CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 150: ROUGH DIAMONDS
Carl previews UFC 318: Holloway vs Poirier 3 and contemplates bad endings.
SATURDAY, JULY 19 FROM THE SMOOTHIE KING CENTER IN NEW ORLEANS
EARLY PRELIMS 3:15 PM PDT / 6:15 PM EDT | PRELIMS 5 PM / 8 PM | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM
God, that poster sucks.
I know I've been down on the product a lot lately, but this card is nice. Hell, it's downright refreshing. Yeah, there's no championship bouts or title eliminators, but c'mon: A fun main event! A couple ranked bouts! A top ten fight on the prelims! With how lackluster things have tended to be lately, it's genuinely nice to see the UFC at least put some effort into one of their Fight Nights and really just give the ESPN crowd a sh--
I've just been informed that this is an $80 pay-per-view and its co-main event is Paulo Costa vs Roman Kopylov.
Christ can weep only so much for us.
MAIN EVENT: WHAT YOU LEAVE BEHIND
LIGHTWEIGHT: Max Holloway (26-8, #5) vs Dustin Poirier (30-9, #6)
I'm going to acknowledge right here that this will almost assuredly be a great fight that will sell pay-per-views, and that does not make it feel any less of a shame that it's happening.
Generally-speaking, the UFC does not enormously care for pleasant retirements. Regardless of what you have given to the company or the sport itself, you are inherently a product, a business vector that is meant to be spent, and your final bow is just the final opportunity to impart your value to someone else. Joanne Wood was one of the UFC's first Strawweights, and after seventeen fights across a decade she ended her career curtain-jerking some early prelims against Maryna Moroz. Michelle Waterson-Gomez was one of the most popular women in the sport and she got wrestled by Gillian Robertson before a Payton Talbott fight. Maurício "Shogun" Rua is a legend of mixed martial arts and a former UFC champion: He was drubbed by Ihor Potieria in one round on some pay-per-view prelims.
Robbie Lawler is almost unanimously agreed to have the best retirement the UFC ever gave someone. A knockout victory, a beautiful video package, a tearful farewell, it was downright respectable. It has also overwritten the fact that instead of anyone notable or meaningful, the UFC booked the last-ever Lawlering as a preliminary bout against the 1-for-his-last-5 Niko Price in the hopes that it would get people to shell out pay-per-view money for a real draw like Bo Nickal.
So, in some ways, this is a welcome change of pace. Dustin Poirier is riding into the sunset after tonight, and he's getting to end his career in the spotlight right at the top of a whole-ass pay-per-view against one of the sport's biggest stars. It's the kind of send-off fighters dream of. It's far more respectful a retirement than the UFC gives to anyone, ever.
And it's still so god damned cynical and disappointing.
One of the most common fan debates in MMA is "Who's the best fighter to never win the world championship," and the answers are different in every generation, and it's both incredibly impressive and tragically damning that Dustin Poirier is a top-ballot answer across multiple decades of fighting. He was an incredibly promising Featherweight right as the UFC absorbed the WEC and inaugurated their own 145-pound division back at the start of the 2010s, and he became a fantastically successful Lightweight contender and even an interim champion as the decade wound down, and just one year and one fight ago he was challenging for the undisputed title for the third time in his career.
If anyone's earned the right to call their shot for a retirement fight, it's Dustin. He's already fought everybody. This is also the problem: He's already fought everybody. There aren't many stories left for Dustin to finish, but he's been up-front about the requests he made for his last dance.
The biggest one was painfully obvious. In 2018, Dustin Poirier got into the top five by winning what was universally agreed to be the fight of the year after going to war with and ultimately knocking out Justin Gaethje in the fourth round. Five years later they met for a rematch with #1 contendership at risk, and this time, Gaethje landed a shin upside Dustin's head in the second round and tied their series. A rubber match made an enormous amount of sense--but Justin wants a title shot and the UFC didn't seem too invested in a trilogy fight anyway.
So Dustin made his second request: Ilia Topuria. If Gaethje's getting a title shot instead of fighting their trilogy bout, and Ilia needs a date for his Lightweight debut, Dustin says he would've loved to welcome him to the weight class. That made plenty of sense too: Either Ilia ices one of the most beloved Lightweights of all time and proves just how clearly he belongs, or Dustin solidifies his legacy as one of the greats. But then it turned out Justin wasn't getting the shot, Ilia was, and the UFC didn't want to risk his big, marketable debut. Which is, at least, understandable.
No, what the UFC wanted was Dustin Poirier vs Max Holloway. I mean, hey, you said you wanted a trilogy bout, right? Well, what's better than a trilogy fight between the two most beloved brawlers in the company?
Except, y'know, the trilogy is 2-0 and so separated as to be almost pointless.
Like, really. They fought in 2012 when Max, one of the most storied veterans in the business, was only 4-0 and making his UFC debut, and Dustin, who'd only been in the UFC for a year, tapped him in a round. Seven full years later in 2019 Dustin was the #1 Lightweight contender and Max was the Featherweight champion, and when Khabib Nurmagomedov couldn't legally defend his title thanks to a bad case of Getting Suspended For Dropkicking Conor McGregor's Cornermen In The Fucking Face, the UFC decided to just have Max hop up to 155--which he'd actually tried to do the previous year to fight Khabib himself, only for the commission to fail to medically clear him. So Dustin and Max fought again! And, shockingly, Dustin won a second time after punching Max to a unanimous, 4-1 decision.
Now it's six years later, which means it's time to do it again, I guess.
And that's the real cynicism of this: It's a one-way street. Dustin has nothing to gain from beating Max Holloway again except a marginally more pleasant farewell, but in 2025, Max is just a bit stuck. He famously announced his debut as a Lightweight by knocking out Justin Gaethje at UFC 300 last year and now he's ranked above Dustin, but between the Gaethje fight and the present day he went back down to 145 pounds and got absolutely smashed by Ilia Topuria, who rubbed salt into the wound by also moving up to 155 and winning the Lightweight title. So all Max's hopes of cruising to potential two-division gold are complicated by his having just been destroyed by the champ one fight ago, and the only men ranked above him are Islam Makhachev, who is waiting for his shot at the Welterweight title later this year, Arman Tsarukyan, who the UFC is aggressively trying to pass up, Charles Oliveira, who just lost to Ilia, and Justin Gaethje, whom Max already killed.
There's no clear path to the title for him. Hell, there's no clear path to the title for anyone at Lightweight right now except maybe Paddy Pimblett, the most privileged man in the company now that Michael Chandler has finally fallen out of favor.
But if Dustin Poirier is about to retire, and there's no one else the UFC can try to rub his career off on before he's gone, then why not see if you can get Max's win back and justify his new, improved, full-time Lightweight capabilities? Beating the man who beat him twice proves just how much better he's gotten and how different some rematches could be.
It makes sense, in the way that anything makes sense if you make every better idea impossible to achieve.
And hey: It could easily work. In 2019 Max didn't seem to quite have the move to Lightweight figured out and his inability to deal with Dustin's physical advantages was extremely visible; in 2024 Max dominated a Justin Gaethje who'd just finished beating Dustin. The UFC's banking on Max getting the best of a Dustin with one foot out the door already--if Max loses he's dead in the water at two weight classes and the only man who benefits is leaving the sport altogether.
Maybe I just think Dustin has Max's number; maybe his high guard, his chin and his counterpunching are a solid counter to Max's volume striking; maybe I just like seeing plans get upset. Maybe after a career dominated by coming painfully close to the top only to fall just short over and over I want Dustin to at least get to end his career on a high note.
Maybe it's all of the above. DUSTIN POIRIER BY DECISION.
CO-MAIN EVENT: A PROBLEM LIKE PAULO
MIDLDEWEIGHT: Paulo Costa (14-4, #13) vs Roman Kopylov (14-3, #14)
That felt long, and that's okay, because I'm not sure I have all that much to say about this fight aside from how silly it is that we're still doing this.
Let's illustrate exactly where we're at, here. Paulo Costa has won one fight in in the last six years. That win? Luke Rockhold, who had been retired for three years and, himself, hadn't won a fight in 2017, and that was only borderline ranked. Rockhold's last top-class win? A championship victory over Chris Weidman all the way back in 2015.
But again, he was retired, that was a one-off. Who did Costa beat before that? Yoel Romero in 2019. A top-class fighter! Who had Yoel previously beaten to get to said class? Luke Rockhold in 2018 and Chris Weidman in 2016.
Well, assuredly if we go a step further back it'll get better. Who did Costa beat to enter the UFC's rankings? Why, that would be Uriah Hall, back in 2018. Uriah Hall! Everyone loved him, he did the spinning kicks. Hey, who was Uriah Hall's last UFC win? Why, of course, it was Chris fucking Weidman.
A long time ago Paulo Costa held the UFC up for a better contract with the threat of going to Bellator or the PFL. It was a good move that showcased just what leverage can do for a fighter. And they've given him nothing but big fights. Paulo Costa has been on pay-per-view in four of his last five fights, the only time he wasn't he was the main event on ESPN, and every one of those opponents has been either a world champion or someone who contended for the belt. And he's lost all but one of them a d now he's in a career slump and it somehow doesn't matter because he's still ranked despite not having a victory over a single active UFC fighter and he's still in the co-main event despite having fallen so far in the eyes of the sport that he's now a sizable underdog to Roman Kopylov.
And I like Roman Kopylov. The records will show I have spent, if anything, way too much goddamn time over the last several years discussing how cool Roman Kopylov is. The range-maximizing kickboxing? Beautiful. The combinations? Always on point. Punching out Josh Fremd's liver? A gift that will never, ever be forgotten. Kopylov earned his way up the ladder and his tests as part of the top fifteen have been well deserved.
But they haven't had great results. He got absolutely worked by Anthony Hernandez at the start of 2024, proving he still hadn't learned how to deal with the kind of wrestler-grapplers at the upper echelons of the division. The UFC tried to feed him to their newer, sexier striker in César Almeida, and to Kopylov's credit, he won! But it went to a split decision. Roman finally got into the rankings by beating Chris Curtis this past January--but the rounds were split heading into the third and Curtis might have had a shot at a decision had it not been for a slightly shaky, one-second-left-in-the-fight TKO after Kopylov landed a headkick.
Do I think Kopylov would've lost that decision? Extremely unlikely. Is it a little concerning for his prospects that he only barely got by Chris Curtis, who we just saw going to a split decision at Welterweight last week?
I mean, Brendan Allen's ranked higher than Kopylov and he only barely got a split past Curtis last year too, so it's Middleweight, man, what're you gonna do. Especially because Marvin Vettori and Brendan Allen are on this card, fighting for the higher-ranked, higher-profile, #10 spot in the division, and it's currently scheduled for the prelims, one fight below Kyler Phillips vs Vinicius Oliveira.
But Paulo Costa is in the co-main event again.
Every fight I say some version of 'if the Paulo Costa with great cardio and solid body shots comes back he could win!' and every fight he looks worse. He got destroyed by Israel Adesanya and he got dominated by Marvin Vettori and he somehow almost lost against Luke Rockhold and he got rolled by Robert Whittaker and he would've lost an incredibly clear shutout against Sean Strickland were it not for the insane Dave Tirelli somehow scoring the fight for him. He looks more and more disengaged in every outing and Kopylov's striking is just too sharp for Costa to wade his way through it, especially minding that the last time he fought someone with a good kicking game he got dismantled in two rounds.
ROMAN KOPYLOV BY TKO.
MAIN CARD: PROGRESSIVELY SADDER
WELTERWEIGHT: Kevin Holland (28-13 (1), #14) vs Daniel Rodriguez (19-5, NR)
Kevin Holland is a company man because he does whatever the fuck they want. Four fights in five months? Sure. Abrupt near-title-contention bouts with veterans? Absolutely. Bounce between Welterweight and Middleweight for shits and giggles? Who needs to climb ladders. Accept a last-minute day-before-the-pay-per-view change in opponent from Daniel Rodriguez to Khamzat Chimaev? I wasn't using my neck this weekend anyway.
I wrote that six weeks ago when Kevin Holland fought and beat Vicente Luque, and not only are we talking about Kevin Holland fighting again, 42 days after Vicente Luque punched him in the head a dozen times, but after finally getting back on the Welterweight rankings thanks to his first winning streak in years, Kevin Holland is celebrating by fighting an unranked dude. I wish I could allow myself to feel more frustration at seeing another fighter rushing back into the cage, but being mad about Kevin Holland fighting too frequently in 2025 is like trying to get your dander up about dubstep existing: The war's been over for years. The ship sailed a long time ago, as did any chance of Kevin Holland having any sense of career protectionism. Which is neat, and I admire the competitive spirit, and it's also why he hasn't strung three victories together since 2020, and going from losing to potential contender Roman Dolidze to getting choked out by ONE double champion Reinier de Ridder to outworking the inexplicably still present Gunnar Nelson to tapping out the unfortunately roadworn Vicente Luque is already so sufficiently weird a path that, hell, why not fight Daniel Rodriguez?
Because D-Rod's career really isn't much less weird. He had an awful lot of hype five years ago and became one of the poor prospects derailed by Nicolas Dalby. He came back with a remarkably fortunate set of wins over a Mike Perry with one foot out the door, a Preston Parsons fighting on short notice and Kevin Lee already well into the collapse that characterized the end of his career. He was going to fight Holland, and then Khamzat Chimaev destroyed a pay-per-view by missing weight, so he wound up with Li Jingliang instead and in the eyes of almost the entire audience he lost, but the judges sided with him anyway. And then he became the only man to get choked out by Neil Magny in most of a decade. And then he became the last man Ian Machado Garry has finished in two and a half years. And then he lost a fight to 2024-ass Kelvin Gastelum. On the plus side, he's got two wins again! On the minus one of them was an exceptionally close split decision over Alex Morono and the other was a third-round knockout over Santiago Ponzinibbio.
In other words: No one who has looked great lately, which is fitting, because it's been a long time since Daniel's looked great himself. At one point I was a huge fan and I believed very strongly in his title prospects, but hand injuries, losing streaks and his own late thirties have sapped an awful lot of his prowess. The combination punching that defined his style just hasn't flown for him in a very long time, and against someone as dangerous as Kevin, I think it'll cost him. KEVIN HOLLAND BY TKO.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Dan Ige (19-9, #12) vs Patrício Pitbull (36-8, NR)
No one has ever kept a gate like Dan Ige. He stands between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead and weighs the hearts of the worthy like Anubis, and just as the ancient gods have across time immemorial, he says "No, Andre Fili, not you." He seems entirely at peace with it and he should be, as he's god damned good at it. Unfortunately, the last time we saw him things got real weird. He successfully denied Sean Woodson a pathway into the top ten back in April, but said denial came through a real, real bad stoppage, as referee Andrew Glenn interpreted Woodson using a takedown to get back to his feet as his going limp and needing to be rescued. Which sucks, because the fight was very good and very close, and Woodson was making a solid accounting for himself and has every right to be mad. Unfortunately, being Sean Woodson, every judge had already scored the first two rounds against him and he had no pathway to victory anyway.
But that's a damn sight better than Patrício Pitbull, who began what has turned into a particularly tragic year for outside talent entering the UFC. Before Rizin champion Tofiq Musayev could get tapped in a round by Myktybek Orolbai, before Bellator Bantamweight Champion Patchy Mix could get shut out by Mario Bautista, it was Patrício who broke everyone's heart. He was a double and damn near triple champion, he was Bellator's best fighter and people wanted him in the UFC for years. And as I put it back in April:
And because it's been years, we're only now finding out as he's three months away from turning 38. He's a stellar fighter with unimpeachable skills and he's also finally slowing down enough that he got knocked out for the first time in his career just two fights ago.
The UFC tried to let Pitbull skip the line against Yair Rodríguez back in April, and to be blunt, he failed miserably. There's no shame in losing to Yair, but more than simply losing, the Pitbull that showed up looked slow, confused and tired. He got outstruck 97 to 23, he failed on 3/4 of his takedowns and got outgrappled anyway, and Yair damn near knocked him out a couple times. It was a rout, and as a longtime Pitbull fan, I am still not over it.
Which makes it real difficult to entertain the idea of picking him here. I said I still believed in Pitbull and boy, I want to say that again, but Ige is one of the most fundamentally sound fighters in the entire sport. He's bigger, he's stronger, he's got better reach, and at this point in their respective careers he's probably a fair bit faster, too. I was prepared for Pitbull to fail against Yair, I was even prepared for him to get knocked out, but I wasn't prepared to see him look utterly lost. If he's got tread left in the tires, I need him to prove it. DAN IGE BY DECISION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Michael Johnson (23-19) vs Daniel Zellhuber (15-2)
I don't know about you, but nothing screams pay-per-view draw to me like Michael Johnson. Ranked Middleweights on the prelims? Fuck you, buddy: We've got Michael Johnson. We have been Michael Johnsoning for fifteen god damned years now, going all the way back to losing The Ultimate Fighter 12 (jesus christ) to Jonathan Brookins (jesus christ). He's fought multiple world champions, he's main evented multiple cards, and he was legendary for his tendency to do crazy shit like beat Tony Ferguson or knock out Dustin Poirier inbetween getting run through by Darren Elkins, but those days are past, and now it's just Ottman Azaitar and Darrius Flowers until Johnson finally decides he's done.
But every once in awhile the UFC pitches someone past him to see if they're worth investing in, and they've been trying to figure out Daniel Zellhuber for awhile, now. "Golden Boy" was supposed to be easy money--a big, strong, easily-marketable Mexican standout, an undefeated knockout machine who wrecked everyone in his path. And then Trey Ogden beat him in his UFC debut. They spent two full years rebuilding him, marketing him through the Noche UFC events and getting him positioned for a nice, big breakout with the aid of some favorable matchmaking. And after serving his time on the prelims, they brought him up again as a potential star for the big, horrifying Noche UFC At The Sphere Presented By Saudi Arabia Main Evented By A White Guy, and they put him back on the main card, and he had a really good, fun fight with Argentina's Esteban Ribovics, except Zellhuber lost again. So they started trying to matchmake him back down the ladder this past March. First it was supposed to be Elves Brener on a two-fight losing streak, but Brener couldn't make it. Then it was Austin Hubbard, who was 1 for 3 since his return to the company, and this time Zellhuber couldn't make it.
So now he gets the Johnson exam. If Zellhuber can beat him, he'll look great and maybe five people in the audience will vaguely remember who Michael Johnson was and it'll look good on his resume. If Zellhuber can't beat him, he's going to have a hell of a time getting the UFC to invest in him ever again. I am choosing to believe in DANIEL ZELLHUBER BY TKO, but if Johnson catches him with one of those random giant knockout punches I will laugh for the rest of the night.
PRELIMS: MIDDLEWAITING
BANTAMWEIGHT: Kyler Phillips (12-3, #12) vs Vinicius Oliveira (22-3, #15)
The time has come to attempt prospect replacement. Kyler Phillips feels like a beta version of the way the UFC would eventually try to cultivate their Contender Series children. He was on the first-ever season and he won by knockout in under a minute, but instead of signing him they sent him to The Ultimate Fighter, where he lost. They signed him a year later anyway and worked him speedily up the card--Song Yadong in your third UFC fight is a hell of a thing--but a close decision loss to Raulian Paiva meant more years of rebuilding, and when that led to getting just plain outworked by Rob Font, Bantamweight's gatekeeper king, all eyes turned to the next generation of DWCS contenders. Vinicius "Lok Dog" Oliveira has barely been in the UFC for a year and some folks already want him in the top ten. I'm excited about him, too! His striking is vicious and it flows incredibly gratifyingly when he lets it, the beating he put on Bernardo Sopaj was great, getting through Ricky Simón is a good sign, and pulling out two rounds against Said Nurmagomedov isn't easy. But one of those men had never fought in the UFC, one was on a potentially release-inducing losing streak, and the third had been MIA for a year and a half.
I dunno. I would vastly prefer Oliveira to take this. His style is fun, we've already seen Kyler flame out, and most importantly, "Lok Dog" is a much cooler nickname than "The Matrix." But Vinicius also gets taken down an awful lot, and Kyler's pretty good at finding trips where he needs them. He tends to tire as the fight wears on, but hell, so does Oliveira. I'm choosing pessimism and picking KYLER PHILLIPS BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Marvin Vettori (19-7-1, #10) vs Brendan Allen (24-7, #11)
This was a main event just one year ago. This fight was supposed to happen on April 6, 2024, and at that time Brendan Allen was #6 and Marvin Vettori was #5 and there was an honest-to-god chance whoever won could have laid claim to a genuine title eliminator given the Strickland/du Plessis/Chimaev snaggle. And now they're here on the prelims, stuck between Lok Dog and a guy who got knocked out by Austin Vanderford, and no one really cares. Marvin Vettori only has two wins in his last six fights and they're Paulo Costa at a 205-pound farce and a dodgy decision over Roman Dolidze, who just beat him in a rematch four months ago. Brendan Allen went from being one of the scariest grapplers in the division to getting shut down in back-to-back fights against Nassourdine Imavov and Anthony Hernandez, both of whom not only beat him but outgrappled him, rendering his greatest threat useless. In the space of two fights, these men have gone from title-potential main-event status to forgotten, barely-ranked middleweight wars that might, if they're lucky, entitle them to a fight with Abus Magomedov.
How low the semi-mighty. MARVIN VETTORI BY DECISION.
WELTERWEIGHT: Francisco Prado (12-3) vs Nikolay Veretennikov (12-6)
One of the shorthands I've cited for determining just how much the UFC cares about a given card is the spread of recent records involved--how many fighters on a given event are coming off a win vs a loss, how many are making their debut. The average card comes close to 50/50 with just a little wiggle room for DWCS debutants. Of the 28 fighters on this card, 15 are coming off of a loss--and that's being very generous to Jimmy Crute, who is technically saved by having a Draw in his last fight, despite having not recorded a win in almost five years. 15 losses, 10 wins, 2 debuts, and, thanks to Jimmy, one Other. In this case? Francisco Prado is 1-3 in the company and on a two-fight losing streak and Nikolay Veretennikov is 0-2. In his last fight Veretennikov met Austin Vanderford, a Bellator titlist the UFC actively turned down for so much as a shot on DWCS, and Vanderford smashed him, and that was five months ago, and Vanderford is gone but Veretennikov is here, fighting another man the UFC doesn't really care about anymore.
Sometimes I think we're not so much in the fight promotion game anymore so much as we're watching the UFC simply spin its wheels in the hopes that they'll one day produce gold from straw. FRANCISCO PRADO BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Ateba Gautier (7-1) vs Robert Valentin (10-5)
I cannot tell you how badly the UFC wanted Robert Valentin to be a thing. As one of the seven human beings who can be demonstrably proven to have watched all of 2024's The Ultimate Fighter 32 (jesus christ), a deeply unfortunate edition from the modern era where the show has given up entirely on themes or meaning and simply threw a bunch of international fighters at Valentina Shevchenko and waited for something to happen, I can attest that the lion's share of the show's attention went to Valentin, a yelling, screaming, 'don't worry these tattoos just mean I really like Vikings' stereotype who, to his credit, made the most of his many moments of screentime. Unfortunately he got rolled in the finals by Ryan Loder, and when the UFC tried to give him a leg up in his followup he was instead victimized by Torrez Finney, a 5'8" Middleweight who won a decision despite landing four significant strikes and attempting 0 submissions in 15 minutes, for which I am incredibly proud of him. So they're giving up and putting their eggs in the Ateba Gautier basket instead, as he's a much more traditionally appropriate giant 6'4" knockout artist who hurts people with big punches and headkicks and hasn't had a fight go to a decision in four+ years.
And I am looking at this talented, promising rookie and kind of hoping he gets armbarred. ROBERT VALENTIN BY SUBMISSION.
EARLY PRELIMS: THE BULL IS ACTUALLY FAIRLY PLACID
WELTERWEIGHT: Adam Fugitt (10-4) vs Islam Dulatov (11-1)
Adam Fugitt soldiers on into the future, free of hope, free of fear. They hired him as a last-minute replacement three years ago and now he is rolled out of a warehouse once a year when they want to see if recent hire is worth their time and attention. In June of 2023 it was Mike Malott, who passed the Fugauntlet; in June 2024 Josh Quinlan fell just shy. Now it's Islam Dulatov's turn. He's Russian except he's actually German; he's a wrestler except most of his victories are knockouts; since losing his professional debut in 2019 he's been on an eleven-fight winning streak, but many of those were against rookies or journeymen, including, to my shock, a 2023 victory over Will Chope. "Hey, I remember Will Chope from, like, a decade ago," I thought. "How's he doing now?" It turns out he's on an eleven-fight losing streak that includes nine stoppages across four different sports.
Bless you for the places you've been, Mr. Chope. ISLAM DULATOV BY SUBMISSION.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Jimmy Crute (12-4-2) vs Marcin Prachnio (17-8)
I love Light Heavyweight. Do you hear me? I love Light fucking Heavyweight. It's a perfect division. It has never done anything wrong, nor will it ever. Jimmy Crute is 0 for 5 and hasn't won a match since the year 2020, Marcin Prachnio hasn't strung together back-to-back wins since 2021 and everyone he's beaten in the last four years was cut from the company on the spot, and more damningly, Philipe Lins not only beat him but proceeded to rack up a four-fight winning streak, for which he was cut last year because the UFC didn't see enough promise in him. Jimmy Crute's last victory was Modestas Bukauskas so long ago that Nickelodeon's All That was still on the air, and Marcin Prachnio's last fight was a loss to Modestas Bukauskas one year ago, and in the world of the Ultimate Fighting Championship there is room for the Circle of Bukauskasi, but none for Philipe Lins.
It's also indicative of just how little the world thinks of Marcin that he's fighting a man who hasn't won a fight in five fucking years and he's still a +210 underdog. I am treating Light Heavyweight with the touch it desires and picking this fight not by flipping a coin, but by chucking it at the wall just like the matchmakers do with their dartboards. MARCIN PRACHNIO BY TKO.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Ryan Spann (22-11) vs Łukasz Brzeski (9-6-1 (1))
This, though? This is my crowning achievement. This is the moment I dissolve into myself and am reborn as the new God of Fear and Hunger. Ryan Spann is 1 for his last 5 and got stopped in three of those five losses, Łukasz Brzeski is 1 for his last 7 and got stopped in three of those five losses--the seventh was his Contender Series fight, which got stricken from the record after he pissed hot for clomiphene and got suspended for an entire year, which the UFC responded to by shrugging and signing him anyway because we're so far past the point of things mattering that we can't even see them over our shoulder anymore--and they're still here. By god, they are both still here. Waldo Cortes-Acosta only has two stoppages in eight UFC fights, and they're Ryan Spann and Łukasz Brzeski, and they are both still here. Between Anthony Smith and Karl Williams both of these men have recent losses to fighters cut after being deemed incapable of hacking it in the UFC, and they are both still here. And the funniest fucking part of the whole thing: That one lonely Łukasz Brzeski win? It was against Valter Walker, the monster currently on a three-fight heel hooking streak in the Heavyweight division. Who was his most recent victim? Kennedy Nzechukwu, just last week. Who did Kennedy knock out to get his shot at Valter?
Why, Łukasz Brzeski, of course.
Bury me. Bury my heart, bury my soul. Thrust me into the sod until no part of me is visible and exhume me from the dirt twenty years from now, when the world makes sense, the fascists have lost, the rich no longer fuel themselves with the suffering of the desperate, and the Heavyweight division is good again, that I might once more experience joy with some youth left in my bones.
No, I know. I know. You don't have to say it, I know.
Heavyweight was never good.
RYAN SPANN BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Brunno Ferreira (13-2) 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.
That replacement fight wound up being cancelled because Christopher Ewert could not make his weight cut in time, for which he was cut from the UFC and demoted back down to his original Contender Series booking. Jackson McVey? He stays. Meanwhile, Middleweight hopeful Brunno Ferreira was supposed to fight Ikram Aliskerov here, but Ikram broke his foot two weeks ago and had to pull out. So instead of 4-2 vet Ferreira vs 3-1 vet Aliskerov, either of whom could be borderline ranked, we get Ferreira vs Jackson McVey, who was fighting "Top Ape" Mataeo Garner midway through a Legacy Fighting Alliance card four weeks ago.
BRUNNO FERREIRA BY TKO.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Carli Judice (4-2) vs Nicolle Caliari (8-3)
Finally, way down here, we have the sole women's fight of the night. Carli Judice lost her Contender Series fight in 2023 and got signed anyway, and then she lost her debut against Gabriella Fernandes and stayed on anyway, and the UFC tried very hard to use her as a stepping stone for Yuneisy Duben as a 6-0 fighter who'd scored a fantastic knockout on the Contender Series, and in one of those incredibly rare moments of oddsmakers actually paying attention, the world took a look at the 3-2 Judice's record and compared it to the undefeated Duben's and made Judice a huge, -370 favorite. They were right: She dropped Duben with a headkick in the first round. For her trouble, Duben is currently booked midway through the prelims in the UFC's big return to Paris in September, and Judice is here curtain-jerking the early prelims against Nicolle Caliari, who armbarred her way into the UFC last year and, much like Judice, promptly floundered a bit. We've only seen Caliari fight once, and it was a close split decision loss to Ernesta Kareckaite this past January. It was a good effort! But the amount of size Caliari gave up led to her getting exhausted and battered in the clinch as the fight wore on.
And Carli's almost as big and better-rounded. CARLI JUDICE BY DECISION.