CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 103: ONE MORE TRY

UFC 302: Makhachev vs Poirier

SATURDAY, JUNE 1 FROM THE PRUDENTIAL CENTER IN NEWARK, NEW JERSEY
EARLY PRELIMS 3:15 PM PDT / 6:15 PM EDT | PRELIMS 5 PM / 8 PM | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM

I hope you all enjoyed your week off, because this event begins our string of five UFCs in the next twenty-eight days, and while the cards may vary a bit in quality, all of them are, at least, interesting.

This particularly interesting pay-per-view has been through the wringer. We're sitting on eight different cancellations, replacements or rebookings, and somehow, miraculously, Paulo Costa was not one of them. Neither was our main event, odd as it is. Hell, even Mickey Gall being on this card is, somehow, intentional. And this is kicking off a series of cards that include multiple top contender fights between guys one fight away from the championship and guys in the outer top ten!

Yeah. It's gonna be a weird four weeks. Strap in.

i, too, makhachev.

MAIN EVENT: HOT SAUCE-FLAVORED ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Islam Makhachev (25-1, Champion) vs Dustin Poirier (30-8 (1), #4)

I like Islam Makhachev. I like Dustin Poirier. I don't entirely like this fight, and that makes me angry.

I'm pretty sure this is the second, third or eighth time I've referenced this, but in 2023, when Rafael Fiziev fought Mateusz Gamrot, I wrote this:

Lightweight is, and has always been, one of the best hotbeds of talent in the world. This is in no way untrue now. There isn't a single fighter in the top fifteen who's a step below world-class. Championship grapplers, star wrestlers and world-class kickboxers litter its ranks. They're all amazing. They're all killers. And not a single one of them can actually break through to title contention, because a combination of skill, timing and marketing means no one can break the iron fucking grip four men have on the entire division: Islam Makhachev, Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje, Dustin Poirier.

After years and years of this pattern holding, over the last year, we have finally seen it break. Dustin Poirier was flattened by Justin Gaethje, finally establishing dominance. Justin Gaethje was, in turn, destroyed by Max Holloway in one of the greatest performances in UFC history. Charles Oliveira, who's held the #1 contendership for what feels like decades, was unseated in a close but clear decision by Arman Tsarukyan.

New blood! New contenders! None of them are in this fight. In fact, every real contender over the last year wound up not getting their shot. Charles Oliveira was supposed to get his rematch with Islam Makhachev last October, but a cut suffered during training meant he had to pull out. Justin Gaethje was at one point going to fight Islam at UFC 300, but Islam was observing Ramadan and wouldn't have time to train, and rather than simply wait another couple months, the UFC put Gaethje against Holloway instead. Even the newly-minted Arman Tsarukyan was offered a title shot!

This one. This shot. He was given a title shot on the condition that he only had a month to prepare right after going three rounds with Oliveira. Understandably, he said no.

Oh, and Max Holloway? I don't know how this even remotely works, but Max Holloway handed the #2 Lightweight in the UFC the worst beating of his life, and now he's ranked! At #9. Max Holloway, who knocked out the #2 Lightweight in the UFC, is now the #9 Lightweight in the UFC. Justin Gaethje, the man he knocked out, was demoted all the way down to #3.

None of this is a new story. It's the thing we've been discussing ad infinitum in these writeups for the last year and a half. The matchmaking doesn't really make sense and contendership is much more about being either anointed by marketing, situationally convenient, or, preferably, a beautiful mixture of the two.

Here's the thing, though: It's Dustin Poirier. Does beating Benoît Saint-Denis really qualify for a title eliminator? Of course not. Is anyone really going to pitch a fit about it? No, because it's Dustin Poirier.

Once upon a time he was a promising but repeatedly unsuccessful Featherweight, but that time was 2014. After getting smoked by some up-and-coming nobody named Conor McGregor Poirier moved up to 155 pounds and he's been a fan favorite damn near ever since. With a litle more weight and a little less cutting he suddenly became one of the division's most consistently devastating strikers. He knocked out Justin Gaethje, he knocked out Eddie Alvarez, he even beat a trying-155-for-the-first-time Max Holloway, and he stopped Conor McGregor twice in a single year. He punched his way into two separate title shots--three, if you count the BMF title*.

_{*You should not, under any circumstances, count the BMF title.}

And every time he came close, and every time, ultimately, he failed. His first shot at the belt came against the legendary Khabib Nurmagomedov back in 2019: Poirier landed some solid leg kicks and at one point he wobbled Khabib with a stinging right, but he couldn't keep himself off the mat and, ultimately, got strangled. His second shot came two years later against Charles Oliveira: Once again, Poirier boxed up Oliveira, dropped him fifteen seconds into the fight and nearly finished him towards the end of the first, but he didn't have an answer for Oliveira's clinchwork or his grappling, and, ultimately, got strangled.

Hell, just last year Poirier looked decent in the first round against Justin Gaethje only to get knocked out by a headkick a minute into the second in yet another unfortunate championship loss*!

_{*The BMF title is not a championship, no matter what Ilia Topuria says.}

All this while, lurking in the background, you have Islam Makhachev. The UFC really likes to layer the superlatives in when discussing Islam's career, but in complete fairness, an awful lot of it feels deserved. He is nearly undefeated, he did crush everyone in his path to the title, and said path involved dominating past, present and future contenders, typically with remarkable ease.

He was anointed by best friend and training partner Khabib as the next big thing once Khabib himself abdicated the title and retired to the greener pastures of running his own mixed martial arts organization into the ground in a single year coaching Zubaira Tukhugov to a successful championship run becoming the latest in a long series of athletes to allegedly get in trouble with his government for refusing to pay income tax, and as promised, Islam rose to the title almost immediately. He fought Charles Oliveira, smote him on the feet and submitted him on the floor.

As of this weekend, Islam's championship destiny has lasted 588 days. Not counting Khabib, that's the longest 155-pound title reign since Frankie Edgar, fourteen long years ago. He's in a five-way tie with Georges St-Pierre, Jon Jones, Demetrious Johnson, Max Holloway and Khabib himself for the third-longest winning streak in UFC history, and with a win this weekend he would eclipse them all. What kind of top Lightweight fighters has Islam managed to turn aside during his legendary run as a titleholder?

Ah. Right. Islam's Lightweight title reign after almost two years consists of fighting the same Featherweight twice in a row, one of which was on about a week's notice. Hell, even in an ideal scenario where that second fight goes off without a hitch and Alexander Volkanovski doesn't have to roll off the couch, sure, Islam would get a title defense against an actual Lightweight--but it would be Charles Oliveira, the man he'd completely destroyed just one year prior to win the title in the first place.

Soe of it is bad timing. Some of it is bad luck. Some of it is simply marketing favoring some fighters over others. At the end of the day, Islam Makhachev is making his first Lightweight title defense against an actual Lightweight this weekend, and it's the guy who got smoked by two of the three top contenders in the division.

And everyone's basically fine with it.

Because it's Dustin goddamn Poirier.

Dustin's been pretty realistic about his career winding down, to the point of openly discussing the possibility that, win or lose, this could be his last fight. It makes sense. He's entering the back half of his thirties, this will be a nice round number as his fortieth professional bout, and if he loses it's his third failed crack at the Lightweight title, and it's real, real unlikely he gets another. And if he wins--well, hell, what better ending could there be? How many fighters get the chance to go out on top?

But that, of course, presupposes his victory, and as the betting market has noticed, that victory is a bit tough to envision. The throughline of Dustin's title matches being 'does well on the feet, gets murdered in the clinch/on the ground' does not bode well against a fighter who throws punches better than Khabib and flattened the Charles Oliveira that crushed Dustin's liver and choked him out him for good measure.

Islam's faith in his standup, if anything, represents Dustin's best shot here. His calf and body kicks are dangerous, but they're liabilities against a strong wrestler like Islam who's going to catch them and take him down. If Islam chooses to exchange in a prolonged boxing match, Dustin's got plenty of ways to make him hurt, and if Dustin stings Islam enough to start Frankenstein-shambling in for the clinch as he does when he gets worried or tired, he could shut him off before he gets the chance to redirect the fight.

Or he could jump the guillotine again. That'd be the funniest way out.

At the end of the day my money's on ISLAM MAKHACHEV BY SUBMISSION, but I sure would like to live in the world where Dustin Poirier slays the dragon and gets a real, honest to god world title to his name before he retires.

CO-MAIN EVENT: ACROSS A CERTAIN SPECTRUM
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Sean Strickland (28-6, #1) vs Paulo Costa (14-3, #7)

A number of MMA writers I follow have had thoughts in recent months about the way MMA commentators should veer away from the droll, unnecessary discussion of fighter politics and focus on the real meat of the sport instead. Is this a legitimate feeling about the way sports commentary should be done or a pain response to a whole bunch of conscientious journalists recently losing their jobs thanks to the ongoing heat death of internet business and trying to adjust to new professional realities of viability?

Well, guess what, fuckers: My writing will never be professionally viable, and freed of the expectation that more than twenty-five people will ever read this, I am happy to report that Sean Strickland's politics are still, in fact, dogshit. I think it continues to be irresponsible not to comment on Sean Strickland's politics being dogshit. But for sake of argument--or, at least, novelty--let's try treating this like a serious contendership match!

Okay, so. Sean Strickland! He just lost his title to Dricus du Plessis five months ago and he's still very, very mad about it, because part of MMA Shithead Meta is claiming every decision that goes against you is a tragic robbery committed by your unscrupulous enemies. Before that, he beat Israel Adesanya in one of 2023's biggest upsets, particularly because one fight beforehand he was fighting an unranked nobody in Abus Magomedov who had a grand total of 19 seconds of UFC fight time.

In the wake of his loss, a number of possibilities were very publicly thrown around for his followup fight. A du Plessis rematch! A #1 contendership showdown with Robert Whittaker! A big Abu Dhabi match with Khamzat Chimaev! Another shot at Jared Cannonier, who beat him back in 2022 in another decision Strickland thought was a deep-seated injustice!

It is, of course, none of those. It's Paulo Costa.

Paulo Costa is a hell of a fighter. He's got a fantastic chin, he excels at forward pressure, and he shitposts endlessly. He's also 1 for his last 4, and that single victory came against Luke Rockhold, who was, himself, coming out of retirement after three years on the shelf and had not won a fight since 2017. Paulo Costa's last win over a ranked opponent was Yoel Romero five whole-ass years ago. Paulo Costa does not have a single victory over anyone who is still in the UFC.

Despite all of this, Paulo Costa is the #7 ranked fighter in the division. If he wins, he will be the #1. Far more of this comes from his shitposting and his attitude than his success in the cage, in large part because Costa has only actually made it out to the cage four times in the last four years. When--if--he steps into the cage against Strickland this weekend, it will be the first time Costa's fought multiple times in a year since his rookie UFC year, which was fucking 2017.

So this is your #1 contendership match. It's the guy who just lost to the champion possibly fighting for the title again if he beats the guy who hasn't beaten anyone, or the guy who just definitively lost to Robert Whittaker suddenly getting rocketed to #1 contendership with a victory. We can't give Whittaker another shot, after all: He has to fight Khamzat Chimaev, who is coming off a successful Middleweight victory over a Welterweight. Jared Cannonier, #4 contender who already beat Sean Strickland? He's too busy preparing for his fight later this month against #8 Nassourdine Imavov, for some reason.

Boy. Divorcing the UFC from its marketing and politics and treating it like a real sport leads to the inescapable conclusion that it makes no fucking sense. I wonder why!

I would vastly prefer it if Paulo took a page from Dricus du Plessis and simply walked Strickland down for fifteen straight minutes. He's got the cardio and he's got the hands to keep Strickland from ever getting into his comfortable jab-and-weave gameplan, and unlike a lot of fighters who get hypnotized by Strickland's leaning shell defense Costa knows bodyshots exist and can use them when Sean's head is out of reach.

But here's the thing: Paulo Costa does not like to fight to his strengths. He can do these things. But he probably won't. He will probably play into Sean's hands and get crossed up for two out of three rounds. I would deeply like to be wrong, but I'm going with SEAN STRICKLAND BY DECISION, and we are all damned for it.

MAIN CARD: PREVIOUS PROSPECTS
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Kevin Holland (25-11 (1), #15 at Welterweight) vs Michał Oleksiejczuk (19-7 (1), NR)

Remember when I said this card had a whole bunch of substitutions? This fight wasn't one of them, but it was put together two and a half weeks ahead of fight night in an attempt to make up for other fights falling through. This is why Kevin Holland, who dropped down to 170 pounds in an attempt to escape his inability to crack the 185 ranks, is making a detour back up to Middleweight. That and, y'know, his failure to crack the 170 ranks. After a ridiculously active eight fights in the last 26 months Holland is 4-4 since his drop, and that unfortunately includes getting soundly rejected from Welterweight contendership by Stephen Thompson, Jack Della Maddalena, and a debuting Michael "Venom" Page just three months ago. At this point a jump back to 185 makes as much sense as anything for Holland's future.

But even if he decides to stay after this short-notice fight, he has to get past Michał Oleksiejczuk first. Much like Holland, Oleksiejczuk is another fighter who dropped classes after getting bounced from contendership, but his journey took him from 205 pounds to 185; much like Holland, Oleksiejczuk hasn't had much luck at his new class either. He's proven himself more than capable as a prospect, and he deserves our thanks and praise for ridding the UFC of Sam Alvey once and for all, but contendership has eluded him just as consistently at his new class as his old. He couldn't hang with Caio Borralho's ground game in 2023, and he, too, fought three months ago, and he, too, got absolutely run through by Michel Pereira, who stormed him right out of the gate, dropped him with a knee to the chest, and choked him unconscious in one minute.

At this point, I have more faith in Holland than Oleksiejczuk. He hits harder and straighter, his defense is better, and he's been dealing with stiffer competition with better results. KEVIN HOLLAND BY TKO and I kind of hope he stays at 185 again.

HEAVYWEIGHT: Jailton Almeida (20-3, #7) vs Alexandr Romanov (17-2, #13)

Boy, you really only get the easy steps going up the ladder. Jailton Almeida was one of the UFC's most aggressively-pushed prospects over the last two years, a Contender Series winner with victories at Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight alike who racked up a six-fight win streak coming straight off his UFC debut--which is impressive, but a little less so when you realize the UFC was feeding him people who stood absolutely no chance of stopping his grappling game. Jairzinho Rozenstruik: Not a grappler. But Almeida had to eventually fight the top of the heap, and when he got his rescheduled matchup against Curtis Blaydes three months ago, he put up a real good, impressive first round--and then got casually hammerfisted to death almost immediately after the second began.

There are plenty of Heavyweights the UFC could've matched Almeida with for a nice, soft rebound fight. Alexandr Romanov is not one of them. The incredibly imaginably-nicknamed "King Kong" has manhandled most of his UFC opponents, and what's more, he's done it by throwing them to the ground and dominating them. He arguably only has one real loss in the UFC, as his second loss to Marcin Tybura extremely clearly should have been a draw--but for one, that doesn't erase his getting tooled by Alexander Volkov in under a round, and for two, that ignores an equally weird win in Romanov's favor against Juan Espino back in 2021, but Espino's entire career was a bizarre clusterfuck so we just try to pretend it didn't happen. Either way: Romanov is not only a very competitive grappler, he's a bigger, stronger fighter with an equally dominating top game.

Almeida is faster. Almeida is more technical. Almeida is a pretty solid favorite to win this fight, and on paper, I understand why. But after seeing how Almeida struggled to mount any offense on Derrick Lewis despite dominating him on the ground, and after seeing Curtis Blaydes paste him with extremely basic takedown defense, I have a bad feeling about his ability to deal with Romanov's own grappling power. ALEXANDR ROMANOV BY TKO.

WELTERWEIGHT: Randy Brown (18-5) vs Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos (24-7-1)

Randy Brown has been stuck on the outside looking in for his whole damn career, and he is very tired of it. Time and time again, he has put together an impressive streak of solid victories and violent finishes, and time and time again he has watched his good work go up in smoke because some asshole comes along and takes his momentum away. Niko Price knocked him out from the bottom in 2018, Vicente Luque immolated him in 2020, and in the middle of the hottest streak of Randy's career he ran into the freight train that is Jack Della Maddalena in 2023 and found himself dropped and choked in the first round. But once again, Randy is on a two-fight winning streak, and once again, he is trying to claw his way to the top, because what choice does a man have but to get back on the violence horse?

Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos is one of the most violent horses of them all. Zaleski's most famous for doling out an absurd, so-bad-the-referee-got-fired beating to Benoît Saint-Denis in his UFC debut, but Elizeu has actually been around the UFC for damn near a decade, and at one point he sported a genuinely impressive seven-fight winning streak that included knocking the fuck out of a Welterweight Sean Strickland, which is why I will be a fan for life. Unfortunately, the streak was ended by the only uncontroversial loss of Zaleski's UFC career when Li Jingliang became the only man to ever drop him in a gunfight. The other two were split decisions, and this is the real patch on Zaleski's career: The judges really don't seem to like him. He lost a coinflip split to Nicolas Dalby in 2015, he lost a robbery to Muslim Salikhov in 2020, and he routed Abubakar Nurmagomedov in 2023 only to barely scrape a split anyway. There was no controversy about his draw with Rinat Fakhretdinov in his last outing, though.

This is yet another of those fights that force me to pick between my head and my heart. Logistically, Randy Brown should have this in the bag. He's got a huge size and reach advantage, he's actually fairly good at using it, Zaleski tends to swing wild when he gets frustrated and that presents plenty of opportunities for Brown to use his clinch grappling to keep the fight where he wants it. But Brown also tends to sag as fights go on, Zaleski is damn near impossible to finish, and goddammit, I just want him to win. ELIZEU ZALESKI DOS SANTOS BY DECISION.

PRELIMS: THE M.C. ESCHER LADDER
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Roman Kopylov (12-3) vs César Almeida (5-0)

I do not get this matchmaking. After a real tough mid-COVID debut, Roman Kopylov has spent the last two years establishing himself as a genuine prospect at Middleweight. His surgical striking, his best-in-class kicks to the body and his complete and utter disdain for the functioning of the human liver got him a four-fight winning streak and a real close shot at a ranked fight. But he had to get through the perpetually underrated Anthony Hernandez this past February, and despite putting up a great first round, he was clinched, dragged and choked out in the second. Having lost one of his last five fights, Roman Kopylov is, of course, on Contender Series feeding duty. César Almeida rolled into the contract mill last year as another in the UFC's recent retired-kickboxing-rehabilitation program, he was in the UFC in just his fifth professional mixed martial arts bout, and his competition was fellow Contender Series winner Dylan "The Mindless Hulk" Budka, who stumbled aimlessly at him shooting double-legs, gassed in one round, and got knocked out while visibly exhausted seven minutes into the fight. More and more, I find I do not have to criticize the Contender Series explicitly, because simply describing what is happening because of it is critique enough to make the point.

That said, it's another striking match between wrestling-allergic kickboxers, so hey, the company's going to get what it wants. I have more faith in ROMAN KOPYLOV BY TKO given his patience and accuracy, but Almeida's a solid kickboxer and he throws more knockout-power-level heat, so he's always going to have a chance.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Grant Dawson (20-2-1) vs Joe Solecki (13-4)

What was I just fucking saying about matchmaking? What is this? One fight ago Grant Dawson had one of the UFC's longest unbeaten streaks in by far its toughest division, he was the #10 Lightweight in the world, he was recording his first main event and people were discussing his future as a possible title contender. Then he got knocked out by Bobby Green, and now he is out of the rankings, down on the prelims, and fighting fellow wrestleboxer Joe Solecki, holder of victories over such luminaries as Carl Deaton III and Alex da Silva. Four fights ago Solecki was getting beat by Jared Gordon, whom Dawson rolled, and one fight ago Solecki got destroyed by Drakkar Klose. For beating Solecki, Klose got an early prelim fight with the little-known Joaquim Silva; for getting beaten by Klose, Solecki is fighting the former main eventing #10 in the world.

What are we even doing anymore? What is anything? What is the point of having divisions when the central goal of matchmaking is simply to keep whichever fighters have been arbitrarily deemed marketable warm until such a time as they can be cashed in on?

Hate it. Hate everything about it. GRANT DAWSON BY DECISION in what will probably be a very slow, wrestling-heavy fight that will make neither guy look good.

WELTERWEIGHT: Phil Rowe (10-4) vs Jake Matthews (19-7)

You could subtitle this fight The Battle of the Frustrating Prospects. "The Fresh Prince" Phil Rowe came off the Contender Series looking like an absolute wrecking machine, a 6'3" giant in the Welterweight division with the power punches to match; unfortunately, as a 6'3" giant, he missed the 170 pound weight limit repeatedly and found himself dashed on the rocky cliffs of Mount Magny like so many potential contenders before him. Jake Matthews has been stuck in the 'theoretical prospect' category ever since his failed run on The Ultimate Fighter Nations all the way back in 2014 (jesus christ), and it's a testament to his all-around skills and inherent toughness that he's been in the UFC for the entirety of the last decade; unfortunately, across that entire run, every time he's shown a flash of brilliance he's promptly been punched back down the ladder by another, richer prospect.

Matthews is a betting favorite here, and at risk of being disrespectful, I think that's just because more people recognize his name. Rowe's by no means a bad fighter, he hits harder and more often, he's got a huge size and reach advantage, and going to a split decision with Neil Magny is a lot tougher than it sounds. PHIL ROWE BY TKO.

WELTERWEIGHT: Niko Price (15-7 (2)) vs Alex Morono (24-9 (1))

In the ongoing theme of 'what the fuck is up with tonight's booking,' we have this. Let's put these two side by side. Niko Price is 7-7 (2) in the UFC, he's 1 for his last 6, he hasn't won a fight in two and a half years, and when last we saw him he was getting immolated in thirty seconds during Robbie Lawler's retirement fight. Alex Morono is 13-6 (1) in the UFC, he's 4 for his last 6, he's coming off a victory less than two months ago, and one fight before that he went the distance with newly-minted #11 Welterweight Joaquin Buckley. I do not know who is throwing what darts in the UFC backrooms, but they're either on some very good shit or they have some very bad aim.

ALEX MORONO BY DECISION feels extremely likely, but having said all of this with this level of mockery, I assume he will land the second enzuigiri in mixed martial arts history and knock Morono out in the world's most recent tribute to Inokiism.

EARLY PRELIMS: BRINGING BACK BASSIL
WELTERWEIGHT: Mickey Gall (7-5) vs Bassil Hafez (8-4-1)

And here, we arrive at the climax of the What Are We Doing Here conversation with the undisputed king of What The Fuck, Mickey Gall. For those who were not here eight years ago, Mickey Gall was brought into the UFC as the lucky, 2-0 rookie winner of the UFC's talent search to find someone who could conceivably lose to less-likable-by-the-day professional wrestler CM Punk in a mixed martial arts fight. He thrashed Punk with comical ease, which was, to be frank, not the fucking plan, because that meant the UFC was stuck with a 3-0 rookie under contract with no name value. Rather than trying to grow him organically, or simply sending him back to the minor leagues to get more experience, their best plan was to simply shrug and begin booking him into random fights with people who exponentially outstripped his experience. Mickey Gall vs Diego Sanchez? Sure. Mickey Gall vs "Platinum" Mike Perry? Why not! Now it is 2024, and Mickey Gall has fought all but one of his professional fights in the UFC, and he's past 30, and he is 7-5. And they clearly still don't know what to do with him, because for some goddamn reason, he's fighting Bassil "The Habibi" Hafez. Bassil was the unknown regional fighter who stepped into the UFC on short notice so they could book rising star Jack Della Maddalena into a co-main event against a warm body, and he proceeded to damn near shock the world by taking Della to a split decision thanks to an unexpected wrestling advantage. He is, inarguably, the fighter who has had the most success against Della in the entire UFC.

So he's fighting Mickey Gall, of course. Because, you know, why the fuck not. This bout isn't without stylistic intrigue; Gall's whole thing is being surprisingly good at jiu-jitsu and Bassil's whole thing is grappling people until they want to die, so Gall isn't a hopeless case here. But BASSIL HAFEZ BY DECISION is a pretty reasonable assumption.

WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Joselyne Edwards (13-5) vs Ailin Perez (9-2)

Believe it or not, this fight is of the utmost importance. Since the dawn of competitive time, the combat sports fanbase has believed deeply in the science of MMAth, the logical presupposition that if Fighter A beats Fighter B who beat Fighter C, Fighter A should beat Fighter C. This has, of course, been regularly incorrect. Not only do different fighters fight differently, fighters themselves are different at different stages of their career, and the multiple years that virtually always pass between mutual matches lead to endless opportunities to grow, change and evolve. Just as every inch of a river is unique from the one before it, Anderson Silva can go from getting submitted by the guy what got knocked out by Phil Baroni to the best fighter on the planet in the space of just two years. But here, finally, we are testing the theorem. One year ago, Joselyne Edwards fought Lucie Pudilová and by any objective measurement she lost, but she came away with a victory in what was widely agreed to be the worst decision of 2023. Seven months ago, Ailin Perez fought Lucie Pudilová and beat her handily, with one judge going so far as to score a 10-8 round in her favor.

This fight is bigger than Joselyne Edwards or Ailin Perez. This fight is about establishing if gravity exists. AILIN PEREZ BY DECISION is obligatory, or a million MMA internet debates over the last thirty years will have been for nothing.

FLYWEIGHT: André Lima (8-0) vs Mitch Raposo (9-1)

More than this fight itself, the entire internet was looking forward to André Lima's previously scheduled opponent, the undefeated Nyamjargal Tumendemberel, and they were doing so primarily because they all wanted to hear Bruce Buffer pronounce the name Nyamjargal Tumendemberel. Instead, we've got this. André Lima found himself in a very unusual spotlight during his UFC debut just ten weeks ago, as he defeated Igor Severino not through knockout or submission, but by disqualification, after Severino bit him so hard he left a full dental imprint on his arm through a mouthguard. (Lima immediately got the bite tattooed onto his arm, because fighters are weird.) Mitch Raposo was best known for getting knocked off The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ) and losing to Jake Hadley on the Contender Series back in 2021, but three more years of success on the regional scene got him another shot at the contract mill--up until Lima lost two opponents and needed a third on short notice. So Raposo's in the UFC now, and all he has to do to be a better competitor than Lima's first fight is not fucking bite anyone.

And this should, in fairness, be a great way to open the card. Both men, like all good Flyweights, are good at everything exceptionally fast, and have left a long trail of bodies behind them. I'm leaning towards ANDRÉ LIMA BY DECISION but they're both so quick that a single error is all it really takes, and Raposo does hit very, very hard.