CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 112: UNFINISHED BUSINESS
CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 112: UNFINISHED BUSINESS
UFC 305: du Plessis vs Adesanya
SATURDAY, AUGUST 17 FROM THE RAC ARENA IN PERTH, AUSTRALIA
EARLY PRELIMS 3:30 PM PDT / 6:30 PM EDT | PRELIMS 5 PM / 8 PM | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM
It feels wrong to have an Australian event while knowing Alexander Volkanovski is no longer a world champion. Like going to the corner store with no shoes on. Like looking out your window and seeing a colorless sky. Like releasing a beautiful bird back into the wild and watching it fly into a jet turbine.
He wasn't booked on this card or anything, it just feels wrong.
MAIN EVENT: TRYING TO GET THROUGH THE PRESSERS
MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Dricus du Plessis (21-2, Champion) vs Israel Adesanya (24-3, #2)
Two months ago, we discussed the aggressively silly parallelogram that was top contendership in the Middleweight division. It centered around the idea that the UFC, through its typically weird matchmaking, had created a situation where there were three logical top contenders in Sean Strickland, Robert Whittaker and Jared Cannonier, all of whom had some level of claim on contendership, all of whose claims were complicated by the relationships between them. Sean Strickland was ranked the highest and deservedly so, but he'd also lost to Jared Cannonier; Cannonier's victory over Strickland ranked high, but he'd also been beaten clearly by Robert Whittaker; Whittaker is one of the best contenders in the entire company, but he'd lost to Israel Adesanya and Dricus du Plessis both.
How have things shaped up for our contenders since then? Well,
Sean Strickland, fresh off a win over the 1-for-5 Paulo Costa that was to the Rockettes as Anderson Silva was to Steven Seagal, has pledged to sit inactive and wait for the title shot he feels he richly deserves and will not entertain fights against contenders, including publicly refusing to fight Robert Whittaker on the grounds that Whittaker is beneath him
Robert Whittaker was supposed to fight Khamzat Chimaev, but as he does, Chimaev pulled out at the last minute and was replaced by the massively-heralded Ikram Aliskerov, whom Whittaker effortlessly destroyed in two minutes, and in reflection of his efforts, the UFC rebooked him against Khamzat Chimaev; Chimaev is currently a -140 favorite to win, but is outstripped by -190 favorite "Chimaev pulls out of the fight"
Jared Cannonier faced Nassourdine Imavov in June, and despite leading on two of three scorecards going into the fourth round he visibly fatigued and was stopped in a controversial standing TKO despite his protests that he was upright, alert and fighting back; the UFC, in their ever-present concern, have booked him into a fight with the borderline-ranked Caio Borralho just 77 days after the stoppage
As always: It's not great. But as I said during that aforementioned breakdown:
None of this matters, because despite having not fought since Strickland beat him Israel Adesanya is getting the next shot at the champion.
Fascinatingly, this matchup was a little bit on the horseshit side when the UFC first wanted to book it because Dricus du Plessis didn't really deserve it, and just a year and change later it's a little bit on the horseshit side because Israel Adesanya doesn't really deserve it.
At the time--the initial time--Dricus was on his way up but had yet to establish himself as a top contender. To be honest, most of the world doubted him because we had not yet become accustomed to his 'look awful and somehow win anyway' method of martial artistry. He'd beaten Darren Till, but Till was 1 for his last 5, hadn't looked good in years, and Dricus somehow still dropped a round against him; he'd beaten Derek Brunson, but Brunson had nearly knocked him out AND submitted him in the process. Dricus was unquestionably a good, solid fighter, but his tendency to underperform and his inexplicable ability to look exhausted even when he wasn't led to his persistent underestimation.
But what got him into the contendership conversation wasn't his enigmatic style as a prospect, it was the UFC's favorite thing: Weird fucking bigotry.
Dricus was going to fight Adesanya--not just because he deserved it, but because the UFC was really, really into Dricus deciding to start talking trash about how Israel Adesanya, a Nigerian-born man whose parents moved to New Zealand when he was ten, wasn't a real African. Dricus has criticized the characterization of these comments as inaccurate, and that's true! It would be more accurate to say Dricus said Adesanya, Kamaru Usman and Francis Ngannou weren't real Africans. Not like him and Cameron Saaiman. You know, for reasons. Definitely not racist reasons! Dricus du Plessis is very, very mad you think there's anything at all racist about an Afrikaner calling himself a "real African" in comparison to multiple men born in Ghana and Cameroon.
His fighting got his foot in the door, but it was the Dricus du Plessis African-by-way-of-postal-code public relations tour that got the company to actually open the door for him. There were discussions about setting them up right off the bat, but the company ultimately wanted Dricus to dispose of Robert Whittaker first, and having struggled mightily with the likes of Brad Tavares, Dricus handed Whittaker the most one-sided beating of his entire career, because mixed martial arts, before everything else, is a sport of comedy.
So Dricus got his title shot! And he didn't want it. The UFC gave him the fight on the condition that he be ready to go again in just two months. Dricus told them he needed to rehab and prepare, they told him to pound sand and ultimately booked Sean Strickland in his place instead, which led to the Sean Strickland: World Champion era that blissfully lasted only 132 days before Dricus promptly took the belt away from him.
And now, having taken you through the life and times of Dricus du Plessis, here's a brief overview of the fighting career of Israel Adesanya since he lost his title to Strickland:
Or to put it in video terms, because that's how we appeal to the youths:
Israel has not had a fight in eleven months. Which is fine, because that dude had an absolutely exhausting schedule. His meteoric success and the similarly celestial scale of marketing the UFC put behind him makes it hard to focus on just how wild his short his time on top has really been, but between his UFC debut in February of 2018 and his title loss to Strickland last September, Izzy's fought sixteen times. That's one fight just about every 127 days, maintained for five straight years. That's a preposterous schedule. Almost no one in the sport deserved a year off more than Israel Adesanya, even if he spent it retweeting some of the dumbest transphobic bullshit on the planet as a reminder that our sport is, in fact, still bad.
And, to be certain, the path he blazed through the Middleweight division makes it tougher to deny him the shot. He already beat Jared Cannonier. He already beat Robert Whittaker--twice. Sure, there are your Nassourdine Imavovs and Brendan Allens climbing the ranks, but Imavov wasn't in the top five until just two months ago and even a rankings stickler and/or fetishist like me doesn't think Izzy needs to be fighting the lower ranks of the weight class.
However, all of that being said: He still lost. He didn't even lose a close fight; Strickland damn near shut him out. Adesanya had been knocked out, thanks to Alex Pereira, and he'd certainly lost a decision up a whole weight class against Jan Błachowicz, but he'd never been simply, comprehensively outfought as a Middleweight. It was the first thorough beating he'd ever taken in the octagon.
And then he took a year off.
That's a lot of time for people to marinate on the Strickland fight. Jan may have beaten Izzy, but that was forgivable because he's a bigger, stronger fighter. Pereira may have beaten Izzy, but for one, he's Alex fucking Pereira, and for two, Izzy got him back much worse in their rematch. Strickland was the first person to demonstrate the power of simply putting heavy pressure on Izzy and never, ever letting your foot off the gas. There was nothing unexpected in his approach--it was every Sean Strickland fight you've ever seen--but he performed it so perfectly and unendingly that Izzy simply had no answer.
There were some fans who wrote that off, because, after all, no one else in the division can pull off that kind of endless cardio-boxing high-pressure gameplan.
And then Dricus du Plessis out-pressured Sean Strickland. And now Izzy is coming off a loss and looking more vulnerable than he ever has in his career, and Dricus is the world champion with the undefeated UFC record.
And Izzy is still the betting favorite, because that's how much faith people have in him.
In your mind's eye, it's not hard to see why. In a battle of simple striking technique Izzy takes this fight in a walk. He's got more weapons, he's got cleaner knockouts, his counterstriking is far better. He also struggled mightily with a contender Dricus dusted. He also failed to handle the pressure of a man Dricus bullied around the cage. I was unfathomably frustrated watching Dricus throw the same huge, winging overhand right at Strickland over and over, because he was assuredly wasting so much energy on this giant punch that left him open and never, ever hit the target, except after four and a half rounds not only was he still throwing it just as hard as he had in the first, he had started to land it and Sean couldn't do a damn thing about it.
Hell, the wrestling game of Robert Whittaker got Izzy on the mat and absurdly uncomfortable four separate times in their rematch, and Rob, who has some of the best takedown defense in the entire company, got ragdolled by Dricus on his first try.
I understand why people are picking Izzy here. He looks better, he feels better, and somehow even as a world champion Dricus still looks as though he could keel over from a heart attack at any moment. But past is often prologue, and not only are those big right hands still coming, so are the grinding clinch attacks and a half-dozen takedown attempts. Unless he's spent the past year in the hyperbolic time chamber preparing himself for pressure entirely anew, DRICUS DU PLESSIS BY DECISION feels extremely likely.
CO-MAIN EVENT: EITHER WAY WE WIN
FLYWEIGHT: Kai Kara-France (24-11 (1), #4) vs Steve Erceg (12-2, #7)
Man, the UFC really wants a top Flyweight from the territory.
Kai Kara-France is in an extremely weird spot in the UFC. He first touched base with the company all the way back in 2016 as part of The Ultimate Fighter 24 (jesus christ), but he was ultimately knocked out of the competition. It took another two years to get signed, and just one year later he was in the top ten and on the verge of contendership, but not quite ready for primetime.
And that was four years ago, and he's still fuckin' there.
Kai Kara-France has unquestionably established himself as a force to be reckoned with. One-punch knockout power, solid counter-wrestling and a hard-nosed style that kept him perpetually on offense got him to the big show--but none of it could get him over that last hump to title contention. He got choked out by Brandon Royval, he was beaten on two occasions and knocked out once by Brandon Moreno--even his TUF loss came against now-champion Alexandre Pantoja. But even more appropriately to the absolute weirdness that is his career and his entire weight class, Kai Kara-France does not own a single victory over an active UFC Flyweight. Only one of his UFC victories happened against someone who's still actually with the company, and it's the recently-returned-to-Bantamweight Cody Garbrandt.
Which is a testament to both the recent tumult of the UFC letting go of Flyweight contenders and the recent recurring layoffs for Kai. Since being knocked out by Moreno more than two years ago he's fought exactly once, and it was a split decision loss to Amir Albazi more than fourteen months ago. It was a decision he should almost certainly have won, but a) judges are the bane of everyone's existence, and b) Kai got his own screwy split decision over Raulian Paiva back in 2019 and the wheel turns for us all.
If it seems like I'm spending a lot of works on Kai instead of Steve Erceg, you are correctly perceiving my slight exhaustion with the way the UFC continues to use the man. I like Steve Erceg! I like smart orthodox boxing in MMA and his unflappable attitude makes for some really fun, gutsy performances. He's also one of the only prospects they seem to actively give a shit about.
Like, really. He got into the UFC off the back of beating a 4-1 guy (currently 5-5), he debuted straight into a top ten fight against David Dvořák, he followed it up with a fight against an unranked man and his adjacent rankings partner Matt Schnell, and then, at #10, he fought for the title. And lost! For which he is now ranked #7 and fighting in what could entirely plausibly be a title eliminator. When the UFC is actively cutting higher-ranked contenders from the company for being boring, it starts to grate a little more.
But that grating is not at all helped by the growing rematch situation in the division. Brandon Royval, the #1, would be rematching the champion. If #2 Brandon Moreno gets another shot he would be fighting the champion for the fourth time--and he's already fought Royval twice, too. Amir Albazi at #3 already fought Kai Kara-France, and Kai, at #4, has already fought and lost to all of them.
When Erceg got his title shot I noted that, despite the ladder-jumping, I was just too happy about new blood in the contendership picture to care. And he put up a valiant effort! But his inexperience lost him the fight, and now he's right back in the rematch barrel with everyone else, fighting another top contender to figure out which of them deserves another god damned rematch.
It's a tough pick, too. Kai's the heavier hitter, but Erceg is accurate as hell and more than happy to eat people up with counterpunches when they get overaggressive. Kai's also fighting with the great mystery of the layoff: He hasn't won a fight in almost two and a half years and half that time was spent on the shelf with concussion issues. As always with long layoffs, that could make him a strong, well-rested fighter who's better prepared than he's ever been, or it could make him shaky and uncertain against a killer of an opponent.
Or it could make him charge in to prove himself all over again only to get flattened by a left hook.
After seeing Erceg struggle with Pantoja's pressure I'm choosing to believe in KAI KARA-FRANCE BY DECISION, because the first half of this sentence cloaking itself in analysis was a filthy lie and I just want him to win.
MAIN CARD: THE PRICE OF WRESTLING
LIGHTWEIGHT: Mateusz Gamrot (24-2 (1), #5) vs Dan Hooker (23-12, #11)
On the topic of inexplicably refusing to cultivate your prospects, I give you the case of one Mateusz Gamrot. He's 7-2 in the UFC, his only loss in almost four years came against eternal spoiler Beneil Dariush, he has a crushingly inexhaustible grappling game, an endless gas tank and a willingness to fight absolute monsters like Jalin Turner on almost no notice. He is, in theory, the model of a UFC contender. However: He is a filthy, degenerate wrestler, and therefore, he must be booked backwards. Gamrot came into 2023 ranked #7 and fighting the aforementioned Turner, who was #10. He won, and was rewarded with a real contendership fight against the just-derailed #6, Rafael Fiziev. He won again! And for winning a main event against an opponent with honest-to-god championship relevance, he was busted down to facing the #11-ranked Rafael dos Anjos on the prelims. Not even the prelim headliner: Just prelims. And now he's facing Dan Hooker, the new #11, who got that ranking by defeating...Jalin Turner, four months after Gamrot already beat him. Gamrot is an honest-to-god championship prospect with a victory over the current #1 contender, and they have him treading water for his life.
Which is in part because just as much as the UFC does not like Mateusz Gamrot, they fucking love Dan Hooker. If Gamrot is the theoretical ideal of what the UFC should want, Hooker is the actual reality: He's been around forever, he takes any fight you give him, he fights with such a focus on offense that his defense hasn't enormously improved after more than a decade of UFC competition, and he is contractually obligated to have a newer, weirder tattoo every time you see him. This has, collectively, been half of what's kept Dan Hooker at the big show for so long; the other half is being ridiculously tough. Anyone who was watching back in 2018 remembers the outright uncomfortable beating Edson Barboza laid on him, but he kept going until his body simply gave out, and that toughness ultimately won him that Jalin Turner fight last year, because he was getting the absolute shit kicked out of him for the first round and a half, and it was only by absorbing Turner's best shots, staying upright and making him pay that he ultimately wore Jalin down and squeezed out a decision. He's a fantastic brawler and he's great at working behind long strikes and his absolute refusal to die makes him incredibly tough to truly knock off the rankings.
But he's stayed mostly at their periphery for a reason. He could barely handle Paul Felder, and every top contender he's dealt with has beaten him--most of them handily. Michael Chandler, Islam Makhachev and Arnold Allen all stopped him in a single round, and at a certain point, it's hard not to hang the terrible title of Gatekeeper around Dan Hooker's neck. Gamrot's not in for an easy night here: He hasn't exhibited the outright stopping power or the terrifying submission game those other top talents have, meaning unless he pulls a rabbit out of his hat, he's going to have to outwork Hooker while avoiding all those dangerous distance strikes and clinch elbows he uses to tear people apart. I'm still leaning towards MATEUSZ GAMROT BY DECISION, but like most of his wins, I don't think it'll be easy or pretty.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Tai Tuivasa (14-7, #10) vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik (14-5, #12)
Oh, Tai, how far you have fallen. It was less than two years ago that Tai was the #3 Heavyweight in the UFC and fighting Ciryl Gane to determine who would be the one to face Jon fucking Jones for the Heavyweight championship of the world. And he almost won! It's hard to remember now, but Tai Tuivasa almost knocked out Ciryl Gane in the middle of Paris! Instead, he is on a four-fight losing streak that has seen him just getting brutally finished over and over and over. Gane beat him half to death, Sergei Pavlovich exploded his face in under a minute, Alexander Volkov and Marcin Tybura choked him out by daring to grapple him, and all the while, all anyone wants is to see Tai knock a man out with a looping left and drink lukewarm beer out of a sweat-soaked shoe, but that simply wasn't what the world had in store for him. It's not the first losing streak of his career, but it is the worst.
In some ways, Jairzinho Rozenstruik isn't all that different. He was a top contender who got violently ejected from contendership in his own title eliminator thanks to Francis Ngannou; he too, got comprehensively outfought by Ciryl Gane. Tai and Jai even both got themselves back into contendership position by destroying Augusto Sakai--Rozenstruik just did it twenty-seven seconds faster. He's also fallen victim to the wrestlers and grapplers of the division; he's also been cruelly defeated by Alexander Volkov. The air at Heavyweight is not so thick that fighters cannot be defeated in the same circles. But Rozenstruik has had the advantage of fighting his way up from the bottom of the division. Where Tai has been tumbling down the ladder, Jairzinho had the opportunity to blast Chris Daukaus upside the head and gas out Shamil Gaziev between his losses, which grants him just the slightest bit of betting upside here.
And, look: It's Tai Tuivasa. He can melt anyone if he connects with a good shot. Gane barely got out of their fight with his head attached to his shoulders. Unlike a Volkov or Gane, Jairzinho is not light on his feet or evasive, he's not going to kite Tai around and pick him apart. But he delivers more power than either man, and his striking is clean enough to make Tai regret his usual tactic of tanking damage with his face. Eventually: JAIRZINHO ROZENTRUIK BY TKO.
WELTERWEIGHT: Li Jingliang (19-8) vs Carlos Prates (19-6)
I swear, there are few men in this sport more shat upon by fate than poor Li Jingliang. Every time he starts to gain momentum, something punts him right back down the card. The last time we saw "The Leech" he had come back from getting crushed by Khamzat Chimaev, knocked out Muslim Salikhov, gotten himself ranked, and was eying the highest-profile fight of his career in a big fight against the ghost of Tony Ferguson on a Nate Diaz pay-per-view. He even bought an awesome suit! He was so proud of that suit! And then Chimaev ruined his career again by blowing weight so badly the entire card had to be shuffled, and instead of a gimme fight and a near-guaranteed win against a star, Li was fighting Daniel Rodriguez. And he won--but, as always, only in the eyes of everyone but the judges. He lost his big fight and then he lost a hugely questionable decision, and he was denied the chance to come back when he herniated discs in his spine and had to go on the shelf before he broke his damn neck.
And now it's almost two years later, he's unranked, and he's an underdog to young, hungry Contender Series prospects. Li is in his eleventh year of toiling for his spot in the UFC: Carlos "The Nightmare" Prates got here eleven months ago and he already has a shot at it. Prates is yet another Fighting Nerds project, the same camp that's gotten Caio Borralho, Jean Silva and Mauricio Ruffy into solid spots in the company, but where their approaches tend to be a little more multifaceted, Prates is here primarily to punch people in the face. His position owes largely to the eight-fight knockout streak he's managed to carry into the UFC with him, which was, admittedly, aided by having him fight the repeatedly-dropped Trevin Giles in his first UFC fight. We in fact just saw Prates two months ago when he destroyed Charlie "Chuck Buffalo" Radtke's liver with a particularly horrifying knee.
But there's a commonality in both fights: Prates was losing most of them. Giles gave him hell for the first round of their battle and Prates was getting his head repeatedly snapped back by Radtke. Of course, that only matters inasmuch as it mildly annoyed him before he brutally destroyed both men, but Li hits like a goddamn truck and he's very good at sneaking punches into clinch range. But this is also a Li who is coming back from, y'know, horrifying spine injuries and almost two full years of inactivity. As always, I have no idea if he's the same fighter, and I doubt he does, either. But I believe in The Leech. LI JINGLIANG BY TKO.
PRELIMS: LITTLE BROTHER BATTLE
HEAVYWEIGHT: Junior Tafa (5-2) vs Valter Walker (11-1)
There are certain matches that you know were put together not for sake of rankings or marketing, but because someone in management went 'Hey, you know what would be really fucking funny?' and everyone just agreed. Junior Tafa and Valter Walker are the younger brothers of more successful UFC veterans in Justin Tafa and Johnny Walker, and that is the whole of their identity in the global market. If this sounds like I am being disrespectful to two fighters with preexisting bodies of work, it's because I am, but in my defense, those bodies of work are hilarious. Junior was signed to the UFC as a 4-0 fighter whose best win came against former sumo Tsuyoshi Sudario, arguably Japan's best Heavyweight mixed martial artist, which is roughly equivalent to being the strongest goldfish at a Petco. Valter came in at a much more impressive 11-0, but the best win of said 11 was Alex "The Spartan" Nicholson, best known for accruing a losing UFC record...at Middleweight. In four attempts at the UFC, the one and only organizational win between both men is my good buddy Parker Porter, who was, respectfully, not that great. Junior just ate a leg kick TKO against Marcos Rogério de Lima six months ago; Valter only made his debut four months ago, where he somehow managed to lose a decision to Łukasz Brzeski, making him Brzeski's only success in the UFC after five attempts.
This is silly as hell, but there's a good chance it won't even be that fun. Junior's already kind of underperformed, Valter barely managed ten strikes a round and spent the whole fight shooting bad clinch takedowns instead. Between them I'll go with VALTER WALKER BY DECISION, but I am casting stones into a dry well.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Josh Culibao (11-3-1) vs Ricardo Ramos (16-6)
I hold both of these fighters in very high esteem, and boy, it hurts to see them in this kind of position. Josh Culibao has been a prospect on the verge of breaking out for years, but after getting resoundingly beaten by the nearing-contendership Lerone Murphy and just barely losing a split decision to a Contender Series prospect in Danny Silva (who missed weight, just to rub salt in the wound), Josh is all the way at the back of the line again. He's still a great, multifaceted fighter with some fantastic instincts, but he simply hasn't been able to put those facets together. Ricardo Ramos is a considerably tougher story. Once upon a time Ramos was one of the single most promising talents at the weight class, and as recently as 2022, a lot of folks saw him as a potential contender. But they thought that in 2021, and 2020, and 2019, and each time he managed to zig where he should have zagged. And now, at the ancient age of 29, folks are wondering if he's done. He lost most of his 2022 to injury, he blew his early 2023 comeback after missing weight by an entire weight class, when he finally re-emerged in September he looked terrible, went 0 for 10 on strikes and got choked out in three minutes, and after half a year to collect himself and remind the world why it had expectations of him in the first place, he returned this past March and got choked out in two minutes.
I am on the record as a big Ricardo Ramos fan, but I'm also on the record as getting progressively more pessimistic with each new fight. I still want to believe, but it seems like things have just gone very, very wrong in his camp, and unless he can show me something to avert the trajectory he's on, I just don't see things improving. JOSH CULIBAO BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Casey O'Neill (9-2, #15) vs Luana Santos (8-1, NR)
Casey O'Neill has come down quite aways. The UFC penned "King" in as a big potential UK star for them (and to any Scottish readers, I apologize for lumping you in with the UK) thanks to her powerful wrestling and her crushing top game, to the point that they fed the universally beloved Roxanne Modafferi to O'Neill in her retirement fight, which essentially made O'Neill. She was ranked, she was undefeated, she'd just conquered a star, the world was hers! Which, as you have already gathered from the way there are really only three or four stories I find myself telling you over and goddamn over again, means she hasn't won a fight since. She's been repeatedly injured, and between those injuries she was outboxed by Jennifer Maia and submitted by Ariane Lipski, meaning she's gone from an undefeated title prospect to a two-fight losing streak, and that's when the UFC's faith begins to waver. Which is why she's fighting Luana Santos, who the UFC likes so much as a stoppage-friendly women's prospect that this is her fourth fight in the company and she has yet to fight anyone coming off a win. She's also the kind of company woman who'll step into a fight like this on short notice despite having just fought one month ago. But Tereza Bledá couldn't make it, and what's one more fighter on a losing streak under your belt?
That said, I'm going with the upset here. Santos is a heavy hitter and by no means a slouch on the ground, but she also struggled with Stephanie Egger's takedowns. Casey's a technically better and more physically imposing wrestler, and as solid as Santos is, I sense a grinding, grappling decision in the wind. CASEY O'NEILL BY DECISION.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Jack Jenkins (12-3) vs Herbert Burns (11-5)
I'm not big on gambling--probably helped in large part by living in a state where most of it is illegal--but I do think betting odds can be a great shorthand for expressing just how intentionally slanted matchmaking can be. In this case, Jack Jenkins is currently a -550 favorite to win this fight, and yeah, that sounds just about right. Jenkins was another big Australian prospect the UFC saw money in, a solid all-around fighter with a great chin and some absolutely devastating leg kicks who punched his way through the Contender Series and nearly crippled poor Don Shainis in his UFC debut. The UFC tried to tee him up with talented-but-unthreatening journeyman Jamall Emmers, and, as happens so fucking often, he pretty visibly lost the fight but won what ultimately took third place on the Worst Decisions of 2023 list. And then Chepe Mariscal broke his goddamn arm. To their credit, the UFC wanted Jenkins to fight Gavin Tucker here, which would have been a very fairly-made matchup. But when Tucker pulled out two weeks ago, Herbert Burns stepped up, and the entire world winced in unison. Herbert, brother of Gilbert, is unquestionably talented. His groundwork is fantastic and his attacks in the clinch have been devastating. But, much like the aforementioned Ricardo Ramos, something seems to have gone permanently wrong in his career. In 2020 he missed weight--badly--and got mauled by Daniel Pineda, which sent him to the shelf for two years. He came back and nearly submitted Bill Algeo only to get beaten into the incredibly rare TKO (Exhaustion) finish just two minutes into the second round. Another year and a half on the shelf, another proffered comeback, and this time he didn't even have a solid first round; he lost a point for repeatedly hitting Julio Arce in the dick and then got knocked out, once again, two minutes into the second round.
I don't like wanting fighters to retire, but over his last two fights watching Herbert Burns has become outright uncomfortable. It's not just the losses, it's the way he doesn't seem to chain his own attacks together anymore. Wild flying knees, looping punches that are nowhere near the mark, takedown attempts with no chance of succeeding--some foundational piece of his style seems to have vanished. Maybe it's athleticism as he ages past his mid-thirties, maybe it's self-confidence now that he's lost so badly, maybe it's all simply been bad luck and he's going to ragdoll Jenkins with a left hook in seven seconds. But JACK JENKINS BY TKO feels almost unavoidable here, and I really don't want to see it.
EARLY PRELIMS: THE LINE PROBABLY GOES HERE
LIGHTWEIGHT: Tom Nolan (7-1) vs Alex Reyes (13-4)
Speaking of fights I don't want to see! Christ alive. Let me take you back to last September.
First off, Alex Reyes has been signed to the UFC since 2017: This will be his second-ever UFC fight. He came in as a late injury replacement for Thiago Alves, got his face kneed off by Mike Perry in seventy-nine seconds, and up until this weekend, that was his entire UFC career. Seventy-nine seconds in two thousand, one hundred and ninety-one days. Alex Reyes's hiatus from the sport is, at this point, 1/3 the length of his entire tenure as a professional fighter.
Unsurprisingly, the Thirty-Six Year Old Who Hasn't Fought Since 2017 vs Contender Series Knockout Guy fight didn't go Alex's way: Charlie Campbell nuked him in three and a half minutes. Equally unsurprisingly, the UFC has elected to follow up his two-fight, seven-year knockout-loss streak by giving him another, newer, bigger Contender Series Knockout Guy. Tom "Big Train" Nolan was last seen destroying Victor Martinez in one round. If Jack Jenkins being a -550 favorite wasn't enough of a hilariously obvious example of matchmaking for you, Tom Nolan is -1100. You win no points if you guess what country he happens to be from.
I cannot imagine how frustrating life must be for Alex Reyes. I cannot imagine what it's like to get signed to the UFC as an honest to god Lightweight prospect on a nine-year winning streak, get knocked out once, and lose the entirety of your athletic prime to injuries, COVID and just plain bad fucking luck. But you are closing in on forty, the UFC isn't doing you a single matchmaking favor, it is only getting colder outside and the wolves are near. I would absolutely love a Cinderella story upset here, but TOM NOLAN BY TKO is the ending they've actually written.
WELTERWEIGHT: Kenan Song (21-8) vs Ricky Glenn (22-8-2)
For at least one of these men, this is probably a fighting-for-your-job situation. One and a half years ago Kenan Song was the borderline-ranked Welterweight the UFC used to get Ian Machado Garry into the credible-contender zone, and Song, ever the overachiever, actually floored Garry in the first round and almost averted the Future-shaped future we are now inevitably barreling towards before it could start. But the moment passed, Garry took over, and Song ate his second TKO in as many fights, and life since has been unkind. He got an upset victory over the extremely game Rolando Bedoya, but Kevin Jousset sent him right back to the red just a few months later, and for all of Kenan's hard-punching style, he just hasn't been able to put his power together in more than four years. Milwaukee's own Ricky Glenn, after eight years with the UFC, is trying to avert a skid by moving up in weight for the second time in his career. Back in 2021 Glenn left the Featherweight division behind thanks to several losses and a botched weight cut, and a flash knockout over Joaquim Silva seemed to herald good things at his new home, but all he managed to follow up with was a draw against Grant Dawson and two straight first-round knockout losses. Glenn's been realistic about his future: He's 35, he's already 32 fights deep into his career, he knows he doesn't have much tread left on the tires. So he's hoping popping up to Welterweight will give him a healthier body and a renewed chance at making his mark on the sport.
I love the attitude. I love the mindset. I still think KENAN SONG BY TKO is a lot more likely. Song may not have put the power together against Jousset, but it's still there, and as much as I like giving up on a bad weight cut, the weight cut isn't leading you facefirst into left hooks.
FLYWEIGHT: Stewart Nicoll (8-0) vs Jesus Aguilar (10-2)
I strive to be honest in my writing, and I'm going to be honest here. I've watched Stewart Nicoll fight tape in preparation for his debut, and I have taken note of his exhausting wrestling game and the way he likes to pop out leg kicks while fading back. I've refreshed myself on all three of Jesus Aguilar's UFC fights, I think the last one was an absolute coinflip, and I have remembered his Wanderlei Silva jumping-hooks tribute act. But nothing in my research has meant as much to me as the fact that Nicoll's first professional fight came against a man named Darren Habben. Every once in awhile an MMA name will simply stick itself in my brain, and I will be unable to stop thinking about it, and while doing dishes and bringing the cats back from the vet I found myself just sounding out the phrase 'Dar-ren Hab-ben' repeatedly, as though some new rhythmic incantation of the syllables would somehow change the experience of saying it. Darren quit after that one professional fight, and I hope, one day, he finds his way back to us.
Meanwhile, STEWART NICOLL BY DECISION.