CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 93: MAKE IT UP AS WE GO ALONG

UFC 299: O'Malley vs Vera 2

SATURDAY, MARCH 9 FROM THE KASEYA CENTER IN MIAMI, FLORIDA
EARLY PRELIMS 3 PM PST / 6 PM EST | PRELIMS 5 PM / 8 PM | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM

I'm a bit torn, here.

By the standards of the UFC's cards on average, this is an absolute, unequivocal banger. There are fourteen fights scheduled for this card, half of them should be all-action showcases, several will crown new title contenders, several will reshuffle prospects, and at the end of it all there's a world championship grudge match. It's a fantastic card and it should be fun as hell.

At the same time? I've spent a lot of time complaining about the UFC's attempts to get rid of the traditional rankings structure of the sport in favor of marketing, and this feels like a pretty complete victory of marketing over substance.

Is Sean O'Malley defending his Bantamweight title against rightful top contender Merab Dvalishvili or, indeed, any of the top contenders? No: He's fighting Marlon Vera, the #5 guy, who just lost to #3 and, debatably, #12 last year. Pedro Munhoz, the #12 guy who should be in Marlon's place? He's fighting an unranked man on the prelims.

Dustin Poirier has been at the absolute top of the Lightweight division for the last six years, and this is the first time in almost four that he isn't either fighting for a title, fighting a champion, or fighting in a title eliminator. Is he facing one of the top ten prospects waiting to break through? No: He's got Benoît Saint Denis, who has one top fifteen win in his career, and it was over the #14 guy. Which is funny, because the #6 ranked title prospect Mateusz Gamrot IS on this card! Against Rafael dos Anjos, who hasn't won a Lightweight fight since 2020. On the prelims.

Michael "Venom" Page is getting a shot right at the rankings; Gilbert Burns is fighting a guy outside the top ten. Michel Pereira, who hasn't lost in four years, is on the early prelims; Kyler Phillips, who fights once a year, is on ESPN. Joanne Wood, one of the UFC's longest-tenured women, is having her retirement fight in the curtain jerking slot; two fights later, the Heavyweight debut of Robelis "The Big Boy" Despaigne.

It doesn't mean it's not a fun card. It doesn't even mean it's not a great card. But the changing nature of what is and isn't a great card is starting to feel like we're stripmining the foundation to rebuild the walls.

But Sean O'Malley might get kicked in the face, so, y'know, let's fucking go.

all over the place.

MAIN EVENT: CONTROL YOUR NARRATIVE
BANTAMWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Sean O'Malley (17-1, Champion) vs Marlon Vera (23-8-1, #5)

The thing is, none of this was necessary.

After years of marketing bullshit, the last 36 months of his career have proven that Sean O'Malley is inarguably one of the best Bantamweights on the planet. His accuracy and power were never in doubt; he was intercepting people with murderous counters all the way back in 2017 Contender Series debut. He was clearly very good, and there were signs that he might be very, very good, and all the UFC had to do was give him some real challenges to bring him up the right way.

And then Marlon "Chito" Vera knocked him out in 2020 and they gave the fuck up on that. Real challenges? No thank you. Broken prospect Thomas Almeida on a three-fight losing streak? Yes. Kris Moutinho, regional fighter and almost-immediate UFC washout? Yes. Raulian Paiva, career Flyweight? Yes. And now that he's on a winning streak, let's give him the softest possible landing into the top fifteen with Pedro Munhoz, who's 1 for his last 5 and clearly on his way out? YE-

Oh. He poked Munhoz in the eye? It's a No Contest?

Fuck it. Give him Petr Yan. What's that? O'Malley only barely scraped a split decision and it was widely agreed to be one of the worst decisions of the year?

Who gives a fuck? Give him the title shot.

It's almost boring to talk about it because it comes up every time Sean O'Malley does, but it comes up because that's O'Malley's entire career. There is a world in which Sean O'Malley's long-range counterpunching, murderous accuracy and marketably shitty personality were enough to get him gradually, holistically into the title picture, but we don't live in that world, we live in the one where the UFC put its thumb on the scale so hard that the replay of Sean O'Malley knocking out Aljamain Sterling was brought to you by a UFC-promoted energy drink sponsorship commercial featuring Sean O'Malley.

You can't discuss Sean O'Malley without discussing how he became Sean O'Malley. The marketing myopia around him is so strong that it was essentially predetermined that, no matter what happened with the rest of the division, if Sean O'Malley won the title his first defense was Marlon Vera.

Funnily enough, a year ago that would've made a whole lot of sense.

"Chito" is one of the UFC's best recent stories. He slid into the UFC as part of The Ultimate Fighter Latin America all the way back in 2014 (jesus christ), he was already a fun, dangerous fighter with heavy hands and somehow eternally unexpected headkicks, he had the classically sympathetic hard-luck tale of a fighter trying to provide for his daughter's medical needs, and the UFC was able to market him through all three. He was an up-and-coming star from Ecuador, he was a knockout striker with tricky grappling, and he had an inspirational story that let Dana White volunteer on television to pay for his daughter's $50,000 treatment himself.

Except he got ruled out of the TUF tournament after an infection. And he went 1-2 in his first two years and nearly got cut. And the UFC never actually paid for his daughter. He had to start a GoFundMe.

You know. Mixed martial arts.

But Vera improved, gradually, over the years, and by 2019 he was on the verge of a ranking--but Song Yadong edged him out of a very close decision, and having seen him fail, the time was ripe to feed Chito to their big marketing prospect. Despite having more than twice as many fights as Sean O'Malley, despite being a more well-rounded fighter than Sean O'Malley, despite having fought much stiffer competition than Sean O'Malley, Marlon Vera went into their fight a +250 underdog and Sean O'Malley went in as a -300 favorite.

And then, in a fight where the commentators talked nonstop about how great Sean O'Malley was, how inspiring his rise up the ranks had been, and how his "two-year layoff"--which, they were careful not to mention, was a suspension for repeatedly testing positive for ostarine--had only made him better, O'Malley jumped and dodged and swung jabs and kicks until dodging after eating a kick made something in his leg give out. Marlon jumped on the opportunity and elbowed him in the head until his eyes rolled back in his skull.

(The commentators proceeded to make clear that the stoppage was early and questionable.)

That fight was almost four years ago, and Vera has been a fixture in the rankings ever since. He crafted one of the most absurd-sounding fighting styles in the sport, a patience and output bordering on inactivity that saw him spending minutes at a time setting up single strikes--and somehow, that would work. He would spend an entire round getting jabbed and then drop opponents with vicious, perfectly timed shots. He was outstruck 273 to 167 by Rob Font, numerically beaten and often doubled up on or more in every single round, and it didn't matter, because he dropped Font on his ass in almost every one of those rounds, be it with punches, knees, or a straight-up professional-wrestling superkick. By the end of 2022 Vera had just knocked Dominick Cruz the fuck out and he looked all to hell like a title contender.

But then 2023 happened. While Sean O'Malley sat and patiently waited for his title shot, Marlon Vera fought the actual top contender in the division, Cory Sandhagen. He lost. Badly. Inexplicably the judges rendered a split decision, but Sandhagen blew him out of the water. He had no answer for Sandhagen's jabs or uppercuts, his patient approach only got him picked apart, and anytime Vera tried to go on offense, Sandhagen wrestled him out of it. Chito fought Pedro Munhoz a few months later--the man Sean O'Malley valorously poked in the eye--and he won, technically, but at best, it was a very, very close fight for their different positions in the division, and at worst, well, 82% of media scorecards gave the fight to Munhoz.

Marlon has a style. That style got him incredibly close to the top. But his last two opponents seem to have figured out that style, and they've made him pay for his reliance on it. All that momentum Chito had one year back as one of the hottest new contenders in the UFC has dissipated.

But Aljamain Sterling can't fight for the title because he doesn't deserve a rematch, Merab Dvalishvili can't fight for the title because he's a stinky ol' wrestler who hasn't earned it, and Cory Sandhagen can't fight for the title because he's got more important fights to prepare for, like the #13-ranked Umar Nurmagomedov.

It doesn't matter. None of it matters. It was always going to be Chito. A central part of O'Malley's idiot persona is the insistence that he should be undefeated, and beating Chito not only legitimizes his claim, it keeps him away from people the UFC would rather not have to market. Chito being the contender he used to be is entirely irrelevant to the equation. It had to be him. Nothing else was acceptable.

Intellectually, I think Sean O'Malley will win this fight. Talk of their first fight being a fluke is idiotic, but O'Malley having a better, more comprehensive striking assault up until he backed himself into an injury isn't. In their subsequent fights he's demonstrated an improved control of his range, he's tightened his counterpunches even further, and he's proven himself capable of landing and escaping in the clinch, where Vera traditionally uses knees and elbows to tie his attacks together.

Emotionally, I want Marlon Vera to win this fight. It's a better story from a more likable fighter. It would be a wonderful achievement for a man who was never supposed to get this far. His ability to hypnotize fighters into walking into front kicks and left hooks is exceptional, and while he may seem diminished by recent experience, the last time Sean O'Malley had to fight someone who could actually match him in outside striking work and range was the first time he fought Marlon Vera back in 2020.

Do I side with my heart, which constantly lies to me about reality, urges me to root for underdogs from the unlikely to the hopeless, and is, assuredly, setting me up for disappointment?

Or do I side with my brain, which wants me to pick the guy with the Tekashi69 tattoo he got from Tekashi69?

Fuck you for even considering it, brain. I'm going to cram so many shitty video games into you. MARLON VERA BY TKO.

CO-MAIN EVENT: THE GLASS ELEVATOR
LIGHTWEIGHT: Dustin Poirier (29-8, #3) vs Benoît Saint Denis (13-1 (1), #12)

I don't hate this fight! I really don't! I just feel like I got the Monkey's Paw version of what I asked for. Last year, in evaluating Rafael Fiziev vs Mateusz Gamrot, I wrote this:

(...)a combination of skill, timing and marketing means no one can break the iron fucking grip four men have on the entire division: Islam Makhachev, Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje, Dustin Poirier.

It has been five years--all the way back to Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Conor McGregor in October of 2018--since a 155-pound title match did not involve one of those four men.

Dustin Poirier has been a permanent fixture of the top Lightweight rankings for six years. He's fought for three championship belts--four if you count the BMF title, which, to be clear, you absolutely should not--he's beaten a half-dozen world champions, he ended Michael Chandler's title chances. Every mixed martial arts fighter at the planet chomps at the bit for a shot at Conor McGregor; Poirier brutalized him twice in six months. He effectively ended his career.

The grip Poirier has held at the top of the rankings has been ironclad, but a great deal of its strength came from the lack of fresh blood challenging it. Charles Oliveira beat Islam; Charles Oliveira got a rematch with Islam. Islam beat Alexander Volkanovski; when Oliveira couldn't make the rematch, Islam beat Alexander Volkanovski again. Dustin Poirier fought Justin Gaethje in 2018 and lost a rematch against him last year. Gaethje, rather than any of the Lightweights in the UFC, is fighting Max Holloway at UFC 300. Michael Chandler hasn't fought in a year and a half because he's waiting on Conor.

And yet, by painful, bloody effort, we have finally gotten some actual movement in the rankings. Arman Tsarukyan crushed Beneil Dariush and made it into the top five. Mateusz Gamrot ran through multiple people and strengthened his grasp on #6. Jalin Turner and Dan Hooker made themselves relevant again. Numbers moved. Fighters moved! But the very top of the ranks stayed barred and guarded.

Until the UFC announced that new blood was getting a shot at the top ranks in a fight that could, legitimately, crown the first brand new title contender the UFC has seen in years! Is it Tsarukyan? Is it Gamrot?

No! It's Benoît Saint Denis.

And I get it! I really do! This fight exists because Benoît, and this fight, are both marketable as shit. He's an all-action fighter who's finished every fight he's won. He's 5-1 in the UFC, and his only loss was an incredibly ill-advised 170-pound debut where he got the absolute shit kicked out of him by a man who once knocked out Sean Strickland, and now he's fighting a guy who used to compete at Featherweight.

Saint Denis is an absolute monster of violence. He's got brutal punching power and, as we discovered in his utter demolition of Matt Frevola last November, equally dangerous kicks. He's got wrestling enough in his back pocket to take fights to the ground and destroy people with elbows. He is constantly, endlessly hunting for finishes, and the dogged confidence with which he pursues them allows him to fight through defenses that have stopped less violent fighters.

He's good. He might even be great! He's also the #12 fighter in the division despite having never beaten anyone ranked higher than #14 and rather than risking him against Gamrot's wrestling or Fiziev's counterstriking or Beneil Dariush's endless spoiling of marketing prospects, the UFC knows this is their best possible chance at getting him a path to the top of the ranks and, while they're at it, an incredibly violent fight.

It's cynical and it's exhausting and I also can't hate it, because here's the thing: I like fighting. I enjoy good fights. Would I personally rather see the division treated with credibility and structure? Absolutely. Am I going to pass up getting to see Dustin Poirier and Benoît Saint Denis erase the front fourths of their fistbones in their attempts to bludgeon each other to death? Christ, no.

On paper, I like Poirier here. He's a more versatile striker, he's much better at slipping and defending punches, his perennially underrated grappling is more than a match for Benoît's Evil French Wrestling, and he's bent punches around guards and knocked out far cleaner, far more experienced fighters. Despite all of this, Poirier is a betting underdog, and in practice, I get it. It's impossible to look at Dustin's career and not feel the nagging awareness of age. His activity has dwindled to the point of only making the walk once a year, the Chandler fight saw him nearly broken by pressure and the Gaethje fight saw him just plain starched for the first time in seven years.

Looking at those performances side by side with Benoît Saint Denis violently chucking fighters into trash cans, and thinking about Poirier crossing 35 last month yet nearing 40 fights' worth of wear and tear, it's hard not to feel pessimistic. It's hard not to see a changing of the guard. I'd love to see Poirier jabbing Saint Denis up; I'd love to see Poirier weather the storm and turn Saint Denis' lights off in the third round.

But time is undefeated, and I fear we are about to watch it pass. I would deeply, deeply love to be wrong about this one, but: BENOÎT SAINT DENIS BY SUBMISSION.

MAIN CARD: THE KID'S GOING PLACES
WELTERWEIGHT: Kevin Holland (25-10 (1), #13) vs Michael Page (21-2, NR)

Somehow, I knew we'd wind up having to deal with Michael "Venom" Page in the UFC. It's been inevitable for years.

The problem with discussing MVP is there are, in reality, two MVPs. One Michael Page is a striking phenom; an absolute sensation of martial arts technique who kills people with shit no one else in the sport is doing. He dropped a man with a tornado kick! He's only lost twice in twelve years! He busted Cyborg Santos' skull with his knee and rolled a pokeball at him while he was writhing on the mat in agony! He's the coolest!

But there's also the cynical reality of Michael Page the Marketing Campaign. Page is one of the sport's most prolific crushers of cans, and half his knockouts come from competition that had no business in the cage with him. After finally losing to Douglas Lima, Page, now a mere 14-1, fought the 3-1 Richard Kiely. At 16-1, Page was fighting a 9-3 UFC washout more than half a foot shorter than him. Page's final Bellator fight was against Goiti Yamauchi, a genuinely talented, successful fighter! At Lightweight. Yamauchi was a goddamn Lightweight--and, when he was feeling spicy, a Featherweight--until 2022. MVP's made a career out of doing some of the coolest striking shit in the sport against some of the most outmatched people in the sport.

Is he overrated? Unquestionably. "Big" John McCarthy once said his record was better than Anderson Silva's, because the whole point of having MVP under contract is to market the shit out of him. Is he a bad fighter? Speaking as a longtime MVP hater: Not at all. He may have robbed Douglas Lima in their 2021 rematch, but the first time around Lima killed him and two and a half years later MVP fought him to a close (if incorrect) decision. He hung in there with Logan Storley for five rounds. He made a historically tough dude like David Rickels quit on his feet. The frustration with MVP has never been that he's bad, but rather that, for how good he is, he continually fights people who aren't credible tests.

Kevin Holland is a credible test. Holland was the UFC's golden prospect in the pandemic era as a wild Middleweight striker with deeply unfortunate takedown defense, and today, in the pretending-there-isn't-a-pandemic era, he's matured into a better-rounded Welterweight who can go toe to toe with some of the best fighters in the division but just can't quite crack the top ten. He can, however, knock anyone in the division out if he lands cleanly, he proved to Michael Chiesa that his chokes are deceptively good, and he was competitive with Jack Della Maddalena just this past September, which no other striker in the UFC can say.

And it's that last bit that makes him the UFC's perfect man for this particular job. If you're hiring an almost-37-year-old MVP, you don't have time to fuck around and see if he can beat the Niko Prices of the world. MVP needs a ranked test, and unfortunately, the vast majority of the Welterweight top fifteen are really good at wrestling, and you don't want MVP defending takedowns, you want him fighting someone who'll whip spinning kicks at him. This is, in all likelihood, staying on the feet the whole time it lasts.

Although I'll cheer my fucking ass off if Holland just drives double-legs for fifteen minutes. Either way, if you're looking for technical analysis for this fight, you're in the wrong place. I am not Jack Slack, I do not care about MVP's sideways stance switches or Holland's irritating tendency to throw hooks where jabs would be better, and I especially am not interested in hoping for anything other than KEVIN HOLLAND BY TKO after which he scans Page like a Digimon.

WELTERWEIGHT: Gilbert Burns (22-6, #4) vs Jack Della Maddalena (16-2, #11)

This fight being below Holland/MVP on the card is hilarious.

Gilbert Burns! Christ, Gilbert Burns. Weight cutting is one of the worst things about mixed martial arts, and rarely is that more visible than in the case of Gilbert Burns, the solid but unspectacular Lightweight who moved up to Welterweight and turned into a monster: A championship-level grappler with nuclear bombs for hands who retired Jorge Masvidal, nearly knocked out Kamaru Usman, and almost ended Khamzat Chimaev's undefeated streak. He's been a perpetual top contender for years, to the point that the UFC had to throw him into ridiculous circumstances like the Khamzat fight, or the Masvidal fight, or the insane decision to make a #1 contenders' match between him and Belal Muhammad with just three weeks of notice, all to keep either of them from getting a title shot while the company put its effort into failing to convince people Colby Covington was worth a shit.

Jack Della Maddalena is a marketing darling too, but he's earned it the hard way. The entire hells-damned institution of Dana White's Contender Series was invented to find people like Maddalena--easily-marketable, fan-friendly strikers who are not only allergic to having boring fights, but solid enough in their pugilistic efforts to be legitimate contenders. He hasn't lost a fight since 2016, he's knocked out four of his six UFC opponents, his boxing is some of the absolute cleanest in the entire sport, and by last Summer he was already being looked at as a serious title threat. And then he fought the man, the myth, the legend: Bassil "The Habibi" Hafez. Hafez took the Maddalena fight on short notice and damn near upset the apple cart, wrestling Maddalena to the ground repeatedly and forcing Maddalena to settle for a shockingly competitive split decision. He rebounded with a much more striking-centric fight against Kevin Holland two months later in September, but that, too, went to decision.

Those two bouts have quelled Maddalena's hype considerably, and Burns is both his shortcut and his toughest test. They're not risking him against a Neil Magny or Sean Brady: Either Maddalena can stop someone's takedowns, in which case he wins and gets rocketed all the way to the top five, or he can't, in which case we know he never had a shot at the title in the first place. Everything I said about Dustin Poirier goes for Gilbert Burns: He's turning 38 in a few months, he's been in a bunch of wars, he's got the wear and tear of a twelve-year career under his belt. He hits harder than Jack, but he doesn't hit faster or more accurately, and where Jack works in strategically-placed combinations and smartly-laid traps, Gilbert lunges into take-your-head-off overhands. The striking is a liability.

But I don't think Della's grappling has improved enough to deal with Burns. I do think JDM will have a title shot in his future; I don't think it's coming this way. GILBERT BURNS BY SUBMISSION.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Petr Yan (16-5, #4) vs Song Yadong (21-7-1 (1), #7)

Petr Yan is going through a difficult time. Back in 2020 Yan was a 14-1 wrecking machine whose only loss had come against the fantastic if irritatingly redundant Magomed Magomedov, he'd just savaged the greatest Featherweight of all time in José Aldo to claim the Bantamweight title Henry Cejudo had left behind in his failed retirement power play, and his combination of painful chip-away-your-will-to-live boxing and clinch grappling had most of the sport's following prognosticating a dominant title reign. And then he illegally kneed Aljamain Sterling and became the first UFC fighter to lose a belt by disqualification. And then he got outgrappled in the rematch, lost a split decision, and went to the back of the line. And then he beat Sean O'Malley only to drop a deeply controversial (read as: incorrect) decision. And then he got absolutely fucking drowned by Merab Dvalishvili. On their own, none of those things are really that bad! Aljo was a champion, O'Malley is a champion, and Merab should be a champion. But when you go through all of them back to back, you by necessity have to drop down the rankings and attempt to rebuild.

Song Yadong is not interested in helping anyone build shit. Since entering the UFC back in 2017 Song's made it clear he wants to be the best in the world, and his punching power, volume, wrestling and simply being tough as shit have almost gotten him there repeatedly. He went six fights without a loss in his first run at the top, but the eternally hot-and-cold Kyler Phillips halted his momentum. He came back with a three-fight winning streak that culminated in the uppercut that knocked Marlon Moraes all the way down to the Professional Fighters League, but he couldn't avert a stoppage loss against Cory Sandhagen. To be clear, he didn't get finished--he was actually very keen on continuing--but the doctor correctly pointed out that his eyebrow was hanging off of his face and, generally-speaking, that's bad. 2023 marked his third run, and thus far, it's going extremely well. He dominated the irrepressible Ricky Simón and became just the second man to ever knock him out, he avenged Frankie Edgar's soul by completely outfighting Chris Gutierrez, and now, finally, he has his first chance to beat a former UFC champion.

It's a testament to Petr Yan's abilities that in the middle of his worst career slump, at 1 for his last 5, he's still a betting favorite. I really, really want to pick Song Yadong here. I've been rooting for him for years, I would love to see him finally break into title contention, and I think the mirror-match nature of this fight could work out to his benefit--both men are pocket punchers, both men are clinch-range grapplers, both men like to work from the chin. But I cannot help the feeling that Petr Yan is still slightly better at everything Song does. PETR YAN BY DECISION.

PRELIMS: A REALLY GOOD FIGHT NIGHT CARD
HEAVYWEIGHT: Curtis Blaydes (17-4 (1), #5) vs Jailton Almeida (20-2, #7)

They've been trying to make this fight happen for half a year, and by god, they got there. Curtis Blaydes is entering the fourth galactic cycle of his career. He's been one of the division's best wrecking machines for damn near a decade, at this point, and the beatings he put on folks like Aleksei Oleinik and Junior dos Santos are still damned impressive, and his can-opener elbows turning Alistair Overeem's face into a Jackson Pollock painting in seconds remains one of the scariest Heavyweight stoppages in MMA history. But however strong his wrestling, and however underrated his striking, he has repeatedly failed to get over the hump of the true monsters of the division. Francis Ngannou turned his lights out in 2018, Derrick Lewis knocked him cold in 2021, and last year, his latest winning streak ended when Sergei Pavlovich punched him out in a single round. So once again, Blaydes has to be tested against one of the UFC's marketing prospects, and once again, they're trying to make it Jailton Almeida. Almeida has been one of the company's more persistently surprising attempts at elevation to contendership. It's not because he's bad: If anything, he's proven their instincts right, as he's beaten every single person put in front of him, generally with absurd ease. After six UFC bouts, Almeida's total combined strikes landed vs strikes absorbed is 319 to 55, and more than half of those were just Derrick Lewis. That's a ridiculous stat! But it comes from Almeida being an absolute, consummate grappler. He does not want to stand, he does not want to bang, he wants to drag you to the canvas, refuse to let you move, and try his best to choke you out. The UFC has put an unprecedented level of matchmaking focus behind him, and he's not a big, funny, charismatic guy, or a controversially racist shitlord, or a fight-of-the-night entertainment machine. He's just a grappler. He's so much a grappler that as a Brazilian he fought an American in São Paulo and the crowd actually booed him for being insufficiently active.

But that American was Derrick Lewis, and no one wants to root against Derrick Lewis. It was supposed to be Blaydes, and this time, in front of the classiest crowd Florida can offer, it will be. When it was first announced the UFC was targeting Blaydes/Almeida in early 2023 I thought it was bad news for Curtis, but after watching Almeida fight Lewis and Jairzinho Rozenstruik, to be honest, I've shaken away from the bandwagon a bit. He's very good, but his wrestling is more physical than it is clean, and against a wrestler like Blaydes that's a real, real weakness. It'd be one thing if Almeida had the standup or power to back up his gameplan, but his striking in the UFC has seemed profoundly uncomfortable. If he can ankle pick Blaydes and force him to fight from the bottom he's got a great chance, but if he can't, and he gets tired failing to get him there, CURTIS BLAYDES BY TKO is likely.

WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Katlyn Cerminara (18-5, #4) vs Maycee Barber (13-2, #6)

If you are a longtime viewer wondering if you've somehow missed the crowning of a new top five contender, don't worry: Katlyn Cerminara is your personal favorite Katlyn "Blonde Fighter" Chookagian, the unstoppable force of entropy herself, she just adopted her husband's surname. Cerminara's endless wealth of implacable but questionably effective facepunching almost got her cut by the UFC in 2022, because even if you're one of the five best fighters in the world at your weight class with more than twice as many wins as losses, if you always go to decisions, who the fuck needs you. Sure, Katlyn's an essentially permanent top contender, and sure, Katlyn can beat almost everyone on the planet, but goddammit, we have prospects to boost. Like Maycee Barber, who is only now, after five straight years of marketing, turning into the contender the UFC wanted her to be. Maycee's furious clinch work and occasionally flailing punches didn't do much to endear her to the fans or a winning record at first, and her occasionally generous decisions earned her a great deal of ire, but that all got wiped away last June when she met the legitimately very, very good Amanda Ribas and just beat the goddamn stuffing out of her. Ribas is one of the most persistent spoilers at Women's Flyweight, and a number of fighters have had to go the distance with her--including, uh, Katlyn Cerminara--but Barber finally put the skills she's been honing for years together, drowned Ribas in pressure, and ultimately battered her to a second-round TKO. It was, easily, the best Maycee's ever looked, and the proof that regardless of the path that led her there, she's matured into an extremely legitimate contender. She hits hard, she hits voluminously, and she is, finally, ready to take the throne the UFC has prepared for her.

So anyway, KATLYN CERMINARA BY DECISION. What, you think I've forgotten the last eight years of my life? Nah. Blonde Fighter, motherfucker.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Mateusz Gamrot (23-2 (1), #6) vs Rafael dos Anjos (32-15, #11)

Boy, this really, really needed to be a five-round fight night header. In 2022 the UFC held an uncharacteristically structural main event between Gamrot and Arman Tsarukyan, at the time the #11 and #12 fighters at Lightweight, and it was roundly agreed that a rematch one day seemed inevitable, and that rematch being for the championship was entirely plausible. Gamrot won in a real close call, and now, two years later, Gamrot's #6 and Tsarukyan's #4 and both are making their case as rightful contenders. Gamrot has succeeded largely through three things: An irrepressible wrestling game, an exceptional gas tank, and dumb fucking luck. He could easily have lost decisions against Tsarukyan and Jalin Turner but the great judging coinflips went his way, and he was struggling against Rafael Fiziev in their main event clash last September only for Fiziev's knee to abruptly give out midway through the second round. At this point, what Gamrot needs most to establish himself is a clean victory over a known quantity, and there may not be a better-known quantity in the UFC than Rafael dos fucking Anjos. RDA is six months away from celebrating twenty straight years as a professional fighter, and for thirteen of those years he's been a perpetual fixture in the rankings at both Lightweight and Welterweight, and that's just an aggressively silly sentence. Rafael's career in this sport is so preposterously lengthy that it includes Johil de Oliveira, who was the best Lightweight in the world all the way back in the mid-90s before weight classes even existed, and guys like Gamrot, Fiziev and Kevin Lee, who just started fighting in the mid-2010s. It's an insane spread. And, unfortunately, it means RDA is also closing in on 40 this year. He's finally slowing down, his well-rounded skillset is no longer the unusual wonder it used to be, and his name exists now as a feather for the caps of prospects rather than a title contender to be feared.

Which is funny, because after Gamrot's recent troubles, if this were a five-round fight, I might favor dos Anjos. Gamrot gets cracked a lot, he throws five takedown attempts for every one he lands, and he has trouble maintaining position once he gets it, meaning he expends a ton of energy to inflict very little damage, which is a bad thing against someone like RDA who has solid wrestling and grappling himself, and oh, god dammit, I just talked myself into making a mistake. RAFAEL DOS ANJOS BY DECISION. I know Gamrot's probably just going to clinch and drag him for fifteen minutes and this pick will feel aggressively silly, but I must be true to my whims.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Pedro Munhoz (20-8 (2), #12) vs Kyler Phillips (11-2, NR)

Poor, poor Pedro. Pedro Munhoz has been through some real bullshit over the last few years. On paper, Pedro's 2-4 (1) since 2020, which is why he's all the way down at the periphery of the rankings and overlooked by the world. In reality? Pedro Munhoz got boned out of a split decision against Frankie Edgar back in 2020, he almost knocked out Dominick Cruz in 2021, he went toe to toe with Sean O'Malley in 2022 and never got justice for almost having his eye gouged out, and he at best was robbed by and at worst was completely competitive with Marlon Vera in 2023. He easily could and arguably should have beaten the man who is now fighting for the title. But his bread-and-butter technique just doesn't do it for the judges, so instead he is down here, opening the ESPN portion of our card as a way to get Kyler Phillips back in the top fifteen. Kyler, to his credit, deserves the shot. He's an entirely legitimate Bantamweight contender, he already holds victories over fighters as highly-ranked as Song Yadong, and his exclusion from the contendership conversation is entirely predicated on bad luck. He was supposed to get Raphael Assunção's retirement bout twice, but both fights got scratched thanks to injuries on either side. He should be undefeated in the UFC, but what should have been an extremely clear draw against Raulian Paiva was judged as a loss. He should have had three separate cracks at top fifteen opponents since then, from Jack Shore to Said Nurmagomedov, but every single time injuries have scratched the fights before they could happen. So Kyler is a fantastic fighter with great striking and creative grappling, and he's only managed one fight in the last 25 months, which was, at least, a unanimous thumping of Raoni Barcelos.

I really, really want Pedro Munhoz to win this fight. The mountain of bullshit he's gone through in the sport is infuriating and it would seem far more just if he turned Phillips aside. But Kyler is, in fact, very good, he's got a big reach advantage and a broader arsenal of strikes in his pocket, and he flows through his grappling well enough that Munhoz stifling him in the clinch will be dangerous. KYLER PHILLIPS BY DECISION.

EARLY PRELIMS: GOODBYE, WOOD
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Ion Cuțelaba (17-9-1 (1)) vs Philipe Lins (17-5)

This is becoming a habit. The last time we saw Philipe Lins it was a rescheduling of a fight from October of 2022 and I was able to just reprint what I wrote last time, and somehow, impossibly, Lins and Cuțelaba were supposed to fight in October of 2023 and Lins had to pull out right before that event too, so I will, once again, reprint what I wrote last time. Thanks for the break, Ion.

LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Philipe Lins (17-5) vs Ion Cuțelaba (17-9-1 (1))

It's time to swing and bing. Stand and band. Sprawl and brawl. Wait, fuck, that one still works. Like so many light-heavyweights, Philipe Lins is a BJJ black belt with a bunch of very impressive skills under his belt, and like so many light-heavyweights, essentially none of them carry any cache in the greater public memory of his career. Jim Varney could do Shakespeare, but the people wanted Ernest. Lins will go forth, and he will punch like only a light-heavyweight can, and if that means every once in awhile Tanner Boser knocks him out so goddamn hard the universe intervenes and sees to it that every fight offered to Lins falls through for two straight years just to give his cerebral fluids time to congeal again, by god, that is how it has to be. Ion Cuțelaba just doesn't really give a fuck about anything. If a fight goes longer than seven minutes, it typically means Ion Cuțelaba is having a bad time. Typically, when you make some veiled reference to a fighter being a berserker, you're trying to communicate something about their tendency to swing big right hands or their preference for avoiding the ground game. Ion is a berserker in the sense that he will expend himself completely in the first three minutes of a fight if he feels that is appropriate, and he will do it with giant slam takedowns and spinning backfists and gassing himself out breaking someone's face with mounted elbows. Which is why he's still here despite being 6-8-1 in the UFC. But he beat Tanner Boser last April, so in terms of MMAth, he's a lock, right?

PHILIPE LINS BY TKO. Lins is a stiffer, cleaner puncher, and he's demonstrated an ability to use the fence to stay on his feet, and those two things alone, executed successfully, can neutralize half of Ion's offense. If Lins stays off the mat and keeps Ion off of him, he stops him by the third.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Michel Pereira (29-11 (2)) vs Michał Oleksiejczuk (19-6 (1))

Michel Pereira has managed to turn his mistakes into something good. "Demolidor" infamously fucked up a whole bunch of plans last year when he blew his 170-pound weight cut by four pounds, prompting opponent Stephen Thompson to make the unusually wise decision of waving off the fight altogether. This being Pereira's second weight miss in the UFC, he was ordered to go up to 185 pounds. I wasn't thrilled about his prospects in his new division, I ultimately picked against him, and I was a big ol' dumbass, because Pereira dropped Andre Petroski in a minute flat. As it turns out, when you hit hard at 170, you hit harder when you don't have to cut weight. Michał Oleksiejczuk, however, is a major threat. He went the distance with 205-pound strikers like Khalil Rountree Jr. and Dustin Jacoby, he just knocked out Chidi Njokuani last year, and, most importantly, he is powered by the infernal soul of Sam Alvey, whom he knocked out of the UFC back in 2022. He might be the stiffest striking test of Pereira's career.

But Pereira is, as ever, very, very good, and after the way he appeared to have adjusted to his new division the last time we saw him, I'm not about to doubt him. He's got longer kicks, he's got bigger power, and while it usually takes big ol' grapplers to make Oleksiejczuk lose, I'm still all in on Middleweight Demolidor. MICHEL PEREIRA BY TKO.

HEAVYWEIGHT: Robelis Despaigne (4-0) vs Josh Parisian (15-7)

The UFC is keeping a real close eye on this one, which feels unnecessary, for they are large men, and very difficult to miss. Robelis Despaigne is a big Heavyweight prospect in both literal and figurative senses: A 6'7" man with a deeply implausible 87" of reach, a bronze medal in Taekwondo, and an irritatingly obvious nickname in "The Big Boy," but it's his performances that have really caught Twitter's attention. He's not just 4-0, and he doesn't have four knockouts, and he hasn't just scored them all in the first round: Three of the four knockouts happened with essentially the first punches of the fight. Of course, those fighters were 0-0, 0-0, 0-0 and 1-0 respectively, but it's regional Heavyweight, so honestly, what're you gonna fucking do. The UFC is actively salivating at the prospect of a 6'7" Taekwondo knockout machine from Cuba as a prospect, which is why he is fighting good ol' Josh Parisian. Parisian is 2-4 in the UFC, and one of those two victories was a robbery of a split decision over Roque Martinez, who is, respectfully, also not particularly great, and the other was a ground-and-pound TKO over Alan Baudot that exists as a singularly perfect encapsulation of the Heavyweight division, as both men were visibly collapsing in exhaustion after exactly eight minutes and four seconds of fighting, not including the break between rounds.

ROBELIS DESPAIGNE BY TKO is the reason this fight is here. If anything else happens, it would be a tremendous shock. If Josh Parisian wins, I will never stop laughing.

FLYWEIGHT: CJ Vergara (12-4-1) vs Asu Almabaev (18-2)

Styles make fights! You need one striker vs grappler fight on every card, it's a legal requirement dating back to the days when people who thought they were strikers didn't know what leg kicks were and people who thought they were grapplers didn't know how to defend an armbar. CJ Vergara has been fighting the stand-and-bang wars for more or less his entire career, and his furious punching power has won him most of his contests--except the ones where he has to deal with people who can pressure him on the ground. This is unfortunate, because pressuring people on the ground is basically all Asu Almabaev does. We saw his UFC debut last summer against Ode' Osbourne, and at the time I said his skills looked solid but unproven against top competition who could take advantage of his hittability, and he was hittable, and he took some lumps, and they didn't do a damn thing to stop him from throwing Ode' repeatedly to the mat or choking him out in two rounds.

Vergara's bottom game is bad, but his takedown defense isn't. If he can keep Almabaev off him and punish his takedown attempts the same way he did to Daniel Lacerda, he's going to break his goddamn skull. But almost everyone who's tried to take Vergara down, ultimately, has, and I don't think his grappling will hold up under the assault. ASU ALMABAEV BY SUBMISSION.

WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Joanne Wood (16-8) vs Maryna Moroz (11-5)

Oh, JoJo. Joanne Wood has been with the UFC ever since The Ultimate Fighter 20 (jesus christ) all the way back in 2014 (jesus christ) fifteen seasons ago (jesus christ). Outside of her UFC debut she was never quite a top fighter, she's always come out on the wrong side of fights with the real contenders of both Women's 125 and 115, and that repeated rejection from contendership meant she was forever on the outside looking in. But it also cemented her status as one of the sport's eternal underdogs, and along with her kickboxing, her occasional shocking submissions and her outright likability as a human, it made her a fan favorite. She lost more than she won, but--up until the last couple years--she was always competitive. This is rumored to be her retirement fight, and somewhat fittingly, it's against the woman who took away her streak. Joanne was an undefeated 9-0 before Maryna Moroz, whose "Iron Lady" nickname always gives me Thatcher chills, took her arm home in ninety seconds all the way back in her first official, non-TUF bout in 2015. (The main event: Cro Cop vs Gabriel Gonzaga 2. Good lord, the passage of time.) Moroz's activity has fallen off a bit, but her killer grappling hasn't gone anywhere. She outworked 135-pound title contender Mayra Bueno Silva, she choked out Mariya Agapova, and, uh, she lost her last two straight fights, which is why we're here instead of jockeying for contendership.

And as much as I would like to see Wood ride off into the sunset on a win: MARYNA MOROZ BY SUBMISSION again. Sorry, JoJo. I hope you're happy if this is it, and I hope you get to relax into retirement with the millions of dollars you assuredly made as an internationally relevant TUF star who fought in the UFC for an entire decade.