CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 147: BRUNCH IN BAKU
UFC Fight Night: Hill vs Rountree Jr.
SATURDAY, JUNE 21 FROM THE BAKU CRYSTAL HALL IN BAKU, AZERBAIJANEARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 9 AM PDT / 12 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 12 PM / 3 PM | EARLY START TIME WARNING
The UFC's ongoing attempts to control the world have brought us to Azerbaijan for the very first time. There were only two Azerbaijani fighters in the entirety of the UFC and just having them both on this card wasn't enough, so by god, they went out and hired a third. Fortunately, he was a champion in something called 'Rizin' and he's pretty good.
MAIN EVENT: DECK CHAIRS ON THE TITANIC
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Jamahal Hill (12-3 (1), #4) vs Khalil Rountree Jr. (13-6 (1), #7)
Light Heavyweight is in the worst shape of all the UFC's divisions.
Heavyweight is a close second, thanks mostly to Jon Jones and the UFC's unwillingness to strip him of its championship. But it at least has Tom Aspinall, arguably the best Heavyweight on the planet, and a competitive set of top contenders in Ciryl Gane, Alexander Volkov, Sergei Pavlovich, Curtis Blaydes and Jailton Almeida, all of whom are actively fighting each other in various configurations. Women's Bantamweight is neck-and-neck with Heavyweight, given its non-champion in Julianna Peña, Raquel Pennington being MIA and the UFC's failure to elevate solid contenders, but with Kayla Harrison now running the show and Norma Dumont on her way up there is, at last, some movement.
Light Heavyweight has nothing. Alex Pereira was a star, but his stardom was predicated on artificially separating him from his rightful top contender, Magomed Ankalaev. When that failed and Ankalaev beat him the UFC's first move was to try to book an instant rematch, and when that failed they tried to call in Jiří Procházka--but he was too busy getting his degree (good for you, seriously), and at that point they just gave up.
Which is understandable, because they don't really have anyone, and that includes Jiří.
Your #1 contender is Alex Pereira, who, y'know, just lost the belt. At #2 you've got Jiří, but in their rush to keep Pereira vital they booked Pereira vs Procházka twice in seven months and he got knocked out both times, so he's still pretty damaged and on a winning streak of one. #3 is Carlos Ulberg, and hey, he's on an eight-fight winning streak, he hasn't lost in four years, he's a great contender! Except the UFC's barely promoted him, his last two televised appearances were international cards with American-unfriendly starting times, and he turned in such a stinker of a performance in his last fight against Jan Błachowicz that even in victory his hype might have actually been reduced.
When you go any further down the ladder, you run into Jamahal Hill and the destruction of meaning.
We're going to diagram the history leading up to this fight very, very specifically.
On August 6, 2022, Jamahal Hill defeats Thiago "Marreta" Santos, a former title challenger who was now 1 for his last 5. Hill knocks him out and Santos is immediately cut from the UFC.
Jiří Procházka, the Light Heavyweight champion, is forced to vacate his title due to an injury. After a series of stupid events culminates in Magomed Ankalaev and Jan Błachowicz fighting to a very poorly-scored draw that fails to crown a new champion, the UFC simply books Jamahal Hill vs Glover Teixeira, who had already announced his plans to retire after his next fight, for the vacant belt.
Jamahal Hill defeats Glover on January 21, 2023, who retires on the spot. He is the first veteran of Dana White's Contender Series to win a UFC championship, which they widely tout as proof of the show's quality.
On July 14, 2023, Jamahal Hill is forced to vacate his title due to an injury. He never defended it.
One month later, Khalil Rountree Jr., ranked #13 at 205 pounds, faces Chris Daukaus, a Heavyweight who has been knocked out three times in a row, making his Light Heavyweight debut. Khalil knocks Daukaus out in two minutes and forty seconds and Daukaus is immediately cut from the UFC.
In November, Alex Pereira, having won one fight at the weight class, beats Jiří Procházka, who returned from his injury into a title fight anyway, making Pereira the new champion.
One month later, Khalil Rountree Jr., now ranked #11 for his victory over Chris Daukaus, faces Anthony Smith, a former title challenger who was now 1 for his last 3. Hill knocks him out and Smith eventually retires after going 2 for 8.
On April 13, 2024, Jamahal Hill returns from his long injury layoff to challenge Alex Pereira in the main event of UFC 300. He gets knocked out in three minutes.
Despite the knockout, the UFC makes its first attempt at booking Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree Jr. for June 29th, just barely two months later. This fails when Khalil Rountree Jr. tests positive for anabolic steroids, reportedly from a mistaken consumption of supplements, and is suspended.
Jamahal Hill re-injures himself and goes on the shelf for another six months anyway.
Despite #1 contender Magomed Ankalaev being booked to fight during that same month, Khalil Rountree Jr. returns on October 5th and is given an immediate shot at Alex Pereira's world championship. He gets knocked out.
One month later Jamahal Hill returns into what's cited as a potential title eliminator against Jiří Procházka during the first pay-per-view of 2025. He gets knocked out.
The UFC rebooks Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree Jr. for April 26th, but Hill re-injures himself again and pulls out.
The UFC rebooks this fight for the third goddamn time.
I understand that was long, so just in case your eyes glazed over midway through, let me put it more simply:
Both of these men collectively have one victory in the last two years
Both of these men collectively have one victory over an actively ranked fighter in their entire careers
Both of these men returned from layoffs into instant title shots anyway
Both of these men coincidentally have not attempted a single takedown in a combined 26 UFC fights
I didn't even notice until now, as I compiled this list, that Khalil Rountree Jr. was ranked #8, lost to Alex Pereira, and is now ranked #7. God bless this bullshit.
So what do you even do with the results of this fight? Are you going to give Jamahal Hill another crack at the two men who already destroyed him? Does Khalil Rountree Jr. jump the ladder and get back into title contention despite just getting destroyed one fight ago? If the UFC is already hellbent on Alex or Jiří getting the next title shot, does whoever win this match get the honor of fighting Carlos Ulberg for next?
Or do we just book someone against Azamat fucking Murzakanov and keep jumping the line until either something sticks or the division finally falls apart entirely?
At least the Heavyweight championship is frozen solid because of Jon Jones. There's a reason. It's a stupid reason, but it exists. Light Heavyweight got stuck for years because management didn't like Magomed Ankalaev's style and now they can't get him a fight because no one cares enough to just fucking do it.
But we can make damn well sure we rebook Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree Jr. for the third time in twelve months.
The single biggest problem with my fight picks--outside of my constant urge for emotional reality to subsume actual reality and give us a world where Carlos Condit goes on a Robbie Lawler renaissance and becomes a double champion at 42--is my reliance on comparative analysis. In a case like this, you have three choices for Jamahal Hill's best performance: A decision victory over a 43 year-old Glover Teixeira who retired on the spot, a fourth-round knockout over a Thiago Santos who would never win a fight again, or the icing of Johnny Walker, a man who had, one fight prior, lost a decision to Thiago Santos. In Khalil Rountree Jr.'s case? It's knocking out Anthony Smith in the end of his career, kicking out Modestas Bukauskas's kneecap, or punching out 1-1 kickboxing champion Gökhan Saki seven years ago.
Against the present day of the division Hill got trounced and Khalil's only victory was a split decision over Dustin Jacoby that the rest of the world scored against him, and Jacoby isn't even ranked anymore.
But one of these men will be the second in line for a shot at the top, because that is what we are doing now.
Back in 2023 I was a begrudging fan of Hill's style. He was patient, he was dedicated to finding openings for his counter-striking, and he had built a hot streak around eating opponents alive by pulling them into his gameplan. Then his legs exploded, and he came back impatient and willing to brawl and it got him repeatedly killed. Khalil's striking technique has always been better than average for the division, it's his Everything Else that gets him in trouble. Against fighters like Pereira and Hill who refuse to do Everything Else, he typically looks good.
Two years ago I would've picked Hill without much thought here. But in terms of comparative analysis? The Hill who's been showing up since 2023 has been sloppy enough that I don't have nearly as much faith as I used to. KHALIL ROUNTREE JR. BY TKO.
CO-MAIN EVENT: ADVANTAGEOUS POSITIONS
LIGHTWEIGHT: Rafael Fiziev (12-4, #11) vs Ignacio Bahamondes (17-5, NR)
There's a version of this story that ended with Rafael Fiziev main-eventing this show as a hero.
For as much as I complain about it, being a marketing favorite isn't always all it's cracked up to be. The UFC knew what it had in Rafael Fiziev early, and after falling in his debut they more carefully cultivated him with fights against folks who were functionally gatekeepers. They built him for two years, and by the time he was up to the Brad Riddells and the Rafael dos Anjosi of the world, he'd had the chance to develop both his skills and his name. The audience was invested in their fuzzy little kickboxing buddy. Everyone wanted to see him get his shot at the top.
His shot at the top did not work out. He came close, but Justin Gaethje had just a bit too much gun for him. But after investing so much in Fiziev there was no point in dropping him too much farther down the ladder, particularly when he'd been competitive with one of the best in the division, so six months later he was back in the cage against Mateusz Gamrot, another top fighter coming off a setback. And Fiziev did great! In the first round. He did less great in the second round on account of his knee exploding, and the year and a half layoff cooled him off considerably.
But one of the problems with being a marketing favorite in an era of marketing desperation is falling victim to said desperation. After two consecutive losses, a crippling injury and a long time on the shelf, you would ideally want an at least vaguely gentle return to the sport. Rafael Fiziev got a Justin Gaethje rematch as a short-notice replacement with ten days to prepare. This may shock you: He did not win. Which means now, Fiziev is in the position of having three consecutive losses and three years of space between his last win and the present, which is a very, very precarious position to be in.
Which is when the new marketing darling comes in to feast.
The UFC has also wanted Ignacio Bahamondes for quite some time. Back in the earlier days of the Contender Series when they were actually vaguely selective, they made a point out of having Ignacio Bahamondes, the 10-3, 6'3" kickboxer, fight for his contract against the 5'8", 6-1 Edson Gomez. They had men of similar size and experience fighting all over that season, but they did not want those people, they wanted Ignacio Bahamondes. They tried to make a point out of Ignacio's UFC debut, too: They had it on the prelims of an ABC card against John Makdessi, a ten-year UFC veteran with tons of mileage who was also 5'8", and also had a history of losing to hot prospects, and also had just lost. Bahamondes was a big favorite and that made sense.
Makdessi won.
Alright! Alright. Too much, too fast. Ignacio's matchmaking took an unmistakable turn towards the constructive. First it was Roosevelt Roberts, who had been stopped twice in a row, and then it was Rongzhu, who was 1-1 and at a huge size disadvantage. After that it was Trey Ogden's turn, who was also 50/50 in the UFC and a guy they were happy to use to get over fighters they found more desirable. Finally, to complete the fourfecta, it was time for Ľudovít Klein. They'd tried to put them together a year prior but Bahamondes hadn't been able to get a visa, and where at the time Klein was 2 for his last 4 and scraping by, a year later he was incapable of winning a fight with Jai Herbert. Beating Ľudovít Klein was all that stood between Ignacio and a shot at the rankings.
Klein won.
They just kind of gave up pretending on the third try. Christos Giagos? One for his last four and coming off a stoppage loss. Manuel Torres inbetween them may have been the most evenly-matched win of Ignacio's entire UFC tenure and that's arguably because by then he was the new Contender Series winner and they wanted to give him a shot at taking the hype. But having beaten Torres? It was right back to guys like Jalin Turner, who were, once again, 1 for 4 and coming off a stoppage loss.
And now, well.
Do you remember how many out of his last four Rafael Fiziev is on?
Separated from the dread cycle of marketing, it's a real interesting matchup. Very few fighters in the UFC can match Fiziev on pure striking technique, but Bahamondes has the chops, and Fiziev's occasional attempts to mix things up with wrestling are potentially real dangerous against someone with as active a bottom game as Bahamondes. Also, y'know, he's fucking huge. Fiziev is only one inch away from being tied as the shortest Lightweight in the UFC; Bahamondes is tied as the tallest. Despite being 5'8", Fiziev has made it ten fights deep into the UFC without ever having to fight someone whose reach advantage was more than an inch and a half; Bahamondes has four.
It's a tall order. I would really, really like it if Rafael won this fight. He deserves a goddamn break after the wringer he's been through and the possibility of one day getting Fiziev/Holloway fills me with theoretical glee. But this just feels like a bad matchup at a bad time. IGNACIO BAHAMONDES BY DECISION.
MAIN CARD: BELATEDLY INEXPLICABLE
HEAVYWEIGHT: Curtis Blaydes (18-5 (1), #5) vs Rizvan Kuniev (13-2-1 (1), NR)
I cannot believe they stuck with this fight for this long. Much like Hill/Rountree Jr., this has been scheduled three separate times. It was supposed to happen in Seattle at Cejudo vs Song back in February, but the UFC moved it back to March to support the ailing UFC 313 pay-per-view's...prelims. This already silly fight between a top five Heavyweight and a debuting fighter who got kicked out of the PFL for doing a bunch of steroids was meant to headline some prelims. And then Blaydes got sick! So they held the fight over for three and a half fucking months. And now we are here, again, to see if it actually happens this time, as stupid as it is and always was.
So, reprinted from March which was already copy-pasted from a February draft, enjoy this prelim-length main card rerun.
My feelings about this fight are deeply conflicted. On one hand: Curtis Blaydes is a top contender who's just one year separated from knocking out the #6 guy in the world and having him fight an unranked guy making his UFC debut is some complete bullshit. Particularly as it's Rizvan Kuniev, who is best known either for being the champion of Khabib Nurmagomedov's short-lived Eagle FC, having a 2021 Contender Series win that so impressed the UFC that they looked at a big Heavyweight who knocked out a man and said 'eh, no thanks' and sent him back to Dagestan, or getting kicked out of the Professional Fighters League after failing a drug test for four separate steroids at once. Throwing him a top five fight right off the bat at the potential expense of a Curtis Blaydes fucking sucks. On the other hand: I kinda get it. Heavyweight is a desolate wasteland. The lineage is gone, the real champion is fake, the fake champion is real, his athletic prime is being actively wasted but he's also already fought and beat most of the rankings, the top contender is only there thanks to a robbery, and everyone between #4 and #10 have already lost to each other in varying combinations. Francis Ngannou is making millions of dollars fighting boxers and Tallison Teixeira is a ranked fighter on a Contender Series contract.
It sucks that divisional placement is meaningless, but what at Heavyweight could possibly mean anything at this moment in time? There is no future, only now. Embrace chaos. CURTIS BLAYDES BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Myktybek Orolbai (13-2-1) vs Tofiq Musayev (22-5)
Myktybek Orolbai has done the best he can with some uncaring booking. He wasn't a Contender Series winner, he was a short-notice replacement for Jonny "The Sluggernaut" Parsons (I miss you, fun nickname man) and there were essentially no expectations for him, so tapping out Uroš Medić in two rounds was a pleasant surprise. But booking him to beat Elves Brener didn't do him many favors, nor did following his unexpected winning streak by throwing him in there with Mateusz Rębecki, who finally beat him. This is the thing with the UFC's 'you can have great opportunities as a short-notice replacement' line: It's true if you knock people out. If you're a short-notice replacement and a wrestler, you get to test prospects forever.
And Tofiq Musayev is a hell of a prospect for the UFC. We've talked a few times about the death of Bellator leading to a few of the battle-tested fighters outside of the company finally filtering into it, but Musayev is one of the few the UFC actually bothered to woo away from Japan. Or retirement. See, at one point, Musayev was considered one of the best Lightweights in the entire world, but that was back in 2019 when he ran through Rizin's Lightweight Grand Prix with ease. Then he took the first year and a half of the pandemic off, came back, and got choked out by current Rizin champ Roberto de Souza. Then another year off, and a return to Bellator! And then another year off and a knockout loss to Alexander Shabliy. He spent the rest of 2023 getting revenge by crushing people in Rizin, but he hasn't fought since the end of that year.
Which is a shame, because he's fucking great, and the sport could have used him. I've been a fan for a long time, he's got killer power in his hands and the only two men to beat him in the last eleven years are two of the best in the entire weight class outside the UFC. He's also shown strong, aggressive grappling can fuck up his day, and Orolbai's such an aggressive wrestler that he's notched 32 takedown attempts in just three UFC appearances. If Musayev can't keep Orolbai off his legs, his debut is getting spoiled the same way every other imported talent has for the last goddamn year. But we also just watched Orolbai get lit up by a scrappier puncher and I think Musayev can do it better. TOFIQ MUSAYEV BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Nazim Sadykhov (10-1-1) vs Nikolas Motta (15-5)
It's take two of the Nazim Sadykhov story. It's easy to forget now that every month of American life feels like a decade, but Nazim had a ton of hype when he first showed up in the UFC. Trained by Matt Serra and Ray Longo, undefeated aside from his very first professional fight back in 2018, finished all but one of his opponents--people were expecting huge things from him right off the bat. And choking out Terrance McKinney was a good start! But dropping two rounds and ending up with a draw against Viacheslav Borshchev kinda shut that down. And then, as seems to be happening weirdly often these days, Sadykhov was off the books for almost a year and a half. He only got back in the cage this past February, but he made up for lost time by kicking Ismael Bonfim's eye to death in a round.
Nikolas Motta is here to lose. Let us be simple and clean about this. It's not that Motta can't win; he can. The UFC has already paid dearly for underestimating him twice, once in assuming an undefeated Australian knockout machine with half a foot of height on him would defeat him and once in assuming their best Chinese Lightweight would defeat him in China. Both times, Motta scored the upset. But he's still the guy who got knocked out by Jim Miller and Manuel Torres, he's still the guy who had to get saved by referee error from losing to Trey Ogden, and in this case he's the guy they booked against their best Azerbaijani guy in Azerbaijan.
It'd be very funny if they underestimated Motta for a third consecutive time and he spoiled another regional-prospect-in-region booking. But Sadykhov's real clean and I don't think he'll have too much trouble. NAZIM SADYKHOV BY TKO.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Muhammad Naimov (12-3) vs Bogdan Grad (15-2)
I struggle to find things to talk about with Muhammad Naimov and I don't know why. Ordinarily 'short angry guy who punches really hard' is right up my alley, but for some reason Naimov simply doesn't land with me. Maybe it's the groin-kicking and glove-grabbing he keeps getting away with, maybe it's the momentum-destroying loss to Felipe Lima midway through his run. Maybe it's the mental block I've put up to stop myself from remembering the dozens of hours I spent on The Ultimate Fighter 32 (jesus christ) and the moment Naimov beat runner-up Kaan Ofli this past February he was subsumed into the tar pits of my hindbrain and now he can't escape.
But I sure remember him more than Bogdan Grad. Bogdan Grad made his UFC debut on that same card I just referenced two sentences ago, and I had to go back and rewatch it to remember anything about him. It's possible my brain is finally full. It is possible the Contender Series has overflowed it and I will never process information again. If you want to internalize the Bogdan Grad experience, you have to touch base with DWCS twice: First, to reflect on Grad losing his first DWCS bid to Tom Nolan--the tall Australian what got knocked out by Nikolas Motta--back in 2023. Second, you have to remember Grad only barely snuck a split decision past Michael Aswell in his second attempt--the same Michael Aswell who got boxed up by Bolaji Oki last month. And when Grad finally freed himself from the Contender Series and made it to the UFC proper? He beat up Lucas Alexander! Who's 1-3 in the company and can't make weight and keeps getting violently stopped.
I do not see this imprinting itself further on my memory. MUHAMMAD NAIMOV BY DECISION.
PRELIMS: TWOSMAN
WELTERWEIGHT: Oban Elliott (12-2) vs Seokhyeon Ko (11-2)
This fight is brought to you by travel difficulties and the visa program of the United States of America. At the end of May, Seokhyeon Ko (side note: I really wish the UFC would stick to their initial transliterations) was supposed to fight Billy Ray Goff and Oban Elliott was intended for Ramiz Brahimaj. Both fighters failed to get visas on time, so the two Americans were thrown together, Brahimaj choked Goff out in a round, and now we get an international special because it's Azerbaijan and we've arrived at a time in history where it's easier to book fights out of the United States than within it. Thanks, Dana! Oban Elliott is already three wins deep in the UFC and it's very funny that he did better against Bassil Hafez than Jack Della Maddalena did; Ko's a champion from South Korea's Angel's Fighting Championship who traded in the belt for a shot at the Contender Series.
Both men punch pretty good. But Elliott's had higher-level experience and on tape his defense seems just a bit better, so I'm leaning OBAN ELLIOTT BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Ismail Naurdiev (24-7) vs Junyong Park (18-6)
I refuse to believe both of these men were fighting in the UFC six years ago. It's at least a little more understandable with Ismail Naurdiev--he was one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it fighters who got cut in a year, went back to the Middle East and only got yoinked back into the UFC in 2024 because they needed more talent for an Abu Dhabi show. But Junyong Park? The Iron goddamn Turtle? This man is as fresh, cool and modern as the disco ball and I am unwilling to accept that we're about to see his dozenth UFC appearance. The reality of Park co-existing in the UFC with Featherweight Champion Max Holloway feels like one of those 'Wyatt Earp lived long enough to be a consultant for a movie he was also a character in' fun facts about misapprehensions of historical recency. But Naurdiev is here again, and defeated the now-cut Bruno Silva last year, and Park got back on the winning track by narrowly beating Brad Tavares a couple weeks beforehand, so it's time to see which of them deserves to stay.
And I'm so glad Park is no longer fighting someone I'm emotionally attached to so I can pick him again with a clear conscience. Forgive me for turning on you, Turtle. JUNYONG PARK BY TKO.
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Melissa Mullins (7-1, #15) vs Daria Zhelezniakova (9-2)
This is a bizarre matchmaking choice and I cannot help wondering if it's a bit of a punishment. Melissa Mullins came into the UFC as an undefeated British champion and lost that streak within six months, but she came back from it and beat up Klaudia Syguła one fight ago, so she got to keep her ranking. However: She's 2/3 for missing weight in the UFC, which, given that Featherweight no longer exists, isn't great. This is the main reason I imagine she's fighting down instead of up again, this time against Daria Zhelezniakova, who came into the UFC with a weird bit of hype last March, looked at best okay, and was immediately wrestled to death and choked out by Ailín Pérez six months later. Here's the thing, though: This fight already happened. Like, recently. Melissa's last bout before getting into the UFC was a fight with Daria on November 3, 2022, and it was one of those classic striker vs grappler bouts that saw Daria landing some punches and looking neat right up until Mullins dumped her on the ground, sat on her chest and elbowed her face into pieces.
That wasn't even three years ago, and Daria's wrestling hasn't looked any better since. Gonna go with MELISSA MULLINS BY TKO again.
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Irina Alekseeva (5-2) vs Klaudia Syguła (6-2)
Appropriately, just below Melissa Mullins, we have a fight between two women who were last seen losing to Melissa Mullins. Irina Alekseeva also joined the UFC with a surprising burst of marketing momentum--I think mostly because "Russian Ronda" is the kind of fighting nickname that presages a terrible collapse--and on the plus side, she did, in fact, snatch a really neat kneebar over Stephanie Egger in her debut! But she also missed weight by five pounds and then she got absolutely smashed by Mullins and vanished off the face of the Earth for twenty months. Klaudia Syguła doesn't even get that, unfortunately. At a time when the UFC was letting multiple competitive top Women's Bantamweight fighters go they saw fit to bring in Klaudia, who was fresh off fights with the best 1-0 and 6-9 fighters the Polish fighting scene could offer, and unsurprisingly, Melissa trashed her too.
Neither fighter here does a ton for me, but Klaudia's grappling problems feel relevant. IRINA ALEKSEEVA BY SUBMISSION.
FLYWEIGHT: Tagir Ulanbekov (16-2, #12) vs Azat Maksum (15-1, NR)
Poor, poor Tagir Ulanbekov. He's one of the better Flyweights on the planet, but he has a terminal case of Can't Keep His Shit Together. Tagir's had six UFC fights, and he's won all but one of them, but in that same timeframe he's had eight cancellations and seven of them came from his corner. This matchup was supposed to be a big, main-card spotlight for him, as he was the man picked to welcome former Rizin champ and Japan's #1 male fighter Kyoji Horiguchi back to the UFC after almost nine years away. And then Horiguchi pulled out. So instead of a big main-card spotlight against a high-profile opponent that could finally get Tagir into the top ten, he gets to fight Azat Maksum, who is the terrible combination of tough as nails, damn near impossible to stop, and so low-profile that fighting him demotes you down to the early prelims and losing to him dooms your contendership prospects.
And it's probably the fight I'm most looking forward to on this card. Even by the standards of Flyweight both of these men are good as hell, and Maksum's fight with Charles Johnson was one of last year's most fun grappling contests. But he lost, and more than just losing he almost got guillotined several times, and that being one of Tagir's specialties, I think he's getting it eventually. TAGIR ULANBEKOV BY SUBMISSION.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Hamdy Abdelwahab (4-0 (1)) vs Mohammed Usman (10-4)
Finally, we arrive in Hell. I know my thesis up at the start of this show was predicated on Light Heavyweight being worse than Heavyweight, but I want to be clear about one thing: There's potential for Light Heavyweight. There's hope. There are fighters coming up that could inherit the whole thing. At Heavyweight, we have this. In one corner: Hamdy Abdelwahab, who came into the UFC in 2022 as a 3-0 rookie, won an aggressively uninteresting fight with Don'Tale Mayes, had it taken away by a No Contest after failing two drug tests, got suspended for two years, tried to come back in 2024, failed three drug tests and got suspended for another six months, finally returned this past February and managed to only barely get a coinflip of a split decision over Jamal Pogues. In the other corner we have Mohammed Usman, the bigger, less successful Usman brother, who won The Ultimate Fighter 30 (jesus christ), beat two men with a combined UFC record of 5-8, and promptly got beat twice in a row by Mick Parkin and Thomas Petersen, the latter of whom, notably, also lost to Jamal Pogues.
That's it. That's your battle of Heavyweight prospects. One's a clinch grappler who's failed more than twice as many drug tests as he's had UFC fights, one's a lumbering wrestler who's already in his late thirties, and both have historically underperformed when compared to Jamal Pogues, who is no longer in the company. HAMDY ABDELWAHAB BY DECISION and god damn the future.