SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2 FROM THE ROGERS PLACE IN EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA
PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 5 PM / 8 PM
Man, it's hard to come back down after a passing-of-the-torch pay-per-view like last week's. You don't really get more emphatic about the new generation of mixed martial arts than Max Holloway getting punched flat for the first time and Robert Whittaker getting his teeth busted in the space of one hour, and I find myself carrying some of that energy into this card. Amir Albazi's just as much of a new generational star as Ilia Topuria, right? We're all in agreement on that?
Well, Derrick Lewis is here, anyway, so that should be nice.
MAIN EVENT: SECOND FROM THE TOP
FLYWEIGHT: Brandon Moreno (21-8-2, #2) vs Amir Albazi (17-1, #3)
Let's go back to a few weeks ago, when Brandon Royval fought Tatsuro Taira.
The division has an issue, and it's world champion Alexandre Pantoja. Namely: He's already beaten so many goddamn contenders. He beat Brandon Royval twice. He beat Brandon Moreno three times.
(...)
There is, to some extent, a desire in the fanbase to see Taira win. It may not be fair to Royval, but we've seen him do this twice and I don't think anyone expects a different result from "Raw Dawg" getting a third bite at the apple.
There is, to some extent, a desire in the fanbase to see Taira win. It may not be fair to Royval, but we've seen him do this twice and I don't think anyone expects a different result from "Raw Dawg" getting a third bite at the apple.
In case you missed it: Royval vs Taira was a fantastic fight, one of the rare examples of grappling expertise we just don't get enough of in the sport anymore, as well as a great testament to the heart both men bring to the table. It also returned us to the status quo. The groundhog saw his shadow, Brandon Royval won, and the slate of title contenders at Flyweight remains (mostly*) unchanged.
*We'll talk about Kai Asakura soon enough, don't worry.
And in that world of unchanged contendership, Brandon Moreno looms as large as a 5'7" man can. Between his quadrilogy with Deiveson Figueiredo, his multiple defeats of Kai Kara-France and his contendership victory over Royval himself, Moreno more or less was the Flyweight championship scene for three straight years. His boxing, his somehow still-underrated wrestling, his obsessive love for LEGO and his convenient role as one of the UFC's biggest brand ambassadors for their aggressive attempts to corner the Latin American market all coalesced and made him the biggest thing in the division.
But it didn't help any of it last. Moreno became a two-time champion in that title series, but he never once defended it. He lost it back to Figueiredo the first time around, and after knocking Figgy out of both title contendership and Flyweight altogether, Moreno was immediately dethroned by his own personal bogeyman in Pantoja. It wasn't as one-sided as their two previous fights, but at the end of the day, Moreno not only lost to the champion, he's now 0-3 against him in the last eight years. That's the kind of hole you have to do some damned impressive work to dig yourself out of.
Which is why losing a split--a close split, but a loss nonetheless--to Royval wound up being a bit of a disaster for Moreno. Particularly because he wasn't even supposed to be rematching Royval that night.
He was supposed to be fighting Amir Albazi.
There are two sides to the Amir Albazi story. In one, Amir is, unquestionably, one of the best Flyweight fighters in the world. He's got great timing on a lot of his counters, he's incredibly fast in grappling scrambles, he's very good at picking spots for his ground-and-pound and he's a perfect 5-0 in the UFC. He hasn't lost a fight in five and a half years and his last win came against no less than Kai Kara-France, who at the time had just fought for the interim championship and even now is the #4 man in the division. By any measure, Albazi is a deserving top contender.
But the other side of that story is, uh, everything else. Albazi is 5-0 in the UFC, but it took him almost six years to get there because he just cannot stay active. In the time it took him to accrue those five fights, he's had seven cancellations. Not all of which were his fault! But they also meant a lot of his relevant matchups--Tim Elliott, Alex Perez, Royval, Moreno himself--were left scratched, and in their place, he fought folks who don't exactly justify contendership. Three of those five opponents aren't in the UFC anymore, two retired altogether, and the fourth was Alessandro Costa, who was a last-minute, short-notice Contender-Series-veteran promotional debut.
And that win over Kai Kara-France, the one that justified Albazi's top contendership? Here's the thing:
The word 'robbery' gets tossed around a lot, and lord knows I do it myself, but I try to keep it to fights that seemed indisputably clear. Albazi/Kara-France wasn't exactly a robbery. I agree with the consensus that Kai should have won, but it was a close fight, and was not, necessarily, a robbery.
Except for the part where the hingepoint of the decision was Chris Lee giving Albazi a round where he got outstruck 4:1 and whiffed on all his takedown attempts.
So it was kind of a robbery.
Albazi didn't even get to enjoy his controversial contendership. His neck was fucked, he needed surgery, and while getting this diagnosed he also turned out to have pretty severe tachycardia that was more or less waiting for a good chance to abruptly kill him. One neck surgery, one heart surgery and sixteen months later, Albazi's finally ready to get back on the horse, show the world his ranking wasn't a fluke, and claim the title shot he's wanted for years, and however you feel about the Kara-France decision, it's downright inspiring that Albazi was able to fix his body, heal up, recommit himself to fighting given his new lease on life and come back determined to pick up right where he left off.
Anyway, BRANDON MORENO BY DECISION.
I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Amir. I just don't know, man. As neat as it would be to see new blood continue to float to the top of the division, Kai outworked him and avoided most of his wrestling and, hell, Costa was lighting Amir up in the first round of their fight. I just don't see Amir having much luck dealing with Moreno's use of range, his kicks, and his own counter-wrestling. I think he's going back down the ladder.
CO-MAIN EVENT: FLOAT ON
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Erin Blanchfield (12-2, #3) vs Rose Namajunas (13-6, #5)
I have anger about this fight, and I have to go back to Erin Blanchfield's last fight with Manon Fiorot to explain why.
This is a title eliminator because it is impossible for anything else to happen. The only person ranked above either of these women is Valentina Shevchenko, who is already fighting for the title. Whoever wins this fight will have absolutely no one standing between themselves and the champion. It would be promotional malpractice to have these women fight each other and not give whoever wins the next crack at the championship.
You may or may not also remember a throwaway frustration point I made during the preamble for UFC 307 a couple weeks ago.
For mysterious reasons, not only do women's title fights get booked at a snail's pace--why is Zhang Weili only fighting once a year--
So: Funny story.
Virna Jandiroba and Tatiana Suarez were supposed to fight this December to determine the #1 contender for Zhang Weili. It's not happening--Suarez is out again, because life is endlessly difficult--and in conversation about what the hell is going on with Women's Strawweight, veteran MMA reporter Damon Martin casually dropped the news that, according to Tatiana's manager Ali Abdelaziz (who at this point manages roughly half the UFC) they'd been told Weili was waiting for the Grasso/Shevchenko trilogy to end because her next move was a shot at the Women's Flyweight Championship.
I'm going to ask you to pardon my self-indulgence, because we're going back one more time.
Have the two top contenders fight each other.
And I hate hating it. This is what the sport should be! The most deserving contenders should be fighting! This is the living ideal of what I want out of mixed martial arts and a testament to the entire goddamn point of a ranking system!
But it's not happening in a vacuum. We just finished talking about how Rose Namajunas jumped right into top contendership with a single fight.
When Erin and Manon fought this past March, they were both on undefeated, six-fight winning streaks in the UFC. They'd both defeated former championship contenders at multiple weight classes. Either could have easily slid right into a title shot. No one would have complained.
But one of those former championship contenders Manon had to beat was, of course, Rose Namajunas. it didn't matter that Manon was #2 in the division while Rose was coming off a loss and had never fought at 125 pounds before: She's Rose Namajunas, she gets the shot. This is the power of being one of the most popular women's fighters in the world. But she lost, and Manon beat Erin in their top contender showdown, and at least the division is in order.
Except that fight happened in March, and Manon still hasn't gotten her shot, and it looks like she won't actually get the next one, either, and now we're back here with Rose Namajunas getting another shot at the top of the heap.
If it sounds like any of this is frustration with Rose on my part, that could not be further from the truth. I have been a Rose Namajunas fan for eleven goddamn years and it would be mad to stop now. Losing to Manon Fiorot is in no way disqualifying, and it's impressive Rose has managed to go 2-1 at this higher weight class in the first place. But those two wins came from a really close fight with Amanda Ribas that could have gone the other way with just a few more landed strikes and a last-minute bout with Tracy Cortez, who had all of two weeks to prepare for the biggest fight of her life and proved woefully outclassed.
It's not that it's a bad resume. It's that seeing Manon and now Erin both used as stepping stones for a marketing-friendly fighter drives me insane.
Blanchfield could have gotten her shot after ragdolling and easily submitting Jéssica Andrade. She could have easily gotten her shot after facing Taila Santos, the woman who was a bare coinflip away from upsetting Valentina Shevchenko before Alexa Grasso or Noche UFC were sparkles in the matchmakers' eyes, and dominating her the way the greatest-ever world champion had been unable to. But Blanchfield's greatest strength is her killer grappling, and when she found herself across the cage from Manon Fiorot, she had no answers. She couldn't wrestle her, she whiffed on all three attempts, and try as she might, she was outclassed in both strength and technique.
There were two top contenders and then there was one. And when you're fighting at Women's Flyweight, and the top three spots are lost to you, there's nowhere to fight but down.
To some extent, I can't even fully feel my own anger with this fight. This is a perfectly fine matchup to make in October of 2024 given where these women have been in this division over the last twelve months. It just sucks that we had so many opportunities to do better and missed every exit on the way.
My decade-plus of Rose fandom aside, I think this is a bad matchup for her. She is undeniably a better, faster and more versatile striker, but Rose seems to have traded her traditionally dangerous kickboxing for a more measured if lower-impact style at 125, and we just saw Erin eat hundreds of Manon Fiorot punches without dropping. At the same time, Rose's persistent stylistic bugbear has been strong, heavy grapplers. Andrade busted her neck and almost beat her again in the rematch, Carla took Rose's title twice across nearly a decade of separation thanks to the powers of wrestling and performance art, and Weili almost scraped a decision off Rose by bullying her in the clinch.
Erin is a devastating grappler. Jéssica Andrade has made a career out of brute forcing women across a 40-pound weight differential and Erin chucked her at the floor and choked her without even having to fully secure the position. Rose is by no means a slouch on the ground, her bottom game can be dangerous, but it is not a position she wants to test with Blanchfield, and that means Rose is not only operating at a range and power disadvantage, she has to be conscious of every kick she throws lest she get caught and grounded for her troubles.
Eventually, ERIN BLANCHFIELD BY SUBMISSION, and then we go back to waiting for the world to change.
MAIN CARD: OF BEASTS AND BRENDSONS
HEAVYWEIGHT: Derrick Lewis (28-12 (1), #11) vs Jhonata Diniz (8-0, NR)
Derrick Lewis, welcome to your new life as the 265-pound Dan Ige. Lewis and his monstrous punches and his funny interviews and his refusal to not strip to his underwear after his fights end have been a mainstay of the Heavyweight division longer than most full mixed martial arts careers last, but his time left at the top already seemed shaky after he lost to Junior dos Santos in 2019, and his second lease on championship life ended in a total dismantling at the hands of Ciryl Gane in 2021, and by 2023 Lewis had gotten finished four times in five fights, was barely in the top fifteen, and seemed altogether done. The good news: He's not! He knocked the absolute fuck out of Marcos Rogério de Lima and Rodrigo Nascimento, proving there's still life left in his bones. The bad: He also got dominated by Jailton Almeida. If you notice a pattern of prospect testing in those fights, and you're wondering why Derrick Lewis is suddenly fighting a guy with two UFC fights, congratulations, you have identified his new role as the man who sees who deserves to get into the top ten. God bless you for your service.
Jhonata Diniz is the latest beneficiary of Heavyweight being really, really bad. He's a veteran kickboxer and an undefeated 8-0, but most of his career was spent crushing decidedly unfortunate competition on the regional circuit, and upon getting into the UFC proper he promptly dropped a round to the expert wrestling of Austen Lane, but Lane gassed after a little over one round and turned into a punching bag. The UFC took a gamble by putting Diniz in the cage with Karl Williams this past August, given Williams' history as a wrestler and the double-digit takedown attempts he put on the board in every UFC fight he'd ever had, and I was looking forward to seeing him do it again. Of course, expecting fighters to fight to their strengths is my perpetual weakness, Williams barely shot and in one round didn't even attempt a single takedown, and he promptly lost a decision. You will hear the commentary desk crow about Diniz being an undefeated striking phenom, and that is, technically, true, but I urge you to remember that Heavyweight mixed martial arts is a beautiful and terrible mirage that exists to make you drink sand and believe it is manna from heaven.
Derrick Lewis is here because he's popular, he's ranked, and he almost never shoots takedowns. I'd love to see it happen again. I'd love to see Blast Double Derrick sitting on a man for fifteen minutes. In a prolonged striking battle I have trouble seeing Diniz not just dinging Derrick around the cage until he finally gets hurt and drops. But I dream of big right hands and ball-based interviews, and I refuse to lose faith now. DERRICK LEWIS BY TKO.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Caio Machado (8-3-1) vs Brendson Ribeiro (15-7 (1))
That's right, baby. This is what we're doing here this week. I said we would pay for the plethora of lower-weight-class fights on previous cards, and this is where we're at: A featured main card bout between two Light Heavyweights with 0-2 UFC records. God bless us, everyone. Caio Machado is only a Light Heavyweight by force: The entirety of his career up until this point has been waged at Heavyweight--and against competition so great that he has not one, but two victories over Lee Mein in a single calendar year, who is 13-17 and was, at the time, a fresh-faced 54 years old--but 265 in the UFC did not pan out for him. He couldn't deal with the wrestling of Mick Parkin, he couldn't cope with the boxing of Don'Tale Mayes, and now he is seeking success down at 205 pounds in the hopes that his wild punching and occasional when-he-remembers jabs will carry him to contention in a weight class with Alex Pereira in it.
Brendson Ribeiro has no such drop. He's been committed to the less-loved Light Heavyweight class for his entire life, and he even got a Shooto Brasil championship out of it, which was immediately pawned for a bus ticket to the Contender Series and a successful big-punching victory and subsequent contract, because if you're above 6' and you can knock people out, the UFC needs you. Everything since then has been downhill. I picked Brendson to win his UFC debut against China's Zhang Mingyang based on Zhang's need to catch punches with his face, and he did, in fact, punch Zhang in the head a dozen times before he could even get touched, and it didn't matter, because the first time Zhang hit him cleanly it was with a three-punch combination that dropped Ribeiro like a rock. His followup was more competitive but no more successful, as he got thoroughly outwrestled by Magomed Gadzhiyasulov.
So you take the two wrestling-deficient big-punching Light Heavyweights who are both desperate to keep their jobs and you put them in the cage with one another in the hopes of getting some brain damage out of it. It makes sense, can't fault them for that. I've been thinking about Picks Queen Rosie and missing her a bit, so I asked her adopted feline daughter Callie to pick for me, and she devoured the Brendson treat without a second thought, and I refuse to question her royal lineage. BRENDSON RIBEIRO BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Marc-André Barriault (16-8) vs Dustin Stoltzfus (15-6)
On the topic of fighters trying to avert potentially disastrous losing streaks, we have Marc-André Barriault. This isn't Barriault's first time on the near-release rodeo--he actually dropped his first three UFC fights back in 2019 and miraculously didn't get cut after his next got turned into a No Contest thanks to a failed test for ostarine--but for the three years that came afterward, he never once suffered back to back losses. He even achieved the impossible by making an Eryk Anders fight memorable, which is Nobel-worthy. But his successes got him to relevant fighters, and unfortunately, that's where things fell apart. Barriault's 0-2 in 2024, having been taken to a close split decision by Chris Curtis and flattened in ninety seconds by Joe Pyfer, and the man needs a win if he wants to stay safe.
Dustin Stoltzfus is in slightly better straits, but not by much. After four years with the UFC he's only managed to scrape together a 2-5 record, and beating Dwight Grant is harder to celebrate when you get your face kicked off by Abus Magomedov in nineteen seconds one fight later. Stoltzfus has proven that he's by no means a bad fighter, but he's a grappler before anything else and that's gotten him in trouble, whether from bigger, better grapplers like Rodolfo Vieira or simply human wrecking machines like Brunno Ferreira who are willing and able to spin in full circles before erasing several of your skullbones with elbows. He has trouble with physicality.
And that's a problem, because physicality is Barriault's best tool. He's a very solid all-around fighter and incredibly difficult to keep down; Stoltzfus has not exhibited the power to back him off, and it's going to cost him. MARC-ANDRÉ BARRIAULT by decision.
WELTERWEIGHT: Mike Malott (10-2-1) vs Trevin Giles (16-6)
Mike Malott was supposed to be the chosen one. The last time the UFC was in Canada was this past January's Strickland vs du Plessis, and Pennington/Bueno Silva may have co-mained thanks to its championship stakes, but the UFC knew what it was doing by putting Mike Malott in the top-featured main card bout in front of his home province against a ranked Neil Magny. Malott had been walking through his UFC competition, and Magny was supposed to pass the torch to him. And he almost did! For two and a half rounds, Malott was in the driver's seat. And then Magny swept him and started punching him and Malott melted into exhaustion on the spot and got pounded out with just fifteen seconds left before a guaranteed decision victory. The UFC still wants Malott to win, and they especially want him to win in Canada.
So they gave him a guy who isn't just 2 for his last 6, hasn't just been violently finished in all four of those losses, but who Malott already beat in a grappling match less than two years ago. You honestly could not stack it better. To be wholly fair to Trevin Giles, the men he's been losing to are absolute monsters. Dricus du Plessis, Michael Morales, Gabriel Bonfim--hell, the last time we saw Giles he got punched loopy by Carlos Prates, who is, himself, main eventing against Magny next week. Giles is a solid fighter with a good career behind him. But he's also historically struggled with high pressure attacks and tough top games, and unfortunately, those are Malott's specialties.
MIKE MALOTT BY SUBMISSION, as fun as it would be to see Canadians lose out on a Malott victory again.
PRELIMS: THE JERK STORE CALLED
BANTAMWEIGHT: Aiemann Zahabi (11-2) vs Pedro Munhoz (20-9)
It took five years, but Aiemann Zahabi is finally in the prospect conversation. Getting into mixed martial arts under the looming shadow of being Firas Zahabi's kid brother isn't easy, getting into the UFC on the back of an injury stoppage and going 1-2 and nearly getting cut doesn't help, and being completely forgotten by the MMA audience after two years on the shelf can be a killer. It's been oddly heartwarming to see Aiemann come back from all those pitfalls, go on a four-fight tear against some genuinely tough competition, and finally reach coronation as a fighter you should pay attention to after a giant upset over Javid Basharat. But no one has dealt with more professional pitfalls than Pedro goddamn Munhoz. Pedro was tapped to meet superstar Frankie Edgar in the latter's Bantamweight debut, and almost everyone agreed Pedro won the fight, but the judges disagreed. On the back of a two-fight losing streak Pedro was picked to help Sean O'Malley enter the top ten, an attempt that failed when O'Malley almost gouged out his eyes and got a No Contest instead, but O'Malley went up to contendership and Munhoz went back to fighting prospects. Last year the UFC had Munhoz fight Marlon "Chito" Vera in the hopes of heating Chito up for a title fight with O'Malley, and once again, almost everyone agreed Pedro won, and once again, the judges were against him--this time unanimously. In a better world, Pedro Munhoz was knocking on the door of the top five and getting his flowers as an exceptionally solid fighter. In ours, he's won 2 of his last 9 fights and hasn't seen back-to-back wins since 2019.
And he's going on 39, and time is not on his side. As much respect as I have for Munhoz and his all-around style, Aiemann is faster, he's got a much more accurate jab, and he's more than capable of kiting Pedro for fifteen minutes. AIEMANN ZAHABI BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Ariane da Silva (17-9, #13) vs Jasmine Jasudavicius (11-3, #14)
We have two women here who are very tired of being on the outside looking in, and here, in a fight destined to move neither particularly further up the totem pole, they will take out their frustrations on one another. Ariane da Silva (I think I'm obligated to say née Lipski for at least another fight) rolled into the UFC as the immensely successful "Queen of Violence" who terrorized the ranks of Poland's KSW, and her stature as one of the best prospects outside of the UFC led a 6-6 run within it, which has been deeply frustrating just to watch, let alone, I imagine, participate in. She's an aggressive grappler and a solid striker but she simply hasn't been able to break past the periphery of the top fifteen. The wrestlers are too tough, the punchers are too big, or, as in her last fight with Karine Silva, she simply cannot keep up. Jasmine Jasudavicius has experienced a similar story on a much smaller scale, but boy, it's been an active one. She's already on her eighth fight in the company after less than three years on its roster, and she's succeeded against some very solid competition--beating Miranda Maverick is a hell of an achievement given there are women in the top five who couldn't pull it off--but Natália Silva and Tracy Cortez turned her away and she's been forced to rebuild her case on three separate occasions.
This third run should continue unabated, though. Jasmine doesn't tend to get herself in bad submission positions, she's unlikely to give Ariane a lot to capitalize on, and she's likely scoring points while Ariane looks for those openings. JASMINE JASUDAVICIUS BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Charles Jourdain (15-8-1) vs Victor Henry (24-6 (1))
There's a persistent conversation about gimmicks vs reality. Is Colby Covington playing it up for yuks? Is Sean Strickland really that terrible? It's a pointless conversation--whether you're being a shithead because you mean it or because you want to make money, you're still being a shithead--but it's a conversation that also only really comes up when you're on your way up in the sport and getting noticed. Charles Jourdain was almost there in 2022, and then he lost a couple fights, and he was almost there in 2023, and then he lost a couple fights, and no one is having the Does He Mean It conversation about him because no one really cares enough about the Charles Jourdain career arc to make the call. Instead of a controversial star who gets hatewatchers or an idol of the right-wing embraced by his peers, he's just that 6-7-1 guy who loses most of his fights and tweets about feminists. Victor Henry's UFC career, like the man himself, has just been weird. His best win in the company was actually his first--a huge upset debut over the rock-solid Raoni Barcelos--and then he dropped a decision to the about-to-retire Raphael Assunção, and barely scraped past the to-be-cut Tony Gravely, and hit a No Contest with Javid Basharat, and knocked out the twenty-two year veteran Rani Yahya. It's a bizarre fucking run.
But he's also tough and varied as hell and I have progressively less faith in Jourdain every day. VICTOR HENRY BY DECISION.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Jack Shore (17-2) vs Youssef Zalal (15-5-1)
There have been so many times Jack Shore was almost a thing, and each time it's gotten more and more fucked up. The UFC had big plans for him--undefeated Cage Warriors champion from the UK, you do the math--and they tried as hard as they could to get him into big fights, but they just kept falling through. Said Nurmagomedov, up-and-coming prospect? Sorry, he can't make it, best we can do is Liudvik Sholinian. Umar Nurmagomedov, future contender? He's busy! Have a Timur Valiev instead. After Ricky Simón took his streak away, Shore popped up to 145 pounds for what was supposed to be an immediate ranked fight with Kyler Phillips--and then he fucked his knee in training, and by the time he was ready to go again, all they could get him was Makwan Amirkhani. And then Shore fought Joanderson Brito and got the first (technical) knockout of his career after he busted his shin so badly the ring doctor could put his entire finger in it. Youssef Zalal is, by contrast, having the time of his life. His first UFC stint didn't go his way, although it was by no means disgraceful--he's one of two men in the history of the sport to take Ilia Topuria to a decision, which is particularly impressive these days--but his varied gameplan has served him fantastically in his return to the company this past year: He became the first man to ever submit Billy Quarantillo this past March and he made short work of Jarno Errens in August, and he wants a third win for his year just to hammer his return home.
Shore's a very tough pull, though. Zalal's got the long legs and the chokes to make Shore reach and catch him in scrambles, but Shore is a heavier puncher and a suffocating wrestler. I'm still siding with YOUSSEF ZALAL BY SUBMISSION, but I'm not confident about it.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Alexandr Romanov (17-3, #13) vs Rodrigo Nascimento (11-2 (1), #15)
Somehow, this entire fight orbits Derrick Lewis. Alexandr Romanov was a big, scary, undefeated Moldovan wrestling sensation right up until he wasn't. Going from 16-0 to 1 for your last 4 is already humbling in itself, but losing those fights because of grappling when grappling is your entire game puts a big hole in your ability to hold onto the top fifteen of your division. So the UFC planned to have Romanov fight Derrick Lewis--but Jhonata Diniz is a striker, so, y'know, he deserves it more. Instead, Romanov gets Rodrigo Nascimento. Rodrigo's UFC career has also had significant trouble getting off the ground. Choking out Don'Tale Mayes in your debut: Good! Getting punched out in under a minute by Chris Daukaus: Bad. Giving Alan Baudot a non-loss in the UFC because you failed a drug test: Objectively funny. Rodrigo finally got a winning streak under his belt--granted it was made of multiple split decisions and, once again, a win over Don'Tale Mayes--and the UFC was so hard up for main events that they gave him his first starring role against, of course, Derrick Lewis, who knocked him the fuck out.
It's Lewis all the way down. I dunno, man. Neither of these guys seems to be fighting for a title anytime soon and I feel bad picking on them when they're just doing their best with the draw the world gave to them in the form of being stuck at Heavyweight. ALEXANDR ROMANOV BY TKO, I guess.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Serhiy Sidey (10-2) vs Garrett Armfield (10-4)
Serhiy Sidey gave me an existential crisis.
We have reached the point in this sport where the preliminary bouts of a UFC card are being used to settle beef from Dana White's Contender Series. This is the way things have inverted. The rain falls upward, and we are damned to watch it flee our Earth.
Serhey Sidey had a fight with Ramon Taveras on the Contender Series. He won, but it was a controversial stoppage that Dana personally didn't like, so they ran it back immediately in the UFC proper. As if to enshrine the Hell of their own making, everything about it was a mess: Taveras missed weight substantially, Sidey pretty clearly won the fight and Taveras got a split decision anyway. So now Sidey has a UFC contract, but he lost to the dude he beat to get it, and there's nothing to do with him but give him to Garrett Armfield, the man who understands him, because Armfield himself was hired as a short-notice replacement to fight David Onama based on his history of having already fought and lost to David Onama. Armfield scratched out a place for himself as the guy you get to be a solid wrestleboxing foil for the Brad Katonas of the world, but that only lasts as long as there are Katonas to beat.
I do not have the Sidey faith, I am sorry to say. I do not accept the Christian Sidey Hug. GARRETT ARMFIELD BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Chad Anheliger (13-7) vs Cody Gibson (20-10)
Chad Anheliger has two UFC victories in two years, and they're Jesse Strader and Charalampous Grigoriou, and they are both no longer with the company. Cody Gibson has two UFC victories across two years, and they're Johnny Bedford and Brian Kelleher, and they are both no longer with the company. Anheliger made it through the Contender Series, Gibson did it through The Ultimate Fighter, and they both ultimately wound up less successful than the men they fought for their contracts. I have a confession: I hate the degree to which my passion for fighter stories has fallen into disrepair. When I started writing these things it was with the intention of sharing fighter stories, introducing people to everyone on a card, and rejecting the cynicism of turnover as best I could. Somehow, impossibly, I started doing this right around the time the entirety of MMA media collapsed into a corporately-sponsored AI-obsessed nightmare, the entirety of the MMA b-leagues that form the secret lifeblood of the sport began to fall apart, and the entirety of the UFC's roster became a constant wash of Contender Series soldiers, and now I find myself inherently disrespecting the efforts of these athletes by reducing them to the circumstances of their arrival because the company has made its matchmaking so thoroughly disposable and interchangeable that I cannot find it in myself to keep a solid hold on the glass-smooth cliffside of the UFC undercard. I want to do better at this in 2025 and I have no idea how.
I'm sorry, Cody-Chad. I hope you can forgive me. CODY GIBSON BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Jamey-Lyn Horth (6-1) vs Ivana Petrović (7-1)
This, too, feels a bit like a battle of misplaced toys. Jamey-Lyn Horth deserved her UFC callup, she was an undefeated LFA champion, but she wasn't called up for her skills so much as because she was a convenient short-notice matchup for Hailey Cowan, a woman the UFC decided to get thoroughly invested in for marketing reasons, which made it awkward when Horth beat her. Horth's own undefeated streak didn't last, unfortunately--she dropped it to Veronica Hardy one fight later, and now she's stuck in what-the-hell-do-we-do-with-her limbo. Ivana Petrović had a similar trajectory, but flipped the order: The UFC scouted her as the undefeated champion of France's Ares FC, she came in as a rational signing for one of their Paris showsfor a random undercard bout in the Apex, where she immediately lost her streak to Luana Carolina. Ivana's already back in the win column thanks to a submission over Na Liang, who was aggressive, violent, and 0-4 in the UFC and had a tendency to get crushed on the ground.
I'm feeling Horth. JAMEY-LYN HORTH BY DECISION.