the division means he can sometimes gas, and I can easily see a scenario where an action-packed first two rounds gives way to a third where Elliott is too tired to do much, particularly with his herky-jerky striking style, and Nguyen is able to use his underrated striking game to great effect. But at the end of the day, I see most of this taking place on the ground, and Elliott probably has the advantage there, so my pick is Elliott by decision. Mizuto Hirota (18-7-2 overall, 1-2-1 UFC, 0-1 Strikeforce) vs. Alexander Volkanovski (14-1 overall, 1-0 UFC): This is the right step up in competition for Alexander Volkanovski, who's an interesting Australian prospect. Volkanovski had a bit of hype coming in as one of the better prospects in Australia, and in his UFC debut, he mostly came through, fighting Japanese lightweight Yusuke Kasuya and showing off some brutal ground and pound for the finish, plus some charisma to boot. I'm kind of interested to see how Volkanovski looks here, though, as he's moving down to featherweight (and honestly, is short and stocky enough he could even cut down to bantamweight) and has a tough test in another Japanese vet, Mizuto Hirota. Hirota will probably be best known for having his arm broken via hammerlock by Shinya Aoki during a big fight in Japan, but he's carved out a solid enough career for himself - he's been a top fighter in Japan when he's spent time there, and while his first Strikeforce and UFC run was fairly unmemorable, the second time around has already gone better, with Hirota getting a draw against Teruto Ishihara before beating Cole Miller. This is an interesting test of technicality versus physicality - Hirota has fairly solid fundamentals everywhere, as he's able to box at a solid level, but as the Miller fight showed, can take over a fight with wrestling if he needs to. But Volkanovski, again, is a stocky, powerful guy who throws heat on the feet and, as Kasuya found out, seems fairly hard to keep down in grappling exchanges. Still, I favor Hirota here - for as good as Volkanovski looked in his UFC debut, his pre-UFC fights didn't really impress me (though I seem to be in the minority), and I just have a lot of questions about how well his game works. I think there's even odds Hirota can control him on the ground, and even if he can't, Volkanovski just kind of wings things, and I could see Hirota just sort of avoiding the Aussie's big shots and mostly neutralizing him. Part of my hopes I'm wrong - Hirota's not particularly exciting and Australia deserves some interesting talents - but my pick is Hirota by fairly blah decision. Damien Brown (17-9 overall, 2-1 UFC) vs. Vinc Pichel (9-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): A strange little fight here where it's hard to know exactly what's going to happen, since Vinc Pichel is returning from a three-year layoff. A TUF 15 alum, Pichel made his UFC debut back in 2012, which is probably his most memorable UFC fight, though not for reasons Pichel would want - he was matched against fellow newcomer Rustam Khabilov, and Khabilov went full pro wrestling, knocking out Pichel by suplexing him directly onto his head. But the Los Angeles native eventually rebounded from that embarrassment, winning two straight and looking like a solid mid-tier lightweight before basically suffering all of the injuries; for reference, Pichel's last fight was a win over Anthony Njokuani all the way back at UFC 173, the card in May of 2014 that saw T.J. Dillashaw upset Renan Barao to win the bantamweight title. So Pichel finally returns to face Brisbane's Damien Brown, who has pretty much already exceeded expectations by notching two UFC wins. Brown had already gotten his shot outside of Australia when he went over the Cage Warriors in Europe and had no success, so when UFC signed him as a late injury replacement a little over a year ago, he figured to be like a lot of Australian signees - a guy who has just enough wrestling to have a ton of success at home, but really get nothing done once he gets to a UFC level. And, well, that's still sort of true in general for Brown over the long term, but after an unimpressive UFC debut, he was able to knock out (the admittedly frail) Cesar Arzamendia and then pretty much rely on his boxing to steal a narrow decision from Jon Tuck. I don't see Brown really getting much further, but with the right matchmaking, he's the kind of guy who can hang around a while beating the bottom rungs of the UFC roster. Again, I don't know what Pichel is going to look like after such a long layoff, but if he shows up resembling anything like his 2014 form, he should be able to beat Brown - his wrestling looked good in those two wins way back when, and given that Brown's grappling hasn't looked up to snuff in his UFC fights, that alone should be enough for Pichel to win some rounds as he gets back into a groove. So my pick is Pichel by a fairly clear decision, though obviously, given the layoff, that comes with a ton of apprehension. Luke Jumeau (11-3 overall) vs. Dominique Steele (14-8 overall, 1-3 UFC, 0-1 Bellator, 1-0 Strikeforce): Well, UFC has carved out a role for Dominique Steele, and it's the guy that they sent out there for the hometown fighter to try and beat. Two of Steele's UFC fights have seen him face (the lightweight) Dong Hyun Kim in Korea and Court McGee in McGee's native Utah, and after a fight against Australia's Kyle Noke in Melbourne fell through, Steele faces New Zealand's Luke Jumeau here in Auckland. Steele's a fine enough fighter, though his game's sort of weird - he's big for the division and aggressive, and just sort of bulls forward to try and clinch his opponents into the cage, though once he gets there he doesn't really do much with it. That sounds like it'd be boring, but Steele is hittable enough coming in and leaves enough openings when it comes to his control that his opponents are still able to get some offense off, resulting in some weird decisions weighing control against offense, assuming nobody gets finished first. As for Jumeau, I'm beginning to wonder if it's me, in that I seemingly never really like any newcomer coming out of Australia or New Zealand once I watch some tape of them. I was looking forward to watching Jumeau's fights, because he had some hype, and his last two losses have been to Jingliang Li and Jake Matthews, who are both on the UFC roster, but...eh. There is stuff to like - Jumeau has some athleticism, and if nothing else, seems to have some dangerous power, but I watched his last fight, against UFC washout Vik Grujic, and Grujic was more or less using his grappling to dominate the fight before he gassed and was a sitting duck for a Jumeau knockout. It's not impossible Jumeau gets a win here - again, he has knockout power, and some of the more hyped Australia/New Zealand prospects like Alexander Volkanovski have impressed in their UFC debuts - but I just see Steele's size, physicality and aggression working here. Hopefully Jumeau is able to do enough to make it fun, but my pick is Dominique Steele via decision. John Moraga (16-6 overall, 5-5 UFC) vs. Ashkan Mokhtarian (13-1 overall): So, this is pretty much the last chance for flyweight stalwart John Moraga, who's suddenly finding himself aging out of the division. Moraga was one of Demetrious Johnson's first title challengers as the flyweight division shook itself out, and then just sort of kept hanging around somewhere between the top five and top ten of the division, losing to the elite but also winning a lot more than he lost. But after losing a decision in 2015 to Joseph Benavidez, Moraga took about a year off due to injuries and then completely lost his groove, dropping decisions to Matheus Nicolau and Sergio Pettis. Moraga doesn't really look shot, but he's always been dependent on dangerous bursts of offense, and between his athleticism slipping into his thirties and younger fighters coming in with more evolved games, Moraga just hasn't really been able to do John Moraga things. Luckily for him, and I hate to sound like a broken record, Ashkan Mokhtarian is yet another Australian newcomer who doesn't really impress me. There's nothing I can find of Mokhtarian, at least of any value, since 2015, so maybe he's improved a bit, but while he seems to be a decently athletic grappler, he also doesn't really seem all that great or defensively sound. Though, to be fair, based off his record, if you're going to sign any Australian flyweight, Mokhtarian seems fairly obviously to be the guy. Maybe Moraga has lost enough steps that just being a bit faster and a bit more athletic is all Mokhtarian needs to win, and again, I'm looking at old film, but I'll lean towards the known quantity and say Moraga takes a decision, even if the trendline isn't particularly great. Kiichi Kunimoto (18-6-2 [1] overall, 3-1 UFC) vs. Zak Ottow (14-4 overall, 1-1 UFC): Well, Kiichi Kunimoto is a lot less interesting now that he's lost a fight. Kunimoto's a decent enough Japanese vet who UFC signed up in 2014, when the company figured they'd be running a lot more shows in Asia, and then just kind of kept winning fights via weird fashion. His debut sort of set the tone, as he went for a takedown against Luiz Dutra, who just decided to repeatedly elbow Kunimoto in the back of the head until he was unconscious, giving Kunimoto the DQ win. Then Kunimoto faced Daniel Sarafian, a typical middleweight who had an awful weight cut to 170 in a one-time experiment, and was too drained to do anything, and then Kunimoto got a robbert decision win over Rich Walsh. So, heading into 2015, Kunimoto was 3-0 in the UFC and suddenly a going concern at welterweight, even though he had shown pretty much nothing. So UFC then fed him to rising contender Neil Magny, Magny pretty much dominated their fight, and Kunimoto has spent the last two-plus years out of action with injuries. So now Kiichi Kunimoto is pretty much just a guy. Also just a guy is Zak Ottow, a Milwaukee native who got signed as an injury replacement last October. Ottow came into UFC advertised as a BJJ player, but he's mostly gotten by on his striking thus far in his two UFC fights - he won a close fight standing against Joshua Burkman for his debut, and then rightfully tried to keep things standing against top-shelf BJJ practitioner Sergio Moraes. This is...a fight that is definitely going to happen. Both guys can do a little bit of everything, but are more technicians than anything, and not particularly dynamic, so I just sort of expect this to be a close decision. Kunimoto's wrestling may be the best individual skill of either guy, but I like Ottow's size and athleticism to be enough here. I'll take Ottow by split decision, though frankly, the real upset will be if anything that interesting happens. J.J. Aldrich (4-2 overall, 0-1 UFC, 3-1 Invicta) vs. Chan Mi Jeon (5-0 overall): An interesting bout here, if only because they don't come much rawer than South Korean newcomer Chan Mi Jeon. Born in August of 1997, Jeon is the youngest fighter on the UFC roster (beating Japan's Naoki Inoue, who debuts in Singapore next weekend), and has pretty much no real experience. Jeon's last win was over Megumi Yabushita, a then-44 year old who seems to be a pro wrestler more than anything nowadays, and hadn't fought since 2013 or won a fight since 2010, and all her other bouts were against women making their MMA debuts. Watching some of Jeon's fights, you can see the potential, as she's definitely an athlete, but a lot of these bouts are ones where nobody really seems to know what the hell they're doing; one saw the two fighters simultaneously have each other in an inverted triangle, which is kind of emblematic of the all-offense, no-defense style of these women just doing whatever comes to mind. I'm still kind of confident that Jeon will be good one day, but I have no idea if she can improve quickly enough to actually get some wins and stay on the UFC roster. She faces Colorado's J.J. Aldrich, who's a fine enough prospect; at her best, Aldrich is a solid Muay Thai artist who can apply a lot of pressure and throw some solid shots in the clinch, but she's struggled against more powerful opponents who just try to wrestle her - Jamie Moyle and Tatiana Suarez both pretty much ran through her, and UFC was kind of cruel in making her debut against Juliana Lima, who pretty much does nothing but grind out decisions. This is already a pretty important bellweather fight for Jeon; unless UFC is just going to sign people for her to fight, Aldrich is probably one of the better bets as far as someone she can just overwhelm with her sheer physicality. But I'm not willing to pick her purely on potential, so I'll say Aldrich gets the decision victory, though I do hope that Jeon impresses in this fight. Thibault Gouti (11-3 overall, 0-3 UFC) vs. Dong Hyun Kim (14-8-3 overall, 1-2 UFC): If only Thibault Gouti was as good at surviving in fights as he is at surviving on the roster. The Frenchman was a fine enough signing when UFC needed a late replacement on a card in Europe last year, but he got stunned on the feet and then tapped out by Teemu Packalen in just 24 seconds, and while he had his moments against top Canadian prospect Olivier Aubin-Mercier, he was little more than a roadblock before Aubin-Mercier also tapped him out. So Gouti figured to be two and out in the UFC, but then he wound up as a bounce-back opponent for another Canadian fighter, as Chad Laprise knocked him out in about a minute and a half. So, you'd think after three fights and showing little, UFC would cut Gouti, but you'd be wrong; Laprise blew weight for their fight, and rumor was that Gouti would only agree to fight Laprise if he was guaranteed another fight - and I guess those rumors were right, because now Gouti is back against "Maestro" Dong Hyun Kim. This isn't the longtime welterweight contender "Stun Gun" - he fights next week - but rather the action lightweight, best known for his insane brawl at UFC 199 with Polo Reyes that was one of the best fights of the year. Kim's all-offense, no-defense, like a lot of Korean fighters, but the Reyes fight was a bit of an outlier in terms of punches thrown; Kim's a big lightweight, and keeps moving forward, but mostly just tries to get things into the clinch and ugly them up. Really, Gouti's shown me little, and while Kim might be hittable for a technical boxer like Gouti, Kim's also proven to be ridiculously tough, so I'm not really sure Gouti's going to be able to get anywhere. So Kim should be able to control the balance of this fight, and while Gouti might be able to survive, why pick against his streak of getting finished? I'll say Kim gets a stoppage sometime in the third round.

Marco Beltran (lost to Deiveson Figueiredo) vs. Matt Schnell: Marco Beltran’s one-sided loss to Deiveson Figueiredo was sort of a downer - coming off the death of his mother on Thursday, Beltran decided to fight through and didn’t really get much done in his flyweight debut. He’s firmly on the cut line now, and if he gets another fight, Schnell is another flyweight with some talent who could easily be taken off the roster, so that’s a fine fight to make.

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, thank God that main event came through. UFC's Sunday morning offering from Stockholm wasn't a bad card, just...sort of plodding and pointless until hometown hero Alexander Gustafsson came out and had the best performance of his career, putting away Glover Teixeira in the fifth round. Teixeira was ridiculously tough, and given Gustafsson's history of big losses, there was always the possibility the Brazilian could've landed a huge blow, but for the most part, Gustafsson finally put his reach and his speed to optimal use, keeping Teixeira at a distance and just destroying him with combinations, including the barrage of uppercuts that finished the fight. The only downside was that Gustafsson would often back himself up and, when he was against the cage, decide to just turn his back and run away from Teixeira. That won't work whenever he faces someone who can catch him, but if it's this version of Gustafsson, I'm not sure who that guy is. Anyway, Gustafsson proposed to his girlfriend after the fight, so this night went about as well as possible as it could've for the Swede - and while I wouldn't pick him against Jon Jones or Daniel Cormier, Gustafsson looked good enough here that he suddenly finds himself, once again, as the top contender to the light heavyweight title. *The co-main also saw some moving and shaking in the light heavyweight division, as Volkan Oezdemir suddenly stopped all the jokes about him as quickly as he stopped Misha Cirkunov, knocking the top prospect out in just 28 seconds. Oezdemir had a top-five ranking coming into the fight based solely off a win over Ovince St. Preux, a fight where St. Preux looked horrible and probably still deserved to win the decision. So, most people expected Cirkunov to just run through Oezdemir and prove that ranking to be a fraud, but instead Cirkunov ran in for a clinch and got popped right behind the ear, falling to the mat unconscious. So, amazingly, Oezdemir is in the running for the next light heavyweight title shot after Gustafsson, as he's already been matched up against fellow top contender Jimi Manuwa on UFC 214. *If the most impressive performance of the night (well, day) wasn't Alexander Gustafsson, then it definitely belonged to Peter Sobotta, who got a stoppage victory of Ben Saunders after a one-sided round and a half. Sobotta was coming off a career-best performance against Nicolas Dalby, and that looks to be the trend - I thought Saunders's length and athleticism would give Sobotta problems, but Sobotta just showed off a vastly-improved striking game, forced Saunders to chase him, and just obliterated him on the feet. Unfortunately, Sobotta apparently broke his hand pretty badly in the fight, enough so that he apparently needs to have a bone removed from his hip to be put into said hand - really bad timing, given that UFC is running Sobotta's native Poland in October, and this would likely take him out of what one would presume was going to be a pretty prominent fight. *Not a ton else to report, as not much went vastly different than expected. Ghana's Abdul Razak Alhassan got exposed badly as a prospect in a weird fight against Omari Akhmedov - to date, Alhassan has just thrown bombs and knocked out his opponents as soon as possible, but this fight saw him pace himself for the first time in his career. And there's still a lot to like - Alhassan hits like a truck, and probably would've still knocked out most opponents, and while Alhassan didn't really gas, Akhmedov also exposed his complete lack of takedown defense. If Alhassan develops a well-rounded game, he'll be an amazing fighter, but I don't know if he can rack up enough wins to stay on the UFC roster in the meantime. Jack Hermansson ran through Alex Nicholson in just two minutes, fighting against his usual type as a distance striker and just taking down Nicholson and beating the piss out of him in an impressive performance. And the biggest result on the undercard was probably Damir Hadzovic's stunning upset of former Bellator title contender Marcin Held. Held was dominating the fight with his elite-level grappling game, but rolled in for a kneebar to start the third round and just ate a knee upside the head that rendered him immediately unconscious. That's now 0-3 in the UFC for Held, one of the more stunning busts of a hyped signing in a while, although if it wasn't for this fluky knee, or for him losing one of the worst decisions of the year against Joe Lauzon in January, we wouldn't be talking about any of this. One would think Held would be cut, but given his talent and that UFC is running Poland in October, the door might not be closed just yet. *Some other stuff happened. Debuting prospect Oliver Enkamp was game, but in over his head against Nordine Taleb, as Taleb's experience just won out over Enkamp's athleticism and willingness to throw whatever came to mind. Bantamweight prospect Pedro Munhoz beat Damian Stasiak, but showed off a lot of his weaknesses in the process - Munhoz struggled a bit with an evasive striker like Stasiak, and while Munhoz got things to the ground here and there, his signature submission game didn't look all that effective. Trevor Smith beat Chris Camozzi using wrestling in a horrible fight. Joaquim Silva rebounded from a rough first round to piece up Reza Madadi on the feet and earn a narrow decision - Madadi, a Swedish favorite, is now uncommitted about this being his retirement fight, as was expected. Sweden's Nico Musoke came back from a two-plus year injury layoff and had a fine, if kind of boring fight against Bojan Velickovic, until Velickovic stunned Musoke in the last minute and caused him to dance a bit before putting him away for the finish. And England's Darren Till continues to be a fun and interesting prospect after a win over Jessin Ayari - I love Till's upside, but him missing weight by six pounds here was fairly concerning. *Well, UFC from Stockholm wasn't the biggest MMA event in Europe over the weekend, and only by...about 45,000 people. KSW, the top promotion in Poland, drew 58,000 into a soccer stadium in Warsaw, which marks the second-biggest MMA crowd of all time. And yes, that's bigger than any UFC event ever - the record is 71,000, held by a PRIDE/K-1 co-promoted show in 2002 that was headlined by Mirko Cro Cop and Kazushi Sakuraba, and the UFC record is "only" 56,214 for the Rousey/Holm card in Australia. MMA in Poland's an interesting one - while UFC has historically focused on more potentially profitable countries like Sweden and Germany, it's Poland that has one of the biggest appetites for MMA, and we've seen that with a few decent fighters making their way into the UFC. But in Poland, thanks to the strength of local promotions like KSW, it's the Polish promotions that are really seen as the bigger deal, while global brands like UFC are fairly secondary. This may change if UFC gets a Polish male star that breaks through, and there's some noise in these numbers, but reports are that Joanna Jedrzejczyk's fights are only watched live by a few hundred people in Poland, and she's one of the most dominant fighters in the world. Just an interesting backdrop, particularly since UFC runs their second card in Poland this October. *So, women's featherweight continues to be a complete disaster. Champion Germaine de Randamie has now outright said that she refuses to fight Cris Cyborg, due to Cyborg's repeated drug test failures, and that she still might need hand surgery anyway. I mean, in a way she's not wrong, but you also could've told us this all a lot sooner. Anyway, de Randamie has said she's now focusing on a return to 135 and expects to be stripped of the belt, so...once again, what exactly are we accomplishing here? Apparently UFC may try again, as Cris Cyborg is apparently fighting...someone on UFC 214, though it apparently won't be Invicta champ Megan Anderson, who has already been announced for a future Invicta card. Word is that Cyborg's opponent will probably be Cat Zingano, which...please make that for an interim women's featherweight belt. I demand an interim belt in a division with only two fighters. *A few other things, but nothing that deserves an entire paragraph, so here's a rundown. Roy Nelson's loss to Alexander Volkov was apparently the last on his UFC contract, as "Big Country" has finished his contentious run with the company and signed with Bellator, which is an interesting get. Georges St. Pierre disclosed that an eye injury is what's keeping him from fighting Michael Bisping until later this year, as he apparently won't be cleared to train until September. Cortney Casey's big win over Jessica Aguilar at UFC 211 has been overturned, because Texas - Casey apparently had a slightly elevated T/E ratio, which may just be random noise, as she passed all her USADA drug testing, but that alone is enough to get a win overturned in Texas. UFC has gone outside the box, surprisingly signing Dutch kickboxing legend Gokhan Saki, despite Saki only having a 0-1 record in MMA. And Ronda Rousey will apparently be a coach on a revival of ABC's "Battle of the Network Stars" - hopefully she comes off better on that show than she did on TUF. ------ BOOKINGS: *So, UFC 214 is filling out nicely, as it's gotten the biggest fights announced over the last week. As mentioned above, Cris Cyborg is fighting....someone, and top light heavyweight contenders Jimi Manuwa and Volkan Oezdemir are squaring off. Plus top featherweight prospects Brian Ortega and Renato Moicano square off in a pretty great fight - Ortega looked excellent before being out with major shoulder surgery, and Moicano is coming off a win against Jeremy Stephens - and Sara McMann returns to take on Ketlen Vieira. McMann and Raquel Pennington seemed like a natural #1 contender's fight to me, but UFC has instead chosen to fast-track Vieira - this is probably too much, too soon, but as far as prospects go, Vieira might at least be strong enough to shut down McMann's wrestling and make things interesting. *UFC filled out some of their July cards. Somewhat surprisingly, UFC 213 isn't looked all that deep from a starpower perspective, as the biggest name added to the undercard is probably...Alan Jouban? And even then, UFC doesn't seem to know what to do with him - whenever he comes off a win, Jouban is featured fairly prominently, as he's coming off a co-main event against Gunnar Nelson, but when he comes off a loss, like he is here, UFC goes down the roster and just pulls out a guy for him to destroy. So in this case, Jouban is set up to destroy Brian Camozzi, who's coming off a debut loss to Randy Brown - I wonder if this is some weird deal where UFC is trying to get back at his brother for not learning takedown defense. Anyway, also slated for UFC 213, Jordan Mein, a former top prospect who, at this point, looks like he wants to be anywhere else but fighting, is facing the underrated Belal Muhammad, and Rob Font and Douglas Silva de Andrade face off in a pretty fun bout between bantamweight bangers. And Long Island got a few more fights to a card that, well, looks interesting but not exciting, if that makes sense. Case in point, Alex "Cowboy" Oliveira, an interesting prospect, will be facing Ryan LaFlare on this card - LaFlare's a fine test, but, just...eh. There are way more interesting options for Oliveira. Also on Long Island, Rafael Natal faces Italian prospect Alessio Di Chirico in what looks like a case of UFC trying to get Natal a win, and local welterweight Lyman Good returns from a two-year layoff to face Brazilian striker Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos. Also, a fight between Corey Anderson and Tyson Pedro, which seemed interesting, is now off the card, as reports of it happening were a bit premature. *August and beyond are getting some stuff. The only card for August officially announced so far, the Moreno/Pettis card out of Mexico City, added three interesting fights. Flyweights Dustin Ortiz and Hector Sandoval square off in a veteran-versus-prospect fight, and TUF: Latin America 3 winner Martin Bravo gets his first post-TUF fight, dropping to featherweight to face Chris Gruetzemacher. Also, TUF: Latin America season one alums square off at bantamweight, as Mexico's Jose Quinonez faces Chile's Diego Rivas. Rivas is an interesting story - he knocked out top prospect Noad Lahat with a flying knee in a huge upset back in February of 2016, and then pretty much vanished. Well, as it turns out, Rivas actually had cancer, but he's apparently all clear now, even though in the process of treatment, he lost so much weight that he's now at bantamweight instead of featherweight. The Fight Pass card from Rotterdam has its main event, as the Netherlands' own Stefan Struve will take on Russia's Alexander Volkov in a battle of heavyweight giants. The locals are apparently not happy with this main, as they expected Gegard Mousasi against Luke Rockhold to top this card - but with Mousasi still negotiating a new contract and Rockhold a bit unhappy with the company at the moment, that just didn't get done. And UFC 216 in Edmonton has its first fight before UFC 215 has even been announced, as Halifax's Gavin Tucker, who looked excellent in his UFC debut this February, returns to take on Rick Glenn at featherweight. *And some other minor stuff here and there. Next week's card in Auckland has an undercard change, as Australian strawweight Nadia Kassem has pulled out of her UFC debut, so instead J.J. Aldrich will face Korea's Chan Mi Jeon, who becomes the youngest fighter on the UFC roster, as she was born in August of 1997. Eek. Singapore the week after has also seen an undercard change, as per Jingliang Li, his opponent, Jonathan Meunier, is out, so Li will instead face the debuting Frank Camacho, who becomes, best I can tell, the first UFC fighter out of the Northern Mariana Islands. Singapore also adds a bout between Lucie Pudilova and Ji Yeon Kim at bantamweight - UFC actually apparently initially targeted Kim to take on Holly Holm at this event, just to get Holm a win, before Holm's management demanded a bigger name, which turned out to be Bethe Correia. Lina Lansberg takes on Leslie Smith at bantamweight in Glasgow, in what should be a fun fight. And UFC is reportedly planning their first South American event outside of Brazil for sometime later this year, with Buenos Aires or Santiago being the two cities I've heard thrown out there. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Roy Nelson (22-14 overall, 9-10 UFC, last fought 4/15/17, L vs. Alexander Volkov): And so ends the weird ballad of "Big Country", as the veteran heavyweight is off to Bellator. Nelson was regarded as one of the better heavyweights outside of UFC about a decade ago, but there were questions if the promotion would ever sign him thanks to his fat, slovenly appearance. So when Nelson was brought on for an all-heavyweight season 10 of TUF, he was regarded as the ringer of the group, though, amusingly, coaches Quinton Jackson and Rashad Evans didn't really seem aware of Nelson's rep and just didn't take him seriously. But Nelson won the season rather easily - and in the process, had a win over Kimbo Slice that is still one of the most-viewed fights on television of all-time - and from there, it was off to the races. A bit strangely, as soon as he got into UFC proper, Nelson completely abandoned his grappling game - which was always sort of his secret weapon, as nobody expected this super-fat dude to actually be a pretty great submission grappler - in favor of hunting for spectacular knockouts, and it actually kind of worked; while Nelson fell short against top contenders at the time, like Junior dos Santos, Frank Mir and Fabricio Werdum (wow, heavyweight hasn't changed all that much), Nelson's highlight reel of KOs and ability to take abuse made him one of the biggest fan favorites in the promotion. At some point in here, Nelson started to feud with UFC brass - namely Dana White, who didn't really take Nelson seriously and would chastise Nelson for not keeping himself in shape and being too much of a cartoon character. This all culminated with season 16 of TUF, which saw Nelson and Shane Carwin act as coached in a complete disaster of a season - the fights were awful, Carwin had absolutely no personality, and the whole season seemed to exist solely to bury Nelson for not being as smart as he thinks he is. And, well, with time, they weren't exactly wrong - while initially it seemed like Nelson was a deceptively smart and clever guy, as time has gone on he's sort of exposed himself as a dumb guy thinking he's a smart guy pretending to be a dumb guy. But anyway, TUF 16 ended, Nelson knocked out Matt Mitrione after Carwin had to retire due to injuries, and with another knockout win over Cheick Kongo, Nelson suddenly found himself as a top contender for the heavyweight title. And then he pretty much risked it all. UFC 161 was one of the first high-profile instances of someone fighting out their UFC contract - Nelson was taking on Stipe Miocic, and if Nelson won, he was probably getting a title shot and a huge new contract, and if he lost, he was losing all his leverage. And as it turns out, it was really bad timing for years of Nelson not taking care of himself to catch up to him, as he was suddenly too slow to get a big knockout, and lost a one-sided decision. And that was pretty much the end of Nelson being pretty good - he got wins over decrepit versions of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Antonio Silva, plus a scared Jared Rosholt, but the Miocic loss started a run where Nelson lost seven of ten fights and just started circling the drain. In his last few fights, Nelson even started relying on his wrestling again, and even had some success getting opponents to the mat, but at this point, he's just too slow and unathletic to do anything but hold his opponent there, so that hasn't really accomplished anything. So, yeah, it's been a bit of a depressing end to Nelson's UFC career - though, hey, the state of the Bellator heavyweight division is such that Nelson may yet be able to make an impact there. Plus we can get that Cheick Kongo rematch. 2) Roan Carneiro (21-11 overall, 4-5 UFC, last fought 2/11/17, L vs. Ryan LaFlare): Roan Carneiro is out of the UFC once again, as the two sides apparently couldn't agree on terms for a new contract. At least this run went better than the first one - Carneiro came into UFC about a decade ago as a highly-touted grappler, but didn't really accomplish much, even getting tapped out by Kevin Burns, both an embarrassing result and one of the biggest upsets of 2008. After getting cut following another loss, Carneiro fought rather sparingly - I'm not really sure when Carneiro became a grappling coach at American Top Team, but that surely took attention away from his fight career - but got back on the MMA radar in 2014, thanks to BattleGrounds MMA. BattleGrounds MMA actually ran a pay-per-view, commentated by wrestling legend Jim Ross and legend in his own mind Chael Sonnen, built around an eight-man tournament for a fifty grand cash prize. Anyway, Carneiro won the tournament - and apparently bankrupted BattleGrounds MMA in the process, as the promotion hasn't run another event - and when a spot opened opposite Mark Munoz on a card the following February, Carneiro got the call, and somewhat shockingly managed to choke Munoz out in just a shade under two minutes. And, well, that was the highlight of Carneiro's second UFC run - after another long layoff, Derek Brunson obliterated him, and then Carneiro went 1-1 in two fairly unmemorable fights. I can see why the two sides couldn't agree on money - Carneiro could be a valuable gatekeeper, but his fights can be fairly dull, so I understand why UFC wouldn't try too hard to keep him around. 3) Sam Sicilia (14-8 overall, 5-7 UFC, last fought 2/19/17, L vs. Gavin Tucker): Speaking of gatekeepers. Sam Sicilia made his name on TUF 15 alongside friend and training partner Michael Chiesa, and while Chiesa won the season and became a lightweight contender, Sicilia started carving out a niche as a featherweight striker. And, well, save a weird fight with Yaotzin Meza in 2015, where Sicilia decided to suddenly grapple his way to victory, Sicilia pretty much looked like a striker out of a camp best known for developing submission artists, as Sicilia never really evolved or was able to adjust within fights. Every once in a while he'd get a knockout over a Godofredo Pepey or an Akira Corassani to stick around, but for the most part he was used to either have a fun mid-card action fight or test an up-and-coming prospect. And at this point, we were hitting the point of diminishing returns, even with that role, as Doo Ho Choi obliterated him, and Sicilia didn't really show much against Gabriel Benitez or Gavin Tucker. So, this was probably the right call, and frankly Sicilia did well to even have this long of a UFC run for someone so one-dimensional. 4) Michinori Tanaka (11-3 overall, 2-3 UFC, last fought 2/4/17, L vs. Ricardo Ramos): A fairly disappointing cut here, since Tanaka has enough talent to stick on the roster, and a bit strange given that UFC is running Japan in September while rapidly running out of Japanese fighters. Japanese MMA has been in a weird spot for a while now, falling behind a bit due to outdated training methods, but a wave of Japanese prospects a few years back was supposed to come in and change all that, headed by Kyoji Horiguchi (who's since succeeded enough he got paid huge money to return to Japan), Ulka Sasaki, and Michinori Tanaka. And while Tanaka impressed greatly in his UFC debut against Roland Delorme, that momentum halted almost immediately, as Tanaka then lost to Kyung Ho Kang in a fight that showed just how physically outmatched Tanaka was as a bantamweight. Plus, to add insult to injury, Tanaka also failed a drug test and was suspended for nine months because of an over-the-counter allergy medication. Tanaka returned in 2016 with a narrow win over Joe Soto that impressed, but Tanaka got a tough draw against veteran grappler Rani Yahya, and then followed that up with a close loss to top Brazilian prospect Ricardo Ramos. Tanaka looked game in both losing efforts, so, again, I'm a bit surprised he's gone - though he can probably get more money fighting back in Japan, and that might also be at play here. 5) Mike De La Torre (14-7 [1] overall, 2-4 [1] UFC, last fought 4/8/17, L vs. Myles Jury): Not a ton to say about the other "El Cucuy", except that his all-offense approach resulted in the occasional fun decision - like his debut loss to Mark Bocek or win against Yui Chul Nam, but often saw De La Torre get obliterated within the first round. And after Godofredo Pepey and Myles Jury each took care of De La Torre in under four minutes, UFC cut bait. 6) Rich Walsh (9-5 overall, 2-4 UFC, last fought 11/26/16, L vs. Jonathan Meunier): "Filthy Rich" Walsh was the standout of the Australian half of the cast on TUF: Nations, but that wasn't saying much, as the Canadian team pretty much rolled to victory. But while some guys like Jake Matthews and Dan Kelly eventually evolved, Walsh just kind of didn't - he could be a solid action fighter, but his decent mix of skills just didn't really seem to be a match for anyone with a gameplan, as Walsh just kind of didn't really adjust and...did stuff. And frankly, while Walsh did try to evolve a bit as a fighter, it just sort of made his fights more boring - I'm a bit surprised Walsh didn't get a last chance on, say, next week's card in Auckland, but sometimes fighters you have hopes for just don't pan out. 7) Viscardi Andrade (18-6 [1] overall, 2-1 [1] UFC, last fought 3/19/16, NC vs. Rich Walsh): Andrade had a decent amount of success for someone who really left no impression. An alum of TUF: Brazil 2, Andrade got a quick win over Bristol Marunde in his UFC debut, then got a prominent main card spot where he spit the bit and lost a clear decision to Nico Musoke. After that, Andrade broke his leg in a training accident, then upon recovery, got two fairly unmemorable undercard wins over Gasan Umalatov and Rich Walsh to stay afloat. But after the Walsh fight, Andrade's drug test got flagged, and after a drawn-out appeals process, Andrade got served with a two-year suspension by USADA. I'm assuming that's why Andrade got cut or let go or whatever - UFC's contracts are typically four fights, and if a guy can't fight for two years, there's no point in keeping him around, particularly for someone as, frankly, unmemorable as Andrade. 8) Guangyou Ning (5-4-1 overall, 2-2 UFC, last fought 11/26/16, L vs. Marlon Vera): And this marks the last of the TUF: China cast members to get cut, and frankly, it's a bit of a surprise it took three years. UFC went gung-ho into China in 2014 without realizing they'd go nowhere without government backing, and part of that was TUF: China, a season full of horrible fights and unintentional comedy whose featherweight bracket was won by Ning, who at 32, wasn't even much of a prospect. To his credit, Ning actually did improve greatly - his early UFC fights just saw him circle at a ridiculous range while trying to dive in for a knockout, and he started to develop a bit of a functional MMA game, but it's not like it ever developed into anything at a UFC level. UFC does seem to be thinking about China once again after signing Guan Wang to feature prominently on the upcoming Singapore card, so I'm a tad bit surprised they cut Ning, but he's also not going to be that potential star anyway, so it's understandable. 9) Reginaldo Vieira (13-5 overall, 1-2 UFC, last fought 2/19/17, L vs. Aiemann Zahabi): Well, TUF: Brazil 4 was officially a washout. While the lightweight bracket was won by an actual prospect, Glaico Franca, who was a surprising cut a few months back after being rushed into some tough fights, the bantamweight bracket was won by Reginaldo Vieira. Vieira was more low-upside regional vet than prospect, and to add insult to injury, the decision he got was fairly undeserved and over Dileno Lopes, an actual top bantamweight talent. Vieira immediately lived down to expectations, getting tapped by Marco Beltran, but he actually had a fairly impressive performance against Canadian prospect Aiemann Zahabi that suggested Vieira could be a solid gatekeeper against debuting talent. Vieira actually could've won that decision against Zahabi, but the judges went the other way, and so the Brazilian's UFC career is over. 10) Garreth McLellan (13-6 overall, 1-4 UFC, last fought 3/11/17, L vs. Paulo Borrachinha): Garreth McLellan pretty much followed in the mold of the other South African fighters UFC has signed over the years, washing out fairly quickly. Similar to Australia, but at a lower level, South Africa is a circuit that doesn't have many wrestlers, so any amount of wrestling talent can get you a ton of success there, and that's what happened with McLellan. But, well, pretty much everyone in UFC can wrestle, so once these guys get signed, their entire game more or less falls apart without that wrestling to fall back on. McLellan did earn a come-from-behind win over Bubba Bush, but past that McLellan didn't have much success outside of showing that he can take a lot of damage - and, well, when that's your takeaway, things aren't going well. 11) Alessandro Ricci (10-5 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 2/19/17, L vs. Paul Felder): Alessandro Ricci was a solid enough vet, but a bit of a surprising signing last year, as the Ontario native was part of UFC's apparent decision to sign any Canadian talent possible for a show in Vancouver last August. Ricci didn't show much in a loss to Jeremy Kennedy, but figured to have a better time of things against Mexico's Alvaro Herrera, who also hadn't really shown much, for his next fight. But then Herrera got hurt, and UFC instead decided to put Ricci against Paul Felder, who's, you know, actually really good. Ricci did show some decent striking in a fight that was fun while it lasted, but then Felder used his elbow to break Ricci's nose, and things ended about as poorly as possible for Ricci. 12) Daniel Jolly (5-2 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 2/4/17, L vs. Khalil Rountree): We never really got to see what Daniel Jolly had to offer at a UFC level, which, well, I guess wasn't much. Jolly was signed as a late-notice replacement for top prospect Misha Cirkunov to debut against, and Cirkunov, rather unsurprisingly, handled him rather easily. After a long layoff, Jolly got the call to face Khalil Rountree, and had the right idea by trying to take Rountree down, but in going for the takedown, Rountree uncorked a knee that put Jolly out in under a minute, and so ends Jolly's UFC career. 13) Alex Enlund (14-2 overall): Enlund's a rare cut who never got the chance to fight in UFC, as the top British featherweight was signed for a fight on the Hamburg card this past September, but was pulled from the bout for undisclosed reason that, well, have now been disclosed. According to Enlund, his pre-fight medicals got flagged because of a possible tumor on his brain stem, and a follow-up appointment a few months later showed no additional growth, but still suggested that Enlund probably shouldn't fight again. Enlund was then referred to a neurologist, who pretty much cleared Enlund to fight, as the lesion didn't really appear to be a major deal and was likely something that had been there since birth. But, at some point during all this, UFC terminated Enlund's contract, so he's no longer with the company. Enlund has a few more scans left to go, which seem to be precautionary, and while it's unclear at this point if he plans to continue fighting, judging from the statement he put out, he seems to be in a pretty good place. So, good on him. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 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, Andrei Arlovski vs. Marcin Tybura, 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, Dennis Bermudez vs. Darren Elkins, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Jimi Manuwa vs. Volkan Oezdemir, Chan Sung Jung vs. Ricardo Lamas 8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis 9/2 - UFC Fight Night 115 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Stefan Struve vs. Alexander Volkov 9/9 - UFC 216 - Edmonton, AB - Rick Glenn vs. Gavin Tucker ----- UFC 212 - June 3, 2017 - Jeunesse Arena - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Well, while this should be a pretty fun show, it's definitely on the B-level in terms of pay-per-views, as it's pretty much a two-fight card. Not for lack of trying, though - this was rumored to be the initial landing for the Amanda Nunes/Valentina Shevchenko rematch that, as it turns out, will headline UFC 213, and there's been the well-documented process of Kelvin Gastelum being pulled from his fight with Anderson Silva because of a weed test, only for Silva to turn down potential fights with Luke Rockhold, Vitor Belfort, Ovince St. Preux, and some other names that I'm sure I'm forgetting. But as is, this sort of reminds me of the inverse of the last card UFC ran, the Belfort/Gastelum show from Fortaleza this past March - whereas that was a shockingly deep card for a FS1 show that just needed a more compelling main event, this one features one of the best title fights UFC can put on at the moment, a solid contender's bout at strawweight, and then...a whole bunch of nothing, except Belfort's retirement fight...maybe? I mean, I like Oluwale Bamgbose, but jeez. I mean, that main event is worth your money alone, given that it's an all-time great against a shockingly complete contender coming off an amazing win streak, but, well, that main event alone is really all that's worth your money. MAIN CARD (Pay-Per-View - 10:00 PM ET): Featherweight Championship: (C) Jose Aldo vs. (IC) Max Holloway Women's Strawweight: (#1) Claudia Gadelha vs. (#2) Karolina Kowalkiewicz Middleweight: (#11) Vitor Belfort vs. Nate Marquardt Middleweight: Oluwale Bamgbose vs. Paulo Borrachinha Welterweight: Yancy Medeiros vs. Erick Silva PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Bantamweight: (#3) Raphael Assuncao vs. Marlon Moraes Middleweight: Antonio Carlos Junior vs. Eric Spicely Bantamweight: (#10) Johnny Eduardo vs. Matthew Lopez Bantamweight: (#13) Iuri Alcantara vs. Brian Kelleher PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:30 PM ET): Women's Strawweight: Jamie Moyle vs. Viviane Pereira Welterweight: Luan Chagas vs. Jim Wallhead Flyweight: Deiveson Alcantara vs. Marco Beltran THE RUNDOWN: Jose Aldo (26-2 overall, 8-1 UFC, 8-0 WEC) vs. Max Holloway (17-3 overall, 13-3 UFC): I think Conor McGregor knocking Jose Aldo out in just thirteen seconds might be the most stunning moment I've ever seen as a fight fan. Not because McGregor backed up his considerable trash talk, not because it was the fastest finish in UFC title fight history, but mostly because Aldo had looked so damn invincible up to that point. I don't even know where to start with Aldo - probably his eight-second knockout of Cub Swanson in 2009 that earned him a WEC title shot, and the subsequent victories over Mike Brown and Urijah Faber that cemented him as the best featherweight in the world. And from there, Aldo never really got tested - a title defense against Mark Hominick, Aldo's first UFC fight, was closer than it needed to be thanks to a brutal weight cut, and past that, most of Aldo's fights were one-sided, but never really blowouts mostly because of Aldo's own choice. Aldo's regarded as one of the best defensive fighters of all-time, and after shutting down opponents for a round or two, Aldo rarely saw fit to do anything but coast, and just continue pitching a shutout - in fact, of all his UFC title defenses, only the first Chad Mendes fight was a clean finish, as I don't really count the Chan Sung Jung fight, where Aldo swarmed Jung after Jung dislocated his shoulder. So Aldo just reigned over featherweight, undefeated for over a decade, in the conversation with Jon Jones and Demetrious Johnson as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. And then came McGregor. Most hoped that McGregor's personality and trash talk would bring out the star in Aldo, similar to what Chael Sonnen did for Anderson Silva - taking an immensely talented, non-English speaking champion who was among the pound-for-pound greats, and provide enough of a foil to get people to care about both guys. And, well, McGregor did that, but when the time came for the fight at UFC 194, instead of an all-time great war to continue the rivalry, we just got one of the most stunning results in UFC history, solely for how it played out. Aldo didn't return for a few months, and come UFC 200, there were a ton of questions about how Aldo would rebound from one of the most crushing losses in the hospital of the sport - and, well, Aldo may have looked better than ever, as he pretty much dictated things against Frankie Edgar, who looked like a complete wrecking ball both before and after that fight. Aldo just shucked off all of Edgar's takedowns, and from there just essentially played matador, as after about a round to warm up, Aldo was just evading Edgar's strikes and using angles perfectly to counter. The win earned Aldo an interim title and a shot at McGregor, but, about that - it doesn't look like the Irishman is coming back down to featherweight anytime soon. And in fact, thanks to a whole mess involving fights falling through and UFC needing a belt to draw on pay-per-view, Aldo has since been promoted to outright champ, and your new interim champ is Hawaii's Max Holloway. It's rare to see things click for a prospect as beautifully as they have for Holloway - originally a lanky twenty-year old reliant on big strikes, sort of like a starter kit version of Anthony Pettis, Holloway showed a bunch of potential, but it looked like UFC was losing the plot a bit in 2013 when it came to bringing him along. First, Holloway got thrown against fellow rising prospect Dennis Bermudez and lost a narrow decision, and then put Holloway against McGregor in McGregor's big stateside debut, a weird fight where McGregor tore his ACL early on and then surprisingly dominated using wrestling. Then it was time for the young Hawaiian to rehab his career, and, well, did he ever. Holloway went 4-0 in 2014, finishing four lower-level foes, and then broke out with an April 2015 win over Cub Swanson, a fight that looked fairly even coming in but turned into Holloway outboxing the savvy vet with some beautiful footwork and combinations before jumping on a guillotine for the win. From there, it was basically just a case of keeping Holloway busy while the featherweight title picture sorted out, and wondering when Holloway got his shot - Charles Oliveira, Jeremy Stephens, Ricardo Lamas, Anthony Pettis, all potential contenders to make a move at featherweight, and none of them had any answer for Holloway. So now Holloway's interim champ, he's riding a ten-fight win streak, he's an absolute machine, and, somehow, he's only 25 years old, as he was one of the youngest fighters on the UFC roster when he was signed. So, yeah, this is one of the best fights UFC can make in any division, pitting an all-time great against a contender who's firing on all cylinders, and as far as how it's going to go, I just want to throw up my arms and just tell everyone to enjoy it. Both guys are going to look to keep it standing - while Aldo has a grappling background, we almost never see it, and while Holloway has some submission skills of his own, he's relied more and more on his kickboxing, only going for the choke when he's knocked down a stunned opponent. And from there, I'm not really sure how things are going to interact - Aldo will have his signature vicious leg kicks, even if he has seemed to get away from them a bit, and I'm not really sure how Aldo's defense and elusiveness will be able to fare against the length and skilled combination striking of Holloway. Edgar was able to hit Aldo a bit in the early parts of their fight, and Edgar isn't nearly as fleet or venomous on the feet as Holloway, so that may favor Holloway, but at the same time, Aldo did adjust, and McGregor fight aside, Aldo's in the same sort of territory as Demetrious Johnson and other all-time strategic greats, where you pretty much always have to count on their ability to adapt and find a path to victory - particularly if Aldo's form from the Edgar fight holds and his loss to McGregor has sort of lit a fire under the champ and allowed him to refocus. I feel like kind of a fool for doing this, but even with all the praise I've heaped on Aldo, I'm picking Holloway, since his game is just clicking at a ridiculously high level, and I have faith in him to be able to chase down Aldo, and essentially just keep throwing combinations at such a pace that some of it will break through Aldo's defenses and allow him to win rounds. Though honestly, my real prediction is an all-time classic and a fight we'll want to see again - just enjoy it. Claudia Gadelha (14-2 overall, 3-2 UFC, 1-0 Invicta) vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz (10-1 overall, 3-1 UFC, 1-0 Invicta): A really interesting fight here, even though I'm not really sure where it leads in the short term - Claudia Gadelha and Karolina Kowalkiewicz, particularly Gadelha, have given Joanna Jedrzejczyk her two toughest title defenses as champion, but losses are still losses, and UFC has been loathe to do title rematches recently. But in a division rapidly lacking challengers, either woman could easily be back in title contention sooner than expected, and again, it's an interesting fight on top of that. Jedrzejczyk and Gadelha have pretty easily had the best feud in women's strawweight history thus far - their first fight in 2014 was a nip-tuck affair that consensus said Gadelha won, but Jedrzejczyk got the narrow decision and then proceeded to obliterate Carla Esparza, win the strawweight title, and lord over the division. From there, the two wound up coaching season 23 of TUF, which was one of the better seasons in a while as far as a good, old-fashioned blood feud, as the two obviously have grown to hate each other. Then their rematch was one of the best fights of 2016, an epic battle that saw Gadelha surprisingly take advantage early using her grappling and takedowns, only to gas out and drop the latter stages of the fight, as well as a clear decision. But the rivalry isn't over, at least where Gadelha's concerned - a lot of people gave her flack for not understanding that a lot of Jedrzejczyk's trash talk was just to sell the fight, but, well, you can't exactly expect to tell a Brazilian woman to "go back to the jungle" and then have everything be cool. So Gadelha still has unfinished business, and hopefully their second fight was good enough that UFC doesn't balk from a trilogy fight, like Demetrious Johnson and Joseph Benavidez - but before all that, Gadelha has to get past Jedrzejczyk's countrywoman, Karolina Kowalkiewicz. The parallels between Jedrzejczyk and Kowalkiewicz are kind of funny - they're both from Poland, they both came up through Muay Thai, hell, the two even faced off in Kowalkiewicz's lone amateur fight, but when Kowalkiewicz made her UFC debut in December of 2015, expectations were that she'd be a fun roster addition rather than a future contender, thanks to her relative lack of athleticism. But Kowalkiewicz wound up establishing herself as a title challenger within a year - after two decent wins, she was the obvious b-side in a #1 contender's fight against Rose Namajunas, but wound up using her clinch-work to take a fairly clear decision and earn a title shot at Jedrzejczyk in Madison Square Garden. That fight wound up being a mixed bag - it was a dominant Jedrzejczyk performance for most of it, but Kowalkiewicz did manage to nail the champ as hard as anyone has, rocking her in the fourth round, even if Kowalkiewicz's complete lack of finishing power meant she couldn't end the fight. At its core, this seems like a fairly basic striker-versus-grappler fight - while Kowalkiewicz may not be that intimidating, she's technically proficient and ridiculously tough, and she fights like someone who knows she can't be hurt. So as much as Gadelha's striking has improved over the time, unless there's been another giant jump (entirely possible, since Gadelha sort of went off and formed her own camp before her last fight), Kowalkiewicz should be able to handle things on the feet, so Gadelha should be looking to use her strength and physicality and take things to the floor. The good news is that Gadelha might be the most powerful grappler in the division, but the bad news is that Kowalkiewicz has been surprisingly effective in the clinch thus far. Hell, that's what won her the Namajunas fight - whenever Namajunas moved inside and into the clinch, Kowalkiewicz just ate her alive with her Muay Thai skills, destroying her with knees and basically being surprisingly strong, which combined with her ability to take a punch makes Kowalkiewicz one of the more unassuming, yet indestructible fighters on the roster. So it really comes down to who gets the best of things in the clinch, which should dictate where the fight takes place - again, Kowalkiewicz has been sneakily great with her ability to just stay standing and make opponents who, on paper, should be more powerful pay for trying to take her down, but Gadelha might be the best in the division at doing what so many have failed to do. This could go either way, but I'll actually go with the minor upset and say Kowalkiewicz is able to keep things standing, make Gadelha pay in the clinch, and win a narrow decision, even though Gadelha will surely have her moments. Vitor Belfort (25-13 [1] overall, 14-9 [1] UFC, 5-3 PRIDE, 0-1 Strikeforce) vs. Nate Marquardt (35-17-2 overall, 13-10 UFC, 1-1 Strikeforce): Well, Anderson Silva's not on the card anymore, but at least the Brazilian faithful will get the retirement fight of Vitor Belfort...maybe? Since his loss (well, no contest) to Kelvin Gastelum, Belfort angled for his retirement fight on this card, but in the last few weeks, Belfort has since suggested that this'll only be his last UFC fight, and he has many tests left for him in the future, most of which he named are fellow aging name fighters that all happen to be in Bellator. Hint, hint. Post-TRT Belfort's been a weird one, as he's looked good in spots and still seems technically sound, but his signature aggression has pretty much left him, and he's mostly been offered up as a sacrifical lamb for guys like Gastelum, Gegard Mousasi, and Jacare Souza. At least thankfully this time he gets a step down in competition against Nate Marquardt, who at 38 years old and almost two decades into his career himself, might be close to his own retirement fight. Marquardt looked absolutely shot for the vast stretches of his UFC return, going 1-4, but he's actually been fairly solid lately, scoring knockout wins over C.B. Dollaway and Tamdan McCrory in two of his last four fights. Admittedly, he's still at a disadvantage against younger athletes, and he's pretty much reduced to being an opportunist if his opponent offers up the chance for a knockout blow, but that's still viable enough and way better than he previously looked. I have no idea how to read this one, since it's kind of hard to peg Belfort - he hasn't had much success lately, but it's hard to tell how much of that is his reduced skillset and how much of that is being thrown in there with what might be three of the best five or six middleweights in the world at the moment. Either guy could knock the other out at any moment - half because each guy has always had power, and half because each guy is old enough that they could crumble fairly easily - but I kind of fear the worst for this bout, that Belfort isn't able to pull the trigger enough anymore to get a quick finish, but won't offer up enough opportunities for Marquardt to take advantage and do anything. But I still sort of trust Belfort to do more, so, amazingly, I'm going to pick Belfort to win a decision, which would be weird, given that Belfort hasn't gone to a division since 2007, and all of his UFC wins save one have come via first round finish - and even the odd one out was a second round finish of Michael Bisping. But, hey, Belfort's always made a habit of being weird and surprising, so what better way to go out than that. Oluwale Bamgbose (6-2 overall, 1-2 UFC) vs. Paulo Borrachinha (9-0 overall, 1-0 UFC): Well, being this high on the card probably means that UFC sees something in TUF: Brazil 3 alum Paulo "Borrachinha" Costa. And there's stuff to like about Costa - while he showed nothing on a TUF run that came just three fights into his career, his MMA career thus far is nine up, nine down, all via first round knockout. And that last one at least proved he could do it on somewhat of a UFC level, as he more or less annihilated Garreth McLellan, who if nothing else is a durable guy, in just 77 seconds. But, of course, getting everyone out of there so quickly raises a bunch of questions, particularly how the heavily muscled Borrachinha will hold up past the first round, and the returns from that lone TUF fight aren't that good, since he gassed pretty badly and hasn't really learned to pace himself since. Anyway, none of this may matter against Oluwale Bamgbose, who has a lot of the same problems as Costa. Bamgbose is a memorable character - dude calls himself the "Holy War Angel", has a cross shaved into the back of his head, and does a ton of histrionics and praising of the Lord, as he's using his purse money to build churches in his native Nigeria. But Bamgbose is a similar first-round-or-bust fighter - before the UFC, he was also undefeated with five first round knockouts, and that really seems to be all he has to offer - while he hasn't shown signs of gassing as badly as Costa has, Bamgbose has been completely helpless as soon as he's been put on his back, as Uriah Hall tripped him and was able to pound him out shortly thereafter, and Cezar Ferreira relied on his wrestling to take Bamgbose out of the first round for the first time, and win a grinding decision. Borrachinha may have a secret weapon here if he decides to use it - while none of his recent fights have shown any of this, his TUF fight saw him do some clinching and actually work for submissions, so if he chooses to fight completely against type, he might be able to get a quick submission or at least avoid danger against Bamgbose and coast to an easy win. But more than likely, these two dudes are throwing down, and from there it's kind of a pick 'em, even if I do favor Bamgbose with his speed, reach, and arsenal of kicks. So, given how both guys win, I guess I'll pick Bamgbose by first-round knockout, though I expect a weird, fun sprint that could go either way. Yancy Medeiros (13-4 [1] overall, 4-4 [1] UFC, 2-0 Strikeforce) vs. Erick Silva (19-7 [1] overall, 7-6 UFC): I do like the positioning of Paulo Costa and Erick Silva back-to-back on this card, since Silva's sort of a cautionary tale when it comes to hot prospects. Silva looked amazing when he made his UFC debut in 2012, destroying opponents in the first round, but after a while a pattern began to emerge - UFC would throw him against a top fighter like Jon Fitch or Dong Hyun Kim, who could survive into the second round with Silva, he'd get outclassed, and then in his next fight, UFC would give him another guy to destroy, push him back up the card where he'd get outclassed, and then keep repeating the cycle. And, well, after three years of this, people just kind of came to see Silva for what he is, an exciting, flawed fighter who's more action favorite than future champion - it was probably after a flat loss to Neil Magny that the public gave up for good on Silva, and if not, it was definitely a loss last year to Nordine Taleb, by knockout no less, that caused UFC to pretty much lose faith in Silva ever really becoming a thing. On the plus side, they seem to have embraced his destiny as an action fighter, as September saw him win a fun bout over Luan Chagas, and now they've teed up another fun fight on paper against Hawaii's Yancy Medeiros. Medeiros has one of my favorite career arcs - a middleweight in Strikeforce, Medeiros was out for three years due to injury, and thanks to training with the Diaz brothers, when he finally made his return (in UFC, which had absorbed Strikeforce by that point), he had lost thirty pounds and was suddenly a lightweight. Unfortunately, training with the Diaz brothers may also explain why his first UFC win was overturned due to a failed pot test. Anyway, Medeiros has established himself as a fun action fighter - he's lost to ranked guys like Dustin Poirier and Francisco Trinaldo, but in all of his other fights he's shown knockout power and a solid submission game; like teammate Max Holloway, Medeiros can often stun an opponent and then, with his long limbs, clamp on some sort of funky choke for the tap. Which is, in fact, what Medeiros actually did in his debut at welterweight in September, stunning Sean Spencer with a head kick before diving in for the rear naked choke. As far as the fight, Silva's obviously been trying to address his first round or bust tendencies, moving to a few different camps, and the results have been a mixed bag - yes, Silva's been able to pace himself, and he got a third-round victory against Chagas, but that's come at the cost of his aggression, and he's still fairly hittable, so it's hard to say he's really all that more effective. I'll take Medeiros here - Chagas was able to tag Silva a bunch in their fight, and if nothing else, Medeiros is a lanky striker who can cause some damage if opponents give him the opportunity. This should be fun while it lasts, but I see this ending a bit like the Medeiros/Spencer fight, where Medeiros can stun Silva, and then jump on some sort of submission to finish him - I'll say it comes in the second round. Raphael Assuncao (24-5 overall, 8-2 UFC, 3-2 WEC) vs. Marlon Moraes (18-4-1 overall): UFC's pretty much raided all of World Series of Fighting's champions at this point - two-division champ Dave Branch made his return at UFC 211, Justin Gaethje is headlining the TUF finale in July, and finally, bantamweight champ Marlon Moraes is coming over to ply his trade and see if he can become a contender. I remember watching the first WSOF card, and Moraes was sort of an afterthought when he was put against former WEC champ and bantamweight great Miguel Torres, as the Brazilian was just sort of an unassuming young fighter with a fairly nondescript record. But Moraes won a narrow decision, and from there, things rapidly clicked into place, as Moraes first became an exciting top prospect and then established himself as one of the best bantamweights outside of the UFC, becoming WSOF's sole bantamweight champion. Moraes never really had incentive to leave for most of his run - he was a client of the controversial manager/former WSOF matchmaker Ali Abdelaziz, who pretty much used WSOF to make himself and his clients money, but with WSOF running out of cash and changing forms, Moraes finally saw it was time to make a run in the UFC. And at 29, Moraes is right in the prime of his career, so UFC is making a smart move by immediately throwing him in there against a top contender like Raphael Assuncao. Assuncao's had a weird run - he's effective, but not particularly exciting, as his style is mostly built around countering his opponents, which makes everything into a slow chess match. And as soon as he actually managed enough wins to earn a bantamweight title shot, his career basically lost all momentum. Assuncao was the clear top contender in May of 2014, but an ankle injury kept him from taking a fight against then-champ Renan Barao - so instead, T.J. Dillashaw, who Assuncao had narrowly beaten the previous October, wound up getting the shot and winning the title, and was rematching Barao while Assuncao was stuck fighting Bryan Caraway. And from there, Assuncao's ankle betrayed him - between the long winning streak and the win over then-champ Dillashaw, Assuncao loomed over the division for a good year and a half, but by the time he could actually get healthy, he had missed almost two years and Dillashaw had already lost the belt. So Assuncao finally came back, lost a rematch to Dillashaw at UFC 200, but rebounded with a narrow win over Aljamain Sterling in January, leaving him sort of in limbo - at this point bantamweight is deep enough that UFC probably won't let the colorless Assuncao get anywhere near a title shot, but he's still good enough to knock off a lot of fighters in the division. I'm favoring Moraes to take this, but I worry it won't be an overly impressive debut past the result, since I could see Assuncao making the fight play out with a lot of...Assuncao-ness. As mentioned, Assuncao just sort of prefers to sit back and counter his opponent's strikes, and he's excellent at it, which prevents his opponents from getting too aggressive and doesn't really let a fight get particularly exciting. I do think Moraes is the better striker and should be able to pick Assuncao apart, particularly with his leg kicks, but I just don't see Moraes popping off the kind of violence we could see in WSOF, or making a huge statement in a win. But a win over Assuncao is a statement in itself, so even if it's just a mediocre decision, Moraes would still be among the divisional elite. Antonio Carlos Junior (7-2 [1] overall, 4-2 [1] UFC) vs. Eric Spicely (10-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): I like the dynamic here, as UFC is pitting a frustrating talent against quite possibly the company's biggest overachiever. Eric Spicely, quite literally, shouldn't even be here. An alum of TUF 23, it seemed iffy if Spicely would even get a contract, given his unassuming build and the kind of boring, grinding style that he used in the house and Dana White seemed to hate, but after getting a post-TUF fight and, somewhat embarrassingly for a submission specialist, getting tapped out by Sam Alvey, that almost definitely seemed to be it for Spicely's UFC career. And, well, it was supposed to be, except a funny thing happened. The WME-IMG purchase of Zuffa happened shortly thereafter, and amidst all the transactions, UFC essentially forgot to cut Spicely. So they offered him one of two options - get cut, or get thrown in essentially as a sacrificial lamb against ranked middleweight Thiago Santos on a card in Brazil. Spicely took the fight, and, in one of the biggest upsets of 2016, managed to tap Santos out, and after doing the same to Italian prospect Alessio Di Chirico, Spicely attempts to make it an unlikely three in a row against Antonio Carlos Junior. Carlos Junior, who might be better known by his nickname "Cara de Sapato" - or "Shoe Face" thanks to his giant jaw, is a tantalizing prospect, but a frustrating one. A former world BJJ champion, Carlos won TUF: Brazil 3 at heavyweight and showed some knockout power in the process, so as a giant guy with both elite submission skills and that finishing ability, the sky looked like the limit. But after cutting down to 205 for his first post-TUF fight, Carlos got absolutely schooled by the American wrestling of Patrick Cummins, and a further cut down to 185 has been a mixed bag. Carlos, as you'd imagine for a former heavyweight, is gigantic for middleweight, but he seems to be a fairly clear example of a guy who looked amazing when things are working and he's rolling downhill, but tends to look awful as soon as the tables turn. Hell, his lone loss at middleweight, against Dan Kelly, is a perfect microcosm of that - Carlos was a massive favorite and was taking Kelly to school with his grappling for a good two rounds or so, but once Carlos tired and Kelly just relentlessly kept trying offense, Carlos crumbled and eventually got shockingly finished. Carlos does seem to focus on what brought him to the dance with that grappling game, but even his last fight, a fairly one-sided win over Marvin Vettori, saw some spots where Vettori was able to get advantage and things started falling apart instantly. Still, I think the style matchup favors Carlos here, since Spicely is looking to do the same thing that Carlos is and take things into the clinch. And while there's certainly a chance that heart trumps talent - it did in the Kelly fight - and Spicely just survives long enough for Carlos to wear down and crumble, I think Spicely just basically winds up going right into Carlos's wheelhouse and gets rag-dolled for his troubles. So I'll say Carlos by first-round submission, even if I probably should be more confident in someone who has the talent to make a win here look easy. Johnny Eduardo (28-10 overall, 3-2 UFC, 1-0 Bellator) vs. Matthew Lopez (9-1 overall, 1-1 UFC): Ah, it's a good old fashioned striker-versus-grappler battle, and a pretty fun one at that. Johnny Eduardo is 38 years old, and somehow, that still seems a bit young, given that Eduardo was fighting on Vale Tudo shows in Brazil all the way back in 1996. So, yes, Eduardo's been doing this for over two decades, though not very frequently anymore - since signing with UFC in 2011, he's only had five fights under the promotional banner. But he's been effective - contenders like Raphael Assuncao and Aljamain Sterling have handled him fairly easily, but as you'd imagine from the striking coach at Nova Uniao, he's a pretty damn good kickboxer, and has knockout wins in two of his last three fights, including a huge upset win over Eddie Wineland in 2014. Eduardo gives it another go here against California's Matthew Lopez, who's an interesting prospect. Lopez was a wrestling coach at Mark Munoz's old Reign MMA gym, and grappling is obviously his background, as Lopez has impressed in two tough, but fun, submission-based fights. It's been weird matchmaking - Lopez is still fairly raw, but UFC went ahead and threw him against two of the best grapplers in the bantamweight division; Lopez acquitted himself well in a great back-and-forth loss against Rani Yahya, but managed to pull out a win against divisional darkhorse Mitch Gagnon. With this fight, UFC is still keeping Lopez on the fast track, but going a completely different route against a striker like Eduardo. It's a fascinating matchup, but I'll favor Eduardo here - Lopez is still kind of a work in progress on the feet, and got clipped by Gagnon in their fight, so Eduardo should be able to tag him. If Lopez gets this to the ground, it's his fight - Aljamain Sterling was the last guy to get Eduardo on his back, and Eduardo looked fairly helpless, for all his experience - but, well, I don't think he'll get it there before getting nailed. So I'll say Eduardo by second-round knockout, even if I'm not particularly confident. Iuri Alcantara (35-7 [1] overall, 9-4 [1] UFC, 1-0 WEC) vs. Brian Kelleher (16-7 overall, 0-2 Bellator): Well, kind of a weird deal here - it's a strange matchup to begin with, and, well, I can't find much relevant footage on the debuting Brian Kelleher. Iuri Alcantara has pretty much proven himself the gatekeeper extraordinaire for the division - Alcantara's big, durable, a jack-of-all-trades master-of-none type, so if you beat him, you're probably worthy of being a ranked fighter. So UFC's just fed him rising fighter after rising fighter - Frankie Saenz and Jimmie Rivera were able to win, but Russell Doane, Leandro Issa, and Luke Sanders all lost. That Sanders fight was a notable one - Sanders was pretty much winning the entire fight before Alcantara pulled off a miracle kneebar, of all things - and one would've hoped that would get Alcantara a bigger fight or something. But no, instead he gets a debuting fighter in Kelleher, which is odd - it's not like Kelleher really projects as a top prospect who can make a run up the division quickly, like, say, a Tom Duquesnoy. The Long Islander's on a bit of a run, though, racking up a bunch of wins in the Northeast, including a win over the since-signed Andre Soukhamthath in 2015. Again, there's not much to go on, since anything out there on Kelleher is from before he really became a prospect, but this seems like Kelleher being thrown in over his head, so I'll say Alcantara wins a decision. Jamie Moyle (4-1 overall, 1-0 UFC, 3-1 Invicta) vs. Viviane Pereira (12-0 overall, 1-0 UFC): A really fun fight between strawweight prospects here, and a bit of cheeky matchmaking, as since both women are just 5'1", it pits two of the shortest fighters in the division against someone their own size. Brazil's Viviane Pereira came into UFC with a decent regional record, but her UFC debut was a weird deal - she faced former bantamweight Valerie Letourneau, and between Pereira's size disadvantage and Letourneau being drained from a bad weight cut, it was just sort of a boring fight as each fighter struggled to do anything. But despite the size difference, Pereira got enough takedowns to narrowly win the decision. For her sophomore effort, she'll take on Las Vegas's Jamie Moyle, a TUF 23 alum who's a solid prospect. Moyle was on the Vegas amateur scene for a while before getting a shot in Invicta, and she's proven herself to be a solid grappler, even if like with Pereira, the size disadvantage can give her a bit of trouble at times. This is pretty much a pick 'em, since Pereira is still a bit of an unknown - pre-UFC footage of any worth on her in scarce, and not enough really happened in that Letourneau fight to make a ton of conclusions. But if nothing else, being able to move Letourneau shows that she has some natural strength, and I've seen Moyle struggle against opponents who have the strength advantage on her. So I'll take Pereira to win a decision, though, frankly, I'm probably a bit more confident at the moment in what Moyle brings to the table. Luan Chagas (14-2-1 overall, 0-1-1 UFC) vs. Jim Wallhead (29-10 overall, 0-1 UFC, 1-2 Bellator): A decent prospect-versus-veteran fight here. Curitiba's Luan Chagas has had a fun two-fight run in UFC thus far - he got to make a late-notice debut in his hometown at UFC 198, fighting Sergio Moraes to a draw, and then had a "Fight of the Night" against Erick Silva in September that turned into a fun brawl, even if it was Chagas's first career loss. Chagas has a fairly simple gameplan of throwing a ton of power behind absolutely everything, which has its obvious advantages and drawbacks - dude hits really hard, but gasses by the end of the fight - but Chagas is still just 23, so there's a ton of potential for him to turn into something more than an action fighter. He takes on England's "Judo" Jim Wallhead, who looks for a shot at redemption. Wallhead's one of those regional vets who has just plugged away on random shows for years, so it was nice to see him get the UFC call in September, but he kind of spit the bit in his UFC debut, looking tentative and giving away a winnable fight against Jessin Ayari. I'll favor Chagas here - Wallhead's quite tough, so I'd be surprised if Chagas knocked him out, and I assume Chagas will drop the latter stages of the fight, but I see this as a fight where Chagas does a whole bunch of damage to start, tires late, and wins a close, but clear decision. Deiveson Alcantara (11-0 overall) vs. Marco Beltran (8-4 overall, 3-1 UFC): Mexico's Marco Beltran started his UFC career with about the softest three-fight win streak you'll see - after beating TUF: Latin America season one castmate Marlon Vera, he beat TUF: China winner Guangyou Ning and TUF: Brazil 4 winner Reginaldo Vieira, all fairly uninspiring talents. So Beltran's fight with Joe Soto this past November was going to answer a lot of questions about how good Beltran is, and, well, he got tapped by a leglock in under two minutes. So Beltran, a bit surprisingly, has decided to cut down to flyweight, and he'll face debuting Brazilian Deiveson Alcantara. At least, I think that's the name Alcantara is going to go by - he has two last names and two nicknames, so it's unclear exactly which one UFC is going to officially go with. Anyway, Alcantara's best known for his viral "pimp slap KO" of Denis Araujo last September, where he seriously just backhanded the dude into unconsciousness, but Alcantara looks to be much better as a power grappler - in fact, he was probably losing that fight with Araujo after getting touched up on the feet until, well, pimp slap knockout. Beltran's a weird fighter - his takedown defense is fairly horrible, but he does seem to do his best work from his back, where he's fairly crafty and slippery. So while Alcantara should have no problem taking Beltran down, there's the off chance that Beltran's length for his new division makes things a bit tricky for the Brazilian to try and implement his game. Still, Alcantara has shown enough that I'll brush away those concerns, so I say the newcomer takes it by first-round submission.

Marcin Held (lost to Damir Hadzovic) vs. Michael McBride: Well, that’s probably 0-3 and out for Held in the UFC, as one wonders where he goes down on the list of UFC’s most disappointing signings. It’s a shame, too, since his UFC run was a reminder that the margins between a win and a loss can be razor-thin - his loss to Diego Sanchez was marred by a bad gameplan, his loss to Joe Lauzon was a robbery at the hands of the judges, and this loss to Hadzovic was just bad luck, as Held was dominating the fight before diving right into a knee. On the off chance Held gets a fourth shot, McBride’s as much of a layup as you can give Held, since he’s nothing but a grappler, a category in which Held should outclass him.

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. ------ 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. ----- 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 ----- 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.

Joachim Christensen (lost to Gadzhimurad Antigulov) vs. Jake Collier: Christensen got blown out here, and is the kind of guy who could either wash out of the UFC quickly or stick around until he retires depending on the matchmaking - he’s technically solid everywhere, but nearing 40 and not particularly athletic, he’s at a deficit against a bunch of opponents. Collier sort of walks the line, as an athletic guy who never really seems to have much of a gameplan, so that could make for a fun lower-level bout.

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

Michael McBride (lost to Scott Holtzman) vs. Claudio Puelles: It’s probably two and out for McBride, who just got repeatedly starched by Holtzman in this fight but still managed to survive. If he gets another fight, I guess make it loser leaves town against TUF: Latin America 3 runner-up Puelles, who’s talented but seems kind of flaky.

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, last weekend's Fox card from Kansas City pretty much lived up to all that hype on paper as one of the best cards of the year, and the main event title fight was pretty much Demetrious Johnson summed up in a nutshell - complete dominance by likely the best fighter in the world, accompanied by the lowest ratings of any Fox card to date. Anyway, Johnson's obviously been one of the best of the world for years running with the way he's run roughshod over a really solid division, but few of his performances have put his greatness so clearly on display; Johnson just outclassed Wilson Reis on the feet, darting in with strikes at will while never being there to get hit, before taking things to the ground and running through a BJJ black belt before cinching on a third-round armbar for the tap. Johnson's tied Anderson Silva's record for consecutive title defenses with this win, and it sounds like Mighty Mouse is ready to go for number eleven - it'll be interesting to see if, well, UFC can find anyone who'll give him a challenge. *And the rest of the main card wound up shaking up the contender picture for a few different divisions. Coming off a frustrating loss to Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Rose Namajunas pretty much put together the best performance of her career in pretty much handling Michelle Waterson, and apparently earned herself a title shot in the process. Admittedly, Waterson helped her out in the first round by trying that dumb head-and-arm throw that so many strawweights seem to love, resulting in Namajunas working over Waterson for the balance of the first round, but the second round saw Namajunas just piece up Waterson standing before going for the fight-ending submission. I'd like to see Namajunas string together a few more performances like this before getting that title shot, but given that Joanna Jedrzejczyk is starting to clear out the division, assuming a Jessica Andrade title win doesn't open things up, Thug Rose is the obvious next contender. The big mover and shaker, though, was Robert Whittaker getting a shockingly one-sided win over longtime contender Jacare Souza, establishing himself as one of the top contenders for middleweight champ Michael Bisping. Whittaker's ability to keep things standing was the big question, but he mostly shucked off Souza when he tried to grapple and then just destroyed the Brazilian on the feet, eventually earning a second-round stoppage. Amazingly, UFC finally has a young Australian star that can fight for the title down under, and while this was a damaging loss for Souza as he seems to be exiting his athletic prime, things could have been worse, as Jacare signed a new eight-fight contract with UFC right before this fight took place. And the main card opener saw Brazilian prospect Renato Moicano suddenly establish himself as a concern at featherweight with a decision win over Jeremy Stephens - it wasn't a dominant win, but Moicano was pretty much a step ahead the entire fight, and while it looked like Moicano's career was stalling a bit thanks to injuries, this was a big win that more than made up for lost time and shot Moicano up the ladder. *There was a bunch of fun stuff on the undercard, led by Tim Elliott's decision win over Louis Smolka, which led off the Fox portion of the prelims. These two guys pretty much just went non-stop for fifteen minutes, scrambling back and forth with submissions, as a crowd that was awesome pretty much all night cheered them on. Elliott got the big hometown win, and despite three straight losses, I hope UFC hangs on to Smolka, who continues to show here that he's an exciting, if flawed, talent. French uber-prospect Tom Duquesnoy made his debut and mostly lived up to the hype - American wrestler Patrick Williams was surprisingly effective early, not so much in damaging Duquesnoy as much as neutralizing him, but soon exhausted himself as much as you'll ever see a lighter-weight fighter gas out, at which point it was off to the races, as Duquesnoy put him away with some of his trademark vicious elbows. This wasn't the type of win that announced Duquesnoy is ready to be in the bantamweight top ten tomorrow, but his ceiling is still ridiculous, and UFC should bring him along slowly. Also at bantamweight, Aljamain Sterling got a huge win over Augusto Mendes in a hell of a fight - Sterling had fixed some of the problems with his janky striking game, but even that almost wasn't enough, as Mendes, a BJJ stud, has proven to be a quick study, continuing to show his own impressive striking game to complement that lethal submission game. Veteran Anthony Smith shockingly got a third-round comeback knockout over top prospect Andrew Sanchez - Sanchez showed to have some cardio problems here as he tried to coast to a victory, but between this and his last win over Elvis Mutapcic, Smith has basically gotten rid of his rep as a guy who wilts once he's losing, and suddenly might be making a run towards the top fifteen. Kansas City's Zak Cummings got an impressive hometown win, running through Nathan Coy, even if it was marred a bit by Mike England, a terrible referee who's been a regular on Invicta cards in Missouri, basically waiting for Coy to be unconscious for a few seconds before calling the fight off via submission. And in a fun opener of the card, Brazilian bantamweight Ketlen Vieira looked super impressive in a clear win over Ashlee Evans-Smith - Evans-Smith looked solid, but Vieira improved greatly from her UFC debut, using her size and range to dictate the terms of the fight. And there was some not-so-fun stuff - Rashid Magomedov coasted to a win over Bobby Green that never really particularly went anywhere, and the same was true of light heavyweight prospect Devin Clark's win over Jake Collier. Plus Roy Nelson appears to be completely done, as Alexander Volkov rather easily got the nod over him - Nelson's way too foot-slow at this point to do much of anything standing, and even his grappling game is starting to fail him, as he's pretty much just forced to lay on top of opponents and do nothing if he wants to maintain control. I wouldn't be surprised if UFC cut Nelson at this point, but I don't think they'll let a marketable guy go to Bellator - I just don't know what you do with him for his next fight, though. *So...UFC 214 in Anaheim is shaping up maybe kinda sorta? We have an idea of UFC wants to do there with a double main event, but getting there may be a problem. It appears set that Daniel Cormier will be defending his light heavyweight title on that show, but apparently the ball is in Jon Jones's court - if Jones wants an immediate return against Cormier, it's his, but if he wants a tune-up fight first, it'll be Cormier against Jimi Manuwa. I assume Jones will be taking that fight - I don't see him having any fear of facing Cormier, and why risk losing a big money fight if Manuwa manages to win the title. They also apparently want a women's featherweight title fight between the only two women seemingly left in the division, with Germaine de Randamie defending against Cris Cyborg, but that's apparently turned into way more of a mess. UFC's apparently been trying to put the fight together, and Cyborg is basically acting on social media like the fight is happening, but de Randamie's a complete question mark - after beating Holly Holm for the title, she talked about needing surgery on her hand, and at last word, she apparently hasn't even seen a doctor yet. Plus there's some strangeness going on with Cyborg's contract - apparently she has two fights left on her deal, but regardless of anything else, her contract will apparently expire come this October, and there's no word on any sort of extension. So, one wonders at what point UFC decides that Cyborg, or the featherweight division in general, just isn't worth the trouble. *World Series of Fighting is apparently no more at the end of 2017, as the promotion just announced they'll become - or be absorbed by? - the new Professional Fighters League. Apparently the new promotional model will be similar to the old IFL, which died a quick death as a bit of a punchline, pitting fighters in some sort of round robin tournament that will eventually end in a playoff format. Uh...interesting, I guess. No word yet on what'll happen to the promotion's champions or talent currently under contract, so, this'll be fun to watch as it unfolds. *Well, I don't know if UFC's going back to South Korea anytime soon, as Korean police are investigating allegations of match fixing stemming to their debut in Seoul back in November of 2015. I mentioned it at the time, but this all goes back to the fishy betting lines for an undercard bout between Tae Hyun Bang and Leo Kuntz. Bang was a slight betting favorite for most of the time lines were open, but suddenly jumped up to a gigantic underdog in the days leading up to the fight, as what apparently eventually wound up being $2 million worth of money was bet on Kuntz to win. So, immediately everyone realized something was up, with some books taking the line down, but when the fight came around, things didn't seem all that strange. Bang seemed to be walking with a slight limp, suggesting maybe had some inside info about an injury, but he wasn't fighting like a man who had been told to lose, and wound up taking the narrow decision win. Well, the story's apparently started to come out. The Korean mob did in fact pay Bang to lose, paying him the equivalent of $100,000 (half of which he turned around and bet against himself), but when UFC officials repeatedly asked Bang what he knew about all the weird gambling movement on his feet, Bang denied having any knowledge of what was going on. And when push came to shove, Bang got cold feet, and decided to fight for the win, which he wound up getting. So, as you'd imagine, Bang has been getting death threats ever since, at which point he contacted the authorities. So...hoo boy. Hope this all goes well for him. ------ BOOKINGS: *Not a ton has been announced in the last week, with the one big fight being UFC finally signing World Series of Fighting bantamweight champion Marlon Moraes. WSOF helped make a name for a few guys, and Moraes might have been their biggest breakout star, a tiny ball of violence that pretty much ran through all comers. WSOF kind of existed as sort of a scheme for manager/matchmaker/possible terror suspect Ali Abdelaziz to make his own fighters some money, so Moraes pretty much chose to get paid, and rightfully so, but with WSOF falling apart, it's probably the right time for Moraes to make a run in UFC. And they're throwing him right into the fire - Moraes faces top-five contender Raphael Assuncao at UFC 212 in June, and with a win there, he's probably only a fight or two away from a title shot. *And since there's not much of anything else, let's do the chronological rundown. UFC 211's lineup next month seems finalized - Chase Sherman replaces Jarjis Danho in a heavyweight bout against Dmitry Poberezhets, and debuting featherweights Jared Gordon and Michel Quinones will also go at it on the deep prelims. The Gordon/Quinones fight seems to fill up the card, and no word yet what happens to the rumored Gadzhimurad Antigulov/Joachim Christensen fight that seems to no longer have a spot on this card. That fight was always a weird fit for a card in Texas, so I wouldn't be surprised if it popped up on, say, the Stockholm card a few weeks later. June only adds three fights - that Assuncao/Moraes fight mentioned above is joined by a strawweight bout between Jamie Moyle and Viviane Pereira at UFC 212, and the Auckland card adds top Australian prospect Alexander Volkanovski having his sophomore UFC effort against Japanese vet Mizuto Hirota. From there, we go to the TUF 25 finale, which adds three fairly solid fights - fringe top-fifteen middleweights Elias Theodorou and Brad Tavares square off, Gray Maynard returns to take on Japanese prospect Teruto Ishihara, and top light heavyweight prospect Jordan Johnson takes on Marcel Fortuna, who made his debut in February by knocking out heavyweight Anthony Hamilton. UFC 213 adds an undercard bout between top heavyweight prospect Curtis Blaydes and Daniel Omielanczuk, and the Fox card from Long Island has a second rumored bout, as local boy Gian Villante will apparently take on former hockey enforcer Steve Bosse in what should be a crazy brawl. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Michael Graves (6-0-1 overall, 2-0-1 UFC, last fought 7/30/16, D vs. Bojan Velickovic): One of UFC's toothless investigations actually had consequences, as Graves was released following an investigation into a domestic violence incident late last year. Graves came into UFC via that weird American Top Team versus Blackzilians season of TUF, and the ATT member was given the "redemption" arc in editing, losing his first fight and being portrayed as a lazy screw-up, but eventually getting his act together and scoring a submission win over Jason Jackson. From there, Graves actually looked like a talent, a pretty effective wrestler who made wins over Vicente Luque and Randy Brown look easy, but, well that's all out the window now. Don't hit women. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 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), 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 - Bethe Correia vs. Holly Holm, Colby Covington vs. Dong Hyun Kim, Rafael dos Anjos vs. Tarec Saffiedine 6/25 - UFC Fight Night 112 - Oklahoma City, OK - Michael Chiesa vs. Kevin Lee, B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver, Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks, Ilir Latifi vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira 7/7 - TUF 25 Finale - Las Vegas, NV - Brad Tavares vs. Elias Theodorou, Teruto Ishihara vs. Gray Maynard 7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Cody Garbrandt ( c ) vs. T.J. Dillashaw, Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler, Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum 7/22 - UFC on Fox 25 - Uniondale, NY - Chan Sung Jung vs. Ricardo Lamas, Steve Bosse vs. Gian Villante ----- UFC Fight Night 108 - April 22, 2017 - Bridgestone Arena - Nashville, Tennessee So this is the last of three straight cards before, amazingly, another three-week break, and it's a pretty fun comedown from last week's excellent Kansas City card. And, like a lot of cards this year, it's pretty much emblematic of the state of UFC's matchmaking in 2017 - the undercard has a ton of interesting matchups that could either go either way or have some sort of fun style interaction, but the main event picture is a bit of a mess. And boy, is this main event a mess. A dumb, dumb main event. It's a bad main event. But don't let that distract you from the fact that this is still a fun card, and hell, even that dumb main event will probably be a fun one in some aspect. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 10:00 PM ET): Featherweight: (#4) Cub Swanson vs. Artem Lobov Lightweight: (#14) Al Iaquinta vs. Diego Sanchez Light Heavyweight: (#8) Ovince St. Preux vs. Marcos Rogerio de Lima Bantamweight: (#7) John Dodson vs. (#10) Eddie Wineland Lightweight: Joe Lauzon vs. Stevie Ray Welterweight: (#13) Jake Ellenberger vs. Mike Perry PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 2 - 8:00 PM ET): Middleweight: (#11) Thales Leites vs. (#13) Sam Alvey Flyweight: (#9) Dustin Ortiz vs. (#10) Brandon Moreno Lightweight: Scott Holtzman vs. Michael McBride Women's Strawweight: (#14) Jessica Penne vs. Danielle Taylor PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:30 PM ET): Women's Bantamweight: (#10) Alexis Davis vs. Cindy Dandois Welterweight: Bryan Barberena vs. Joe Proctor Flyweight: Hector Sandoval vs. Matt Schnell THE RUNDOWN: Cub Swanson (24-7 overall, 9-3 UFC, 5-3 WEC) vs. Artem Lobov (14-12-1 [1] overall, 2-2 UFC): Well, at least Cub Swanson might finally have an easy night at the office. The possibility is still there, but it'll be a shame if Cub Swanson never earns his title rematch against Jose Aldo - in 2009, Aldo and Swanson, both elite prospects, squared off to see who would earn a WEC featherweight title shot, and Aldo turned Swanson from prospect to punchline, destroying him with a flying knee in just eight seconds. But once UFC absorbed WEC, it looked like Swanson was charging towards redemption, suddenly becoming one of 145's most feared knockout artists and reeling off six straight wins, until one-sided losses to Frankie Edgar and Max Holloway left him outside of the title picture and somewhat directionless. But after taking a year off to reevaluate and regroup, 2016 was a huge bounce-back year for Swanson; it's not that Swanson looked demonstrably better, honestly, but that it was a reminder that Cub Swanson is still pretty great - his comeback win over Hacran Dias was fairly workmanlike, but his win over Tatsuya Kawajiri was an excellent back-and-forth fight, and then there was his war last December with Doo Ho Choi. Most people figured Swanson would make for a fun stepping-stone opponent to send Choi into the featherweight title picture, but Swanson and "The Korean Superboy" instead had an insane, non-stop war, with each eating pretty much every bit of offense the other could provide, before Swanson got the nod in one of the best fights of 2016 and an instant classic added to the list of all-time great brawls. And now he fights Artem Lobov, which I guess makes sense if you view it as sort of a reward and a night off? Lobov, frankly, is only even in the UFC because he's the primary training partner and longtime friend of Conor McGregor. His record is ugly, yes, but he fought a tough slate of competition in Europe, and honestly, in a fair landscape, that would probably his role in the MMA universe - a tough European vet who's essentially the guy that actual prospects would need to beat to get into the UFC, and maybe a guy who could earn a short stint in the big time if he racked up a few wins. But instead, Lobov was put on a season of TUF in exchange for McGregor agreeing to coach it, and when Lobov lost his fight to get into the house, they made up some rule to add team members and get Lobov back onto the cast. To his credit, Lobov did make good on the second chance and got all the way to the finals, but Ryan Hall exposed his complete lack of a grappling game, and Lobov followed that up with a one-sided loss to Alex White. Again, most guys would've been cut after showing that little in UFC, but instead Lobov got a layup in Chris Avila - UFC matched the two up in a cute bit of matchmaking, as Avila is a teammate of the Diaz brothers, and this was on the undercard of the McGregor/Diaz rematch, so hey, teammate versus teammate, but Avila turned out to be one of the worst domestic fighters UFC has signed in recent history, so a one-sided win by Lobov was still rather uninspiring. In his last fight, I at least had some hope that Lobov was going to outgrow his status as a punchline, since he turned out a career-best performance over Japanese prospect Teruto Ishihara and actually looked like a UFC-level fighter, but instead UFC rushed him into this main event and pretty much burned any goodwill that performance would've given him. This, as one would assume, looks like an easy Swanson win - Lobov's game is fairly one-dimensional striking, and his short reach for his size has been a bit of a running joke in MMA circles; essentially, imagine trying to fight like Conor McGregor if you were an undersized Russian with none of the innate ability and physical talent that makes Conor what he is, and you essentially have Lobov. And even if Lobov hangs in there better than expected, he's not a huge knockout threat, particularly once you factor in the amount of abuse that Swanson has shown he's able to take. On the plus side, and I assume this is what whoever was responsible for this was looking at when they made this matchup, this could be pretty fun while it lasts, since both guys figure to just stand and bang, so...there's that. I'll laugh if Swanson just takes the easy way out and just immediately takes Lobov down and submits him, since that's probably on the table, but I assume we just get a fun, one-sided striking match for a bit - I'll give Lobov some extra credit since he's only been knocked out once in his career, but I think it says a lot about this fight that even when I'm trying to be nice, my pick is still Swanson by second-round knockout. I have no idea what that accomplishes, but hey, at least we'll get to see Cub Swanson wreck a dude, and why look a gift horse in the mouth. Al Iaquinta (12-3-1 overall, 7-2 UFC) vs. Diego Sanchez (27-9 overall, 16-9 UFC): Well, this is an interesting fight, and there's something darkly amusing about UFC matching two of the guys who best represent...I suppose you'd call it concussed insanity on the UFC roster. Long Island's Al Iaquinta is returning from a two-year layoff thanks to injuries and retirement, and if he hadn't come back, he would've at least went out on an extremely Al Iaquinta note - Iaquinta's last fight was a controversial split decision victory over Jorge Masvidal, and as the crowd booed the decision, Iaquinta used his post-fight interview to basically go on a profanity-filled tirade against the fans deciding to boo him. From there, UFC looked to book Iaquinta, then one of lightweight's top prospects, against Gilbert Melendez, but Melendez got a flagged drug test, Iaquinta decided to get some knee surgery, and then things just pretty much went downhill. First, UFC and Iaquinta feuded over the insurance payment for his surgery - UFC claimed it was suffered out of competition, while Iaquinta said it tied back to an initial injury suffered on TUF, and then there was a whole bunch of stuff with UFC punishing Iaquinta for missing a mandatory fighter meeting in Vegas, and some previous issues tying back to an incident where Iaquinta trashed a hotel room. Once Iaquinta was physically ready to fight again - he was linked to a fight with Thiago Alves a few times last year - he basically decided that between the hassle and the reduced money under the Reebok deal, fighting was no longer worth it, and he focused on his real estate business. I'm not really sure what changed his mind, but after meeting with matchmaker Sean Shelby a few months ago, Raging Al is back, and looking to pick up where he left off against fellow crazy person Diego Sanchez. Given that his style has mostly been predicated on his ability to take abuse, it's insane that Sanchez is the last guy still going from season one of The Ultimate Fighter - and even crazier, 2016 was his best year in a while. Before 2016, you could make a case that the last fight Sanchez deserved to win was all the way back in 2010, but he kicked the year off with a shockingly effective win over Jim Miller, where he pretty much outpaced Miller en route to earning a decision. Admittedly, the year wasn't all great - UFC 200 saw Joe Lauzon suddenly, and shockingly, become the first man to ever crack Sanchez's legendary chin and earn a knockout victory, but Sanchez then rebounded in November with a win over Marcin Held, where he pretty much shut down the Polish submission specialist with some good old-fashioned American wrestling. I don't look forward to Sanchez's later years in life - I didn't watch it, but apparently on the last edition of Ariel Helwani's show, Helwani asked one question that prompted Sanchez to give a forty-minute response - but for now, he's looking as good as you could expect late-career Diego Sanchez to look. This is essentially a coin flip fight, given how little we know about Iaquinta - his boxing is by far the strongest part of his game and should give Sanchez problems, but while Iaquinta has a wrestling background, it was kind of an ongoing thing that he'd find himself in trouble on the ground at least once per fight, which could happen here. If Iaquinta has any rust, Sanchez could easily just take the initiative and earn a decision through pressure and activity (or hell, not even earn the decision and get it anyway, as Sanchez has done a bunch of times), but with how badly Sanchez got cracked by Lauzon, the possibility of Sanchez rushing right into a knockout does loom. It's a hard one to call, and I've flip-flopped a few times, but I'll still give Iaquinta the benefit of the doubt and say he earns a narrow decision win by keeping this on the feet and being way more accurate standing - though really, it's hard to know exactly what's going to happen. Ovince St. Preux (19-10 overall, 7-5 UFC, 6-1 Strikeforce) vs. Marcos Rogerio de Lima (15-4-1 overall, 4-2 UFC, 0-1 Strikeforce): UFC was last in Nashville only about a year and a half ago, back in August of 2015, and what a difference that time has made for Ovince St. Preux. That 2015 show was pretty much built around St. Preux, a local favorite thanks to his days as a linebacker for the University of Tennessee, taking on Glover Teixeira, but a loss in that fight started a 1-4 run, and now OSP suddenly finds himself likely fighting for his job against Marcos Rogerio de Lima. St. Preux was always an interesting prospect - coming up, he was a ridiculous level of athlete for MMA, and both Strikeforce and UFC decided to slowly move him up the ladder, allowing him to rack up wins as fans got to wonder exactly what he'd become. But once St. Preux got a big spot against Ryan Bader, he simply got out-wrestled for twenty-five minutes, and from there, OSP sort of wound up in light heavyweight purgatory - his loyalty to his small camp in Tennessee sort of prevented his game from developing into anything coherent, which left him sorely lacking against the top fighters in the division, but his athleticism and dynamic finishing ability, especially coupled with such an unorthodox game, meant he could beat pretty much everyone outside of that top tier. After ping-ponging for a bit, St. Preux got a shot at Jon Jones after Daniel Cormier got hurt, simply by being the best guy available coming off a win, but Jones outclassed St. Preux, and things sort of spiralled from there. Again, St. Preux's game is sort of a weird collection of strikes and submissions without much connective tissue, and as St. Preux enters his mid-thirties and loses even just a bit of that explosive athleticism, the whole game is starting to fall apart. St. Preux's last fight, a narrow decision loss to Volkan Oezdemir, is a perfect example - while OSP had his moments and probably deserved the decision win, for most of his career, Oezdemir's the kind of guy that St. Preux would've just taken out with some sort of looping strike or funky submission. So, obviously, St. Preux needs a win here against TUF: Brazil alum de Lima, and given "Pezao"'s track record, we'll probably find out if he gets it in pretty short order. De Lima's average fight time in UFC is just a shade over two minutes, the lowest of any active fighter with any sort of track record, and watching him fight, that's about right - Pezao's just sort of a power monster, throwing heat behind every punch, and knowing just enough when it comes to grappling to get himself into trouble, as it's done in his two submission losses. This fight is basically a coin flip - it's basically a test to see if St. Preux still has any of his dynamic finishing ability left, since de Lima's there to be stopped, but if he can't, the Brazilian should finish things in fairly short order himself. I was originally leaning towards picking St. Preux by submission, since again, de Lima's just confident enough in his grappling game to get himself tapped out, and OSP's got a weird collection of tricks that could stop someone as defensively open as de Lima, but the more I think about this fight, and the more broken that OSP's game seems to look, I'm going to go with de Lima deflating the crowd with a first-round knockout. John Dodson (18-8 overall, 7-3 UFC) vs. Eddie Wineland (23-11-1 overall, 5-5 UFC, 5-2 WEC): A really interesting fight here, pitting two veteran knockout artists against each other. Longtime flyweight contender John Dodson can be a bit frustrating to watch - he's from that Uriah Hall/Yoel Romero mold of fighter that spends fights either being completely inactive or exploding with bursts of violence - but he was able to beat everyone he faced save Demetrious Johnson at 125, and early returns after his move up to bantamweight are pretty good. Dodson didn't waste time in his first fight up, blitzing Manny Gamburyan for a 47-second win, and while his follow-up main event fight against John Lineker was a narrow decision loss, it saw Dodson finally execute a gameplan in trying to get the win - and one that probably would've worked if Lineker didn't have a superhuman ability to just eat Dodson's power. Dodson looks to rebound here against Indiana's Eddie Wineland, who's having a bit of a career resurgence. WEC's original bantamweight champion, Wineland lost his shot at then-bantamweight champ Renan Barao in 2013, then his career started to spiral a bit - Johnny Eduardo scored a huge upset win with a knockout of Wineland that broke his jaw, and after recovering from that, Wineland surprisingly got out-pointed on the feet by Bryan Caraway. Wineland then took some time to regroup, and a lot of people figured he was going to retire, but 2016 saw him come back and get some momentum going, handling tough vets Frankie Saenz and Takeya Mizugaki fairly easily. Wineland's probably not going on a run towards another title shot, but he's somehow still only 32 years old, so there may be more years left for him as an action gatekeeper than any of us expect. It's an interesting fight, and one I go back and forth on, since Dodson's style has typically been so hit-or-miss - his old sponsorship with Pop Rocks was pretty much perfect, as he's a tiny ball of energy dependent on moments of explosive knockout power, but if he can't score that finish, one wonders about his ability to win rounds. And Wineland's looked good, and has that unorthodox style that could keep Dodson on his toes, so I could easily see him score the upset victory via decision. But I'll still favor Dodson to win - he looked less patient in the Gamburyan fight, which is a positive, and as mentioned, the Lineker fight showed that he may yet learn how to fight smarter. I do have some concerns that, like OSP in the fight above, whenever Dodson's athleticism slips just a bit (and he's 32 at the moment), his whole game could just fall apart, but I'll call for him to eventually either adjust or find an opening and score a third-round knockout, probably in a fight that's either close or has him losing. Hopefully, it's more of a brawl and less of a staring contest. Joe Lauzon (27-12 overall, 14-9 UFC) vs. Stevie Ray (20-6 overall, 4-1 UFC): This should be a pretty fun fight, since, well, it's a Joe Lauzon fight - a decade into his UFC career, the Bostonian is still going strong as one of UFC's surer action bets, and one of the lightweight division's better gatekeepers for seeing if someone can move their way up the ladder. January's fight with Marcin Held saw...mixed results, as the Polish submission specialist probably controlled Lauzon enough to take the nod, but in the end, the judges had the fight for Lauzon, who actually protested the win during his post-fight interview. But, win or lose, Lauzon will pretty much always be a fan favorite and division stalwart, and the returns here to face Scotland's Stevie Ray. Ray's gotten some hype after a pretty good European career and two impressive finishes to start his UFC career, but things sort of plateaued from there - for all his well-rounded offense, a loss to Alan Patrick showed that Ray still has a ton of work to do on his defensive wrestling, and his last fight was a split decision win over Ross Pearson that was solid, if not particularly impressive. I really see Ray settling into a role more like, well, Pearson, as a mid-tier action fighter that can do well on European cards, rather than some sort of future contender, but I think he can take a fun decision win here over Lauzon. As mentioned, the Patrick fight showed that Ray's main weakness is someone who can take him down and control him, and as gifted a grappler as Lauzon is, I don't see him as that type of guy - Lauzon's game is more based on scrambles and hopping on submissions in the chaos rather than controlling things on the ground. And from there, I can pretty much see Ray picking Lauzon apart on the feet, if never getting particularly dominant. So while I'm picking Ray to win, I still figure it'll be a close one, and a fun one, since, well, it's a Joe Lauzon fight. Jake Ellenberger (31-12 overall, 10-8 UFC, 1-0 Bellator) vs. Mike Perry (9-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): Welp, UFC's still trying with Mike Perry. I can see why, since in the cage, Perry's a fun as hell prospect - for someone so raw, he has a solid command over his limited game, and it's an exciting one, a power boxing game built around Perry's explosive athleticism and ability to knock fools the hell out. But on the downside, there is literally everything else about Mike Perry. Him and teammate Alex Nicholson are pretty much the human embodiment of Florida - while Perry doesn't have Nicholson's domestic violence incidents, Perry has the similar level of casual racism and homophobia that you'd expect from a guy who started training MMA on a lark as he was getting driven home from prison. And then there's just the more innocuous douchebaggery - Perry is the kind of guy who, after notching his first UFC win, used the money to get his nickname, "Platinum", tattooed over his eyebrow. Sigh. Perry got taken out of his depth a bit by Alan Jouban, who just used technical striking to pretty much shut Perry down, so Perry looks to rebound here against Jake Ellenberger, who continues to try and fight off his late-career slide. When Ellenberger faced off with Rory MacDonald in the summer of 2013, it figured to be an exciting brawl between two top contenders, but instead, just kind of wound up as a flat matchup where both guys looked timid - and while this proved to be a one-off for MacDonald, with Ellenberger, it became a trend. That started a run where Ellenberger just seemed unable to pull the trigger and wound up losing five of six, with the only win coming over a shot Josh Koscheck. Hell, after his loss last year to Tarec Saffiedine, UFC apparently outright cut him, and Ellenberger decided to fly to Vegas, where he successfully lobbied for one more shot. And, amazingly, Ellenberger cashed in, hitting the liver kick of his life against Matt Brown, and essentially saving his career with a sudden knockout win. But honestly, that just looks like an outlier, as Ellenberger looked flat again in his last fight, losing to Jorge Masvidal in one-sided fashion before a weird stoppage after Ellenberger's toe got stuck in the cage. I suppose Ellenberger could hit a hail mary knockout blow again, or suddenly regain his form under original coach Rafael Cordeiro, who's been working with Ellenberger in his last few fights, but this really seems like a fight where Perry's going to be the younger, quicker, more aggressive fighter and pick Ellenberger apart. I'll take Perry via second-round knockout, and don't really feel all that great about it. Thales Leites (26-7 overall, 11-6 UFC) vs. Sam Alvey (30-8 [1] overall, 7-3 UFC, 1-1 Bellator): God help us all, "Smilin'" Sam Alvey is making a run up the middleweight ladder. I'm a fan of Alvey's, but the whole package is just delightfully weird - outside of the cage, Alvey is pure cheese (appropriately enough, since he's from Wisconsin) - a giant ginger, Alvey's always got a big, goofy grin on his face, and his seemingly always-pregnant ex-model wife acting as one of his corner(wo)men. The best way I can sum up the whole Sam Alvey aesthetic is this is a man who walks out to Train's "Hey Soul Sister", and it somehow fits right into the whole package. And inside the cage, it's not like Alvey is any less weird, as he's as pure a counter-fighter as you'll ever see - at times, Alvey is almost devoted to inactivity, waiting for his perfect shot, but when he senses his opened, he'll send a giant straight punch right down the pike, and that's knocked a bunch of his opponents out. And lately, he's even done enough to earn decision victories, as he's coming off nods from the judges against Alex Nicholson and Nate Marquardt. Amazingly, Alvey's fought five times in the last year, winning his last four - having kids ain't cheap, and it's been amusing to see Alvey beg for fights in Australia, Europe and Mexico in order to get a paid family vacation - and he looks to break through with win number five against Thales Leites. Leites has had a strange career arc - a horribly boring fight against Anderson Silva for the middleweight title pretty much put Leites on the fast track to being cut in 2009, and UFC only re-signed him in 2013 as a favor to then-featherweight champ Jose Aldo. But Leites suddenly reeled off a five-fight win streak upon his return, and even more surprisingly, some of those fights were actually exciting, as Leites suddenly discovered that you could throw strikes in a MMA fight, and flashed some knockout power to boot. That eventually hit a clear ceiling - a loss to Michael Bisping was narrow, but two of Leites's last three fights have seen Gegard Mousasi and Krzysztof Jotko handle him rather easily - but Leites should be able to hang around as a gatekeeper for a few more years. I...do not know what to expect from this fight. Leites's striking, as mentioned, is as good as it's ever been, and he may be active enough to just win a decision over Alvey based solely on that, but Leites's huge advantage should be if he can get this to the ground. And I'm not sure he can do that. Alvey's done a pretty solid job of keeping himself upright, and even flashed some submission chops, like his strange front guillotine that tapped out Eric Spicely. But normally, when opponents try and work takedowns on Alvey, he can usually turn it into an ugly clinch battle, and mostly get the better of things from there. And the more I think about this, the more I do expect this to be an ugly, ugly fight that's mostly fifteen minutes of blah clinchwork, and I'll actually favor Leites, even though such a fight would probably turn into one of those split decisions that has you questioning the meaning of life. Plus, I think there's a better shot of Leites being able to complete takedowns - at which point he should be able to work over Alvey pretty solidly, if not just tap him out - than Smilin' Sam being able to land that big knockout punch. So yeah, weird fight, and sadly probably not in an interesting way, and I'm picking Leites via decision to send Alvey back down the ladder. Dustin Ortiz (16-6 overall, 5-4 UFC, 2-0 Strikeforce) vs. Brandon Moreno (13-3 overall, 2-0 UFC): A sleeper for fight of the night, particularly since the Nashville crowd should have a rooting interest, given that Dustin Ortiz is a Tennessee product. Flyweight is a shark tank - UFC doesn't have a particularly large division, but almost everyone in it is really freaking good, and Ortiz's career is emblematic of that. Ortiz has wins over top prospects like Ray Borg and Justin Scoggins, and his losses have come to three former title challengers and Jussier Formiga, but he still needed a win over Zach Makovsky to even hang onto his spot on the roster. There are no easy nights at 125, and even though Ortiz had a career-best performance in that Makovsky fight and is theoretically taking a minor step down in competition, he's still in for a hell of a fight against another top prospect in Brandon Moreno. Mexico's Moreno impressed in his lone fight on this past season of TUF - he was seeded sixteenth on the cast and gave a game effort in a loss to the much more decorated Alexandre Pantoja - but really made good on his late-notice UFC debut, as he took a fight with Louis Smolka on about a week's notice last October, and clamped on a first-round guillotine for one of the biggest upsets of the year. And things have gone swimmingly since then - he looked excellent in a follow-up win over Ryan Benoit, and combined with the tremendous charisma that Moreno has shown in his post-fight interviews, UFC may have yet another potential Mexican star on their hands. Honestly, I could see this a lot like last weekend's fight of the night between Tim Elliott and Smolka, as this figures to just be a non-stop scramble-fest between two guys most comfortable going to the ground and creating chaos. I'll favor Ortiz to take the decision, but given the strides Moreno has been making fight by fight, a sudden improvement here wouldn't surprise me - hell, just pencil this in for a split decision and a round of applause when it's all over. Scott Holtzman (9-2 overall, 2-2 UFC) vs. Michael McBride (8-2 overall, 0-1 UFC, 1-0 Bellator): Probably the least relevant fight on the card, as each of these guys might be fighting for their UFC jobs, but it could still be a fun one, since Scott Holtzman is a local fighter, and a pretty entertaining one at that. A former minor league hockey player, Holtzman's mostly a raw athlete who relies on his physical tools, and his UFC career has been a mixed bag - he's beaten some lower-tier fighters, but couldn't even get past a journeyman like Drew Dober. Still, you can see potential for Holtzman as an action fighter and fan favorite, particularly after his last fight against Josh Emmett, where both guys' physicality and lack of defense turned out to be a fun brawl and one of the highlights of December's card in Sacramento. Holtzman looks to get back on track against Iowa's Michael McBride, who's looking to rebound from an unimpressive UFC debut. A giant submission specialist, McBride took a late notice fight against Nik Lentz that was an absolutely awful matchup, as Lentz just overpowered and threw around McBride before pounding him out late in the second round. McBride's path to victory seems pretty simple here - get things to the ground, and from there just work for a submission that he can probably get, since again, Holtzman is more athlete than anything. But I have concerns if he can get it there - again, Lentz is an awful matchup, but for all his size, McBride did get thrown around pretty easily, and just sort of generally looked like a guy who would have trouble imposing anything on the kind of athletes that are up and down the UFC roster. So, for that reason, I'll say Holtzman mostly shuts down McBride's game, works him over on the feet, and then eventually gets a late stoppage in the third, but there's always the chance that McBride could get his ground game going and make me look really dumb for predicting that. Jessica Penne (12-4 overall, 1-2 UFC, 3-1 Invicta, 1-1 Bellator) vs. Danielle Taylor (8-2 overall, 1-1 UFC): This'll be weird. Jessica Penne's UFC career hasn't gone exactly as planned - a former atomweight champion with Invicta and one of the top 105ers in the world, Penne did quite well when she moved up to strawweight and was part of UFC's tournament to crown an inaugural champ, as Penne made it all the way to the final four before falling to eventual winner Carla Esparza. Then Penne took a narrow win from Randa Markos to establish herself as a top contender, and then...it all pretty much went to hell. Penne did in fact get a title shot at Joanna Jedrzejczyk, who was champ by then, but Jedrzejczyk destroyed her in one of the more brutally one-sided title fights you'll ever see. In fact, that went badly enough that Penne required surgery on her nose, and after taking a year off to get that taken care off, Penne came back and...promptly got shellacked by Jessica Andrade, who was making her debut at 115 before streaking towards her own title shot against Jedrzejczyk. So Penne badly needs a win to turn things around, and a fight against Danielle Taylor just might do the trick. Taylor looked to be a weird, fun addition to the strawweight ranks, but instead it's just kind of been all-weird, no-fun. At five feet even, Taylor is probably the tiniest human to ever compete in the Octagon, and both her fights have been kind of a mess. Taylor just sort of circles at range and then tries to dive-bomb in with knockout shots, but it hasn't really accomplished much of anything - both her UFC fights just sort of saw her circle at a far enough range that nobody really connected with anything, and that was somehow enough to get her a decision win over Seohee Ham in her last fight. It's hard to tell how this one is going to look, unless it's just another weird circle-fest; Penne's main problem is that when she gets hit solidly, she gets scared off badly and starts to back up against the cage - and fitting enough given her last name, Penne is pretty much done once she starts sticking to the wall. But I don't know if Taylor can connect with that shot, and given how cautious she's been in her UFC fights, if she can even follow up if she's able to rock Penne. Plus Penne figures to be Taylor's first opponent that looks for takedowns and the submission - that's where Penne is best, and I have no idea how Taylor will react if Penne just tries to chase her down and take things to the mat. Just a strange fight - I'll go with Penne via submission in, say, the second round, but I worry this is just going to devolve into two overly cautious fighters and just wind up being the bad sort of weird, like Taylor's last two fights. Alexis Davis (17-7 overall, 4-2 UFC, 2-0 Invicta, 2-1 Strikeforce) vs. Cindy Dandois (8-2 overall, 2-1 Invicta): A really fun, interesting fight here, particularly if it winds up going to the ground. I understand why a lot of people don't take Cindy Dandois seriously - she's a chesty Belgian with a goofy personality and a penchant for weird Disney cosplay - but she's actually a pretty solid fighter, at least grappling-wise. While I wouldn't trust her to win a kickboxing match, she has a pretty solid judoka base and is pretty damn good with her submissions; she's the last person to beat current Invicta featherweight champ Megan Anderson, and won her last fight in Invicta via a pretty sweet unorthodox straight armbar against Jessamyn Duke. Given that she splits time between 135 and 145, one would think Dandois would be a natural to move up if UFC ever decides they want to have an actual women's featherweight division, but since they apparently don't, she makes her UFC debut against former bantamweight title challenger Alexis Davis. Davis was one of the victims of Ronda Rousey's path of rage, getting hit with seemingly a million punches before getting finished in sixteen seconds back in 2014, and Davis has been fairly inactive since then - she beat Sarah Kaufman via come-from-behind submission in early 2015, then took some time off to have a baby before returning this past December. And that comeback fight didn't go all too well - Sara McMann was able to survive on the ground with Davis and actually wound up sinking on her own fight-ending arm triangle choke, suggesting that Davis's grappling-heavy game may have some problems against this new wave of athletes that's coming up in women's MMA. I don't know if Dandois qualifies as that, but it's still kind of a coin flip of a fight - I always have trouble calling these submission artist versus submission artist bouts, since there's so many factors going on with how those styles interact. Neither woman is much on the feet, so I'm assuming this is going to be close to a straight grappling match, and I think I actually favor Dandois, since she seems to have the more versatile game - and even if she's not an amazing athlete herself, she should be the bigger woman and be able to bull Davis around a bit. So I'll take Dandois to clamp on something weird, and let's call it a second-round submission, though really, I'm just hoping for a fun fight. Bryan Barberena (12-4 overall, 3-2 UFC) vs. Joe Proctor (11-4 overall, 4-3 UFC): 2016 saw Bryan Barberena become a bit of a thing - I liked him as a gritty mid-tier lightweight, and when Barberena decided to move up to welterweight, he wound up being the lucky guy to get a shot at Sage Northcutt that January. And Barberena cashed in on it, just pretty much waiting things out until he could get Northcutt to the ground, and tapping the boy wonder in fairly short order from there. Things got amusing from there, as UFC was obviously not happy with Barberena judging by their matchmaking - they paired him up with undefeated Brazilian prospect Warlley Alves, and, amazingly, Barberena survived yet again, weathering a tough first round to take over and score a decision win, one of the bigger upsets of 2016. But the third time wasn't the charm, as Barberena didn't really have much of an answer for Colby Covington's power wrestling game, as UFC finally found a prospect that could overwhelm Barberena. So Barberena looks to rebound from that loss, and it looks like UFC is pretty much shunting him to the journeyman circuit, as he faces Boston's Joe Proctor, who moves up from lightweight himself to make his debut at 170. This seems flippant, but Proctor really is just kind of a guy - he can strike a little, he's got some pretty good grappling, and the whole package makes for a fairly unnotable lower-tier gatekeeper. He's beaten guys like Justin Salas and Cristiano Marcello who never made much of an impact in UFC, but he's been quite overmatched against anything better than that. And, well, Barberena is better than that. He's not flashy at all, so I just kind of expect Barberena to grind out a fairly ugly, one-sided decision, and, well, maybe they can put him against an interesting prospect after that, since gatekeeper is pretty much Barberena's destiny. Hector Sandoval (13-3 overall, 1-1 UFC) vs. Matt Schnell (10-3 overall, 0-1 UFC): We should kick things off on a fun note here, as two action flyweights go at it. Hector Sandoval's one of seemingly a million Team Alpha Male products that populate the lower weight classes, though unlike many, he seems to be more of a speedy striker than your typical wrestler/submission artist that you get out of Sacramento. When Demetrious Johnson was forced to drop out of his initial fight against Wilson Reis, Sandoval was the guy that Reis ran through instead, but Sandoval rebounded this past December with a fairly one-sided decision win over Fredy Serrano. Sandoval looks to make it two in a row against Louisiana's Matt Schnell, who's looking to rebound from a poor UFC debut himself. Schnell, who was apparently a star on a MTV reality show a few years ago called "Caged", if that means anything to anyone, impressed a bit on the all-flyweight season of TUF last year, but moved up to bantamweight for a late-notice UFC debut against Rob Font and got handled pretty easily. So now he moves down to his usual weight class, and it'll make for an interesting contrast, as Schnell is pretty big for the division at 5'8", while Sandoval is just 5'2". I'll take Schnell here - I've been pretty high on him whenever I've watched him, as he's got an impressive dynamic submission game and has some solid knockout power, on top of his size for the division. I do have his concerns once he's against guys who can take him into deep waters - Schnell hasn't had a decision win since the first fight of his career - but I'm not sure Sandoval is that guy. So I'll take Schnell by first-round submission, and then hopefully onto more interesting fights from there.

Nathan Coy (lost to Zak Cummings) vs. Sheldon Westcott: It’s been nice that Coy got his UFC shot years after anyone expected it, but dude, stop getting choked unconscious - Coy is 1-2 with the promotion, and both losses have seen him go to sleep rather than tap. Still, Coy’s a tough veteran grinder, and even though Westcott is coming off a win, I like the idea of the matchup - Westcott is basically a giant submission artist who either gets the first-round sub or tires badly, and Coy is exactly the kind of veteran grinder who can make that difficult.

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *So, UFC 210 was probably the best card of the year thus far, never really dragging throughout a very fun card, but the focus is going to be on just how weird the damn thing was. The light heavyweight title fight between Daniel Cormier and Anthony Johnson started weird at the weigh-ins; Cormier shockingly came in 1.2 pounds overweight, which seemingly meant that after all this, Cormier had lost his title on the scale. But New York has a rule on the books - which nobody was really aware of - that competitors in a title fight have a second shot at weighing in within two hours of weighing in the first time. But Cormier only needed ninety seconds to weigh in again and suddenly come in at 205...kinda - Cormier needed to commission to bring out the towel, and very obviously leaned on said towel, using what's apparently an old wrestling trick to suddenly take a few pounds off the scale. Adding to the weirdness, Johnson then weighed in at 203.8, 1.2 pounds less than he needed to - and given that Cormier had suddenly lost 1.2 pounds, a lot of people also ran with the angle that the commission had somehow adjusted the scale. But anyway, the fight was on, and the broad outline of it went very similarly to their first meeting; Johnson had some success early striking, even apparently breaking Cormier's nose at one point, but eventually crumbled and got tapped out, in this case in the second round. But Johnson's gameplan just, well, seemed dumb - Cormier teased leading up to this fight that he was going to strike with Johnson, and everyone sort of laughed since he should know better, but instead Johnson one-upped him by deciding to wrestle with Cormier, which just pretty much handed the champ the fight. Even Johnson's corner, per corner audio, was wondering what the hell he was doing and just seemed pissed off. Adding to the strangeness, Johnson suddenly retired after the fight, apparently to take some job with the Los Angeles Rams - while I'm kind of thrilled to not have to deal with the weird feelings that Johnson's domestic violence history brings up whenever he fights, this does further gut what might be UFC's thinnest division. But then Cormier sort of saved things, giving an excellent post-fight interview where he's finally started to lean in to people hating him for whatever reason, calling out both Jimi Manuwa and Jon Jones, each of which were cageside. Despite Dana White constantly saying otherwise, one assumes Cormier defending against Jones is the next step, although it looks like it won't be taking place in July as most people would've hoped. *Things didn't get any less strange with the co-main, which saw Gegard Mousasi beat Chris Weidman via controversial stoppage. It was a hell of a fight, with Weidman mostly getting the better of things, but as the fight was beginning to turn in Mousasi's favor, Mousasi hit a knee that could've been illegal, so the referee temporarily stopped the fight, and then things got weird. So, New York is one of the states that has adopted the new rules, which state that both palms must be down in order for an opponent to be grounded. Weidman was attempting to become a grounded opponent, but right before the knee connected, Mousasi essentially lifted Weidman up just enough that his hand was not touching the ground, which thus made the knee perfectly legal. Now, I don't blame the ref for stopping the fight when he did, since even in slow motion with multiple angles on replay, this was all by a razor-thin margin. So, well...then what? The fight was stopped by a legal blow, but not because of any danger, but because the referee thought the blow was illegal, and it's also very unclear if New York actually allows the use of instant replay to factor into this decision. So, theoretically, I guess the fight should have either been called a no contest or just continued exactly where it left off? Anyway, nobody really knew what was going on (and, frankly, I don't blame them), but this all became moot when the commission apparently deemed Weidman unfit to continue, giving Mousasi the win by TKO. This was all poorly explained live, but a few days later, thanks to corner audio, it came out that Weidman apparently thought it was February, in which case...good stoppage, I suppose. Though the whole circumstances around the stoppage were weird enough and, frankly, and this feels somewhat horrible to say, fighters have probably come back from a lot worse than however concussed Weidman was. At the very least, this throws Mousasi into the bucket as yet another middleweight contender getting screwed over by Michael Bisping's MMA fantasy camp title reign - and just in time for the Dutchman to become a free agent - plus, hey, if they want to do a rematch, the upcoming show on Long Island would be a perfect place to do it, although I'd understand if neither guy wanted to see the New York commission again. *And the third fight from the top almost didn't happen, thanks to - and this is a new one - breast implants, as New York temporarily pulled Pearl Gonzalez from her fight against Cynthia Calvillo because of her fake breasts. This all got super-weird - from a practical standpoint, it's unclear why New York waited until after weigh-ins to find out that Gonzalez has implants, but people were more focused on speculating if Miesha Tate, who fought on the Madison Square Garden card, has fake breasts and was allowed to fight - but the state eventually realized that the rule, as written, only applies to boxing, so the fight was back on. This got Gonzalez some viral buzz, but sadly she couldn't really capitalize, as this looked every bit the showcase fight for Calvillo that it was on paper, with the Californian eventually getting a third-round submission. UFC seems firmly in the Calvillo business, as Dana White was comparing her to Conor McGregor and Joanna Jedrzejczyk during the post-fight presser, which, um, seems like a bit much. Calvillo's a talented prospect, and does have some personality, but this really does seem like a case where UFC's gonna rush her into the wood chipper way too soon. *Pretty much every fight had something interesting come out of it, so I don't really know where to start, so let's just run down the card in order. Thiago Alves had his best performance since coming back from a two-year injury layoff in 2014, winning a decision over Patrick Cote - Alves looks old cosmetically, but was able to work his leg kick and power striking game to pretty great effect here, suggesting he has a few more years left as a gatekeeper. Cote retired after the fight, ending a pretty underrated career as a Canadian MMA pioneer; Cote was actually close to career-best form just a year ago, but between getting knocked out by Donald Cerrone and getting dropped a few times here, his signature durability was seemingly starting to fade, so this retirement probably comes at the right time. Charles Oliveira, forced to move up to lightweight, shockingly just ran through former Bellator champ Will Brooks, getting a takedown, working for Brooks's back, and tapping him out in two and a half minutes flat - this probably, and suddenly, ends any hopes of Brooks as a future UFC champ, as this looked like a layup of a style matchup, and who knows what this means for Oliveira, who's had a remarkably inconsistent career. But whether this was just an on night for "Do Bronx" or a sign that he's much stronger at 155, pretty much everyone agrees Oliveira should give lightweight a shot...except for Oliveira, who kept insisting he wants to move back down to featherweight. *The prelims were headlined by two super-impressive performances; the "main event prelim" was Myles Jury running through Mike De La Torre to notch his first win at featherweight after a long layoff, but the most impressive performance on the entire card may have come from welterweight prospect Kamaru Usman, who absolutely shellacked Sean Strickland. This figured to be a fairly even fight, as Strickland has been kind of a crafty survivor, but Usman continued his wrecking ball path up the 170 ladder. Usman just immediately established his wrestling game, taking Strickland down and beating him up for most of the first round, and from there that seemingly just left Strickland unable to do anything but react, as Usman just mixed up striking and takedowns while just dominating the fight. Guys have definitely been flashier coming up, but it's been a while since we've seen a guy who's just broken everyone coming up the ladder like Usman; I'm interested to see how Usman's game holds together against someone who can stop his wrestling, but I'm also unsure who that opponent is. Two New York-based prospects looked excellent - featherweight Shane Burgos continued his ascent with a solid win and eventual finish over Charles Rosa, while lightweight Gregor Gillespie looked awesome, knocking out Andrew Holbrook in just twenty seconds. Gillespie is probably a natural 145er given his frame, but the former wrestling champ hasn't had any problems taking out bigger opponents yet. Patrick Cummins beat Jan Blachowicz in a fun fight that was probably the most meaningless on the card, since both guys just sort of held serve - Cummins's lack of durability still means he can lose at any time, although Blachowicz was surprisingly unable to capitalize on rocking him early, and Blachowicz's complete lack of a gas tank causes his game to slowly fall apart. Buffalo's Desmond Green had a huge performance in his UFC debut in his hometown - he was a bit of an odd signing since he's been a boring grinder for most of his career, but here he actually looked pretty solid on the feet and got a decision win over Josh Emmett that was surprisingly watchable. Katlyn Chookagian and Irene Aldana had a fun fight that was the closest on the card, with Chookagian getting the nod by the narrowest of margins, and the card started with what was probably the worst fight on the card, as debuting flyweight Magomed Bibulatov coasted to a win over Jenel Lausa. Bibulatov's an excellent prospect, and I figured he'd blow through Lausa (though I seem to be lower on Lausa than most), but instead he just sort of cruised to a victory and never really threatened for a finish. Bibulatov should move quickly through the division, and is earmarked as a guy who could eventually challenge Demetrious Johnson, but of course since this is MMA and we can't have nice things, this all comes as rumors swirl of Bibulatov being a trigger-man for Ramzan Kadyrov, the Chechen warlord currently in the news for setting up concentration camps for homosexuals. Great. *USADA strikes again! Kelvin Gastelum's win over Vitor Belfort looked like a starmaking performance, and earned him a shot at Anderson Silva in June, but that's all fallen apart after Gastelum apparently failed an in-competition weed test. I mean, the man was speaking Portuguese in his post-fight interview, we should've known he was high. So yeah, the whole thing's dumb, even though I wonder why Gastelum was apparently smoking enough weed that close to the fight to trigger this failure, since it seems like USADA's raised those thresholds to fairly reasonable levels. Anyway, Gastelum has been pulled from his fight with Silva, and the win over Belfort may wind up being overturned. Whole thing's dumb! *TUF 26 is happening for some reason. ------ BOOKINGS: *Not a ton going on in terms of bookings this week. The biggest thing is probably the above, where UFC is seeking an opponent for Anderson Silva at UFC 212 with Kelvin Gastelum out. Luke Rockhold and Vitor Belfort have apparently been proposed and shot down, and Silva apparently wants a Nick Diaz rematch, which, hell, why not. We'll see what all parties involved come up with. Holly Holm and Bethe Correia will headline the June show from Singapore, as UFC continues to try and find someone fairly credible that Holm can easily beat. I'll kind of laugh if Bethe just out-wrestles her, since, well, she actually could, even if doing it over five rounds is a big ask. (Oh, and yes, Holm moving to 135 means that Cris Cyborg and Germaine de Randamie currently appear to be the entire women's 145 division.) The Stockholm card added two bouts at welterweight, as exciting British prospect Darren Till faces...unexciting German prospect Jessin Ayari, and Emil Meek returns from a big win over Jordan Mein to face Nordine Taleb. And the big July Vegas weekend is further taking shape - there will apparently be no Thursday fight pass show, so it'll just be a TUF finale on Friday, then UFC 213 on Saturday. The Cody Garbrandt/T.J. Dillashaw bantamweight title fight will take place at UFC 213, rather than headline the TUF show, which was a bit up in the air since those two are the coaches, and the UFC 213 show also added Travis Browne trying to get a much-needed win against Russian submission expert Aleksei Oleinik. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Anthony Johnson (22-6 overall, 13-6 UFC, last fought 4/8/17, L vs. Daniel Cormier): Well, that was weird. And that's a fitting epitaph for Anthony "Rumble" Johnson's career, which apparently ended with him suddenly retiring to take a job with the Los Angeles Rams after crumbling, once again, in a title fight to Daniel Cormier. Johnson debuted in UFC about a decade ago, and it's crazy to think that he was doing so at welterweight - though his gigantic size once he dehydrated obviously made him one of the scariest guys in the division, as he obliterated guys like Tommy Speer and Kevin Burns. An early submission loss to Rich Clementi was a bit of a surprise, but eventually emerged as a bit of a pattern, as Josh Koscheck also got Rumble to crumble and give up his neck, although that latter fight had some built-in excuses, as Koscheck faked getting poked in the eye and generally just bullshitted his way to surviving Johnson's initial onslaught. Honestly, for as many jokes as there have been about "Rumbleweight" back when Johnson was a giant welterweight, guys like John Lineker and Charles Oliveira have made Johnson look like a saint when it comes to making weight, as he only missed it twice in ten welterweight fights. But, well, then there was Johnson's one-off move to middleweight, where he blew weight by twelve pounds and lost in classic Rumble fashion - completely falling apart and giving up his neck for a rear naked joke - and the whole thing was bad enough that UFC just let Rumble go. Johnson then finally got his act together, moving up to light heavyweight and knocking fools out, then had a super-impressive UFC return, completely shutting down then-surging contender Phil Davis to basically take his shine as the next big thing at light heavyweight. But, things were a bit darker outside the cage - I don't know when the initial stuff surfaced, but I remember whispers around the time of Johnson's return about some domestic violence stuff in his past, and after his subsequent win over Antonio Rogerio Nogueira via brutal knockout, another incident surfaced that required a full UFC investigation. Of course, these investigations are pretty much for show, and Johnson was found innocent, but it started kind of a pattern - for every brutal, exciting knockout win that Johnson would rack up inside the cage, there'd be some incident like the one where he apparently started tormenting a housewife who was doing yoga where he wanted to train in a gym. Career-wise, Johnson was sort of the last big fight left for Jon Jones as Jones cleared out the division, but that never wound up happening - it was slated for May of 2015, but fell apart after Jones had his hit-and-run and got stripped of his belt, and Cormier made Rumble crumble twice more, both to win the vacant belt, and then in last weekend's rematch after Johnson worked his way towards another shot. Given Johnson's history, I can't particularly wish him well, but I just hope he kind of gets whatever his problems are out via whatever he's doing with the Rams, if only for everyone else's sake. 2) Patrick Cote (23-11 overall, 10-11 UFC, last fought 4/8/17, L vs. Thiago Alves): Cote probably picked the right time to retire, since his legendary chin started to show cracks that were probably only getting worse, but I'm sad to see him go out with a loss, if only because he seemed so happy once he finally got his UFC record over .500 last year. Cote was a pioneer of Canadian MMA, alongside fellow Montreal native Georges St. Pierre, but he started off his UFC career 0-4, first with a one-off fight at light heavyweight when UFC needed a late-notice opponent for Tito Ortiz, then losses to Joe Doerksen and Joe Riggs, then a submission loss to Travis Lutter in the final of the TUF 4 "Comeback" season. But that got Cote's foot in the door, and from there he rang up four wins and, surprisingly, got a title shot against Anderson Silva, even though that was more thanks to a lack of options rather than anything else. And that fight was a bit of a disaster - this was near the beginning of the period where Silva decided to just toy with opponents and entertain himself rather than the crowd, and after about two rounds of that, Cote stepped wrong and basically fell to the ground as his knee exploded. Alright then. Cote then missed all of 2009 and half of 2010 before returning from around a two-year layoff, but found his way out of the UFC shortly thereafter following losses to Alan Belcher and Tom Lawlor. From there, Cote continued his run of going undefeated outside the UFC and earned his way back, and then further established his niche as a fun stalwart whenever UFC ran north of the border. And in the last few years, Cote even seemed to be improving a bit - his win over Josh Burkman was great fun leading to a devastating knockout, and I still find his January 2016 win over Ben Saunders to be a highlight, as Cote basically just went full hockey fight, grabbed Saunders by the head, and just punched him until he went down. And that win, over thirteen years into Cote's MMA career, finally got his UFC record over .500, at 10-9. But, since this is MMA and nothing can ever end nicely, that went out the window at the end of Cote's career - Donald Cerrone became the first person to knock him out that June, and then there was this loss where he lost to a suddenly spry Thiago Alves, and even got dropped a few times. A sad end to one of the consensus nice guys of the sport, but he'll be fine, as he's got a gig as UFC's French color commentator and can probably trade in on his status as a popular Canadian vet. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 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), 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 - Bethe Correia vs. Holly Holm, Colby Covington vs. Dong Hyun Kim, Rafael dos Anjos vs. Tarec Saffiedine 6/25 - UFC Fight Night 112 - Oklahoma City, OK - Michael Chiesa vs. Kevin Lee, B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver, Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks, Ilir Latifi vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira 7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Cody Garbrandt ( c ) vs. T.J. Dillashaw, 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 on Fox 24 - April 15, 2017 - Sprint Center - Kansas City, Missouri This is the second of a pretty fun three-week run of UFC cards, and honestly, this might be the deepest top-to-bottom of the bunch, as we've got a bunch of interesting fights with big consequences, and some top-flight prospects (including possibly the best one in the world) on the undercard. Plus, it was nice to see UFC pull a rabbit out of their hat like the old days, before having so many cards and such strained fighter relations made it hard to put big short-notice fights together - as UFC was stacking up cards like the one next week in Nashville, or UFC 211 next month, it was looking like this card would wind up being an afterthought; the Namajunas/Waterson fight was the only main card-worthy bout announced, and while the Sprint Center had listed Doo Ho Choi against Renan Barao as the main event, that apparently fell apart before becoming official. But then UFC eventually fleshed out an excellent card, with a title fight and an excellent middleweight tilt, and slowly filled things out with interesting fights like Volkov/Nelson and Sterling/Mendes. So all in all an excellent card, particularly for free TV. MAIN CARD (Fox - 8:00 PM ET): Flyweight Championship: (C) Demetrious Johnson vs. (#3) Wilson Reis Women's Strawweight: (#4) Rose Namajunas vs. (#6) Michelle Waterson Middleweight: (#3) Jacare Souza vs. (#6) Robert Whittaker Featherweight: (#5) Jeremy Stephens vs. Renato Moicano PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox - 6:00 PM ET): Heavyweight: (#11) Alexander Volkov vs. Roy Nelson Bantamweight: Tom Duquesnoy vs. Patrick Williams Lightweight: Bobby Green vs. Rashid Magomedov Flyweight: (#9) Tim Elliott vs. (#12) Louis Smolka PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 4:00 PM ET): Bantamweight: (#8) Aljamain Sterling vs. Augusto Mendes Light Heavyweight: Devin Clark vs. Jake Collier Middleweight: Andrew Sanchez vs. Anthony Smith Welterweight: Nathan Coy vs. Zak Cummings Women's Bantamweight: (#13) Ashlee Evans-Smith vs. Ketlen Vieira THE RUNDOWN: Demetrious Johnson (25-2-1 overall, 13-1-1 UFC, 2-1 WEC) vs. Wilson Reis (22-6 overall, 6-2 UFC, 5-4 Bellator): After a run of flyweight kingpin Demetrious Johnson being forced to main event pay-per-views (often after other planned main events fell through), it's nice to have him main event another Fox show, where we can just sort of focus on how great he is rather than his lack of box office success. And UFC has settled into a groove as far as promoting him, focusing on his status as the pound-for-pound king and complete dominance over his division - in fact, the big angle here is that this win would give Johnson ten straight title defenses, tying him with Anderson Silva's middleweight reign for the longest title run in UFC history. And Johnson hasn't really been tested as champ - Joseph Benavidez figured to be Johnson's big rival, and is still pretty solidly the number two flyweight in the world, but after their narrow fight that saw Johnson become the first-ever flyweight champ, Johnson iced him for a first-round knockout in the rematch, and UFC has never gone back to the well for a third fight. Olympic gold medalist Henry Cejudo was the guy most had earmarked to possibly unseat Johnson, but about a year ago, Johnson also put an end to that via first-round stoppage, even as Cejudo has also cemented himself among the division elite. Hell, in Johnson's last fight, everyone gushed about how Tim Elliott gave Johnson way more trouble than anyone had in years - but when you step back, you realize that even then Johnson only needed about a round to adjust, and wound up earning two 49-46 scorecards and a 49-45. So Johnson just keeps lording over the division, waiting for the Sonnen to his Silva, the McGregor to his Aldo, the guy who'll spark enough of a rivalry to make a money fight - and to his credit, Johnson's shown some more personality in recent years, showing a Dominick Cruz-like sort of matter of fact disdain for his opponents, at least when it comes to their ability to hang with him in the cage. And, well, he's right. So challenger number ten winds up being Wilson Reis, who was initially slated to challenge Johnson this past July, in what was a bit of a weird move at the time - Reis had mostly looked good since cutting down from bantamweight, but was coming off a winning streak of all of one win, a rather dominant victory over Dustin Ortiz. But Reis was probably the best guy left in the division that Johnson hasn't beat (save Jussier Formiga, who the timing never seems to work out for), and after a Johnson injury caused that fight to be scrapped, it's probably still true about nine months later. Reis has looked good in his last two fights - instead of Johnson, Reis wound up running through Hector Sandoval this past summer, and his February bout with Ulka Sasaki was a fun win in which both guys looked great - but frankly, Reis, both in UFC and his previous life in Bellator, has always been a guy who's fallen just short of contender status. He's durable, he's well-rounded, and while anyone has a chance in any fight, I don't really see where he has an advantage against Johnson. "Mighty Mouse" does have to lose one of these nights, and when he does it'll probably be in unexpected fashion - it almost kind of has to be - but I don't see Reis being the guy; I'll give the Brazilian the benefit of the doubt and say he hangs tough for all five rounds, but it figures to be another dominant Johnson win, whether by finish or decision. Rose Namajunas (5-3 overall, 3-2 UFC, 2-1 Invicta) vs. Michelle Waterson (14-4 overall, 2-0 UFC, 3-1 Invicta, 1-0 Strikeforce): A really fun fight here that might determine Joanna Jedrzejczyk's next challenger for the strawweight title, particularly if the nod goes to "The Karate Hottie" Michelle Waterson. Waterson's been on the MMA radar for years, and frankly, there was a time years ago when I just sort of dismissed her as a marketing gimmick. And it was easy to do so - she had a fairly middling record, and trying to look up any information on her was more likely to result in an ad for a bikini calendar rather than any video of her fights, but over the last few years, she's pretty much demanded to be taken seriously. Waterson came into Invicta in 2012, cutting down to atomweight (105 pounds), which pretty much turned out to be her natural weight class, and won their title from Jessica Penne in fairly short order. After losing her belt to Herica Tiburcio in a pretty huge upset, Waterson was more or less a no-brainer signing for UFC, given her talented and marketable looks - the only question was how well she'd be able to compete against larger opponents at 115 pounds. And things have gone pretty well so far - after a gimme debut win over Angela Magana, Waterson was on the shelf for almost a year and a half before coming back and beating Paige VanZant in impressive fashion; I know a ton of people dismiss VanZant as purely a marketing creation, but she's still a talented prospect, and I was hugely impressed with how Waterson got the win. VanZant's strength is her deceptive, well, strength and ability in the clinch, and Waterson just pretty much dove in there, powered VanZant to the ground, and then tapped her out. So between what wound up being a showcase main event win on Fox, and UFC subsequently picking up the promotional ball and featuring Waterson where they can over a bunch of different kinds of media, the stage is set for Waterson to become a pretty big deal in the division. But first, she has to get past Rose Namajunas, who's in a bit of a weird spot, even if she's still regarded as one of the best fighters in the division. Namajunas burst onto the scene in Invicta back in 2013, looking like the female version of fellow Milwaukee native (and teammate at the time) Anthony Pettis, a lanky athlete reliant on hitting all sorts of crazy highlight-reel maneuvers, including a flying armbar win over Kathina Catron in just twelve seconds. And Namajunas was probably the big standout coming out of season 20 of TUF, between her fighting style, good looks, and personality, even after losing UFC's inaugural strawweight title fight in pretty one-sided fashion to Carla Esparza. For a bit, it looked like Namajunas was marching her way back towards a title fight after wins over Angela Hill, VanZant, and Tecia Torres, which showed Namajunas starting to rein in her dynamism for a bit of a more functional game, but a loss to Karolina Kowalkiewicz in what was essentially a #1 contender's fight last summer was fairly disheartening - Namajunas was doing well to win rounds boxing from the outside, but kept both putting herself and finding herself in the clinch, where Kowalkiewicz was able to use her deceptive strength to pretty much wreck Namajunas's night. The talent is still there, and I think if Namajunas puts it all together she can still become somewhat of a star, but who knows when that happens - though still just 24 and four years into her career, time is still on her side. This is probably the hardest fight on the night to call, and I think a lot of it depends on if Namajunas can fight a smart fight and keep Waterson from imposing her will. Really, for Namajunas, I think the outlines of the fight look similar to the Kowalkiewicz bout - Namajunas can probably win a decision if she just keeps things at a distance, but if this fight takes place in the clinch, I don't really know which way it goes. Theoretically, Namajunas's size and length should also give her the advantage there, but after seeing how Waterson handled a pretty damn strong athlete in VanZant, I'm not so sure; and while I'd trust Namajunas more to bust out some crazy submission, as far as dictating control in the grappling game, I really could go either way. I easily could see a fight where Namajunas just sort of floats in and out of control and loses a close one, but I think I'll trust in her putting a consistent performance together and taking the decision, though as I said, I expect this to be a close fight and a pretty fun one to boot. Though, that said, I'm not really that sure how good either will do when it comes to facing Jedrzejczyk, but that's another thought for another day. Jacare Souza (24-4 [1] overall, 7-1 UFC, 7-1 Strikeforce) vs. Robert Whittaker (17-4 overall, 8-2 UFC): While my thoughts on Michael Bisping holding up a suddenly stacked middleweight division to have some sort of weird MMA title defense fantasy camp, and UFC enabling him to do so, mostly consist of a whole bunch of profanity, one of the plusses is that we get a bunch of awesome fights as those contenders try to separate themselves from the pack, like this one. He did lose a decision to Yoel Romero in December 2015 that most felt he won, but you could make a case that Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza should be the rightful middleweight contender, since that's his only loss going back to his 2011 Strikeforce title loss to Luke Rockhold. Funnily enough, when UFC absorbed Strikeforce, most people felt it was Jacare, not Rockhold, that had the most potential to be a UFC champ, and that just as easily could have happened if things had worked out differently - Souza's a BJJ stud, and rounded out a dangerous enough striking game to complement those skills, even if he's still at his strongest when the fight goes to the ground. And since that Romero loss and the whole Bisping mess happened, Souza's seemingly been the most eager to just keep fighting - he ran through Vitor Belfort, did the same to Tim Boetsch after a rematch with Rockhold fell through, and looks to do the same against Robert Whittaker, UFC's biggest rising star from Australia. Whittaker was still fairly raw when he won TUF: Smashes, a one-off season pitting England against Australia, and frankly, looked like a bit of a bust as a prospect early on, as he quickly lost back-to-back fights to Court McGee and Stephen Thompson, the latter in brutal fashion. But Whittaker then moved up to middleweight, and everything has suddenly clicked - first came dynamic knockouts of Clint Hester and Brad Tavares, then one-sided wins over Uriah Hall and Rafael Natal, and his last fight was a bit of a star-making performance, winning a crazy one-round sprint of a main event over Derek Brunson in front of the Australian faithful. Whittaker figures to hang around the middleweight elite for a while, but this is his first shot at it, and it's frankly an excellent one - Whittaker's been excellent at adapting a boxing-based style to MMA, and could easily pick Souza apart on the feet, particularly since the Brazilian is 37 and could be slowing down any fight now. But Whittaker's ground game is an open question - of all those guys I named, none of them are really wrestlers save Brunson, who infamously just decided to charge directly at Whittaker for pretty much that entire fight; to find a guy who looked to test Whittaker on the ground, I guess you'd have to go all the way back to Colton Smith in 2013, and, well, Colton Smith wasn't very good. So this seems like what I like to call a fairly binary fight - either Whittaker keeps it standing and probably wins a decision, though I wouldn't count out Jacare, or Souza does eventually find a way to get Whittaker to the ground, and in the absence of any other information, probably blows through him once it gets there. When in doubt, I tend to always favor the wrestler/grappler, and I'll do so again here, so give be Jacare the human alligator by second-round submission, though a win by either guy wouldn't surprise me. Jeremy Stephens (25-13 overall, 12-12 UFC) vs. Renato Moicano (10-0-1 overall, 2-0 UFC): Well, this is going to be a fun one, and the weird matchmaking makes a lot more sense when you find out that this was apparently supposed to be Stephens welcoming former lightweight stalwart Gilbert Melendez to the featherweight division. But instead, it's a huge opportunity for Renato "Moicano" Carneiro, who's had a fairly solid two-fight UFC run. Moicano came into UFC with some hype as a fun, violent prospect, and he showed that in his UFC debut by starching Tom Niinimaki and generally looking like a force to be reckoned with. A slated fight with Mirsad Bektic would've been hot fire, but instead Moicano tore his ACL, and was out of action for about a year before returning last May, winning a narrow split decision over Russian prospect Zubaira Tukhugov. That performance honestly wasn't super-impressive, even though Tukhugov is a decent prospect, so hopefully that was just Moicano shaking off the rust, since he's got a huge test ahead of him in Jeremy Stephens. Conor McGregor pretty much cemented Stephens's MMA legacy as "who the fook is that guy", but that masks the fact that Stephens has been surprisingly successful in his cut down to featherweight - the Iowan spent five years in the UFC at 155 and never really got past action gatekeeper status, but after his cut down in 2013, he's pretty solidly established himself as a top-ten guy and continued as a bit of a knockout threat. Admittedly, he's sort of become a bit of a gatekeeper again, just at a higher level - losses to guys like Frankie Edgar and Cub Swanson have been fairly one-sided - but Stephens does still seem to be improving a bit, even this long into his career, and is pretty much always in the fight. I do sort of trust that UFC matchmakers see something in Moicano that I don't as far as him being able to hang with Stephens, but, well, I don't see it - even though the Brazilian's an interesting prospect and this should be fun, my pick is Stephens by first-round knockout. Alexander Volkov (27-6 overall, 1-0 UFC, 6-3 Bellator) vs. Roy Nelson (22-13 overall, 9-9 UFC): Well, the decline phase is here for Roy Nelson. Big Country's always been a fan favorite, thanks to his highlight-reel knockouts and tubby everyman appearance, even as it's become more and more apparent that he's a dumb guy who only thinks he's a smart guy pretending to be a dumb guy, but years of not taking care of his body have pretty much finally caught up with him, and Nelson's fights lately have pretty much seen him just lurch around the cage looking for that looping knockout punch, or finally relying on his long-dormant high-level grappling game. Though, funnily enough and with all that said, heavyweight is in such a spot that Nelson easily could've gone 3-0 in 2016 - his lone loss to Derrick Lewis was a split decision that could've gone either way, and he earned a decision win over a timid Jared Rosholt and was able to connect with one of those knockout blows against Bigfoot Silva. Still, Silva was pretty much outquicking and outmaneuvering Nelson before that finish, so that...says a lot. Nelson earned a suspension after that fight for bizarrely deciding to kick John McCarthy in the butt over what he felt was a late stoppage, so after being forced to apologize, Nelson looks to connect with the chin of Alexander Volkov. Volkov was a good signing by UFC last year, if not an exceptionally high-ceiling one - a former Bellator champ, the Russian is a 6'7" kickboxer who does a decent job of working at range and in the clinch, but isn't particularly imposing strength-wise for a heavyweight, and is often there to be hit. His UFC debut showed pretty much all his pros and cons, as most people felt it was Tim Johnson that won a narrow decision, but in the end, Volkov got the nod. You know, going into this I was going to commend UFC for putting Nelson against a viable opponent that I actually thought there was a chance he could beat, but thinking about this fight more and more, I'm actually starting to outright favor Nelson. He's ridiculously slow, but Volkov's honestly just as plodding due to his size, and pretty much everything lines up for Nelson to either be able to catch him, either with a punch or for a takedown. If Nelson just decides to box, I still could see him being so shot that even Volkov can evade that big overhand knockout blow, but as mentioned above, Nelson's been a little bit better lately in terms of mixing in his grappling, and if nothing else, he should be able to take down and control Volkov if he wants to. Yes, part of me is betting on Roy Nelson to fight a smart fight, which rightfully frightens the hell out of me, but my call, amazingly, is for Nelson to use that ground game and just take a decision. Picking Nelson to win a fight in 2017 is damn sure an indictment of something, though at this point I'm still not sure of what. Tom Duquesnoy (14-1 [1] overall) vs. Patrick Williams (8-4 overall, 1-1 UFC): So UFC finally signed one of MMA's top prospects after going after him for years, and even better, him being this high up on the card suggests they know what they have on their hands. Paris's Tom Duquesnoy has topped prospect lists for years, and there was word years ago, before Duquesnoy even turned twenty, that there was an open offer from UFC to Duquesnoy on the table. But Duquesnoy chose to go the other route and make sure he was ready to make an impact once he joined the roster, and, well, job done. Duquesnoy's gone on a tear, becoming two-division champ in BAMMA, one of England's top promotions, and doing so with highlight-reel finish after highlight-reel finish. That's not to say Duquesnoy's blown through everyone - Brendan Loughnane took him to a tough decision in Duquesnoy's last title defense at featherweight, and his last fight with Alan Philpott was fairly close before Duquesnoy turned things up to finish things in the second round - but Duquesnoy's just so well-rounded and dynamic that his ceiling is absolutely ridiculous. He gets a credible first test in Patrick Williams, who just hasn't been active enough to make much of a name for himself - the Floridian debuted in 2014 against Chris Beal, a fight he was mostly winning before Beal hit a highlight-reel flying knee KO, and his last fight was all the way back in Mexico in June of 2015, where Williams just blitzed Alejandro Perez and choked him out in just 23 seconds. Williams has a fine offensive arsenal, but I'm sort of worried about his defense, as the Beal fight showed that he doesn't really react well under pressure, and, well, that's a problem against Duquesnoy, who pretty much wastes no time in going after his opponent and trying to destroy them with a varied arsenal of strikes. Duquesnoy does get hit a bit more than I'd like, so I suppose it's possible that Williams clips him, but this does seem like a favorable style matchup for the favorite, and if things start going downhill for Williams, it'll probably all fall apart pretty quickly. Williams providing a challenge wouldn't shock me, but the much likelier result is that Duquesnoy just blows through him for a first-round knockout to show that he's officially arrived. Bobby Green (23-7 overall, 4-2 UFC, 4-1 Strikeforce) vs. Rashid Magomedov (19-2 overall, 4-1 UFC): Well, this is some pretty damn fun matchmaking, putting two lightweights badly in need of a win, who each have vastly different approaches to fighting, against each other. Rashid Magomedov was sort of the dark horse of the lightweight division for a while - he hasn't fought all that often, but when he has, his performances have typically been effective, if unmemorable. Magomedov's just an extremely gifted counter-striker, with a really bad tendency to coast once he's established the advantage; so moving up the ladder, Magomedov just sort of racked up one-sided decisions where the narrative was less about how good he looked, but in how frustrating his refusal to just finish the fight was. And that eventually hit a ceiling - he finally got a top-ten opponent in Beneil Dariush this past November, and Dariush just sort of fought a safe fight and pressured Magomedov into the clinch a lot, not allowing the Russian to implement much offense and taking a clear decision win. Magomedov looks to rebound against California's Bobby "King" Green, who it's nice to see back in the cage, since it feels like Green is always pulling out of a fight with either an injury or some sort of personal tragedy. Green doesn't have the jiu-jitsu, but he sort of has the same ethos as a Diaz brother, using some solid boxing to just throw a ton of volume on the feet, and further trying to frustrate his opponents by talking a ton of trash inside the cage. Green was sort of a regional action fighter for years, but finally got some momentum on Strikeforce undercards before riding that into a four-fight UFC winning streak, capped by a controversial decision win over Josh Thomson. Consensus is that that win was a classic example of Green just winning through aggression and showmanship rather than actual effectiveness, but that gameplan didn't work in his last two fights - Edson Barboza pretty much handled Green's game, and after about a year and a half layoff, Dustin Poirier responded to Green's smack talk by pretty much just punching his lights out. The broad outlines of the fight are fairly simple - Green's going to press the action and be there for Magomedov to counter pretty easily, and it's just a question if Green can survive to a decision, and throw enough volume in the process (or prevent Magomedov from doing so) to take a win. I'll favor Magomedov to just coast to another decision win, as he does, but honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if Magomedov deserved the win but Green just got the nod anyway - hell, I think I'd be less surprised by that than Green just outright winning the fight. Tim Elliott (13-7-1 overall, 2-5 UFC) vs. Louis Smolka (11-3 overall, 5-3 UFC): When UFC announced the cast for TUF 24, an all-flyweight season to earn a shot at Demetrious Johnson, Tim Elliott was the consensus favorite - Elliott was probably a top-ten flyweight at the time UFC cut him in 2015 in a bit of a weird decision - the promotion pretty much matched him with the division's elite, and even though he pretty much held his own, three straight losses and he was cut. And indeed, Elliott won the season, and even gave Johnson his biggest test in a bit...though it speaks to Johnson's dominance that basically amounted to winning the first round, and then getting dominated for the ensuing twenty minutes. Anyway, after teasing a move up to bantamweight - Elliott's weight cut for the title fight was apparently so rough his coaches had to stop him from quitting - Elliott gets a shot at a rebound win in his hometown of Kansas City against Hawaii's Louis Smolka. The tide turned for Smolka really quickly - seven months ago, Smolka was riding a four-fight win streak and looking like one of the most dynamic fighters in the division, as well as a dark horse to be plucked from the lower part of the rankings as UFC searched for a fresh challenger for Johnson. But after Sergio Pettis dropped out of a slated fight with Smolka this past October, Smolka instead wound up getting tapped out by debuting prospect Brandon Moreno in one of the biggest upsets of the year. After that, Smolka lost a fairly one-sided decision to Ray Borg, and now there's a ton of questions about Smolka's game, namely his ability to dictate the terms of a fight rather than get by on scrambles and submissions. And if Borg wound up being a tough matchup for Smolka, Elliott looks like an awful one - Elliott's a funky striker and an unorthodox submission artist, and as mentioned, gigantic for the division, so if Smolka had trouble grappling with Borg, and hell, Elliott temporarily got the better of Johnson, than the Missourian should be able to just dominate things here. Smolka will still have a reach advantage, so I suppose he could keep Elliott at bay, and if this just turned into a scramblefest, it's admittedly a 50-50 shot as far as who latches on a crazy submission, but everything in this fight seems to favor Elliott. So I'll take the hometown boy to coast to a fairly one-sided decision, though this could wind up being pretty fun. Aljamain Sterling (12-2 overall, 4-2 UFC) vs. Augusto Mendes (6-1 overall, 1-1 UFC): Bantamweight's as deep as ever, with a ton of rising talent making their way into the title picture, and it's shocking that those ranks don't contain Aljamain Sterling. Just a year ago, Sterling looked like the brightest prospect in the division, and it looked like UFC was finally starting to get behind him - for whatever reason, be it UFC's historical problems with promoting black athletes, or the fact that Sterling was fairly outspoken about testing free agency, Sterling was mostly buried on the prelims before testing the open market and eventually doubling his pay to return to UFC. (Though, honestly, Sterling probably should've gotten more, if not for the fact that Bellator, oddly, apparently chose not to make an offer to such a talented, marketable prospect.) But upon his UFC return, the promotion finally started to hype Sterling a bit promotionally - even if the New Yorker was still stuck in the featured Fight Pass prelim - only for Bryan Caraway to expose all the holes in Sterling's game. Sterling got some comparisons to Jon Jones, and it makes some sense - both are former collegiate wrestlers, both are long athletes for their divisions, and both even started at the same gym in upstate New York, but after Sterling dominated the first round, Caraway got him to rely more and more on his unorthodox, high volume kicking game. And while that game makes sense in isolation - it allows Sterling to take advantage of his size and reach - it's an absolutely horrible fit for the rest of his game, as that distance makes it harder for Sterling to implement his excellent wrestling and grappling, and just expends a ton of energy that leaves Sterling gassed in the later rounds. So Caraway won the last two rounds of their fight to steal a narrow win, and a follow-up fight with Raphael Assuncao was a lot of the same, with Sterling mostly being forced to keep things standing, and not looking all that great in the process. Admittedly, both fights were split decisions that could've gone either way, so in an alternate universe Sterling is a title contender, but as of now, losses are losses, and Sterling is badly in need of a win. And this is a huge opportunity for Augusto "Tanquinho" Mendes, who's one of the more interesting prospects at bantamweight. A former BJJ stud still taking to MMA, Mendes made his debut as a late-notice injury replacement and got absolutely chewed up by future champ Cody Garbrandt, as one would expect. And when UFC matched Mendes up with Frankie Saenz last January, it looked like the company itself was probably going to chew Mendes up and spit him out, as a tough vet like Saenz seemed like rushing a talented prospect into another loss. But Mendes showed some much-improved striking in a fun back-and-forth fight, got the narrow win, and now seems free to move up the ladder against guys like Sterling. I could see Mendes winning this - while he's physically outmatched, since Mendes is short and stocky for the division, with his submission background, I doubt he'll fear the takedown, leaving the Brazilian to be aggressive and try and take things to Sterling on the feet. But, possibly against my better judgement, I'll take Sterling to use his physical advantages to keep Mendes at bay and take the decision. I mean, again, if their last three fights go the other way, which they each could've easily done, Sterling could be in a title fight and Mendes could be out of the UFC. Still, Sterling's got a ton of things to fix, and hopefully does so here, and this is a fascinating fight that's extremely crucial for the future of both fighters. Devin Clark (7-1 overall, 1-1 UFC) vs. Jake Collier (10-3 overall, 2-2 UFC): Well, light heavyweight needs talent, and while this may not be the most fun fight on paper or that relevant at the moment, these are the types of fights you need to build a division - plus, hey, as guys who are both sort of tweeners between 185 and 205, it's nice to see some of those guys choose light heavyweight for a change. South Dakota's Devin Clark is ostensibly the better prospect here - signed off Dana White's reality show, he's the type of talent you'd expect from that show, an aggressive athlete who's still fairly unpolished. He probably should've won his UFC debut, a hometown fight against Alex Nicholson, but Nicholson scored a weird flash KO at the end of the first round, and Clark rebounded last December with a fine win over Josh Stansbury. Missouri's Jake Collier also has some upside, though, as he's still just 28 himself; Collier started as a self-taught fighter, and it kind of shows, as he has a bunch of solid skills and seems to be pretty tough, but everything seems more reactive rather than any sort of plan. This could really go either way - both guys are athletic, unpolished, and probably a bit too aggressive for their own good; I suppose I'll favor Collier to take a decision, but hopefully this turns into the fun kind of sloppy fight. Andrew Sanchez (9-2 overall, 2-0 UFC) vs. Anthony Smith (26-12 overall, 2-2 UFC, 2-0 Bellator, 2-2 Strikeforce): TUF 23 contained much more highly touted prospects like Khalil Rountree and Phil Hawes, but at the end of the day, it was Andrew Sanchez who won the season and established himself as a prospect to watch in his own right. Sanchez flashed a bunch of dynamism on the show - he comes from a BJJ background, but has knockout power in his fists - but his season-clinching win over Rountree was, frankly, an awful fight, as Sanchez just fought a smart fight and took Rountree down at will, where Rountree was unable to do anything. Admittedly, this was mostly Rountree's fault, but it seems to have at least dulled UFC's enthusiasm about pushing Sanchez - while he figures to be someone who can move up the middleweight rankings quickly, he's buried here on the prelims, even if Anthony Smith is a solid step up in competition. Smith's a longtime vet of the Midwest's fight scene (who, amusingly, is somehow younger than Sanchez) who had a blink-and-you'll-miss-it first UFC run, as he came over from Strikeforce, got quickly tapped out by Antonio Braga Neto on a deep prelim, and was immediately cut - but Smith fought his way back with a seven-fight win streak. Smith's settling in as a fun gatekeeper - he's long and lanky for the division, and has times where he can really turn on the violence standing, but this still looks like a fight Sanchez can win. Between the Rountree fight and his last fight against Trevor Smith, where Sanchez just took a tough veteran grinder and pieced him up standing, Sanchez has shown the tendency to just take the fight where he knows he can win, and not really put himself in much danger, and he should easily be able to do that by taking Smith down in every round. Admittedly, every fight starts on the feet, so Smith has a chance, but Sanchez can even hold his own there if need be. I originally thought it'd be Sanchez by decision, but what the hell, I'll place my faith in the talented prospect to get the submission, though I'll say it doesn't happen until the third round. Nathan Coy (15-6 overall, 1-1 UFC, 2-1 Bellator, 1-2 Strikeforce) vs. Zak Cummings (20-5 overall, 5-2 UFC, 1-0 Bellator, 0-1 Strikeforce): I'm happy Nathan Coy finally got his UFC shot, particularly after his portrayal on TUF 21 - that was the weird American Top Team versus Blackzilians season, and Coy, a veteran grinder out of ATT, was pretty much portrayed as being near the end of his career - hell, in a particularly cutting moment after a submission loss aired, FS1 actually ran a fan poll if Coy should retire. He didn't, and he, frankly somewhat surprisingly, got the call from UFC later that year, even if his debut didn't really go as planned, as he got choked out by British prospect Danny Roberts. But after a quick turnaround, Coy was able to get a decisive win over Jonavin Webb to finally get that UFC win almost a decade into his career, and returns fourteen months later to take on Zak Cummings. Cummings is a hometown boy, born and fighting out of Kansas City, and, frankly, this looks to be an easy night. Cummings is fairly underrated - his only UFC losses have been to Gunnar Nelson and Santiago Ponzinibbio (and he was probably winning the Nelson fight before the submission finish) - and he's had a bunch of success with a solid striking game and a funky submission game, which he showed off in his last fight, a win via an unorthodox armbar over Alexander Yakovlev. This is pretty much a layup win for Cummings, barring something unexpected - he's a better striker than Coy, a better submission artist, and even if he's not a better wrestler, he's a gigantic welterweight, enough so that he's narrowly missed weight a few times in his UFC tenure. So Cummings should have his way with Coy, and while there's a possibility Cummings just comes out and absolutely blasts Coy for a quick knockout, I'll at least say it goes a few minutes before Cummings earns a first-round submission. Ashlee Evans-Smith (5-1 overall, 2-1 UFC) vs. Ketlen Vieira (7-0 overall, 1-0 UFC): You know, I used to think that Ashlee Evans-Smith being ranked was a complete joke, and while she wouldn't be in a deeper division, I feel like I've come around and become one of the few people that actually likes her as a fighter. Admittedly, her UFC tenure hasn't been the most impressive - it's a first-round submission loss against Raquel Pennington, a robbery decision win over Marion Reneau, and a shellacking of Veronica Macedo, a natural strawweight, but Evans-Smith is big for the division, a strong wrestler, and has a rapidly improving striking game. (Plus, bonus points for using Bikini Kill as entrance music.) While it's nothing great, it's honestly probably still enough up to make a run up the women's bantamweight ladder with the right matchmaking, and this fight against Brazil's Ketlen Vieira is an intriguing one. Vieira's a Nova Uniao product, but didn't really come in with a ton of hype - she's big and athletic, but fairly raw and apparently can be baited into a brawl if she starts to panic, but we didn't really see any of her negatives in her UFC debut over Kelly Faszholz, as she pretty much outsized Faszholz and eventually implemented her wrestling at will. This feels like it'll be a one-sided fight, but I'm not sure in favor of who - both women will probably look to take down their opponents, and I'm not really sure how whoever's losing that battle is going to react, but since neither's really been tested, it's hard to tell who's going to get the upper hand. I kind of trust Evans-Smith's overall game a bit more at this point, so I'll favor the Californian, but good matchmaking here, and hopefully a fun fight to open things up.

Mike De La Torre (lost to Myles Jury) vs. Alex Enlund: In a rarity, De La Torre’s the only guy on this card who’s probably going to be cut, which is understandable, but a bit of a shame - De La Torre is too aggressive for his own good, which is fun, but often makes for complete blowout losses, like this one to Jury. There’s not a natural opponent for a pink slip derby at the moment, so let’s go with British prospect Enlund, who had his slated UFC debut last September scrapped at the last moment.