CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 106: JUST BOOK IT
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 106: JUST BOOK IT
UFC Fight Night: Whittaker vs Aliskerov
SATURDAY, JUNE 2 FROM THE KINGDOM ARENA IN RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
EARLY START TIME WARNING: PRELIMS 9 AM PDT / 12 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 12 PM / 3 PM
For the handful of people who only follow MMA through these writeups, you may notice that the next two main events bear absolutely no resemblance to the main events I put on the calendar at the start of the month. This is because mixed martial arts, as much as I love it, is only on rare occasions a real sport, and every once in awhile it must be fully and wholly possessed by the tiny text at the bottom of every single UFC poster that says "Card Subject to Change."
But this is a particularly special case, as not only is it an egregious instance of abusing that sentence, it is quite possibly the first time the clause was ever used on the UFC itself. When the WWE and UFC merged, the UFC pledged to enter into the same kind of insanely lucrative sportswashing promotional program the WWE has shared with Saudi Arabia for years. Their KSA debut was initially planned for three and a half months ago in a card that ultimately aired live from the Apex instead, March 2's Rozenstruik vs Gaziev.
Allegedly, this is because the KSA took one look at the UFC's lineup, which included such highlights as Eryk Anders vs Jamie Pickett, Vitor Petrino vs Tyson Pedro and the aforementioned barely-ranked main event of Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs Shamil Gaziev, and--allegedly!--told the UFC they were fucking crazy if they thought they were getting the reported $20 million payout for an event that was just Apex bullshit. Or, as the Chairman of General Authority for Entertainment put it:
A decision to reschedule was taken to ensure the best caliber of talent will be available to participate.
Despite this Dana White, of course, immediately dismissed the criticism as media bullshit and simply said they hadn't been able to get one fight to line up. This card, coincidentally, has two potential title eliminators on it, three different former title contenders, five different fighters who've main-evented past UFC events, and multiple contendership prospects.
But their first try had Eryk Anders, so it's impossible to say if the reports were accurate.
MAIN EVENT: THE CONTENDERSHIP CLUSTERFUCK
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Robert Whittaker (25-7, #3) vs Ikram Aliskerov (15-1, NR)
Two weeks ago, in discussing Jared Cannonier vs Nassourdine Imavov, I described the ongoing fall of the Middleweight contendership scene into all-out nonsense. At the time, this fight was scheduled to be Robert Whittaker vs Khamzat Chimaev, and that was already a giant mess.
Khamzat Chimaev is one of the weirdest parts of modern martial arts. He burst into the UFC during the pandemic era, steamrolled three men in a matter of minutes, earned an immediate reputation as one of the sport's most interesting, devastating prospects, and immediately retired because COVID had destroyed his body. He returned after an entire year on the shelf, reportedly after being coaxed out of retirement by Ramzan Kadyrov, the extremely legitimately re-elected-with-98%-of-the-vote head warlord of the Chechen Republic, and Khamzat rifled off another three wins in rapid order.
Except one of them came after missing weight so badly it torpedoed an entire UFC pay-per-view, forcing Khamzat to go up to Middleweight permanently.
And then he didn't fight for another year.
And when he did fight, it was against Kamaru Usman, who has been a Welterweight for his entire life.
And then he got sick and missed another half-year, and got announced for a potential title eliminator main event against Robert Whittaker anyway.
And last week, he pulled out.
I want to be clear about this before we move on: Khamzat Chimaev, owner of zero wins over ranked Middleweights and owner of zero wins over actual Middleweights period since 2020, was placed into a fight advertised openly as a title eliminator, and that was actually more restrained than some of their initial plans, as the UFC reportedly tried to sign both Khamzat vs Dricus du Plessis and Khamzat vs Leon Edwards as last-minute main events for UFC 300. They desperately want him on top, and in his absence, they suffer.
Fortunately, they have an understudy in Ikram Aliskerov.
Aliskerov, who is an absolutely terrifying knockout artist, got a huge gimme fight against the knocked-out-twice-in-his-last-three-fights Phil Hawes in his UFC debut, and the absolute femtosecond that fight was over they booked him into a top ten match with Paulo Costa. When Costa couldn't make it, they settled for a top 11 match against Nassourdine Imavov. When Imavov couldn't make it, screw it: Bring in Warlley Alves, who had, once again, been stopped in two of his last three losses. Aliskerov steamrolled him, too, and the UFC wanted him in again just a few months later against Anthony Hernandez, but this time Aliskerov was the one who had to step away from bookings to rehab an injury. Did they punish him for daring to need a break?
Nope! They booked him against the just-fell-out-of-the-rankings André Muniz so a win would put him in position to challenge anyone with a number. They want this dude bad.
The UFC is not wrong in their estimation of Ikram Aliskerov as a bad motherfucker. He dutifully immolated both of the men the UFC put in his path, just as he has done to almost everyone he's ever faced. In fact, the 1 in his 15-1 begs the question: Who's the one guy who beat Ikram Aliskerov?
Ah. Of course. Of course it was.
This is a stupid disclaimer I find myself writing more and more often these days: Ikram Aliskerov is not a bad fighter. Ikram is a very, very good fighter. At risk of spoiling the end of this section, it's entirely feasible he could win this fight, just like it was entirely feasible Khamzat could have. The problem is not that either fighter is bad. The problem is either man could have wound up in pole position in the Middleweight division when, as of now, their Middleweight records over the last year combined consist of wins over:
Kamaru Usman, whose UFC record at Middleweight is 0-1, and
Warlley Alves, whose UFC record at Middleweight is 1-2, and that one victory was just slightly over ten years ago.
And this is why I have spent as much time talking about Khamzat as Ikram Aliskerov despite this being an Ikram Aliskerov fight: Not only is Ikram only in this fight because Khamzat couldn't make it, there just isn't anything else to talk about in Ikram's time in the UFC.
This is the ascension of the Contendership Conundrum of two weeks ago to the Contendership Clusterfuck we're now embracing. Sean Strickland is a human tragedy, but he's got a lot of mileage and a lot of wins under his belt. Israel Adesanya lost to the champion, but in the very recent past, he cleared out the Middleweight division.
Ikram Aliskerov has two UFC fights. Both were against unranked fighters who are 1 for their last 5. One of them is no longer in the UFC and the other just racked up his fourth straight loss last month, so he's almost certainly about to join him. Debating his place in the contendership picture means holding a referendum on how much knocking out Phil Hawes means to you.
Which makes it all the more hilarious to put him side by side with Robert goddamn Whittaker.
It is remarkably difficult to find fighters with better, longer resumes than ol' Bobby Knuckles. When Michael Bisping was embarking on his vanity title reign and steadfastly refusing to fight any of the actual top contenders in the Middleweight division, Robert Whittaker was running the table on all the ranked fighters the champion was choosing to ignore. Between 2014 and 2018 Whittaker rattled off nine straight victories that culminated in winning the vacant belt after beating Yoel Romero. Were it not for Romero missing weight, Whittaker would've noticed an official title defense and gone into the history books the way he deserved.
And then Israel Adesanya arrived and knocked him the fuck out. In other circumstances, this would mark the end of a great legacy; in Whittaker's, it actually enhanced it. Rob came back from his loss and proceeded to spend the last four years dominating an entirely new generation of contenders. He cleaned out the top ten fighters of the 2010s and he's 3/10 of the way through the 2020s. He even came shockingly close to ending Adesanya's title reign in a rematch nine months before Alex Pereira took the belt away. Whittaker has only three losses in the entire last goddamn decade, and all three came against world champions.
But that last one was a doozy. Rob has lost fights, but he's rarely looked lost. Dricus du Plessis overwhelmed him in a way no other fighter has been able to. He took him down, he busted up his face, and he simply punched him out on his feet, and all it takes is one bad loss for people to start questioning the extent to which you still belong at the top.
Which is why Robert Whittaker, a former UFC champion with a 16-5 record in the company who took Israel Adesanya to his limit, is at damn near even odds with Ikram Aliskerov, the 2-0 guy who knocked out Warlley Alves.
I dwell on this because I spent the last couple years preemptively angry about the future of the UFC, where contendership has become entirely divorced from climbing the ladder and is now simply about when management-favored fighters get shots at the top, and, well, we're here. We were starting to get here in 2022 when Sean O'Malley got a title eliminator without touching the entirety of the top ten. We were pretty close to here in 2023 when Sean Strickland got a title shot thanks to his victory over unranked, 1-0 Abus Magomedov. We were right at the precipice of here at the end of the year when Colby Covington got a title fight for doing absolutely nothing.
And now we've got a main event fight with top contendership implications between one of the most decorated Middleweights in UFC history and a guy who was going to fight the debuting Antonio Trócoli in the Apex a week ago.
Anyone who reads any of these knows I'm picking Whittaker. My in-the-tank status here is a known quantity. But Ikram is a live dog, and it's as much thanks to his own abilities as Whittaker's mileage, not because he is aging or washed, but because his style has been exhibited so many times that opponents have started to figure it out. Rob likes to fence. He favors charging, lunging attacks, with lancing jabs and low kicks, and his combinations don't tend to flow until he has an opponent hurt. Which is tricky--until people figure out the trick. Adesanya, Dricus and even Paulo Costa caught onto Whittaker's in-and-out tactics and timing, and each one of them made him pay.
Aliskerov is absolutely capable of executing on that timing. He's fast, he's rangy, he's got a great, sniping right hand, and the way he punches, one of those in the middle of a Robert Whittaker Bald Bull Charge is all it takes. But I also remember my tape study from Ikram's debut, and I remember him struggling with Nah-Shon Burrell, and I am just not prepared to give up on Rob yet. ROBERT WHITTAKER BY DECISION.
CO-MAIN EVENT: THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR
HEAVYWEIGHT: Sergei Pavlovich (18-2, #3) vs Alexander Volkov (37-10, #5)
This fight makes me sad. Not because it's a bad fight: It is in fact a fantastic fight, a great clash of skills and an extremely divisionally relevant challenge.
It makes me sad because neither guy wanted to do it. Sergei Pavlovich and Alexander Volkov are good friends and training partners who've worked together for years. When the fight was announced, Volkov was actively preparing for his already-booked UFC 302 bout against Jailton Almeida at UFC 302 and Pavlovich wasn't aware he'd been booked at all, let alone that the UFC had already decided they were going to fight one another. Both men voiced their displeasure and intention to turn down the fight, but as Volkov eventually put it, he's already turned down as many fights as his current contract allows, and the UFC made it clear this was not an optional contest.
So we're doing this, and while the company's usual strategy of announcing a fight before negotiating with the fighters remains odious, you can only be so upset about the match itself. It's why the Nogueira brothers picked different weight classes, why Daniel Cormier dropped to 205 pounds in the UFC so as not to interfere with his buddy Cain Velasquez: If you don't, eventually, you might have to punch one of your friends in the mouth. This is and has always been the occupational hazard of training with the best.
And these men are, unequivocally, two of the best Heavyweights in the world. Sergei Pavlovich was already a near-undefeated wrecking ball when he went on an unintentional, two-and-a-half-year hiatus during the pandemic era, but when he did return in 2022 he was better than ever. The sheer economy of power Pavlovich brings forward in his punches is stunning even by the standards of the biggest-punching division in combat sports. In eight appearances, win or lose, Sergei has yet to have a UFC fight reach a second round. He flattened Curtis Blaydes. He dropped Derrick Lewis. He broke Tai Tuivasa's entire shit with a jab. He's the biggest knockout artist in Heavyweight mixed martial arts, and that's a goddamn accomplishment.
But Alexander Volkov hasn't been a slouch, either. Volkov's got five more years and twenty-seven more fights under his belt, and for an absolutely shocking amount of that period, he's been a top Heavyweight contender. He was the #2 fighter in M-1 back in 2010, he was a Bellator world champion in 2012, and he's been a top ten Heavyweight in the UFC for damn near eight years. His long jabs and kicks, his clinch attacks and grappling so credible he was able to play around in Fabrício Werdum's guard without fear have all come together to make him the kind of well-rounded, well-conditioned, multifaceted threat the Heavyweight division just doesn't goddamn get enough of.
What's more, the men have managed to dovetail in and out of one another's careers. Volkov's attempts at contendership were turned aside by Derrick Lewis and Curtis Blaydes; Pavlovich destroyed both of them. Pavlovich's undefeated streak came to an end when he was knocked out by Alistair Overeem; Volkov knocked him silly in two rounds.
But their present careers are defined largely by having been destroyed by the same man: Tom Aspinall, the Real Interim Heavyweight Champion of the UFC.
It's the credibility both men carry that made Aspinall absolutely running through each of them so remarkable. He faced Volkov in 2022, and despite all of Volkov's canny grappling, Aspinall threw him to the mat and submitted him in a single round, becoming the first man to successfully tap Volkov in twelve years. Last November, Aspinall and Pavlovich met to crown an actual champion for the UFC to inevitably promote when Jon Jones fucks off to shoot guns somewhere, and despite a ten-year career that has seen Pavlovich win every striking contest he's ever had, Aspinall dropped him with a right hand and pounded him flat in sixty-nine seconds.
This is, as always, the problem with contendership. When you're a rising prospect who hasn't fought the top of the heap, you are identified by promise, and the ability of fans to imagine you defeating them fuels your matchmaking prospects. When you've already fought the champ and lost, it becomes much harder to make the case. When you've already fought the champ and gotten completely fucking destroyed, it has to be a damned good case.
Sometimes that means knocking out one of your best friends. I've been an Alexander Volkov fan for years and I would love to see him get another crack at the top, but I don't think this is a great matchup for him. He doesn't have the range advantage he typically enjoys, he doesn't have the clinch power advantage that helps him wear fighters down, and we've seen him get caught by big power punchers before, and unfortunately, there ain't none bigger. SERGEI PAVLOVICH BY TKO.
MAIN CARD: THE MISSED FUTURE
WELTERWEIGHT: Kelvin Gastelum (18-9 (1)) vs Daniel Rodriguez (17-4)
It feels overly dismissive to say 'Kelvin Gastelum was supposed to be a thing,' because, realistically, Kelvin Gastelum was a thing. He beat multiple world champions, he fought some of the best in the sport, he even stunned Israel Adesanya at the height of his power. If anything, it's a testament to Kelvin's talents that even with those accomplishments the sport sees him as a What If. Unfortunately, it is also a testament to the state of his career that most folks are wondering how much longer he'll be in the UFC. That Adesanya fight was only five years ago, and in those five years, Kelvin is 2 for his last 8. Some of that is the UFC capitalizing on his name by booking him against people he probably shouldn't have faced--when you go from Jack Hermansson and Ian Heinisch to Robert Whittaker and Jared Cannonier, something screwy is going on--but after almost eight years of begging from his fanbase Kelvin finally dropped back down to Welterweight at the end of 2023, and for his troubles he was dominated and submitted by Sean Brady. He no longer belongs at the rankings in 185 or 170, and averting his fall down the sport's ladder is proving very, very difficult.
Daniel Rodriguez is not in the business of making things easy. "D-Rod" was the dark horse of the Welterweight division for most of the early 2020s: Very little hype, very little marketing, very few high-profile matchups, just a slow grind up the ladder on the back of a really solid chin and some persistently underrated boxing. Rodriguez etched out a 7-1 start to his UFC tenure thanks to his ability to keep moving forward, string punches together fluidly and keep people from effectively hurting him on the ground. Granted, that run had a loss right in the middle of it against the ever-enigmatic Nicolas Dalby, but it was a real, real close decision that could have easily coinflipped towards Rodriguez. Unfortunately, three fights ago, Rodriguez also got a robbery of a call over Li Jingliang. The win was a portent into the trouble Rodriguez was about to face: Not only was he fighting a higher level of competition, he was fighting hurt. The problem with maintaining a boxing style in four-ounce gloves is the likelihood that you're going to break your shit, and D-Rod did, in fact, break his shit. He had persistent trouble with his left hand, and after getting choked out by Neil Magny he spent half a year attempting to rehab it only to come back looking tentative, cautious and uncertain in a way he never had before, and when you're across the cage from Ian Machado Garry, that's a bad way to be. Now Rodriguez is on a two-fight losing streak, hasn't made a cagewalk in a year, and his dark-horse days feel very far away.
As disrespectful as it feels to frame it this way: The fall of both fighters makes this match more interesting. At their best, Kelvin and Daniel have exhibited some of the most fluid, well-timed boxing in the entire Welterweight division, and the chance to see them punch one another is incredibly promising. But it's been several years since either man looked their best. Both fighters have been turning in performances that make them seem diminished, and at this point in their careers, there's an argument to be made that we're checking to see which of them has more left in the tank. I favor DANIEL RODRIGUEZ BY DECISION, as Kelvin's toughness certainly hasn't gone anywhere and I don't think he's getting knocked out anytime soon, but if Rodriguez has recovered any of his boxing mojo during his time off, Kelvin won't be able to match his speed.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Muhammad Naimov (11-2) vs Felipe Lima (12-1)
Muhammad Naimov is only three fights into his UFC run, and it's already been a real strange ride. He burst onto the scene under the longer moniker of Muhammadjon as a last-minute replacement against the then-highly-rated Jamie Mullarkey, only to shock the betting world and set the tone for the rest of Mullarkey's career to date by flattening him in two rounds. He was back in the cage just three months later against the equally highly-rated Nathaniel Wood, and he ended Wood's three-fight winning streak, but only after a bizarre, frustrating bout that saw Naimov repeatedly grab the fence, hook the gloves, and somehow land four strikes squarely on Wood's groin without losing a point. Stranger still, after the two wins, the UFC had Naimov fight all the way down on the ladder, going from the two hot prospects to the 0-1 Erik Silva, who managed to blow out his knee during a Naimov takedown forty-four seconds into their fight. Even this fight was supposed to be another oddly-placed matchup that saw Naimov facing the talented but momentumless Melsik Baghdasaryan, right up until Baghdasaryan pulled out five days before the fight.
And thus, in the ongoing theme of cyclical weirdness, Naimov must now do what Mullarkey did for him and welcome a last-minute replacement newcomer to the UFC. Felipe "D'Ouro" Lima is an actual, legitimate international prospect as of one fight ago. Until last year, outside of one single excursion to Bahrain's BRAVE Combat Federation, Lima had spent his entire career in the kind of can-crushing circuits that have hyped 9-1 prospects like him fighting 8-7 record-padders who've lost to everyone good they've ever faced. But Lima took a big contractual jump in 2022, signing up as an alternate in the Road to UFC tournament that was intended to get fresh international talent into the company--but his opponent Xiao Long (who we'll be seeing later!) pulled out, and as the UFC was mostly looking for Asian talent, they let the Brazilian go right back to the regionals. Lima wound up in the Czech Republic's Oktagon MMA, where he unseated the long-reigning Bantamweight champion Jonas Mågård instead, which finally got him a bit of the prospect spotlight he'd spent years chasing. And, as they do, the UFC ignored him for an entire year and only called him when they needed someone willing to fight right fucking now.
Eagle-eyed readers will notice that Lima was the Bantamweight champion in Oktagon, and this is not, in fact, a Bantamweight fight. Lima has, in fact, never fought above 140 pounds in his life. He's fast, he's talented, he's got a great rear calf kick and he's on a twelve-fight winning streak. He's also fighting a bigger, tougher, never-been-finished opponent coming off a full training camp with less than a week to prepare. I would love an upset here because I'm still angry about how much cheating Naimov has gotten away with, but MUHAMMAD NAIMOV BY DECISION feels too likely to ignore.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Johnny Walker (21-8 (1), #7) vs Volkan Oezdemir (19-7, #9)
Johnny Walker, the UFC just cannot give up on you. Walker is still floating reputationally on the incredible string of knockouts he scored during his debut years in the UFC, but those years were 2018-2019 and the times since then have been recurringly lean. Walker went 1-5 for awhile and got wrecked by future champion Jamahal Hill, then rebounded with a three-fight winning streak that culminated in the slightly less impressive feat of becoming the only man in four years to beat Anthony Smith and not finish him, but that was still enough for the UFC to try to jetpack him into a title shot by fighting top contender Magomed Ankalaev. That fight wound up lasting three months, as it first went to a No Contest thanks to an illegal knee from Ankalaev and required an instant rematch this past January, which ended with Ankalaev dominating Walker and knocking him out, on the feet, in two rounds. Ankalaev is on a twelve-fight unbeaten streak, has been ranked in the top three for multiple years, and is scheduled to get his shot at the championship Fucking Never.
Once upon a time, Volkan Oezdemir was Johnny Walker. He was an incredibly cool, high-octane knockout artist who beat everyone, destroyed opponents in seconds and stormed his way to a title shot off of three straight victories in a weak division. Unfortunately, that, too, was 2017. From 2018 to present Oezdemir is 4-6, the only actual contender he's beaten in that time was Aleksandar Rakić in a robbery of a decision, and otherwise, his victories run the gamut of luminaries like Ilir Latifi, who immediately departed the division to become a 5'10" Heavyweight, Paul Craig, who just one fight later after losing to--oh hey, Johnny Walker, small world--would drop down to Middleweight, and Bogdan Guskov, a last-minute replacement making his severely overmatched debut. Oezdemir's fame came from scoring a half-dozen knockouts in less than a minute apiece, and now he's been bounced out of every contendership fight he's had and his last knockout is almost five years old.
This is, still, a winnable fight for Volkan. He's not washed or cracked, he's not getting destroyed or embarrassed, he just can't hang with the top of the division anymore. Unfortunately, he's also fighting at an almost 8" reach disadvantage and unlike most of Walker's successful opponents, striking and countering at range have never been his strong suits. He does his best work after closing in, and that just leaves too many opportunities for Walker to catch him. JOHNNY WALKER BY TKO, but I sure would like to see Volkan send him into ragdoll physics mode the same way Hill did.
PRELIMS: TECHNICALLY LEGAL
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Shara Magomedov (12-0) vs Joilton Lutterbach (38-10 (1))
It really feels like it should be a bigger deal that the UFC employs a one-eyed fighter who has to compete on cards in Russia and the Middle East because most American states will not license him to fight. But it also felt like it should have been a bigger deal that he was caught on camera accosting, suckerpunching and stomping out a man in a shopping mall for kissing a woman in public and nothing ever came of it, so, y'know, what can you do. Shara made his UFC debut last October and only barely avoided getting thoroughly grappled by a one-for-his-last-six Bruno Silva. This is presumably why the UFC had Shara booked against promotional punching bag Ihor Potieria, and when Ihor dropped out, rather than booking any of their many, many Middleweight grapplers, they signed Joilton Lutterbach. "Peregrino" is a Brazilian-German road warrior who's done pretty goddamn much everything in combat sports. Grappling contests, boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, the Professional Fighters League, the bitcoin brawling of Karate Combat, and most shameful of all, The Ultimate Fighter. Lutterbach was on The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3 (nossa senhora) all the way back in 2014, but he got knocked out of the second round and the UFC elected to wait an entire decade before calling him back to see if he wanted to hang out.
Here's the thing: I get too into the stories of fighting. I am thoroughly biased by my dislikes, and boy, I sure do dislike Sharabutdin Magomedov. From his persona to his personal bullshit to his inexplicable company priority, I am Not A Fan. I know, factually, that I am allowing that dislike to push me into picking a man who lost split decisions to Clay Collard and Raush Manfio thirty goddamn pounds down from this weight class, and it is a very silly choice that I will invariably regret. But I must. JOILTON LUTTERBACH BY SUBMISSION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Nasrat Haqparast (16-5) vs Jared Gordon (20-6 (1))
We're looking at two very different kinds of comeback trains, here. Nasrat Haqparast has twice knocked on the door of the 155-pound ladder, and twice, he has been denied. His unusually crisp boxing and his emphasis on clean technique and the internet's love of remarking on his resemblance to Kelvin Gastelum were all enough to help Nasrat stand out in the insanely packed murder house that is the Lightweight division, but they were not enough to keep him from getting blown out by its gatekeepers. He's righted the ship and is now back on a three-fight winning streak that includes pounding out this week's recurring punching bag Jamie Mullarkey last December, but he's going to have to defend his resurgence against the unjustly wronged. Jared Gordon should, by all rights, be a massively pushed fighter right now. The UFC famously picked him as a credible-but-likely-to-lose stepping stone for promotional powerhouse Paddy Pimblett at the end of 2022, and Gordon clearly, unequivocally beat him, only to somehow, mysteriously, lose a unanimous decision. Gordon didn't get any love in his next fight, either: He had a shot at a ranking opposite Bobby Green, but that ended in tragedy when Green inadvertently launched himself forehead-first into Gordon's face and knocked him loopy with a headbutt, resulting in a No Contest. It took more than half a year for Gordon to come back, and when he did, he made up for lost time and knocked Mark Madsen out in a single round.
This is, in all likelihood, a bad matchup for Gordon. He's good at clinch control, he's good at quickly winging punches into range, and he historically struggles with range management and stronger, lankier fighters. Nasrat is bigger, longer and a cleaner, straighter striker. If Gordon can't get in on Nasrat and force him to fight in the pocket, he's eating potshots for three rounds. NASRAT HAQPARAST BY DECISION.
WELTERWEIGHT: Rinat Fakhretdinov (22-2-1) vs Nicolas Dalby (23-4-1 (2))
I feel unnaturally invested in Rinat Fakhretdinov. Maybe it's his role as an unabashed wrestler in a sport that's growing ever-more unfriendly to fighters who don't live and die by the fistic arts--but then, he spent an awful lot of time failing to wrestle in his last fight, so that can't be it. Maybe it's the rarity of a fighter on an eighteen-fight unbeaten streak--but most of those were against rookies with absolutely no business being in the cage with him, and I hate that shit. Maybe it's going toe-to-toe with Elizeu Zaleski and living to tell the tale, but he also only wound up with a draw, which is awfully deflating. Maybe I just want something interesting to happen at Welterweight, the most log-jammed division in the entire goddamn company. I am not a huge Nicolas Dalby fan, but I cannot in any way deny the man is interesting. He entered the UFC as an undefeated superprospect back in 2015, got drummed out of the company on a 1-2-1 record a year later, somehow got himself re-signed not on a win but a No Contest, and went from unequivocally losing to the going-on-40 Tim Means to a four-fight winning streak that included a massive upset knockout over a -650 favorite in Gabriel Bonfim, one of the biggest prospects in the sport.
And now he's probably going to get wrestled a bunch. RINAT FAKHRETDINOV BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Muin Gafurov (18-6) vs Kyung Ho Kang (19-10 (1))
I was real optimistic about Muin Gafurov's debut last year. How optimistic? This much:
Muin Gafurov is, quite often, a bad motherfucker. Gafurov was real good in ONE Championship and went three hard rounds with John Lineker without dying, but he underperformed in his 2021 shot at the Contender Series and the UFC let him head back to the regionals.
And then he spinning back kicked the shit out of people again and, oh, hey, welcome back, theoretically profitable knockout generator. MUIN GAFUROV BY TKO.
Was I wrong? Of course I was wrong. Whenever I am excited, it is a surefire giveaway that I have abandoned the path of the stoic and am about to be smote by the universe for my lack of piety. Gafurov got outworked by John Castañeda and choked out in barely over a minute by Said Nurmagomedov, and now, just one year after his long-awaited UFC debut, he's staring down the barrel of the 0-3 release gun. And the UFC is throwing him a mathematical bone by giving him Kyung Ho Kang, the eleven-year veteran who, after thirteen fights in the UFC, just happened to lose his last one to John Castañeda, too. That's right: This is a battle to see who has better dealt with the psychic strain of losing to a guy named Sexi Mexi in the last year.
And I refuse to let my man go. Kang never looks bad, he's tough as nails and succeeds fantastically thanks to his physicality, but I don't think his style plays well into Gafurov's. Of course, I have said that and been exceptionally incorrect. Still: MUIN GAFUROV BY DECISION.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Magomed Gadzhiyasulov (8-0) vs Brendson Ribeiro (15-6 (1))
Man, you know it wouldn't be a big weird international card without a big weird Light Heavyweight fight. In one corner you have Magomed Gadzhiyasulov, an undefeated Bahraini grappler so rooted in regional record-padding organizations that even the UFC itself refuses to recognize one of the fights he claims on his record because it came from Dagestan's Khiza Fight League, an organization so sketchy that no combat sports database on the internet recognizes it as legitimate and googling it returns video of their promoting an MMA fight between two seven year-old boys. But hey: He won a fight on the Contender Series last year, so who cares, let him in. Of course, when we saw Brendson Ribeiro's UFC debut this past February I talked about how he at least had a legitimate record and enough actual promise that he was likely to beat his comparatively unimpressive and defensively-challenged opponent Zhang Mingyang, and Brendson proceeded to get knocked stupid in a minute forty-one anyhow, so objectively, caring about things like records and qualifications is for nerds and we should judge fighters on vibes alone.
And my vibes on Brendson are sour as hell now. MAGOMED GADZHIYASULOV BY TKO.
BANTAMWEIGHT ROAD TO UFC FINAL: Xiao Long (26-8) vs Chang Ho Lee (9-1)
Remember eighteen years ago in this writeup when I said we'd be seeing Xiao Long later? We finally made it, and boy, the UFC's been waiting a long goddamn time. Xiao was initially announced for the Road to UFC tournament back in 2022 and was one of the odds-on favorites to win its Bantamweight bracket as a champion out of China with an extremely strong grappling game, but he got ill during fight week, withdrew, got signed to meet Felipe Lima midway through the tournament as a special alternate bout and promptly pulled out of that, too. The UFC gave him another shot at 2023's Road to UFC 2, and this time he made it to the cage--and promptly made it through by the skin of his teeth. He barely scraped a split decision from Shooto's Shohei Nose, and he got the tightest of majority decisions against ONE Championship's Shuya Kamikubo, but goddammit, he made it here to the finals, where Chang Ho Lee, himself an eminently qualified South Korean wrestler who dropped out of college to pursue mixed martial arts just because he was inspired by watching Khabib Nurmagomedov grind people into dirt, has been waiting.
And waiting. And waiting. The Road to UFC 2 finals were originally scheduled for December, but scheduling required they be postponed. The championship matches all went down on a late-night Apex card on February 3--except this one, because Xiao Long couldn't make it. 75% of this tournament has been over for more than a third of a year, and we are only now finally finishing it because it is convenient for the UFC and Xiao Long's schedule.
So let's go with CHANG HO LEE BY DECISION because I hate it when people are late to meetings.