CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 154: FINALLY GETTING THERE
Carl looks at UFC 319: du Plessis vs Chimaev and thinks about the end of all things and/or pay-per-view.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 16 FROM THE UNITED CENTER IN CHICAGO, IL
EARLY PRELIMS 3:00 PM PDT / 6:00 PM EDT | PRELIMS 5 PM / 8 PM | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM
It sure does feel weird to try to dissect the differing value of a pay-per-view card vs a televised card vs an Apex card knowing now that the entire business model is dead in five more months. Enjoy this variance while it lasts, because I cannot shake the feeling that we've got maybe one more year of numbered UFCs being noticeably different than Fight Nights.
MAIN EVENT: HOLD YOUR BREATH
MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Dricus du Plessis (23-2, Champion) vs Khamzat Chimaev (14-0, #3)
When Dricus du Plessis won the Middleweight championship a year and a half ago, I introduced his reign like this:
Middleweight's fucking wild, man. Generally when a belt changes hands repeatedly in a short period of time you can blame injuries and strippings and title vacations, but recent history has simply been a case study in how goddamn weird things can get at 185 pounds.
Middleweight's fucking wild, man. Generally when a belt changes hands repeatedly in a short period of time you can blame injuries and strippings and title vacations, but recent history has simply been a case study in how goddamn weird things can get at 185 pounds.
It was, indeed, a goddamn weird time. Israel Adesanya, the second-greatest Middleweight champion in UFC history, ended more than a thousand days on top of the world after getting knocked out by Alex Pereira, a rival who'd chased him from another sport entirely and been so well-loved by the UFC that he was fighting for the belt after just one ranked victory. Pereira, the division's new bogeyman, didn't record a single title defense--because Adesanya torched him in an instant rematch just 147 days later. Adesanya, finally free of the one man who'd plagued him for years, lost his belt 155 days later to Sean Strickland, of all people, and Sean Strickland proceeded to talk an endless raft of shit about his place atop the sport and proceeded to have one of the shortest reigns of all time, dropping the belt to Dricus du Plessis just 132 days later.
Five different champions in fourteen months. More than two years between successful title defenses. It was the largest firestorm of chaos the division had ever seen.
It's maybe the single greatest testament to how well-regarded Khamzat Chimaev is as a mixed martial artist that you could have slotted him into any one of those title matches across those multiple champions and those multiple years and the majority of the audience would've gleefully accepted it, and it's maybe the single most accurately damning statement about Khamzat's career that now that they repeatedly tried and failed so often that a sizable portion of that audience is desperately afraid of what will happen to the division if he wins.
Folks are only now realizing how lucky they've been to have Dricus du Plessis as a fighter. In exchange for that aggressively stupid who's-a-real-African crypto-racist bullshit that got him in the spotlight, we got the most consistent top-level fighter the Middleweight division has seen since Izzy's glory days. Like clockwork, you get two DDP fights a year, each time it's against high-level competition and each time he performs like a high-level competitor. In his earlier days he was exciting because he could kind of look like shit against a Darren Till or Derek Brunson and somehow still adapt midway through and win; in his current days he's exciting because his style is awkward and slumping and makes him look persistently exhausted, and yet somehow he outworks everyone he faces.
He took six straight to get his shot at the title. He got it after beating Robert Whittaker, a man whose only losses in a decade of Middleweight dominance had been against Adesanya himself.
Which is funny, because Khamzat got his shot by beating Whittaker more than a year later, bringing Khamzat's total record against UFC Middleweights in the last five years to 1-0.
When he started his UFC tenure back in 2020, he almost instantaneously became one of the most exciting prospects in the sport. He was a murderous grappler with unstoppable wrestling and huge power in his hands and no one had made it out of a second round against him, let alone demonstrated any risk of actually beating him. What's more: He was able to do this at multiple weight classes on an aggressive schedule. He made his debut at Middleweight, he won his second fight at Welterweight ten days later, and eight weeks later he was back at Middleweight flattening Gerald Meerschaert in seventeen seconds. It was one of the best debut runs the sport had seen, and the UFC wanted him back in the cage in a title eliminator with Leon Edwards by the end of the year.
Instead, Khamzat retired.
COVID-19 was a bitch and it caused massive health issues for him. He posted a bunch of pictures of his recovery from the illness and waved the sport off. Of course, nothing is less real than a mixed martial arts retirement, so after more than a year of inactivity he was back. He'd slowed himself down to the every-five-months schedule of a regular fighter, but eleven months after his return to the sport he was a ranked Welterweight contender and his shot at the top seemed inevitable, especially after the UFC positioned him as a pay-per-view main eventer for Nate Diaz's retirement fight, an almost guaranteed squash match that would've propelled him to stardom over one of the sport's most visible fighters.
Instead, Khamzat missed weight. Like, badly. He was closer to Middleweight than Welterweight. It almost torpedoed the entire show, and only a flurry of last-minute reschedulings saw the show go on with Khamzat strangling Kevin Holland in a couple minutes instead. Whatever! He's a Middleweight now! It's fine. Everything is fine.
And everything has been fine! In the sense that Khamzat now fights once a year and the fights are never quite right. In 2023 last-minute replacements meant he made his return to Middleweight not through an actual Middleweight, but career Welterweight Kamaru Usman, who was fighting up at 185 for the first time with less than two weeks to prepare and somehow still took Khamzat not just to the bell, but to a majority decision. Khamzat wouldn't fight an actual Middleweight until the aforementioned Robert Whittaker fight--a Whittaker who'd been diminished in the public eye by the du Plessis loss--nearly a year ago in October.
Here's the thing, though: He fucking destroyed him.
No one destroys Robert Whittaker. Since leaving the 170-pound weight cut behind in 2014, Rob had been one of the division's toughest outs. Israel Adesanya had knocked him out, but only after a competitive round and a half, and in their rematch three years later Whittaker had taken him to a decision he conceivably could have won. Dricus had stopped Rob in 2023, but Rob had jabbed and wrestled and hurt him before the second-round stoppage. No one simply barnstormed Robert Whittaker. Rob had time to land two leg kicks before Khamzat carved right through him. He hurled him to the ground, he battered him with punches and he submitted him not with a real choke, but by simply cranking Rob's face so hard it fucking broke. The picture of Rob's loose bottom row of teeth features heavily in the promo packages for this pay-per-view, which is unfortunate, as it originated from a private text Rob didn't intend for anyone to see, but inevitable, because it's Robert Whittaker's broken fucking face.
This is the Khamzat Chimaev dilemma. It's how, even with his inactivity and his weight troubles, the UFC tried to pitch him on a title fight for UFC 300. It's how they were ready to throw him into the title mix coming off a victory over Gerald goddamn Meerschaert. His unavailability is matched only by his inevitability. Even the facade of indestructability that surrounds undefeated fighters was tested when he had his war with Gilbert Burns back in 2022, faced real adversity for the first time in his UFC career, and overcame it. There's a force-of-nature feeling to watching him fight, and it makes it very, very difficult to argue against his place as a contender.
Which is infuriating, because he's only had one ranked Middleweight fight.
Dricus toiled to get here. He fought and beat legends of the sport. He double-tapped one of the most defensively sound fighters in Middleweight history. He may not be undefeated, but he's only got one unavenged loss in his career and the other guy went 1-4 in the UFC and barely lasted a minute against Paulo Costa. Dricus has been the constant in a division of chaos and he's managed to outperform expectations every time the world has doubted him. He's on his third title defense as the undisputed best in the world against a man who's only had one ranked win in the division.
And he's the universal underdog.
Damn near the entire world has the same impression of this fight: Either Khamzat Chimaev crushes Dricus du Plessis in the first seven minutes or Dricus makes his life miserable for the next three and a half rounds. Even though Khamzat made it to the bell against Burns and Usman, his dominant victories have earned him a reputation as a glass cannon of cardiovascular health. If Gilbert Burns survives the blitz, he'll give him hell. If Kamaru Usman can make it past the crush, he'll outwrestle him. If Robert Whittaker doesn't get taken down, he'll jab Khamzat to death.
If, if, if. None of it has materialized. Burns put up a great fight and even dropped Khamzat: He still lost a clear 29-28. Usman gave Khamzat his closest scrape and still lost 29-27.
Rob got his face broke in three and a half minutes.
Dricus du Plessis is only the fifth man to ever record multiple title defenses at Middleweight--only the second in the last decade--and the entire conversation about this fight revolves not around if he can stop Chimaev's assaults, but rather, if he can simply survive long enough that Khamzat can't do it anymore. Which is remarkably disrespectful to a man who's beaten underdog odds every time he's been stuck behind them, especially when we're talking about a fighter who almost lost a brawl against a Welterweight.
But then, around the same time Khamzat was eating those Gilbert Burns punches, Dricus was getting outwrestled and struggling to survive a first round against the wrestling assault posed by Derek Brunson.
There's a strong urge to believe in the idea of visible progress. Aside from having a chance to build a fanbase, Dricus showing up so damned often has given said fanbase a chance to watch him grow and improve. His wrestling has solidified, his defense has improved, and he's learned to master his own offensive methodology. Even the single year between the two Sean Strickland fights provided a case study in how a fighter can tune up their approach and become more effective despite already being at the top of the sport.
No one's had the chance to watch Khamzat grow. His inconsistent appearances and his breaks from the sport mean any evidence of his evolution has been confined to the gym, and that makes his own appearances as much a question of his opponents as his skills. Would a Kamaru Usman with more than ten days to prepare have turned that majority decision into a split? Is the Robert Whittaker we just saw struggling with the slow-motion striking of Reinier de Ridder too roadworn to deal with a physical threat like Khamzat?
Has fighting so consistently at this level made Dricus tough enough to stop the unstoppable force, or is he going to get choked out in ninety seconds?
DRICUS DU PLESSIS BY TKO. It's possible I want to believe in the work, it's possible I have insufficient faith in Khamzat's gas tank, and it's possible now that we're finally getting a slate of solid contenders I desperately want to keep Middleweight from falling into the one-defense-a-year void Women's Strawweight has been stuck in since 2022. But I, too, think the first round and a half of this fight will be absolutely terrifying, and I, too, am hoping the next three rounds turn into a revenge movie.
CO-MAIN EVENT: FUCK YOU SLIGHTLY LESS
FEATHERWEIGHT: Lerone Murphy (16-0-1, #6) vs Aaron Pico (13-4, NR)
On the topic of Robert Whittaker vs Reinier de Ridder, a relevant note from its introductory blurb:
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.
For those who are unfamiliar: Aaron Pico was the hottest unsigned MMA prospect of, like, 2014. No, really. Amateur wrestling star! But not, like, the stuff you'd recognize. He never won an NCAA title or made it to the Olympics, but he was an alternate, and he won the U17, and he did a bunch of amateur boxing, and despite being a literal teenager he had a Nike deal and a ton of people who thought he would rule the world.
When Scott Coker signed him in 2014 he said he "has all the makings of MMA's next great superstar," and he treated him like it, too. It was three years before Pico actually had his first fight, but they talked about him the whole time, they made him a fixture of their marketing, and they had him debuting on pay-per-view, in Madison Square Garden, right alongside folks like Mike Chandler, Chael Sonnen and Fedor Emelianenko. They scouted out what they felt was a layup of an opponent in Zach Freeman, who at 8-2 looked fantastic on paper, but in practice had lost to almost all the good fighters he'd ever faced. It was the perfect shortcut: Aaron Pico makes his debut blowing out a guy with 10 times his experience and absolutely nothing bad could possibly happen.
Freeman dropped Pico with an uppercut and choked him out in twenty-four seconds.
Many great fighters have embarrassing early losses. Four years before Anderson Silva became a legend he got tapped out by the 4-7-1 Daiju Takase. Conor McGregor's rise was paused by Joe Duffy, a man who would one day be unable to defeat Marc Diakiese. Royce Gracie took one look at Harold Howard's mullet and fled. Loss happens, and it is in no way an impediment to reaching the top of the sport.
Aaron Pico never reached the top of the sport. A couple years into his career he got knocked out in back-to-back fights. A few years ago, Jeremy Kennedy outwrestled him until his shoulder exploded. He touched down in the PFL long enough to avenge a five-year-old loss by beating a now 38 year-old Henry Corrales before skating into free agency. He's still really good! Pico's proven himself to be great at disposing of men with records like 11-8 and 13-10. He just never achieved the greatness the world expected from him.
And the UFC wanted to sign him to immediately fight Movsar Evloev, the undisputed #1 Featherweight contender with victories over world champions who's never lost a fight in his life.
And when that failed--repeatedly!--they decided to move onto plan B, which was a battle with Lerone Murphy, the #6 Featherweight contender with victories over world championship contenders who's never lost a fight in his life.
We talk a lot about the UFC being willing to throw structure under the bus in favor of marketing, and this is one of the most egregious examples they've done. They don't like Movsar because he's a wrestler who wrestles and makes everyone look bad with his wrestling, and they don't like Lerone because he stopped finishing people four years ago. I remember when they started trying to hype up Lerone as a big future champion back in 2020! He was part of the third big British invasion, their undefeated Featherweight phenom that would take the UFC by storm. And they should be thrilled with how well it's worked out! The dude is on an eight-fight winning streak in one of the biggest shark tanks the sport has to offer. He outstruck Edson Barboza, he outwrestled Dan Ige, and he dismantled Josh Emmett. He should, by all rights, be a massively-marketed top contender.
But his style is slow and defensively-sound, which means they don't want to put in the effort necessary to market him. Instead they chucked him back into the Apex where no one would pay a lick of attention to him, and the moment it became convenient they signed a fight that could theoretically replace him with a Bellator lifer who never made it to title contention.
The UFC has never been shy when it comes to shitting on fighters from other promotions, nor hesitant to give them crapwork to get through when they arrive. Anderson Silva had to fight Chris Leben. Hector Lombard was a nigh-undefeated Bellator champion when the UFC signed him amidst fan furor about his chances against Anderson, but Hector didn't get Anderson, he got Tim Boetsch. Reinier de Ridder is a UFC contender now, but when the UFC signed him last year, they put him all the way at the bottom of the ladder against Gerald Meerschaert.
That's always been part of the game. If you win, hey, that's great: You've justified your contract. If you lose, that's even better: You've reinforced the philosophical forcefield that separates The UFC, The Greatest Mixed Martial Arts Organization In The World from Everyone Else, Who Sucks. The public perception of greatness must from time to time be watered with the blood of Patchy Mix. It's a point of corporate pride.
But now we're in the age where Muhammad Mokaev and Martin Buday get cut on divisional winning streaks because they're just not marketable enough and they'd rather let go of ranked prospects or even top contenders than promote someone that doesn't give them a hard-on.
And I guess Aaron Pico reminds Dana White of a time when mixed martial arts still excited him.
Look, man, I don't know. This would be less infuriating if Pico weren't still good, but however unproven he may ultimately be he is still, in fact, good. Lerone Murphy also gets taken down an awful lot and Aaron Pico is real good at wrestling. Against Movsar Evloev I gave Pico very little chance; against Lerone Murphy, especially in a three-round fight, it's dicier. Lerone has benefitted greatly from having those extra ten minutes to work and a fifteen-minute wrestling sprint could grind him down.
I've also said that about him before. I have perpetually underrated Murphy's ability to adapt and win, and having watched Pico's career develop, adaptation has always been one of his biggest issues. When he's able to wipe people out, he's great. But his gameplan centers around being the hammer, and against someone as adaptable as Murphy, I'm not convinced he'll be able to pull it off. It's wholly feasible this is just fifteen minutes of a wrestling clinic, in which case congratulations to the UFC on making a lateral trade, but as a matter of faith, LERONE MURPHY BY DECISION.
MAIN CARD: RESUME FORWARD MOTION
WELTERWEIGHT: Geoff Neal (16-6, #11) vs Carlos Prates (21-7, #12)
Geoff Neal, this pearl is thine. Geoff is one of the hardest-hitting Welterweights in the world and one of the exceptional few with a victory over Belal Muhammad, but he's also the guy who got beat up by Stephen Thompson and Neil Magny afterward, and that got him stuck firmly in the role of Punching Gatekeeper. Geoff Neal is very unlikely to try to wrestle or grapple your potential prospects, because if your nickname is "Handz of Steel" and you've already committed enough to embrace the Limozeen Z, you have forged an obligation to the universe to focus on your striking. This has gotten him lost in the shuffle, which is a bit unfair. He took Shavkat Rakhmonov to a third round, he took Ian Machado Garry to a split decision, and hell, he had Garry hurt pretty badly in the first.
But he still lost, and losing is what they would like him to do here, too. The UFC loves Carlos Prates. He's a finishing machine who gave them four fights and four knockouts in one year, which is a preposterous schedule, and best of all, he only rolled off the Contender Series in 2023 so he costs them almost nothing to book. They actually had this fight in mind back in April, but when Neal was injured and the aforementioned Garry was abruptly free thanks to the matchmaking shifts that left us with Welterweight Champion Jack Della Maddalena, management decided its faith in Prates was deep enough to throw him in with Garry in a short-notice, top-contendership affair. And it was a moral victory for Prates, in that he almost knocked Garry out towards the end! But in a more literal sense it was a loss, being as he lost the fight.
So what was supposed to be a prospect test is now a rehabilitation effort. I've always liked Neal and I've always hated how underrated he is by both the world and the matchmakers, but they're well aware of what they're doing here. Neal's hard-nosed style will probably get him eaten alive and it will, unfortunately, be incredibly fun to watch. CARLOS PRATES BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Jared Cannonier (18-8, #8) vs Michael Page (23-3, #15 at Welterweight)
There's this term in professional wrestling called 'go-away heat.' (It was introduced to me back in the nineties as X-Pac Heat, because we never valued Sean Waltman the way we should have.) It's a simple way of expressing the theory that while negative crowd reactions aren't necessarily bad, particularly in an industry that thrives on negative attention, there's a certain type of negative reaction that indicates the crowd hates what's going on not because they are engaged with the act of hating it, but because they are so bothered, annoyed or offended by it that they simply want it to stop happening.
I dislike many fights, but this fight has go-away heat with me.
Jared Cannonier has been a top ten fighter at Middleweight for half a damn decade. He fought for the world championship. He beat Sean Strickland! But he's entered his forties, he doesn't knock people out all that often anymore and he's got that old contract money, so he's an impediment to be removed. They had him fight Nassourdine Imavov, who he was beating right up until he suffered a really wonky stoppage, and they had him back in the cage getting battered by Caio Borralho two months later, which is unconscionable, and this past February they tried to finish the trifecta by using him to get Gregory Rodrigues over as the new Middleweight brawling contender. Except Jared Cannonier is still Jared Cannonier, and he killed Rodrigues. So, hey: Jared's still top ten. Who do you give him next? Paulo Costa? Roman Dolidze? A rematch with Israel Adesanya?
Nope! Michael "Venom" "fucking" Page. Michael Page, who is ranked at Welterweight. Michael Page, who has made one appearance at Middleweight since 2013. Was that for an important matchup of some kind? Of course not! It was a thrown-together co-main in Saudi Arabia against non-canonical fighter Shara Magomedov, who is legally disallowed from fighting anywhere that matters. Was it at least a great fight? Also no! It was, as you would expect from Michael Page vs Shara Magomedov, a tentative, low-volume affair that left impressions on absolutely no one. But he does marketable kicks, so hey: Fuck you, Middleweights ranked 9 through 15. It's time for a cross-class matchup that only benefits one half of its bracket, because if Michael Page drops Jared Cannonier he becomes an instant top ten contender, and if Jared Cannonier beats Michael Page, he beat A Barely-Ranked Welterweight and can look forward to getting fed to Joe Pyfer in January.
It's just crass. And with how chinny Jared's become, it's entirely feasible he gets cracked and we simply reward this. But I'm hoping he and his angry crystal-powered muscles just do fifteen minutes of cage grinding. JARED CANNONIER BY DECISION.
FLYWEIGHT: Tim Elliott (20-13-1, #11) vs Kai Asakura (21-5, #15)
Hi, Tim Elliott! Boy, it's been a minute. The Elliott career arc has really been a thing to behold. He came into the UFC in his mid-twenties as a fresh-faced rookie who'd just knocked out Jens Pulver on the regional circuit, he was out of the company within six fights, and one year later he'd made a name for himself as a must-watch Flyweight down in Titan FC by just being weird as shit, having found ways to weaponize things like walking backwards in mid-fight or, at one point, baiting an opponent into eating a spinning back kick after distracting him by pulling down his own shorts. The UFC brought him back for TUF 24, maybe the last great season of the show, and he won a shot at Demetrious Johnson for his efforts and damn near choked him out in the first round, which would have changed Flyweight history irrevocably. But then he lost the other four rounds, and that's been the story of his career. Elliott is fun and creative and he also loses to top-ranked competition every time he faces them. He's also a Flyweight who's about to turn 39 and hasn't been in the cage since December of 2023, which is, generally-speaking, a bad sign.
That makes him perfect for repairing Kai Asakura. The UFC made a very uncharacteristically exciting move last year when they signed Kai from Japan's Rizin Fighting Federation: In the modern age of lowest-bid Contender Series fighters their actively seeking an active champion from another major organization was shocking, as was their going for the jugular and throwing him directly into UFC title contention. Given the modern state of mixed martial arts and the virtual death of the B-leagues, it's entirely feasible that Alexandre Pantoja vs Kai Asakura was the last real UFC Champion vs Non-UFC Champion fight we'll see for a very, very long time. Unfortunately for Kai and Rizin, it was also an Alexandre Pantoja fight. The conventional wisdom saw Kai posting his greatest threat in the striking, but in reality, Pantoja dropped him in the first round before choking him unconscious in the second. Now Asakura has to simply be one of the boys, and that means proving he can hang with the division's grapplers.
And I'm not convinced he can. Elliott's an extremely creative grappler with an incredibly aggressive wrestling game, and generally-speaking, the people who beat him are either able to match his grappling or stuff his takedowns. Both are extremely tall orders for Kai, who is far more used to lamping people from a comfortable distance, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is just fifteen minutes of chain wrestling while Kai gets progressively more frustrated. TIM ELLIOTT BY DECISION.
PRELIMS: THE LOOP
LIGHTWEIGHT: King Green (32-17-1 (1)) vs Diego Ferreira (19-6)
Mr. Green, we have exited the window of opportunity. It's a sign of just how quickly this sport can move--especially once you're in your mid-thirties--that despite seventeen very successful years in the sport, King Green was actually at the highest-ranked, most-visible point of his career less than two years ago. He choked out Tony Ferguson, he shockingly knocked out Grant Dawson, and in two fights Green was a top fifteen Lightweight just a good win or two away from contention. The man who effortlessly destroyed him just one fight later, Jalin Turner, is now retired. Jim Miller, his next dance partner, turns 42 in a couple weeks. Paddy Pimblett killed Green and now he's probably fighting for the world championship. Mauricio Ruffy did it even faster and they're getting him into the rankings as fast as possible. And where does this leave our King? Fighting Diego Ferreira, a man whose last fight was, no shit, a loss to Grant Dawson. We've looped all the way the fuck back around and now Diego Ferreira, a man who's 2 for his last 6, is fighting King Green, a man who is 1 for his last 4, in a prelim headliner. Grant Dawson is 11-1-1 in the UFC and he has not been booked since January, where he outpunched Ferreira 195 to 84, but he had the temerity to do it on the ground, so it doesn't count. And now Ferreira's also going on 41 and also slowing down and it feels like we're watching a part of the sport slowly fade away.
If it's a question of which man has fallen farther, I'm gonna say Green has a little more left in the tank. KING GREEN BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Gerald Meerschaert (37-19) vs Michał Oleksiejczuk (20-9 (1))
The joy isn't here for me and I don't know where it went. This is the exact kind of fight I normally adore. Gerald Meerschaert has long been ensconced as my favorite guy who's never going to get ranked and Michał Oleksiejczuk just knocked out Sedriques Dumas which, if we're being real, means more to the sport than winning the Middleweight championship anyhow. I should love this mindless fight. But GM3 is 2 for his last 6, and Michał is 2 for his last 6, and this week the UFC signed a $7.7 billion broadcast deal that will carry its business off pay-per-view and into an all-streaming future, and somehow, these two sets of facts keep intersecting in my head. This is the first of the last UFC PPVs, and the top two bouts on its pay-us-money hype-up prelims are battles of aging journeymen known more for their losses than their wins, and what does it mean to mourn the end of an era when that era wasn't very good in the first place, and yet, the next one seems inevitably destined to be worse?
I hope Gerald is still around for it. MICHAŁ OLEKSIEJCZUK BY TKO.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Jéssica Andrade (26-14, #5) vs Loopy Godinez (13-5, #11)
It's possible that I should have said "the top three bouts on the prelims," because god bless you, Jéssica Andrade, you are and have always been one of my absolute favorites in the entire sport, but things have begun to get dire. Over the last couple of years Andrade has gone from a permanent fixture at the top of the world of women's mixed martial arts to suffering through one of the most aggressive strengths of schedules in the history of the sport. This may sound like I am being melodramatic, but I assure you, I'm fucking not. Lauren Murphy, Erin Blanchfield, Yan Xiaonan, Tatiana Suarez, Mackenzie Dern, Marina Rodriguez and Natália Silva is an absolute murderer's row of top contenders, and the simple idea of fighting all seven of them in one consecutive sequence is already bonkers. Jéssica Andrade did it in nineteen months. That's an average of one fight against a top title contender every eighty-five fucking days. Unsurprisingly: She got finished four times in seven fights. Hell, Yan Xiaonan knocked her out in one round and Andrade was back in the cage less than three months later, which simply should not happen, and when I tell you that she sued the shit out of her management at the end of 2024, it should not surprise you. The funny thing, though: In the middle of the career-derailing losing streak she still found the time to absolutely paste Mackenzie Dern, the woman who would one year later herself help derail Loopy Godinez. It feels like Loopy's been an up-and-coming contender for years, but that's largely because she just can't complete the journey. A few years ago it was Angela Hill and Luana Carolina, but those could be excused by Loopy's relative inexperience. In 2024, with sixteen fights under her belt, Loopy got outgrappled by Virna Jandiroba and Mackenzie in back-to-back bouts, and as a wrestling stylist, that's the kind of thing that really complicates your claim on contendership.
And a couple years ago I would've picked Andrade to stymie Loopy without a second thought, but after watching her get ragdolled and strangled by Jasmine Jasudavicius, my faith's a little shaken. That was at Flyweight, and Jasmine did have a big size and strength advantage Loopy simply doesn't, but that doesn't make it seem less feasible that Loopy's going to chain-wrestle Jéssica to death. In my heart of hearts I'm not ready to let go of the dream yet, so JÉSSICA ANDRADE BY DECISION is still the call, but I'm prepared to watch the young (31) eat the old (33).
LIGHTWEIGHT: Chase Hooper (16-3-1) vs Alexander Hernandez (16-8)
There are three men who beat Jim Miller on this card tonight, and for brevity's sake, the last two are fighting each other to determine who did it better. You might think with eleven UFC fights under Chase's belt and fifteen under Alexander's, there would be more to discuss in terms of their grand accomplishments during their lengthy tenures with the company, and yet, there is not. You could, in theory, talk about Hernandez having one of the best UFC debuts in a forty-two second knockout over Beneil Dariush, but for one, Dariush wasn't quite what he's become today, and for two, that was already seven and a half years ago. When Alexander Hernandez knocked out Beneil Dariush, Tyron Woodley was still the Welterweight champion, B.J. Penn was still fighting, HBO still broadcast boxing and Anthony Bourdain was still alive. He peaked early and has struggled to find that level of success again. Chase Hooper had the unfortunate fortune of being the beta test for the UFC child soldier program that eventually got them Raul Rosas Jr. They had Chase on the Contender Series at 18 and in the UFC a year later, and as one would expect from a teenaged rookie thrown into the spotlight, he had some trouble and couldn't manage back-to-back wins until just a couple years ago. Is this a measure of his growth as a mixed martial artist? Definitely! Is it an endorsement of his decision to leave the 145-pound weight cut behind in favor of Lightweight? Absolutely. Does it have something to do with his going from facing ranked fighters like Alex Caceres and Steve Garcia to guys like Nick Fiore, Viacheslav Borshchev, and the team of Clay Guida and Jim Miller who are collectively 84 years old? Perish the thought.
Hooper has improved, but he's going to want to avoid the feet as much as possible. His strengths still lay in his wrestling and Hernandez has the kind of straight-forward, hard-hitting punching that's given Hooper's looser standup style fits. He should be able to pull it off, though. CHASE HOOPER BY DECISION.
EARLY PRELIMS: TUF FINALS, APPARENTLY
LIGHTWEIGHT: Edson Barboza (24-12) vs Drakkar Klose (15-3-1)
I cannot help feeling for these men, who are destined to never get the credit they deserve. In Drakkar's case, I get it: Much as we were just discussing, he's been in the UFC for almost nine years and he's never quite gotten that elevating moment that gets him over, whether as a serious martial contender or a fan favorite. He's beaten a lot of good fighters--including King Green!--and he finally managed to get some eyes on him for his incredibly violent slam knockout over Joe Solecki back in 2023. But it's always been the big fights that ruin Klose's chances, and Joel Álvarez crushing him last December put him right back where he started. Edson Barboza, though. Barboza's been a goddamn star for the UFC for the last fifteen years. It's hard to remember now, but Barboza was so highly-regarded that Khabib Nurmagomedov solidified his title shot by mauling him for five rounds. Edson's kicked the shit out of multiple generations of contenders, from 2009 TUF winner Ross Pearson to mid-2010s prospect Evan Dunham to current-age contenders like Dan Hooker, and across all that time he's stayed vital and notable in his divisions--as a striker. It's a lot easier to age when you're a grappling-focused fighter, but when you're a dyed-in-the-wool kickman and you're still destroying people as you near 40? That makes you a legend.
It's entirely likely that Klose is going to use sheer physicality to wrestle and maul him, but I don't care. EDSON BARBOZA BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Bryan Battle (12-2 (1)) vs Nursulton Ruziboev (36-9-2 (2))
Bryan Battle won the fight for hearts and minds, and despite having not lost a match in almost three years, he has discovered success is a spectrum and staying on its good side is surprisingly difficult. Battle was basically an internet meme for the first year and a half in the UFC: He won The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ) when they wanted Tresean Gore or Gilbert Urbina instead, both of whom he defeated, and he was having ultra-violent fights and blasting people out with headkicks and despite being a high-performing reality television champion, they just would not let the poor guy off the prelims. And when he did finally start to get up there? It got weird. He infamously pulled a No Contest after poking Ange Loosa in the eye, which he insisted was Loosa being a coward who wanted to avoid a fight, and he followed it by going to Paris and punching out Kevin Jousset so he could talk about how much France sucked, and then he got pushed down to the prelims for UFC 310 again, which he justified by missing weight, barely scraping a split decision, and talking shit anyway. So now Battle's been forced up to Middleweight and his first fight is on the ass-end of the early prelims against Nursulton Ruziboev, a 6'5" Middleweight who hits like a wall and stops damn near everyone he beats.
But he also got outwrestled by Joaquin Buckley, so it's not as though he makes the best use of his size advantages. Battle is the more multifaceted striker, a solid grappler in his own right, and he's got a better gas tank than Nursulton. I have the inexplicable hunch he's going to get got anyway. NURSULTON RUZIBOEV BY TKO.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Karine Silva (18-5, #11) vs Dione Barbosa (8-3, NR)
This is either frustrating or amazing for Karine Silva and I'm really not sure which. One fight ago Karine was one of the company's best Flyweight prospects, a wrecking ball on a four-fight winning streak right at the precipice of entering the top ten, and all she had to do to get there was beat Vivane Araujo, who had only won two of her last six fights and was generally considered to be nearing the end of her career. As happens so often: Araujo won anyway. With no real other plans on hand, the UFC's response was to just shrug and book Karine against JJ Aldrich, and when Aldrich got injured, they decided to run a rematch six years in the making. All the way back in 2019, on the prelims of KATANA FIGHT 9, a show main-evented by luminaries of the sport Hemerson "Toco" Souza and Wendell "The Machine" Oliveira (I have recently ben asked if these jokes are serious so let me note the fact that you do not recognize them is, in fact, the point) Karine ate the fourth loss of her career against Dione Barbosa, a 2-0 rookie punching way above her experience level. Unfortunately, Barbosa wound up getting punched a lot herself and didn't win a fight for more than three years afterward, which is why it took her a little extra time to make it to the UFC. Now, in 2025, we can finally answer the question that's been plaguing the mind of the average MMA fan for more than half a decade: Who Was The Real Best Woman In Katana Fight.
The actual answer: Josiane Nunes. Tonight's answer? KARINE SILVA BY DECISION.
TUF 33 WELTERWEIGHT FINAL: Rodrigo Sezinando (8-1) vs Daniil Donchenko (11-2)
and
TUF 33 FLYWEIGHT FINAL: Alibi Idiris (10-0) vs Joseph Morales (12-2)
I have done my best to be honest with you, and I will be honest here: I have not watched a second of any of the TUF fights involving these four men. Not a lick. I vowed that I would watch The Ultimate Fighter last year, and I did, and I have rarely been so aware of my own mortality or the dawning sense of horror at how I have chosen to spend it. The lack of care the UFC has for the shambling corpse of TUF leaks into every single aspect of its production, and the net result of my time with it was a close awareness of its four finalists, who one year later have a combined UFC record of 2-6 including a victory built on a decision so absurdly bad that even its winner eventually apologized for it, an incredibly anticlimactic trilogy bout between Valentina Shevchenko and Alexa Grasso, and the knowledge that, speaking as someone who writes leftist combat sports essays on the internet, I can still feel it when my time is being wasted.
So I am drawing my sanity line. Barring some other incredibly ill-advised internet vow, I will not be watching TUF again. Having analyzed these two fights based on the entire rest of their careers, let's put it more simply:
Alibi Idiris is an undefeated champion out of Kazakhstan who's been fighting decent competition for most of his career.
Joseph Morales washed out of the UFC seven years ago and hadn't fought in two and a half years before getting pulled into the TUF house.
Rodrigo Sezinando is a solid puncher with a killer check hook who trains with Nova União, one of the best camps ever.
Daniil Donchenko is real well-rounded and real tough, but he's been stuck in the same Kazakh fight scene as Idiris and he's rarely gotten to fight guys who've accomplished anything.
This is the extent of the emotional energy I have to devote to this. This is where TUF and I have come.
Jesus Christ.
RODRIGO SEZINANDO BY DECISION and ALIBI IDIRIS BY TKO.