CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 151: PRESSING THE ISSUE
It's UFC Fight Night: Whittaker vs de Ridder and Marcus McGhee has a nice suit that doesn't fit very well.
SATURDAY, JULY 26 FROM THE ETIHAD ARENA IN ABU DHABI
EARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 9 AM PDT / 12 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 12 PM / 3 PM | EARLY START TIME WARNING
I almost got off easy this week. This was supposed to be the card where Movsar Evloev put his #1 contendership on the line against Aaron Pico, and I had vowed to make the entire writeup "fuck you" typed by hand thousands of times. Fortunately, that fight has been cancelled thanks to an Evloev injury! Unfortunately, they're trying to reschedule the fight for UFC 319 next month, so the fuckening is simply postponed.
We now have a card that includes Robert Whittaker being offered up to the young, Petr Yan fighting ten full rungs down the ladder and a top ten women's match buried in the prelims under highlighted appearances by Shara Magomedov and Bryce Mitchell.
So instead of a Fuck You, this is more of a Fuck Me.
MAIN EVENT: THE POWER OF COMEDY
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Robert Whittaker (26-8, #5) vs Reinier de Ridder (20-2, #12)
The long arc of mixed martial arts bends perpetually towards humor.
Reinier de Ridder was a top star for ONE Championship, back when it actually promoted mixed martial arts fights. An undefeated double champion who held both titles at once! A giant of our sport who achieved unprecedented glory! Except one of those championships was for 225 pounds, a weight class that so genuinely exists that in its near-decade history ONE has only held five championship fights in it and three of them were cross-divisional champion vs champion matches, and half of his 205-pound title reign was devoted to fighting a 185-pound fighter. But he held the gold!
And then lost all the gold after getting knocked out in back-to-back fights by the Heavyweight champion, who then proceeded to crow about how he had three belts.
It was still exciting when de Ridder signed with the UFC in 2024. However silly his time in ONE may have been, his grappling skills were very real and people were very, very curious to see him stack up with the UFC's best.
The UFC did not send its best. They sent Gerald Meerschaert, a lifetime journeyman who is just one more loss away from a perfectly even 50/50 record in the company. And he almost tapped de Ridder! But, being Gerald Meerschaert, he did as he does almost 50% of the time and ultimately lost.
But that means de Ridder gets a real challenge next, right? Well, sort of: He got Kevin Holland, the road warrior who was 1 for his last 4, fights four to five times a year and regularly openly discussed the extent to which he's only in the sport for the money. Reinier choked him out in three and a half minutes. But look, troubled or no, Kevin Holland was almost a contender once! That's an accomplishment, Reinier's 2-0 in the UFC, so now it's time to get off the comedy loop and get him in the big leagues, right?
Nope! Bo Nickal. Bo Nickal, the amateur wrestling champion and undefeated mixed martial artist who was touted by the UFC as a future champion, which was pretty gutsy given that they got him to 4-0 without once fighting anyone with a winning record in the company. But he would be once he beat Reinier de Ridder, over whom Bo was an almost -400 favorite! Reinier crushed him in the clinch and ended his unbeaten streak with knees in seven minutes.
The irony is, between them, de Ridder was the one with a number by his name. Beating Gerald Meerschaert and Kevin Holland was enough to get Reinier all the way to #13 in the division. So beating no less than Bo Nickal himself, boy, that must entitle him to, say, Paulo Costa, or maybe even Anthony Hernandez!
Or, y'know, all the way up to the top five with Robert Whittaker.
As always, I think the UFC's intentional attempts to ignore their own rankings system are frustrating and self-destructive, but in this case: I kind of get it. Robert Whittaker is one of the best Middleweights in mixed martial arts history. He will never get the credit he deserves for running the division while Michael Bisping was holding out for vanity matches and he was even denied his place in history as a defending champion thanks to Yoel Romero missing weight. In a better sport, he would be venerated.
In ours he's just the transitional champion who paved the way for the rise of Israel Adesanya, and now he's stuck at the outside looking in. Robert Whittaker's record, to be clear, is still fantastic. Even now, in his mid-thirties with more than a decade banked at 185 pounds, he's only lost to three men in the division.
But those men were Israel Adesanya--twice--Dricus du Plessis and Khamzat Chimaev. Every major contender* has already beaten him, and that almost categorically eliminates him from title contention, and that means there's nothing left for the UFC to do with him but gatekeep the top of the division and judge who is or isn't worthy of a run at the gold.
*Sean Strickland, who has on multiple occasions assaulted people as a spectator at mixed martial arts events, has repeatedly turned down a fight with Robert Whittaker.
And in terms of the folks beneath him, Whittaker's already fought and beaten Jared Cannonier, Marvin Vettori and Paulo Costa. There are only a few men on the ladder left for him to fight, and the UFC doesn't want to lose out on a contender they're genuinely serious on just in case the still-extremely-dangerous Whittaker puts a beating on them like he did to Ikram Aliskerov.
But if the UFC had a contender they saw something in but just weren't quite sold on--one who, say, they hired on an external contract and are probably paying considerably more than a Contender Series-derived guy like Caio Borralho or Brendan Allen--then by god, Reinier de Ridder, it is your time to shine.
I picked Gerald Meerschaert over Reinier, but even as I did it, I acknowledged it was solely because if he won, it would be very, very funny. I picked Kevin Holland over Reinier, but acknowledged that said pick was based only on the possibility that Reinier had to strike with Kevin and if the fight went to the floor it would be over very quickly, and Reinier took him down in five seconds. I relented from my anti-RDR crusade and picked him over Bo Nickal, because it was Bo Nickal.
But good ol' Bobby Knuckles? I just don't know if I can talk myself into it.
It's very, very hard to keep the faith after watching Whittaker get crushed by Dricus and absolutely barnstormed by Chimaev, but those two are forces of nature who are about to fight for the world championship. I have watched Reinier fight for years, and his technical grappling is fantastic, but he's never been particularly strong or fast, he's never looked good on his feet, and his best wrestling offense comes against people whose wrestling defense is historically bad. His battering of Bo was by far the best striking performance of his career; it was also performed against a relative rookie with one of the most protected records in UFC history.
The rest of the fanbase may have already written Whittaker's retirement speeches, but one year ago he was torching prospects, and I am not ready for the epitaph just yet. ROBERT WHITTAKER BY TKO.
CO-MAIN EVENT: NO LONGER PRETENDING
BANTAMWEIGHT: Petr Yan (18-5, #3) vs Marcus McGhee (10-1, #13)
This was one and a half months ago.
And over this past weekend, the UFC confirmed that being ludicrous is a bar that falls ever-lower every year, and Petr Yan will be fighting Marcus McGhee in Abu Dhabi next month. Petr Yan, the former champion turned #2 ranked Bantamweight who just beat the #6-ranked Deiveson Figueiredo and the #5-ranked Song Yadong, will defend his top contendership against Marcus McGhee, who is now ranked #13 after scraping a 29-28 decision past Jonathan Martinez, who is, coincidentally, the only person he's ever defeated with a winning record in the UFC.
(...)
And now, in a division where every top Bantamweight has once again been fighting one another to prove their worth as a contender, Sean O'Malley, who has had zero fights since losing the title, gets to once again fight for the title in the main event of a pay-per-view.
And Petr Yan is fighting Marcus McGhee on an undercard in Abu Dhabi in July.
I have seen an amount of forgiveness towards this booking I find genuinely surprising. I get it in the sense that people crave new blood in the upper echelons of the sport and the possibility of tossing someone into the soup is different and therefore novel! That makes sense. But there are a number of people who argue that Petr Yan, having lost multiple fights, should be deprioritized in favor of Marcus McGhee, who is on a lengthy winning streak.
So: Let's do some comparative analysis. Marcus has only had eleven fights, so let's not belabor the point by discussing his first couple of rookie years. How about their last eight match-ups, instead?
For Marcus McGhee, that would be:
A one-minute knockout over Rodney Mondala, who was 6-4 and is now 7-7
A first-round submission loss to Rafael do Nascimento, who was 7-1 and is now 10-3 and it's frankly surprising he hasn't gotten a shot at the Contender Series yet
A third-round stoppage against the 4-4 Abe Sellers, now 6-6
A second-round knockout over Luciano Ramos, 8-7, now 9-14 (and 2-10 as a boxer), which earned him his look from the UFC
His UFC debut as a late replacement who scored a submission victory over Journey Newson, who is 10-5 and has one win in the last six years
A 2:19 knockout over JP Buys, 9-6, who was 0-3 in the UFC and got cut after that fourth loss
A second-round standing TKO against Gaston Bolaños, 8-5, who is now 2-2 in the UFC
The first decision victory of his career against Jonathan Martinez, who is 19-6 and a perfectly fine fighter
And Petr Yan?
A fifth-round TKO over the 28-6 José Aldo, one of the greatest fighters in history, who was a pair of judging coinflips away from being a top Bantamweight contender right now in 2025; this made Yan the world champion
A fourth-round DQ against Aljamain Sterling, 19-3, who Yan was five and a half minutes away from beating before making one of the dumbest decisions in mixed martial arts history and losing his title over it
A near shut-out of a decision over 14-3 Cory Sandhagen, one of the best Bantamweights on the planet and current top contender, which made Yan interim champion again
A close split decision loss in a title unification rematch with Sterling that bumped Yan back out of the title picture
A split-decision #1 contendership loss against 15-1 Sean O'Malley that was widely decried as one of the worst judging decisions of 2022; O'Malley would be a world champion one fight later
An absolute shellacking of a loss against 15-4 Merab Dvalishvili, who would also be a world champion a year later and is already in discussion as one of the best Bantamweights of all time
A great comeback victory against Song Yadong, 21-7-1, the #7 contender, which etched Yan back into the realm of contendership
A five-round beating of the 24-3-1 Deiveson Figueiredo, former Flyweight world champion turned #5 Bantamweight, who put up a great fight but was ultimately dismantled
Without any additional context, in terms of the pure, simple cruelty of numbers: One side's opposition had a combined record of 156-30-2 and the other's was 69-33. Hell, you can throw Marcus a bone and only count Aljo once for Yan and it's still 136-27-2.
If you do want to count some additional context, well. How do you match up knocking out JP Buys with arguably beating Sean O'Malley? How many times would Marcus have to trounce Abe Sellers before it became equivalent to outworking Cory Sandhagen?
If McGhee earned this fight by beating Jonathan Martinez 29-28, what does it say for Petr Yan that he knocked out José Aldo, who beat Martinez 30-27?
In some ways this conversation mirrors one we just had three weeks ago when the #11-ranked Joshua Van faced the #1-ranked Brandon Royval. I'm going to paraphrase rather than quote because the whole thing was three paragraphs long and I have some sense of shame, but in short, divisional structure is good for the sport not just because it's a more equitable way of managing your matchmaking but because it allows the audience to understand and follow the ascension of a fighter up the ranks so a fanbase can grow organically. Without it, you get Van/Royval situations where a man who's never been off the prelims is suddenly your #1 contender.
And this is actually worse. Joshua Van got that opportunity because Manel Kape got injured and the company needed someone to step in on short notice. There were extenuating circumstances.
Word first broke that management was targeting Yan vs McGhee in the first week of May. This company has booked championship fights with just weeks of space, but this matchup between one of the top contenders in a division and Marcus McGhee was booked almost three months ahead of time. This fight was in the oven longer than the main event of UFC 300. The UFC wanted this fight.
And it assuredly has nothing to do with Marcus McGhee, who has never been off the prelims and has spent 3/4 of his UFC career fighting in the Apex, costing a fraction of what Petr Yan does.
I get the urge for inertia. I do. But this is at best nihilistic and at worst corrupt. This is the kind of matchmaking they do when they don't care anymore and they want to teach you not to care either.
I hope the combat gods don't reward them for it. PETR YAN BY TKO.
MAIN CARD: SO MANY VS
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Shara Magomedov (15-1) vs Marc-André Barriault (17-9 (1))
Nothing exists in a pit of perpetual pointlessness like the life and times of Shara Magomedov. The UFC has spent years promoting Shara while promising, repeatedly, that anyone saying he can't get licensed to fight in America what with his only having one eye (and a history of randomly assaulting people!) is simply lying, which makes it very coincidental that this is his sixth UFC bout and every single one of them has mysteriously been in Abu Dhabi or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But he's a real contender, and you should really care about his title prospects, which is why his last matchup was a cross-class bout with career Welterweight Michael "Venom" Page, and having lost to Page and thus lost his undefeated streak, Shara is right back where he was previously: Fighting guys with middling records and recent losses.
Hi, Marc-André Barriault. I'm sorry to describe you that way, but respectfully, it's true. You're one of the Middleweight division's fun brawlers and the downside of being a brawler is how rarely one earns that reputation without losing a bunch. Barriault is strong and brutal and dangerous and six years in the UFC has earned him a 6-8 (1) record within it. Once upon a time he was one of its toughest outs; he's now been stopped in four of his five last losses, and three of said losses all came in a row in 2024. Getting knocked out by Joe Pyfer? No shame in that. Getting knocked out by Dustin Stoltzfus, who previously had one striking finish in twenty-two professional bouts? That's a bit shakier. Barriault was saved from the chopping block thanks to a knockout over Bruno Silva this past May, but that has brought him here, so I'm not sure it was worth it.
I would absolutely love to see Barriault just bumrush Shara and spend fifteen minutes grinding him into the fence, but they know what they're doing putting in a knockout-prone brawler with a sharp striker. SHARA MAGOMEDOV BY TKO.
FLYWEIGHT: Asu Almabayev (21-3, #9) vs Jose Ochoa (8-1, NR)
Poor Asu Almabayev. It's very hard to string together long winning streaks in mixed martial arts, it is even harder to do it at a highly competitive weight class like Flyweight, and it's damn near impossible to transition from regional to international fights and finally to the UFC itself without losing it. Asu managed seventeen consecutive victories on his way to the big show, and that streak came to an end this year not just as a result of a short-notice fight shuffling that took him from a lower-ranked bout against Steve Erceg to a sudden main event with Manel Kape, but as the direct result of Kape landing a double-eyepoke combination that went completely uncalled by the referee because, of course, this is mixed martial arts. Was Almabayev going to lose a decision anyway? Almost certainly, he was getting trashed. Is it still horseshit that Kape TKOed him with a pair of pokes after already getting away with one in the previous round? You know it.
And this is a replacement bout, too. Asu was supposed to meet the rising Ramazan Temirov here, but Temirov pulled out two and a half weeks before fight night, so once again, we are promoting a fight with top-ten implications based on which unranked prospect was available and affordable on short notice. Jose Ochoa was, himself, pulled into the UFC because megaprospect Lone'er Kavanagh needed a dance partner, and Kavanagh failed to score the flashy knockout the company wanted from him, and Ochoa almost got him in the second round, but the decision still went to Lone'er. As payment for Ochoa's services he got to knock out company yardstick Cody Durden a month and a half ago. I'd like to say the jump from Cody Durden to a top ten matchup is aggressively silly, but Joshua Van was fighting Cody Durden in December and six months later he became the #1 contender in the division, so fuck it, I guess.
ASU ALMABAYEV BY DECISION.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Nikita Krylov (30-10, #10) vs Bogdan Guskov (17-3, #13)
If Light Heavyweight has an advantage, it's the way its resolutely shallow nature means anyone can climb into contendership with a good streak, even if that streak is over folks who aren't getting much done. Just three months ago Nikita Krylov was on a three-fight winning streak, the best of his career since his return to the UFC in 2018, and one really good win away from title contention. Which is damning when you realize his three victims were Alexander Gustafsson, who hadn't won a fight in five years, Volkan Oezdemir, whose only victory in three years came against Paul Craig, and Ryan Spann, who was ranked thanks to a knockout over a Dominick Reyes on a four-fight, three-year losing streak. But wins are wins, and Krylov was ready for his moment in the sun--up until he was knocked out by, hilariously enough, Dominick Reyes at UFC 314 this past April. Now, suddenly, Reyes is the one on a sketchy three-fight winning streak and Krylov is the one fighting to stay on the ladder.
In one of those fun moments of circular matchmaking that inevitably comes to divisions with only 30ish fighters in them, Bogdan Guskov's own UFC debut was a short-notice replacement fight against our buddy from the last paragraph, Volkan Oezdemir. Guskov was a big scary knockout artist the UFC was hoping would climb quickly into the ranks, so it was slightly disappointing for them when Oezdemir chased Bogdan down, punched him to the floor and choked him out in a hair under four minutes. I've said you can gauge how much the UFC cares about a prospect by how gently they matchmake them after a loss, and in Guskov's case, he got the 1-2 Zac Pauga followed by Ryan Spann on a two-fight losing streak, and after dispatching both men Guskov was supposed to move up to Johnny Walker, who was 0 for 3 and hadn't knocked anyone out in years, and when Walker pulled out during fight week the UFC pulled the 7-1 regional warrior Billy Elekana up to the big show. Shockingly, after a slightly shaky first round, Guskov brutalized him and choked him out.
I like Krylov's style more than Guskov's. The long kicks have always been a great offensive weapon, his grappling is just creative enough to be dangerous, and Guskov is a frontrunner who has only gone to a decision once in his career and it didn't go his way. Guskov's strong and vicious and if Krylov can't keep him at range or controlled on the ground he's in trouble, but after watching Oezdemir and Elekana both give Guskov trouble with their grappling, I think Krylov will be able to neutralize him. NIKITA KRYLOV BY DECISION.
PRELIMS: MARTIN'S BUDAY IN THE SUN
BANTAMWEIGHT: Bryce Mitchell (17-3, #15 at Featherweight) vs Said Nurmagomedov (18-4, NR)
Hey, remember Bryce Mitchell, the guy who said all the Hitler-was-saving-us-from-the-gays Nazi shit and then got crushed by Jean Silva back in April because the UFC fallen so far that promoting pro-Nazi propaganda as a pay-per-view selling point isn't even a question anymore? Good news: Not only are they still unquestioningly promoting him, he's a Bantamweight now because he kept getting his ass kicked at Featherweight. Said Nurmagomedov is here to welcome him to 135 pounds and he's 1 for 3 and he's only had one fight at all in the last two years and I gotta be honest, the idea of analyzing Bryce Mitchell fights still feels pretty abhorrent to me. It's bad enough to excuse transphobia, it's bad enough to excuse sexism and bigotry, it's bad enough to have fighters dropping homophobic slurs on broadcasts again with zero repercussions, it's bad enough to have the UFC use their airtime to openly worship Trump, but you'd like to think that at the absolute bare minimum the sport could still at least pretend to care about promoting people who say things like "Hey, you know who was a really good guy, actually? Hitler."
You'd think that would be a bar we could still manage to clear. Bryce could win what is in all likelihood going to be an extremely grapply fight, and I do not care. Bryce could be fighting a pile of mud and I still would not pick him. SAID NURMAGOMEDOV BY WHATEVER.
WELTERWEIGHT: Muslim Salikhov (21-5) vs Carlos Leal (22-6)
Do you have any idea what kind of shit needs to happen for you to win a fight--over solid competition!--with a spinning wheel kick to the dome, one of the rarest, most impressive stoppages in the sport, and you're still a +300 underdog in your next fight? And it's not even his first! Salikhov has been dropping people with extremely pretty spinning shit for years, but thanks to said years he's now in his forties, and nothing so exemplifies the cruelty of time as Salikhov making it through the first twenty fights of his mixed martial arts career across a decade and a half without ever being stopped on strikes only to eat two knockout losses in the last three years. Carlos Leal spent a good chunk of that time failing to make it to the top of the PFL thanks to the two nemeses who both beat him twice: His inability to make weight and 2022 champion Sadibou Sy. Leal wound up signed to the UFC last year as an afterthought, a short-notice replacement to fill in against a wide favorite in Rinat Fakhretdinov, so it was a considerable surprise to the world when Leal stung him repeatedly, stuffed 17 of his 19 takedowns, and won on every single media scorecard. He, of course, lost a unanimous decision with the judges. So he rebounded by fighting Alex Morono, one of the most durable fighters in the company, and just smashing him flat in one round.
Sorry, Muslim. CARLOS LEAL BY TKO.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Da'Mon Blackshear (17-7-1) vs Davey Grant (14-7)
It took a year and multiple Codies, but Da'Mon Blackshear has regained some of his hype. After getting a bunch of attention for hitting a Twister in the Summer of 2023, turning around to take another fight within a week, losing, missing most of the next year and getting knocked out in eighteen seconds upon returning, the world mostly moved on from "Da Monster" and turned their attention to newer, better-marketed prospects like Raul Rosas Jr. and Payton Talbott. But Blackshear is back on a three-fight winning streak, and all it took was three consecutive opponents he was between -300 and -600 against, which sure is a common career trajectory these days. Davey Grant is just here for his annual check-up. At one point he was one of the UFC's best bout machines, a constant performance reward contender churning out multiple brawls a year, and then injuries and bad luck took him away. He fought in July of 2023 and lost a screwjob of a split decision, he didn't resurface until December of 2024, where he beat Ramon Taveras, and now it's been more than half a year again and it's time to get our Granting in while we can, because if we don't see him again before December it means next time out he'll be 40 and his bones will be turning to dust.
But goddammit, this is the man who choked out Raphael Assunção, so I'm choosing to believe in his grappling. DAVEY GRANT BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Amanda Ribas (12-6, #7) vs Tabatha Ricci (11-3, #10)
Being ruled out of contendership sucks. Amanda Ribas is one of the most athletic, well-rounded women in the Strawweight division, capable of gritting out three rounds with Katlyn Cerminara and winging spinning kicks fourteen minutes into a bout. Unfortunately, she lost that Cerminara fight. And the Maycee Barber fight a year later. And the Rose Namajunas after that. When Mackenzie Dern armbarred her this past January it marked not just the first submission loss of Amanda's career but the first time she's ever suffered back-to-back losses. There's no shame in getting tapped by Mackenzie Dern! But combined with her having previously beaten Dern back in 2019 it cements Amanda's place in the division and the really unfortunate pattern of her inability to get past the vanguard of the top five, and that leaves you dealing with the Tabatha Riccis of the division. Ricci's proven herself to be one of the division's best grapplers and toughest outs--the only stoppage of her career came against Manon Fiorot an entire weight class up--but she, too, struggled with Loopy Godinez, and she, too, got shut out by Xiaonan Yan, and she, too, has to prove to the world that she can break into the ranks of the contenders given a chance.
But I have always had an undue level of faith in Amanda and I think her standup is a touch above Tabatha's. AMANDA RIBAS BY DECISION.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Ibo Aslan (14-2) vs Billy Elekana (7-2)
I don't know, man. We're down here in the part of the card where nothing matters. Ibo Aslan is 2-1 in the UFC, and the two men he defeated have a combined company record of 0-6, and he earned his chance at a UFC contract despite having one win in his twelve-fight career over a man with a winning record. Billy Elekana is here because the UFC needed someone to fight Bogdan Guskov less than a week before fight night and he happened to be available. Ibo got savaged by Ion Cuțelaba, Billy got butchered by Bogdan, and now they have thrown them together to see who will claw their way out of the bone pit.
Billy had some decent grappling against Bogdan right up until he didn't, so I'll make the assuredly poor decision of siding with him, but I'm also betting it's not going to be very fun. BILLY ELEKANA BY DECISION.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Mohammad Yahya (12-5) vs Steven Nguyen (9-2)
Every time the UFC comes to Abu Dhabi there is a chance Mohammad Yahya will show up. Is he particularly good? No, his career is almost exclusively defined by victories over soft targets. Has he succeeded in either of his UFC appearances? Absolutely not: The first time around he was dominated by Trevor Peek and last August he got stomped by Kauê Fernandes to the tune of not just getting knocked out in one round, but outstruck 37 to 4 in the process. Does he have any notable past success to coast on? Well, he won a Bellator fight once! It was all the way back in 2017, his opponent Ashley Griffiths was 4-5, and he proceeded to lose fifteen fights in a row and almost all of them mysteriously happened within two minutes of the bell ringing. But Yahya is so identified with Abu Dhabi's UAE Warriors federation that his nickname is "The UAE Warrior" and it assuredly makes someone behind the scenes happy every time he gets to show up in the UFC.
Congrats on the sweepstakes, Steve. STEVEN NGUYEN BY TKO.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Martin Buday (15-2) vs Marcus Buchecha (5-1)
I talk a lot about the death of the Heavyweight division, but I want to be clear that it isn't a natural death. Heavyweight has always suffered from the chronic condition of Being Fucking Heavyweight, but that's a condition that can be managed with love and attention, and with the proper amount of care, Heavyweight can thrive! And then sometimes you don't do it, and you get situations like this where Martin Buday is 6-1 in the UFC and taking last-minute replacement fights without complaining and, as a wrestling-focused fighter, he's still stuck here curtain-jerking shows where nobody will watch him. This is stupid, but fine: We've long since accepted the UFC will stamp wrestling into the ground at all costs. But Marcus Buchecha is also here. Buchecha is one of the best Heavyweight grapplers in the world. He's a two-time ADCC champion, a two-time world no-gi champion, a seven time BJJ world champion, and a 5-1 mixed martial artist whose only career loss came against ONE's current world champion. And the UFC clearly values him, because Buchecha left ONE despite being their #1 contender at the end of 2024, and the UFC signed him without making him go through the Contender Series. And yet, they are here, putting their big new Heavyweight signing in the first fight of the night at nine in the fucking morning on the west coast.
It's like they actively want to bury their own division. Buday could grind Buchecha into dust and it wouldn't surprise me one bit but Valter Walker has brought Heavyweight submissions back and I want to believe. MARCUS BUCHECHA BY SUBMISSION.