CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 104: MIDDLEWEIGHT MADNESS
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 104: MIDDLEWEIGHT MADNESS
UFC Fight Night: Cannonier vs Imavov
SATURDAY, JUNE 8 FROM THE KFC YUM! CENTER IN LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 5 PM / 8 PM
Did you like that epic Lightweight championship matchup? Great! Have some Middleweights. Have all the Middleweights. There are eleven weight classes in the UFC and yet half of this main card is just Middleweights, and one of the three remaining fights is Light Heavyweight, which is just Worse Middleweight. The one Bantamweight fight? A rescheduling of a bout that was supposed to happen three and a half months ago.
Think of it as paying our dues. Next week's card only has one fight contested above 145 pounds, so this week, we gotta earn it.
MAIN EVENT: THE CONTENDERSHIP CONUNDRUM
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Jared Cannonier (17-6, #4) vs Nassourdine Imavov (13-4 (1), #8)
The Middleweight division has found itself in something of a situation. There are, at this point, three men who can all lay claim to number one contendership, and thanks to the matchmaking machinations of the UFC, none of them are getting the next title fight.
It diagrams out like this:
Sean Strickland is ranked #1, and just two fights ago, he was the world champion. He lost the title by a close split decision and it's his only loss in five fights.
Robert Whittaker is ranked #3, is also a former world champion, is one of the company's most popular Middleweights, and was fighting for the title just four fights ago.
Jared Cannonier is ranked #4, is a one-time title contender, is on a two-fight winning streak, and currently holds the best resume of top five victories in the division.
However, each also has a case against:
Sean Strickland only has one win over anyone in the top five, and it's Israel Adesanya, but he also lost a fight to Jared Cannonier.
Robert Whittaker beat Jared Cannonier, but he lost to Adesanya and just got knocked out by current champion Dricus du Plessis last year.
Jared Cannonier lost to Adesanya and Whittaker, but the Whittaker fight was almost four years ago and he still beat the current #1.
Most importantly: None of this matters, because despite having not fought since Strickland beat him Israel Adesanya is getting the next shot at the champion, and as for all of our aforementioned contenders:
Sean Strickland has only had one fight post-title loss, and it was a pathetic affair against the #7-ranked Paulo Costa, and he has more or less been guaranteed a title shot in the future from it anyway.
Robert Whittaker, rather than any of the division's top contenders, is about to fight the #10-ranked Khamzat Chimaev, because Khamzat is a promotional favorite and they want him at the top.
Jared Cannonier, rather than a title eliminator with Strickland, a rematch with Whittaker/Adesanya or anything else that could move him up the ladder, is facing the #8-ranked Nassourdine Imavov.
As always: Fuck divisions, fuck contenders, fuck matchmaking. The UFC had a plan to capitalize on the weirdly bigoted du Plessis/Adesanya banter that is at this point more than a year old, and god dammit, we're not going to let something as small as 'Israel Adesanya hasn't actually won a fight' stop us.
So everyone else is on cleanup duty. Truthfully, however much I may complain, it's just another step in the perpetually bizarre career of Jared Cannonier.
Jared came into the UFC as a Heavyweight back in 2015. A 5'11" Heavyweight. He was down at 205 pounds before 2016 was over, and by 2018 he was at his permanent Middleweight home. Having spent the first half of his UFC career getting battered by Shawn Jordan and Dominick Reyes, within six months of his Middleweight debut he was kicking Anderson Silva's leg in half and atomizing Jack Hermansson. He is, in fact, 7-2 at Middleweight, and the only men to beat him were Adesanya and Whittaker, both world champions and among the best to ever do it.
But the UFC seemed to get real gunshy about Cannonier after his loss to Adesanya. It was a tepid performance, to be sure, and the company does tend to look poorly on people who repeatedly flub big fights unless they are named Colby Covington, Jorge Masvidal or Sean Strickland, but I can't help noticing some of the de-emphasizing of Jared Cannonier dovetailed with his management taking away all of his social media accounts. Once upon a time, Cannonier was one of the sport's most outspoken conspiracy cranks, and you could feel the urge to scream QAnon catchphrases seeping out of every pore in his body every time he won a fight. But he came in just before the UFC decided embracing the alt-right was the way of the future, so unfortunately, he got all of the criticism with none of the promotional favoritism, and now, he's a fighter without the ability to rally an online following, which is seemingly 90% of what the UFC cares about these days.
And he's been stuck in the doldrums ever since. He beat Sean Strickland and Marvin Vettori in back-to-back fights; he should, by all rights, have had a title shot or at least a title eliminator by now. Instead, they tried to book him against the lower-ranked Roman Dolidze--who had just lost to Vettori--and after Cannonier had to pull out to rehab an MCL injury and Dolidze lost to his rescheduled opponent, Nassourdine Imavov, the UFC decided this was, in fact, perfectly fine.
To be fair: Nassourdine Imavov is a perfectly fine fighter. But boy, his career has been something of a train wreck.
Imavov hoped into the UFC in 2020 as a highly-regarded international prospect, a champion in Poland and one of the best free agents in the sport, and just one fight later he lost his winning streak to Phil "Megatron" Hawes, who was one fight removed from the 1-for-5 losing streak that would ultimately end his career. Imavov rifled off a three-fight winning streak including a well-aged win over Joaquin Buckley, but he'd been booked against Kelvin Gastelum twice and had the fight fall apart twice, and he made the unfortunate decision to accept Sean Strickland as a late replacement and, in losing, damned us all to the Hell we now live in.
Things didn't get any kinder from there, either. Imavov came back five months later to fight Chris Curtis, but after one solid round of offensive output and solid grappling Imavov unintentionally headbutted the shit out of Curtis midway through the second. It was the second Chris Curtis fight in a row to turn on a headbutt, and this time, it meant an immediate No Contest. Imavov was supposed to rebound against rising prospect Ikram Aliskerov, but visa issues dashed that fight, too. But it worked out! Rather than an incredibly dangerous, unranked prospect, Imavov wound up booked against Roman Dolidze, a top-ten ranked fighter coming off a loss. It was a rare stroke of luck for an unlucky fighter, and Imavov dominated the fight and won easily!
Except for the part where he not only couldn't finish a visibly exhausted Roman Dolidze, but inexplicably soccer-kicked Dolidze in the face while he was down, lost a point, wound up almost turning an easy victory into a draw, and almost started a brawl with Dolidze's cornerman, which was--hey, Chris Curtis again, what're the chances.
It's not that Nassourdine Imavov is a bad fighter. He's not! He's accurate, he's economical, he's particularly underrated at catching people with takedowns from unexpected opportunities. He just also manages to cause flaming car crashes everywhere he goes.
I cannot help feeling this fight is really a referendum on Jared Cannonier. Imavov isn't a better wrestler than Cannonier. He's not a stronger man, his striking isn't noticeably more effective, and he most certainly does not hit harder. He's also 28, and Cannonier is 40. It hasn't escaped anyone's notice that Cannonier hasn't been his world-destroying self over his last few fights, and to be sure, it is much harder to finish a Vettori or Strickland than a Derek Brunson, but a few lackluster performances in a row and a 40th birthday make people ask difficult questions.
I think he has enough left in the tank here. I'm still pulling for JARED CANNONIER BY DECISION. But if we're running out of road, Imavov is the kind of fighter who'll make it show.
CO-MAIN EVENT: WRINGING OUT THE LAST DROPS
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Dominick Reyes (12-4, #15) vs Dustin Jacoby (19-8-1, NR)
The Dominick Reyes story feels like one of the purest tragedies in mixed martial arts. There's no drama, no scandal, just pure, unvarnished disappointment.
Four and a half years ago, Dominick Reyes was the best Light Heavyweight on the planet. He channeled his anger at failing to get drafted by the NFL into racking up an undefeated 12-0 record in mixed martial arts, and after earning the dubious honor of cracking Chris Weidman in the latter's one and only fight at 205 pounds, Reyes got his shot at the top of the sport: The 25-1, virtually undefeated champion of the world, Jon Jones.
And he won. He really, genuinely won. He outstruck him, he stifled most of his attempts at wrestling, he visibly bothered him on multiple occasions. By any sane measurement, Dominick Reyes won the first three rounds of that fight. In another, better universe, he went down in history as the man who slew the dragon.
In our crapsack universe all three judges scored the fight against him and his entire career fell apart.
The collapse wasn't immediate, but it was progressive and visible. Reyes put up a solid first-round effort against Jan Błachowicz, but Jan's punching power ended his night in the second. Eight months later Reyes came back against Jiří Procházka, and he stung Jiří, but by the end of the first round his face was already a mess, and this time, at the end of the second, Reyes was left out cold on the mat. After a full year and a half to recover Reyes came back again. This time his opponent wasn't a past, present or future champion, but Ryan Spann, the 7-5 fighter who once went to a split decision with Sam Alvey. There was nothing left of Reyes. He was hurt by the first strikes of the night, he slipped throwing kicks, and he was ragdolled by a basic one-two in just over a minute.
Whatever time Reyes had as one of the sport's best was fleeting, and now the UFC is extracting value from him. They tried--twice--to book him against their newest knockout prospect, Carlos Ulberg, but each man got injured once and the company gave up on waiting. Instead, Reyes is here to see if Dustin Jacoby has what it takes to score a lay-up.
It is, to be clear, not a bad question. Dustin Jacoby has been an incredibly frustrating fighter to watch. His kickboxing background and his tactical approach make him unusually clean by the standards of Light Heavyweight. Unfortunately: Light Heavyweight is a dirty fucking division.
Jacoby's approach got him through the Contender Series and all the way to the periphery of the 205-pound rankings, but they've never quite broken him through the glass ceiling. He should have been ranked after a 2022 fight with Khalil Rountree Jr., but he lost a split decision that probably should've gone his way. He couldn't stop Azamat Murzakanov, but he sure did crush Kennedy Nzechukwu, and just this past December he put forth a great effort against Alonzo Menifield, outstriking him, outwrestling him and outclassing him--but he couldn't stop Menifield from landing just a few big blows in the last two rounds, and despite controlling most of their encounter he still dropped a clear decision, because however good your striking numbers are, if you almost get knocked out, you still lose.
When I wrote about Reyes vs Spann in 2022, I picked Reyes. I knew he was diminished, but he'd still held his own in his previous fights, and I believed there was enough of him left to deal with Ryan Spann. In the wake of that fight, I just cannot bring myself to believe that anymore. DUSTIN JACOBY BY TKO.
MAIN CARD: ONE MORE TRY
BANTAMWEIGHT: Raul Rosas Jr. (8-1) vs Ricky Turcios (12-3)
Hey, it's re-run time. This fight was supposed to happen all the way back in February at Moreno/Royval 2, but Rosas pulled out just before the fight was slated to start thanks to an unspecified illness. The fight was rebooked for the next week's event, but Ricky Turcios wanted the fight to be at a 140 or 145-pound catchweight so as not to have to cut weight twice in ten days, and for whatever reason, Rosas refused.
So here's take two, or three, or four. I don't think the math has changed, so I'll reprint what I wrote back in February:
BANTAMWEIGHT: Raul Rosas Jr. (8-1) vs Ricky Turcios (12-3)
Man, being a management marketing darling must be nice. Raul Rosas Jr. came off the Contender Series in 2022 as an undefeated 18 year-old and the UFC immediately rolled out the red carpet for him. He's the youngest fighter ever! He's our big new Hispanic star! He's going to beat Aljamain Sterling! After getting the 0-3 Jay Perrin for his debut the UFC tried to feed him the often-outgrappled Christian Rodriguez in the opening fight of the Adesanya/Pereira 2 pay-per-view, and instead, Rodriguez put an incredibly, ridiculously uncomfortable beating on Rosas, ultimately outstriking him 83 to 2. Christian Rodriguez, for his victory over this rising star, has been and continues to be booked against prospects on prelims. Raul Rosas Jr., coming off his loss, was booked third from the top of Noche UFC and given the not-at-all-UFC-caliber Terrence Mitchell to effortlessly destroy.
Ricky Turcios is, at least, a step up from Terrence Mitchell. "Pretty Ricky" was the Bantamweight winner of 2021's much-maligned The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ), but he earned that title alongside an awful lot of good will from the fans after a knock-down, drag-out tournament final with Brady Hiestand that saw both men fighting into total exhaustion en route to a split decision that favored Ricky's output. It was a stellar, starmaking performance that provided the exact sort of wild energy TUF finals had lacked for years. And it was followed by Turcios getting excruciatingly slowly picked to pieces by Aiemann Zahabi in a fight where Turcios whiffed on an incredible 89% of his strikes while getting visibly frustrated. The UFC, to their credit, tried to rehabilitate Turcios by giving him Kevin "Quicksand" Natividad in his next fight, a soft target with an 0-2 record in the company who'd gotten violently knocked out in both fights with the company--and Turcios just barely survived getting dropped and outwrestled to cling to a skin-of-his-teeth split decision.
In a way, this fight feels like fate. We've talked about the Contender Series supplanting The Ultimate Fighter as the UFC's main source of talent: This is the company taking it out of the realm of abstraction and forcing the embattled TUF winner and the astroturfed Contender to fight it out and see who's really better. Rosas is a fast, strong wrestler and Turcios has demonstrated just how much of a problem that can be for him, but I'm real concerned the steady diet of soft foods the company's fed Rosas is going to get him hurt by a scrappy veteran again. RICKY TURCIOS BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Brunno Ferreira (11-1) vs Dustin Stoltzfus (15-5)
It is marketing prospect rescue time, baby. Brunno "The Hulk" Ferreira is the kind of fighter who makes Dana White see stars: A musclebound stand-and-bang enthusiast who knocks out everyone and works for minimum wage. Truly, there is no greater calling in mixed martial arts. Ferreira made a huge splash in his UFC debut by taking a short-notice fight against Gregory "Robocop" Rodrigues, one of the most durable men in the sport, and knocking him limp in a single round. It was the birth of a star! Or it would have been, had the pendulum not immediately swung the other way; Ferreira himself had to take a short-notice opponent in Nursulton Ruziboev one fight later, and Ruziboev flattened him in just over a minute. The corporate response was in no way subtle: Ferreira got a rebound stop against Phil Hawes, who was not only 1 for his last 4, but had been knocked out in all three of those losses.
This fight is not particularly subtle, either. Dustin Stoltzfus has been kicking around the UFC since busting Joe Pyfer's arm on the Contender Series back in 2020, but it hasn't been a particularly great run. He's very tough, he's a solid wrestler and a proficient grappler and he's 2-4, but his two wins came against people with even worse records and his losses include getting outboxed by noted jiu-jitsu champion and largely unsuccessful striker Rodolfo Vieira and, in the key to this matchup, getting barnstormed by Abus Magomedov in nineteen seconds. That win was, in fact, what forced us into the Sean Strickland World Champion timeline Nassourdine Imavov started back in January of that year. Jesus, this whole fight card is just one big trip across all other dimensional permutations of mixed martial arts we could have had instead of this one.
I have a great deal of respect for Dustin Stoltzfus, but BRUNNO FERREIRA BY TKO feels extremely probable. He gets clipped even in his good performances, and Ferreira clips like armor in a mid-2000s Eurojank role-playing game.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Julian Marquez (9-4) vs Zach Reese (6-1)
This is a main card fight. This thing! It's great. Julian Marquez was relevant in mixed martial arts for exactly two things: Having "The Cuban Missile Crisis" as a nickname, which is admittedly still top-tier as far as fighting monikers go, and using a post-fight interview to ask Miley Cyrus to go out with him, somehow, impossibly, succeeding in getting her attention, and immediately fumbling the whole thing by being a big masculinist weirdo. As goes Miley Cyrus, so goes mixed martial arts: As he fell out of favor, he also lost repeatedly. Marquez has been particularly inactive, having managed just three fights in as many years, and he got knocked out in both of his last two.
As for Zach Reese, well, let me quote myself in the one and only UFC fight of his career thus far:
Zach Reese is, and I acknowledge the disrespect inherent to my appraisal, the living ideal of the Contender Series fighter. He's a 6'4" guy who showcases virtually no defense to the point that he got outboxed and dropped by a man half a foot shorter than he is during his Contender Series fight, he's undefeated with nothing but first-round finishes except almost all of his opponents were rookies or jobbers, and his outspoken ethos as a fighter is to push for finishes constantly with no regard for safety or points.
I'd like to say I was being uncharitable and Reese pulled out a great performance, but, uh, he didn't. He got taken down by Cody Brundage, tried to lock up a triangle choke, and was powerbombed into unconsciousness in under two minutes for his trouble.
The betting odds have this as a coinflip fight, and honestly, I think that underrates Marquez. Reese swings wide and crazy, but he's also only had one professional fight last longer than two minutes and the defense he's shown even in his winning efforts is so porous it's being studied as a possible replacement for the bleached sections of the Great Barrier Reef. JULIAN MARQUEZ BY TKO.
WELTERWEIGHT: Miguel Baeza (10-3) vs Punahele Soriano (9-4)
This is probably the last chance Miguel Baeza has to stick around in the UFC. "Caramel Thunder" had a lot of well-deserved hype back in 2020: He was 10-0, he'd scored three straight stoppages in the UFC, and he joined the very, very short list of people capable of knocking Matt Brown out. The last three years have been one long, hype-destroying slump. There's no shame whatsoever in losing to Santiago Ponzinibbio: He's a formerly-ranked guy and a big deal. There's very little shame in getting knocked out by Khaos Williams: He's one of the hardest punchers in the sport and Baeza made a good accounting for himself right up until he lost. But when you get dropped by Andre Fialho--in the first round--that's when people start to lose faith.
But this is also, in all likelihood, Punahele Soriano's pink slip fight. Soriano's massive knockout power made him a UFC favorite coming off of the Contender Series, and he, too, had an impressive streak of UFC stoppages, and he, too, hit the skids pretty fucking hard. After an undefeated 8-0 start to his career, Soriano is now 1 for his last 5, with just one win over the deeply unsuccessful Dalcha Lungiambula right in the middle keeping him from reaching the dreaded three-fight skid. But he spent 2013 getting punched out by Roman Kopylov and choked out by Dustin Stoltzfus, and now he's right back on the chopping block next to Baeza. Both men desperately need a win.
I'll be honest: I'm having a hard time with this one. When I think about Baeza I think about how much promise he visibly had early in his career, and how well he could move between striking at range and sneaking in solid groundwork, and Soriano's brawling style, on paper, plays extremely well into Baeza's strengths. In practice? I cannot help thinking about Baeza getting clocked by the straightforward big-punching efforts Williams and Fialho put forth, and Soriano's chances seem real, real good. I still want to believe, and I'm still going with MIGUEL BAEZA BY SUBMISSION, but I do not feel confident in the choice.
PRELIMS: THE UFC THINKS JULIAN MARQUEZ IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ALL OF YOU AND YOU SHOULD BE VERY, VERY MAD ABOUT IT
LIGHTWEIGHT: Thiago Moisés (18-7) VS Ľudovít Klein (21-4-1)
Seriously. Seriously! Thiago Moisés is a thirteen-fight UFC veteran who was fighting Benoît Saint-Denis last year, holds victories over ranked Lightweights and went four rounds with Islam Makhachev. Ľudovít Klein is an exceptionally solid fighter with a five-fight unbeaten streak, victories over multiple hyped international prospects and a great knockout in his last fight. But fie on your flailing fists and hungry eyes; you are damned to the prelims, where only degenerates and day drunks dare to tread. Zach Reese? That's the direction the sport is going, baby. Sure, Moisés is an international grappling champion who also cripples people with leg kicks, and sure, Klein is a pinpoint sniper with great defense, but are they tall? No. And as we all know, Taller = Better Than, which is why Choi Hong-man was a three-time K-1 World Grand Prix winner, Stefan Struve broke every championship record in UFC history, and Philip Rowe destroyed Jake Matthews last week.
This is almost certainly going to be a technically great fight. Klein's technique is incredibly clean, but Thiago has gotten better at pressing the action and forcing opponents into submission opportunities, where he really shines. Either of these men could be in the rankings given an opportunity and I hope one of them finally gets it after this. My money's on ĽUDOVÍT KLEIN BY DECISION.
WELTERWEIGHT: Charles Radtke (9-3) vs Carlos Prates (18-6)
This, though: This is a prime example of a solid preliminary fight. Ol' "Chuck Buffalo" Charles Radtke won the Regional Fighters Who Could Theoretically Lose To Israel Adesanya's Kickboxing Body BLOOD DIAMOND sweepstakes back in 2023, and, unsurprisingly, he outwrestled the kickboxer and hastened the end of his time in the UFC. Radtke did, however, surprise the shit out of people by taking on Gilbert Urbina, the hard-scrabble runner-up of The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ), and winning an upset victory after knocking Urbina out in the first round. Carlos Prates has experienced the modern UFC origin story: Be a really tall stand-and-bang knockout artist, get on the Contender Series, viciously destroy a man's hopes and dreams with your fists, get booked into the UFC in the hopes that you will cause a rash of profitable brain traumas. He was already a huge favorite in his company debut against Trevin Giles this past February, owing non-subtly to Giles having been knocked out repeatedly and Prates being an enormous murderer. I actually picked Giles for the upset, thanks primarily to Prates having not had to deal with his level of competition before, and Giles did, in fact, win the first round, and was one minute away from taking the second--and then, y'know, Prates murdered him with a left hand, shockingly enough.
At the end of the day I have more faith in Prates, who knocked out a good wrestler in Giles, than I do in Radtke, who struggled to take down a kickboxer named Blood Diamond. CARLOS PRATES BY TKO.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Brad Katona (13-3) vs Jesse Butler (12-5)
There's this ongoing sense of exhaustion about The Ultimate Fighter. In the modern era, where the UFC has almost entirely replaced it as their talent source with the endless grist mill that is Dana White's Contender Series, the show has never seemed more ancient or less important, which is why the UFC threw two giant gimmicks behind season 31 (jesus christ): The promise of coaches Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler having a fight, and a return of the comeback season format, where UFC veterans would get another shot. But McGregor/Chandler appears to be entering its second year of failing to materialize, and Lightweight tournament champion Kurt Holobaugh lost his first UFC fight, and Bantamweight champion Brad Katona didn't fare any better. Katona's first bout back in the UFC was a close decision loss to Garrett Armfield. That represents a pretty distressing ceiling, which is why Jesse Butler is here to check Katona's floor. Butler's more notable for the fights he hasn't had in the UFC, at this point: He took a short-notice bout against Jim Miller, got knocked cold almost immediately, and was infamously booked into another fight just sixty-three days later, which is so irresponsible for concussion protocols that even the Tennessee Athletic Commission raised an eyebrow and the UFC pulled the fight. Butler was rebooked for November, but that, too, fell apart. Jesse Butler has been in the UFC for an entire year: His tenure has lasted twenty-three seconds and he has landed one punch.
Brad Katona got cut from the UFC back in 2019 after just two losses, and it was considered something of a travesty for a young, promising prospect. I mean this with as little disrespect as is possible to a professional martial artist: This match exists so the UFC can make sure they don't have to do it again. If two-time TUF champion Brad Katona cannot defeat Jesse Butler, he probably should not be here. BRAD KATONA BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Andrea Lee (13-9) vs Montana De La Rosa (12-9-1)
The last time we saw either of these women I theorized a loss would likely mean their UFC release. Both of them lost, and not only are they still here, they are now fighting each other. If this isn't a Loser Leaves Town match, I have no idea what qualifies anymore. As is so often heartbreakingly the case, both women are, of course, pretty good at fighting. They've both banked a full decade in their professional careers, they've both hung at the periphery of the rankings for damn near the whole time, they've both had incredibly close fights and in a couple cases arguably should have victories over top contenders, and they've both been used as springboards for women the UFC would rather market than either of them. And now, in 2024, Montana is on a three-fight losing streak and Andrea is down by four in a row. The future is not going to be kind to one of them, but the past wasn't, either.
But that past is particularly cruel to Montana De La Rosa, because these two already fought back in 2019, and it was not at all close. Andrea outstruck her 2:1, wobbled her on the feet, and fended off all of her submission attempts on the ground. It may have been five years ago, but having watched their careers, I don't think much has changed in that half-decade to alter the likelihood of history repeating itself here. ANDREA LEE BY DECISION, again.
BANTAMWEIGHT: John Castañeda (21-6) vs Daniel Marcos (15-0 (1))
I want to take a moment to talk about hubris, scorn, and the crushing weight of guilt.
Just under a year ago, in discussing Daniel Marcos and his berth agaisnt Davey Grant on the undercard of Tom Aspinall vs Marcin Tybura, I said the following:
Daniel Marcos is a less-known quantity: He beat a relative rookie on the Contender Series in Brandon "Let's Go" Lewis and knocked out the 18-4 Saimon Oliveira in his UFC debut this past January, but Lewis was visibly out of his depth and Oliveira was a big, sweeping brawler who whiffed on 3/4 of his strikes and got crushed for it. We've seen enough of Marcos to know he's fast and vicious and he hits real hard, but we haven't seen him really tested.
I picked Grant to beat Marcos. And he did! Except he didn't. Despite Grant outstriking Marcos in every round, despite reversing the single grappling exchange of the fight, despite winning a 30-27 shutout on the majority of media scorecards and despite being a British person fighting in Britain, Marcos won an absolute robbery. The universe immediately crashed down on him, because for the next seven months, he could not get a fucking fight to go properly. He was supposed to meet Daniel Santos; Santos got hurt. He had a matchup with Victor Hugo; Hugo missed weight. He was rebooked against Carlos Vera; visa issues kept Marcos away. And when he finally did get back in the cage against Aoriqileng this past February? He had a great first round, came out for the second, and promptly went through one eyepoke and three mutual groin kicks in the space of about a minute, the last of which left Aoriqileng dry heaving and unable to continue.
I could tell you about John "Sexi Mexi" Castañeda again, as I have already on four different occasions, but he is not truly relevant here. Castañeda is not in this fight as a solid all-arounder or a tricky grappler, he is here as an agent of fate. Marcos must be tested to determine if the Mixed Martial Moirai are prepared to forgive him for his sins, both personally carried and socially imposed. I am choosing to believe they will let him thrive once again. DANIEL MARCOS BY TKO.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Eduarda Moura (10-0) vs Denise Gomes (8-3)
So, here's the thing. In November of last year, Eduarda "Ronda" Moura made her UFC debut against Montserrat Ruiz. Ruiz is one of those fighters I am in the tank for despite knowing they will, generally-speaking, lose. I predicted that ground specialist Moura would almost certainly take her down and maul her, but I was picking Ruiz anyway, because I am an unshakable rock of foolishness. Unsurprisingly: Moura destroyed her. Normally, I am perfectly fine with accepting the defeat of my heart. But in this particular case, Moura also missed weight by half a weight class. That converts her righteous victory into an injustice that must be punished. Denise "Dee" Gomes is my agent of vengeance. I didn't have faith in her, either, when she was placed as a sacrifice for Yazmin Jauregui last July, and Denise stunned me and the world by walking straight through Yazmin and punching her out in twenty seconds. Did it keep her from getting controlled by Angela Hill a few months later? Not even slightly. Did it cement her in my memory as a future soldier against the horrors of the combat sports world?
Congratulations, Denise. You've been conscripted. Realistically, Denise is most likely going to lose this fight. She got dominated on the ground by both Hill and Loma Lookboonmee; there's very little that should stop Moura from taking her apart the same way she took apart Ruiz. But I cannot learn from my mistakes when those mistakes are all that stands between us and justice. DENISE GOMES BY TKO.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Cody Stamann (21-6-1) vs Taylor Lapilus (19-4)
This fight being this low on the card is pretty insulting, to be honest. Cody "Molon Labe Tattoo #1083" Stamann is a fourteen-fight UFC veteran who's shared the cage with prospects, contenders and world champions alike, and he would be on a three-fight winning streak right now were it not for a referee error in his most recent bout with Douglas Silva de Andrade that saw Stamann inexplicably have his hard-earned ground position taken away on account of Andrade landing an illegal kick, costing him both top control and a crucial round whose points would have won him the fight. Taylor Lapilus was one of the company's most inexplicable cuts back in 2016--an 11-2 veteran with a 3-1 UFC record who was released from the company despite having won his last fight--and he was only brought back last September when the UFC realized it needed more French talent to book behind Ciryl Gane. Lapilus took on a massively hyped, undefeated Irish prospect in Caolán Loughran and deftly outstruck him, and in response to his successful return, the UFC promptly threw him at another, different undefeated killer in the form of Farid Basharat. This time Lapilus couldn't keep up, and now, having lost, he is busted all the way back to the start of the card.
It is tough times for good fighters who cannot get a goddamn break from an indifferent company. After watching Lapilus struggle with Basharat's wrestling I think Stamann's going to be a problem for him, but I also have faith in his ability to adjust and improve and use almost ten goddamn inches of reach to plink Stamann upside the head from the other side of the cage. TAYLOR LAPILUS BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Rayanne Amanda (14-7) vs Puja Tomar (8-4)
Finally, at the end of all things, we have a fight that exists just to remind me of pain. I was a big fan of Rayanne Amanda's brief but successful run to Invicta's Atomweight championship, but as with every 105-pound champion before her to reach the UFC--sorrowful props here for Jessica Penne, Michelle Waterson-Gomez and Jinh Yu Frey--the mainstream MMA world is not kind to people whose weight class does not exist within it. Unfortunately, it was especially so for Rayanne, who by almost every single media scorecard won her UFC debut against Talita Alencar this past December, but as I seem to say infuriatingly frequently, the judges did not agree. So, rather than onward and upward, she is welcoming Puja Tomar to the UFC. Puja is one of the incredibly small number of female fighters coming out of India, and her kick-heavy, volume-striking style established her as, indisputably, the best Women's Strawweight the entire country has to offer. Unfortunately: There's really only one other major international Women's Strawweight division out there, and it's over in ONE Championship, and under its auspices Puja went 1-3, and she was violently finished in all three of her losses, and her sole win was an incredibly tight split decision. The skills are impressive, but the record--it's not great.
And yet, I fear. Rayanne is a very smart, very tactical fighter, which is a kinder way of saying she has a lower-output style that tends to piss off judges. I think Rayanne will be the more effective fighter to the point that RAYANNE AMANDA BY DECISION is my pick, but I also think there's a real, real good chance Rayanne lands the better strikes, has the better offense, and loses a decision anyway because Puja outthrew her by a 3:1 margin.