CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 102: NOT EVEN PRETENDING TO CARE

UFC Fight Night: Barboza vs Murphy

SATURDAY, MAY 18 FROM THE DENSE DARKNESS OF THE UFC APEX
PRELIMS 1 PM PDT / 4 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM

We talk pretty frequently about the degree to which the UFC does or does not put effort into these things. In most cases it's a subjective measurement; how you feel about matchmaking, how you feel about ranked fights on a card, etc.

As I write this--thankfully, on schedule--it is Sunday, 5/12. This card is six days away. The UFC has not confirmed its bout order. They're still advertising multiple fights for this card that have already publicly been cancelled. The fight that is just below the co-main event, on their website, only has a profile for one fighter.

This card, in fact, does not even have the start time for the prelims listed. According to the UFC's official website, the card starts at 4 PM PDT. Which is wrong. You can even double-check it with ESPN's streaming schedule.

They've already produced a half-dozen ads for Conor McGregor's return a month and a half away, but sorry, preliminary fighters who are up this weekend, you do not rate them bothering to remind people when you are on the air.

So are these fights in the right order? I don't know! I hope so! As always I'm trusting Marcel Dorff's wisdom, but if they're not, and Ramiz Brahimaj is on the main card instead of Antonio Trócoli (update: as of Monday evening, Ramiz Brahimaj is, in fact, on the main card instead of Antonio Trócoli) (update: as of Tuesday evening, Antonio Trócoli is no longer on this card at all, for no announced reason), all I can do is apologize to my ancestors and wish the UFC paid their interns.

is this it? probably!

MAIN EVENT: GENERATIONAL WEALTH TRANSFER
FEATHERWEIGHT: Edson Barboza (24-11, #11) vs Lerone Murphy (13-0-1, #14)

If Edson Barboza is going to make a run, he has to make the case here.

We went over this in detail last October when Edson Barboza fought Sodiq Yusuff so I won't force you to read the entire essay all over again, but the short version of the legend goes like this:

Edson Barboza is one of the best strikers Lightweight and Featherweight have ever seen. He has managed to stay relevant as a top fifteen fighter at two separate weight classes over the course of an entire decade, to the point that half the people he fought during his first run at the rankings are now retired. He's a sensational knockout artist, he's remarkably tough, and he is destined to be underrated in history, because "24-11" is a pretty underwhelming-looking record.

Some of this is the pain of being among the best for your entire career. Between Tony Ferguson, Justin Gaethje, Kevin Lee and Khabib Nurmagomedov his career reads like a fossil record of the last ten years of Lightweight history. Some of this is the ever-present thorn that is MMA judging, with split decisions that range from close scrapes with Ross Pearson to questionable calls against Paul Felder to outright robberies against Dan Ige. Some of it is even the toll every fighter pays to Ahriman that requires you to sacrifice part of your body to chaos, because truly, what top fighter doesn't have a loss to a Jamie Varner somewhere in their record?

But in the present tense, it's a factor of matchmaking. Edson Barboza is famously one of the few fighters to force the UFC to give him a decent contract, and he has paid for his salary in blood. He hasn't had a fight booked in his favor since 2016, and going from Giga Chikadze to Bryce Mitchell to Billy Quarantillo to Sodiq Yusuff is a murderer's row. Barboza hasn't been favored to win a fight in three years--which makes it even better that in 2024, closing in on 39, he's on a two-fight win streak and damn near in the top ten. If you wanted to push Edson Barboza, this would be the perfect time to do it. A veteran on a winning streak who puts on guaranteed striking bangers is something the company outright covets, and fights with Calvin Kattar, or Josh Emmett, or even Yair Rodríguez would be high-level barnburners.

But Edson negotiated the good contract. So instead, he's fighting down in the ranks against Lerone Murphy.

I try to be honest with myself when I know I have a bias against a fighter. I know there are plenty of fighters I dislike for reasons that range from the objectively correct (fuck off, Sean Strickland) to the inherently silly (I just cannot sanction your buffoonery, Cody Garbrandt). Lerone Murphy occupies a much rarer subsection of combat sports: he's one of the fighters I just Don't Get.

There is, to be clear, nothing wrong with Lerone Murphy. He's good. He's really good! He's an extremely solid all-around fighter, he was a champion in his native England, as far as I know he's not an assho--actually never mind, I checked his Twitter account while writing this sentence and apparently he's really into posts about how Muslims and Christians need to put aside their differences and fight the real global evil, which is queer people, so fuck Lerone Murphy. But hey! He's undefeated! Right?

Well, no. At least, he shouldn't be. His UFC debut was a split draw with the eternally shat-upon-by-the-universe Zubaira Tukhugov, and it was close, but almost all of the media scored it for Tukhugov--but not the judges. Four years later in 2023 he fought a last-minute replacement in Gabriel Santos, and once again, almost all of the media scored it for Santos, and once again, the judges gave it to Murphy. So, okay. his record has a bit of an asterisk. But he's still in the top fifteen, right? He's had a real good fight schedule?

Actually, no. He can't really say that either. You may have noticed that 'four years later' comment in the previous paragraph: After almost five years in the UFC, Murphy has only fought six times. Between COVID, visa issues, injuries and good ol' bad luck Murphy's strength of schedule is particularly low, and unfortunately, his competition isn't much better. Half his UFC victories came against people with records at 50/50 or worse, he's never fought a ranked opponent, and his entry into the top fifteen came thanks to beating Josh Culibao. I like Josh Culibao! He's good! He's also one of those 50/50 fighters at 3-3 in the UFC and he's never been close to a ranking in his life.

Murphy's a well-rounded competitor with a lot of promise who shouldn't actually be ranked yet. He's an undefeated UK superprospect who should be 11-2. He's got pretty fast hands and the last time he stopped anyone with them it was 2018 and Brexit hadn't happened yet. He's by no means solely hype, but he does have a disproportionate amount of it given his actual performances in the cage.

And all of this could still easily be enough to beat Edson Barboza. He's a solid wrestler, he's a solid striker, he's entirely capable of grinding Edson through five rounds of Hell or dropping him if Edson gets too distracted by the wrestling to watch his hands. But we've just seen Edson deal with a huge test in Yusuff, and I still believe in those god damned leg kicks, and I don't know how Murphy will deal with it if Edson starts to light him up. So: Fuck it. Let's dream. EDSON BARBOZA BY TKO.

CO-MAIN EVENT: ON INTENTIONALITY
WELTERWEIGHT: Khaos Williams (14-3) vs Carlston Harris (19-5)

I cannot help feeling I've said 'this is a co-main event?' so many times that it has lost all meaning, but the decisionmaking never stops baffling me. Like, Luana Pinheiro and Angela Hill are right there, man. They're having a top fifteen fight! On this card! On this main card!

But we are not doing that. We are doing this. As I so often have to say: Neither of these fighters are bad. Khaos Williams hits like a truck, Carlston Harris is a real dangerous grappler, both men are coming off wins, what's the problem?

Well, Khaos Williams isn't in a particularly great position. He's 3 for his last 5, which isn't bad, but those three are Matthew Semelsberger, who is currently on a three-fight losing streak, Miguel Baeza, who hasn't won a fight since 2020, and Rolando Bedoya, who was making his UFC debut and is now 0-2. His losses, by contrast? Michel Pereira and Randy Brown. There is no shame in losing to either of those men, and Williams gave them both a great fight, but he was, ultimately, kicked off the ladder. Which makes Harris a good way to climb back up the ladder, right?

Here's the thing: Carlston Harris isn't in a great position either. Harris may be on a two-fight winning streak, but those are also his only two fights in almost two and a half years, and they came against Jared Gooden, who returned to the UFC on a week's notice to take the bout and was most recently seen mysteriously missing his weigh-in last week thanks to medical issues, and Jeremiah Wells, whose best win is the going-on-40 Court McGee. Before that? Destroyed by Shavkat Rakhmonov. There is definitely no shame in getting destroyed by Shavkat Rakhmonov, that has happened to every single person he has fought.

But once again, it begs the question: What is the promotional theory of this fight? Both men are good and capable of beating the other, both men are still solid enough prospects for the division, both men are nowhere near the rankings and haven't been off the prelims in years. There isn't much momentum to be imparted by one defeating the other, there are no questions being posed about anyone's skillset. We are in a land without narrative or marketing intentions.

It's just a fight. In some ways, that's almost refreshing; in others, it feels like yelling into an empty ballroom. Matchmaking without intention is matchmaking without imagination.

KHAOS WILLIAMS BY DECISION. I have more faith in Williams and his hand speed than Carlston's chin, but I have the most faith that we will spend half of this fight staring out a window thinking about life like extras in the video for R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts."

MAIN CARD: TO BE ANNOUNCED
WELTERWEIGHT: Ramiz Brahimaj (10-4) vs Themba Gorimbo (12-4)

Speaking of people who haven't been very active: Hi, Ramiz Brahimaj! It's been a minute. When last we saw Ramiz he was fighting Micheal Gillmore, whose name is spelled that way solely to infuriate me. If you don't remember Micheal Gillmore, that's understandable: He was a first-round ejection on The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ), he went 0-2 in four months and he never fought again. Before that? Ramiz became what could well be the answer to the future UFC trivia question, "Who was the last person Court McGee beat?" At one point Brahimaj seemed like a real prospect for the Welterweight division, between his smartly-placed jabs and his solid wrestling game, but some fighters just don't quite come together under the spotlight. In fairness, getting a piece of your ear elbowed off by Max Griffin changes a man; in further fairness, devastating, near-retirement-inducing spinal injuries maybe moreso.

Themba Gorimbo is halfway through his second impression. There was a surprising bit of hype surrounding his UFC debut given his status as one of the best fighters out of South Africa, but he got outfought and choked out in his debut by the quickly-disposed-of AJ Fletcher, and everything since has been an attempt to redefine his start with the company. In his second crack at the plate he outwrestled Takashi Sato, and when last we saw him this past February, he flattened Pete "Dead Game" Rodriguez in thirty seconds. Which is great! Except Sato was at the end of a four-fight losing streak and Rodriguez was a warm body brought into the UFC to a) make Jack Della Maddalena look good and b) make Mike "The Truth" Jackson look bad. There's an argument to be made that it's not the UFC's fault, as they wanted Themba fighting the more impressive Kiefer Crosbie and had to scramble to replace him--except Crosbie was also coming off a loss.

When I talk about intentional matchmaking, this is what I mean. Joe Silva used to pride himself on the-house-always-wins matchmaking, and this is a modern example. If Themba Gorimbo wins, it's a win over a veteran with the vaguest, slightest shred of recognition. If Ramiz Brahimaj wins, he comes off a long hiatus with a win over a guy who got highlighted on the internet by The Rock. There's a theory to it, even if that theory is craven. But this is also another fight where Themba is favored thanks to the layoff and Ramiz's own issues with wrestling, and I think the UFC knows it. THEMBA GORIMBO BY DECISION.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Adrian Yanez (16-5) vs Vinicius Salvador (14-6)

On the topic of intentionality, here we have a case study in what happens when it fails. A couple years ago, Adrian Yanez looked like a serious up-and-coming contender in the Bantamweight division. He rolled off the Contender Series and straight into a five-fight winning streak that repeatedly demonstrated well-rounded skills and, more importantly, the ability to knock people the fuck out in extremely marketing-friendly ways. Unfortunately, when the UFC gave him his tests against ranked competition, he failed. Eternal gatekeeper Rob Font dropped Yanez in one round, and when he tried to recover, Jonathan Martinez dismantled him with two rounds' worth of leg kicks. All of that momentum and all of those knockouts, and just two fights later Yanez is all the way at the bottom of the ladder again, desperately trying to climb back up.

Vinicius Salvador has had a much rougher go of things. "Fenômeno" rolled into the Contender Series as a Flyweight wrecking ball who alternated between solid knockouts over real contenders and extremely silly knockouts over 0-0 guys named Wallace Vampirinho who took the time to get custom fang mouthguards but didn't learn to check low kicks. But on the contract show he crushed Australia's Shannon Ross (who got signed to the UFC anyway, went 0-3 in ten months and got fired), arrived in the UFC as a pretty solidly-hyped 125-pound prospect, and proceeded to, uh, lose. He got outworked in a sloppy brawl with Victor Altamirano and then he lost a narrow battle with CJ Vergara. Losing a narrow battle: Not a big deal. Losing a narrow battle after badly blowing your weight cut when you're 0-2? That's a problem.

So now Salvador's been forced up to 135 pounds. It's not as big a deal as it sounds--he's just as big as Yanez and ever-so-slightly rangier. But he's also a big, leather-slinging brawler, and Yanez made his name taking apart brawlers. ADRIAN YANEZ BY TKO.

WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Luana Pinheiro (11-2, #9) vs Angela Hill (16-13, #12)

And what would a fight card be without a top ten women's match booked under other random fights. Luana Pinheiro's UFC career has not been unsuccessful, but it has been somewhat riddled with asterisks. Her first UFC fight was against Randa Markos and included fence grabs, multiple eyepokes and, ultimately, a disqualification after Markos illegally upkicked her; her second against Sam Hughes saw Pinheiro visibly gassed and struggling after the second round; her third against Michelle Waterson-Gomez saw Luana both outstruck and outwrestled, but she still won a pretty contentious split decision. Her fourth and most recent fight saw her outclassed by Amanda Ribas, who, despite not having a TKO to her credit since 2016, battered Luana and knocked her out with a spinning wheel kick in the third round.

I cannot recap Angela Hill's career similarly because we would be here for eighteen more paragraphs. At this point, she feels like a living monolith for Women's Strawweight. She was one of the first in the division and aside from a single calendar year spent in Invicta back in 2016 she's been here ever since. She has perpetually scraped the top ten, but never managed to enter contendership, whether from judges scoring close fights against her or the UFC trying to prop up contenders using her record and popularity with the fans. She had another chance this past year when she fought permanent promotional favorite Mackenzie Dern, but Angela's lack of stopping power let Mackenzie walk through her strikes and light her up all night. Hill was back in the cage against Denise Gomes last November, and in one of the rare times I call a fight correctly, Gomes had no answer for Hill's takedowns or her clinch grappling. So once again, Hill is coming off a win, and once again, Hill has a shot at the top ten.

ANGELA HILL BY DECISION. Luana does have an answer for Hill's clinch grappling, and will probably chuck her onto the floor given a chance, but Hill's good at playing keepaway, too. I'm not sure this fight will be fun, but I do think Hill will win.

PRELIMS: WHERE THE COOL FIGHTERS LIVE
LIGHTWEIGHT: Tom Nolan (6-1) vs Victor Martinez (13-5)

There are so many Contender Series fighters now. Both of these men are not only Contender Series children, they are Contender Series children in the same exact position. Tom Nolan made his UFC debut this past January as an undefeated knockout machine, fought a man he had half a foot of size on, and got dropped and pounded out in one minute, more or less immolating his hype. Victor Martinez rolled off the Contender Series as a regional champion on a seven-fight winning streak, debuted in the UFC, and became the only man twerking submission wrestler Jordan Leavitt has ever finished with strikes after a fourteen-fight career. And I ask you: What have we gained, what have we become, and how, through this fight, will we grow as humans? Will the foundations of the Lightweight division be rocked by the 6'3" guy vs the 5'8" guy? Am I being disrespectful to these fighters by condensing them to their basic physical parameters, or am I realistically reflecting that, as two men with a combined UFC record of 0-2, there's nothing else to gauge their future in the organization by? When every fighter in the UFC is a Contender Series alumnus, will any meaning be left?

I flipped a coin, and the coin's name was The Future, and it landed edge-down on the rim of a black hole. As the currency falls into the well of eternity, it cries TOM NOLAN BY TKO.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Oumar Sy (9-0) vs Tuco Tokkos (10-3)

Normally when I recommend a fight it's because I think it'll be legitimately good. I don't think this will be legitimately good. But I do think this fight has built so much cache as a potential source of stupidity that I have to see what happens. Oumar Sy was signed on the back of his success in the European regionals--as a 6'5" Light Heavyweight with 84" reach who punched lots of people out, naturally--and he was supposed to fight wrecking machine Rodolfo Bellato. But Bellato got hurt, so a week before the fight, Sy was rebooked against Antonio Trócoli--a Contender Series winner who had his victory overturned after pissing hot, got signed anyway in 2022, pulled out of his debut and never came back. That fight, too, fell through. Thus, with just about three days' notice, Sy gets to fight Tuco Tokkos, a man who is most famous for either going 0-2 in Bellator as a Middleweight or fighting in the UFC's big Asian talent search, the Road to UFC tournament, coming in as one of the tournament's biggest odds favorites, punching Mingyang Zhang in the face 22 times, and still getting knocked cold for his troubles.

And now he's here, with just days to get ready to fight one of France's best prospects, in a fight that has changed faces three times already. God bless you, Tuco Tokkos. You are here for a good time, but unfortunately, it is everyone else's good time. OUMAR SY BY TKO.

WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Tamires Vidal (7-2) vs Melissa Gatto (8-2-2)

When I wrote the tale of Tamires Vidal for her debut back in November of 2022, I felt proud. Proud of the writing, proud of the stories MMA has even as its lowest levels, but mostly, proud of Tamires, who told me and all other doubters to go fuck ourselves after crushing Ramona Pascual with a flying knee in a single round. It was a glorious victory. And then medical issues kept her from fighting for almost a year, and when she came back she got worked by Montserrat Rendon, and she was supposed to have a pretty favorable matchup here tonight against the well-hyped but low-performing Hailey Cowan--and then Cowan got hurt. So now Tamires gets to be a big underdog against Melissa Gatto, who is extremely well-rounded, kicks like a motherfucker, and just came off a split decision against Ariane da Silva (then Lipski) that could easily, easily have gone the other way and given Gatto a shot at the Flyweight top fifteen. Her move up to 135 pounds is the big question, here--she's been strictly a 125er for the last six years. But said fight was a submission victory over future Featherweight contender Karol Rosa, so, clearly, she can handle herself.

I have come to both treasure and hate my heart picks. Realistically, Gatto is a prohibitive favorite for a reason. She's faster, she's a cleaner grappler, and she can probably work Vidal over on the ground at will. But I just want Vidal to win. I want her physicality to make a difference and I want her stubborn refusal to go away to overcome Gatto's lack of volume. TAMIRES VIDAL BY DECISION and damn all sensibilities.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Abus Magomedov (25-6-1) vs Warlley Alves (14-7)

Truly rare is a meteoric rise, or fall, like that of Abus Magomedov. Three fights ago, Abus was making his debut and dusting Dustin Stoltzfus in seconds, paving his way towards fortune and fame. Two fights ago, Abus served as the title eliminator for Sean Strickland, who would be world champion just seventy days later. One fight ago, Abus was the +240 underdog being served up on a platter to Caio Borralho in a fight to make Brazilian fans in São Paulo happy. Today, Abus is 1-2 and fighting on the ass-end of the prelims of an Apex card. Truly, the tragic demise of an almost-legend. Warlley Alves is Here. Warlley Alves has never been more Here in his entire career. Once upon a time, he was a fixture of the 170-pound midcard, trading wins and losses but never leaving the mix. Once upon a time he choked out Colby Covington and went the distance with Kamaru Usman. Now he's up a weight class, on a three-fight losing streak, and trying desperately to hold onto his job. Alves is still dangerous; still a powerful striker; still an opportunistic choke enthusiast. But the wear and tear of thirteen years in the sport has seemingly caught up with him, and fighting the biggest, hardest-hitting opponents of his career is most definitely not helping.

But, truthfully? I just don't have faith in Abus. He has every curse of a first-round fighter. He comes out guns blazing, he throws great strikes, he kicks Sean Strickland in the face, and then he starts to fall apart as soon as the bell rings. If he barnstorms Alves or has finally learned to pace himself, he should win this easily. But Alves is canny, and if Abus cannot get him out of there, I think he'll take over. WARLLEY ALVES BY DECISION.

WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Piera Rodriguez (9-1) vs Ariane Carnelossi (14-3)

Piera Rodriguez is still kind of mad. The UFC has maintained a vested interest in pushing Piera as one of their more promising women's prospects off the Contender Series, and it was all going swimmingly for her right up until Gillian Robertson damn near tore her arm off. Piera maintains that she did not tap, but the world did not care, half because there was a pretty clear-looking tap and half because she was getting completely mauled on the ground anyway. She was supposed to get her rebound against the somehow-still-here-despite-a-five-fight-losing-streak Cynthia Calvillo last month, only for Calvillo to screw up her weight cut so badly the UFC refused to let the fight go on. Thus, rebooking, and thus: Ariane Carnelossi. The improbably muscular Carnelossi keeps getting lost in the shuffle, and it's not because she's a bad fighter--she's kind of a swarm-assault throwback, but it works well for her, and her physicality makes her the rare women's fighter to have almost all stoppages in her victories--but rather because her spine is constantly angry at her. She needed surgery for a slipped disc in her back twice between 2019 and 2021 alone, and if you guessed that longterm spinal rehab played a role in Carnelossi going missing for the last two years again, I can neither confirm nor deny, because she doesn't do much media, no one's reported on it, and if you look her up on social media you mostly get steroid jokes.

I'm not sure what an Ariane Carnelossi fight even looks like at this point in her career. Is she healthy? Is her spine functional? Can she deal with Piera's mobility without it collapsing into a singularly fused omni-vertebrae? I'm going with ARIANE CARNELOSSI BY TKO because I crave mystery.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Alatengheili (16-9-2) vs Kleydson Rodrigues (8-3)

I talk frequently about the need to have irrational emotional favorites, but what do you do when they fight each other? Alatengheili hasn't had much success outside of the entry-level UFC ranks and his only performance in almost two years saw him taken apart so comprehensively by Chris Gutierrez that he sprouted a knee-sized hematoma from all of the leg kicks he ate, and yet, I still love him. Kleydson Rodrigues is not only 1-2 but has withdrawn from as many UFC fights as he's had, he missed weight twice in a row and got forced up to Bantamweight because of it and in what I can only describe as an outright punishment fight they let Farid Basharat completely destroy him, and yet, I still love him. Maybe it's Alatengheili's relentless wrestleboxing pressure reminding me of the days when Team Alpha Male and their shirtless mirth was novel, maybe it's Kleydson's insistence on throwing thirty-seven kicks for every punch he throws because he secretly resents having hands. Maybe I crave more space in the sport for people with feethands.

ALATENGHEILI BY DECISION feels almost academic given how much trouble Kleydson has with, well, everyone, but if Kleydson has finally learned the art of patience enough to keep his distance and spam leg kicks, he's got a real shot, and my heart will remain torn in two until we know.

WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Emily Ducote (13-8) vs Vanessa Demopoulos (10-5)

The Vanessa Demopoulos experiment has been a real odd one, and it seems like the UFC thinks so, too. Her grappling talent and her fun charisma led to the UFC kind-of sort-of promoting her, but for one, when they finally did give her a big prelim headliner against Karolina Kowalkiewicz she a) missed weight and b) got steamrolled, and for two, half of her UFC wins, uh, shouldn't be. She took home the contractually-obligated split decision robbery over Jinh Yu Frey back in 2022, and in her most recent fight this past October she took an unconscionable unanimous decision robbery over Kanako Murata. When you won your last fight, you're 4-2 in total and you're still getting booked in the curtain-jerking spot on the prelims, that means They Do Not Believe In You. Emily Ducote is not so much a fighter here as she is the UFC's force of inevitable apathy. You both like grappling, go in there, have fun, maybe do a neat armbar if you can, we don't know. We're not here for promotion, we just don't know what to do with either of you.

EMILY DUCOTE BY DECISION in an empty room for no one. God bless our violence.