CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 142: THE NORTHERN WASTES

UFC 315: Muhammad vs Della Maddalena

SATURDAY, MAY 10 FROM THE BELL CENTER IN MONTREAL
EARLY PRELIMS 3:30 PM PDT / 6:30 PM EDT | PRELIMS 5 PM / 8 PM | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM

This event feels like the UFC's marketing failures laid bare.

This should be a big deal. The first time in ten years the UFC's been to Quebec. Two title fights, including their pound-for-pound women's champion against her top contender and Belal Muhammad against one of the best Contender Series fighters of all time. José Aldo against one of the country's only fighters with contendership potential. Five separate world champions altogether.

And there's barely any press about it. Barely an ad. The closest thing the UFC has done to marketing this card came from Joe Rogan announcing that he would not, in fact, be announcing, because calling Bryce Mitchell fights is fine but going to Canada is just too ethically unacceptable for him.

It hasn't sold out, it doesn't look like it'll even come close, and hell, they lost a fight this week that dropped the card down to just eleven total bouts and I have my doubts they'll even replace it. (5/5 update: They did, and the replacement is hilarious.)

the effort line is so very visible

MAIN EVENT: THE RIGHT TIME
WELTERWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Belal Muhammad (24-3 (1), Champion) vs Jack Della Maddalena (17-2, #5)

Everything I said in the introduction about this card's poor performance will be blamed on Belal Muhammad.

The UFC spent years trying to keep Belal Muhammad from the Welterweight title. He had to run up ten fights without a loss, he was forced to repeatedly fight down in the rankings, he was denied a rematch after a No Contest against Leon Edwards, and he did not get his shot at the belt without jumping through the hoop of an abrupt fight against Gilbert Burns with just three weeks to prepare while he only had one functional ankle. Why did the UFC make him wait so long?

Because Colby Covington, who at the time had one win in the prior three years, deserved a title shot more.

Daniel Cormier famously/infamously summarized the current state of the UFC by remarking that the only way to get into the company anymore is either coming through the Contender Series or being willing to take disadvantageous late-replacement fights. Somehow, this was stated as a positive. It's not bad that the world of mixed martial arts is so utterly monopolized that leverage outside of the UFC is meaningless--it's good. As any martial artist knows, nothing breeds talent like a total lack of competition.

But the thought wasn't just apocalyptically depressing, it was incomplete. Getting into the UFC is only half the battle; making the UFC care is the real struggle. I'm not sure you can get a Belal Muhammad anymore, because simply winning isn't enough. Ask Muhammad Mokaev, Taylor Lapilus, Alexandr Romanov, Karl Williams, Julio Arce, Nate Maness, Philipe Lins, Marcos Rogério de Lima or Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Ask Brad Tavares, who competed in his twenty-sixth UFC bout one month ago, won it, tied the all-time Middleweight victory record in the process, and was quietly shown the door last week.

The UFC doesn't want another Belal. They want out of the forced-to-book-the-best game, because it, just like other promotions, represents leverage in the way of whatever they want.

They want Jack Della Maddalena, and I get it, and more surprisingly, I do not hold it against them.

Three years ago, two fights into Maddalena's UFC career and just one event before I started putting these things on a blog instead of just the SA forums, I was already surprised by how they were booking him:

Jack Della Maddalena is the precise kind of fighter Dana White loves to developmentally coddle: Contender Series baby, highly-touted international prospect, disdains the philosophical concept of takedowns, focuses on throwing punches so he never has to worry about defending them. He's a stand and bang elemental who can sell extra tickets in Australia. And, weirdly, they don't really seem to care about protecting him. He wound up with an absolute jobber fight in his debut, but that's only because the genuinely good Warlley Alves had to pull out at the last minute.

Management wasn't shy about throwing challenges at Jack, and he was equally outgoing about punching those challenges in the skull. Four fights into his UFC career, Sean O'Malley was dining on Eddie Wineland, a WEC veteran with one victory in four years; four fights into his UFC career Jack Della Maddalena was destroying Randy Brown, one of the Welterweight division's toughest unranked challenges. They knew Maddalena was a potential contender and they wanted to test his mettle early.

And it's a good thing they didn't get to, because in mid-2023 he was supposed to fight current #1 contender Sean Brady, and that might well have ended Maddalena's rise on the spot. After two separate late replacements he wound up meeting a little-known regional fighter named Bassil Hafez, and Hafez damn near beat him. He took Maddalena down repeatedly, he outgrappled him, and while he still got outstruck to a decision, it wound up being a perilously close split. But that was it, right? One little speedbump on his way up and Jack learned his lesson and shored up his wrestling and now he's a bulletproof contender, right?

Well, no. Jack's had two fights between then and now: One was a striking battle with Kevin Holland that ended in another split decision and the other a match with Gilbert Burns that revealed Maddalena's takedown defense was still a problem, as Burns got him down seven times in three rounds. Burns was actually ninety seconds away from unseating the contender on the scorecards before he turned headfirst into a knee during a scramble and got knocked out.

But that's an answer too, right? Jack Della Maddalena's historical problem as a top contender has been takedowns, people wanted to see him deal with takedowns, and he dealt with takedowns. He may have dealt with them by getting grounded repeatedly and only barely pulling out the win, but 'barely' is still a goddamn win.

But as we just said, winning isn't enough in the UFC anymore.

They have to like you, and you have to be willing to be a replacement.

Jack was not supposed to be in this fight. At the start of 2025 Belal was going to defend the title against his top contender in Shavkat Rakhmonov and Maddalena was going to have a punch-off with Leon Edwards while Sean Brady, the new perpetually ignored contender, was parceled off for either Ian Machado Garry or Kamaru Usman. But Shavkat had to go off to rehab a knee injury, which left the title open. There's an argument to be made that Garry deserved it more, but that was irrelevant, because that's not what the UFC wanted. Edwards got rebooked against Brady, Garry got shifted to fighting halfway down the rankings against Carlos Prates, and Jack Della Maddalena, fresh off winning by the skin of his teeth against a man whose only top ten victory in four years came against Jorge Masvidal, got the title shot.

And honestly: I get it. I do. The UFC is evil, grotesque and god willing may one day be the sole reason for new fighter protection regulations, but they're not stupid. They've been planning a Jack Della Maddalena title tour since 2022 and they're well aware the circumstances aren't getting more favorable. They saw him get taken down repeatedly, they know almost everyone in the Welterweight top ten presents a serious threat to his winning streak and there's no guarantee he wouldn't get ground down in a contendership match with any of his contemporaries.

So you give him the shot and hope. After all, Belal can get hit an awful lot, especially when he relies on his striking, and very few fighters have boxing like Maddalena does, and if he can put those punches on target, he'll win easy and he'll be a champion and everyone will have to admit the Contender Series is the best and finally the entire fanbase will love Power Slap and TKO Boxing will take over the world and everything will be perfect forever.

Anyway, BELAL MUHAMMAD BY DECISION. I do not think Maddalena can deal with that wrestling for twenty-five minutes and I am hoping for a single-leg symphony.

CO-MAIN EVENT: CONSIDERABLY LATE
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP: Valentina Shevchenko (24-4-1, Champion) vs Manon Fiorot (12-1, #2)

September 2023, Manon Fiorot vs Rose Namajunas.

Manon Fiorot is the rightful #2 contender at women's flyweight. She's a perfect 5-0 in the UFC, she made her debut behind two devastating finishes over well-regarded competition, and the UFC was more than happy to market a strong, scary French striking lady who kept very conveniently beating the shit out of everyone. When she was matched up with seemingly permanent 125-pound contender Katlyn Chookagian last October she came in as a sizable -225 favorite, and she justified the bill by outstriking Chookagian and winning a solid decision. She was the rightful top contender, and a fight with world champion Valentina Shevchenko seemed inevitable.

March 2024, Manon Fiorot vs Erin Blanchfield.

And so, almost an entire year later, they had her fight Rose Namajunas in an actual, honest to god co-main event in Paris, Fiorot's home country. It was a can't-lose prospect for the UFC: Either Manon beats a big-name fighter or their biggest Strawweight star gets catapulted into title contention after just one fight at Flyweight. It wasn't quite the fireworks they'd hoped for, but Fiorot won convincingly.

So it's 2024. She's 6-0. She's got victories over title contenders at three weight classes. She just beat one of the company's biggest female stars. It's time, right?

Well. We're here, aren't we? The UFC wants a threematch between Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko and it's going to take the entire Summer because it's tied to The Ultimate Fighter, so fuck it: Have the two top contenders fight each other.

September 2024, Valentina Shevchenko vs Alexa Grasso 3.

I want this to be over. I want Manon Fiorot to get the title shot she's deserved for the last two years. I want the world to move on from the horrible memories of all of this rather than being stuck in the thrall of the Noche UFC Quadrilogy.

I have been complaining about the UFC's unwillingness to book this incredibly obvious fight for years.

In some other reality, the Shevchenko/Grasso saga was a starmaking set of fights. The pound for pound best female fighter in the UFC, a woman who was almost a lineal four-division champion, struggling with a longtime prospect the company's been betting on for years who just happened to be a representative of the Mexican demographic they were desperately courting. In some other reality Alexa's win legitimized her, and their rematch was a fight for the ages that demanded one more bout, and their final clash meant one woman may have been definitively better but, like Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo before them, both were left more prominent and respected than they'd been before they met.

Our reality only got one-third of that equation. Alexa was soundly losing their first fight but was able to jump on a huge mistake, choke Valentina out and shock the world, and it was fantastic. The rematch was an anticlimactic affair that prolonged the feud not through great performances or competitive skillsets, but terrible judging. The rubber match was an enormous disappointment that ended with Shevchenko wrestling Grasso so thoroughly that despite the UFC technically having a 1-1-1 series they could easily have booked another tiebreaker for, in the spirit of the Noche UFC events they'd tied Alexa's title reign to, they said No Mas.

That first fight made Alexa Grasso a champion and humanized Valentina Shevchenko. The rest of the series made everyone aggressively tired of them. Grasso's inability to adjust frustrated people, especially after the third fight, and the fanbase had already been experiencing a great deal with fatigue with Shevchenko--as always happens to dominant champions who stop putting in dominant performances--so the whole affair ending with the reset button getting pressed, no one having visibly improved and nothing having changed had the fans mostly just tired of the whole goddamn thing.

And it was extra-grating because for that entire time Manon Fiorot was right there. The UFC was going to Paris every year and trying as hard as possible to make Ciryl Gane and Benoît Saint Denis into major attractions and Manon Fiorot was right there, undefeated in the UFC, French as hell, beating everyone they put in front of her. They could have capitalized on her at any point in the last two years.

Instead they tried to sacrifice her to Rose Namajunas. When that failed, they sent Erin Blanchfield after her and all that accomplished was the scuttling of their #2 contender. It is only now, finally, with both women in the back halves of their thirties and their profiles having diminished from the bad title series and Fiorot having been cooling her heels for more than a year, that the UFC is finally taking a swing at crowning their big French champion.

In Montreal.

Which is close enough, I guess.

Me and Napoleon Blownapart are the last people left willing to defend Valentina Shevchenko. She's really good! She's a very complete fighter and she's capable of mixing up her gameplans and she's got good range on her kicks and MANON FIOROT BY DECISION has been my call for basically the entire time I've thought about this fight. Fiorot's bigger and stronger, she's got a rock-solid chin, and Valentina's ability to use her clinch grappling and her takedowns to enable her striking game could easily backfire against someone who can outpower her in the clinch and shut down her wrestling.

If there's a knock on Manon it's the way her offense can be a little lumbering, so Valentina stinging her with kicks while staying the hell away from her could get her to a decision by volume, but I have serious trouble seeing her pull it off for twenty-five minutes.

MAIN CARD: WHATEVER'S LEFT OF YOU
BANTAMWEIGHT: José Aldo (32-9, #11) vs Aiemann Zahabi (12-2, #14)

Despite my anger at José Aldo turning out to be a Bolsonarist so hardcore as to actually shelter the man in a Minions-themed bedroom in his home in Florida, and despite my deeply-held feeling that fighters who feel they should retire probably should, in fact, retire, there was still a part of me that was happy to see Aldo come back to mixed martial arts. I wish I had no joy left for the man, but he's still one of the best to ever do it and that fact has to exist on a parallel street in my heart with the constant awareness of how fucked virtually everyone and everything involved in this sport is. So it's actually very convenient that the Aldo comeback has mostly made everyone really mad. He beat an overmatched Jonathan Martinez and promptly got ground into the fence for thirteen minutes en route to a decision loss against Mario Bautista that made the entire internet throw a hissyfit about fight scoring in wrestling vs striking battles.

Which means instead of the big top five fight they wanted him in, Aldo is playing gatekeeper. Aiemann Zahabi has been quietly running up the scoreboard for the last six years, and this is, at last, his chance at a breakthrough performance. The fanbase and the matchmakers both more or less consigned him to the trashcan of martial arts history after he took two consecutive losses in his first three UFC fights, and since then he's been the statistical underdog in all but one of his fights, and he's outperformed expectations every single time. He's the only man to knock out Aoriqileng, he scored a massive upset by outstriking the undefeated Javid Basharat, who most had pegged as a sure-thing title contender, and last November Aiemann finally got his foot in the door by beating Pedro Munhoz--a thing Frankie Edgar, Sean O'Malley and arguably Marlon Vera all failed to do. He's here. He's made it. He's got a fight with a legend.

And he's still an underdog, and that makes an awful lot of sense. Aiemann's been able to continually buck the odds through simple mastery of fundamentals. He isn't a huge knockout puncher, he isn't an exceptionally physically gifted fighter, he's just very, very good at what he does. But what he does is beat people with clean footwork and even cleaner boxing. There's a reason the people who've beaten Aldo in his old age have ever been complete dogfighting monsters like Petr Yan or wrestlers like Bautista and Merab Dvalishvili--it is hard to beat him on fundamentals. JOSÉ ALDO BY DECISION.

WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Alexa Grasso (16-4-1, #1) vs Natália Silva (18-5-1, #5)

For six months, Alexa Grasso was on top of the damn world. The UFC spent years investing in her as a sure-thing future contender, and it may have taken all those years to get there, but it's hard to pay them off in any better a fashion. In more than two decades of mixed martial arts, only three women have beaten Valentina Shevchenko: Liz Carmouche, who will go perpetually underrated in the annals of the sport, Amanda Nunes, the most accomplished female MMA fighter of all time, and Alexa Grasso--and of those three, Alexa's the only one who finished her. It could, and should, have been a glass-shattering moment for her. Instead, as we just discussed for too many sentences, it dragged her into a year and a half of perpetual rematches and she looked progressively worse in each. She looked so lost in that final match that the UFC didn't even entertain the idea of a tiebreaker. It's back to the contendership mines for you.

Conveniently, they already have their desired new model all lined up. The UFC has been just as bullish on Natália Silva as they were on Alexa, and she's been giving them every reason to feel justified in the choice. She's been incredibly active--this will be her seventh fight in thirty-four months, which is preposterous--and not only has she beaten every woman in front of her, she's done it with astonishing ease. Two rounds. In six victories, she has given up two rounds on the scorecards: One against Tereza Bledá back in 2022, and one against Viviane Araujo last year. Not only is that an astonishingly good ratio, it's a sign of her real promise: Both times she identified what she was doing wrong, adjusted, and proceeded to take the fight away from her opponent. Just one fight ago she used her mobility, her jabs and her kicks to completely shut out perpetual contender Jéssica Andrade, and now the UFC wants to see if she can do it to a second former champion.

The answer is probably yes. Alexa's best skills have always been her mobility, her boxing range and her ability to mix takedowns into her offense to keep people guessing; Silva's just as mobile, even better at range management, and has been shutting down wrestling from much stronger wrestlers. I enjoyed the Alexa Grasso Championship Story, but I think it was a moment in time that has tragically passed. NATÁLIA SILVA BY DECISION.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Benoît Saint Denis (13-3 (1), #13) vs Kyle Prepolec (18-8, NR)

That 'I don't know if they'll replace it' fight from the introduction? This is it, and if you do not recognize half of this fight, that would be why. Benoît Saint Denis was an unfortunate victim of the marketing overpush. At the end of 2023 he was a top fifteen fighter with a great winning streak, a great highlight reel, and a lot of upside as both an action machine and a future contender. But rather than bring him up slowly, the UFC chucked him into the cage with Dustin Poirier. Unsurprisingly, Poirier knocked him out, and the hype train dropped to about half-speed. Six months later they had Saint Denis main-eventing a Parisian Fight Night against the perpetually tricky Renato Moicano--and Moicano destroyed him, battering Benoît until his face was covered in blood and swollen so badly that the referee had to save him from fighting half-blind.

The UFC wasn't planning on doing him any favors here, either--until this past Saturday, he was scheduled to meet fellow top fifteen prospect Joel Álvarez in what was widely considered to be one of the most interesting fights on this card. But Joel couldn't make it, and reportedly Benoît turned down Mateusz Gamrot on short notice, and between the time, the season and the slight political difficulties induced by the Republican party deciding to turn annexing Canada into a platform issue because everything is just so god damned stupid all of the time now, getting someone with a functional Canadian visa on short notice is hard. So now we've got Kyle "Killshot" Prepolec. If you have an exceptional memory you may recall his UFC stint from 2019 that ended in back to back decision losses to Nordine Taleb and Austin Hubbard and saw him cut after about four months under contract. And hey, he's 4 for his last 5 since then, so that's a great turnaround! Except those four wins were over journeymen, the last and most hilarious of which was Gustavo "Show Man" Wurlitzer, who is 25-30, just turned 42, and publicizes his gym, My King Is Immortal Martial Arts, with endless pictures of awkwardly muscular anthropomorphic AI-generated lions wearing boxing gloves.

It's a big world out there and the fights only get sillier as you go deeper into it. Like a lot of his regional peers Prepolec has some good offense and some decent kicks, and like a lot of his regional peers Prepolec likes to keep his head really straight and use that offense in place of defense, and like a lot of his regional peers Prepolec is probably going to get ate. Honestly, the most fascinating thing about this fight for me is how it'll play with the crowd. Saint Denis was put on this card because Quebec is the closest thing to France the UFC's going to be running in the near future, and when he was fighting a guy from Spain, there was no question who the crowd would be rooting for. But in this time of unprecedented national unity, will the Quebecois still side with the French, or will Prepolec being an actual Canadian be enough? These, and more, while BENOÎT SAINT DENIS BY TKO happens.

PRELIMS: MALOTT LESS
WELTERWEIGHT: Mike Malott (11-2-1) vs Charles Radtke (10-4)

They had plans for Mike Malott, man. Mike was the Contender Series baby who would get them back into the Canadian market, an all-around fighter with a great regional fanbase, a company-friendly attitude and a 100% finishing rate! As long as he was fighting guys like Mickey Gall and Adam Fugitt. But there is only one true measuring stick for the Welterweight division and it is Neil Magny, the universal constant. As it turns out, when you feed your prospects steady diets of easier competition experienced hands are more likely to break them, and Magny's first TKO in six years came at Malott's expense. The solution? Put him back in with easier dudes. Trevin Giles was another 7-7 fighter Malott could quietly outclass, and with all of the respect in the world to Charles "Chuck Buffalo" Radtke, one of my favorite names in all of combat sports, this fight isn't intended to be much different. On paper, Radtke's 3-1 in the UFC is solid: In practice those three wins were running 0-3 nepotism hire Blood Diamond out of the company, knocking out the 1-2 Ultimate Fighter contestant Gilbert Urbina, and punching through the 5-6 Matthew Semelsberger in a minute.

None of those are bad--well, sorry, Blood Diamond, maybe you--but the UFC tipped its hand by expending Radtke against Carlos Prates last year, and booking him against a Canadian favorite in Canada at an almost half-foot size disadvantage is indicative. MIKE MALOTT BY DECISION.

WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Jéssica Andrade (26-13, #7) vs Jasmine Jasudavicius (13-3, #9)

This is my fight of the night, but I am, in fairness, a diehard Jéssica Andrade fan, and anyone who likes mixed martial arts who isn't is doing something wrong. It's a testament to Andrade's talents that everyone who's beaten her in the last decade went on to either a world championship, a failed attempt at one, or a title eliminator to get the chance--across every women's weight class in the UFC. Hell, Andrade's last fight was a loss to Natália Silva, our friend from the main card who's fighting for #1 contendership. It pained me deeply to pick against Andrade, but mobility and versatility have always been big problems for her. With the deepest respect to Jasmine Jasudavicius, whose underrated status I have devoted many paragraphs to, I foresee difficulties for her here. She doesn't carry a lot of power, she makes her hay with her grappling, and I don't think her technique or her physicality are going to overcome Andrade's power or defense.

She's got a hell of a size advantage, but that's true for basically everyone Andrade fights. And I have to make up for the sin of picking against one of my favorite fighters. JÉSSICA ANDRADE BY TKO.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Modestas Bukauskas (17-6) vs Ion Cuțelaba (19-10-1 (1))

Last week, I complained about these two fights specifically.

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 scored the biggest win of her career last week. She took Marina Rodriguez down with ease, smashed her with ground-and-pound and stopped her in a round and a half. And it happened midway down the prelims in Iowa, and now we have these two fights tailgating a pay-per-view. Has this one earned the distinction? Well, in fairness, both of these men are on two-fight winning streaks! In Bukauskas' case it's against men who are 4-6 and 0-2 in the UFC--yes, in that order--and in Cuțelaba's case it's 0-1 and 2-1. Between these two stalwart Light Heavyweight prospects they have one victory over a fighter with a winning UFC record on their respective winning streaks, and Gillian Robertson beat up a former #1 contender in Des Moines.

Ion has two gameplans: Wing angry hooks and throw angry takedowns. I like Modestas, my present frustrations aside, but if Tyson Pedro and Zac Pauga can outwrestle you, you are in imminent smashing danger. ION CUȚELABA BY TKO.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Navajo Stirling (6-0) vs Ivan Erslan (14-4 (1))

Did that fight not do enough to give you paroxysms of glee about the future of the Light Heavyweight division? Don't you worry: We can do worse. Navajo Stirling came off the Contender Series last year, has fought two men with winning records in his entire life, has one single UFC victory, and is basically one win away from competing for a Light Heavyweight ranking. After all, he beat Tuco Tokkos! Do you remember Tuco Tokkos? That's right: You don't. But hey, don't sleep on Ivan Erslan. Remember one fight ago when I was talking about Ion Cuțelaba beating a guy who's 0-1 in the UFC? It's him! It's this guy! They're such good matchmaking buddies that they just had to put them side by side again.

It's two guys who punch people. That's it. That's the story. Both of these men are facepunchers. Ivan Erslan could not effectively facepunch Ion Cuțelaba, a man who himself could not beat Philipe Lins, who was let go by the UFC last year on a four-fight winning streak because we needed to make more space for Ivan goddamn Erslan. I acknowledge my bandwidth for caring is at an all-time low right now, what with the Everything, but it's Navajo Stirling vs Ivan Erslan. I have nothing to give. IVAN ERSLAN BY DECISION.

EARLY PRELIMS: THE SOUTH KOREAN DISTRICT OF QUEBEC
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Marc-André Barriault (16-9 (1)) vs Bruno Silva (23-12)

When I said the UFC was hurting for successful Canadian talent, I had this fight in mind. There were real hopes for Marc-André Barriault when he came into the UFC back in 2018. He was 11-1! He held 185 and 205-pound gold in TKO, Canada's foremost MMA league! But that was seven years ago. Now Barriault is 5-8 (1) in the UFC, only one man he's defeated is still with the company, he's riding three straight losses and the last two were vicious, first-round knockouts. Who do you match a man like this against if you have any hopes of getting him a home-country win? Bruno Silva, who is 1 for his last 7. Is that entirely fair? Well, one of those losses was the incredible bullshit of getting TKOed by eyepoke in the Chris Weidman fight, so no, not really, but he was also losing to 2024 Chris Weidman regardless, so there's no real good result for the man.

But he's still lost a whole bunch. He's got a real chance at winning here, but it entirely comes down to blitzing Barriault out of the gate. If he can catch him hard enough to rattle him, he can finish him. If he doesn't get him out in the first, MARC-ANDRÉ BARRIAULT BY DECISION feels real likely.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Daniel Santos (11-2) vs Lee Jeong-yeong (11-2)

This fight got added to the card a week ago, because the UFC abhors misplaced puzzle pieces and both of these men have been having trouble getting on the board. We actually wrote about Daniel Santos just a few weeks ago, as he was scheduled to face Davey Grant in April, but medical issues scratched Santos just before the event. Which is an unfortunate pattern. Santos hasn't actually fought since June of 2023, because every goddamn time he's been booked into a fight over the last two years he's had to pull out. Lee Jeong-yeong should have been riding high. He was a champion in the first Road to UFC tournament! He had a successful debut! He's the wave of the international future! Or he was, until Hyder Amil punched him out in sixty-five seconds. It's been almost a year since that fight and Lee was supposed to have his comeback against Trevor Peek last week, but Peek broke his leg, and then it was going to be Gavin Tucker this week, but Tucker had to drop out.

So now it's a Featherweight showdown between a Road to UFC champion coming off a loss and a man stepping off two years of downtime with a week to prepare. God bless the ring. DANIEL SANTOS BY DECISION.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Brad Katona (14-4) vs Bekzat Almakhan (11-2)

Brad Katona and the UFC have just never quite worked out. He won The Ultimate Fighter 27 (mon dieu) and got cut within three fights after going 1-2. He was brought back to be on The Ultimate Fighter 31 (you only get one), he won that one, too, and now, in his post-second-chance-at TUF tenure, he is...1-2 again. Katona's good, but he's just never quite been up to the level of competition the rankings hold, and at least the first time around he was getting run through by Merab Dvalishvili. This time it's Garrett Armfield and Jean Matsumoto. It's either a great sign of faith or a total lack thereof that the UFC is booking him against Bekzat Almakhan, the regional Kazakhstani champion the UFC brought in on short notice to face Umar fucking Nurmagomedov. This may shock you: Almakhan lost. He made it to the bell, which is a lot more than the oddsmakers figured he would. But he also got outstruck 145:5 and ate all five takedowns Umar threw.

Which, to some extent, feels like an unfair thing to hold against him. He went from fighting a Brazilian journeyman in a 5,000-seat arena in Kazakhstan to one of the best Bantamweights on the planet in the Mecca of Martial Arts that is the UFC Apex and its bench seating for twenty. Katona's a wrestler-style Pokemon too, he has the potential to ground Bekzat and outwork him, and I'm picking BRAD KATONA BY DECISION because I'd like something nice to happen for him and I think he's got the chops, but I have bad feelings about the likelihood that Bekzat turns out to be better than Umar allowed him to look.