CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 141: A WEIRD NIGHT ON THE TOWN
UFC Fight Night: Sandhagen vs Figueiredo
SATURDAY, MAY 3 FROM THE WELLS FARGO ARENA IN DES MOINES, IOWA
PRELIMS 4 PM PDT / 7 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM
The good card vs bad card line is forever elusive, and as the roster gets weirder it becomes harder to figure out exactly where it goes. Sometimes, it's easier to judge a card in terms of effort. Do the fights seem like they were put together with any real thought, or did the UFC chuck a bunch of Contender Series fighters into a hat, or is this one of those weeks where they just get inexplicably weird?
This card, somehow, is all of those things at once. A genuinely fantastic main event, a genuinely hilarious co-main event, and then there's DWCS folks hanging around to remind you what they're really about, and somehow, in twenty twenty five, Jeremy Stephens and Miesha Tate are both fighting on a UFC card.
It's really dumb and I cannot help but admire it.
MAIN EVENT: WHO'S GOT NEXT
BANTAMWEIGHT: Cory Sandhagen (17-5, #4) vs Deiveson Figueiredo (24-4-1, #5)
Ordinarily when I write about the tippy-top of a division having a logjam problem it includes the upper echelon of contenders being the most damaged by the lack of opportunity. Cory Sandhagen and Deiveson Figueiredo are, unmistakably, the second string of Bantamweight contenders, and this might be the one and only time in history that works out in their favor.
The Bantamweight division has a quadruple-boogeyman problem. Petr Yan, the former champion, has defeated damn near everybody in the division. Umar Nurmagomedov, the UFC's big monster-push contender, beat Cory Sandhagen to get his shot. Sean O'Malley has avoided almost the entire top ten because the UFC has desperately tried to protect his championship aspirations. All three were ultimately beaten by Merab Dvalishvili, the undisputed champion who is cooler than every fighter you like. O'Malley's performance was irrelevant to his changes; Umar was at least competitive; Yan was completely washed out.
Both of these men are stuck under them.
Deiveson Figueiredo came up from his stint as the Flyweight champion and the legendary half-drama half-comedy quadrilogy he shared with Brandon Moreno. He answered concerns about his size and power at the higher weight class by rifling off three straight wins, each of which made it clear that his size and power were very plainly an issue because he couldn't knock people out anymore but it didn't really matter because he was really fucking good at fighting. He beat eternal gatekeeper Rob Font, he choked out Cody Garbrandt and he outworked Marlon Vera, and with one more victory he could've staked a clear claim to a shot at the champ.
He did not get it. He came close! Figueiredo vs Yan was a very good fight that proved just how competitive Deiveson can be with the best Bantamweights in the world and he even dropped Yan on his ass in the fourth round. He also lost every round in the fight. It was competitive, but it was clear.
Cory Sandhagen has been damned by the 'competitive but clear' definition for years. Every generation gets its own answer to the "Best Fighter to Never Win The Big One" trivia question, and much to his chagrin, Cory's had the honor in today's crop of talent. Up until last year his only UFC losses had come against world champions, and the newly-etched exception is the aforementioned Umar Nurmagomedov, who could still wind up there eventually. And he arguably beat one of them, too! His 2021 fight with T.J. Dillashaw was an exceptionally close split decision that could easily have gone his way were it not for a D'Amato.
But he still lost, just like he lost against both Yan and Umar. For his many, many skills, every time Cory's come up for contendership, he's come up just short. For the third or fourth time, he's fighting just to stay in the conversation.
For once, that might be the best place to be.
The UFC does not know what to do about Merab Dvalishvili. His rise to the title feels like another Demetrious Johnson case: He's an unprecedentedly talented fighter with a lot of charisma and a great sense of humor, but he's also a small guy who likes to wrestle a lot and rarely poses any risk of knocking out his opponents, which means they would really prefer it if he would just go away. They wanted Sean O'Malley to keep the belt, and when he didn't, they wanted Umar to beat Merab, and now that he's failed, they're just going back to square one and booking Merab/O'Malley 2: This Time Merab Has To Fight While Dana Pelts Him With Rocks.
This is in large part because Merab spent so much time running laps on the division that he's already beaten all of his top contenders. The UFC loves O'Malley, Yan and Umar, and Merab defeated all of them. They're already giving O'Malley another shot and crossing their fingers he pulls it off this time. Umar gave Merab his closest scrape, but he also lost and hasn't fought since. Yan has two solid wins, but he was so thoroughly dominated by Merab that there are doubts he'd do any better a second time.
So who are the two highest-ranked men in the division who have yet to run into the champ?
Cory Sandhagen and Deiveson Figueiredo.
Neither man's guaranteed a shot with a victory--this is the UFC in 2025, it's wholly feasible O'Malley gets 10-8ed in every round of the Merab rematch and gets a trilogy fight anyway--but if they don't want a Yan rematch, or Umar needs a new eliminator, or O'Malley trips over the same cable that killed Tony Ferguson and they have to replace him, these are the top two men in the division free of Merab rematch baggage.
So it's real nice that this is also just a really good fucking fight. Sandhagen's an excellent all-around fighter who struggles with pressure, which is Deiveson's best skill. He's a terrifying pocket puncher who's still adjusting to the range and power advantages bigger Bantamweights have, and Sandhagen's the biggest. Cory keeping Figueiredo at the end of his jab and threatening him with grappling is just as likely as Figgy getting under his arms and erasing his liver and intestines with hooks.
I have historically believed far too strongly in Cory Sandhagen. Just one fight ago I picked his experience over Umar's and I was exceptionally wrong. I have seen Cory struggle repeatedly with high-pressure gameplans and fail to adjust his own when it gets derailed, and derailing gameplans is all Figueiredo does. It's very hard to believe Cory won't fall into the trap again; it's very easy to see him getting battered up close and failing to score enough points to turn the tide his way. It could pretty easily be argued still believing in Cory Sandhagen's contendership prospects after the last four years is a fool's errand.
Unrelatedly, CORY SANDHAGEN BY DECISION.
CO-MAIN EVENT: WHY THE HELL NOT
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Reinier de Ridder (19-2, #13) vs Bo Nickal (7-0, NR)
Y'know what? Sure. Absolutely. One hundred percent. Let's do this stupid, stupid thing. This is the fight the UFC deserves and the ultimate victory of nihilistic booking and I love it.
The UFC made a very big deal about Bo Nickal back in 2022. He had amateur wrestling championships, he had one single mixed martial arts fight, and Dana White decided to market him right out the gate in his favorite way: Pointless negging. He booked Nickal onto the Contender Series, and when he won in sixty-two seconds he told Nickal he didn't have enough experience for a contract, and he could fix that by coming back onto DWCS for a second time six weeks later. He won, he made it to the UFC in 2023, they touted him as a future champion the moment he stepped into the cage, and they pushed him so hard that all four of his UFC fights have been on the main cards of pay-per-views.
And all four were also against opponents he was obviously going to beat. Bo Nickal's four UFC opponents combine for a truly impressive 16-23-1 (1) record in the company. The slimmest odds in Nickal's career thus far came in his last fight against Paul Craig, where he was a measly -1350 favorite to win. Something unprecedented happened in that fight, though: Nickal didn't finish Craig. Nickal is, in fact, one of just two men in Craig's almost twenty-fight UFC career to not beat him by stoppage. When the crowd booed during Nickal's victory speech, he told them he fought a smart fight, he was careful with a veteran, and as far as he was concerned, he did an amazing job.
Coincidentally, for the first time in his UFC career, Bo Nickal is on free television.
Reinier de Ridder is the incredibly rare example of the UFC scooping a genuine international talent, thanks largely to the giant tire fire that is ONE Championship's mixed martial arts game. RDR was a double-champion, in the sense that ONE has a 225-pound division that exists solely to pad their belt count, and was widely considered a high-level fighter who could threaten his UFC contemporaries, which is why ONE decided to have him get squashed twice in a row by their Heavyweight champion. Reinier left the company in a haze of contractual uncertainty and wound up in the UFC that same year.
He was immediately booked into comedy fights, which could, in fairness, be used as a label for most of the Middleweight division. His debut against Gerald Meerschaert was both a genuinely sensible fight against one of the division's best-tenured measuring sticks and a hilarious example of grappling vs grappling, and after a scare in the first half, de Ridder choked him out in the third round. This past January de Ridder drew Kevin Holland, which I phrased as a binary Can Kevin Holland Defend A Takedown question. I guessed yes, and the answer was, of course, No: de Ridder single-legged him five seconds into the fight and choked him out two minutes later.
So Reinier de Ridder is 2-0 against fighters whose collective last ranked victory at 185 pounds was all the way back in 2020, and that makes him the #13 Middleweight in the UFC.
And honestly? That's fine. It's what Middleweight deserves. The man above him in the rankings is Paulo fucking Costa. What truly matters here is how this fight is somehow both dumb as hell and completely perfect.
Seriously. It's two ace grapplers and Middleweight prospects the UFC doesn't yet trust to deal with serious competition so instead they're making them eat each other, and one of them is the guy who just one fight ago was seriously concerned about the intense striking threat posed by Paul Craig, and the other spent fifteen months of his life clocking into work so he could be repeatedly bludgeoned to death by a guy who fights in the same division as Brock Lesnar and Jose Canseco.
Traditionally, when two incredibly talented grapplers fight, you wind up watching a tepid kickboxing match. Reinier de Ridder has thoughts about this:
“Who wants to see us strike?” de Ridder said with a laugh. “We’re both decent strikers but come on, let’s have some fun. Like Demian Maia and Ben Askren in the first round. Nobody wants to see that shit.”
The biggest knock on de Ridder has always been his athleticism. He's a fantastic grappler, but he's always fought loose and it has led to some compromising positions. Nickal is explosive and physical and fully in control of everything he does.
But that sometimes leads him to not do enough of it. If Bo was afraid of Paul Craig's grappling, he should be terrified of RDR's. However much Reinier wants this to be a grappling match, I would not be at all surprised if it's actually Bo throwing jabs and leg kicks and refusing to engage in anything that could lead to groundwork. And he's got the speed to do it.
So I am left rooting for the possibility that they end up on the ground and Reinier strangles him anyway, because god dammit, it would be funny. REINIER DE RIDDER BY SUBMISSION.
MAIN CARD: LARGE PUNCHES, SMALL MEN
WELTERWEIGHT: Santiago Ponzinibbio (30-8) vs Daniel Rodriguez (18-5)
Our featured main card bout this week is the battle of men who are not only barely hanging on, but whose continued hanging is largely the fault of one dude. Santiago Ponzinibbio has been doing this so long that the traditional preamble for him--a top contender cut down in his prime by years of near-fatal medical complications who returned to a tougher division as a diminished fighter--now describes a period of time that's about to have lasted just as long as his modern arc. Ponzinibbio's new lease on life will hit the same 60-month mark at the turn of the year, and as of yet, he's 3-5 in it. But three of those losses were competitive split decisions and one if not two of them could have easily turned his way, which makes it all the more unfortunate that his only wins in almost four years came against Alex Morono in 2022 and Carlston Harris this past January, neither of whom are exactly worldbeaters.
Right around the time Ponzinibbio got back in the cage, Daniel Rodriguez was establishing himself as one of the dark horses of the Welterweight division. He had a fantastic chin, he was extremely well-conditioned, and the fluidity of his boxing eclipsed most of his competition. Unfortunately, that's also what took him down. Rodriguez was open about the damage his style did to his hands, and after a year off and three surgeries to get his bones back in bludgeoning shape, he came back in late 2022 looking visibly diminished and uncertain of his offense. He managed a robbery of a decision against Li Jingliang, but he got choked out by Neil Magny two months later, knocked out by Ian Machado Garry in 2023, and got outworked by 2024-era Kelvin Gastelum, which is just deeply, deeply unfortunate. D-Rod's still here thanks to a victory over our buddy from the last paragraph, Alex Morono, in October--but it was a split decision that could very easily have tilted the other way, which is a bad, bad feeling.
In some ways it's hard not to read this as a mirror match of missed prospects. Both men were super-promising fighters with some of the best offense in their division, both men were visibly altered by their run-ins with medical issues, and both men are now 38 and haven't seen back-to-back victories in years. Every time I use the phrase 'this fight is a referendum on who's decayed the most' I feel like I'm writing epitaphs and I hate it, but the more divisions age, the more we're gonna get there. I cannot help feeling Santiago has more left in the tank. SANTIAGO PONZINIBBIO BY DECISION.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Montel Jackson (14-2, #15) vs Daniel Marcos (17-0 (1), NR)
I have enough to complain about on a weekly basis that it genuinely pleases me when I can write that something is simply an excellent fucking fight. Montel Jackson's one of those infuriating cases where a fighter could already be a star were it not for their strength of schedule. He's a great puncher, he's a strong wrestler, he's got some of the best knockouts in the Bantamweight division and he hasn't lost a fight in almost five years. Unfortunately, he's only had five fights in those five years. Jackson is perpetually plagued by injuries and bad luck, and as a result, he hasn't managed two fights in a calendar year since 2021. So when he destroys WEC legend Rani Yahya, it doesn't matter, because by the time he shows up again it's been fifteen months and everyone's forgotten about it. When he finally made it back to the cage he flattened Da'Mon Blackshear in eighteen goddamn seconds with one goddamn punch, and now, that, too, was almost a year ago. He needs momentum and he needs big wins.
Daniel Marcos can almost provide that. "Soncora" has spent years trying to get out of being Schrodinger's prospect, and he's undefeated in five UFC fights, and somehow, he still just isn't quite there. His striking is clean, his defense is sound, he's never lost a fight in his life, and he's even got some quality names in that run! Davey Grant, Aoriqileng, Adrian Yañez--that's a hell of a run. Except the Davey Grant decision was one of the worst robberies of the year. And the Aoriqileng fight went to a No Contest after Marcos inadvertently punted him in the groin. And the Adrian Yañez fight was a close split decision, making Marcos the only person in the UFC to beat Adrian without finishing him. No matter how undefeated he is, his wins haven't served to legitimize him, and he needs a solid, unquestionable victory to get his place in the rankings.
I don't think he's going to get it. Marcos is a legitimately good fighter with some very solid defense, but he has a bad habit of letting his opponents dictate the pace of his fights, and a large part of his success comes from very good range management. Montel isn't just demonstrably capable of ending a fight with a single opportunity, he's also the first UFC opponent who'll have a real reach advantage over Marcos. Half a foot is an awful lot to overcome when one-hit kills come as fast as Jackson throws them. MONTEL JACKSON BY KO.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Cameron Smotherman (12-4) vs Serhiy Sidey (11-2)
Let's hop back to October for a second.
With 72 hours of notice under his belt, your last-minute replacement is Cameron Smotherman, and the fact that there is someone in the UFC named Smotherman and he is a striker instead of a wrestler makes me want to quit combat sports altogether. Where's the damn synergy, man? What are we doing with our lives? Cameron's barely a year removed from his own appearance on the Contender Series, where he got dropped in a minute flat by Charalampos Grigoriou, but he was back to his winning ways less than ninety days later because brain health is for losers. Smotherman's not bad, he's an extremely patient fighter who likes to take his sweet time setting up his range so he can fit well-timed counters into it, and he's carved out a solid reputation as one of the better unsigned Bantamweights in America.
He is also facing a legitimately good fighter with faster hands and higher output who's never been stopped with barely days to prepare. It's a big ask, and I'm sure he is an absurdly hungry man with all the motivation in the world to upset Hadley and establish himself immediately, but respectfully: It's a tall order and I'm not convinced from his tape that he's up to it.
Smotherman beat Hadley. He even beat him by funny scores after Hadley lost a point for going full Roddy Piper on his eyeballs. I have gotten so used to prospects underperforming in short-notice appearances that I put too much faith in Jake Hadley, and god bless you, Cameron Smotherman, for ruining another once-project of Dana White's.
When I wrote about some level of Contender Series silliness on this card back in the introduction, I'm sorry, Serhiy Sidey, but I was talking about you. Let's recap: Serhiy Sidey was signed to the UFC thanks to a 2023 Contender Series knockout over Ramon Taveras, but the stoppage was considered too quick by many, including Dana White. Taveras got another shot at the Contender Series and won, so the UFC booked a short-notice rematch between Taveras and Sidey on the prelims of UFC 297, because that's where pay-per-view bookings are these days. Taveras missed weight by almost five pounds, 100% of media scorecards called the fight a clear victory for Sidey, and Taveras won a worst-of-the-year decision anyway. Sidey came back in November, fought Garrett Armfield, got outstruck, outwrestled and outgrappled and lost the fight on 90% of media scorecards--and this time, Sidey got the bad decision.
So it's a short-notice fighter who beat a Contender Series winner who was fired immediately afterward vs a Contender Series winner Dana didn't think won who is three fights deep into his UFC contract and has lived and died entirely by terrible judging. God bless the ongoing destruction of this fake sport. CAMERON SMOTHERMAN BY DECISION.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Jeremy Stephens (29-21 (1)) vs Mason Jones (15-2 (1))
And then, there's this. Jeremy Stephens is back, everybody! Jeremy Stephens, who has been boxing both gloved and bareknuckle for years, who got cut from the UFC four years ago, who is 1 for his last 9 in MMA and has not notched a UFC victory since 2018, is back. The UFC says Stephens is back because he's a good regional draw, but it's Des Moines. The UFC hasn't put on an event in Iowa since UFC 26 back in the year 2000 and half of its main event has been dead for almost a decade. The show's gonna sell out no matter what. The UFC says Stephens is back because he's the legendary all-action all-knockouts Jeremy Stephens, but the last time Stephens notched a stoppage of any kind in mixed martial arts, Bruno Mars was the biggest musician on Earth. I have only one real theory: Jeremy Stephens was succeeding in the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship as one of its reliable main eventers, and the UFC needed to undercut the Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship for fear of their market gain.
And what better way to spend that money than trying to reinvest in Mason Jones. Jones was another undefeated UK prospect brought over in The Great Re-McGregoring, but his run wound up being a little shaky. He got beat by Mike Davis, he thwomped Alan Patrick only to lose a clear win to a No Contest thanks to an eyepoke, he beat the now-ranked David Onama and he lost to the perpetually underrated Ľudovít Klein, and despite only having one loss in his last three fights, the UFC cut him anyway. So Jones went back to Cage Warriors and rifled off four wins in one year, and shockingly, the UFC decided they wanted him back. He's still a rock-solid all-around fighter, he's still a big, powerful dude, and he's exactly the kind of well-rounded fighter that gave Stephens fits even in his prime.
Which means Stephens will throw some stupid Todd Duffee wrist-at-his-hip punch and win and I will contemplate oblivion all over again. MASON JONES BY SUBMISSION.
PRELIMS: COME ON, MAN
WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Yana Santos (15-8 (1), #10) vs Miesha Tate (20-9, #11)
For three straight events I have been talking about the ongoing slow-motion trainwreck that's been unfolding with Women's Bantamweight, and each week it's been happening on the prelims, and each week it's been progressively sillier than the last, and here, we have reached the true apotheosis of comedy. Yana Santos is 1-4 in the last four years, and that one win came against Chelsea Chandler, who has never made the Bantamweight limit and won; Yana is the 10th best Bantamweight in the world. Miesha Tate is 1-3 in the last four years, and that one win came against Julia Avila, who had also not won a fight in almost as long; Miesha is the 11th best Bantamweight in the world. Santos at least has been active, even in loss, whereas Miesha has one fight in the last thirty-three months.
But Miesha is Miesha, and a decade ago people knew her because she was the girl who kept getting her arm broken by Ronda Rousey, which means she cannot be allowed to fall out of the rankings. She has zero victories over anyone who's still in the UFC, the vast majority of her career opponents are retired and her last notable victory was all the way back in 2016, but we've failed to make a single notable Women's Bantamweight star since Amanda Nunes, so goddammit, Miesha will stay up on that board as long as she can. I really want to pick Santos, as she's actually active, she's fought much better competition and going to a close scrape against Karol Rosa is more impressive than anything Miesha's done since Obama was still in office, but Yana just isn't that great and she gets taken down an awful lot, which is Miesha's whole thing. Regrettably, MIESHA TATE BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Ryan Loder (7-1) vs Azamat Bekoev (19-3)
It is time for The Ultimate Fighter 32 (over it) to ride once again. TUF32 has been a pretty thoroughly cursed season, thus far. Featherweight winner Mairon Santos won his official debut by a robbery so rank it's a lock for worst-of-the-year lists despite happening in March, runner-up Kaan Ofli got soundly beaten in his first fight, British favorite Nathan Fletcher got a contract only to immediately get beat by Caolán Loughran--who was promptly cut from the UFC, even though Fletcher is still there--and Robert Valentin, the man the company wanted to win the show, not only failed to conquer the tournament, but lost his UFC debut to Torrez Finney, a thrice-rejected 5'8" Middleweight who beat Valentin despite landing a grand total of four significant strikes in fifteen minutes of fighting. Ryan Loder, the show's Middleweight champion, is the last man standing, but it's a rough draw for him. Loder was supposed to make his debut two months ago in a very favorable matchup against Cody Brundage, but injuries left him here fighting Azamat Bekoev, who's almost a -400 favorite. It makes sense: Bekoev hasn't lost a fight since 2021, he was a Legacy Fighting Alliance champion, and he hopped into the UFC by dusting Zach Reese in three minutes despite taking the fight only four days beforehand. He's big, he's tough, he hits very hard, and he's got a plethora of submissions under his belt that could make Loder's wrestling-heavy offense difficult to implement.
But here's the thing: I wasted months of my life watching TUF32. I could tell you that I think Loder's grappling is underrated or that I'm still not wholly sold on Bekoev's offense, but in truth, I simply need that sacrifice to mean something. Pay off my time, Ryan. RYAN LODER BY DECISION.
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Marina Rodriguez (17-5-2, #9) vs Gillian Robertson (15-8, #12)
Predictable as the sunrise and painful as the sunset, it's The UFC Sucks At Booking Women O'Clock again. Marina Rodriguez has long been one of the company's most reliable Strawweights, but given that she's currently 1 for her last 5, it's impossible to ignore that she's going through some real difficult times right now. That said, those last two fights were both very close split decisions against top contenders in Jéssica Andrade and Iasmin Lucindo. Neither was a terrible performance and either could have easily kept Marina vital at the top of the division, and thanks to her successful wars with Mackenzie Dern and Xiaonan Yan, she's still one of the few notable Strawweight contenders the company has. Gillian Robertson, after years of effort, is only now nearing her breakout. She's always been an underrated grappler, but she spent the first five years of her tenure as an undersized Flyweight who just couldn't break through the top ten against stronger competition. Since dropping to Strawweight she's 4-1, and at three in a row she's on the longest winning streak of her career. People are finally paying attention to her grappling game and wondering just how far it can take her.
So it's a match between a former top contender with multiple main events worth of marketing behind her and an up-and-coming prospect on a hot streak whose grappling edge against a traditionally striking-focused fighter could very easily give her a breakout performance that legitimizes her as a contender.
And it's midway through the prelims of a random television card under Serhiy Sidey and Jeremy Stephens.
The UFC has been struggling to find Canadian talent for years. The last time the UFC had a Canadian card main-evented by an actual Canadian was Rory MacDonald all the way back in 2016. Gillian Robertson was born in Canada. There is a UFC pay-per-view in Canada next week. Presuming you believe in her chances you could have had Gillian Robertson, who has struggled for years to get noticed, beating a very visible top contender and finally getting the win that legitimizes her in front of a crowd of Quebecois sports fans who are currently feeling extremely fucking patriotic. There are, as of now, only eleven fights booked for that entire show. (Two days after I wrote this it's now twelve, because they had to make space for real Canadian favorites in the form of Daniel Santos vs Lee Jeong-yeong.)
But this fight is on this card, heaven forfend next week not have room for Navajo Stirling vs Ivan Erslan and Modestas Bukauskas vs Ion Cuțelaba.
GILLIAN ROBERTSON BY DECISION. Do the damn thing.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Gaston Bolaños (8-4) vs Quang Le (8-2)
Time is weird. When I wrote about Gaston Bolaños making his UFC debut back in early 2023 I described him as a bizarre pickup for the UFC, a Bellator veteran whose five years with the company could be accurately summed up with an enthusiastic "I guess it was okay." He won some, he lost some, and he ultimately failed to do much to establish himself as a fighter of record, and I was a little surprised the UFC cared enough to sign him given the level of talent on their roster. It's two years later, Bellator is dead, Gaston is 2-1 in the UFC and that winning record is because rather than maintain that talent level, the UFC had Cortavious "Are You Not Entertained?" Romious come in to get repeatedly fucked up for six months. To continue emphasizing the point of how weird all of this is, the UFC is following Gaston's success by giving him Quang "Bang" Le, a short-notice signing who's 0-2 in the company and got knocked silly the last time we saw him.
Quang's tough and he likes his big punching exchanges, but it sure feels like he's going to play into Gaston's hands and feet, here, and that's probably the point. GASTON BOLAÑOS BY TKO.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Thomas Petersen (9-3) vs Don'Tale Mayes (11-8 (1))
Heavyweight, how low you have fallen. Once upon a time the UFC would've pushed this fight all the way up the card just because it contained big boys regardless of their records. Now Don'Tale Mayes is 2 for his last 7 and struggling to keep his contract as the company threatens him with newer, less expensive Heavyweights who like to try to break his legs, and Thomas Petersen is 1-2 and keeps getting booked into prelim fights because they have so little faith in him, and both of these men got their guts punched out by Shamil Gaziev in the last twelve months, and at this point it's so very, very hard to see either progressing anywhere in the division without drastically changing something about the way they prepare for their fights.
But getting beaten up by Jamal Pogues is a deeper sin, so DON'TALE MAYES BY TKO.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Juliana Miller (3-3) vs Ivana Petrović (7-2)
I believed in you, Juliana Miller. I had faith in your grappling. I had faith in your TUF30 trophy. I had faith in the possibility that your nickname may have been literal and you may well have been fleeing a past as a San Diegan murderer by hiding in plain sight. And then you fought Veronica Hardy and Luana Santos throwing these big, wide winging punches that got you countered to death and I questioned everything. I shaved my head. I moved across the country. I abandoned my child to pursue riches in the oil fields. And now you're back, for the first time in almost two years, and you are asking me to believe again, but I am not the person I was and I do not know that I have that faith left in me. Ivana Petrović is probably going to beat you and it is probably not going to be pretty.
But I still want to believe. JULIANA MILLER BY SUBMISSION. Go get us killed out there.