SATURDAY, JANUARY 18 FROM THE INGLEWOOD DOME IN LOS ANGELES, MAYBE
EARLY PRELIMS: 3 PM PST / 6 PM EST | PRELIMS: 5 PM / 8 PM | MAIN CARD: 7 PM / 10 PM
Welcome to the first Big mixed martial arts card of 2025. For as much as I mock the UFC and their often lamentable lineups I must celebrate their good days, and this, my friends, is a good day.
Two championship fights featuring pound-for-pound greats and their legitimate top contenders. A title eliminator featuring the last two champions fighting for another crack at the man who knocked them both out. A former top contender trying to stop a long-time prospect from achieving his potential. Grant Dawson, Karol Rosa, Payton Talbott and Serghei By God Spivac.
As always, the placement of some fights is unfortunate--good to see you again, top ten ranked women's fights stuck on the early prelims--but this is a killer first pay-per-view for the year and I am jazzed for it.
Now let's find stuff to complain about.
MAIN EVENT: DESTINED
LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Islam Makhachev (26-1, Champion) vs Arman Tsarukyan (22-3, #1)
In an obtuse way, Islam Makhachev needs this.
The world pegged Islam as a future champion most of a decade ago. He was the almost-literal heir apparent to the Khabib Nurmagomedov legacy of nigh-unbeatable Dagestani super-grapplers, and while he lost his chance at retiring undefeated thanks to his 2015 slipup against Adriano Martins, he never lost his grip on that legacy. He carved through his opponents for seven straight years after that loss, and when Khabib left the throne empty he was more than ready to assume it. No one was surprised when Islam became the Lightweight champion. No one was surprised when he topped the pound-for-pound lists. No one is surprised he's held the title for years.
But the holes left by his title reign are a little surprising.
It's not Islam's fault, of course. He hasn't ducked any competition, he hasn't avoided any challengers, he's been more than happy to take on whoever the UFC sends his way, but a combination of the company's choices, the logjam at the top of the 155-pound rankings and some out-and-out bad luck have made his run as champion a bit odd. Two of his three title defenses came against just one man, and not only is that man Alexander Volkanovski, a Featherweight whose only 155-pound fights were those two losses, the rematch saw Volkanovski fighting with barely a week to prepare. Islam's only Lightweight title defense against an actual Lightweight came against Dustin Poirier, who--with all respect to one of my favorite fighters of all time--was 2 for his last 4, had lost to two top contenders, and was coming off one straight victory against a man at the periphery of the top fifteen.
In its almost quarter-century history, no one in the UFC has held onto the Lightweight title for more than three defenses. BJ Penn took on the best The Ultimate Fighter had to offer. Benson Henderson tackled the top Lightweight from an entirely different promotion. Khabib Nurmagomedov cemented his legacy by defeating the three biggest Lightweights of his era.
This is Islam Makhachev's fourth title defense. He has the chance to etch his name into the history books as the most successful 155-pound champion in UFC history. And it is only now, his fourth time out, that he finally has the opportunity to defend his title against his division's top contender.
And it is--of course--someone he already beat back in 2019, and Arman Tsarukyan has never forgotten it. I wrote about his path of rage back in 2022:
Arman Tsarukyan had long been tapped by MMA prospect-watchers as an potential hooks-and-doubles lightweight successor to Khabib, which made it extra awkward when his UFC debut came in a co-main event against Khabib's actual successor, Islam Makhachev. It was a prolonged wrestling match that saw Tsarukyan refusing to ever stay on his back and at one point taking Islam down himself, but he was still ultimately outwrestled and controlled to a decision loss.
And he was really mad about it, and proceeded to take out that anger by constructively wrestling four of his next five opponents at length, the outlier being Christos Giagos, the only UFC fighter he dropped and pounded out. Typically, steamrolling five people in a row gets you noticed as a contender; in Arman Tsarukyan's case, it only got him to the top fifteen. To some extent this is because it's lightweight, the single most talent-dense division not just in the UFC but the world; to some extent this is because a lot of people still don't necessarily believe in Arman Tsarukyan.
That night, Arman fought Mateusz Gamrot. It was one of those rare fights the hardcore fanbase is absolutely in love with: Two top prospects on title-shot trajectories meeting in their prime to see who belongs at the top of the ladder. Many had the sense that this fight would see an inevitable rematch one day when one of the two was wearing gold.
It was a great fight, and as is so often the case in our sport, nothing went quite the way anyone wanted afterward.
The bout, itself, was extremely close. Gamrot had more takedowns but didn't accomplish much with them; Arman had more success on the feet but couldn't get his wrestling to stick. Ultimately, the majority of media scorecards had Arman taking the decision; ultimately, all three of the judges disagreed. The sport had spoken, one man was on his way to the title and one man was headed to the back of the line.
But Gamrot's future didn't materialize that way. He lost his contendership fight to Beneil Dariush, he squeaked a controversial split decision past Jalin Turner, he was the beneficiary of Rafael Fiziev's leg imploding in mid-fight. He unremarkably decisioned Rafael dos Anjos and got his own controversial split loss against Dan Hooker. Less than two years after the bout that legitimized him as the next big thing, Gamrot's momentum was gone.
Arman, who took the back path, wound up getting there first. He fought Damir Ismagulov and dominated him. He devoured Joaquim Silva. He met Beneil Dariush just two fights after Gamrot's crack at the man, and where Gamrot had failed to make anything work, Arman simply destroyed him, knocking him out in just barely over a minute. At UFC 300, the biggest event in years, Arman fought the former world champion in Charles Oliveira, the man whose only Lightweight loss in more than a decade had come at the hands of Islam himself, and he solved the puzzle of one of the sport's most dangerous grapplers in realtime, shutting him down and outgrappling him to a decision.
There's a certain alchemy to championship talent in mixed martial arts, but one of the most important features of enduring champions is the ability to learn from their mistakes. Ego and complacency cause fighters to stagnate, and the greatest in the sport's history are the ones who, even in victory, continually reappraise themselves to figure out what they could have done better.
Arman Tsarukyan has never stopped talking about his loss to Islam. Arman Tsarukyan, even in controversy, went back to the drawing board after his loss to Gamrot and made himself a newer, better fighter.
And Arman Tsarukyan, back in 2019, was still good enough to pitch one of the just two times Islam Makhachev has ever been taken down in his entire UFC career.
He's wanted this rematch for more than half a decade. He's never been hungrier or more prepared to finally make good on the promise the world has seen in him for years, just as Islam once did. The same way Islam wants to write his name in the history books on Arman's corpse, Arman wants to enshrine himself as one of the precious few fighters who can say they killed the king.
He took him down once. He knows he can do it again.
But he also knows it took eleven failed attempts to get one to stick.
I like Arman. I have always liked Arman. I would love to see him ascend to the throne, and the hellacious way he knocked out Dariush makes me very excited for just how badly he could hurt Islam given a chance. But he does his best work when he's the aggressor, when he's in control of the range or the wrestling, and no one has been able to take that control away from Islam. He's become so good at setting his pace, at working from range just enough to keep his opponents from realizing he's about to ragdoll them, and even if Arman arguably beat Mateusz Gamrot back in 2022, he showed exactly how vulnerable he could still be against that kind of high-pace, high-pressure chain-wrestling assault.
My heart will always hope for an intriguing upset, but I think destiny has been deferred one too many times. ISLAM MAKHACHEV BY DECISION.
CO-MAIN EVENT: FORCING THE ISSUE
BANTAMWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Merab Dvalishvili (18-4, Champion) vs Umar Nurmagomedov (18-0, #2)
Remember that 'let's find stuff to complain about' crack up at the top of this writeup? We're gonna do that here, because this is a fascinating cross-section of both an extremely good, extremely reasonable match and some real bullshit, and thanks to the champion's outspoken nature, said bullshit has become the real story of the fight.
Merab Dvalishvili is not new to this game. At the turn of 2025 he began his second decade of professional mixed martial arts competition, and for damn near the entire thing, he's been one of the best of the best. His wrestling, his cardio and his refusal to ever die made him undeniable as a Bantamweight contender and undeniable as a future champion. That wasn't by accident, either. It was a rational response to watching the UFC work very, very hard to deny someone.
The friendship between Merab and former champion Aljamain Sterling was very public, as was the UFC's decided antipathy towards Aljo. Dana was very public about his distaste for him, as well as his disgust with Merab for not wanting to fight his training partner and good friend. Merab didn't just get to see Sterling's mistreatment firsthand, he got to see the UFC book Sterling into the ground as champion, scheduling him at a blistering pace despite multiple injuries, all while letting their desired contender in Sean O'Malley sit on his hands for an entire year waiting patiently for his shot. Merab got to see his friend make his fourth title defense in sixteen months and lose his belt to Sean O'Malley in a match sponsored by an advertising partnership with Sean O'Malley.
When he finally got his chance at O'Malley this past September, he made it count by grinding him into jelly. And, as champion, he knew just as O'Malley had been their plan to beat Sterling, Umar Nurmagomedov was the UFC's plan for taking his own title away.
Umar Nurmagomedov, as with goddamn near everyone carrying his surname*, has been talked up as a future champion more or less since his UFC debut back in 2021. Just like Islam, he carried the Dagestani/Abdulmanap grappling pedigree into combat, and just like his cousin Khabib, he's held onto his undefeated record through his entire career, and just like his younger brother and Bellator champion Usman, he graduated to the international spotlight without missing a beat. He's on a six-fight winning streak, he just beat a top contender, he's looked phenomenal through his entire UFC run and the world has so much faith in his capabilities as a fighter that he's the -350 favorite in his own title challenge.
*Said Nurmagomedov remains tragically unrelated.
He's unquestionably one of the best Bantamweights on the planet. He's unquestionably a deserving challenger.
And Merab started getting publicly mad about the matchup immediately after his title victory, and he is unquestionably correct to do so.
There's a lot of back-and-forth about the finer details of why--allegations of rancor between the camps, perceived acts of disrespect--but the simpler, more direct explanation comes from simply looking at the paths they took to the title. When Merab got his title shot, it was after he had beaten, in order,
Terrion Ware, a gimme on a three-fight losing streak
Brad Katona, an undefeated Ultimate Fighter champion
Casey Kenney, a 13-1-1 fighter on a six-fight winning streak
Gustavo Lopez, a last-minute injury replacement
John Dodson, a two-time title challenger who'd never been stopped in his career and came inches from two-division contention
Cody Stamann, a twice-rebooked fighter who was a weird step down in competition
Maron Moraes, a former world champion and title contender on the downswing
José Aldo, former UFC champion and one of the greatest mixed martial artists in history
Petr Yan, former UFC champion and perpetual top contender who'd almost beaten Aljo the previous year
Henry Cejudo, a two-division world champion on the comeback trail who'd also almost beaten Aljo the previous year
It's a hell of a gauntlet. By contrast, here are the men Umar beat to earn his shot:
Sergey Morozov, an M-1 champion out of Russia who'd never fought in the UFC before
Brian Kelleher, who was 24-12 and had been rejected from the rankings repeatedly
Nate Maness, a very respectable 14-1 who had been cleaning up on unranked fighters
Raoni Barcelos, who was 1 for his last 3 and ultimately became 1 for his last 5
Bekzat Almakhan, a Kazakhstani regional who'd never fought in the UFC before
Cory Sandhagen, a legitimate top contender who'd been pushed out of contention by Sterling and Yan
Now, none of those men are bums. They're all very talented fighters who represented legitimate threats.
5/6 of them were also unranked.
Merab got his title shot after running a ten-man marathon that included five titlists, multiple champions, multiple top contenders and multiple attempts at very intentionally derailing him.
Umar got into the top ten after beating zero ranked fighters and then he got jumped up from #10 to #2. It was supposed to happen even earlier, too--they had initially booked him against Sandhagen in the summer of 2023 and it failed only when Umar couldn't make it. Cory, in the intervening period, fought a last-minute ranked battle against permanent gatekeeper Rob Font.
Umar got Bekzat Almakhan. Who is tough, and capable, and an unranked fighter with no stakes.
At this point, it is, of course, irrelevant. Cory Sandhagen was deservedly the #2 man in the division and Umar clearly and cleanly beat him. Whatever circumstances led us here, we are, now, here. But Merab has seen this happen before, and knew it would happen again, and wanted, if nothing else, to make sure the world knew it too.
And now the world's pretty sure he's about to lose his belt to the company favorite. Admittedly: They've got a real good argument.
Merab has never been a great striker, he hasn't scored a submission victory since 2017, and the only knockdown in one of his fights since 2018 saw Marlon Moraes damn near decapitating him. He won anyway, because he is historically unstoppable. He never tires, he never quits, and he never, ever stops. But that rhythm is dependent on his ability to break his opponents by drowning them with his wrestling. He clings to them and throws them, over and over. He batters them up close. He may never have dropped Sean O'Malley, but he hit him two hundred and fourteen times.
He wins by walking through his opponents and imposing his will on them. In that context, Umar being favored makes sense: No one's ever stopped him from doing whatever he wants.
He outwrestled Sandhagen. He outwrestled Almakhan. He punched Barcelos out cold. He has a perfect, 100% takedown defense rate in the UFC, and that statistic has come up an awful lot in discussing the likelihood that he'll take Merab apart.
Here's the thing, though: That 100% defense rate is based on a sample size of one. Outside of a single low-effort shot by Barcelos, the only man to really try to take Umar down was Cory Sandhagen, and he only managed two attempts. In his fight with Petr Yan, Merab was throwing two takedown attempts every single minute.
The world is understandably scared of engaging Umar in a grappling match. Merab is incapable of falling into this trap. He will push through the wrestling because that's his entire gameplan, and when he forces Umar to defend, the fight gets interesting. It's entirely plausible for Umar to grab a choke and pop his head off. Hell, it's entirely plausible that Umar may simply outwrestle and outstrike him and cruise to another undefeated victory just as the world expects.
But I have come this far watching Merab break people while refusing to be broken, and if he can make it past the first two rounds, I am very, very curious to see just how much he can do to a Nurmagomedov on the back foot for the first time in their career. MERAB DVALISHVILI BY DECISION.
MAIN CARD: I WAS WINNING UNTIL I LOST
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Jiří Procházka (30-5-1, #2) vs Jamahal Hill (12-2 (1), #3)
Being Jiří Procházka is very difficult right now. You are, unquestionably, one of the brightest starts in the dead galaxy that is the Light Heavyweight division. You're a legendary knockout artist with a near-total finishing rate and achieved international acclaim before you were 23. You went from a newly-signed UFC talent to its world champion in less than two years, and you had one of the greatest fights in the division's history in the process. You are the only person to hold a world championship in both Japan's Rizin and the UFC. And you'll have to move a mountain to get a shot at regaining it, because you already flunked two. Jiří's one of the best in the world: He also got knocked out by Alex Pereira twice in just seven months. He understands and accepts his failure, but he wants to earn a chance to prove he can still slay the dragon, and he knows he'll have to take out every other contender there is to prove he's still worth the time.
Which puts him a step ahead of Jamahal Hill, who categorically refuses to entertain any semblance of accepting his own loss. Hill's been on an up-and-down path of his own, but those hills and valleys have come by way of fortune and misfortune. He lucked into getting a vacant title fight against a Glover Teixeira on the verge of retirement and put his name in the history books as a champion, then promptly busted his Achilles playing charity basketball and had to give it up. He came back after more than a year on the shelf and slid into the highest-profile fight of his life, main eventing UFC 300 against Alex Pereira, where he was promptly nuked in three minutes. He was supposed to get busted down to facing Khalil Rountree Jr., only for Khalil to get busted for a piss test, and then it was Carlos Ulberg, which Hill pulled out of to keep rehabbing injuries. And now he's facing Jiří in a possible title eliminator for another shot at Pereira, who Hill swears he was beating right up until the moment he got brutally, effortlessly knocked out the referee got in the way and unfairly fucked up his fight.
Cavalier as I am about his public bullshit, Hill presents a real set of problems for Jiří. Just one fight ago, Aleksandar Rakić showcased how a skilled, patient distance assault can still take Jiří apart--up until Jiří bullrushed him and destroyed him a round later. Hill is very good at using his range and picking opponents apart, it's only Pereira's technique that felled him, and sticking to technique has never been Jiří's strong suit. It's not at all unlikely that Hill pecks Jiří for three rounds and punishes him for his impatience. But I said the same thing about Rakić, and I was right up until I very abruptly wasn't. I will choose to believe in the man this time. JIŘÍ PROCHÁZKA BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Beneil Dariush (22-6-1, #9) vs Renato Moicano (20-5-1, #10)
It feels both accurate and deeply unfair to refer to Beneil Dariush as a Former Contender. He's always flown under the radar as a top Lightweight, but he also made it thirteen years and twenty-six fights into his career without ever once giving up back-to-back losses. Charles Oliveira can't say that. Justin Gaethje can't say that. Beneil can, and he finally staked his claim on a top contendership fight in 2022 when he took Mateusz Gamrot, who'd just emerged as the most promising prospect in the division, and simply dominated him. Dariush was overjoyed to finally get past the glass ceiling; unfortunately, the moment he tried to walk on it, he fell through. When you go your entire career without back-to-back losses and promptly eat two first-round knockouts in a row, collective opinion on you turns very, very quickly. Dariush feels it, too. He's talked openly about how he still feels the desire to fight and the ability to compete, but he knows he's in this to be the best, and if he can't get through contendership, he's not sure he should be here anymore.
Renato Moicano is very sure he should be here. He's been trying to be here for ten years. Over the past decade Moicano's made multiple runs at the top, and every time he's been turned aside. Once upon a time it was Brian Ortega, then it was José Aldo or Rafael Fiziev--his 2022 Moicano Wants Money campaign ended at the hands of Rafael dos Anjos, of all people. But Moicano has found opportunity in the current flux of the Lightweight division, and he's quietly cleaned up enough tough, gritty prospects to finally earn a four-fight win streak and another shot at the big time. Is it gratifying to see a fighter I've been watching develop for a decade finally round out his game and make what seems like his best chance at contendership? It should be! But it happens to coincide with Moicano becoming hilariously brain-poisoned by the alt-right libertarian media phenomenon, so now every time he wins a fight he cuts a promo about how democracy doesn't work and we need to embrace an evangelical capitalist bitcoin autocracy.
It's weird to think of this as a torch-passing fight. These men were born just fifteen days apart, their mixed martial arts careers started just four months apart, their UFC debuts happened in the same calendar year. But Dariush feels older. His road feels more worn. Some of that is recency bias, some is hearing the way they describe themselves at this point in their lives. Some of it is remembering how jarring it used to hear Dariush go off on zealous rants about his faith after his victories and how quaint that feels in our new reality of blackpilled post-fight interviews about the joys of fascist rule. Moicano feels like he has more tread on his tracks. He feels newer. And I'm picking BENEIL DARIUSH BY TKO anyway. So much of Moicano's success comes from his groundwork and I don't know that he'll be able to get his style to work on Beneil, even now. But it's entirely possible I just don't want to hear another rant about Ludwig von Mises.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Kevin Holland (26-12 (1)) vs Reinier de Ridder (18-2)
Kevin Holland is Donald Cerrone now. The UFC has spent years searching for a new Cowboy--a fighter they can roll out who is always dangerous, always credible and always just a bit popular with the fans, despite posing very little threat to anyone truly relevant to his division--and it's been Kevin Holland for years. Never forget that Dana White chose not to hire Kevin Holland despite his Contender Series victory in 2018, thinking he was too unmarketable and uninteresting, and now he's been one of the staple fighters holding the entire fucking company together for half a decade. This also means he loses an awful lot. Holland is just 3 for his last 8, but those losses are all to top ten fighters and, in multiple cases, world championship contenders. And he's still good! He still took Jack Della Maddalena to a decision, he still survived four rounds with Stephen Thompson. He's still dangerous as hell.
Despite his successful UFC debut, the jury's hasn't quite returned a verdict on Reinier de Ridder. RDR was the double-champion kingpin of ONE Championship right up until the cracks in their relationship began to show, at which point he was thoroughly and extremely intentionally squashed in a pair of disastrous matches with their Heavyweight champion despite his not, in fact, being a Heavyweight. It ruined his undefeated streak, but it got him his freedom from the floundering organization, and less than a year later de Ridder was in the UFC. At one point, de Ridder was seen as potentially better than the UFC's entire Middleweight and Light Heavyweight divisions. When faced with the reality of Gerald Meerschaert, one of the UFC's most storied journeymen, the results were, uh, mixed. de Ridder won! He submitted GM3, and that's not easy to do. He also dropped the second round, was almost outstruck on the feet, and looked exhausted after just shy of twelve minutes of fighting.
This fight is predicated entirely on the likelihood that de Ridder can take Holland down. This is a very reasonable assumption: Goddamn near everyone who's tried to take him down has succeeded. On the canvas, de Ridder should be able to eat Holland alive. If he can't get him there? Getting repeatedly clapped upside the head is a very, very bad sign when you're about to fight Holland. I do not feel at all confident having faith in his takedown defense, but after watching Reinier's UFC debut, I cannot help picking KEVIN HOLLAND BY TKO here.
PRELIMS: KEEPING THE FAITH
BANTAMWEIGHT: Payton Talbott (9-0) vs Raoni Barcelos (18-5)
It's final exam time. All the well-deserved mockery and scorn the Contender Series has earned makes it difficult to separate the genuine prospects it surfaces from the card-filling chaff, and sometimes, legitimately solid fighters have to toil for years to establish themselves as visibly worthwhile. Payton Talbott has not had this problem. Talbott cruised through the show as an undefeated champion out of Urijah Faber's home federation and the UFC let him gradually walk into the deeper parts of the talent pool, and unlike most of his contemporaries, as his challenges have gotten harder, his performances have gotten better. He had to accept the first decision victory of his life to get his contract, it took him three rounds to choke out Nick Aguirre in his UFC debut, four months later he pounded Cameron Saaiman out in two rounds, and this past June he knocked out Yanis Ghemmouri in nineteen seconds. Talbott has legitimately earned a real stiff test, and Raoni Barcelos is poised to give it to him. Four and a half years ago, Barcelos looked like the Bantamweight division's next big prospect--he was 16-1, he was on an eight-fight, six-year winning streak, and he'd just shut down Said Nurmagomedov and Khalid Taha in back-to-back fights--but COVID happened, and his level of competition rose, and Barcelos never quite found his footing again. He's been in the cage with some very high-level competition, including tonight's Bantamweight title challenger in Umar Nurmagomedov, but after taking only one loss in his first seventeen fights Raoni's 2 for his last 6 and trying to hang on by the skin of his teeth.
He's a very good fighter. He's proven just how tough he can be time and time again, and if he can force Talbott to fight on his back foot, he's got the experience, the ground game and the grit to overwhelm him. But we've also seen Barcelos get his bell rung, and Talbott's proven just how powerful his hands can be. PAYTON TALBOTT BY TKO.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Jailton Almeida (21-3, #6) vs Serghei Spivac (17-4, #7)
We regularly use the metaphor of the UFC strapping the jetpack to fighters it wants to boost up the rankings, but sometimes that jetpack runs out of fuel, and it gets real, real noticeable. Jailton Almeida was one of the UFC's hardest-pushed prospects in years. He got a series of soft targets on his way up the ladder and was main-eventing after just three appearances with the company, and, coincidentally, got all the way to top contendership without facing any of the serious grapplers the Heavyweight division had to offer. And then he beat Derrick Lewis in a main event so uneventful it had a Brazilian crowd booing their own home-turf fighter, and then he got knocked out by Curtis Blaydes, and now, suddenly, it's not just back to prelims, it's back to prelims against wrestlers. Almeida made easy work of Alexandr Romanov last June, and now his rehabilitation tour makes a pit stop with the Polar Bear. Serghei Spivac had his own considerably-less-corporately-supported path to contendership--which, coincidentally, also went through a Derrick Lewis main event--and then he got his big Parisian bout with Ciryl Gane, and as a grappling expert fighting a kickboxer with a historic wrestling deficiency, Spivac faltered. He didn't fight to his strengths, he tried just one takedown, and he got outstruck 110 to 11 in just eight and a half minutes before succumbing. He took almost a year off before tapping Marcin Tybura in a single round, but the path to contendership looks fraught.
But overall, it's really just a striking sign of marketing lethargy that these two fighters, who are collectively 14-3 in the UFC over the last five years and who have five main events between them, are both coming off wins, both fighting for a top ten berth in the division, and are somehow here, knee-deep in the prelims, booked under Kevin Holland and Billy Elekana. (UPDATE: While I was editing this for publishing, they redid the prelims. This fight is now more important than Billy Elekana, but still not as important as Payton Talbott, which is even funnier.) I am, as we know, wholly in the tank for Serghei Spivac, so despite my awareness that Almeida is a more athletic and technically better grappler, I refuse to see reason. SERGHEI SPIVAC BY TKO.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Bogdan Guskov (16-3, #13) vs Billy Elekana (7-1, NR)
Oh, Light Heavyweight. You used to be a thing, man. You used to exist. It was just under a year and a half ago that the UFC introduced the world to Bogdan Guskov as a late-notice injury replacement against Volkan Oezdemir. Should it have been a little more problematic that a fight to determine a top ten Light Heavyweight in the world was waged by a guy making his UFC debut after beating up a 41 year-old journeyman? Probably! But he lost, and it's Light Heavyweight, so it's debatable if anyone would have even noticed. Bogdan made it into the top fifteen thanks to back-to-back victories over no less than Zac Pauga, the runner-up for The Ultimate Fighter 30 (jesus christ), and Ryan Spann, in the latter's last act before becoming a Heavyweight, and originally this was to be Bogdan's second crack at the top ten by way of Johnny Walker, but the Worm Man is hurt, and now, Bogdan must experience the circle of life. With a week to prepare, Billy Elekana is here. Billy Elekana had two appearances on undercard prove-yourself-for-a-shot spots with the Professional Fighters League, and he won both of them, and the PFL still showed him the door. The 2024 PFL Light Heavyweight tournament included fighters with 50/50 Bellator records, men who failed multiple drug tests in the previous season and one competitor who hadn't won a fight in almost two years, and Billy Elekana won two separate preliminary bouts as a young, 6-1 prospect, and they were so disinterested by what they saw that they sent him off to Lights Out Xtreme Fighting, which is shot on a soundstage in front of several hundred very confused people.
And now, with one week's notice, he's fighting to be a top fifteen Light Heavyweight in the world. In 2023 it was Bogdan Guskov, in 2025 it's Billy Elekana, and god willing, by 2027, we'll just be dispensing with pretense and someone will come off the Contender Series as a 2-0 rookie and get an immediate shot at world champion Zhang Mingyang. I hope to be pleasantly surprised, but having watched most of Elekana's taped fights, nothing I see in his skillset gives me much faith. BOGDAN GUSKOV BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Grant Dawson (22-2-1, #15) vs Diego Ferreira (19-5, NR)
You know all that stuff I said about Jailton Almeida? That goes triple for Grant Dawson, because he fights at a weight class that's actually good. Seven years without a loss is a wild accomplishment in a shark tank like the Lightweight division. It took nine fights without a loss for Dawson to get into the top ten, and it was only #10, and the UFC followed it up not with a contendership match or even a ranked match, but the defense of his spot against the unranked Bobby Green. And in one of 2023's biggest upsets, Green starched him in thirty seconds. It's three fights later, Dawson's back on a winning streak, he's coming off becoming the first man to ever stop Rafa García after laying just a hellacious beating on him, and--with a record of 10-1-1 in the UFC's toughest division--Grant Dawson, ranked Lightweight, is fighting unranked bouts curtain-jerking the prelims. This is by no means intended to impugn Diego Ferreira, who is, by every measure, a bad motherfucker. Ferreira's been around the UFC for almost eleven years, he's knocked off multiple world champions, and the only people to beat him were genuine Lightweight contenders. And even now, with this fight happening on Diego's 40th birthday, he's back on a winning streak after punching out Michael Johnson and pounding out Mateusz Rębecki. He's always been good. He's still good.
But he also gets taken down an awful lot, and I don't think he's going to have an answer for Dawson's wrestling. GRANT DAWSON BY DECISION and I look forward to his next prelim fight against Thiago Moisés this Summer.
EARLY PRELIMS: PLEASE STOP DOING THIS
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Zachary Reese (8-1) vs Azamat Bekoev (18-3)
Remember that 'the Contender Series makes it difficult to separate the good from the bad' comment from a whole two fights ago? Payton Talbott got into the Contender Series by winning a relatively prestigious regional championship. Zach Reese knocked out a guy who was 5-10. He made it into the UFC and fought Cody Brundage, a man who is 4-5 (1) in the company--which could easily be 3-7, had two opponents who were destroying him not committed silly fouls--and Brundage slammed him to death in under two minutes. The UFC responded by giving Reese a man who hadn't won a fight since 2021 and a man who fought a bunch of rookies, lost on the Contender Series, and was brought in as a warm body anyway. What's more, until this week, this was a double-patty special: Reese was scheduled to fight Sedriques Dumas, another DWCS non-success story who, subtly, also fought Cody Brundage after losing his debut. But Dumas got hurt in training, so instead, we've got Azamat Bekoev. But look at him! Clearly, he's Russian, and isn't that 18-3 real impressive? He's even a Legacy Fighting Alliance champion! Clearly, this is an improvement, right? So, here's the thing: Do you remember a dude named Dylan "The Mindless Hulk" Budka? Came into the UFC last year, looked so bad twice in a row that the commentators wound up ripping on him? That guy! Bekoev won his title by beating him and it was a skin-of-his-teeth split decision that saw him repeatedly punched up. Badly.
And that was against a demonstrably unsuccessful fighter who was also his size. Reese is almost half a foot taller and has about as much of a range advantage. I'd love to see another big giant wrestling slam from a shorter, stockier wrestler, but Bekoev gets hit a lot and I just don't have the confidence in him. ZACH REESE BY TKO.
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Karol Rosa (18-6, #9) vs Ailín Pérez (11-2, #13)
Oh, hey, look at that, we're two events into the year and it's already why-is-a-top-ten-Women's-fight-on-the-fucking-early-prelims o'clock. Karol Rosa has done everything the UFC could possibly want. She fought at Featherweight even when they were publicly closing the division and simply needed warm bodies to fill out their last contractually obligated appearances, she dropped back to Bantamweight and immediately had a fight-of-the-year candidate against a former title challenger in Irene Aldana, and the last time we saw her, she completely trashed Pannie Kianzad and is still here, even further down on the card. Ailín Pérez, since dropping her UFC debut against Stephanie Egger, has been on a considerably gentler trajectory. She's on a four-fight winning streak! Those four women combine to a grand 12-19 in the UFC and that includes at least one legendary robbery in its win column. After her loss the UFC tried to rotate her through multiple opponents who had never won a UFC bout, and when that failed they gave her Ashlee Evans-Smith, whose last win was in 2018. Ailín's grappling is solid, but they've been pitching her softballs for awhile, and this is a big step up.
I don't think it'll go her way. Rosa's one of the toughest women in the division and she's shut down bigger, more technically skilled grapplers than Ailín. KAROL ROSA BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Rinya Nakamura (9-0) vs Muin Gafurov (19-6)
Prospect testing time! With the falls of Tatsuro Taira and Kai Asakura, Rinya Nakamura is the next bearer of the world's hopes for a Japanese UFC champion. He was born into the sport, fathered by one of the architects of Shooto and educated in mixed martial arts nearly from birth, and after blitzing his way through the Road to UFC tournament and dominating Fernie Garcia in his proper debut, he carried an awful lot of hype. The UFC wanted to test his progress--he was supposed to meet Brady Hiestand last year--but an injury left him beating up late replacement Carlos Vera, so the test now falls to Muin Gafurov. Gafurov had his time as a foreign title prospect, too, but in his case it was for ONE Championship, where he repeatedly worked his way up the ladder only to get knocked off by the Reece McLarens and Johns Lineker of the world. He popped into the UFC on a replacement contract, as happens so often even with internationally notable talents, but it took three tries to finally get a win. He's a tough, well-rounded fighter with a ton of strengths and only one stoppage loss in a hell of a career.
But I'm on the hype train, too. Sorry, Muin. RINYA NAKAMURA BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Ricky Turcios (12-4) vs Bernardo Sopaj (11-3)
This was originally scheduled for the Magny/Prates card back in November, but Turcios had to be hospitalized after his weight cut. On one hand: Our sport sure is dangerous and willing to kill people with dehydration. On the other: I get to do a rerun!
Winning The Ultimate Fighter just doesn't go as far as it used to, man. TUF was turning out champions as recently as 2017, and now it's 2024 and Ricky Turcios won the damn show three years ago and he still doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. He got his trophy and immediately lost it to Aiemann Zahabi, and then only barely scraped by an 0-3 Kevin Natividad in a decision that really could've gone either way, and then he did nothing for almost two years and got choked out by Raul Rosas Jr. This is what TUF is for now. This is where it has brought us. It teases us with Ricky Turcios and then forces upon us a cruel reality in which teenaged Contender Series winners mop the floor with him.
Bernardo Sopaj is not a Contender Series winner. Bernardo Sopaj isn't really a big winner period. He hadn't achieved much international note and his biggest claim to fame was winning the Allstars Fight Night Bantamweight Championship after nobly defeating Geovane Vargas, a man who somehow made it to 11-4 while almost never beating anyone with a winning record, and like so many, he made it into the UFC not through talent scouting or professional negotiations, but rather, because Vinicius Oliveira needed a last-minute replacement. And he looked good! For one round. By the second he was gassed as hell and in the third he got knocked cold by a flying knee.
Sopaj is not without talent. He's tough and he's got heart and I certainly hope a full training camp will see him doing a lot better on cardio. I objectively have no reason to think of Turcios much more favorably. And yet: RICKY TURCIOS BY DECISION.
FLYWEIGHT: Tagir Ulanbekov (15-2, #11) vs Clayton Carpenter (8-0, NR)
Tagir Ulanbekov is a lot better than his strength of schedule lets him be. Having beaten everyone but Zhalgas Zhumagulov, one of the most-wronged-by-judges fighters of all time, and Tim Elliott, one of the sport's best journeymen, is a hell of a run, and taking out Nate Maness and Allan Nascimento is very, very hard to do. Unfortunately: He just can't fucking stay healthy. Tagir has only managed five UFC fights in almost as many years, and in that time he's had seven fights cancelled, and all but one of them was due to some kind of injury or issue with his scheduling. The last time we saw him, we actually didn't: He blew his weight cut by almost five pounds and Joshua Van declined their fight. Tagir's one of the best in the world and he hasn't made it to the cage since December of 2023. Clayton Carpenter had only barely made his debut by then and this is already his third fight with the company. He's young, he's undefeated, and he looked positively stellar last year in his complete destruction of a genuinely talented fighter in Lucas Rocha, who had almost three times his experience and still looked utterly outmatched against him.
On paper, Ulanbekov is a favorite here, and I get why. His skills are there and are far-better proven than Clayton's. But the UFC is banking on Tagir's troubles leaving him damaged enough that he just doesn't have it in him anymore, and unfortunately, I think that's likely. CLAYTON CARPENTER BY DECISION.