CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 131: PLAYING DARTS
UFC Fight Night: Cannonier vs Rodrigues
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15 FROM THE PERNICIOUS PIT OF THE APEX
PRELIMS 1 PM PST / 4 PM EST | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM
Traditionally, this is the section where I complain about the way these Apex Fight Nights only ever have one or two ranked fights on them. Good news! This card has a whopping five ranked fights on it!
Only one of them is between two ranked fighters. The other four are the UFC trying to elevate prospects to replace the people they're tired of.
Also, Dylan Budka is here. Apex, baby!
MAIN EVENT: ROBOCOP 4: HE HAS TWO JETPACKS NOW
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Jared Cannonier (17-8, #7) vs Gregory Rodrigues (16-5, NR)
Two and a half years ago, Jared Cannonier was the #2 Middleweight on the planet and fighting one of the biggest stars in the history of the sport for the UFC championship. Now he's staring down 41 and fighting desperately to stay in the top fifteen at all.
The most damning thing I can say about this fight: I intended to start this write-up by quoting the bit from the last Jared Cannonier fight about how it was a referendum on how much tread he had left on his tires, and when I went to find it, I discovered I had already done it. When Cannonier fought Caio Borralho in August I reflected on my thoughts from his barely-two-month-old loss to Nassourdine Imavov and my fears that he was on his way out. After all, he hadn't looked awful in the Imavov fight. Sure, he lost, but he was halfway to a decision victory and the TKO was one of the weirdest stoppages of the year. There was still hope.
There was no hope in the Borralho fight. Cannonier was outstruck in four out of five rounds, he lost almost every meaningful exchange in the bout, and funnily enough, he got floored so badly in the final round that a stoppage would easily have been warranted, but--possibly because of the botched stop against Imavov--he was allowed to make it to the bell instead. It was the torch-passing performance Imavov was supposed to have.
But Imavov got his own torch a couple weeks ago, and it's hard not to see a theme developing at Middleweight.
One of the strangest parts of being an MMA fan for so goddamn long has been getting to see multiple generations of fighters come and go. There's a cyclicality to the process--the discovery of new talent, the weeding out of the real and fake, the rise of the new stars and their painful, inevitable fall--and we have never been more clearly in the time of turnover. For six years, damn near the entire Middleweight title picture revolved around Jared Cannonier, Israel Adesanya, Robert Whittaker, and Yoel Romero.
Yoel left the UFC to take one fight a year in Bellator and is now knocking out slap fighting champions in untelevised barrooms in Florida. Whittaker, after most of a decade on top, got barnstormed by the new champion and had his teeth busted out by Khamzat Chimaev. Adesanya, the biggest star of a generation and the best of them all, lost his title twice and is now 1 for his last 5 and sitting on three stoppage losses in four fights--and he came damn close to eating a fourth against Sean Strickland, who has only managed one finish in almost five years.
And Jared Cannonier is getting dropped by contenders, dangerously close to a 50/50 record, and already on the wrong side of 40 years old.
But he's still a big, big jump in competition for Gregory Rodrigues. Which, at this point, makes sense. Robocop was really good once, okay twice and pretty bad in every subsequent sequel or adaptation, and at this point in his career, "Robocop" is running into a similar set of problems.
Which is not, by any means, to say Gregory Rodrigues is bad. I would never say Gregory Rodrigues is bad, and I will fight you if you do. But he has suffered repeated derailments. He didn't even make it into the UFC before the first one happened, his 2020 shot at the Contender Series having been ruined by no less than Jordan "Bomaye" Williams, who proceeded to lose three UFC fights in a year and never put the gloves on again.
Rodrigues got in through the late-replacement back door less than a year later, and he immediately scored two real good wins, and then he got beat by Armen Petrosyan and fell back down the ladder. Another two fights, another two wins, and a brief moment of fan virality for a ridiculously gutsy performance that saw him come back from having arteries hanging out of his face to knock out Chidi Njokuani, and he was right back on the winning path and ready for another shot at true prospect status!
At which point Brunno Ferreira knocked him dead in one round and he had to start all over again.
This is the problem. Rodrigues is fun, but 'fun' is a difficult trait to get into the rankings with. Rodrigues is tough, but 'tough' is, traditionally, one of the worst possible things you can be known for, because it means even in victory you have a reputation for getting your ass beat. "Robocop" and his hard-punching, clinch-grinding style are difficult for anyone to deal with, but they just traditionally haven't been enough to get his foot in the door.
Once you've been kicked out of the contendership club a couple times, that reputation starts to stick, too. Jake Matthews, who just had his twenty-first UFC fight last week, could write books about how hard it is to shake the fan feeling that you're just an also-ran. The periphery of the Middleweight rankings, right now, are unusually dangerous. You can't even approach the top ten without going past Bo Nickal, Roman Kopylov, Michel Pereira and Anthony Hernandez, and that's a murderer's row of prospects. When you're trying to elevate a fighter like Gregory Rodrigues who's already fallen off the boat a couple times, you don't want to risk his footing more than you have to.
And you just happen to have a top ten guy on the decline, so why not skip the line?
Just like that, I am back in my discomfort zone. I want to tell you Jared Cannonier should win this fight pretty easily. My blood screams for it. Rodrigues is eminently hittable, his takedowns are good-but-not-great, and he tends to stop people by breaking them down with successions of strikes rather than big knockout blows. Cannonier's got power! He's got great grappling defense! He's got chin enough to absorb big strikes!
All of which were things I said thinking about his last two fights, and both times he wound up eating leather and losing. Now, once again, he's facing a younger, hungrier, less shopworn fighter. The UFC isn't being subtle, here. Beating Rodrigues grants Cannonier no position, he's an unranked guy coming off being a betting underdog against Christian Leroy Duncan. This is here to potentially legitimize Rodrigues as a contender; Cannonier just needs the win to survive.
I came into 2025 knowing it would be a remarkably difficult year to continue being a mixed martial arts fan. As some sort of method of dealing with this, I resolved to pick more fights from my heart. This has led to more emotional investment, which is nice, and the complete and utter death of my accuracy, as in the four UFC events of 2025 thus far my batting average is just about 46%. If you picked fights based on coin flips, statistically, you'd be outperforming my heart.
Realistically, Rodrigues should smear Cannonier into the canvas and ride off into the sunset. Realistically, he should outlast him and batter him. Realistically, I already acknowledged Cannonier's fall and sensibly picked Borralho to beat him, and I should maintain my course.
JARED CANNONIER BY TKO is what I am picking anyway.
CO-MAIN EVENT: DON'T YOU SEE, I USED TO BE THE NEW KID
FEATHERWEIGHT: Calvin Kattar (23-8, #10) vs Youssef Zalal (16-5-1, NR)
We just finished talking about the fall of a divisional lynchpin, and here we are doing it again. Calvin Kattar is a +320 underdog in this fight, and boy, that's hard to swallow. Kattar was one of the scariest strikers at Featherweight, man. The clinics he ran on guys like Shane Burgos and Jeremy Stephens were wonderful fun to watch, as was the retirement-level beating he put on Ricardo Lamas, but a huge part of the audience is clamoring for Kattar himself to hit the bricks, and it's hard to separate out just how much of that is fair.
It's definitely fair to say he's on the worst run of his career. By the dawn of 2021 Kattar had never suffered back to back losses in his career and was 6-2 in the UFC; four years later he's the dreaded 1 for his last 5 and desperately trying to fend off accusations of irrelevance. Which has to be grating, because one of his best performances came in the middle of that slump when he singlehandedly ground the runaway Giga Chikadze hype train to a halt. But that's still one out of five, which begs the question: How bad were the other four?
Which gets complicated, man. He got dominated by Max Holloway in one of the most legendarily stylish beatings in UFC history; that's rough, but it's also Max Holloway, one of the best Featherweights of all time. He dropped an interim title eliminator to Josh Emmett, which is a step down, but it was an incredibly competitive fight that ended in a split decision that could--and, arguably, should--have gone Kattar's way. He ate the first stoppage loss of his entire UFC career against Arnold Allen at the end of 2022, but for one, Allen is the top of the heap himself, and for two, the stoppage came from Kattar blowing his own knee out.
When last we saw Kattar in April, he got wrestled into paste by Aljamain Sterling. This got him widely derided for losing to a career Bantamweight, but the world has always underestimated Aljo, and being unable to handle his wrestling looks much better given the way Aljo used it to nearly unseat top contender Movsar Evloev this past December.
None of those losses are shameful. Every one came against a world-class talent. But the numbers stack up no matter who's handing them to you, and eventually, the company's gonna need to see if it's time to feed you to the next generation. Which is particularly funny given that Youssef Zalal is on his second run in the company.
His first UFC run ended in 2022 after a three-fight losing streak and a draw to Da'Mon Blackshear, which, like Kattar's losses, looks terrible until you realize he was fighting guys like Sean Woodson and Ilia fuckin' Topuria during that run. Zalal is, in fact, one of just two men to make it to the bell in Topuria's entire career. Zalal went back to the regional scene, won a few fights and, in by far one of my favorite dumbass combat sports things, won a sixteen-man, one-night cross-sport tournament in which the first round was boxing, the second kickboxing and the third mixed martial arts.
Were any of those opponents particularly great? Not really! He outboxed the 1-4 Milton Roque, he out-kickboxed the 5-3 Darien Robinson, and his championship win was a four-minute submission victory over Vadim Zadnipryanyi, a striker who'd never fought an MMA bout in his life. Did any of this matter to the greater world? Not even slightly, because look at how silly and funny this whole story was. He was back in the UFC as an injury replacement in his next fight.
That late contract created the best professional year of Zalal's life. He racked up three straight UFC wins in just eight months, and not only did he win, he finished everybody. Billy Quarantillo went eleven professional years without being submitted: Zalal backpacked and choked him in seven minutes. Jarno Errens had never been finished in the UFC: Zalal got the rear naked choke in one round. Jack Shore barely made it six minutes before Zalal dropped him with a knee and hit an arm triangle.
It's a great set of performances against a good set of opponents. But none were ever contenders or even particularly close. Calvin Kattar may have fallen from the top of the mountain, but he deservedly reached it. For Zalal, this is a test to see if he can hang with a divisional standard; for Kattar this is a war against decay and an attempt to stave off rumors of his demise.
And, as always, it's real tough for me. I've been a Kattar fan since day one, and I am keenly aware of how unfortunate his last several years have been, but I can't find it in myself to think someone's washed because they lost to some of the best to ever do it. At the same time, I was thrilled Zalal was back in the UFC and I've been rooting for his success ever since. His striking is still the kind of fast and loose that Kattar used to make mincemeat out of, but the way Zalal's turned that speed into a grappling advantage spells trouble for a man who's visibly slowing down.
I wouldn't be hugely surprised if Kattar comes out and reminds everyone how he stayed on top for so long. I wouldn't be surprised if Kattar brings the ceiling down on Zalal's head. But YOUSSEF ZALAL BY DECISION seems too likely not to pick.
MAIN CARD: YOUR BUDDY BUDKA
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Edmen Shahbazyan (13-5) vs Dylan Budka (7-4)
I cannot help wondering if we have outlived the need for Edmen Shahbazyan. Edmen's fame came from an era when 'trains with Ronda Rousey' was a big deal. Edmen's contract came from an era of the Contender Series when no one knew if it would actually stick around. 85% of Edmen's career wins predate the year 2020. In the modern era of the 2020s Edmen has only two victories, and they came against Dalcha Lungiambula, who was at the end of a four-fight losing streak, and AJ Dobson, whose best career victory came against a Tafon "Da Don" Nchukwi who himself came into the fight almost five pounds off weight. We are one fight removed from Edmen getting choked out by Gerald Meerschaert, which was one fight removed from his getting pounded out by Anthony Hernandez, which was one fight removed from his getting crushed by Nassourdine Imavov. There is a trajectory of declining destruction that is hard to miss.
That decline has led to Dylan Budka. I have been mocking Dylan Budka's placement on this card for an entire month, and I am not prepared to stop. The UFC is the biggest, highest-quality mixed martial arts organization in the history of the sport, and their promise to their audience has always been the provision of the best fighters on the planet. So here, you and me, we're gonna look at the entire professional career of Dylan Budka and how it led to him being here, fighting a man who was at one point a top ten Middleweight in the world.
In 2022, Budka debuts and gets choked out by "Shotgun" David Gladfelter, at the time 3-0, now 5-3
Five weeks later Budka defeats the 2-2 Rudy McGlothlin, who never fights again
One week later, Budka notches the first stoppage of his life by taking out the 2-10 Jett Jones in nine seconds
After a month, Budka chokes out the 4-1 Tee "The Experiment" Cummins, who beats Chris Warf a month later and never fights again
Budka continues his winning ways in the LFA by defeating Lydell Poag, now 2-2
Budka follows it up with a victory over Wes "Party Time" Schultz, 3-0
A shot at the LFA Interim Middleweight Championship ends in sorrow as Budka loses to the 15-3 Azamat Bekoev, who is now in the UFC
Budka comes back by choking out Dan "The Masterpiece" Stevenson, who despite his name is 2-5 after the fight and appears to have retired
The Contender Series knocks and Budka beats the 9-2 Chad "Superman" Hanekom by decision, which the UFC considers solid enough for a contract
But not so solid to intentionally book him, as he's instead used as a short-notice replacement against the 4-0 César Almeida, who stops him in a round and a half
In the first real fight of his UFC career, Budka misses weight, fights Andre Petroski and loses
Now, having lost all but one of the key fights in his career, having beaten opponents with a combined record of 24-19--or 15-17 if you just remove his Contender Series bout--and having lost two straight preliminary bouts and missed weight in one of them, the UFC would like you to tune into ESPN and watch Dylan Budka have a professional mixed martial arts bout.
So, what do you say? Are you deeply excited to see the Contender series guy from 2018 who struggles to win fights battle the Contender Series guy from 2023 who struggles to win fights? Would you rather root for the guy who couldn't beat Jack Hermansson or the guy who couldn't clear Azamat Bekoev? Are you one of the people who reads these even though you can't find it in yourself to watch the UFC right now thanks to some terrible mixture of the odious social placement of the company and its watered-down product?
If so: This fight's for you, buddy. We're struggling together. EDMEN SHAHBAZYAN BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Ismael Bonfim (20-4) vs Nazim Sadykhov (9-1-1)
Boy, the whiplash when you go from Dylan Budka to Ismael Bonfim. The Bonfim brothers--and don't worry, we'll see Gabriel later on this card--are on the comeback trail together, having rode great performances and long undefeated streaks into ground in 2023 almost in concert. Ismael's only losses had all come by submission, and his fall from UFC grace was no different: Benoît Saint Denis wrestled him down and choked him out in a round and that was the end of his hype train. Thanks to a weight miss cancellation and some injury issues it would be almost a year before Ismael made it back into the cage to outpoint Vinc Pichel, and thanks to scheduling, it's been almost as long all over again.
But not nearly as long as it's been since we saw Nazim Sadykhov. It's hard to remember, now, but back in November of 2023 Sadykhov found himself carrying a surprising amount of hype. Hadn't lost since 2018, almost always won by finish, coming off two successful UFC bouts, famed coach Ray Longo blowing up the media about your talent and status as a future champion? The world was deeply and rightfully intrigued. And then Sadykhov fought my beloved Viacheslav "Slava Claus" Borshchev and had a knock-down, drag-out battle that ended in a draw. Now, I love Slava, but realistically, he's 3-4-1 in the UFC. A skin-of-your-teeth draw with the man is tough to swallow alongside championship hype.
As is going off the grid for almost a year and a half. Sadykhov was supposed to fight last July, it fell apart, and now it's February and he has to come back from the end of his streak and a lot of ring rust against one of the most interesting prospects in the Lightweight division. The order seems too tall to me. ISMAEL BONFIM BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Rodolfo Vieira (10-2) vs Andre Petroski (12-3)
It's been a long road to rehabilitation for Rodolfo Vieira. When he walked into the cage with Anthony Hernandez in 2021 he was an undefeated fighter with a perfect finishing rate and a million grappling championships backing up his jiu-jitsu credibility, which made it very, very funny when he gassed in a round and got himself choked out in the second. He swore he'd fix his cardio, and won his next fight, and then proceeded to once again exhaust himself against Chris Curtis, lose, and go 0 for 20 on takedown attempts. Vieira's back to his winning ways, he's scored submissions in his last two fights and seems very excited about keeping the train rolling, but questions remain about his ability to deal with higher-level opponents.
Which, technically, Andre Petroski is. Andre's currently suffering the disdain of the MMA audience thanks to his most memorable fight in years being a 2024 loss to Jacob Malkoun in which Petroski essentially knocked himself out by shooting a takedown and slamming his head into Malkoun's hipbone too hard. This sucks, but more than it sucking, it's very, very funny, and that makes it difficult for audiences to remember anything else about you, particularly when you are a grinding wrestling stylist and thus low on highlight-reel moments. Petroski's coming off two wins--one of them against Dylan Budka, who is booked over him anyway--but he's still trying to wipe that memory out of the audience's mind.
I'm not sure he'll get it, here. Vieira's not an easy guy to finish. But I don't have faith in Vieira's ability to outlast him, either. ANDRE PETROSKI BY DECISION.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Connor Matthews (7-2) vs Jose Delgado (8-1)
Let me ask you, reader, and please, feel free to be honest. How goddamn tired are you of seeing these write-up sections that just say 'Contender Series guy who won on the Contender Series is fighting another Contender Series guy who lost so they're less into him now'? Do you even bother to read all of the words anymore or do you just (understandably!) glaze over and scroll to the end of the paragraph when you see me start to complain about this same goddamn thing all over again? Because I'll tell you, I am struggling to find ways to make these things interesting.
I like being able to share fighter stories, but we're progressing further and further towards a standard where more and more of a given card can be summed up as 'a guy who's only been doing this for a year or two is in the UFC now because of the contract show and as for his opponent, basically, same' and in a world where generative AI is destroying the written word I hate running out of things to say, but fuck, man. Jose Delgado fought Desmond Manabat and that's kind of a fun surname? Connor Matthews got knocked out by Dennis Buzukja and no one remembers it because there's so much of this now that it's impossible to keep track of anything? That's poignant, right? We're not drowning in the endless tide of guys, right?
I just don't know, man. If you manage to read all of these words, god bless you. JOSE DELGADO BY TKO.
PRELIMS: HEY, GUESS WHERE THE RANKED WOMEN'S FIGHTS ARE
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Angela Hill (17-14, #13) vs Ketlen Souza (15-4, NR)
On the topic of fighters I'm out of words for, it's Angela Hill. Angie's done everything there is to do in the sport save winning a UFC title, and there was, admittedly, a brief wave of hope after she notched an upset decision over Denise Gomes and her first finish in four years by choking out Luana Pinhero last year, but she had to defend her momentum and her spot in the top ten against Tabatha Ricci, and unfortunately, she failed. Now she's trying to hang onto having a number at all. Ketlen Souza is trying to make her second chance stick. She skated into the UFC as Invicta's Flyweight Champion back in the Summer of 2023, met Karine Silva, and promptly had her knee ripped in half. It didn't surprise anyone when Ketlen came back a year later and beat Marnic Mann; it was considerably more shocking when she walked into THE SPHERE in September as a sacrificial lamb and instead clubbed-and-subbed Yazmin Jauregui. It's her turn to audition for the top fifteen.
I'm picking ANGELA HILL BY DECISION but I don't feel great about it. In my head, I have trouble seeing Ketlen bullying Angie, but in my heart, I fear one of my longtime favorites is probably going to be done any day now.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Jared Gordon (20-7 (1)) vs Mashrabjon Ruziboev (20-4-1)
Jared Gordon remains one of the most cursed men in mixed martial arts. 2022 ended with Gordon infamously losing a robbery-of-the-year candidate against top star Paddy Pimblett and his attempt at a comeback four months later ended with a King Green headbutt and a no contest. There were hopes that the curse was over when he knocked out Mark Madsen, but Gordon's one and only cagewalk in 2024 saw him once again losing a controversial decision to Nasrat Haqparast. Gordon was supposed to have a nice, well-prepared matchup against a less accomplished fighter in Kauê Fernandes tonight, but Fernandes pulled out on Monday and instead, with four days to prepare, Gordon gets to fight Mashrabjon "Black Junior" Ruziboev, a champion out of Uzbekistan with an 85% finishing rate and a highlight reel a mile long. Is he scary? Absolutely! Has he been fighting great competition? Not even remotely. Of Ruziboev's 20 victories, exactly three came against fighters with winning, non-rookie records, and they were 3-1, 16-14 and 20-11 respectively.
Like, could he knock Gordon out? Sure, he hits hard as hell, he's got some aggressive wrestling and he's real good at ground-and-pound. Am I going to opt out of picking the guy who scored more than half of his victories against fighters with 0 wins? JARED GORDON BY DECISION is your answer.
FLYWEIGHT: Rafael Estevam (12-0) vs Jesus Aguilar (11-2)
This is a bit of a weird one. Rafael Estevam was one of the more promising Flyweights to come through the Contender Series: Solid record, Shooto Brasil title to his name, real solid finishes. And then he missed his entire first year in the UFC thanks to scheduling issues and a weight cut so badly botched it resulted in his debut being scrapped. It wasn't until November of 2023, almost fourteen months after he got his contract, that he finally got in the cage. And he beat Charles Johnson, which is impressive as hell! But he also missed weight again. It is once again fourteen months later, and he is once again going to try to hit the Flyweight limit, and this time they're softening the blow by giving him a guy who's had similar troubles. Jesus Aguilar actually came through the contract mill a month before Estevam did, but he's already run up a 3-1 record with the UFC. Hell, his only loss came against Tatsuro Taira, which is a hell of a name to lose to. By all rights, Aguilar should be riding high right now on the back of a three-fight winning streak; unfortunately, he, too, missed weight in his last fight and it's somewhat clouded the celebration.
I feel weirder about weight misses these days. Even in ideal circumstances so many fights seem to come together just a couple weeks before they're scheduled to happen, and the same way you can't be too mad about fighters missing weight when they're filling in on short notice, as notice in general gets shorter, misses get more understandable. But messing it up multiple times in a row is more problematic. Still: RAFAEL ESTEVAM BY DECISION.
WELTERWEIGHT: Gabriel Bonfim (16-1) vs Khaos Williams (15-3)
It's deeply bizarre to me that this fight is happening all the way down here. Gabriel Bonfim is a remarkably successful fighter with a ton of cool finishes and a lot of hype behind him. Khaos Williams is a borderline-ranked Welterweight with some of the most devastating punches in the sport. Bonfim's just a couple fights removed from choking out Trevin Giles and Khaos just knocked Carlston Harris the fuck out with one punch last May. This isn't just a great fight in terms of well-matched, almost-ranked prospects, it's a great stylistic clash that could easily result in fireworks. And this does not rate a spot on the main card, but they found space for Dylan Budka. For all that I complain about the arrangement of their cards, I'm not stupid, I'm fully aware of the need to put some top-ballot stuff on the prelims to get people to watch--but that doesn't change this fight being an appetizer for Jesus Aguilar and Mashrabjon Ruziboev.
It should be great. Or it should be Bonfim very patiently taking Williams apart while avoiding the big punches. Or it should be Khaos crushing him with a big right hand out of nowhere. I'm gonna root for fun: KHAOS WILLIAMS BY KO.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Vince Morales (16-8) vs Elijah Swift (7-1)
It was just last September that I sang you the ballad of Vince Morales and his second chance at UFC stardom. His first run ended in 2022 with a 3-5 record, but he bounced back on the regional circuit and even went to Japan to beat future title contender Yuki Motoya, and after a five-fight winning streak the UFC brought him back, sent him to Paris, and reintroduced him to the world by having him fight Taylor Lapilus. Unfortunately, he lost. Now he's a +200 underdog against a Contender Series debutant with less than half his experience. I don't hate what I've seen of Elijah Smith's tape. He keeps his guard up, he's got a fast jab, he's good at punishing the front leg and he jumps on finishes when he sees them. The skills are there, he just needs the higher-level experience to test them.
Morales is a big ask, though. He's gritty and tricky and very, very hard to stop. I'm still leaning towards ELIJAH SWIFT BY DECISION but if he makes any mistakes, he's going to pay for them dearly.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Don'Tale Mayes (11-7 (1), #14) vs Valter Walker (12-1, NR)
The Heavyweight division has come to this. I don't know how Don'Tale Mayes is ranked. He walked into the cage last April without a ranking and beat the 0-1 Caio Machado and didn't have a number by his name, and then he came back in August and got beat up by Shamil Gaziev, and somehow, by losing, Mayes went from unranked to the #14 Heavyweight in the world. Don'Tale Mayes is a sub-50/50 fighter in the UFC, his most prominent victory in the company was against a 44 year-old Andrei Arlovski, and he has the magic ability to rise in the ranks by losing. And he's an underdog to Valter Walker, whose entire career can best be described as Weird. He ran up an 11-0 record as a regional Heavyweight champion and still somehow failed to establish a reputation bigger than 'I am Johnny Walker's younger brother,' which was still enough to bypass the Contender Series and walk straight into the UFC--where he promptly became the only man in five years to lose against Łukasz Brzeski. And then he came back and heel hooked Junior Tafa, who was so incensed by the insult he walked across the cage and slapped Valter in the face after the fight. Somehow this did not lead to his release, and somewhere, Paul Daley is really mad.
I do not foresee great things in the future for either of these men, and this now being a fight to determine one of the top fifteen Heavyweight fighters in the world is funnier than anything I have ever written. I put both of my hands in front of one of my cats and she picked left, so DON'TALE MAYES BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Julia Avila (9-3, #12) vs Jacqueline Cavalcanti (8-1, #13)
Generally-speaking this is where I say something about the irritation of having ranked women's fights buried in the prelims, but I'll be honest: I don't have it in me for this one. Julia Avila is not a bad fighter, but she is a shining emblem of exactly how fucked Women's Bantamweight is as a division. Julia Avila is the #12th-ranked Women's Bantamweight in the world. Julia Avila has never won a ranked fight in her life. Julia Avila has not fought in 14 months and has not won a fight in almost 44 months. And those are, in fact, her last two fights. She never beat a ranked opponent, she's made it to the cage twice in almost four years, the last time we saw her she got choked out by Miesha Tate, who is ranked #11, also has not fought in 14 months, and does not appear to have any plans to. And now Avila gets to defend her ranking against Jacqueline Cavalcanti, who achieved her #13 ranking by defeating three women whose combined records as UFC Bantamweights are 3-7.
All of which is in service of a division where the champion refuses to fight the top contender in favor of calling out a woman who's been retired for two years. God help us all. JACQUELINE CAVALCANTI BY DECISION.