SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19 FROM THE STATIONARY DEATH OF THE APEX
PRELIMS 1 PM PDT / 4 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM
First off: If you like mixed martial arts enough to watch it this week, you should really go watch the PFL's pay-per-view instead. While I doubt they're going to set the world on fire with buys, it's a solid card featuring the Real Heavyweight Champion and it deserves more success than it's likely to get. It is maybe the one and only time of the year I can say the UFC's card on a given weekend is the lower-quality one.
That said, at risk of being a hypocrite: I'm kinda into it anyway.
Is it going to perform well? Lord, no. There's virtually no name power on this card, there are only barely multiple ranked fights on this card, and as you may have noticed, there are only two fights above 145 pounds on the whole damn thing. We've barely been able to get multiple women's fights on a TV card all year; this card's prelims are currently scheduled to have three in a row. This is absolutely a filler card the UFC threw together for the fights it doesn't really care about.
And it kind of rules!
Somehow, through the power of sheer marketing apathy, the UFC has put together an unrestrained prospect proving ground. This card has rubber meeting road on at least a half-dozen genuinely solid prospects--more, if you're already excited about Asu Almabayev or Jean Matsumoto, or if you are still painfully willing to believe in Robelis Despaigne. There's a lot of intrigue and a number of questions to be answered about who actually belongs in the discussion about the future of their respective divisions.
Also: Darren Elkins is here.
MAIN EVENT: THE NEW CLASS
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Anthony Hernandez (12-2 (1), #13) vs Michel Pereira (31-11 (2), #14)
This? This is a great fuckin' fight. This is an excellent matchup between two prospects in extremely interesting places who simply need to prove themselves, because their winning streaks are equal parts impressive and troubled.
Anthony Hernandez has been seen as a potential Middleweight prospect all the way back to his 2019 signing, thanks to his combination of solid boxing, tough chin and already-dangerous chokes, but he was sunk by an equal combination of bad luck, bad timing, and bad performances. His Contender Series win got overturned thanks to weed, his debut was delayed by COVID, and after an undefeated start to his career he went 1-2 in his first two years in the UFC and almost got released. He needed a breakout performance, and he got it at the expense of one of the world's best grapplers, Rodolfo Vieira. As a +400 underdog Hernandez survived Vieira's submission attempts, outlasted his gas tank, and, shockingly, choked the multiple-time world grappling champion. It was a statement victory and it immediately put Hernandez on the map.
And then things got wonky.
In the three and a half years since that victory Hernandez has been contracted to thirteen separate bouts and replacements: Only four of them have actually happened. It would be more than a year before Hernandez fought again, and that was originally slated to be a bout against the recently-debuted future-champion Dricus du Plessis; it was, instead, Josh Fremd. Hernandez was supposed to have a top ten fight with Roman Dolidze this year, and that ended up with Hernandez on the shelf and Dolidze fighting in an entirely different weight class. Even this fight was initially scheduled for the big Sphere show last month only to get moved back because they couldn't figure out a better main event for this card. Be it reschedulings, opponent injuries or Hernandez's recurring issues with his perpetually injured hands, he just cannot stay consistently booked.
Whereas Michel Pereira has only just become consistent for the first time in his UFC career.
"Demolidor" never had issues with talent. There are only two blemishes on his record after five years with the UFC: A loss to Tristan Connelly all the way back in 2019, which taught Pereira to win before he showboats, and a disqualification against Diego Sanchez in 2020--yes, really--after beating him easily for two and a half rounds only to knee him in the head illegally, which taught him to never underestimate the power of comedy in mixed martial arts. In the subsequent four straight years it's been nothing but eight straight victories. He was, by any metric, an extremely successful Welterweight.
Well. There was one metric.
Michel Pereira is not a small man. He is 6'1" and built like a Zumba dancer had a dream of becoming a bodybuilder and decided to split the difference. He barely made the 170-pound limit on a good day, and on the bad days he didn't make it at all. He missed by two pounds in that Connelly fight he lost, and a hotly-anticipated 2023 contendership match between Pereira and Stephen Thompson was scratched when Pereira came in at 174 and Thompson refused the catchweight. The UFC kicked Pereira up to 185, and it worked out gangbusters for everyone, because Pereira rattled off three wins not just in a single year, but in three total minutes of cage time. Three dramatic, first-round finishes should be enough to get him into anyone's contendership conversation, right?
Here's the patch on Pereira: His competition has been actively regressing. His 185-pound debut was a fantastic knockout victory over the highly-regarded, nearly-undefeated Andre Petroski, but his followup was a quick submission over Michał Oleksiejczuk, who was significantly less successful, and his most recent bout was an equally quick chokeout over Ihor Potieria, who has virtually no UFC success whatsoever. And Pereira flagrantly fouled Potieria by landing another illegal grounded knee, it's just that he happened to be doing a backflip when it landed so no one cared because it was really fucking cool.
But as cool as his dance moves and his Capoeira attacks and his lightning-quick switches from striking to submissions may be, the fact remains that Pereira doesn't have a rankings-relevant win since his split decision against Santiago Ponzinibbio almost three years and an entirely separate weight class ago. He's a devastating fighter, but he needs to prove that he can be devastating against someone who matters.
Both men are dominating fighters who've been absolutely crushing their competition, both men are defined by their ability to seamlessly blend striking and grappling, both men desperately need a signature win to cement themselves in the contendership conversation. Is there a singular case for placing one above the other?
No! That's why it's so fucking great! Hernandez has been dominating people with his mix-ups, but they've been folks like Edmen Shahbazyan and Roman Kopylov, who are, respectfully, not particularly solid grapplers. Michel Pereira has been absolutely running through people, but they are, respectfully, people who get run through with some regularity. It's been four and a half years since anyone beat Hernandez, but that victory was a quick knee to the guts courtesy of Kevin Holland, which is exactly how Pereira beat Oleksiejczuk. But Santiago Ponzinibbio showed how reach and boxing fluidity can interrupt Pereira's smashing attacks, and it's those qualities that make Anthony's boxing so dangerous. But can he apply his usual high-pressure boxing gameplan to a home-run hitter like Pereira without getting dropped again?
It's a series of fascinatingly unanswered questions between two equally-matched, equally-placed fighters in the prime of their careers, and when those planets align it's a reminder of why you deal with all the bullshit mixed martial arts can throw at you. I not only don't know what I think will happen in this fight, I don't even know what I want to happen in this fight, and god, I love that. I've been an Anthony Hernandez contendership booster for years, and I have loved watching Michel Pereira finally put all his pieces together, and ultimately, I don't want to see either of them lose.
But I am against the wall, and I am denying my old favorite. Pereira's real hard to take down and he hits like a truck, a tractor and a tank walked into a bar and decided to take it home with them; with the way Hernandez likes to pressure his opponents he's going to leave himself open to a lot of those strikes, and it seems like they'll eventually start to get through. Pereira's also at risk here from jumping on chokes and grappling opportunities as he is wont to do, because Hernandez will absolutely slip out of a guillotine and completely fuck Pereira's shit up on the ground if given a chance.
But I'm going with my gut. MICHEL PEREIRA BY TKO.
CO-MAIN EVENT: HOLD THE DOOR
BANTAMWEIGHT: Rob Font (20-8, #10) vs Kyler Phillips (12-2, #12)
Life is not easy for Rob Font.
Font is, and has been, one of the best Bantamweights in the goddamn world for an entire decade, but "one of" is an unfortunately damning descriptor. He couldn't beat John Lineker in 2016, he couldn't beat Raphael Assunção in 2018, he couldn't beat José Aldo in 2021, and despite outstriking Marlon Vera by 100+ strikes in 2022, he still lost a lopsided decision because he couldn't stop getting almost knocked out in every round. He had hoped 2023 would be different--and blitzing Adrian Yanez was a great start--but this past Summer he had a main-event showdown with top contender Cory Sandhagen that was depressing in a number of ways, from Sandhagen completely shutting him down despite only having one fully functioning arm to Font getting outwrestled so badly that he scored 0 significant strikes in three out of five rounds, setting records for main-event inactivity in the process. He's still Rob Fucking Font, and the top ten just would not be the same without him, but his time fighting for contendership is, for the moment, over, and now he has to defend his position against the barbarians at the gates.
I wrote that as the introduction to Font's bout with Deiveson Figueiredo last year. As the yardstick by which Bantamweights are measured, Font was tapped to test the former Flyweight champion's chances at a new weight class, and unfortunately for Font, he passed with flying colors. Suddenly, after an entire decade as a constant standby in the UFC, Rob Font must for the first time think about losing not as a demotion in his position, but as an existential threat to his career. The life of a gatekeeper is a necessary one. Not every fighter will be a champion, and being able to stay in the top ten and fend off attackers from below for years at a time is an absurdly difficult thing to do. There is no shame whatsoever in any of Font's losses.
But there is danger. No matter how good you may be, the UFC wants winners, and the price for taking so many high-level fights is Rob Font being 1 for his last 5. A loss here doesn't just mean three in a row, it means three in a row and 4+ years since Rob Font won back to back bouts. Orthodox boxing and serviceable wrestling will not make the UFC any less likely to cut you when they can replace you with Cortavious "Are You Not Entertained?" Romious* for $10k/10k.
*I did not make this man up. He's debuting in the UFC next month.
Orthodoxy may not be useful at all against Kyler Phillips. "The Matrix" has been searching for a breakout victory for years. The elements are there: His striking is fluid, his kicks come out extremely fast and his creativity on the ground is always a joy to observe. Moreover, every loss on his record was an incredibly close scrape--a majority decision to Brad Katona on The Ultimate Fighter 27 (whatever), an incredibly close split against rising prospect Victor Henry on the regionals, and his lone UFC defeat was a majority decision against Raulian Paiva that really, really should have been a draw.
Which is impressive--but also questionable. Raulian Paiva was a tough character, but he also slipped from the UFC after going 3-4. Not only did Phillips struggle against him, he's made a habit of fading as fights go on across his career. The enthusiasm with which he throws flashy but inefficient spinning techniques and the ferocity with which he deals damage early in his fights both sap his gas tank, and that energy management has been a hindrance on his rise up the rankings. That and, y'know, losing a year and a half of his career to injuries, reschedulings, and failed drug tests for ostarine. Those little things.
This is a crucial fight for both men. Kyler's career may not be in jeopardy if he loses this fight, but his credibility certainly is. He's been positioned as a prospect on the verge of contendership ever since he beat Yadong Song back in 2021, and this is, finally, his shot at the top ten. If he can't crack it, he runs the risk of tumbling back down the card. Font isn't just fighting to keep his status as the guard at the door to the top of the heap, he's fighting to keep his goddamn job. If he doesn't beat Phillips here, he may not be a UFC fighter on Monday.
I am, once again, torn. Phillips is a big favorite here and I get why, he's a canny wrestler and a tricky striker who showed a more disciplined streak against Pedro Munhoz in his last fight, and that discipline could easily get him into the top ten. You cannot, however, underestimate Rob Font. He may be on a skid, but it's hard not to skid against his calibre of competition, and I don't think Phillips has the wrestling of a Sandhagen or the power of a Chito Vera to keep Font off of him.
My brain is still beating my heart, because I am, ultimately, picking KYLER PHILLIPS BY DECISION, but if Font goes back to his consistent, measured attacks and simply pumps jabs into Kyler's face and punishes him for getting flashy, he could run away with the decision and secure himself another few years in the arena.
MAIN CARD: ONLY THE GOOD WEIGHT CLASSES
FLYWEIGHT: Charles Johnson (16-6) vs Sumudaerji (16-6)
When Charles Johnson fought on February 3rd this year I wrote about his new reality on the chopping block, with the UFC capitalizing on his three-fight losing streak by throwing an undefeated international superprospect at him in Azat Maksum. Johnson spent the entirety of 2024 making me look like an idiot, and it's been fantastic. I've been a fan since his latter-day LFA performances and I had hoped he'd get a better shake in the UFC than he did, and somehow, despite being picked out as a good hand to get their favored prospects over, he turned a three-fight losing streak in 2023 into a three-fight winning streak in 2024. He beat Azat Maksum in February, he boxed up Jake Hadley in May, and this past July he came back from a two-round deficit to knock out the streaking Joshua Van. He went from on the verge of getting fired to on the verge of a ranked fight, and I have loved every second of it, and I'm so glad he hasn't tweeted anything stupid that would make me want to see him win less!
God dammit.
The chopping block has rotated and now it's Sumudaerji's turn to be stuck on it. I have written with fondness about Sumudaerji on multiple occasions: His rise from the rather thin rankings of China's WLF Wars, his arrival in the UFC during their big Chinese talent grab in 2018, his heavy-handed, forward-plodding punch-you-in-the-mouth style. I have a distinct appreciation for him. But my distinct appreciations tend to go hand in hand with underdogs who lose as much as they win, and I have damned the man with my love. Sumudaerji had a fantastic two-round fight with Matt Schnell that included knockdowns on both sides and a powerbomb in real life, but he still ended the fight unconscious thanks to a triangle choke; he took a year and a half off and made his return last December for a short-notice fight with Tim Elliott only to get outwrestled and arm triangled with ease. It's ten months later, Sumudaerji's back from a Summer of injury recovery, and he would really, really like a win.
But that win's gonna be awful tough to get. Johnson's very good at peppering opponents with jabs and crosses and Sumudaerji likes to facetank punches to throw winging hooks, and that's just a bad combination for his style. As much as I'd like some fist-based revenge for a dumb fucking tweet, CHARLES JOHNSON BY DECISION after kiting him for fifteen minutes.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Brady Hiestand (8-2) Cameron Smotherman (11-4) vs Jake Hadley (11-3)
Brady Hiestand is trying to make a statement, and by god, he's almost there. Hiestand was a hair's breadth from a split decision and status as The Ultimate Fighter of The Ultimate Fighter 29 (I've had "Rock the Casbah" stuck in my head for a week) but Ricky Turcios got the spotlight and Brady Hiestand got the shadow. And now, three years later, Turcios is 1 for his last 3 and fighting randos on the prelims and Hiestand is on a three-fight winning streak and fighting to break out of the prospect circuit. The long game goes to "Bam Bam" and his aggressive wrestleboxing, the one true style of mixed martial arts. Hiestand spent most of the last year on the shelf thanks to a struggle with staph, but he made his big return this summer by choking out Garrett Armfield and he feels ready to move onto non-limb-based fighters.
But Jake Hadley has arms! Fuck. It was fun while it lasted. Hadley's been something of a misplaced puzzle piece in the UFC. He came into the Contender Series as an undefeated British prospect and won, but he also missed weight and pissed everyone off, but Dana signed him anyway because everything is permissible if you are British. He's been a bit of a mixed bag ever since. His eventual debut saw his streak end thanks to the tragically injury-cursed Allan Nascimento, he managed to pick the bones on Carlos Candelario and a near-retirement Malcolm Gordon to get some of his hype back, but he couldn't stop Cody Durden or Charles Johnson from sending him back to square one. Hadley did avert his losing streak by beating Caolán Loughran this past July--but he missed weight again, and even though it was a short notice fight, management's still kinda mad.
So a funny thing happened 30 minutes after I set my writeup to be locked for the week: Brady Hiestand dropped out! Thanks, Brady. With 72 hours of notice under his belt, your last-minute replacement is Cameron Smotherman, and the fact that there is someone in the UFC named Smotherman and he is a striker instead of a wrestler makes me want to quit combat sports altogether. Where's the damn synergy, man? What are we doing with our lives? Cameron's barely a year removed from his own appearance on the Contender Series, where he got dropped in a minute flat by Charalampos Grigoriou, but he was back to his winning ways less than ninety days later because brain health is for losers. Smotherman's not bad, he's an extremely patient fighter who likes to take his sweet time setting up his range so he can fit well-timed counters into it, and he's carved out a solid reputation as one of the better unsigned Bantamweights in America.
He is also facing a legitimately good fighter with faster hands and higher output who's never been stopped with barely days to prepare. It's a big ask, and I'm sure he is an absurdly hungry man with all the motivation in the world to upset Hadley and establish himself immediately, but respectfully: It's a tall order and I'm not convinced from his tape that he's up to it. JAKE HADLEY BY TKO.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Darren Elkins (28-11) vs Daniel Pineda (28-16 (3))
Do you realize we're at damn near fifteen years of Darren Elkins? Fifteen years! The UFC is trying to get Raul Rosas Jr. into a main event as we speak, and when Darren Elkins made his UFC debut Rosas was fucking five. That debut fight was also the UFC's debut on the Versus network, and that brand doesn't even exist anymore. Elkins has made a multi-decade career out of getting the shit kicked out of him. That's it. That's his thing. Sure, Elkins is a solid wrestler and pressure fighter, but you don't care about that. Darren Elkins doesn't even care about that! His entire professional identity comes from Homer Simpsoning his opponents by taking silly beatings, surviving them, and throttling people who've exhausted themselves by contributing to his future CTE problems. I don't know how you last as long as Elkins has while absorbing as much punishment as Elkins does, but he remains one a medical oddity of combat and I hope to god we don't all feel horrible about it in ten years.
And then, there's Daniel Pineda. I have no goddamn idea what you do with Daniel Pineda. He's been in the sport as long as Elkins has, he's had multiple stints in the UFC and Bellator, and he even made it to the finals of the PFL's 2019 playoffs--including becoming the only man to ever beat future champion Movlid Khaybulaev--before having all those wins expunged after a failed drug test. One year later he was back in the UFC anyway, and in this second-chance run he's now a grand total of 2-3 (1) because he can't stop getting outfought and he damn near got his eye poked out by Andre Fili. He lumbers and he punches and he tries to shoot takedowns and sometimes they even work, but he just can't ever put his style together consistently at this level of competition.
I get burned picking against Elkins an awful lot, and here I am about to do it again. Pineda's a lot cleaner! He lands better, he's a solid enough defensive wrestler that Elkins will struggle to ground him, and Pineda's multiple third-round comebacks make it hard to imagine Elkins grinding him down the way he has so many others. Will I look stupid for it? Almost assuredly, but I look stupid all the fucking time. DANIEL PINEDA BY DECISION.
PRELIMS: WHERE THEY PUT ALL THE WOMEN'S FIGHTS FOR THE MONTH
FLYWEIGHT: Matheus Nicolau (19-4-1, #7) vs Asu Almabayev (20-2, #14)
Matheus Nicolau went from a six-fight winning streak, a killer knockout, half a decade without a loss and the possibility of title contention to getting knocked the fuck out twice in a row and fighting all the way down to the bottom of the rankings in just one year, because time is cruel and the Flyweight division is one of the harshest shark tanks in the sport. The UFC wanted Nicolau to impart his magic to rising contender Manel Kape, but Kape fucked the fight up twice in a row, so they had to settle for Alex Perez knocking him out cold instead. There are no easy matchups at 125 pounds, and the UFC still wants people to get the rub off Nicolau's precipitous fall, and that's why Asu Almabayev is here. I had my doubts about Almabayev when he made his debut last year, but they were based not on his skills, which were obvious, grappling-focused and impressive, but rather his caliber of competition, which varied wildly from well-traveled world champions to 4-4 guys with jobber fights all over their record. There's always a certain question mark attached to fighters moving up from inconsistent regional scenes to the international spotlight, but Asu made the jump with ease, rattling off three wins and getting himself into the periphery of the rankings in less than a year.
Which makes it hard not to read this fight as anything but a referendum on if Nicolau can still go at this level. Almabayev is a wrestler through and through. He does not like to engage on the feet, he likes to shoot a dozen takedowns and rack up double digits of control time. Nicolau has, historically, been really difficult to do this to. He's a strong counterpuncher with great takedown defense--if he's still functional as a top fighter. There are reasons to doubt, and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets drowned here, but I still have faith in his capabilities. MATHEUS NICOLAU BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Brad Katona (14-3) vs Jean Matsumoto (15-0)
I am looking forward to this fucking fight. It was silly that Katona was cut in the first place back in 2019, it was awful nice to see him make his way back into the company thanks to The Ultimate Fighter 31 (I found the 2022 movie Men to be a little disappointing in its willingness to dispose of narrative in favor of metaphor), and he immediately ground out a 1-1 record with his comeback and goddammit, if that kind of coinflip career isn't the Brad Katona story, nothing is. Grind the stone away with your fists and your clinching and your refusal to ever go away, and every once in awhile the stone will grind back, and that is your lot. Jean Matsumoto, by contrast, is just a guy who wins all the time. Boo! Boring. Go back home with your 'never losing' schtick, mixed martial arts is for the beaten and depressed. Matsumoto choked his way through the Brazilian regional scene with its occasionally shaky competition, got into the LFA and took out some, uh, only slightly less shaky competition, and made his way through the Contender Series and into the UFC proper, where he promptly got outwrestled by Dan Argueta for nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds only to choke him out with a single second left before the round ended.
Fantastic comeback! But the UFC wants to make sure you can do it again, because it's a little worrisome when it comes to your prospects against strong wrestlers in the future, which Katona is, and what do you know: He's never been finished, either. Katona may not have Argueta's technical chops, but he's got a harder head and a little more willingness to use it to think about where he's going, and I'm not sure he'll give Matsumoto the same opportunity Argueta did. BRAD KATONA BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Joselyne Edwards (13-6) vs Tamires Vidal (7-3)
The Joselyne Edwards story is not finding traction with its audience. She was never an enormously exciting fighter, she was never an enormously successful fighter, and then she missed weight twice in a row and then she dropped two one-sided fights in a row, and she would be on a three-fight losing streak already were it not for the single worst judging decision of 2023 putting her over Lucie Pudilová despite clearly losing the fight for anyone with functioning eyes. The UFC is tired of her, the fans are tired of her, and admittedly, I am with them. Has Tamires Vidal been more successful? Not even slightly. She won her debut back in 2022 and it's been one loss per year ever since, no matter how hard I have rooted for her success. She hits hard! She's tough! But she got outworked by Montserrat Rendon in 2023, and this past May she lost when, and this is one of the stranger sentences I have typed regarding a fight stoppage, she got punched in the nipple by Melissa Gatto, which prompted Vidal to ask for a foul stoppage, at which point Gatto jumped and punched her repeatedly and the referee called the fight off because getting punched in the breast is not, in fact, a foul.
This was a conversation in my household, by the by. My fiancée holds that if getting kicked in the dick elicits a foul stoppage, getting punched in the nipple should, too. I forwarded her concerns to the Association of Boxing Commissions. TAMIRES VIDAL BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Jessica Penne (14-7) vs Elise Reed (7-4)
There's a part of me that still feels wildly perplexed writing about Jessica Penne. She was an important, championship-level fighter! But that was an entire decade ago. When Penne went the four years between April of 2017 and April of 2021 without a fight, most fans just assumed she had retired. But she came back and scored two solid victories! And then vanished for another year, and lost, and then vanished for another year, and lost, and now it's been another year and a half and Jessica Penne is going on 42 and hasn't won a professional fight in more than three years and she's still here, returning, to remind us all of our mortality and just how long we've been watching this goddamned sport. Were her debut just one month later, you could fit Elise Reed's entire seven-fight UFC run into the time since Penne's initial return to competition. Reed was only signed to the UFC as a last-minute fill-in against Sijara Eubanks (remember her? god, that was awhile ago) and she never really stopped serving in that role. Half her bouts with the company have been as a fill-in replacement, whether she was coming off a win or a loss, and her recent past is no different: Her reward for beating Jinh Yu Frey was a last-minute fill-in against Lupita Godinez, who strangled her in two rounds.
At this point I'm feeling self-conscious about how many decisions I've picked on this card. Penne's still a solid all-around fighter, Reed's a particularly tough fighter, but she tends to get fucked up on the ground. Penne's weakness here is a lax takedown game, but Reed's tendency to let opponents control the pace of the fight will work against her. JESSICA PENNE BY SUBMISSION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Melissa Martinez (7-1) vs Alice Ardelean (9-6)
Hey, look at that: The woman Elise Reed beat. I appreciate this directly laddered card placement. Melissa Martinez was one of Mexico's best female mixed martial artists and the Combate Americas champion when the UFC brought her in--she co-main evented the card that saw Tito Ortiz fight former WWE champion Alberto del Rio as permanent proof God is real and he's pissed at all of us--but Reed filled in against an unprepared Martinez, and Martinez found herself ground to a decision. Alice Ardelean wasn't undefeated, but she did come into the UFC as a veteran of no less than Africa's Extreme Fighting Championship's reality show THE FIGHTER, where she distinguished herself by beating two women who had barely fought anyone with a winning record. And then Ardelean, too, went on to a four-fight winning streak over women with records like 0-1 and 0-3, and then she made it into the UFC and--shockingly--lost. To Shauna Bannon! It was not a great fight and Ardelean almost got a split decision and neither of them looked like they had any chance of beating anyone even close to the top fifteen and we're somehow still here anyway.
MELISSA MARTINEZ BY TKO because I have to pick stops somewhere on this card and Ardelean's inability to deal with Shauna Bannon doesn't give me much faith in her here.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Robelis Despaigne (5-1) vs Austen Lane (12-5 (1))
This is the way of the Heavyweight division. This is its true face. All the way back in the distant past that was March of This Very Year, Robelis Despaigne was looked at as a serious Heavyweight prospect. He's 6'7"! He's got 84" reach! He's an Olympic gold medalist in Taekwondo and he's never lost a fight and he's knocked out four of his five opponents in seconds! He dropped Josh Parisian with one flailing arm while stumbling backwards! Assuredly, nothing can go wrong. And then he got incredibly, painfully, tragically, slowly, Heavyweightedly outwrestled by none other than Waldo "Salsa Boy" Cortes-Acosta in the kind of fight that makes you certain that not just the loser but the winner will never threaten a championship belt. All it took was that one loss! Just the one, and Despaigne is all the way down from a main card fighter people were discussing as a title prospect to curtain-jerking an Apex card populated entirely by Bantamweights against Austen goddamn Lane, who is 0-2 (1) in the company and used to play football. Both of his losses were crushing knockouts and the general expectation here is Despaigne will, once again, knock him out. But here's the trick: Lane won a round against undefeated kickboxer Jhonata Diniz by taking him down and beating him up before he lost.
That's this fight. This, to steal a term from the fighting game community, is a fraud check. Robelis is a murderous striker who can spark Lane with any limb at any time given the space of just a few seconds, but he also looked like he'd never seen a wrestling mat in his life in his last fight, and that was against Waldo, who had shot all of one takedown in his entire UFC career up to that point. The expectation may be Robelis getting another knockout, but I am leery as hell of his grappling, and I am banking on the underdog. AUSTEN LANE BY SUBMISSION.