CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 136: SORT IT OUT
UFC Fight Night: Edwards vs Brady
SATURDAY, MARCH 22 FROM THE O2 ARENA IN LONDON
EARLY START TIME WARNING: PRELIMS 10 AM PST / 1 PM EST | MAIN CARD 1 PM / 4 PM |
Let's be real: The UFC's TV cards have been a bit low on consequence as of late. The UFC itself actually tweeted mocking the internet's criticism of their matchmaking after last week's card, which is how you know it's correct. But good news! We're in London again, which is where the UFC always decides to deliver.
Unrelatedly, here's an episode of Discord Chat Log Theater.
MAIN EVENT: FIGHTING BACK UP
WELTERWEIGHT: Leon Edwards (22-4 (1), #1) vs Sean Brady (17-1, #5)
Mixed martial arts is a violent sport, but few things about it are as violent as how quickly runs on top come to an end.
Particularly when it took most of a decade to get there. At a time when the UFC was rabid for British stars, Leon Edwards was a top-class Birmingham Welterweight with an insane undefeated streak in one of the sport's biggest shark tanks and management still pushed him away from the title until they were out of other options. It took eight years, fourteen fights, nine wins, three aborted attempts at a Khamzat Chimaev derailing and Jorge Masvidal getting fucking arrested for Leon to get his shot at the belt, and he had to get in there with top contenders, former world champions, future world champions and Diaz Brothers along the way.
Jack Della Maddalena has been in the UFC for three years and has one win in the top ten and he's challenging for the belt in May.
To be clear: I like Jack Della Maddalena! I'm psyched for that fight! But the UFC has unquestionably taken an interest in him and give him a much easier path to the title than they did Leon Edwards, who had to bite, claw and scratch for years just to get into contention. But once he got it, he refused to let it go. He dropped 4/5 of his title match to Kamaru Usman before knocking him cold with a headkick just a minute before the bell would've ended his hopes. He cemented his place in the record books by beating him again in a rematch. He made himself one of the handful of men to defend the belt multiple times after winning a corporately-mandated fight against Colby Covington.
And then he fought Belal Muhammad, a man who'd been denied by the UFC just as badly as Leon, and he lost his title, and now it's his first fight back and he's off pay-per-view for the first time since 2021 so he can fight Sean Brady, a man who just had the first main event of his UFC career in September.
To be clear: I like Sean Brady! In the almost-three-years that I've been writing these things we've had three occasions to discuss Sean Brady, and I have been open about my feeling that Sean Brady is perpetually overlooked as a Welterweight contender. He's a great grappler, and he's a solid wrestler, and he's an aggressive puncher, and somehow the entire world of mixed martial arts continues to underrate him.
Including me. I underrate him to the point that I picked him to lose all three of those fights.
In my defense: I was right once. Brady's 2022 bout with Belal Muhammad was a make-or-break fight for both men that also served as a mirror match between rising contenders on great streaks with wrestling-heavy styles the UFC particularly loathed. Only one man could emerge victorious, and like a lot of folks, I was pretty sure Belal was a future champion. Brady proved that he belonged in the contention conversation by fighting a real even round and a half; Belal proved that he belonged on the throne by turning it up and ultimately smashing Brady with dozens of unanswered punches until the ref called a standing TKO. It was Belal's first finish since 2019, and it was Brady's first and only loss, but predicting it made sense.
Predicting that Sean Brady would lose to Kelvin Gastelum, in hindsight, was sillier. Everyone wanted to believe in Kelvin, man! Everyone still holds onto the promise of the Kelvin who almost knocked out Israel Adesanya before he could become a legend. But in 2023 Kelvin had fallen quite aways, and Brady dominating and submitting him fits better into reality. Predicting that Sean Brady would lose to Gilbert Burns was, honestly, probably the same deal. On paper, it made sense to think about a grappler like Burns being a match for Brady and having the punching power to give him trouble. In practice? Brady dominated the striking and the grappling and won every round.
His entire path to this fight is paved on battles against aging stars the audience doesn't want to admit have fallen off the mountain.
Which makes this fight's subtext almost hammer-on-head levels of obvious.
Leon Edwards is not Kelvin Gastelum. He may have lost his belt, but it's his only loss in almost a decade. There's no evidence of a precipitous dropoff in his skills, no advancing age. But there is the question of recovery. The last time Leon lost a fight it sparked a fire that led him to years of divisional domination and a world championship. This time, he's been to and fallen from the top of the mountain. Does reaching the pinnacle of the sport diminish his motivation?
For that matter, where is Sean Brady's motivation taking him? Two and a half years ago his long-deserved shot at contention ended in the worst beating of his life. Since that fight he's dominated former title challengers at two different weight classes and looked better than ever in the process. Has he turned the corner? Is his stand-up ready for the best strikers in the division? Can he wrestle Leon better than Kamaru Usman did?
On the other hand, Leon's the most versatile striker Brady's had to deal with, he's got better angles than Belal and better kicks than Burns, but he's never been a pressure striker, which is the only type that's gotten Brady in trouble. Similarly, Usman may be a stronger and more technically gifted wrestler, but he also shoots takedowns like a man who's had crippling knee problems for most of his thirties where Brady is still fast and explosive.
I dunno, man. I dunno! So much of my brain for fight picks is rooted in comparative analysis, and there's so much more tape on Leon's performances against top competition, and as good as Brady has looked, he's looked it against guys who are aging out of real contention. But Brady's pressure game is so solid, and Leon's overly patient counterstriking style got him in so much trouble against Belal's refusal to let him breathe, that I cannot help seeing a very sad crowd of British people in our future.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Leon drop him. Hell, I wouldn't be particularly surprised to see Leon beat Brady on clinch trips. But SEAN BRADY BY DECISION is the sound made by the exhortations of my soul.
CO-MAIN EVENT: OKAY, NOW IT MATTERS
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Jan Błachowicz (29-10-1, #3) vs Carlos Ulberg (11-1, #6)
In 2022 and 2023, Jan Błachowicz was too old for a title shot. In 2025, he's half of a title eliminator. And it has very little to do with him.
Jan has never been the man the UFC wanted on top. When he got his first shot at the vacant belt in 2020 he was the poorly-marketed underdog to Dominick Reyes, who had, in fairness, just beatenlost a controversial decision to Jon Jones. Marketing wanted Reyes, and then Jan knocked him out. Instead of one of his many contenders, the UFC booked his first defense against the meteorically-rising Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya. Virtually all the marketing went towards Izzy, the company's biggest new star. Once again, Jan was a poorly-marketed underdog; once again, he won. The UFC, out of options, agreed to finally take him seriously.
Jan was, of course, immediately choked out by Glover Teixeira. But a year later, Glover's nemesis Jiří Procházka couldn't make it to their title rematch and the UFC needed a replacement. Glover and Jan were more than willing to fight on short notice, but the UFC told Glover, who had just turned 43, that Jan, at 39, was too old and he'd have to accept Magomed Ankalaev. Glover turned them down--so the UFC, bluff called, booked Jan vs Ankalaev instead. Dana and the UFC went out of their way to bury the fight as boring afterward--it wasn't. It's perfectly fine, and Ankalaev should have won. But it was a draw so instead we were cursed to a thousand years of darkness and the company's best efforts to keep both men away from the belt.
Jan got to welcome Alex Pereira to the division, the UFC decided it would once again be bad practice to book Jan into a match for the once again vacant title, and Jan lost a split against the star by the skin of his teeth before disappearing for almost two years thanks to a bum shoulder. You could do many things with Jan's comeback. You could book a rematch with Ankalaev or Pereira, both of which were controversial. You could give him an eliminator against Jiří Procházka, the #2 contender in the division. You could re-book the fight with Aleksandar Rakić that was stopped prematurely by an injury.
But that would not give the UFC the stepping stone they've wanted for years.
On the very same card that saw Jan foil the UFC's attempt to give his belt to Adesanya, a Contender Series favorite got his debut. The UFC has always seen value in Carlos Ulberg. He was a young star in the making from New Zealand, which fit him perfectly into how much money they were making from the Australian government for their fights in the area. He was inexperienced but undefeated, he almost always knocked out his opponents and he looked like one of those expensive twelve-inch G.I. Joe dolls. He was marketable. He was a Contender Series winner. He was the future.
He was knocked out by Kennedy Nzechukwu in a round and a half. The future would have to be cultivated more carefully. Ulberg got served much more digestible softballs as they cultivated him into a potential contender, with maybe the finest point in the whole array being a knockout victory over Nicolae Negumereanu that was followed up by a fight with Ihor Potieria--who had, one fight prior, been knocked out by one Nicolae Negumereanu. Ulberg dutifully dispatched his opponents, and by 2024, the time had come to get him ranked. A real test: A real challenge.
Or Dominick Reyes, who hadn't won a fight in five years and had been knocked out three consecutive times. That thankfully fell through and Ulberg tore through Alonzo Menifield in twelve seconds instead, which led to the UFC deciding it was time to simply hit the gas. Carlos Ulberg vs Jamahal Hill for #1 contendership to Alex Pereira! Whoever wins, the UFC gets their man! A multitude of reschedulings somehow led that fight to becoming Anthony Smith vs Roman Dolidze instead, because the sport is not real, and Ulberg got a much more reasonable matchup against Volkan Oezdemir that Fall--which was better, frankly, as it demonstrated his ability to fight a consistent, all-around battle for fifteen minutes and win.
But now there's no room left for fucking around. The UFC wants Ulberg crowned and they want an aging Jan to give him that credibility push he needs. It's a solid bet, too. Jan's entering his mid-forties, his only win in four years came from his opponent getting injured in mid-fight, and he's got almost two years of ring rust to shake off. If ever the UFC was going to have Ulberg barnstorm a former champion and push himself into contention, this is the moment.
But I'm still just not convinced he's the guy. JAN BŁACHOWICZ BY DECISION.
MAIN CARD: WAIT, REALLY
WELTERWEIGHT: Gunnar Nelson (19-5-1) vs Kevin Holland (26-13 (1))
No, your eyes don't deceive you, that is, in fact, Gunnar Nelson's name. The once-contender is now more of a special attraction who drops by to do some grappling every once in awhile when the UFC happens to be in Denmark or London. Ordinarily I would mock this schedule, but in March of 2025, all I'll say is: Yeah, actually, it's probably a better idea to stay as far away from America as possible. Good move, Gunni. This event is just four days too late to mark exactly two years since we last saw Nelson as he helped end the Bryan Barberena comeback tour by tearing off one of his arms. And, uh. We don't have anything else to talk about, I guess. It's not like they're pretending this is a big return to form and Gunnar's gonna fight for the belt soon. This is just for funsies.
Which feels damningly appropriate for this moment in Kevin Holland's career. He's a legitimately solid fighter with incredibly dangerous striking and even the odd submission threat and he's also on the third or fourth 'whoops, it turns out he's not a contender after all' arc of his tenure and the audience has sort of stopped caring. The last time Gunnar was here, Holland had just gone to a split decision with Jack Della Maddalena, who is about to fight for the Welterweight championship. One Nelson-shaped vacation period later Holland is 1 for his last 5 and dropping back down to 170 pounds after his Middleweight return went aggressively poorly. Is he staying at 170 pounds because it's better for his championship prospects? Nope! He's very open about the fact that he doesn't care about belts or contention, he just wants to have fun and make money.
So congratulations on getting this big money match, Kevin. I didn't so much flip my coin as I chucked it at a pillow and it said KEVIN HOLLAND BY TKO.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Molly McCann (14-7) vs Alexia Thainara (11-1)
You know, the UFC had something with Molly McCann. The Pimblett-McCann tag team that monopolized every British event the company put on was remarkably popular with the fanbase and the clear attempt to cultivate both by feeding them easily-digestible competition was a huge success. And then at the end of 2022 Paddy Pimblett got the unknown, unranked Jared Gordon and Molly McCann inexplicably got top contender Erin Blanchfield and even though they both lost their fights, their paths were inextricably severed. The UFC has been trying to rehabilitate McCann ever since, but it's two and a half years later and she's only got one win in her last four outings and they'd really like for her to win, which is why, originally, she was scheduled to face Istela Nunes, a woman on a four-fight losing streak. But she can't make it, so the best we can do is a Contender Series lady.
If you were staring at Alexia Thainara's name trying to figure out why you didn't recognize the person on a televised main card fighting a prominent woman with thirteen UFC bouts: That would be why. I've watched a bunch of Thainara's tape, and I am left with the same slowly-encroaching drought of words for her that I am dealing with every goddamn time I talk abut the Contender Series these days. She's fine. She's fought a lot of people with really bad records. She cut her teeth in organizations known for can-crusher matchmaking. She mysteriously gets neat finishes when she fights the overmatched and decisions when she doesn't. She has one really good win--a submission over Invicta champion Rayanne Amanda--that's tainted by being four years old. I think she's got a good sense of when to time a takedown attempt.
It's by no means a squash match, it's just the kind of contextless matchmaking that plagues the company right now. I lean MOLLY MCCANN BY DECISION but this is a much tougher pull than she initially signed up for and Thainara grinding her out is reasonable.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Jordan Vucenic (13-3) vs Chris Duncan (12-2)
Marketing is a magical thing. Jordan Vucenic hopped into the UFC last year as a short-notice fill-in against Guram Kutateladze, and that's a hell of a challenge when you consider Kutateladze has a split decision over Mateusz fuckin' Gamrot. And Vucenic made a good run of it! He looked every bit like the genuine prospect he is, backing Guram up and even taking a round off him en route to a 29-28 loss. However: We're in Britain. So Jordan is fighting here, on the main card, against a visible, previously-hyped prospect, and Guram, the man who beat him, is curtain-jerking the prelims against a guy who got outwrestled by Marc Diakiese. It's not that I'm not happy to see Vucenic, he proved he very much belongs here. It's just funny.
Funnily enough, Chris Duncan is also here after having to take the first slot of the night his last time out. But Duncan won, and it was a desperately-needed win. The UFC scouted him all the way back in 2021 as a potential prospect for the UK, but none of it quite worked out. He got knocked out by Slava Claus during his first run at the Contender Series, he barely made it past Omar Morales in his eventual UFC debut and a couple fights later he was getting strangled by Manuel Torres. But Duncan was an underdog against Bolaji Oki this past September and managed to turn the tables and become the first man to ever stop him--even though Oki was winning up until he threw himself headfirst into a guillotine choke, but who's counting.
I love Slava Claus. I will always love Slava Claus. But I favor the guy who went the distance with Kutateladze and Paul Hughes to the guy who got starched by Slava Claus. JORDAN VUCENIC BY SUBMISSION.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Nathaniel Wood (20-6) vs Morgan Charrière (20-10-1)
And just like that, we're in flavor country. Nathaniel Wood was on the absolute precipice of being a Thing at the end of 2023 after running the table on not one but two separate Charleses and Andre Fili for good measure, but the UFC learned that Muhammad Naimov existed and everything was ruined immediately. Naimov took away Wood's momentum in an effort that can only be applauded for levels of cheating that would've made Eddie Guerrero blush, with at least three if not four shots to the groin, two fence grabs and the rare glove-hooking defensive technique. Wood lost, and after sitting out most of the following year to come to term's with society's lack of justice, he won a gimme fight against Daniel Pineda last July.
Morgan Charrière has been making the most of every shot the UFC has given him. He's only been in the company for a year and a half, he's only had three fights, and he's gotten a bonus for every single one. Two were for cool knockouts, having punched out curly moustache enthusiast Gabriel Miranda and kicked the guts out of Manolo "Angelo Veneziano" Zecchini, the most Italian man to have ever lived, and the third was a fight-of-the-night reward for an absolute barnburner against Chepe Mariscal that saw Morgan on the wrong side of an incredibly close split decision. He's established himself as must-see television and he wants his god damned fight money.
And I just cannot help but root for violence. MORGAN CHARRIÈRE BY TKO.
PRELIMS: MICK GOES OFF THE EDGE
LIGHTWEIGHT: Jai Herbert (13-5-1) vs Chris Padilla (15-6)
Jai Herbert is too good a fighter to be desperately seeking a 50/50 record in the UFC. I wrote a bit when we saw Herbert last August about the company's attempt to matchmake him not just into a win, but an opportunity to pull the punching-power trigger the way he did in the days before Ilia Topuria folded him like a deck chair. And it almost worked! Herbert dropped Rolando Bedoya and for one brief moment it looked like the knockout artist they signed in 2019 was back. But he settled for a decision instead, and having not recorded a win in more than two years, that's fuckin' fine. And it's odd to describe Chris "Taco" Padilla as a stiffer test than a champion like Bedoya, but somehow, at 2-0 in the company, it's true--which is even weirder when you consider how badly he was getting beaten in both fights. Rongzhu was boxing up Padilla and cruising to what seemed like an easy decision. James Llontop was winning their striking exchanges and had just punched Padilla in the gut so hard it ejected his mouthpiece. But all it took was one immediate reaction takedown and Padilla was strangling Llontop seconds later, and all it took was one step-in elbow and Rongzhu's eye was so busted he couldn't fight anymore. Eleven months ago I watched a bunch of Padilla's tape to prepare for his debut and my takeaway was this:
Padilla's biggest strengths appear to be being tough and down to clown. Could this lead to him upsetting Llontop and becoming a new sensation? Sure. Is it likely? No.
As it turns out, toughness and clown-downery are, in fact, enough for the UFC. Padilla's proven to be real good at fighting through adversity and winning anyway. Herbert hits like a truck when he sits down on his strikes and he's got good enough form behind them to be able to sting someone repeatedly, and in my head, I must think JAI HERBERT BY TKO is the likely outcome, here. But boy, if Padilla gets him down, it's going to get really, really funny.
FLYWEIGHT: Lone'er Kavanagh (8-0) vs Felipe dos Santos (8-2 (1))
I spend so much time complaining about our soft-landing matchmaking practices that it's become a genuinely pleasant surprise when the UFC does the opposite. Particularly because the temptation to slow-walk Lone'er Kavanagh must be incredibly high. A Chinese-Irish striker on a Contender Series contract with a 60% knockout rate and he's only in his twenties? C'mon. And he won his UFC debut last November, but only by decision, which would, ostensibly, be even more of a reason to give him an easy target. Instead: Felipe dos Santos. Felipe hasn't been all that successful in the UFC, but he's distinguished himself as one of its most dogged competitors. He was brought in on short notice against Manel Kape, one of the best Flyweights on the planet, and he fought him to a fight-of-the-night decision. He took on Victor Altamirano, one of the division's premier brawlers, and scraped just by him on a blow-for-blow basis. His last time out in September he met a rising prospect in André Lima and, well, he lost, but he fuckin' tried.
I am sure he will try again and I apologize for not thinking it will be enough. LONE'ER KAVANAGH BY DECISION.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Marcin Tybura (26-9, #8) vs Mick Parkin (10-0, #13)
Marcin Tybura, keeper of the gate, you are being called once gain to do your holy duty. Tybura has quietly built a solid record for himself, going 9-3 over the last six years and only dropping losses to top contenders like Alexander Volkov, best-ever candidates like Tom Aspinall, and Serghei Spivac, who is also present. But those losses have also kept him more or less frozen. In 2025 he's the #8 Heavyweight in the UFC, and that's just about where he's been for the last four years. He's big! He's grindy! He's got a good top game when he isn't getting armbarred by Moldovans! But The UFC sees him as a stepping stone rather than a star, and the jury's still out on which category Mick Parkin is best suited to. He's undefeated, he's British, and he just scored his first knockout after four UFC fights, but it was against Łukasz Brzeski, who gets knocked out an awful lot, and before that Parkin was turning in pretty unsatisfying performances against folks as high up on the totem pole as Mohammed Usman and Caio Machado. They want to see if he's ready.
And I'm just not convinced. I'd like to be. Parkin's got decent boxing and wrestling, I'd like to see him turn the corner and become a real thing. But MARCIN TYBURA BY DECISION would be much funnier.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Christian Leroy Duncan (10-2) vs Andrey Pulyaev (9-2)
Christian Leroy Duncan is a repeat victim of arrested momentum. There were big plans and big hype for him when he debuted in 2023 as an undefeated British champion, and those hypes got dulled slightly when Duško Todorović's knee collapsed two minutes into their fight, which left just enough to be snuffed out by an Armen Petrosyan loss three months later. But a year's efforts and two knockouts got him back in shape to show up on the main card of a pay-per-view--above fucking Arnold Allen vs Giga Chikadze, no less--which meant the biggest possible audience saw him get dominated by Gregory Rodrigues. It is no mystery why CLD is back on the prelims, nor is it a mystery why his opponent is a +400 underdog. Andrey Pulayev, as I find myself saying so often these days, is not a bad fighter. He's one of the better prospects from Alexander Shlemenko's personal fighting federation, he hits real hard, he is more than capable of shutting people off. He also--say it with me--mostly fights rookies. It's easier to stop people when across your amateur and professional career you've had fifteen fights and they've had one.
He's not offensively bad, but the odds seem entirely accurate. CHRISTIAN LEROY DUNCAN BY TKO.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Shauna Bannon (6-1) vs Puja Tomar (9-4)
It's time for the annual Shauna Bannon check-in. The UFC brings Shauna out once a year to see if they can monetize her as an Irish star yet, and generally-speaking, the answer is no. In 2023 they tried to feed her Bruna Brasil, who'd just been knocked out a few months prior; Brasil outstruck her, outgrappled her, and took away her undefeated record. They calibrated down a notch for 2024 and sent Shauna out there with Alice Ardelean, a woman who'd barely even fought anyone with a winning record, and Shauna just barely managed to get away with a split decision. In 2025, your contestant is Puja Tomar, who got into the UFC thanks in part to being one of the few women fighting professionally out of India who could conceivably do it, and unfortunately, her debut ruffled some fan feathers. Her victory over former Rayanne Amanda--what an odd thing to say twice in one write-up for such an obscure division--wasn't a robbery in the sense that it should have been a blowout. It was a close fight, statistically and subjectively. But objectively, every single media score and 90% of the fans gave it to Amanda, and the judges did not, and it made people very mad.
But I value going toe to toe with Rayanne Amanda more than I do scraping by Alice Ardelean. PUJA TOMAR BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Nathan Fletcher (9-1) vs Caolán Loughran (9-2)
The Ultimate Fighter 32 (jesus christ) has not been faring well in its immediate aftermath. Middleweight winner Ryan Loder had to postpone his post-show debut thanks to an injury. Featherweight winner Mairon Santos just won his own introductory fight, but it was a decision so bad he ultimately had to apologize for it. Kaan Ofli, his runner-up, got controlled by Muhammad Naimov a month ago. Robert Valentin won't be here 'til May. The only person from the show to scratch out any UFC success is Nathan Fletcher--and he cheated by fighting fellow TUF32 contestant Zygimantas Ramaska, who was forced out of the tournament thanks to a facial fracture. Now, he gets a real test in the form of Caolán Loughran, who does, technically, have a win in the UFC. I do not use the 'technically' to denigrate the man; he's clearly tough and clearly talented. But he's 1 for 3 in the company, and the 1 was Angel Pacheco, a Contender Series loser who was brought in specifically to lose to Loughran on short notice as a +300 underdog and has yet to be booked again a year later.
NATHAN FLETCHER BY DECISION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Guram Kutateladze (13-4) vs Kauê Fernandes (9-2)
You know, Guram Kutateladze was practically a ranked Lightweight. He beat Mateusz Gamrot, he arguably should have beaten Damir Ismagulov, and he has a victory over Jordan Vucenic, who is on this televised main card. He's not old, he's not washed, he's still a vital fighter with real potential. And he is opening the ass-end of these prelims against Kauê Fernandes, who is most famous for either getting wrestled to death by Marc Diakiese's British double-legs, beating the stuffing out of Emirati vanity fighter Mohammad Yahya in front of an angry crowd in Dubai, or, alternatively, absolutely nothing. Nothing is real and we are here to pretend.
GURAM KUTATELADZE BY DECISION and I look forward to seeing him again in a year once again on the prelims and once again fighting a fight that has no chance of getting him anywhere.