CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 116: ROUNDABOUT ROUTES

UFC Fight Night: Moicano vs Saint Denis

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 FROM THE ACCOR ARENA IN PARIS, FRANCE
EARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 9 AM PDT / 12 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 12 PM / 3 PM | EARLY START TIME WARNING

I love that poster. I love it. Look at that totally accurate little scratch-drawing Eiffel Tower. Perfect. No notes.

I have also never felt more temporally out of sorts about the UFC than I do right now.

The moving process wound up taking forever, but we made it to New York and the Earthly possessions we saw fit to bring with us followed suit about two and a half weeks later, and I immediately set about the difficult process of coping with live sports in the Eastern time zone. The UFC, mocking me, made my first-ever EDT pay-per-view the goddamn Sphere show, which somehow stretched its on-paper shortest card in years into one of the longest, most languidly paced shows they've ever put on. By the time the broadcast ended it was past two in the morning, and as a lifelong-spoiled California fan, I resolved that I had, at least, learned about my new expectations.

At which point they took an unusual week off. Now they're in Paris, which means they're starting at lunchtime. Next week, we're back at the regular evening pay-per-view slot! Then we have two weeks of Apex events which both start at completely different times. Then we're in Abu Dhabi, where fights start at ten in the damn morning.

It's gonna be a long goddamn October.

they're making up for the sphere card only having 10 fights

MAIN EVENT: IN FRANCE HE'S CALLED MONNAIE MOICANO
LIGHTWEIGHT: Renato Moicano (19-5-1, #11) vs Benoît Saint Denis (13-2 (1), #12)

The properties of contendership are deeply bizarre.

Renato Moicano is one of the best fighters in the company to watch. He's an exceptionally talented grappler who's proven himself real, real adept at grounding and strangling overmatched opponents, and he mixes that with maybe the single most marketable striking skill in the world: The willingness to walk directly into punches when you think you have something to gain from the attempt. Here's the thing, though: This has been true for half a damn decade. It was true in 2019 when he was getting smoked by José Aldo and it's still true now. And yet, somehow, he feels closer to title contendership now than when he was fighting some of the best fighters in the history of martial arts.

But this is largely because he is fighting Benoît Saint Denis, who is just exiting the inexplicable abrupt contendership vortex. Saint-Denis rather famously took one of the worst beatings in company history during his absurdly ill-advised Welterweight debut in 2021, but quickly distinguished himself as a reliable all-action star on the course of a five-fight winning streak thereafter. It was not at all unusual for that calibre of winning streak to get him into the top fifteen. It was slightly more unusual for the company to jump him all the way from barely #12 to an openly-advertised title eliminator against the #3-ranked Dustin Poirier this past March. But, as I said at the time:

He's good. He might even be great! He's also the #12 fighter in the division despite having never beaten anyone ranked higher than #14 and rather than risking him against Gamrot's wrestling or Fiziev's counterstriking or Beneil Dariush's endless spoiling of marketing prospects, the UFC knows this is their best possible chance at getting him a path to the top of the ranks and, while they're at it, an incredibly violent fight.

It's cynical and it's exhausting and I also can't hate it, because here's the thing: I like fighting. I enjoy good fights. Would I personally rather see the division treated with credibility and structure? Absolutely. Am I going to pass up getting to see Dustin Poirier and Benoît Saint Denis erase the front fourths of their fistbones in their attempts to bludgeon each other to death? Christ, no.

The UFC fired yet another bullet in their increasingly-common rankings-jumping marketing prospect gun, and like most, it missed the target. Benoît had a great first round and a half (thanks in part to Poirier's now widely-memed insistence on trying to jump the guillotine over and over as opposed to defending a goddamn takedown), but two minutes into the second he got punched out in what might go down as the final finish of Dustin's career.

Good fight! Fun fight! But it failed at its primary goal of abruptly crowning a new Lightweight contender. So the UFC is left to do the thing it should have done in the first place: Make Saint Denis keep fighting people around his level.

It's been an unusually circuitous path to an extremely logical fight. Renato Moicano is a prospect who's never quite managed to rise to contendership thanks to suffering with gatekeeping divisions he couldn't mantle; Benoît Saint Denis is--well, was--a violent contender on the rise finding his place in the rankings. Both men are berserker strikers with a radically low level of interest in defense; both men do their best work on the ground, one through brutal wrestling and a crushing top game, the other technically sound jiu-jitsu and some really groovy back takes.

They're an excellent match for each other. They're at entirely sensible meeting points in their careers. They probably would have benefitted more from fighting each other than Benoît did getting dusted by Dustin. But that, of course, carries much less immediate reward. Why, if Saint Denis choked Poirier out, the UFC would've had a brand new French star to main event their Parisian visits!

Wait. Shit.

The UFC only actually has a handful of French fighters on the roster, and 75% of them are already fighting on this card, and Ciryl Gane isn't available and they inexplicably hate Manon Fiorot, so in the end it doesn't actually matter if Benoît won or lost: He's The Best We've Got.

And Moicano is not. I don't mean that as a slight against the man: I am a huge fan of his particular kind of violence. But, objectively, this is his third or fourth attempt to climb the ladder and it's by far his most esoteric one yet. Numerically, it's his best UFC winning streak! And it consists of Brad Riddell, who was on a two-fight losing streak and went on hiatus from the sport immediately afterward, Drew Dober, who had been knocked out one fight prior and got destroyed by a Featherweight one fight later, and Jalin Turner, who was 1 for his last 3 and also damn near killed Moicano in the first round and would have scored a TKO victory had he not, after dropping him, chosen to walk away anticipating a stoppage rather than finishing the job.

None of which invalidates Moicano's successes. If anything, getting flattened by a puncher like Jalin and coming back to win the fight anyway is an incredible testament to Moicano's capabilities. But it's hard to stake your claim on title contention when you're barely surviving fights at the periphery of the top fifteen.

But then, top contenders like Mateusz Gamrot and Dan Hooker only barely scraped split decisions off of Jalin, and Dustin Poirier got his own title shot after nearly getting submitted by Saint Denis, so at the end of the day, it's entirely possible nothing matters but getting your hand raised regardless of how much concussive trauma you took in the process.

I do, unfortunately, think more of that trauma is in the cards for Moicano here. Benoît's a big betting favorite, and that's an irritatingly sensible read. Moicano's best stand-up comes against people he can out-power, and Benoît demonstrably hits harder and faster; Moicano's best grappling comes against people he can sweep and threaten, and Benoît is a big, powerful wrestler with a crushing top game and pretty solid head control. He may not be able to submit Moicano, but I don't think he'll have trouble punching the absolute shit out of his skull. Much as it pains me: BENOÎT SAINT DENIS BY TKO.

CO-MAIN EVENT: MIDDLEWEIGHT MADNESS IS A TERMINAL CONDITION
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Nassourdine Imavov (14-4 (1), #4) vs Brendan Allen (24-5, #8)

Oh, the places a weird fight with Chris Curtis will take you.

2023 was a bad year for Nassourdine Imavov. He walked in as a highly-heralded Middleweight prospect with a largely unblemished record, a bunch of neat finishes and the biggest fight of his life against a hugely overmatched and outsized Kelvin Gastelum slated for the start of his year. In another permutation of reality Imavov dropped Gastelum, soared into contendership, and got a front-row seat for the championship chaos the year had in store.

In our reality, Gastelum pulled out and Sean Strickland replaced him. He beat Imavov through the focused power of complete disinterest and cruised on to a title campaign later in the year. Imavov only fought one more time in 2023, and it was a Chris Curtis bout that ended in a No Contest after Imavov inadvertently headbutted his entire face open. It would be more than half a year before Imavov stepped back into the cage to make 2024 a better year, and his results have been as mixed as one can get while still being inherently positive. He beat Roman Dolidze--but only by a majority decision after losing points for cheating. He knocked out Jared Cannonier--but only after losing most of the fight and getting the benefit of a truly bizarre stoppage.

Chris Curtis bookends Brendan Allen's relevance as a Middleweight contender. Curtis knocked Allen dead back in 2021, but like so many canisters of mutagenic ooze, every time his fists impacted Allen's skull they imparted the twin superpowers of impact resistance and fortunate matchmaking. Allen's rebound from the Curtis knockout loss to a seven-fight winning streak--culminating in a victory over Curtis himself--has been a hell of a thing to watch. Choking out Paul Craig is real, real hard to fuckin' do. Sure, there was a dubious decision over Jacob Malkoun in there somewhere, but truthfully, who among the contenders doesn't have a screwy decision over a wrestler whose style has become disfavored by the rulemaking meta?

Solid fighters. Solid streaks. But, as always: The matchmaking's kind of fucked up.

We're only three months removed from the rankings situation here being inverted, with the #4 contender, Jared Cannonier, going from one-win-away-from-a-title-shot territory to losing to the #8 in Imavov. That should, theoretically, impart Cannonier's position to Imavov, or at least entitle him to a rematch with the similarly-deposed top contender Sean Strickland. Instead we have Brendan Allen, who has somehow risen up the ranks by fighting down over and over again. When Allen fought Bruno Silva, he was #13 and Silva was unranked. One fight later, a now-#10 Allen fought the #13 Paul Craig. Allen was supposed to meet a top five guy in Marvin Vettori, but Vettori can no longer be proven to exist, so having somehow risen to #6, Allen had that Chris Curtis rematch when Curtis was #14.

And now, having not actually lost any fights, Allen has slid down to #8. But it's okay! Because he's fighting a top contender one bout away from the belt.

I don't know, man. I don't know what Middleweight's deal is. Dricus du Plessis just finally ended the Adesanya cycle and looked poised to return some level of structure to the division and now they're talking about bringing Alex Pereira back for a champ-champ match except Pereira wants it to be at 185 and du Plessis wants it at 205 which means neither man wants to actually risk their own title and either way one division would be forced to look stupid, and honestly, can Light Heavyweight stand to look stupider than it already does? Is that even possible?

Oh, right. Next month. Right.

I have had this staunch refusal to believe in Brendan Allen. I thought André Muniz would take him, I thought Chris Curtis would take him, and I was wrong, but only barely. Allen did in fact come damned close to dropping that split decision against Curtis, and for a guy who's being groomed for title contention on a seven-fight winning streak, 'barely won a split decision against the guy who got beat by the only Middleweight who couldn't handle 2023 Kelvin Gastelum' is a dangerous sentence. Allen's incredibly dangerous! He throws his whole ass into his punches and he's a constant submission threat. But he plays it very, very loose, and that's continued to get him in danger.

Imavov is the polar opposite. Everything he does is tight. It's arguably too tight, because his lack of output bites him in the ass on a regular basis. But that's not a bad trait to have against someone as willing to wade headfirst into fire as Brendan Allen.

I am, once again, in sync with the betting odds, especially with Imavov's first three-round fight in more than a year. NASSOURDINE IMAVOV BY DECISION.

MAIN CARD: LOCAL WARFARE
FEATHERWEIGHT: William Gomis (13-2) vs Joanderson Brito (17-3-1)

William Gomis has had an absolute motherfucker of a year. "Jaguar" got picked up by the UFC back in 2022 as part of their all-out assault on the French MMA market, but a three-fight winning streak propelled him out of the local market and into the ranks of company regulars. He was booked for the highest honor the company can offer--a return visit to the incredible heights of the UFC Apex--against the rising Melsik Baghdasaryan in February, but had to pull out before fight day. Infamously, he was scheduled to head to Brazil and meet the just-debuted Jean Silva in May, but the fight was scratched after a botched weight cut. Botching a weight cut, in itself, is not unusual. Botching it by coming in dangerously underweight, on the other hand, is. Gomis, who at 6' is by no means a small man, hit the scales a pound and a half under the Featherweight limit, and it quickly became apparent he was unwell. It would later come out that--allegedly due to tainted water in the ice chips they'd made from the taps for him to chew on--he was vomiting even the trace amounts of liquid left in his body after his cut, and against his demands, his unusually thoughtful cornerman called the doctor on his behalf to cancel the fight. It's irritating how rare even that basic level of care for fighter well-being is in mixed martial arts.

But it does mean Gomis has lost the majority of the momentum he built during his winning streak, and he's going to have to earn it back by running headlong into a brick wall. I want to be fully clear: I will always pick Joanderson Brito. I do not care if he is fighting Ilia Topuria, I am unbothered by his prospects against Bryce Mitchell, I will take him over José Aldo and his Minions-themed bedroom, if you bring Genki Sudo back from retirement and force Joanderson to meet him in a dance-off I will still pick him to moonwalk over Genki's trembling body. I am truly and completely in the tank for Brito. Fortunately, he justifies it by being really fucking good at his job. Diego Lopes, newly-minted top five contender in the division, lost his first shot at the UFC after getting beaten by Brito on the Contender Series. In 2022 Andre Fili was in his thirteenth year of combat and had only ever been knocked out twice: Once by master technician Yair Rodríguez, who had to spend almost two rounds hunting for a picture-perfect switch kick, and once by Joanderson Brito, who simply marched into Fili and flattened him with a right hand in forty seconds. He ragdolled Lucas Alexander, he choked out Jonathan Pearce, and he became the first man to (technically) knock out Jack Shore after breaking his goddamn shin open.

I like Gomis. I want good things for Gomis. There is no Earthly force that could make me pick him. JOANDERSON BRITO BY SUBMISSION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Kevin Jousset (10-2) vs Bryan Battle (10-2 (1))

Of all the fights on this card, this is the one I find most personally intriguing. Despite being born in Bordeaux Kevin Jousset wasn't even picked up as a big French prospect for the French market; he was another City Kickboxing guy plucked from his training camp in New Zealand to fight a big Irish prospect in Kiefer Crosbie. Jousset, nonplussed, choked Crosbie out in a single round. Three months later he was in Vegas taking on a former prospect in Song Kenan, and in battling the man who nearly knocked out Ian Machado Garry, Jousset simply picked him apart at range and never once found himself in trouble. Going from fighting Priscus Fogagnolo to threatening a UFC ranking in a single year is a hell of an accomplishment, and Jousset is dangerously close to establishing himself as an actual, honest to god prospect in the company.

And he's trying to eat Bryan Battle to do it. I have for years regarded the booking of Bryan Battle with considerable confusion. He won The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ), but was deemed to not be The Real Winner thanks to show favorite Tresean Gore being knocked out of the final with an injury. So he beat Gore, and his reward was demotion to the prelims. He knocked out Takashi Sato with a sensational headkick, and not only was he not pulled up from the prelims, he was fed to Rinat Fakhretdinov, an enormously hyped international wrestling prospect with almost three times the fighting experience--on the prelims. It took a fourteen-second knockout to get Battle on a televised card, and then, seven fights into his TUF-winning UFC tenure, he got a co-main event! And promptly ruined it by thumbing Ange Loosa in the eye, drawing a No Contest, and then almost starting an in-cage brawl after calling Loosa a coward who was looking for a way out.

Three years of struggling to get on a main card and you go and get mad at a man for daring to put his eyeball in the way of your finger. It's a cold sport. KEVIN JOUSSET BY DECISION. Battle succeeds thanks in large part to his range and his ability to mix grappling into his attacks and take people off-guard; Jousset's bigger than Battle, much more patient, and just as solid a grappler. I think Jousset's going to frustrate him for fifteen minutes and the crowd will applaud politely but mostly want both men to leave.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Morgan Charriere (19-10-1) vs Gabriel Miranda (17-6)

The UFC wants a do-over on Morgan Charriere. "The Last Pirate" was signed to the company as another in the long line of international striking prospects who abhor all forms of grappling and regularly fuck people up with the power of bone trauma. Charriere made good on his debut by obliterating the almost preposterously Italian Manolo "Angelo Veneziano" Zecchini, piecing him up at a distance before kicking his organs out through his spine. It was a fantastic debut, and the commentators gassed Charriere up as an immediate threat to the entire Featherweight division, and having done so and thus doomed him, he immediately lost a fight to Chepe goddamn Mariscal. It was a great, back and forth struggle of a bout, and an extremely close split decision that left Charriere with nothing to be ashamed of, but it still killed his momentum and left the UFC trying to get him back on the winning path.

But boy, sometimes they're real obvious about it. Gabriel Miranda has two UFC fights, and that's fitting, because he is known for exactly two things: Having an overly-groomed 1920s-style curly moustache and getting the absolute shit knocked out of him by Benoît Saint Denis. Miranda is one of those unfortunate cautionary tales in the difference between the regional circuit and the UFC. In the bout just before his big-screen debut, Miranda was fighting in the main event of his regional FACE THE DANGER promotion, which saw his 15-5 ass facing a 5-5 dude with an awful lot of coincidental first-round losses and an equally coincidental six-year layoff between fights. Less than a year later, he was taking the beating of a lifetime on an internationally-televised card from a Frenchman. The UFC threw him a bone by letting him beat the 1-for-5, hasn't-won-since-2019 Shane Young just to make Miranda feel more at home, which was polite of them.

But he's a +400 underdog and he probably should be. MORGAN CHARRIERE BY TKO.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Fares Ziam (15-4) vs Matt Frevola (11-4-1)

Not singling this out as a must-watch matchup kind of kills me, and it's largely because of Fares Ziam. I'm becoming a big Fares Ziam fan. He's smooth! He's defensively sound! He uses his distance as a weapon and forces opponents to come into his range so he can lightly, politely batter them, and in his last fight we saw him very gently beat Claudio Puelles by neutralizing his grappling offense and simply punishing him with hammerfists and elbows for trying. He's a technically solid fighter in a sport that's grown increasingly tired of them. But, as even I said last time around:

...his losses are much more memorable than his competent, well-rounded but frictionless victories, and I can prove it to you, because the last time the UFC was in England Ziam walked into London and beat one of their best Lightweights in Jai Herbert on a main-card bout and I would bet absolutely nobody reading this remembers it. And I can say that with some level of confidence, because I didn't remember it. That's the Fares Ziam promise.

The excitement quotient is particularly relevant to this fight because Matt fucking Frevola is in it. Matt Frevola was already a fairly successful Lightweight back in 2019 when he was still 8-1-1, but no one knew him, because he wasn't successful enough to stand out in the face of how immemorable his style tended to be. When Terrance McKinney dropped him in seven seconds, Frevola decided to switch from a grappling-heavy wrestle-boxing approach to an absolutely brutal turn-my-knuckles-to-dust-with-your-skull gunfighting approach, to the point that in his first five UFC bouts Frevola attempted a combined 32 takedowns, and in his second set of five UFC bouts he attempted 3. But all three of his victories came by vicious, scintillating knockout. Unfortunately: So did both of his losses. He committed completely to the kill-or-be-killed approach to fighting, and that carries the deeply unfortunate side effect of, sometimes, dying.

I do not think Matt Frevola will die in this fight. I do think he's going to have an absolute bitch of a time putting those big punches on a man as evasive as Ziam, particularly with an almost half-foot deficit in height and 4" less in reach. If he doesn't try to ground Ziam he's going to run the risk of getting kited around the cage, and at this stage of his career, going on his mid-thirties and coming off a loss to--jesus christ, lots of people who got brutally fucked up by Benoît Saint Denis on this card--I don't think Frevola can break the pattern. FARES ZIAM BY DECISION.

PRELIMS: BASICALLY A KSW CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Ion Cuțelaba (17-10-1 (1)) vs Ivan Erslan (14-3 (1))

The future of Light Heavyweight is now, and it's Ion Cuțelaba vs The Guy Who Isn't The KSW Champion. For those unfamiliar with the Polish mixed martial arts scene--truly, how could anyone not be familiar--the country's biggest MMA organization is Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki, a twenty-year mainstay of the European scene thanks to its bombastic production, solid talent scouting, and questionable commitment to drug testing. Ivan Erslan made his name over the last five years as a top contender in KSW's 205-pound rankings, which carries the unfortunate connotation of still only being a top contender because he never actually won the big one. His two cracks at the belt ended poorly, and current champion Rafał Haratyk knocked him out just last year, and as a large, muscular punchman in a division constantly starved for talent who almost solely wins by knockout, the UFC had to give him a shot, because the machine must churn through more big meaty men as it returns the old to the regional scene. Speaking of which: Ion Cuțelaba! God bless the man, he is 1 for his last 5 and 3 for his last 10 and he hasn't won back to back fights since 2018 and he hasn't beaten an active UFC fighter in years and somehow, improbably, he is still here. His angry Moldovan wrestling may not be bringing him a lot of success, but it has kept him paid and employed and every once in awhile it lets him trash compact a Tanner Boser or Devin Clark. Hell, Ion is the last man to ever knock out title challenger Khalil Rountree Jr., so if Rountree wins, Ion could be one victory away from a grudge match!

Boy, I hate how plausible that sounds in the present day. Anyway, Erslan likes to swang and bang too goddamn much for his own good and I think this fight winds up on the ground within two minutes. ION CUȚELABA BY TKO.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Oumar Sy (10-0) vs Da Woon Jung (15-5-1)

Previously, in covering Oumar Sy's UFC debut this past May:

Normally when I recommend a fight it's because I think it'll be legitimately good. I don't think this will be legitimately good. But I do think this fight has built so much cache as a potential source of stupidity that I have to see what happens.

Friends: It was, in fact, pretty stupid. The biggest French prospect in the entire division went through three last-minute changes of opponent before ultimately facing former Middleweight Tuco Tokkos, who spent half the fight loudly yelling "wow, you're heavier than me" while Sy rode his back and eventually choked him out. Was it a competitive matchup? No. Was it a solid test for Oumar Sy? Also no! Is the UFC pushing him up into a higher echelon of competition in this followup? Yes, but only gently. Da Woon Jung was a borderline-ranked Light Heavyweight fighting for a top fifteen berth just three years ago: In the following three years he has embarked on a three-fight losing streak, looked progressively worse in each loss, and put the cherry on top by somehow getting outwrestled and submitted in his last fight by noted kickboxer Carlos Ulberg, who has never submitted anyone or, indeed, even attempted another submission in the UFC.

So they're putting him up against the 6'4" French wrestling specialist in France. It's the subtlety that makes me love this sport. OUMAR SY BY SUBMISSION.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Ľudovít Klein (22-4-1) vs Roosevelt Roberts (12-4 (1))

This shit, though? This makes me mad. At this point, Ľudovít Klein is one of the most promising Lightweight prospects in the UFC. He's on a six-fight unbeaten streak and a three-fight winning streak (the breakpoint being a draw with Jai Herbert), he just dominated an honored veteran in Thiago Moisés, and fighters like Ignacio Bahamondes and AJ Cunningham are getting booked into featured fights despite Klein defeating them with ease. He's a great technical fighter with incredibly solid defense and has genuine potential as a threat to the rankings. And the UFC is doing nothing with him. He was initially supposed to face Nikolas Motta here, thanks to the momentum Motta is carrying from his palindromic 1-1 (1) streak, but Motta had to pull out, and in his place, we have Roosevelt Roberts. Roberts had his first UFC stint back in 2021, where he ultimately went on a winless streak and got knocked out of the company by--hey, look at that, Ignacio Bahamondes, small world--but he got his second shot at the company thanks to The Ultimate Fighter 31 (jesus christ) and its attempt at retreading the comeback season format! Except he lost. But then he got re-signed anyway as a last-minute fill-in against Mateusz Rębecki! And then he lost again.

So now, for the second fight in a row, the 6'2" Roberts is facing a 5'7" fighter, and for the second time in a row, despite a half-foot size advantage, he's probably going to lose. ĽUDOVÍT KLEIN BY DECISION.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Taylor Lapilus (20-4) vs Vince Morales (16-7)

Here, we have a war of second chances. Taylor Lapilus was rather confusingly cut from the UFC back in 2016 despite being 3-1 with the organization, but his success on the regional scene and the company's return to the Parisian market brought Lapilus back into the fold last year, where he immediately went about the business of recreating the same exact record again. Just barely over a year later he's 2-1 in his second lease on Ultimate life, and he's looked just as well-rounded as ever, which begs the question of why the hell they cut him in the first place. Vince Morales getting cut was slightly less of a mystery. Morales hopped into the company as a last-minute replacement back in 2018 and quickly established himself as the kind of never-an-easy-night fighter who plagues the middle ranks with outright toughness and the refusal to ever go away. The issue with getting a reputation for being tough is, unfortunately, earning it by losing too damn much. By 2022 "Vandetta" was 3-5 in the company, had only won 2 of his last 6, and was cut loose as a failed prospect. Morales, undeterred, promptly went around the world and kicked everyone's ass. He cleaned up in the American regionals, he went over to Rizin and beat one of Japan's best Bantamweights in Yuki Motoya, and he punched his ticket back to the UFC after choking out former hot prospect Hunter Azure just one month ago.

Am I jazzed about Morales fighting again less than 30 days after a three-round bout? My hives answer for me. I am glad he's getting another shot, though I admit I don't favor his chances here. He's tough and aggressive, but Lapilus is an extremely sound all-arounder and I don't think Morales will have as much luck finding holes in his armor as he'll need to. TAYLOR LAPILUS BY DECISION.

WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Ailín Pérez (10-2) vs Darya Zheleznyakova (9-1)

At a certain point, I have to put my own hating habits away. My refusal to appreciate Ailín Pérez goes back multiple years. Watching her repeatedly cheat and foul Tamires Vidal on a blood-stained exercise mat at SAMURAI FIGHT HOUSE during my prelim research soured me on her early, and coming into the UFC as an I'll-beat-everyone egotist in the waning days of the Women's Featherweight division only to get immediately stomped by Stephanie Egger made it even easier to dismiss her. But she has kept fighting, and she has dutifully become a model scientist of the wrestlefucking arts, and by god, I cannot bring myself to hate someone when they are so willing to grind opponents into dirt amidst corporate pressure and booing crowds. I applaud your three-fight winning streak, Ailín. Long may you reign. I have less of a connection with Darya Zheleznyakova, who made her UFC debut this past March against Montserrat Rendon in one of those rare fights that leaves the world of martial combat behind and instead approaches the land of performance art. Montserrat, charging forward with her head down over and over in the hopes of getting takedowns that were nowhere close to landing. Darya, chaining spinning backfists together and on multiple occasions simply spinning in place as though preparing for a strike that never actually came out.

It was touching. It was moving. It was a harbinger of the heat death the entire division is currently struggling to somehow escape. AILÍN PÉREZ BY DECISION.

FLYWEIGHT: Daniel Barez (16-6) vs Victor Altamirano (12-4)

Where does the perfect grace imparted by the Flyweight division begin to falter? The 125-pound weight class is one of God's greatest creations, a land of almost universally amazing competitors with well-rounded skillsets and endless cardio, and despite the UFC's many, many attempts to fuck it up, each less sensible than the last, Flyweight has remained an inviolate nation of beautiful violence. But the heavens can only protect us from Hell for so long, and one day, all walls must fall. Daniel Barez got into the UFC as a late pickup despite the last four fights of his career coming against people with records like 14-12, 10-9-1, 7-9 and, internet-appropriately, 6-9. (Fun fact: The 6-9 fighter, Francisco Benitez, is now 7-13 despite their fight being just 21 months ago.) Barez got effortlessly strangled by Jafel Filho and the world moved on. Victor Altamirano is a man I have never forgiven for engaging in the one kind of fight that is forbidden at Flyweight--the wild, gassy, sloppy brawl--and the universe made him pay for his hubris, as he has spent the last year and a half getting decisioned repeatedly by superior grapplers and is now staring down the barrel of the dreaded three-fight losing streak.

This fight is akin to watching a family member's body sink into the ocean. It is the sky boiling away the last cloud layer at the top of the world. My great fighting love's armor is open, and I can only hope it is patched before her body is torn asunder by Valentina Shevchenko spinning kicks that don't fucking do anything. VICTOR ALTAMIRANO BY DECISION, but know that the true decision, in your heart, is your refusal to look away from the scabrous demise of beauty.

WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Nora Cornolle (8-1) vs Jacqueline Cavalcanti (7-1)

I was really looking forward to the original fight in this slot, too. Nora Cornolle turned heads this past April thanks to a big upset victory over undefeated grappling champion Melissa Mullins. Cornolle's a striker! She was supposed to lose! Instead she knocked out Mullins and made a name for herself as a potential contender. Or she would have, had the real story of the fight not been both women somehow dramatically missing weight and getting roundly shit on by the commentary team for the entire duration of their fight instead. Cornolle was still going to be rewarded with a bout against former world champion and multiple-time titlist Germaine de Randamie, but Germaine busted her foot, and now, we've got Jacqueline Cavalcanti. I'll be honest: Aside from the total, skin-crawling loathing I feel any time a fighter fights within a month of another, full-length fight in which they were punched in the head dozens of times by a professional athlete, I am frustrated creatively, because what is there to say about Jacqueline Cavalcanti that I did not already tell you barely thirty goddamn days ago? If her fight with Josiane Nunes had given us any great new insights into her style or an amazing highlight to discuss we would, at least, have some lunchtime gossip, but as it is she managed a solid if immemorable victory over a woman half a foot shorter than her who still nearly took a split decision.

Return to August. Search your feelings. Wonder if people will make weight. Feel the dread state of Women's Bantamweight. NORA CORNOLLE BY DECISION.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Bolaji Oki (9-1) vs Chris Duncan (11-2)

I thought about Bolaji Oki and I felt a wave of anger. Why does Bolaji Oki make me angry? I had to dig to remember.

Timothy Cuamba was signed to fight [Bolaji Oki] in the UFC this coming weekend despite having just had a two-round fight four days ago. What are we even doing here anymore? Did this fight really need to be maintained so badly that you just had to go out and pick up one of the Contenders you negged out of a contract because you didn't like their haircut even though they just fought last fucking week? For one, was that truly necessary, and for two, you're telling me it just had to be yet another new guy with no choice but to say yes if he ever wants in the UFC? You couldn't get any of the forty-eight unbooked Lightweights you already have under contract who didn't get punched in the skull a week ago on the phone? It's not even his weight class! He's a fucking Featherweight!

Oh, right, the Timmy Cuamba fight. Not only did that stupid fucking fight go down, Oki somehow almost lost a decision, because despite easily, obviously winning the fight, honored judge Chris "The Guy Who Scored Rafael dos Anjos Rubbing Paul Felder's Face Into the Mat For Twenty-Five Minutes as a Felder Victory" Lee looked at Oki doubling Cuamba up on strikes and decided conventional wisdom was for suckers. Chris Duncan got a lot of solid press as a Scottish Contender Series winner on a two-fight UFC streak, but then Manuel Torres choked him out and the entire world instantaneously gave up on caring about him because our martial attention span is roughly three inches wide.

I am shortchanging these men out of anger. This is unfair and I apologize to both of their families. BOLAJI OKI BY DECISION.