CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 137: NO NOCHE
UFC Fight Night: Moreno vs Erceg
SATURDAY, MARCH 29 FROM THE ARENA CDMX IN MEXICO CITY
PRELIMS 1 PM PST / 4 PM EST | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM
That's right, baby: It's Latin American Appreciation Night again. It's not Noche UFC 3--that's being saved for this September in Guadalajara--but Raul Rosas Jr. will probably be on that one too, so honestly, it might as well be. Is this a stacked card? Well, we're batting 3 ranked fighters out of 26, so categorically, no. Is it a fun card?
I mean, Drew Dober and Rafa García are right there.
MAIN EVENT: WE ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP TRYING
FLYWEIGHT: Brandon Moreno (22-8-2, #2) vs Steve Erceg (12-3, #8)
To talk about this fight, I must first apologize for my complicity in wrongdoing.
A bit under a year ago, Steve Erceg challenged Alexandre Pantoja for the Flyweight championship despite being the #10 ranked man in the division, and at the time, I said this:
Once again, the UFC is pushing a dude into title contention by skipping the ladder, and once again, it has a lot less to do with his record or his skills than his having just scored a really cool knockout in his last fight. As always, I am in the position of waving my arms and ranting angrily about matchmaking and credibility and the way the sport should be.
Except: I'm cool with it.
(...)
Is it worth getting mad over? If you're Muhammad Mokaev: Definitely. You should probably be furious. If you're a fan? It's fine, man. There are a lot of cases of divisional injustice and preferential treatment to get mad about, and with Dustin Poirier about to get a championship fight next month lord knows we're going to talk about it, but all things being considered? Flyweight could use some new blood, the #7 guy getting passed up for the #10 guy isn't a particularly broad injustice, and on the mass spectrum of the UFC's matchmaking sins, It's Fine.
For all my anger at the UFC's favoritism-based matchmaking I cited the logjam of rematches at the top of the Flyweight division as a reason to, for once, allow for a ladder-jump just to break the streak and let in some new blood. It was worth it to do something new. It was worth the chance and the only one truly wronged was Muhammad Mokaev.
As is so often the case, the UFC has made me feel stupid for giving them anything.
It's eleven months later and nothing has actually changed. The UFC threw another hail mary by bringing Rizin champion Kai Asakura in from Japan for the rare instant title shot and Pantoja clowned him too. Tatsuro Taira tried to climb the ranks of the prospects and Brandon Royval knocked him back down the ladder. Amir Albazi finally returned from his neck injury and got himself comprehensively dominated by Brandon Moreno. Steve Erceg tried to stay in contendership and got dropped in a round by Kai Kara-France. Muhammad Mokaev won a clear contendership match against Manel Kape--and then the UFC fired him anyway.
I tried to celebrate new blood and an end to the rematch plague at Flyweight and now all four of the top contenders in the division are men Alexandre Pantoja has already beaten, and the UFC is trying to get another, dumber rematch than any of them.
Because let's be real: You could give Brandon Moreno a title shot anytime you want. He's a multi-time champion and the most popular Flyweight in the UFC thanks to his long series with Deiveson Figueiredo and his deep, internet-friendly love of Lego. He already knocked out Kai Kara-France. His losses to Pantoja and Royval were both close, competitive split decisions and he just put a 2:1 beating on a top-ranked contender. He's an essentially permanent fixture at the top of the division and every single fight he has is a potential title eliminator.
Which is why it's baffling it's Steve goddamn Erceg again.
Steve Erceg is a fine competitor. He's even a fine contender. His fight with Pantoja was close! He tried real, real hard! But he lost, and then he welcomed Kai Kara-France back from his year on the shelf by very courteously ramming himself chinfirst into his fist. Kara-France ran a clinic on Erceg, doubling him on strikes, dropping him twice and knocking him out in four minutes. Steve Erceg is a game fighter who is a solid challenge for anyone in the division, but he's on a two-fight losing streak and he hasn't recorded a win in more than a year.
Which makes it very funny that he walked into the Pantoja fight ranked #10 and he's walking into this fight, two losses later, at #8.
Here's a funny story. Despite being the #1 contender on a two-fight winning streak, Brandon Royval was supposed to fight halfway down the rankings against Manel Kape at the start of this month. Royval injured himself in training, leaving Kape without an opponent. They could have put Brandon Moreno in--but they had already booked Mexico City and they wanted their big marketing attraction there. But there was another Flyweight fight on that event: Steve Erceg vs Asu Almabayev.
Which is perfect! Kape's been needing a credible opponent to prove he's worth a title shot and Erceg's been in there against Pantoja, and Erceg needs a win to get himself back in the mix given his losing streak. Kape vs Erceg would have made all of the sense in the world.
So they put Asu Almabayev in. Erceg got pulled out to main event this card in what could, with Royval out indefinitely, very easily be a match to determine the next man challenging for the belt.
In what I'm sure is an enormous coincidence, on the same day the UFC broadcast Kape vs Almabayev, they also announced an extension of the deal whereby the Australian government is paying them tens of millions of dollars to bring their events to Perth.
It's not like I mind Steve Erceg. His fights are fun. He's enjoyable and talented. But eleven months ago I shrugged off some awkwardly marketing-tinged Flyweight matchmaking and since then the top contenders have been spinning their wheels, Muhammad Mokaev got fired despite being an undefeated Flyweight on a seven-fight winning streak*, and now Steve Erceg is one good punch away from the belt again.
*I know the UFC says Mokaev was fired for being unprofessional but Sean Strickland jumped his top contender on camera and they used it for press and Bryce Mitchell just talked publicly about how the Holocaust was fake and Hitler was righteously trying to stop the Jews from turning everyone gay and he's on pay-per-view in two weeks, so I must once again remind you not to ever believe them about anything.
Anyway, BRANDON MORENO BY DECISION. Erceg's boxing is a solid weapon against anyone, but he does his best work against people who like to wade in with their strikes which, with respect to my favorite champion, is why he did so well against Pantoja and why he got flattened by Kai. Moreno's fast, fluid and versatile, as he demonstrated by erasing Kai's liver with his feet, and he also presents the same wrestling threat that lost Erceg his title shot. I would be surprised if Moreno gets him out of there, but I do think he'll win, and then we can start this conversation all over again next time when Moreno's fighting Tatsuro Taira anyway while Erceg's fighting for the belt because Manel Kape got injured.
CO-MAIN EVENT: FOR PURPOSES OF FISTICUFFS
LIGHTWEIGHT: Manuel Torres (15-3) vs Drew Dober (27-14 (1))
If the main event is the sad tails side of the Nothing Matters coin, this co-main event is the happy heads side. Nothing Matters and sometimes it rules.
Manuel Torres was going to matter. He came off the Contender Series as a highly-hyped champion out of Mexico who sported not just a near-complete finishing rate, but scored every single one of those finishes in the first round. He was the living embodiment of the kind of violence enthusiast the Contender Series was built to discover, and the UFC was so jazzed by his presence that they gave him two soft targets in a row to kick off his contract, and he dutifully dispatched him. But his third out was Chris Duncan, a legitimate test, and despite getting punched across the cage in the very first exchange of the fight Torres was able to switch it up, outgrapple Duncan and choke him out.
It was a fantastic victory that legitimized Torres as a real Lightweight prospect. It earned him a great fight at Noche UFC 2 against Ignacio Bahamondes, the launchpad Torres needed to make himself a real threat to the rankings.
And then Bahamondes floored him in four minutes.
Now Ignacio Bahamondes has the spot. He choked out Jalin Turner, he's the new blood in the Lightweight rankings, he's got the shot at the top, and Manuel Torres is busted back down to the proving grounds.
At this stage of his career, the proving grounds are Drew Dober's home. There was a time Dober looked like he was finally poised for a breakout--it was 2023, which feels so, so very painfully long ago at this moment in time--and Dober had just scored three fantastic knockouts in a row, the last of which came at King Green's expense and got Dober officially ranked. Which, to be honest, should've been more of a feelgood moment than the world allowed it to be. In a sport that loves the comeback stories of Robbie Lawler and Charles Oliveira, there really should've been room to celebrate Drew Dober, who was somehow hitting his stride fifteen years after his first appearance in Strikeforce.
It was a great moment for a longtime veteran and one of the sport's best brawlers. It earned him a hyped TV spot against Matt Frevola, another big-time puncher who could give Dober the kind of highlight-reel fight that gets you noticed.
And then Frevola floored him in four minutes.
The subsequent time hasn't been too kind, either. Dober had a great rebound against Ricky Glenn, but Renato Moicano schooled him on the ground and then Jean Silva came up from Featherweight on short notice and broke Dober's fucking face.
But that time brings us here. Neither man is going to get the other back to the rankings. They're both currently damaged goods trying to get back on the path. This fight does not exist for rankings, it exists because both of these men are violence elementals with a reckless disregard for their own health and they're liable to punch each other stupid, and the audience really, really likes it when that happens.
It's hard to avoid that Dober's getting up there in age, his wars have taken a toll on him and he's giving up size, reach and about seven years here. Torres is the favorite and, realistically, he should be. But the Duncan and Bahamondes fights were both showcases for his willingness to charge into exchanges headfirst and how frequently he gets wobbled for his trouble.
And Dober just hits too goddamn hard for me to not take the chance. DREW DOBER BY TKO.
MAIN CARD: THE TIDES OF ADVERTISING
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Kelvin Gastelum (19-9 (1)) vs Joe Pyfer (13-3)
Once upon a time, Kelvin Gastelum was the guy the UFC fed its aging veterans to. When you look back at the path of destruction that turned him into a real boy, it's paved over people who were on their way out of the game. Johny Hendricks, Tim Kennedy, Vitor Belfort, Michael Bisping, Jacaré--all former world champions, all closing in on retirement. Hell, two of them called it quits immediately after Kelvin speedbagged them. It got him stardom, it got him power, and it got him in there with the best of the best in the new generation. Unfortunately, it definitively proved he wasn't in that conversation. Kelvin's 3 for his last 9, and everyone who beat him is or was a top contender, and everyone he beat is at the absolute edge of the rankings. There was a renewed hope for Kelvin when he announced he was returning to Welterweight at the end of 2023--a 5'9" Middleweight just wasn't working out--but he got destroyed by Sean Brady in his first shot back at the division, and then he couldn't make the weight against Daniel Rodriguez and the fight wound up having to be contested at 185 pounds, and now he's just giving up on pretending altogether.
As is the UFC. Kelvin was fed; now he is the feed. Joe Pyfer was meant for the top from damn near the moment he rolled off the Contender Series and we know this because he admitted it. They tried to book Pyfer into ranked fights against Nassourdine Imavov as soon as he was in the UFC and Pyfer had to turn them down. As he put it, he felt it was too soon for his skill and experience level; it would probably also be fair to say he (very reasonably) wanted to be off his minimum-wage DWCS contract before he started taking ranked fights. As it turned out, that was a good idea for multiple reasons. The UFC gave Pyfer his shot at the big time in February of 2024, in an act of ultimate hubris they booked him against Jack Hermansson--the same man who spoiled Kelvin's Middleweight hopes four years earlier--and once again, Hermansson won. He called for the Imavov fight Pyfer had been offered afterward. Funny thing: In the thirteen months since the fight Pyfer's had a tune-up bout with Marc-André Barriault and now he's booked against a former main eventer, and Jack Hermansson has yet to get another fight on the calendar.
Just funny how that happens. Funny ha-ha. I'm not huge on Pyfer. I don't see the star in him that the UFC does. I also think betting on Kelvin in 2025 is an exercise in futility. And yet: I must. KELVIN GASTELUM BY DECISION. I just don't think Pyfer has the gas to put him down or outwrestle him. I will feel very silly about this conviction when he chokes Kelvin out in seven minutes.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Raul Rosas Jr. (10-1) vs Vince Morales (16-9)
And then, there's Raul, and they're not even really trying to hide the plan with him anymore. Raul Rosas Jr. was brought into the UFC as an eighteen year-old child soldier they could monetize into a star except one fight into his career they threw him in against Christian Rodriguez and he got the absolute crap beaten out of him. (Christian Rodriguez is on this card, by the way! You'll see him five fights from now, buried in the prelims.) The UFC immediately tried to correct by giving Rosas Terrence Mitchell, an Alaskan regional fighter they'd brought in on short notice to lose, and Ricky Turcios, who was the smallest step up they could manage. When Rosas drew Aoriqileng this past September he was a -1000 favorite. And he struggled! He won, but he dropped the second round and couldn't get much damage done in the third, which made it extra funny when he called for a fight of the night bonus and a top opponent in his next outing.
The UFC has instead chosen Vince Morales, who is 2-7 in the UFC, hasn't won a fight in the company since 2021, and is on a two-fight losing streak since his 2024 return to their welcoming arms. And those two losses? Elijah Smith, another Contender Series baby, and Taylor Lapilus, who was cut from the company despite coming off a win. For the second time. Vince Morales is 2-7 across two UFC runs and he's on a main television card fighting one of the company's most-marketed rising stars, and Taylor Lapilus, who is 6-2 across two UFC runs and was last seen beating Vince Morales, is simply not UFC material. This is the game. This is all we are doing now. The last man Morales beat in the company was Louis Smolka, 2014's most exciting Flyweight prospect, but by god, we have a space for his contract, and that space is as the jobber we intend to get eaten alive by the guy we actually want.
And he will. Realistically, Rosas should wrestle circles around Morales. This should be a first-round submission. But my constant failing as a sportswriter is my need to be invested in stories, and I am far more invested in the story of the UFC paying for its hubris, and I will dash myself on its rocks over and over for the one-in-one-hundred times it works out. VINCE MORALES BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: David Martinez (11-1) vs Saimon Oliveira (18-5)
The wheels churn the fat. The mold takes in the old meat and extrudes the new meat. Four years ago, Saimon Oliveira was the Contender Series winner with the regional championship and the rookie-destroying strength of schedule who was dropped into the Play-Doh machine and came out with a shiny new contract. But the new toy was flawed, and it only put out two fights in all that time, and it lost both of them, and that made Dana sad. So the flour went back in the tube, and the machine shook and whined, and from its holes slid David Martinez. He, too, got here by crushing rookies, and he, too, has a shiny belt--but his is from Combate!--and he, too, is adept at knocking people out, which is all that matters. But the machine is haunted by the ghosts of those who died building it, and the present must fight the past if the future can be born, even though they are, at heart, one in the same.
During my brief, lamentable time in college, I accomplished essentially nothing. I had too many unaddressed brain problems to continue learning. My lasting memory of the experience is a blue-book final on the politics of the Antebellum South and how they set the Civil War in motion. I stared at the page in silence before writing that I hadn't been there for half of my classes, and my professor knew that, and I couldn't even pretend I was qualified to give a bullshit-free answer to the question, and my professor knew that, and I didn't want to waste his time by acting as though I could when I knew I had nothing to say. Instead, I wrote, here is a ten-page short story about the failures of trickle-down theory named Reaganomics vs The Cyber-Ninjas of Mars.
I got a D-, and under the grade the professor had written "I'm passing you so I never have to worry about you taking my class again." DAVID MARTINEZ BY TKO.
FLYWEIGHT: Ronaldo Rodríguez (17-2) vs Kevin Borjas (9-3)
Speaking of intentionally foregone conclusions, there's Lazy Boy. Ronaldo Rodríguez was already a popular guy with a built-in fanbase when the UFC brought him in--the fact that they signed him without putting him through the Contender Series or as a last-minute replacement is indicative--and he's been paying them back with fun performances. He choked out Denys Bondar and he beat Ode Osbourne--sort of. It was really weird, actually. Osbourne almost killed Rodríguez in the first round and nearly finished the fight twice, but only got a 10-9; Rodríguez controlled him in the second round but failed to close the show and somehow still got a 10-8 from two out of three judges. A narrow Lazy Boy win was feasible, as was a draw, but what Rodriguez got was a blowout, which is wild.
But intentional. Wild but intentional. Both of his first two opponents were coming off two-fight losing streaks that included getting finished in at least one of said losses, and we're three fights deep and we're still doing it again. Kevin Borjas is a tough, talented guy, and he's also 0-2 in the company. He got beat by Joshua Van in his debut and last May he got himself destroyed by Alessandro Costa, who chopped his legs out with kicks and pounded him out once he couldn't stand anymore. Like so many Flyweights Borjas is better than his record looks and it's entirely feasible he pulls the upset.
But I doubt it. However favorable Rodríguez's matchmaking may be, he's also proven to be real good. He's aggressive, he's tenacious, he's really fucking fast on the ground and if he can keep his chin guarded just a bit better, he's a threat to the rankings. RONALDO RODRÍGUEZ BY DECISION.
PRELIMS: BURY ME TEN FEET FROM HELL
FLYWEIGHT: Edgar Cháirez (11-6 (1)) vs CJ Vergara (12-6-1)
It's been a weird run for Edgar Cháirez. In 2022 he failed to get through the Contender Series, but a solid performance and a couple regional wins saw him contracted within a year anyway. Unfortunately, his debut opponent was Tatsuro Taira. One loss and two months later, Cháirez avenged the loss by choking out Daniel Da Silva--except he hadn't, as Silva was actually fully conscious and the referee had fucked up, which rendered the fight a No Contest. So they rebooked the fight a month later--and then Silva had to pull out thanks to an infection. So they rebooked the fight again, and after half a year of trying, Edgar Cháirez finally, unequivocally won! Except he missed weight by six pounds. But Silva also missed weight, so everyone just let it go, and then Joshua Van beat Cháirez last September and all of this was simply forgotten. CJ Vergara has also passed through these hills. He, too, was a victim of Tatsuro Taira's path up the rankings, and he, too, fought and beat Daniel Da Silva. By the end of 2023 he was 3-2 in the UFC, and while he may not have poised himself for contendership, he felt well-established as a prospect. So he spent the last year taking the first back-to-back losses of his career. He met Asu Almabayev and got dutifully wrestled into paste; he welcomed the now-ranked Ramazan Temirov to the company and suffered the first knockout loss of his life for it.
It's a solid fight between well-matched men who are both struggling to hold onto their positions. Cháirez is quicker, Vergara is scrappier; Cháirez has the more dangerous grappling, Vergara has the bigger power. For some reason, I feel more sympathetic to the punch. CJ VERGARA BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Ateba Gautier (6-1) vs José Medina (11-4)
I spend a lot of time talking about how quietly exhausting it is to analyze the careers of Contender Series guys and I want to take you under the hood for a moment. When I read this card and saw Ateba Gautier was a 6-1 Contender Series guy with a near-total knockout rate, I made some immediate assumptions in my head. I bet he's mostly a regional fighter. I bet most of his opponents were rookies. I bet his Contender Series opponent was the closest thing he's had to a real opponent, but I bet that on closer examination, his story won't be much different.
I partially whiffed my first swing. Gautier's fought mostly for regional promotions, sure, but he's been around the block. His native Cameroon, Wales, England, Serbia--dude's done a lot of traveling for a fairly short career. Good on you!
Shame about the rest, though.
That's more like it. That sure is a lot of rookies and jobbers. Jan Lysak is actually 2-27 now, and coincidentally not only are all of those losses first-round losses, almost all of them took less than two minutes. But what about Yura Naito, the man Gautier beat on the Contender Series? Am I impugning his record unfairly?
Three out of four ain't bad. Christ, I was watching Ryo Kawamura lose in Sengoku almost twenty years ago. But we're shortchanging José Medina, right? I mean, he's a UFC veteran now, thanks to his fight back in August! Wha'd we have to say about him at the time?
In his fourteen career fights Medina has only beaten one man with a winning record, and that record was 4-2, and it was Medina's twelfth professional bout. Medina was on the Contender Series last October, and not only did he not win, he was taken down six times and outstruck 3:1. Dana White signed him anyway, because he liked his toughness.
That toughness got him booked as a +600 underdog against Zach Reese, who beat him handily, co-headlined prelims one fight later, and is on a main card next month against Duško Todorović, who's 3-5 in the company, hasn't won a fight in three years and just got knocked out.
I love the stories of combat sports. I love the zero-sum comparative analysis of combat sports. I hate the Contender Series primarily because it's terrible for fighters, but at a selfish, personal level, I hate it because it's putting a stake through the two ways I love to engage with mixed martial arts. Every fighter is being compressed into the same story and every fighter is being plucked before they can mature and achieve anything. How do you do comparative analysis on Ateba Gautier? How do you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a fighter whose record is entirely composed of rookies, can crushers and professional jobbers?
And how do I not feel disrespectful as shit reducing professional athletes who have worked very hard to examples of my own exhaustion?
JOSÉ MEDINA BY DECISION and may we never find rest.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Melquizael Costa (22-7) vs Christian Rodriguez (12-2)
To carry on those previous thoughts, Melquizael Costa is a fantastic example of how these things can still be done right. Costa came into the UFC with a decently proven record to his name as an LFA veteran and a great personal story as an awkward kid with vitiligo who found confidence in himself as a martial artist through playing UFC Undisputed 3 on his Playstation and seeing virtual Scott Jorgensen. Two years later he's 3-2 in the biggest organization on the planet and just a month removed from choking out Andre Fili, one of its longest-tenured veterans. Christian Rodriguez is an example of why my own displeasure isn't a concrete rule. He, too, was a forgettable, rookie-fighting Contender Series guy, and he, too, got trounced in his UFC debut, and he, too, was pigeonholed by the UFC as a heavy bag for their marketing prospects. So it cheesed them off an awful lot that he beat the crap out of most of them, most especially Raul Rosas Jr., particularly because he kept breaking the Bantamweight limit in the process. They tried to get him again this past January by matching him up against another heavily-hyped, curly-haired Contender Series kid in Austin Bashi, and Rodriguez beat him to a clear decision too.
And the UFC is clearly happy about it, since he's all the way down here on the prelims. I like Christian and his commitment to constantly pissing off the plans of the MMA universe, but I like Costa more, and I also think Christian's tendency to get stuck in bad positions in scrambles plays into Costa's opportunistic grappling game. MELQUIZAEL COSTA BY SUBMISSION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Lupita Godinez (12-5, #11) vs Julia Polastri (13-4)
There is no power on Earth, in Space or Above and Beyond that could make me pick against Loopy here. I could tell you that it's because Loopy's proven herself to be a great wrestler and a talented defensive grappler who did better against Mackenzie Dern than Virna Jandiroba did right after doing better against Virna Jandiroba than Amanda Lemos did. I could tell you that watching Polastri get bossed around by Josefine Knutsson and ending a victorious fight against Cory McKenna on her back getting ground-and-pounded does not fill me with confidence in her future. But mostly, if the last two fights of existential crisis have reinforced anything, it's the need to cling to irrational appreciations, and I have an irrational appreciation for Loopy's never-give-up chain-wrestling style.
Be a champ someday. LUPITA GODINEZ BY DECISION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Rafa García (16-4) vs Vinc Pichel (14-4)
There are some fighters the UFC just doesn't really know what to do with, and Rafa García is real fuckin' high on that list. He's already past four years in the company and in that time he's been in the cage with hot prospects like Nasrat Haqparast, underratedly tough journeymen like Jesse Ronson and roadworn legends like Clay Guida. None of that explained why he fought the should've-been-ranked, 11-1-1 Grant Dawson last October. Dawson ran through Rafa and pounded him out in two rounds, which leaves Rafa afloat in the empty space of the harshest division in the company. The UFC tried to match him up with Joaquim Silva here, a man who is even more inexplicably placed, but he couldn't make it, so instead we have Vinc Pichel, who only sort of exists now. Pichel was a runner-up on The Ultimate Fighter 15, which was thirteen goddamn years ago (jesus christ). Every single fighter on that show other than Vinc Pichel is retired, and an awful lot of folks thought he was, too, being as he's only made the walk once in the last three years. It was supposed to be earlier--he was going to fight Ismael Bonfim in 2023--but Bonfim blew his cut and Pichel punished him by declining the fight, and the UFC punished Pichel by rebooking the fight six months later. Bonfim shut him out. Now it's 2025, Vinc hasn't won a fight since mid-2021, and he's on late replacement duty.
All of that being said: I'm kinda looking forward to this. Sure, this isn't going to get anyone anywhere, but it has a really good chance of being brutal and scrappy. Rafa and Vinc are both tough, aggressive motherfuckers who in a combined 38 fights have only collectively been stopped three times, and they both like to fight mean. I think RAFA GARCÍA BY DECISION is likely between Rafa's implacability and Vinc only having a month's turnaround, but it should be fun the whole way through.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Jamall Emmers (20-8) vs Gabriel Miranda (17-7)
I use the phrase 'x has had a weird time in the UFC' a lot, but boy, it's hard to get weirder than Jamall Emmers. He was brought into the company as a late replacement for Movsar Evloev only to somehow wind up fighting the runaway hype train of Giga Chikadze, and Emmers damn near won a split decision and stopped him two years before Calvin Kattar could. Three fights later Emmers was an underdog to the 23-0 Russian champion Khusein Askhabov, and Emmers destroyed him, which was fortunate for the UFC, as before Khusein could fight again he was arrested for kidnapping and robbery. Emmers was put up against another hyped prospect in Jack Jenkins, and according to 100% of media scorecards he clearly defeated him, so, of course, the judges sided with Jenkins. And then Emmers became the first man to knock out Dennis Buzukja, but he missed weight by two pounds so no one cared, and then he fought Nate Landwehr as a -200 favorite and got punched out in a round. He's been all over the goddamn place, man. Curly moustache enthusiast Gabriel Miranda is simply Present. He got lamped by Benoît Saint Denis, he choked out a woefully woefully unprepared Shane Young in fifty-nine seconds, and then he got lamped all over again by Morgan Charrière. His UFC tenure is almost three years old and it has lasted eleven and a half minutes.
And I do not believe in him here. JAMALL EMMERS BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Austin Hubbard (16-8) vs MarQuel Mederos (9-1)
Austin Hubbard cannot catch a break. He was 3-4 in the UFC in 2021 but got cut after a loss to Vinc Pichel--why, yes, that was the win we were just talking about two fights ago--only to get pulled into the TUF comeback season of 2023. Which went great right up until he lost in the finals. But he got back into the company, and he even got a win, and then Alexander Hernandez beat him in one of those incredibly irritating split decisions where one judge thinks you won a 30-27 shut-out but the other two think you got your ass kicked so it doesn't matter. But it all worked out, because Daniel Zellhuber's one of the UFC's big hyped prospects and he's on the main card of every single UFC Mexico card and he needs a replacement for his lost opponent, so here's your chance, Austin! You get the main card again! You g--oh, shit. Sorry, Zellhuber's out. Best we can do is a curtain-jerking prelim slot against MarQuel Maderos, who fought in the UFC once more than a year ago. You're cool with that, right? We're cool.
AUSTIN HUBBARD BY DECISION. Wrestle with your anger.