CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 114: LOSING FOCUS

UFC Fight Night: Burns vs Brady

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7 FROM THE FESTERING HOLLOWS OF THE APEX
PRELIMS 1 PM PDT / 4 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM

Y'know what? This is a good card. It's a good card! It's not great, and the Apex continues to be a terrible hole in the Earth, and some of the matchmaking is, as always, wonky, but there are a few really well-matched fights on this card and a few all-action affairs and by god, it could be worse.

Which is good, because I am, admittedly, writing this while also packing everything up and getting the hell out of my house. If it seems a little phoned in, it probably is, for which I can only send my deepest apologies to Dylan Budka.

like, it's not high art, but it's fine.

MAIN EVENT: THOSE CONTENDERSHIP VORTEX BLUES
WELTERWEIGHT: Gilbert Burns (22-7, #6) vs Sean Brady (16-1, #8)

Being simultaneously in the top ten and ruled out of contendership is a real bummer, and these men have inarguably earned both.

Gilbert Burns, in particular, has spent four years hovering around the top of the Welterweight division. The apex of his career saw him challenging Kamaru Usman and coming just inches away from knocking him out and taking a world championship home with him, because, as it turns out, being both a killer grappler and a power puncher is an awful hard combination to beat--for awhile. Since that title shot Burns is 3-3, and as a Gilbert Burns fan, the most frustrating part of that 50/50 streak is how close it is to being 5-1. He almost knocked out Khamzat Chimaev! But he didn't. He was a minute away from a decision victory over Jack Della Maddalena! But he got pounded out. The competition's improved, and Gil just turned 38, and time is not on his side.

Sean Brady, comparatively-speaking, is still the new kid on the block, and given that he's about to hit five years in the company that's more of a testament to Gil's longevity than Sean's youth. Brady came in as an undefeated superprospect out of the Cage Fury Fighting Championships: A killer wrestleboxing athlete with a hell of a chin, a great submission game and the kind of pressure-heavy confidence that comes from having never once lost a fight. That confidence pushed him through the UFC's ranks, and as the UFC threw prospects like Jake Matthews and Michael Chiesa at him, he carved through them with relative ease. Even when picked for Kelvin Gastelum's long-belated return to 170 pounds, Brady fulfilled his spoiler role, controlled him and tapped him out.

But there is an elephant in the room: Both men very recently got dominated by newly-crowned champion Belal Muhammad as part of his endless march to the throne.

Gilbert Burns has a little bit of wiggle room. His mid-2023 fight with Belal was an old-fashioned UFC screwjob special, a #1 contendership bout (which wound up not, in fact, getting either man #1 contendership) made on just three weeks' notice as a five-round co-main event. Absolute peak horseshit. And half-prepared and rolling off the couch, Burns won a round! But it was only one round, and even that was only on two scorecards, and Belal not only had equally short notice but had to fight with one functioning leg.

Sean Brady can't even say that. Theirs was a regularly-scheduled full-camp preliminary bout (PRELIMINARY FUCKING BOUT) in October of 2022, and to Brady's credit, the first round was actually slightly competitive! The second round was not. Belal battered Brady and ultimately notched not just a standing TKO, but his first knockout victory in more than six years. Brady protested, but having gone back to count them I will say if you eat 41 unanswered punches in a row, as a general rule, you should probably call it a night.

This is, of course, not actually a problem for a healthy division. It's actually deeply necessary to have temporarily embarrassed contenders: It gives your young, up-and-coming fighters a way to climb the ladder. But, for once, the UFC's already tried to do that. Gil dealt with Khamzat, Maddalena, even Neil Magny, and came out roughly even. Sean Brady got matched up with Maddalena and Michel Pereira and even Vicente Luque; the first two fights fell through thanks to Brady's bad medical luck and the third fell through when it turned out the UFC announced it without bothering to actually sign the contracts first. Attempts have been made to get both to help raise the next generation of contenders, and those attempts, for the most part, have been varyingly unsuccessful.

So you get them to beat the crap out of each other, because fuck, man, what else can you do with them?

It's not a bad fight, but it is a slightly perplexing one. We've already seen Brady get volume-punched into oblivion by Belal, but Burns doesn't really hit for volume, he hits for murder. But he throws big, sweeping shots, which Brady's quicker jabs and hooks could consistently intercept. Burns also uses his wrestling as both an offensive weapon and a threat to distract people from his hands, but Brady, while almost certainly no submission threat to Gilbert, is an extremely defensively solid grappler who is unlikely to get frazzled by the Big Burns Power Double.

But Brady's offensive weapons are equally problematic. He's never been a big knockout striker, he hasn't demonstrated the power and accuracy of an Usman or Maddalena, and barring Burns falling into a guillotine, his most plausible path to victory is a decision. In a five-round main event he's got a cardio advantage over Burns, but that's also going to require multiple rounds of not eating a haymaker across the temple and dying.

I dunno, man. Like all good fights, it's a tough call. Burns is an underdog and I understand why--he's lost a fair amount recently and we just saw him get knocked out six months ago--and he is, unfortunately, getting old. But he hasn't looked lost in a fight in years, and as much as I like the tight, grinding orthodoxy of Brady's fighting style, I'm just not quite done believing in Burns yet. GILBERT BURNS BY TKO. Why not.

CO-MAIN EVENT: NEW MACHINERY
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Jéssica Andrade (26-12, #6) vs Natália Silva (17-5-1, #8)

Boy, this is difficult for me. I've been a Jéssica Andrade fan for more than a decade, at this point. She is one of the baddest motherfuckers in the history of the sport. She's a 115-pound champion with canonical victories over the sport's current #1 women at 135, 145 and 155. She punched out Mackenzie Dern, choked Amanda Lemos out without leaving her feet and won a world title by simply lifting a woman and throwing her down on her spine. She fought five times in 2023 and not only lost but got stopped in 3/4 of them and she's still ranked in the top ten in two different weight classes because the UFC doesn't do a great job with their women's rostersshe's just so goddamn cool.

But she's also starting to look a little predictable. The Jéssica Andrade gameplan has been around for a long time, and it really hasn't changed much: Walk your opponent down, wing punches at their head and occasionally abdomen, and if you get the chance, squeeze their neck off. It's solid! It's reliable! And it's been repeatedly countered in recent years. Xiaonan Yan outpowered Andrade, Tatiana Suarez and Erin Blanchfield outgrappled her, and Marina Rodriguez and her mobility came real, real close to winning a split decision against her.

And that's why Natália Silva is damn near a -300 favorite against a first-ballot hall of famer like Andrade. Silva's been getting tested on her way up the UFC's ladder, and she's passed each successive test with flying colors. Dominating Jasmine Jasudavicius and kicking the heads off Tereza Bledá and Victoria Leonardo were fine and good, but Andrea Lee is an insanely tough opponent who arguably should've been the #1 contender just a few years ago, and Silva controlled her on the feet and shut her out completely. Silva's last fight against Viviane Araujo this past February was equally impressive--particularly in making a grappler like Viviane go 1 for 9 on takedowns.

But they were, still, slightly damaged goods. However great Andrea Lee's skills are, she was on a two-fight losing streak. However dangerous Viviane Araujo may be, she was 1 for her last 3. Silva has done fantastic work getting herself to this point, and the UFC has guided her growth very carefully, but there's nothing but killers* left above her in the rankings. It's all tough work from here on out, and as great as Silva has proven herself to be, everyone left ahead of her is fully capable of destroying her.
_{*except Katlyn Cerminara, whom I have almost immeasurable respect for as a fighter but she's objectively less into killing people and more into making them too uncomfortable to win}

Which is almost redundant when you're talking about Jéssica Andrade. She can destroy anyone. And, as much as I have enjoyed Silva's rise up the ranks, I would love to see Andrade land one more giant knockout punch and make one more run at a title. But we've seen her struggles with mobility and versatility, and Silva's proven more than capable of both. Her speed, her footwork, her multitude of kicks and her ability to deny grappling attacks are going to do a lot to defuse Andrade, and on a long enough timeframe, I think she gets picked apart. NATÁLIA SILVA BY DECISION.

MAIN CARD: LUNCHBOX HANDS
FEATHERWEIGHT: Steve Garcia (16-5) vs Kyle Nelson (16-5-1)

Steve Garcia is the man who makes me a hypocrite. I spend so much of my adult life bemoaning the stand-and-bang monsters of the Contender Series and their role in gradually harming the sport, but Steve Garcia is a Contenderman, and Steve Garcia fights on a singular continuum of Punching You, and by god, I cannot help but appreciate him. When I was young and even more pretentious than I am now I listened to a lot of older music to feel cooler than I was, and try as I might to be a Sam Cooke velvety-smooth guy or a Lou Reed songwriting guy, in my heart, I loved Percy Sledge. His voice wasn't as nice, his technique wasn't as good and he couldn't dance a step, but he sang like his entire body was on fire and only belting would put it out, and that level of whole-ass commitment made him my favorite. Steve Garcia does not punch people as good as Percy Sledge sings, but he commits to every punch he throws, even when he probably shouldn't, and at some level, I cannot help but appreciate the martial honesty.

But, boy, Kyle Nelson. The difference a year makes in this sport never stops being wild. In June of 2023 Nelson hadn't won a fight in nearly four years, had just gotten crushed twice in a row, and was kept from the contract-threatening threepeat solely by a point-deduction draw with Doo Ho Choi that Dana White complained about loudly because they wanted Choi to win and they wanted to stop paying the weird Canadian guy money. One year later, Nelson is on a three-fight winning streak that included becoming the first man to ever knock out the absurdly tough Bill Algeo. Nelson was actually scheduled to test the top ten against Calvin Kattar here, but then something undisclosed happened and now it's Steve Garcia instead, which is considerably less helpful for your career advancement but is, instead, a hell of a fight. Nelson's shoring up of his defense and his newfound focus on stringing counters and combinations together has really worked out wonderfully for him.

Much less wonderfully for me, unfortunately, the Steve Garcia Fan. As much as I would love to see his ascent continue, Nelson's been real good at turning aggression against his opponents, and aggression is the main component of Steve's soul. KYLE NELSON BY TKO.

FLYWEIGHT: Matt Schnell (16-8 (1), #11) vs Alessandro Costa (14-4, NR)Cody Durden (16-6-1, #15)

Matt Schnell is having a really, really bad time. Over the last three years and five fights of his career, he has:

• Gotten beat by Rogério Bontorin only for the fight to get expunged thanks to drugs

• Been choked out in two minutes by Brandon Royval

• Beat Sumudaerji!

• Immediately gotten punched out by Matheus Nicolau

• Immediately gotten punched out way worse by Steve Erceg

It's rough. It's rough! And that's not even touching the six cancelled fights he's had in that time. It's not an easy life, it's not a great run, and after an eight-year run that started all the way back on The Ultimate Fighter 24 (jesus christ) he's dangerously close to slipping out of the company.

Which is why he's fighting Alessandro Costa, the UFC's favorite yo-yo. Costa's all-action, punches-in-bunches style made him an immediate favorite for the matchmaking department, and that favoritism has exhibited itself in an incredible pendulum swing of opponents. Debut on short notice against Amir Albazi, arguably Flyweight's current top contender, and lose; follow it by beating up a just-unretired Jimmy Flick coming off a knockout loss. Get fucked up by the newly-ranked Steve Erceg; pound out the 0-1 Kevin Borjas.

This pattern is built to repeat, over and over, until Costa is either in the rankings or they're tired of him. Schnell just seems to be on his way out; the speed isn't there the way it used to be and he's been eating a whole mess of punches lately, and as a big, messy puncher, Costa's going to make sure he gets them again. ALESSANDRO COSTA BY TKO.

BREAKING NEWS. What was I just saying about Schnell's luck? Alessandro Costa was pulled from the fight midway through the week, and in his place is good ol' Cody Durden, whose brief period of looking like a potential contender came to an unfortunate end over the last year after getting completely worked by Tagir Ulanbekov and Bruno Silva. He is happy to have signed a new four-fight deal on the strength of taking this last-minute replacement bout, and I hope it works out for him, because a four-fight deal doesn't mean much if you lose three times in a row and get cut anyway. On a full fight camp I think Durden's wrestleboxing would be a tough test for Schnell, but I have a bad feeling this time. MATT SCHNELL BY SUBMISSION.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Trevor Peek (9-2 (1)) vs Yanal Ashmouz (7-1)

I have a terrible confession: I think I have fallen from the Trevor Peek train. Back in early 2023 I, as with everyone else, learned to love Trevor Peek, the man who fought as though all of MMA's evolution across the last twenty years was a lie and only Todd Duffee knew the correct way to throw a punch: A full-arm swing, with your fist connected to your wrist by only hopes, prayers and anger. Peek promised a new era of aggressively silly violence and even my cold, icy heart was melted by his caveman ways. And then he wrestled and lost a bunch. He abandoned his principles and suffered for his cowardice.

And in his place we have Yanal Ashmouz, who spoiled the UFC debut of a huge and hugely-hyped Contender Series product by knocking him the fuck out despite operating at a half-foot height disadvantage. His comeback in July of 2023 against Chris Duncan was less successful, but that was in large part because he broke his goddamn arm in the first round and spent two-thirds of the bout fighting with half his torso out of commission. Ridiculously tough? Absolutely! An example of exactly how irresponsible our sport's standards are in that his corner didn't stop the fucking fight? You know it.

But I just cannot in good conscience support Trevor Peek now that he has deviated from the old ways. Find your way back home through violence, Trevor. YANAL ASHMOUZ BY DECISION.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Rongzhu (25-5) vs Chris Padilla (14-6)

This is a long-awaited return for Rongzhu. As one of China's top Lightweights, he got signed to the UFC in the fading yesteryear of 2021 with grand plans of achieving legend as an international champion. He, of course, instead got released in less than a year after going 1-2 and missing weight twice in a row. It took all of one victory to get invited back--sort of. He participated in the second season of the Road to UFC tournament, he won fairly easily, and after multiple months of delay he won his contract back after choking out Shin Haraguchi this past February. So it's time for a second chance!

His second chance, however, runs solely through the man they call Taco. I had no faith whatsoever in Chris Padilla when he debuted this past April. It was a last-minute replacement fight, he was taking on a seasoned striker in James Llontop, and in his regional footage, Padilla was notable mostly for being very tough and getting hit more than you'd want him to. I was, of course, wrong. Padilla proved he was smart enough to take the striker down and choke him out rather than dealing with any of his 'hitting you' bullshit.

My deep admiration goes to the man for his ability to do the right thing. I, however, cannot learn from my mistakes. RONGZHU BY TKO.

PRELIMS: WE'RE SPANNING TIME
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Ryan Spann (21-10) vs Ovince St. Preux (27-17)

I don't know, man. What do you want me to say? What can I say? What can anyone possibly say? It's Ryan Spann, who somehow simultaneously has a definitive knockout victory over a top 15 opponent yet remains on a three-fight losing streak and looks nigh-unto done, and it's OSP, who has been fighting since Space Ghost Coast to Coast was still being made and hasn't managed back-to-back victories since 2017, and even then it was only because said victories were bridged together by a bout with Yushin Okami, the third-most promising Middleweight contender of 2006. It's 2024 and this is a borderline-ranked fight between a competitor with two 2020s losses to Anthony Smith and a seventy-two year-old man and whoever wins has the honor of getting to fight Alonzo Menifield or Dustin Jacoby while the cells in our skin slowly break down and slough away in a desperate attempt to escape the horrors of the Light Heavyweight division.

I flipped a coin and it fell into a crack in the Earth rather than render judgment on the death of meaning. RYAN SPANN BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Isaac Dulgarian (6-1) vs Brendon Marotte (8-2)

Isaac Dulgarian is a -2500 favorite to win this fight. Isaac Dulgarian is 1-1 in the UFC. Brendon Marotte is a +1050 underdog to lose this fight. Brendon Marotte is 0-1 in the UFC. You may wonder what it is that could happen in just three total fights to create such an enormous odds disparity, and the answer is simple: Dulgarian knocked the fuck out of Francis Marshall and lost a dodgy split decision to Christian Rodriguez that he probably should have won, and Marotte, in his sole appearance, got knocked out by Terrance McKinney in twenty seconds. Readers with solid memories will recall all of one month ago when I discussed Mohammad Yahya, the UAE Warrior, who pretty blatantly did not belong in the UFC and kept getting invited back solely to please their UAE investors. The company thinks so little of Brendon Marotte that they picked him, out of all the fighters on the roster, as someone who could realistically lose to Yahya, and we would have found out if injuries hadn't ruined science.

Sometimes the odds are wrong. This is almost certainly not one of those times. ISAAC DULGARIAN BY TKO.

FLYWEIGHT: Felipe dos Santos (8-1 (1)) vs André Lima (9-0)

This is the collision of a weird pair of careers. Felipe was supposed to fight on the Contender Series last Summer, found his matches getting repeatedly cancelled, and was simply signed to the UFC itself--as a last-minute fill-in against Manel Kape, one of the best Flyweights in the world. He put up a solid fight but was pretty clearly outmatched, which made it all the more unfortunate when he followed it up by just barely scraping a split decision off the particularly less successful Victor Altamirano. That weirdness has nothing on André Lima, who infamously won his UFC debut by DQ after his opponent bit him so hard it left a full dental imprint that he proceeded to turn into a tattoo. This lent him an awful lot of good will! He immediately spent it on a botched weight cut that saw him blow the Flyweight limit by five pounds. On the plus side, he won anyway! But it was a split decision.

Probably shouldn't have been, though. Lima demonstrated some great range control and well-seasoned patience; I am simply not sold on dos Santos being bale to shake him. ANDRÉ LIMA BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Yi Zha (25-4) vs Gabriel Santos (10-2)

Yi Zha does not want to leave again. Yi made it all the way to the finals of the inaugural Road to UFC tournament in 2022 only to find himself narrowly defeated by Jeong Yeong Lee thanks to a close split decision and a questionable refereeing job. Yi went right back to the well, returned in Road to UFC 2, and this time he won his damned contract and is, finally, signed to the UFC roster proper. His prize: A fight with Gabriel Santos, the man who arguably got robbed of a split decision victory over the undefeated top-fifteen contender Lerone Murphy. It was some real bullshit! But people stopped caring after his next fight saw David Onama knock him out, because the fandom doesn't have the emotional bandwidth to care past your last fight.

Zha's fast and multi-talented as hell, and Santos is a more winnable fight than people seem to think, but I do agree it's an uphill battle. GABRIEL SANTOS BY TKO.

WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Jacqueline Amorim (8-1) vs Vanessa Demopoulos (11-5)

Vanessa Demopoulos has internalized the reality of judges preferring moving aggressively forward to effectively defeating people, and she is smarter than all of us for it. Three times now Vanessa has been visibly outfought by opponents--Jinh Yu Frey, Kanako Murata, and most recently, Emily Ducote--and three times the media scorecards have tipped almost unanimously towards said opponents, and three times the judges have sided gleefully with Vanessa anyway. It's tough, after a certain point, not to hold this against a fighter. Before he was knocking people stupid as a greatest-ever hall-of-famer, the internet called him "Decision" Dan Henderson because they were mad he beat Ninja Rua. You can't fix the judges, but by god, you can get mad at the person who benefits. It's not her fault! It's not! All Vanessa is doing is fighting to her strengths and exploiting a strategy that seems to make judges see more in her offense than they probably should.

But Jacqueline is here to be the hand of justice. JACQUELINE AMORIM BY DECISION.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Andre Petroski (11-3) vs Dylan Budka (7-3)

If Jacqueline Amorim is the hand of justice, Andre Petroski is the fist of vengeance. Petroski has, at least, beaten a couple of decent fighters. Dylan Budka made his UFC debut against a 4-0 striker with barely any mixed martial arts experience, failed to effectively grapple him, gassed out in a round and a half and was ultimately knocked out. I picked him because I like to believe people with some level of rounded grappling experience are capable of defeating the more one-dimensional rookies of the world, because my analysis is paper-thin and in truth exists only to justify my completely irrational beliefs about the sport that exist primarily as cover for what I want to see happen, which means my disappointment is entirely earned and my devastation is self-inflicted.

But Dylan Budka is the face of the destroyer I created, and I would see him undone. ANDRE PETROSKI BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Zygimantas Ramaska (9-2) vs Nathan Fletcher (8-1)

This fight was supposed to happen at the Cannonier/Borralho featuring The Ultimate Fighter Finale two weeks ago, but a last-minute illness for Fletcher scratched it just as the card began. Consequently, please enjoy this leftover rerun, but I'm pasting it instead of quoting it because there was already a quote in it and when you quote things inside quote blocks internet formatting collapses in on itself.

Previously, on The Ultimate Fighter:

Back in the locker rooms Kaan is happy and celebrating if slightly worried about having possibly damaged his hands punching Fletcher in the head, while Fletcher is heartbroken and puts his shirt over his head so the camera doesn't get too much footage of him crying. Don't worry, buddy. They're gonna book you again.

Try to control your shock if at all possible, but they decided to sign one actual non-finalist from this season of TUF, and coincidentally, it's the British guy who trains with Paddy Pimblett. By contrast Zygimantas Ramaska was practically an obligatory signing: He had a big, fun and ultimately victorious brawl with Bekhzod Usmonov that let him show off his striking and his takedown defense, but thanks to a small fracture in his cheek the athletic commission ruled him out of his semifinal matchup with Mairon Santos. It's a waste of everyone's time and the concept of the show if you don't at least give him a make-good chance. Nathan Fletcher had one fight in which he got marginally outstruck and thoroughly outwrestled by eventual finalist Kaan Ofli, who also broke Fletcher's fibula with a single calf kick. Aside from an appreciation fight for Fletcher being tough enough to unknowingly continue training despite having a broken leg, it's a little weird that he's here and not fellow semfinalist Roedie Roets, or almost-semifinalist Edwin Cooper Jr.

But, y'know, British. For whatever convenience brought him here, Fletcher's not bad, he's very tough to get rattled, and he's got a very, very quick back take, so if Zygi lets him get too close for too long, he'll pay dearly. After seeing Fletcher struggle with Ofli's striking, though, I'm not favoring his chances against a bigger, faster, better kickboxer. ZYGIMANTAS RAMASKA BY TKO.