CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 148: DESTINY MAY VARY
Carl looks at UFC 317: Topuria vs Oliveira and thinks about matchmaking and ankle monitors.
SATURDAY, JUNE 28 FROM THE T-MOBILE ARENA IN LAS VEGAS
EARLY PRELIMS 3 PM PDT / 6 PM EDT | PRELIMS 5 PM / 8 PM | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM
Well, we've arrived at the big one. Two championships! A title eliminator! Payton Talbott! Sedriques Dumas is somehow here despite having just been arrested for robbery and battery in April no longer competing!
It's a big, eventful card. But it feels like there's something just a teensy bit off with its bigness. Let's explore.
MAIN EVENT: ALMOST
LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Ilia Topuria (16-0, #3 at Featherweight) vs Charles Oliveira (35-10 (1), #2)
The introduction of rules creates the desire to see them broken. Competitors look at opponents a ten-pound fence away and think yeah, but I could win. The same way MMA exists as a simulation of a real fight, a theoretical killing, the simple act of a fighter crossing the boundaries of a weight class exists as a simulation of the old ways. In one small moment, in one small way, the abstractions are peeled back and we once again attempt to ask the question that defined an entire sport:
Who's really better?
I've written reams of complaints about the UFC's gradual cheapening of its matchmaking and even its championships, and this is no different--in the first twenty years of the existence of UFC weight divisions there were exactly two champion vs champion bouts and in the post-McGregor era of the last four and a half years there have been five--but the fights are, without fail, fascinating. Sometimes the reality of weight classes sinks in and you see Georges St-Pierre battering BJ Penn or Jan BÅ‚achowicz big brothering Israel Adesanya and sometimes a Conor McGregor or Amanda Nunes annihilates the bigger champion so effortlessly you wonder why they were ever a weight class down in the first place.
There is no greater peak in sports than the best fighting the best.
And this fight is, unequivocally, two of the absolute best.
Over the three and a half years I've been writing these (side note: jesus christ), that fight might be the peak of the sport. Two of the top mixed martial artists on the planet, the defining Featherweight and Lightweight of the generation, competing across a weight gap to see which of them was genuinely the best. And the fight was amazing! It lived up to every expectation, it topped every fight of the year list, it made both of them look even better. It was a success by every conceivable metric, and it cried out for more.
This was supposed to be the sequel. (The real sequel, not the incredibly shameful short-notice Makhachev/Volkanovski rematch.) If you follow the sport even slightly, you know Ilia Topuria's reputation. He crushed everyone in the division! He destroyed Alexander Volkanovski! He's the first man to truly knock out Max Holloway! Ilia's been talking about doing what Volk couldn't and taking down Islam to prove his place as the best fighter on the planet for years, and if anyone's earned it, it's him. So we're gonna do it again! Cross-class warfare! One more time, the best Featherweight and the best Lightweight in the world are here!
Well.
One of them is here.
The UFC's been chasing the double-champ dragon since Conor McGregor made them millions of dollars, but he also taught them a valuable lesson in promotional stagnation. When one fighter has two belts, matchmaking in at least one division grinds to a halt. Just as Ilia spent years discussing his desire to be a double-champion who took Islam's belt, Islam has spent years discussing his desire to be a double-champion who took the Welterweight title were it not for his buddy Belal Muhammad holding onto it. But as much as the UFC wants champ-champ battles, they don't want champ-champ repercussions. So Ilia had to ditch the Featherweight championship to get the UFC to agree to give him a shot at Islam's 155-pound crown.
And then Jack Della Maddalena won the Welterweight championship, so Islam was forced to chuck that crown into the garbage to go chase his own cross-class dreams, and now, instead of best Featherweight on the planet vs the best Lightweight on the planet, this is a vacant title fight between the best Featherweight on the planet and Charles Oliveira.
It pains me to describe Charles Oliveira as anything but the best. Charles Oliveira's first UFC fight is a month away from turning 15. I've been watching him do this for almost my entire adult life. The Charles Oliveira career arc, from promising but inconsistent rookie to embattled, can't-get-over-the-hump journeyman to late-blooming world goddamn champion, is still one of the single best stories mixed martial arts has ever told. Watching "do Bronx" finally get his laurels was one of those absurdly rare, richly-deserved, feel-good moments that help you get through all of the odious bullshit the sport heaps on you the rest of time.
Less than a year later he lost the belt on the scale and five months after that Islam Makhachev destroyed him.
I'd like to say it's been all a return to form since, and by no means has he looked bad--he busted up Beneil Dariush, he outlasted Michael Chandler--but he's not the #1 contender. Arman Tsarukyan is, having beaten Oliveira by a close but pretty clear decision at UFC 300. Arman would have gotten the last crack at Islam's Lightweight title had it not been for some still-not-fully-explained injury that scratched him just one day before their bout. Arman should be fighting Ilia here, and would, if the UFC didn't have him in the doghouse for almost imploding a pay-per-view.
As happy as I always am to see Oliveira get an opportunity in the spotlight, it's hard not to feel as though something as big as the best Featherweight coming up to vie for the Lightweight title should have been reserved for the actual best Lightweight they had available.
But boy, it doesn't make me any less tempted to pick him.
Volkanovski/Makhachev 1 was a great contest: It was also a reminder that weight classes exist for a reason. The space between the two men was as physical as it was technical, and this is a story we've seen play out in the vast majority of champion vs champion fights. Valentina Shevchenko vs Amanda Nunes, Georges St-Pierre vs BJ Penn, Israel Adesanya vs Jan BÅ‚achowicz, all of them saw the lighter fighter struggle with their bigger, stronger opponent, and even in a rare exception like Daniel Cormier's victory over Heavyweight champ Stipe Miocic, Cormier had already been well-established as a top Heavyweight.
Ilia Topuria was unquestionably the best Featherweight in the world. He was also tied as the second-shortest. He spent a year of his career fighting at Bantamweight. We've seen Ilia compete at 155 pounds in the UFC: It was a late replacement fight against Jai Herbert, who on one hand is an enormous 6'1' Lightweight and on the other is only 3-5-1 in the UFC. Herbert almost killed him. Before the undefeated hype train could take off, before the title aspirations could become a reality, Ilia Topuria only barely survived getting knocked down and nearly out by the man who couldn't get past Chris "Taco" Padilla.
Charles Oliveira has that size advantage. He's taller, he's lankier, his grappling was always world-class, and as he's aged into his style he's become an all-around threat: Tight enough in his boxing to catch a Chandler, dangerous enough in the clinch to pulverize a Poirier, and powerful enough to ground a Gaethje. Where most specialists struggle to evolve their gameplans without compromising the strengths that got them to the big show, Oliveira made his skills complement one another. His wrestling and striking benefit deeply from being utterly unafraid to be taken down, and his newfound ability to club opponents to the floor gives him ample opportunities to jump on them and choke them out. He may not be the #1 Lightweight on the planet, but with Islam gone, Charles is, unquestionably, the most dangerous.
Here's the thing, though: Ilia won the Jai Herbert fight.
The kick Herbert hit him with could have knocked out an ox, and it made Ilia loopy as hell for a minute, and then he got up and took Herbert down and got himself back into the fight, and a minute into the second round he chased Herbert to the cage and smashed him with a right hook so hard it folded him like a deck chair. This is one of Topuria's underrated patterns. Alexander Volkanovski took the first round of their fight, hacking at Ilia's leg with kicks and jabbing his nose open; Ilia found a way to win and knocked him out in the second. Max Holloway outstruck Ilia in the first two rounds of their fight; Ilia stung him in the third, chased him down and finished him. If Charles powers his punches with the confidence of knowing he'll be perfectly fine if a fight winds up on the ground, Ilia powers them with the confidence of an undefeated fighter who knows he can knock out anyone up to and including Max fucking Holloway if he lands them cleanly.
And Charles Oliveira gets caught cleanly all the goddamn time. Michael Chandler did it in his last fight. Islam Makhachev dropped him seconds before submitting him. Even in his title reign, even beating Gaethje, Poirier and Chandler the first time around, he got wobbled, dropped and almost knocked out in every single fight.
I'd like it if Charles somehow won this. I would find it deeply ingratiating if, one more time, Charles Oliveira stood in the way of marketing intentions and denied a man his destiny. But that desire is built off multiple decades of fandom, and those same decades are more than enough to see all the openings Ilia could punch him to death through. ILIA TOPURIA BY KO, and then we wait to see what the hell happens with Islam.
CO-MAIN EVENT: A GOOD PROBLEM TO HAVE
FLYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Alexandre Pantoja (29-5, Champion) vs Kai Kara-France (25-11 (1), #4)
In the middle of our many conversations about divisional hopping and cross-class warfare, there's something intensely comforting about Alexandre Pantoja being there, particularly given the way building a reputation as the best Flyweight champion ever is maybe the most quixotic quest mixed martial arts has to offer.
I cannot imagine anyone ever beating Demetrious "Mighty Mouse" Johnson's record. Second-longest reign in UFC history at just shy of six years, most title defenses during a reign in UFC history at a staggering eleven fucking fights--the UFC almost shut down the division rather than let him continue to be the best fighter on the planet. To put into proper perspective just how long his shadow looms, when Alexandre Pantoja recorded his second title defense against Steve Erceg in May of 2024, that made him, officially, the second-best Flyweight champion of all time. No one else shy of Johnson had more than two victorious title defenses. And then Pantoja ran it up to three in December by strangling Kai Asakura, one of Japan's best fighters, even further cementing his rise up the ladder of history.
Which is a problem, because the UFC's kind of out of dudes.
It's the albatross you have to discuss every time Pantoja defends his belt: He's sort of already beaten everyone. His road to the title was long enough that he chewed through half the top ten just getting there. He's beaten Brandon Royval twice. he's beaten Alex Perez and Manel Kape. He's beaten Brandon Moreno twice--three times, if you count The Ultimate Fighter 24 (jesus christ). Pantoja already stands atop the heap.
Which means they have to start skimming a little off of it to find competition.
Kai Kara-France has been second fiddle at Flyweight for his entire career. Before Israel Adesanya took over the world, before Dan Hooker got his shit together, Kai was City Kickboxing's first real title hopeful in the UFC. He was on that same TUF season with Moreno, and he didn't make it through the competition, but he found his way back to the UFC two years later and made it to #6 in their rankings in ten months. He was fast, he was well-rounded, and unlike many of his divisional peers, he could hit like a fucking truck. He had all the skills necessary to be the best.
But he wasn't.
His three-fight UFC streak ended thanks to a decision loss against Brandon Moreno. Two fights later he got choked out by Brandon Royval. Another three-fight streak later, he was in the rare position to fight for an interim championship--but it was across the cage from Brandon Moreno again, and this time Moreno dropped him with a kick to the liver.
And then the bad luck set in.
Kai was supposed to meet Alex Perez in a more manageable fight for him; he busted his knee in his training camp, and by the time he was back in the cage his last fight was almost a year old. That return bout was a contendership shot against Amir Albazi, and 19 out of 21 media scorecards gave Kai the decision--but two out of three judges didn't. One, Chris Lee, somehow scored a round for Albazi in which he was outstruck 29 to 7 and went 0 for 2 on takedown attempts. It was bullshit, but that's the sport. Kai went back to work and prepared for a showdown with rising contender Manel Kape just four months later.
He didn't make it. An accident in training left Kai with a concussion and kept him out of the cage for fourteen months. By the time he returned it was August, the division had moved on, and the UFC had him up there against their eternal contender, Steve Erceg, in the hopes that a cool knockout would happen again.
It did! But it was Kai dropping Erceg in one round. But it worked! Kai Kara-France is back! And in the current state of Flyweight, if you've got a one-fight win streak and you're in the top ten, buddy, that's enough.
But, as with all things, there's a catch. Remember how I said Alexandre Pantoja had beaten everybody already? Remember how he beat Brandon Moreno on TUF 24? Remember my quietly noting that Kai had been on that same season but failed to make it through the competition?
Who do you suppose beat him?
That's right, baby: If you make an allowance for TUF fights legally being considered exhibition matches so the UFC doesn't have to publicly report their results, this, too, is a fucking rematch. It wasn't a blowout, and Pantoja wasn't able to keep Kai on the ground, but his persistent attempts kept Kai from comfortably settling into his striking, and Pantoja's jabs and body kicks kept Kai stuck at range even when he tried. It was a clear decision and Kai was rightfully abashed.
Of course, that's TUF. It's a two-round fight in extremely suboptimal conditions and it was also nine years ago. But Pantoja's only gotten better, tougher and more tenacious at pursuing all of his attacks in that time. Kai's gotten a bit more confident about getting those big punches in, but that knockout power has also dictated a lot of his gameplanning. It's still a big risk, though, especially with Pantoja's tendency to lead with his head and tank punches to get into range.
I can't say it changes the math, though. ALEXANDRE PANTOJA BY DECISION.
MAIN CARD: GETTING WHAT YOU WANT THE WRONG WAY
FLYWEIGHT: Brandon Royval (17-7, #1) vs Joshua Van (14-2, #11)
We're gonna go a little extra on this one because I have things to vent.
Brandon Royval suffers from Flyweight Rematch Syndrome more than anyone else in the division. Over his entire UFC career, Royval has only lost fights against two men: Alexandre Pantoja and Brandon Moreno. And last year he rematched Moreno and won! Unfortunately, it was three months after he lost his title shot at Pantoja, which was ALSO a rematch. So Brandon Royval's the undisputed #1 contender, he unquestionably deserves it, and he's also 0-2 against the champ and already definitively lost a shot at his belt less than two years ago. Traditionally, this is when the UFC exchanges you for a newer, less-blemished prospect, but Royval has this irritating insistence on not losing. After beating Moreno they scheduled him to fight further down in the rankings, defending his top contendership against the undefeated #5-ranked Tatsuro Taira, and most of the world (including me!) thought Taira would win, and Royval took a decision off of him instead. In recognition of his efforts, the UFC booked Royval even further down. He was supposed to face the #6-ranked Manel Kape this weekend in what they hoped would get Kape into position for a title shot--which would also have been a rematch, as Pantoja had already beaten him, too. But Kape hurt his foot two and a half weeks before primetime, and the UFC needed a replacement.
Sometimes, a really neat fight happens in ways that make me hate it. I really, really like Joshua Van. He's a fantastic fighter with tight striking and good control of his range and a gas tank that never quits. I've written about my hopes for his future title prospects and my deep interest in seeing him get there. And now he's here, and thanks to the circumstances of the fight, I kind of hate it. There are three real reasons.
For one: The UFC already sucks at building new stars. It's one of their biggest ongoing existential crises, along with 'going whole-hog on fascistic bigotry' and 'being personally obsessed with Power Slap'. When they do get a promising talent, these days, they have a tendency to just chuck them into the deep end with virtually no promotion and hope it works. Tallison Teixeira is main-eventing a Fight Night next month; it's his second fight. Joshua Van has been on the prelims in all eight of his UFC bouts. If he loses this short-notice, barely-any-time-to-prepare #1 contendership fight, his progress is severely set back; if he wins, he's a #1 contender who's never even been on TV.
For two: Divisions, themselves, are a crucial part of the health of the sport. Divisional structure gives the fighters something to strive for, it gives the fans something to attach themselves to, it gives the whole of the audience a way to understand the progression that leads to the top. Joshua Van got knocked out by Charles Johnson one year ago; Johnson was given unranked competitors on losing streaks and guys with single-fight UFC records. Brandon Royval, as previously stated, is the #1 contender who has been repeatedly forced to defend his position against people halfway down the ladder. These men are one fight down from a championship match against a man with one win in the last three years. Three weeks ago Joshua Van was fighting the #12-ranked guy in the division. The more meaningless the rankings become, the less likely fans are to understand what's happening on a card.
And for three, let me just reiterate: Three weeks ago Joshua Van was fighting the #12-ranked guy in the division. I understand that we live in a fun, sexy new era of the sport where fighter safety is less important than it's been in twenty years, but what are we fucking doing? This isn't even your usual 'fighter x just fought a month ago, but it was a quick, first-round stoppage where they absorbed no damage and are ready to go again,' Van fought Bruno Silva twenty-one days before this card and the fight lasted 14 of its 15 possible minutes. He took 77 strikes and by the UFC's own metrics 37 of them were significant headshots.
So it's a guy who's never been off the prelims, and he's never fought anyone in the top ten, and he's going to have to cut weight for the second time and compete just three weeks after getting punched in the head three dozen times.
And this is for the #1 contendership to the Flyweight championship.
It sucks. It sucks as a barometer for the health of the sport, it sucks as an example of the level of irresponsibility we have at the top of the sport, and it sucks because this is a great fight happening under incredibly suboptimal circumstances. Brandon's really come into his own as a complete fighter and a complete threat after his earlier days of wild-eyed brawling and jumping on submissions, but he still likes to take bigger swings and he still pays for it. Van suffers from having slightly too much patience, but when he lets his combinations go he's a killer, and the way he chipped Silva down was a hell of a thing to watch.
But I think it's too much, too soon. We're not that far removed from watching Van get pieced up by a bigger, rangier, harder puncher in Charles Johnson, either. New blood would be fun, but I'm still sticking with BRANDON ROYVAL BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Beneil Dariush (22-6-1, #9) vs Renato Moicano (20-6-1, #10)
Speaking of the health of the sport: Hey, remember UFC 311, all the way back in January? Remember how this fight was booked for it, but Arman Tsarukyan pulled out at the last minute and instead of picking the higher-ranked, better-regarded competitor the UFC decided to give the title fight to Renato Moicano? Remember how Dana White said they'd make it up to Beneil Dariush and make his next fight worth his while?
Surprise! They just rebooked the same fucking fight five months later. You're welcome, Benny. Since they're pretending nothing happened, I, too, am going to pretend nothing happened, so here's a re-run from the January write-up for the fight that never happened.
It feels both accurate and deeply unfair to refer to Beneil Dariush as a Former Contender. He's always flown under the radar as a top Lightweight, but he also made it thirteen years and twenty-six fights into his career without ever once giving up back-to-back losses. Charles Oliveira can't say that. Justin Gaethje can't say that. Beneil can, and he finally staked his claim on a top contendership fight in 2022 when he took Mateusz Gamrot, who'd just emerged as the most promising prospect in the division, and simply dominated him. Dariush was overjoyed to finally get past the glass ceiling; unfortunately, the moment he tried to walk on it, he fell through. When you go your entire career without back-to-back losses and promptly eat two first-round knockouts in a row, collective opinion on you turns very, very quickly. Dariush feels it, too. He's talked openly about how he still feels the desire to fight and the ability to compete, but he knows he's in this to be the best, and if he can't get through contendership, he's not sure he should be here anymore.
Renato Moicano is very sure he should be here. He's been trying to be here for ten years. Over the past decade Moicano's made multiple runs at the top, and every time he's been turned aside. Once upon a time it was Brian Ortega, then it was José Aldo or Rafael Fiziev--his 2022 Moicano Wants Money campaign ended at the hands of Rafael dos Anjos, of all people. But Moicano has found opportunity in the current flux of the Lightweight division, and he's quietly cleaned up enough tough, gritty prospects to finally earn a four-fight win streak and another shot at the big time. Is it gratifying to see a fighter I've been watching develop for a decade finally round out his game and make what seems like his best chance at contendership? It should be! But it happens to coincide with Moicano becoming hilariously brain-poisoned by the alt-right libertarian media phenomenon, so now every time he wins a fight he cuts a promo about how democracy doesn't work and we need to embrace an evangelical capitalist bitcoin autocracy.
It's weird to think of this as a torch-passing fight. These men were born just fifteen days apart, their mixed martial arts careers started just four months apart, their UFC debuts happened in the same calendar year. But Dariush feels older. His road feels more worn. Some of that is recency bias, some is hearing the way they describe themselves at this point in their lives. Some of it is remembering how jarring it used to hear Dariush go off on zealous rants about his faith after his victories and how quaint that feels in our new reality of blackpilled post-fight interviews about the joys of fascist rule. Moicano feels like he has more tread on his tracks. He feels newer. And I'm picking BENEIL DARIUSH BY TKO anyway. So much of Moicano's success comes from his groundwork and I don't know that he'll be able to get his style to work on Beneil, even now. But it's entirely possible I just don't want to hear another rant about Ludwig von Mises.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Payton Talbott (9-1) vs Felipe Lima (14-1)
Last week, in discussing Rafael Fiziev, I said being a marketing favorite wasn't always a good thing. The UFC strapped the jetpack to Payton Talbott. He got on the Contender Series in just his sixth professional fight, he was on televised main cards immediately, and as a young, charismatic guy with a habit of knocking out almost everyone he fought, it wasn't hard to see why. They had Sean O'Malley-level aspirations for him, and a big part of that was giving him carefully curated opponents. Nick Aguierre was hired just to lose to him and cut immediately afterward, Cameon Saaiman was coming off a loss, Yanis Ghemmouri had just been knocked out. The big elevation was supposed to come from Payton beating on Raoni Barcelos, a solid, nearly-ranked veteran who was, unfortunately, also 2 for his last 6. Talbott was a prohibitive, -1150 betting favorite, because the plan was just that bluntly clear. And Barcelos worked him. Sometimes veterans eat prospects alive, and Barcelos didn't just beat Talbott, he dominated him to the point of at least one 10-8 round. No more undefeated record, no more hype train. It would have been profoundly understandable to bump him back down to the prelims and gentler opponents.
But they put money into him, and one way or another, they're getting a return on their investment, so he's still on pay-per-view and he's fighting Felipe fucking Lima. Lima was not a chosen marketing favorite--he wasn't even a Contender Series guy. He was a short-notice signing, picked up less than a week before his debut last June because Melsik Baghdasaryan couldn't make it to his Saudi Arabian debut against Muhammad Naimov. It wasn't even Lima's weight class: He's only 5'6" and he'd spent his entire career at Flyweight and Bantamweight. And with five days to prepare, he went up to Featherweight, fought a noticeably larger man in Naimov who was 3-0 in the UFC, and choked him out. The weight class weirdness didn't end there, either: Six months later Lima got to fight Miles Johns, a longtime UFC Bantamweight, again at 145 pounds, as Johns was tired of the weight cut and moving up for good. Lima shut him out, too. His pace, his variety and his kicking game were just too much for Johns to compete with. It's only now that Lima gets to go back to his actual home at Bantamweight.
At this point, I'm buying into the hype. Both of Lima's performances were fantastic, and while he doesn't have the veteran wiles or old-man strength of a Raoni Barcelos, he does seem too damn canny on his feet to fall into one of Payton's big punches. FELIPE LIMA BY DECISION.
PRELIMS: SORTING IT OUT
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Jack Hermansson (24-8) vs Gregory Rodrigues (16-6)
I have spent the last year complaining about the way Jack Hermansson upset the UFC's expectations by beating Joe Pyfer and promptly went unbooked. I must in fairness apologize to the UFC for accusing them of marketing favoritism, something they would definitely never do: Now that he's back, Hermansson has admitted he's been dealing with nagging injuries and hasn't felt capable of fighting. I cannot blame the UFC for booking Pyfer repeatedly and not booking Jack. I can blame them for booking Pyfer up at the top of main cards of pay-per-views against aging, struggling talents while the guy who beat him is on the prelims dealing with a guy they had fighting for a top ten spot just a few months ago. They wanted Gregory Rodrigues to be a contender, man. They watched him fight through Chidi Njokuani rearranging his face and march down Brad Tavares and ultimately knock out both, and they knew this was their all-action, reasonably-priced Middleweight contender-to-be. And he looked it, too--he damn near stopped Jared Cannonier in the first round of their fight. And then the second round was a bit worse for Rodrigues, and then the third round was much worse for Rodrigues to the point that he was essentially knocked out at the end of it and any reasonable corner would've called it between rounds, but we do not have a reasonable sport, so he walked out for the fouth and got fucking obliterated twenty-one seconds later. Funny story: In exchange for destroying Rodrigues, Cannonier is being rewarded by having to defend his spot against his second consecutive unranked Middleweight opponent, Michael "Venom" Page, in August.
And Jack is being rewarded for coming back from beating a marketing darling by being thrown into the deep end against a hard-hitting man who needs rehabilitation. It's very, very easy to see Rodrigues winning this fight. He's big, he's powerful, and he's entirely capable of forcing Jack into the fence where he'll be unable to avoid the shots coming back his way, which is how folks have traditionally crushed him. I am, in all likelihood, picking at least half out of stubbornness. But I have watched Jack outlast worse threats and I would like to see it again. JACK HERMANSSON BY DECISION.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Hyder Amil (11-0) vs Jose Delgado (9-1)
All of the complaints I made earlier about the death of divisional meaning feel especially relevant in a case like Hyder Amil's. By all accounts, he's doing great! He's 3-0 in the UFC, he knocked out two men who had never been knocked out before, and he just beat a legitimately stiff test in William Gomis, one of the best fighters in France. Beating a man who was an undefeated 4-0 in the UFC is a hell of a thing, even if it was just a split decision--and even if the UFC cut Gomis immediately because they just don't like him. And now, having worked his way up the ladder, Hyder gets to face Jose Delgado, who made his UFC debut four months ago by beating Connor Matthews, who'd been knocked out in his last fight and was released one fight later having gone 0-3 in the company. What exactly is the mechanism for helping the audience invest in the career path either man is taking, here? If Hyder wins, he's on a four-fight winning streak capped off by someone who's been in the UFC for just under three minutes. If Delgado wins, he's beaten a man whose best win came against someone the UFC considered not good enough for their roster.
I dunno, man. HYDER AMIL BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Viviane Araújo (13-6, #8) vs Tracy Cortez (11-2, #10)
Poor Viviane Araújo is stuck keeping the Flyweight gate. For virtually all of her six-year run in the UFC she's been parked just outside the circle of contendership, too good to fall out of the top ten, perpetually unable to break into the top five. She spent her 2024 grading the division's supply of Silvas, and where Natália Silva beat her and has now completed her own ascension to the #1 spot in the class, Viviane was able to upset Karine Silva and send her back down the ladder. But her lot in life is not to advance, so once again, she's fighting down. The UFC likes Tracy Cortez--enough so to hop her all the way from a #14-ranked bout with Jasmine Jasudavicius to main eventing against Rose Namajunas on short notice when, until a week-ish beforehand, Cortez was expecting to face Miranda Maverick instead. It was a good, noble try, and Tracy even took two rounds on one scorecard, but it was too much, too soon, too fast, and Rose beat her pretty clearly.
I have always liked Viviane's fighting, probably more than I should, but she gets taken down an awful lot and I think it'll get her in trouble here. TRACY CORTEZ BY DECISION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Terrance McKinney (16-7) vs Viacheslav Borshchev (8-5-1)
You can't keep doing this to me, man. You can't keep putting Slava Claus against people who can wrestle. Viacheslav Borshchev is an incredibly fun striker who gets taken down constantly, and speaking as someone who has never said anything positive about wrestlers, it is unfair and everyone should be forced to sign a no-wrestling waiver before they fight him. Terrance McKinney has, on occasion, been known to shoot a takedown, which in this one specific instance is a sin. But McKinney is also a bizarre chaos elemental of a fighter stuck in a perpetual cycle of either rolling through his opponents in seconds with wild finishes or getting completely, utterly, horrifyingly destroyed, with no inbetween whatsoever. He breaks or he is broken, and he has not had a fight last past the second round since 2018, and that is why the UFC pays him the big middling bucks.
I must vote with my heart. VIACHESLAV BORSHCHEV BY TKO.
EARLY PRELIMS: IT CAN ONLY BE FAILED
WELTERWEIGHT: Niko Price (16-8 (2)) vs Jacobe Smith (10-0)
I use phrases like "1 for their last 4" when I describe fighters, and sometimes I think that fails to illustrate exactly what those records can look like. "4 for his last 12" is such an inherently ludicrous statement that I didn't feel words did it justice, so I want you to actually look at the last twelve fights of Niko Price's career.
Really look at that. That's almost seven years of a man's life. He's been battered by legendary world champions and guys who'd barely been in the UFC for a year. He's fought legends and he's fought Themba Gorimbo. And he's lost to damn near all of them. (Don't cry for that No Contest, it used to be a Majority Draw.) The man exists to get lit up by younger, more marketable fighters, and the occasional canny veteran upset is his price. And now they want him to fight a Contender Series winner with an 80% finishing rate whose only UFC fight came against Preston Parsons.
Niko, I cannot in good faith pick you, but I hope this is one of your On nights and you beat the youth all over again. JACOBE SMITH BY TKO.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Jhonata Diniz (8-1) vs Alvin Hines (7-0)
Last week I wrote about the complete dearth of prospects coming down the pipe to save the Heavyweight division, and Jhonata Diniz is one of those left crumpled by the wayside. Just one fight ago, Diniz was an undefeated 8-0 getting a big push from the UFC thanks to his all-kickboxing style, and after Diniz beat a traditional power wrestler in Karl Williams (who inexplicably threw a career-low number of takedown attempts in the fight), management decided to push him to the moon. He went from unranked to fighting for a berth in the top ten against Marcin Tybura, a twenty-fight UFC veteran. Diniz landed one really good punch in the first round! He spent the rest of the fight getting destroyed with ground and pound and the fight was ultimately called off before the third round could start because Diniz was concussed and his face was in pieces. So who do you call now, if you're the UFC? Why, you call Alvin "Goozie" Hines, a 7-0 guy from the Legacy Fighting Alliance who fights like he stepped out of a circa 2006 Fight Night card. Do you like big, naked headkicks from the outside? Do you like big right hands and guys who have trouble finishing single-leg takedowns?
Then by god, you're gonna love Alvin Hines. JHONATA DINIZ BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Christopher Ewert (7-0) vs Jackson McVey (6-0)
I say "this sport is so goddamn stupid" a lot, but sometimes it really outdoes itself. This fight was put together just a couple weeks before the card because the UFC wanted Sedriques Dumas on the card, and Jackson McVey was pulled off the regionals, where he just fought two weeks prior and brought the combined record of his last three opponents up to a truly impressive 14-16, so he could give Dumas a warm body. The decision was especially baffling given that Sedriques Dumas was arrested on multiple charges of robbery, battery and possession at the end of April. During fight week, Dumas got ruled out of the card because, and I still hope this is just Twitter being Twitter, he couldn't get a judge to order his ankle monitor to be removed in time to compete. So now, we have "El Tanke" Christopher Ewert, an undefeated Chilean prospect who was already booked for the Contender Series in August, getting signed directly to the UFC.
Ewert seems good, by the standards of who have almost solely fought people who don't really do much in the way of defense. I still like his tape better than McVey's. The UFC's insistence on making Sedriques Dumas a thing is as baffling as it is gross. CHRISTOPHER EWERT BY TKO.