CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 146: OLD BLOOD, NEW BLOOD
UFC Fight Night: Usman vs Buckley
SATURDAY, JUNE 14 FROM THE STATE FARM ARENA IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA
PRELIMS 4 PM PDT / 7 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 7 PM / 10 PM
We're free of the Apex until a double-header to kick off August, but it's hard not to notice the degree to which the Apexification of the UFC has influenced their road cards. This one starts out pretty hot! It's got a great topline! But you get one fight past the co-main and boom, it's two guys who beat Dylan Budka within the last nine months. It's also very, very funny that one month ago Paul Craig vs Rodolfo Bellato was an Apex co-main event, and now on the road it has to bring down the curtain on the prelims.
It's not awful. It's just a reminder that the bar is ever-adjusting in its lowness.
MAIN EVENT: EVALUATING YOUR TRADE-IN VALUE
WELTERWEIGHT: Kamaru Usman (20-4, #5) vs Joaquin Buckley (21-6, #7)
We have, at last, reached the end of the UFC's half-year-long campaign to change out the old blood of the Welterweight division for infusions of newer, cheaper, more marketing-friendly formulas. How's the scoreboard looking, after all this time?
Four weeks ago Michael Morales smashed Gilbert Burns in three and a half minutes, so that's one point for the new kids
One week before that Jack Della Maddalena routed Belal Muhammad and won the Welterweight championship, which not only makes it two, but a real, real big two
At the end of April Ian Machado Garry survived a late scare and turned away Carlos Prates, which is technically one for the old guard but also serves as a terrifying sign of how fast things move now that they've already put a target on his back, but that gets us to 2-1
In mid-March, Sean Brady led the general shellacking of Britain's MMA talent by choking out former champ Leon Edwards in London, making it 3-1 for the new contenders
But before any of that, the very last UFC event of 2024 saw Colby Covington finally defending his position as a top contender against an up-and-coming prospect for the first time since 2017 (twenty seven teen!) and it ended with Joaquin Buckley punching his goddamn face off and finally getting his foot in the title-contention door.
And it was well-deserved. Buckley struggled mightily at Middleweight--just a bit too short, just a bit too gassy--and dropping to Welterweight rejuvenated his career. He's riding six straight wins on the best streak of his career, he destroyed Vicente Luque, he destroyed Stephen Thompson, and he's one of only two men to ever knock Colby out.
But Kamaru Usman did it first.
So where the hell has he been?
It's easy to forget now, but an entire era of the Welterweight division was defined by his place on top of it. He went nine years without losing a fight. He's tied with Islam Makhachev for the second-longest winning streak in UFC history at 15 fights. He's got five wins over past, present or future UFC champions under his belt. He shares the second-place title defense record at 170 pounds with Matt Hughes, an absolute hall-of-famer in the sport. At his peak the UFC posited him as the second-greatest Welterweight fighter of all time short of Georges St-Pierre, and questioned if GSP would've stood a chance against him.
And then Leon Edwards knocked him out, and his name simply vanished from the annals of the sport.
Some part of this, as stated above, is the speed at which things move these days--the roster has never churned faster and contenders are paved over on a weekly basis. Some of it is the permanent goldfish memory we, the MMA fanbase, tend to exhibit. But mostly, as is so often the case, it's the UFC's fault. Kamaru Usman may share that aforementioned five-fight title defense record with Matt Hughes, but Hughes fought a who's-who of international champions and top stars.
Usman's title reign looks more like this:
The UFC acted as though Usman was their top star, but they found as many excuses as possible to keep getting him in the cage with people their marketing department wanted more. Colby got his rematch by beating a Tyron Woodley who hadn't won a fight in more than two years. Jorge Masvidal got his rematch without fighting anyone at all. Maybe it was the wrestling, maybe it was the UFC's shift into a Trump propaganda bigot spigot, maybe they just had a surplus of Three Piece And A Soda t-shirts and didn't want to bury them in a landfill with all those copies of E.T. for the Atari 2600.
They wanted Usman out, and out he went. Leon Edwards knocked him dead in 2022 and won a rematch in 2023, and the last time we saw Kamaru, he was fighting Khamzat Chimaev up at Middleweight with just a week and a half to prepare.
And it's been forgotten, but those fights were close.
Seriously. Thanks to a point deduction due to Leon's repeated fence-grabs and Khamzat's inability to finish Usman, both of those fights wound up only being majority decisions. Usman stayed competitive with Leon all the way through and two out of three judges had him beating Chimaev in the final round of their fight. Khamzat Chimaev went through Robert Whittaker like a knife through Australian butter and he damn near got fought to a draw by a Kamaru Usman who'd been on the couch ten days beforehand.
He still looked vital and threatening in both fights, which is frankly absurd in the latter.
And now it's been almost twenty months since he last fought and he turned 38 a month ago and everyone's wondering if he's done.
Which is the weirdest part of evaluating this matchup. I haven't seen anyone question if Joaquin Buckley has better technique than Kamaru Usman. Everyone acknowledges how good Usman's wrestling is, everyone loves the pump-action accuracy of his jab, and Buckley's tendency to charge and lunge and swing hammers so hard he almost falls off-balance have led to a general consensus that Usman's got the more technical, better-honed skillset.
The general consensus is Buckley's going to kill him anyway.
He didn't necessarily match up well with Vicente Luque, but he threw him down and savaged him on the ground. He didn't measure up to Stephen Thompson in striking technique either, but with the fight tied on the scorecards after two competitive rounds Buckley just ran through him in the third and knocked him cold. Buckley's young. Buckley's fast. Buckley has two fully functioning knees, which is potentially 1.75 more than Usman does.
Joaquin Buckley is a heavy betting favorite, and that's a smart pick. It's extremely likely he's going to not just take the fight to Usman, but ragdoll him with sheer ferocity. This is, in all likelihood, going to be one of those cases where the torch isn't so much passed as ripped away and used as a blunt weapon. Buckley's probably pounding him flat.
But I just keep remembering Usman taking it to Khamzat and I cannot help thinking there's still life in those bones. KAMARU USMAN BY DECISION.
CO-MAIN EVENT: TAKING IT BACK
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Rose Namajunas (13-7, #7) vs Miranda Maverick (15-5, #11)
And I look forward to returning to the conversation about the UFC's endless attempts to get Rose Namajunas into contendership two weeks from now, when Miranda Maverick, who is on a four-fight winning streak, faces off against Rose Namajunas.
Boy, that's even funnier now. That was the epilogue for Erin Blanchfield vs Maycee Barber, a fight that was meant to crown a new top contender for Women's Flyweight, and that fight very infamously got cancelled right as both women were about to walk to the cage thanks to medical issues with Maycee that still haven't been fully explained. It was unexpected, it was shocking, and it was completely in line with how the title picture's been going lately.
Erin Blanchfield and Manon Fiorot both had to wait in line for Alexa Grasso. Alexa Grasso and Valentina Shevchenko wound up stuck in an anticlimactic trilogy of fights that left everyone involved diminished. Manon beat Erin, got her shot at the title, and failed. Valentina appears to finally be getting reserved for the champion vs champion superfight with Zhang Weili they've both been flirting with for years. Alexa's on a losing streak, Erin doesn't have a fight, Natália Silva is a #1 contender with no one to fight, and Maycee is missing in action.
But god knows the one constant in all of this has been the endless attempt to keep Rose Namajunas in the mix.
Rose was, at one point, the most popular female fighter in the company if not the world. She knocked out Joanna Jędrzejczyk and Zhang Weili and beat both in instant rematches, you do not get higher-level than that. She was at the absolute pinnacle of the sport.
And then she lost her title to Carla Esparza in one of the honest-to-god worst fights of all time, in a performance that wasn't just terrible but outright inexplicable, and she disappeared from the sport for almost a year and a half.
And she returned to fight up a weight class against Manon Fiorot, the #2 contender.
When she lost, they gave her Amanda Ribas, who hadn't notched a back-to-back victories in four years, and when Rose beat her they tried to set her up against Maycee, but--hilariously, in hindsight--Maycee pulled out two weeks ahead of the fight and Rose got Tracy Cortez instead, who had been battling the Justine Kishes of the world just a couple fights earlier. Rose got past her, too.
But now there's no one for Rose to fight up against. She already lost to two of the top contenders and everyone around her ranking is occupied.
Which means for once in her UFC career things have worked out for Miranda Maverick, who has been stuck in preliminary hell for years.
There's a great argument that Miranda should have already been a top-ranked contender, but there's an even better argument that she would have lost it anyway. She lost 2021's unanimously-voted robbery of the year against Maycee Barber, but even had she won, her next fight was against tonight's other recurring figure Erin Blanchfield, who destroyed her. She had a closer scrape against Jasmine Jasudavicius in 2023, but she still lost.
Miranda is, finally, on the best winning streak of her UFC tenure--the best streak of her career, unless you count the oddity of Invicta's Phoenix Series with its one-night tournament and its one-round fights--but its competition hasn't been great. Priscila Cachoeira has lost more fights in the UFC than she's won, Andrea Lee was on the back half of what wound up being a six-fight losing streak, Dione Barbosa had only made her UFC debut two months prior, and Jamey-Lyn Horth (who we'll be seeing again later!) was barely any better at 2-1.
Which is, hilariously enough, also Rose's fault. Miranda was scheduled for a ranked match last year. She was finally supposed to get her shot at a higher-ranked opponent!
That opponent was Tracy Cortez, who wound up rebooked for Rose instead.
Miranda's never been who the UFC wanted. She doesn't have the fanbase or the social media presence--I just checked their respective Instagram accounts out of curiosity and at 98,000 vs 2.2 million Miranda's got just about 95.5% less followers than Rose--and her style's always been grindier and clinchier and less likely to get highlight-reel results.
But then, Rose hasn't gotten anything on her highlight reel in more than four years.
The main and co-main feel like a case of inverted logic in my head. On paper, Rose has the far better skillset. She's a quick striker with good footwork, a long straight and some great angles on her kicks, and her ground attacks have always been fiercely underrated. She's even the bigger fighter. Every conceivable advantage should be in her corner.
And I just cannot help feeling pulled in Miranda Maverick's direction here. The trouble Rose has had navigating Flyweight grappling, the difficulties Tracy gave her in the clinch, the visible lack of impact Rose's strikes have had at the higher weight class where once she was knocking out the best Strawweights in the world--all of it combines with Miranda's durability and forward pressure to give me Bad Feelings about Rose's chances here.
I don't think it'll be pretty. I think it'll be a lot of Miranda clinching her against the fence and pissing off an audience that's just there to see Rose win. But MIRANDA MAVERICK BY DECISION is the heart pick.
MAIN CARD: SOMEHOW NOT AN APEX CARD
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Edmen Shahbazyan (14-5) vs Andre Petroski (13-3)
That's right, baby. When the co-main event ends, we go all the way down. The Edmen Shahbazyan rehabilitation tour has been an on-and-off fixture of UFC matchmaking for five years now and it shows no signs of ending, because Edmen, for all of his visible striking expertise, is still Edmen. The company's plans to make him an undefeated striking savant of a Middleweight contender ended when Derek Brunson wrestled him into dust in 2020, and seven fights later, that's still the story. Hell, we're only one match removed from Gerald Meerschaert overcoming a first-round drubbing to choke Edmen out in the second. But he's won three of his last six fights, says the UFC! Those three were Dalcha Lungiambula, who was cut on a four-fight losing streak right after losing to Edmen, AJ Dobson, who was 1-3 and cut right after losing to Edmen, and four months ago it was Dylan Budka, who was cut on a three-fight losing streak right after losing to Edmen. Patterns! They damn us all.
But, despite being 8-2 in the UFC, Andre Petroski isn't doing that much better. On paper, obviously, that's a more impressive-looking record. In practice? Only two of Petroski's eight wins came against people with winning UFC records, and they were the aforementioned Gerald Meerschaert, who despite being one of my favorite dudes in the sport is also 12-11 in the UFC and a definitional journeyman, and Rodolfo Vieira, who is 5-3 and notoriously one-dimensional and cardio-challenged, which makes it especially funny that Vieira, the grappling stylist, actually outstruck Petroski. Andre, for all of his success, is stylistically stuck in the middle. He's a powerful, stocky wrestleboxer, but his wrestling isn't actually that successful, he hasn't found a successful submission attempt in years, and he hasn't stopped anyone on strikes since his regional days. Even his sole ground-and-pound TKO in the company came not from inflicting a great deal of damage, but from having his opponent stuck in the giftwrap position with no way out.
Which might make evaluating his contendership hopes dismal, but for fighting Edmen, it should still be enough. It's not an easy night at the office, Andre's tendency to march himself facefirst into fire could get him immolated by Edmen if he doesn't take care, but Edmen's consistent trouble with wrestling and physicality make me see ANDRE PETROSKI BY DECISION all over this one.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Cody Garbrandt (14-6) vs Raoni Barcelos (19-5)
It feels as though we've been saying goodbye to Cody Garbrandt forever. Cody's unbelievable rise from 5-0 rookie to Dominick Cruz-slaying world champion in just two years was one of the best arcs in the sport, and it would be remembered much more fondly were it not for his immediate and equally speedy drop down the ladder, going from undefeated world-beater to knocked out in three consecutive fights. But then he flattened Raphael Assunção, so he was back! That was already five years ago and he got trounced repeatedly afterwards. But then he knocked out Brian Kelleher, so he was back! That, too, was already a year and a half ago. The last time we saw Cody he was getting rolled by Deiveson Figueiredo and talking about the final fight on his UFC contract, which was supposed to be against Miles Johns back in October. And then it was November. And then it was this.
Raoni Barcelos, congratulations on getting the last out against a former champion. Raoni came into the UFC hot, but between 2021 and 2023 he went 1 for 5, getting repeatedly beaten by actual contenders and prospects and folks like Timur Valiev that the UFC would inexplicably cut because they're a bad organization, which is, coincidentally, how Raoni went from being himself a prospect of note to being repeatedly used in an attempt to prop up Contender Series stars. This past January Raoni headlined the UFC 311 prelims against marketing star Payton Talbott. The betting odds had Talbott as a ridiculous, -1150 favorite, and even as someone who thought that was an aggressively silly figure, I also thought Payton would win. Raoni beat the stuffing out of him. For ruining the marketing prospect of the future, now, he gets to battle the marketing prospect of the past.
And he'll probably win. Cody still has the power to put anyone in the division on their face if he connects cleanly and Raoni's been faceplanted before, it could happen, but it's much, much more likely Raoni eats him alive. RAONI BARCELOS BY SUBMISSION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Mansur Abdul-Malik (8-0) vs Cody Brundage (11-6 (1))
There's no mystery about this. Cody Brundage is one of the UFC's reliable hands for losing fights. They didn't really want him in the first place--he got picked up on a late-replacement contract back in 2021--and since then he's been their personal Barry Horowitz. Rodolfo Vieira lost again? Call Cody Brundage. Sedriques Dumas fucked up his debut? Call Cody Brundage. Bo Nickal needs an opponent? Cody god damned Brundage.
Oh, what's that? A Contender Series guy got into the UFC but he only had 6 fights so they need to line up a bunch of people for him to knock out before he gets to anyone who really matters? And they already did Duško Todorović? I guess it's time to get The Other One. Cody Brundage has two intentional wins in his last eight fights, and they came against Julian Marquez, who had not won a fight since early 2021, and Zach Reese, who the UFC immediately and desperately rehabbed, most recently by beating--hey, look at that! Duško fucking Todorović. What a shock.
I do not mean this to take away from Mansur Abdul-Malik. He seems legitimately solid and he's clearly got knockout potential. But the constant refrain of getting guys on the Contender Series before they can be legitimately tested in the sport and then pumping them up in the UFC by avoiding real UFC-level tests for as long as they can is not only fucking embarrassing but doomed to inevitably lower the definition of "UFC-level tests" until it's the rule rather than the exception. I hope Cody somehow upsets the marketing plans again as repayment for the way they use him. MANSUR ABDUL-MALIK BY TKO, though.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Alonzo Menifield (16-5-1, #15) vs Oumar Sy (11-0)
Alonzo Menifield is the true legacy of Light Heavyweight. His best achievement over the last five years is either going 1-0-1 on a two-fight series with Jimmy Crute, who coincidentally also hasn't recorded a victory in almost five years, getting a decision over Dustin Jacoby, who was in the middle of going 1 for 5, or knocking out Askar Mozharov, a man who somehow successfully falsified his record to get into the UFC for which he was immediately disposed of. Or, alternatively, it's only barely squeaking past Julius Walker in his last fight, a 6-0 prospect signed by the UFC because he was able to knock out Myron "Lightskin Dynamite" Dennis, a 20-13 regional champion who oh my fucking god are these even words anymore. Look at this, man. Look at my sport. Look at what we're doing. This was the premier division in mixed martial arts. This was the division that launched Wanderlei Silva and Shogun Rua and Chuck Liddell. And now all of the grapplers are being gradually pushed out of the company and honest to god rookies are fighting for honest to god rankings and the world champion can't get a fight because the UFC won't offer him one until Alex Pereira comes back because the division means less than the marketing. What the fuck are we doing.
Oumar Sy is also here and is going to win this professional mixed martial arts contest.
OUMAR SY BY DECISION.
PRELIMS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Paul Craig (17-9-1) vs Rodolfo Bellato (12-2-1)
As previously noted, this fight was originally supposed to be the co-main event to Gilbert Burns vs Michael Morales last month, but it got cancelled at the last minute thanks to Bellato having a herpes outbreak. So enjoy this week's rerun, which I'm trimming the top line from since it doesn't make sense anymore, but which is otherwise four times longer than a prelim write-up should be.
If the last month has been one ongoing story about the changing guard at Welterweight, its B-plot has been a reminder that the Light Heavyweight division is a place of depression and dishonor. The best thing to happen at 205 pounds over the last two months came from Dominick Reyes punching out Nikita Krylov; other than that it's been bad fights and depressing endings all the way down. It's one thing when you're talking about unranked prelim fights like the particularly bad Navajo Stirling/Ivan Erslan and Modestas Bukauskas/Ion Cuțelaba matchups from last week, but every level of the ladder has been unfortunate. Zhang Mingyang pushed his way into the top fifteen by sacrificing Anthony Smith in the world's least necessary retirement bout. Carlos Ulberg made his way into top contendership by just barely scraping by Jan Błachowicz in a coinflip decision people have already forgotten happened.
And now we're digging out divisional prospects between the guy who couldn't beat Jimmy Crute and the guy who's going back to Light Heavyweight because Middleweight was too hard. That's the co-main event of this Ultimate Fighting Championship card.
But if 205 pounds does have a future it probably looks like Rodolfo Bellato, and I mean that from a business perspective. As a major-label fighter, Bellato barely exists. Both of his career losses involved getting knocked stupid by Vitor Petrino, the second time was on the Contender Series and it cost him a year of trying to get back to DWCS, which fed him the eighth-best Middleweight Bahrain could provide. The UFC cared so much for his prospects that they booked him against promotional punching bag Ihor Potieria in his debut, who also wound up being a Middleweight, and when Bellato won easily they tried to get him into the rankings by giving him Jimmy Crute, who was 1 for his last 4 except that 1 was almost five full years ago.
And it didn't work. Crute spent the first round nearly submitting and knocking out Bellato, but ultimately dropped the last two rounds and wound up with a Draw. Rodolfo Bellato, knockout artist, became the first man to fight Jimmy Crute in the last half-decade and not beat him.
But Paul Craig isn't doing much better. At one point Craig was one of the dark horses of the Light Heavyweight division: A fan favorite with a Quentin Tarantino nickname, a baffling style, and the completely inexplicable ability to win fights he was badly losing by hypnotizing people into entering his guard. Over and over, Craig would get the shit kicked out of him, and over and over, people would dive on him to finish him and get choked out or get their arms broken. Paul Craig is 9-9-1 in the UFC, and somehow, impossibly, that includes victories over three separate UFC champions. Magomed Ankalaev, the best Light Heavyweight in the world, is 21-1-1, and that one sole loss is to Paul Fucking Craig.
But that was 2018, and Paul Craig hasn't been Paul Fucking Craig for awhile. After two losses and another knockout he dropped down to 185 pounds in 2023, and for one brief moment in time he managed to maul André Muniz and it looked like things might actually work out. But then Brendan Allen destroyed him, and then Caio Borralho destroyed him, and then Bo Nickal, uh, jabbed him inconsequentially for three rounds, immolated his good will with the UFC and wound up getting demolished on a free TV card, but unfortunately Craig's only contribution to that comedy saga involved losing.
Craig's tough as hell and he's always easy to root for and he also doesn't seem to have really meaningfully improved as a fighter in years. He's terrifying on the ground, but he hasn't threatened anyone with his stand-up in years and he's 3 for 27 on takedown attempts over the last five years. I would love another fun day of Don't Jump In Paul Craig's Guard Theater, but RODOLFO BELLATO BY TKO is deeply, unpleasantly likely.
WELTERWEIGHT: Michael Chiesa (18-7) vs Court McGee (22-13)
If you told me this was a rematch twelve years in the making, I'd believe you, and I am half-convinced this match is being made now just to fix the historical rounding error that was the UFC not having made it happen yet. When Michael Chiesa won his UFC contract, the Middleweight champion was still Anderson Silva. When Court McGee won his UFC contract, the Women's Bantamweight Champion was N/A. They've been around forever, they are seasoned veterans, they are TUF champions, and their trajectories have been wildly different. Michael Chiesa beat a couple world champions, he's got a winning record with the company, he's an on-air analyst, he's doing just fine! Court McGee has done slightly less well. He won his contract in 2010, he seemed like he might be a thing, and in mid-2013 he managed to score a decision over some young UFC rookie named Robert Whittaker! In the twelve years since then he's 6 and 10. For awhile he could lay claim to being one of the most durable men in UFC history, but Jeremiah Wells and Matt Brown turned his lights out in one round in back-to-back fights, so that ship has sailed. I don't think it's controversial to say Michael Chiesa has a little more tread left in his tires. But his success also hinges entirely on his ability to successfully grapple--to the point that after seventeen years of mixed martial arts competition, Chiesa has never won a fight by KO or TKO. It's either a submission or a decision or he's losing. That's an interesting challenge for Court McGee, who after eighteen years of mixed martial arts has never once been submitted. Ryan LaFlare couldn't do it. Sean Brady couldn't do it. I'm not sure Chiesa can do it.
And so much of Court's strengths come from being tough to grind out in the clinch that, against every bit of sense I have, I find myself gravitating towards COURT MCGEE BY DECISION here. At this point in his career I don't have the faith in Chiesa's wrestling to get Court off his feet.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Malcolm Wellmaker (9-0) vs Kris Moutinho (14-6)
Every once in awhile, particularly when it's being administrated by the same people, reality comes around and rhymes with itself. Malcolm Wellmaker is a UFC project in progress. He made it to the Contender Series as an undefeated knockout artist, he dropped the overmatched Brit he was slotted against, and in his debut in the big show the UFC pitched him Cameron Saaiman. Just a year and a half ago, that would've been a big deal! A year and a half ago, Cameron Saaiman was, himself, an undefeated prospect with contendership aspirations. In 2025, he was on a losing streak and the shine was well off the apple. That did not make it less impressive when Wellmaker dropped him flat in two minutes. Suddenly, the UFC has a hot new Bantamweight knockout artist they'd love to promote. Who do they bring in to fight him? Kris fucking Moutinho. For those who weren't here four years ago, Moutinho was a regional fighter who got called up to the UFC on short notice because Louis Smolka couldn't make it to a fight with some guy named Sean O'Malley, and management could not pass up a chance to get O'Malley over. Moutinho famously walked through 230 strikes from O'Malley and was actually still marching forward and returning fire when Herb Dean called the fight off--twenty-seven seconds before it would have reached the bell. O'Malley's inability to put him down became abjectly hilarious when, just one fight later, Moutinho got smoked in two minutes by the 42 year-old, 8-6 Guido Cannetti, who was clearly robbed of the championship opportunities afforded to O'Malley.
I'm happy to see Moutinho back. He was tough as hell and refused to die and I always appreciate that. He also got the shit beat out of him, and he may have won five fights since his UFC release, but they were all against regional journeymen. I would absolutely love a Kris Moutinho redemption tour and I hope he outlasts Wellmaker, but in all likelihood, this is MALCOLM WELLMAKER BY KO.
FLYWEIGHT: Cody Durden (17-7-1) vs Jose Ochoa (7-1 (1))
Cody Durden's UFC tenure has wrapped around itself. For his first year and a half, he went 1 for 4, he got choked out a lot, and his only good performances came against struggling prospects. During his second year and a half, he went on a four-fight winning streak and notched three straight upset victories! Over this most recent year and a half he's 1 for 4 again and he's been finished repeatedly again. So it's right back to struggling prospects for you. Jose "Kalzifer" Ochoa's only crime is fulfilling the UFC's wishes. He was scheduled for the Contender Series, but he got yoinked up to the main roster instead--because superprospect Lone'er Kavanagh needed an opponent. As a general rule: If the UFC has targeted you for a developmental fight, and they instead offer you a UFC fight against someone they've already signed, they're not doing it for your benefit. Ochoa put up a good effort, but he still got dominated, and now they need to see if he's tall enough to ride the rollercoaster.
Which he could well be. He hasn't had many real, competitive fights to prove himself in, but his grappling's solid and he's quick to jump on chokes, and that's been enough to catch Durden on a number of occasions. I'm ultimately still siding with CODY DURDEN BY DECISION based on experience and toughness, but Ochoa seems like he has promise, and it'd be nice to see him beat my expectations.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Ricky Simón (21-6) vs Cameron Smotherman (12-5)
Ricky Simón is stuck on the treadmill. A great, five-fight run that saw him main-eventing Fight Nights as a top-ten contender turned into a twenty-one month, three-fight losing streak, and as quickly as he arrived, Ricky Simón appeared to be done and on his way out of the company. When he walked into the cage against Javid Basharat this past February he was the sizable underdog, the broken veteran meant to help rehabilitate a younger, better prospect. Instead, Ricky knocked him the fuck out in a single round. For destroying a hot prospect and recovering some of his hype, Ricky was matched up with Charles Jourdain, a 50/50 fighter with no notable momentum, and then he had to pull out during fight week. So now, to celebrate his return to relevance, Ricky Simón gets to fight Cameron Smotherman, a late replacement signing who jumped on a short-notice contract hot off his victory over the 4-9 Ryan "Coconut" Mondala, is now 1-1 in the UFC, and just absorbed 66 strikes in the process of losing a three-round fight to Serhiy Sidey forty-two days ago which apparently does not disqualify him from fighting again. What the hell are we doing here?
RICKY SIMÓN BY TKO, I guess, but fuck.
WELTERWEIGHT: Phil Rowe (10-5) vs Ange Loosa (10-4)
On the topic of ongoing perplexion, we have this. Over the last two years these two men are collectively 1 for 5. Phil Rowe is in the unfortunate category of prospects who couldn't beat Neil Magny; Ange Loosa's entire UFC record is wins over people who'd only ever lost in the company, losses against people who'd actually won, and an infamous No Contest against Bryan Battle last year that almost turned into a brawl when Battle accused him of being a quitter just because Battle jammed a thumb into his eyeball, because nothing is better for self-marketing than being a dickhead. This is one of those grand battles of guys the UFC doesn't really know what to do with, but their contracts are still there and they don't have any value to impart to anyone else, so fuck it, Thunderdome.
In this particular Thunderdome case, unfortunately, one of these men has a half-foot reach and size advantage, hits like a truck and hung in there with Neil Magny, and the other got tuned up by Mounir Lazzez. PHIL ROWE BY TKO.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Vanessa Demopoulos (11-7) vs Jamey-Lyn Horth (7-2)
I have long held good fortune against Vanessa Demopoulos, which is very unfair, as she is not responsible for the will of judges. She's 5-4 in the UFC, but in a more just world, she would be 2-7 and would probably not be here anymore. She has the genuinely incredible record of having made it on Robbery of the Year lists in three consecutive years, which is a feat I pray will never be repeated or surpassed. But now, finally, she is on a two-fight losing streak and facing down the dreaded three in a row, and fittingly, her opponent is a harbinger of the meaninglessness of rankings. Jamey-Lyn Horth was brought into the UFC in the hopes that she would lose to Contender Series marketing darling Hailey Cowan, and she, of course, did not. But she did spend the last year and a half trading wins and losses back and forth, and one fight ago she was losing to Miranda Maverick at the bottom end of the prelims, and now the woman who beat her is co-main eventing this card and Jamey-Lyn has to beat Ron McCarthy's favorite fighter.
I hope he's not judging tonight. JAMEY-LYN HORTH BY DECISION.