CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 138: PAYING OUR WAY
UFC Fight Night: Emmett vs Murphy
SATURDAY, APRIL 5 FROM THE HORRORS OF THE UFC APEX
PRELIMS 3 PM PST / 6 PM EST | MAIN CARD 6 PM / 9 PM
Look at that high-budget poster work, man.
We've actually got a pretty good run of events coming up. For a beautiful, blissful month, between April 12th and May 10th, we are leaving the Apex. We are on the road for four straight events, and two of them are solid pay-per-views and the other two are actually decent Fight Nights with multiple ranked fights and good main events and a lot to be excited about, because the moment the UFC has to actually sell tickets, shockingly, they start caring.
There's even a week off in there! It's going to be great.
But first we have to pay off the debt by going back to the Apex one more time for one more card with three ranked fighters on it and a Pat Sabatini co-main event.
MAIN EVENT: FALMER VS FATE
FEATHERWEIGHT: Josh Emmett (19-4, #8) vs Lerone Murphy (15-0-1, #10)
It's rare that a single knockout ages as beautifully as Josh Emmett's complete flattening of cosmic asshole Bryce Mitchell, but it's real good that it has, because that's the only thing keeping Emmett afloat.
Which feels very cruel and unfair to a top five contender. On paper, Josh Emmett is goddamn near my favorite fighter in the sport: A hard-chinned, grit-first wrestleboxer with one of the most devastating right hands in the sport. And he's a perpetual underdog. And he's the subject of Skyrim memes! His unlikely ascension to title contention was quietly fantastic.
But it's aged a lot worse than that knockout.
Emmett's rise to the top came on the back of five wins in almost three and a half years. Those wins, in order, were:
Michael Johnson, who only now, nine fights later, has reached a 50/50 record in the UFC
Mirsad Bektić, who never really recovered from getting knocked out by Darren Elkins and was only a year away from retiring
Shane Burgos, who would be gone from the UFC three fights later and is now 1 for 3 in the PFL
Dan Ige, who is wonderful and perfect but also the platonic ideal of a gatekeeper
Calvin Kattar, who is on a four-fight losing streak since their match and who probably should have won said match
As I have said before: Josh Emmett beating Calvin Kattar was not, itself, a robbery. They had a close fight, and while I and the majority of the media gave it to Kattar, Emmett winning is not an unreasonable argument. Objectively, however, Emmett got the win because judge Chris Lee gave him the fourth round of the fight, despite it being a round in which he got outstruck 41 to 21 and had his entire face busted open. Were it not for one determination that bordered on outright judging error, Kattar would've taken the decision instead.
But Emmett moved to the top, from which he was then violently ejected. His interim title fight with Yair Rodríguez ended in the first submission loss of Emmett's career, and five months later he met Ilia Topuria and took one of the most one-sided beatings in main event history. Chris Lee scored the fight 50-42 against him. It was as ugly as it was definitive.
Definition is what Lerone Murphy desperately needs. Being an undefeated fighter on a seven-fight winning streak in one of the toughest divisions in the sport is, on paper, an absurd accomplishment, and somehow Murphy and the UFC have both failed to make the audience care.
Some part of this is the curse of first impressions. Murphy joined the UFC with a lot of hype as a big British prospect in 2019 and proceeded to almost get knocked out by Zubaira Tukhugov in his debut fight. In hindsight, this isn't as bad as it seemed. Tukhugov turned out to be an extremely solid fighter, but coming in as an undefeated wunderkind and immediately going to a split draw leaves people doubting your championship aspirations.
Some part is the fanbase's hatred of perceived favoritism. Murphy went on a three-fight winning streak, but the fights somehow declined in challenge--from a difficult Ricardo Ramos to a mid-thirties journeyman in Douglas Silva de Andrade to a preposterous matchup with Makwan Amirkhani, who was on a two-fight losing streak. But none hurt him as much as his 2023 matchup with Gabriel Santos, which saw Murphy outstruck in the first round and outwrestled in the other two, and despite the media almost unanimously scoring the fight for Santos, the judges--say it with me--gave a split decision to Murphy.
It's hard to reverse those kinds of audience impressions. You have to make yourself undeniable to get away with it. Ordinarily you get over that hump with stellar, highlight-reel performances, but that's just not Murphy's ken as a fighter. He's very, very good, and very well-rounded, and he's learned to neutralize opponents and institute his gameplans like a real professional. But he's not a knockout fighter. He's not even a dominating fighter. He fights for close-but-clear decisions, and he always wins them.
But he wins them against people like Edson Barboza. He wins them against Dan Ige. Beating either of these men is an unfathomable accomplishment to the vast majority of the sport, but if you want to be in the hallowed elite, you need more.
Josh Emmett is more. But even now, it's hard not to see the future narrative forming in the event that Murphy wins--hell, I just wrote it. The wins weren't great and the losses were definitive. Unless Murphy blows Emmett out of the water, how do we avoid having this conversation again four to six months from now?
Ideally, we avoid it like this: JOSH EMMETT BY TKO. My appreciation for Emmett is obviously a biasing factor here, and my constant underestimation of Murphy makes it equally clear my pick is wrong, but I'm holding out hope anyway. Murphy likes to use the clinch against his opponents and I am rooting for one of those big right hands finding its way in.
CO-MAIN EVENT: THE UNDYING FAITH
FEATHERWEIGHT: Joanderson Brito (17-4-1) vs Pat Sabatini (19-5)
I mean, do I have to write anything here? Unless this is the first time you've read any of these (on the off-chance it is: Really? Josh Emmett vs Lerone Murphy is your jumping-on point?) you know I'm so deep in the tank for Joanderson Brito that I go to sleep wearing the Dukakis helmet.
And Pat Sabatini? I made this self-mocking meme almost two goddamn years ago:
So my emotional stakes in this fight are already spoken for. But intellectually?
Intellectually I Also Do Not Care. Joanderson Brito beat Diego Lopes. Joanderson Brito knocked Andre Fili dead in forty-one seconds. Joanderson Brito had a five-fight winning streak that should and would have been six had it not been for a real questionable hometown split decision for William Gomis in his last fight.
Pat Sabatini got knocked out by Diego Lopes in ninety seconds one fight ago in 2023, which was twenty-one longer than it took Damon Jackson in 2022. Pat Sabatini has two victories in his last four fights, and they were a submission over Lucas Almeida two years ago and a rear naked choke against Jonathan "JSP" Pearce this past October. Pearce, of course, used to be a promising wrestling prospect with a solid winning streak, but by the time he met Sabatini he was on a losing streak that started in November of 2023.
After Joanderson Brito choked him the fuck out.
So it's a guy I really like, who hits like a truck, snatches submissions in the space of seconds and once kicked Jack Shore so hard it busted a bone-deep hole in his shin, against a guy I don't like, who is good but not great at wrestling, and who loses to guys the first guy beat and beats guys the first guy beat but in less cool fashions.
I am shortchanging Pat Sabatini and his wrestling, but I have always shortchanged Pat Sabatini and his wrestling. In the event that he outwrestles Joanderson Brito and wins, I give you my solemn vow to learn absolutely nothing from the experience and soldier on in proud ignorance forever.
JOANDERSON BRITO BY TKO.
MAIN CARD: STRAIGHT DOWN A HILL
BANTAMWEIGHT: Cortavious Romious (9-3) vs Chang-Ho Lee (10-1)
I spent an entire year reveling in jokes about the impending arrival of Cortavious "Are You Not Entertained?" Romious. I was joking about it before he was even signed to the UFC. The bad professional record, the twenty-nine second knockout loss in his first shot at the Contender Series, the all-time poetic stature of his name--he was inevitable. As was his loss. Romious made his UFC debut this past November against Gaston Bolaños and proceeded to get entirely shut out. Romious was on the wrong side of a 3:1 difference in significant strikes and an 80 to 30 differential in total, which is even more bonkers when you realize he was controlling the grappling for most of the fight. I like wrestling, I like grappling, I have written many words about the corporate attempt to pull grappling out of mixed martial arts and I will have many more, but as a general rule, if you have two takedowns and three minutes of dominant positions in a round that saw you throw up no submission attempts and get outstruck 25 to 4, there are categorical issues with your approach and they are costing you fights.
Chang-Ho Lee's path, despite going through a tournament that took more than a year to conclude, hasn't been all that glorious either. It's not entirely his fault--the Road to UFC's Bantamweight tournament was really more about Xiao Long. The UFC had already tried to bring the Chinese champion into the fold twice before, and Lee was the afterthought--which was made especially clear when he found himself twiddling his thumbs for six months while the UFC rescheduled the finals around Long. The 2023 bracket didn't conclude until June of 2024, and when it finally happened, it turned out to be an incredibly close fight. Xiao had the wrestling advantage, Lee had the striking advantage, and at the end of the day the judges gave a narrow split to Lee. After half a year of delays, it must have been a wonderful feeling. And it's hilariously on the nose that Xiao was still signed to the UFC and fighting again in November and it's only now, ten months after the tournament, that they're finally getting around to booking its actual winner.
I'm siding with CHANG-HO LEE BY DECISION, but for all my mockery it could still be a tough night if Lee can't keep Romious off him. He's a stronger man who could take advantage of Lee's takedown defense and keep him on the mat if Lee can't stick him at the end of his fists.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Kennedy Nzechukwu (14-5, #15) vs Martin Buday (14-2, NR)
At a certain point, Heavyweight simply is what it is. Three months into 2024 Kennedy Nzechukwu was a Light Heavyweight who couldn't beat an Ovince St. Preux less than a month away from turning 41, and three months into 2025 Kennedy Nzechukwu is a top fifteen Heavyweight in the world's canonical mixed martial arts organization. And he did it by pounding out Chris Barnett, who had not competed since 2022, and Łukasz Brzeski, who was finally released from the UFC after their fight because he was 1-5 in the company. Neither was a particularly successful Heavyweight, neither had any ranked wins, and neither is likely to notch a UFC win again.
But both of them lost a fight to Martin Buday. I was actually pretty high on Buday when he walked into the UFC in 2022, as I always am for fighters who scratch my angry-clinch-grappling itch, and in 2025, I am on the shore, waving as his boat sails towards the shoals. He put a beating on Chris Barnett and was seconds away from a stoppage when he elbowed him in the back of the head and drew a technical decision instead; that's fair. He pretty clearly got beaten by Łukasz Brzeski and won a split decision anyway; that's bad, but it happens. But when you go to a coinflip of a split decision with 2024-era Andrei Arlovski? The Andrei Arlovski who needed a screwjob decision to beat Jake fucking Collier? I can no longer follow your downfall.
Buday's a big dude. He's tough and his clinch grappling should not be underestimated. But he also gassed and got the shit beaten out of him by Shamil Gaziev and I do not have an enormous amount of trouble seeing it happening again. KENNEDY NZECHUKWU BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Gerald Meerschaert (37-18) vs Brad Tavares (20-10)
You are tearing me apart, UFC. I cannot discuss my love for scrappy grapplers ("scrapplers") without including Gerald Meerschaert all the way at the top of the list. He's big! He's tough! He has some of the deadliest chokes in the sport! He is impossible to discourage and he has also proven so unlikely to threaten the rankings after twenty-two UFC fights that if Dana White keeled over and individual fighter sponsorships came back tomorrow his primary backer would be St. Jude, patron of lost causes. I will always root for him, and I will always hope for him, but much as he was submitted by Reinier de Ridder last November reality will forever have my dreams in a chokehold.
But Brad Tavares? You're making me choose between two of my boys? I've been a Brad-Tavares-is-underrated booster for a damn decade at this point. Every time he got knocked out by an Edmen Shahbazyan or took a weird stoppage against a Bruno Silva or got punched stupid by a Robocop Rodrigues I would feel the winds of fate testing my faith and I would stand resolute. He made it to the bell against pre-crisis Yoel Romero and Israel Adesanya and he took a damn round off Dricus du Plessis. He's never been a top guy but he's always been closer than the world is willing to give him credit for, and I will stand in support of his leg kicks and middlingly-timed 1-2s any day.
And none of that stops this from being the Sophie's Choice of my fight picks. How do you pick between sunrise and sunset? How do you pluck the stars from the sky? I will, under duress, choose BRAD TAVARES BY DECISION, but a piece of my heart goes with these words and I do not know that I will ever get it back.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Robert Valentin (10-4) vs Torrez Finney (10-0)
As one of the eight people on Earth who watched all of The Ultimate Fighter 32 (jesus christ), I cannot overstate how much the UFC was banking on Robert Valentin winning the show. He was a fixture of every episode, he got more screentime than most of the rest of the cast combined, his two victories were replayed repeatedly--hell, he spent more of the season coaching Alexa Grasso's fucking team than she did. He was the big colorful viking with the catchphrases and the finishes and then he got steamrolled in the finals by Ryan Loder and the air went out of the balloon. As much as I'd love to play another game of 'the UFC books the guy they want before the guy who actually won,' they actually tried to do it right; Loder was supposed to fight Cody Brundage last month but had to pull out with an injury, which means Valentin gets first crack at the UFC by default.
And he's fighting a human cube. Torrez Finney is actually a cautionary tale about exactly how the UFC will fuck you over while you're basically still a fetus in the sport. Finney fought on the Contender Series in 2023 as a 6-0 prospect, and he won, submitting the also 6-0 Yuri Panferov, and Dana decided to pass on him because he didn't have enough experience--which raises the question of why the UFC put two 6-0 people together in the first place. One win later, Finney was back on DWCS in 2024, and once again, he won, and once again, Dana turned him down--because his gas tank was questionable and he still didn't have enough regional fights. Finney had to point out that he legally could not get a fight because the UFC had contracted him to be a cast member on TUF 32 only to decide, months later, not to put him on the show. So Finney tried to get more fights--except the UFC, which had turned him down for not having enough experience, asked him to be on DWCS again despite still having the same level of experience. Finney had to say no, win a fight, get invited to DWCS for the third time and get his second Contender Series win only to be told he was still too inexperienced--except he was invited back to DWCS for a third time six weeks later because they needed an injury substitute, which is how he finally got signed.
It's almost like monopoly is bad for the fucking sport. It's almost like monopoly turns you into a lazy, inept organization. It's also almost like Torrez Finney is a 5'8" Middleweight, which makes him not just the shortest Middleweight in the UFC, but also ties him for shortest Welterweight and puts him only one inch above the shortest Lightweights. I really fucking want Finney to win this fight just as an attempt to get the universe to make up for all the bullshit the UFC has put him through. But ROBERT VALENTIN BY SUBMISSION feels more likely. I desperately hope my heart wins and make me feel stupid for ignoring it.
PRELIMS: DAVEY, DANIEL, DIANA, DIONE, DEMOPOULOS
FLYWEIGHT: Ode' Osbourne (12-8) vs Luis Gurule (10-0)
The margins at Flyweight are just so goddamn thin. Even just one division up you can still find top twenty fighters with holes in their game and that allows for longer tails and learning experiences, but Flyweight is essentially just The Quick and the Dead. When you begin to slide, you slide hard, and Ode' Osbourne's slide has reached terminal velocity. After eleven years without back-to-back losses and a persistent flirtation with the top fifteen, Osbourne's stuck on a three-fight losing streak and you just don't get a fourth at Flyweight. The roster's too small for it and the turnover is too harsh, particularly when the Contender Series is persistently throwing new blood into the water. Luis Gurule is the latest, and after watching his tape, and watching his Contender Series fight, and trying to shake off my feelings of deja vu because he just reminds me of Brian Kelleher an awful lot, I must admit: Luis Gurule is Okay. I dunno, man! He didn't wow me. He's aggressive and he pushes forward well behind charging punches but his head movement isn't great, he spent most of that DWCS appearance throwing the same 1-2 over and over while getting repeatedly taken down, and he ultimately scraped an incredibly close split decision off a guy the UFC didn't want in the first place. Nothing in his skillset gave me great hope for his future title aspirations.
But that could still be enough to deal with Ode'. He's seemed slower and easier to discourage in his recent appearances, and I'm worried we might be at the end of his time here. I am still clinging to hope and saying ODE' OSBOURNE BY DECISION, but my confidence is low.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Davey Grant (14-7) vs Daniel Santos (11-2)
Davey Grant is fighting a ghost. Grant's one of those perpetually underrated fighters damned by inconvenient timing on his wins and losses. He beat Chito Vera! But back in 2016, when no one cared. In a field of competitors that includes folks like José Aldo, Davey's the only man to ever stop Jonathan Martinez! But he followed it with a two-fight losing streak, so everyone forgot about it. Even his recent wins feel a little bad--Ramon Taveras should be winless in the UFC, Raphael Assunção retired on the spot after Grant submitted him, and beating Louis Smolka in 2022 feels like beating Ken Shamrock in 2005. But all of this is irrelevant, because Daniel Santos is one of those fighters who cannot reliably be proven to exist. "Willycat" has been signed to the UFC since 2021, and if he makes it to the cage, it will be just his fourth fight in as many years. What's more, all three of those fights took place in the course of thirteen months between 2022 and 2023. 70% of Santos's time in the UFC has been spent not fighting. And when he does, he's good! Except for the part where he throws flying cartwheel kicks and spins six times a round.
He hits hard and his grappling is underrated and I'm picking Davey anyway. DAVEY GRANT BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Dione Barbosa (7-3) vs Diana Belbiţă (15-9)
We just talked about the margins being thin at Flyweight where the men are concerned; the margins at Women's Flyweight don't even exist. There is so little rhyme or reason that you can easily get a career like Dione Barbosa's, where she stepped into the UFC against a rookie making her company debut, won, found herself back in the cage two months later against a top ten fighter in Miranda Maverick, lost, was about to drop to Strawweight, ultimately couldn't make it, and is now facing Diana Belbiţă, who is 2-5 in the UFC and will go down in history as the only woman Molly McCann actually beat in the three-year losing streak that led to her retirement. What are these divisions? What structure is there to be had? Will things finally begin righting themselves now that Valentina Shevchenko and Alexa Grasso aren't just trading the belt back and forth for all eternity?
I do not know, but I do feel pretty good about DIONE BARBOSA BY DECISION.
WELTERWEIGHT: Rhys McKee (13-6-1) vs Daniel Frunza (9-2)
It must be real weird to be Rhys McKee. You are so, so very close to being a breakout Irish fighter, which the UFC considers worth its weight ingold. You ran the table in Britain, you got into the UFC, and in your very first fight in the company you were given this weird dude with half your experience named Khamzat Chimaev. And when that didn't work out for you? You get Alex Morono, who already has ten fights in the company. Well, shit: You're 0-2 and you're already fired. You go back to Britain, you stop three men in a row, and just like that you're back, and it can only go better this time. And then you lose against Ange Loosa, and then you get outstruck by Chidi Njokuani, and all of a sudden you're 0-2 in the UFC for the second time in your life and they're so uninvested in you that they're throwing you against Contender Series prospects. Daniel Frunza is smaller than you, stockier than you, less experienced than you and he also hasn't lost a fight in four years. He's shown a real solid striking game and a real capacity for navigating reach disadvantages.
They think he'll knock you out. There's a real good chance they're right. But I watched Frunza struggle with groundwork and I'm hoping you can finally get your win. RHYS MCKEE BY SUBMISSION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Loma Lookboonmee (9-3) vs Istela Nunes (6-5 (1))
Boy, if I was in the tank on the co-main event, I don't even have to be here for this. Loma Lookboonmee is one of my favorite little wrecking balls in the sport and I never get tired of her weird combination of Muay Thai and wrestling, and after almost five years in the UFC the only people who proved too much for her were Angela Hill and Loopy Godinez, who are, coincidentally, two of my other favorites. Istela Nunes, bless her soul, went from fighting Angela Lee for ONE's 115-pound championship in 2017 to going 0-4 in the UFC. At this point they think so little of her that she was supposed to be the easy win that would let Molly McCann ride off into the sunset. She's chronically bad at wrestling and as penance she is being forced to fight someone who has taken down all but one of her UFC opponents.
I do not anticipate it being pretty. LOMA LOOKBOONMEE BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Victor Henry (24-7 (1)) vs Pedro Falcão (16-4)
I had surprisingly high hopes for Victor Henry after his UFC debut. Raoni Barcelos is tough, man. If not for a couple matchmaking choices I might have gone as hard for Raoni as I do for Joanderson Brito. But Henry's career has turned into one of those no-back-to-back-wins-or-losses boondoggles that makes it tough for the audience to stay invested. He beat Raoni, but got outworked by Raphael Assunção. Get a split over Tony Gravely, go to a No Contest because Javid Basharat kicked you in the dick. Pummel poor Rani Yahya, get choked out by Charles Jourdain. This is how you wind up being a half-dozen fights into the UFC and still fighting dudes like Pedro Falcão. Pedro's been here for one year and he's had one fight, and it was against Victor Hugo, the man notable mostly for coming into the UFC on a decade-long winning streak, missing weight and getting beaten up by the other Basharat brother, Farid. Hugo/Falcão was competitive, he made a solid accounting for himself, but int he end he still lost.
And despite his losses, I cannot help still having an affection for Henry's fighting style. VICTORY HENRY BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Vanessa Demopoulos (11-6) vs Talita Alencar (5-1-1)
I have written about the tendency of fans to get mad at fighters not for their own faults, but because the judges inexplicably like them. I am a fan, I am not above foibles, and I am irritated at Vanessa Demopoulos for this exact reason. She's 5-3 in the UFC but that should rightfully be 2-6, because she got outstruck by Jinh Yu Frey, she got outwrestled by Kanako Murata, and she got outstruck and outwrestled by Emily Ducote, and somehow, she still took every single one of those decisions. If I were a responsible fight camp member at Women's Strawweight I would instruct my fighters to do tape study on Vanessa not because I think her style is great, but because mixed martial arts judges very clearly do. Meanwhile Talita Alencar had a draw on the Contender Series, got into the company anyway, won her own robbery of a decision over Rayanne Amanda, rematched the women she drew with on DWCS and promptly lost.
I have disdain for both of these cases, but one is mild and the other is injustice. TALITA ALENCAR BY DECISION.