CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 153: ORGANICALLY GROWN

UFC Fight Night: Dolidze vs Hernandez

SATURDAY, AUGUST 9 FROM THE APEX BECAUSE NONE OF US SURVIVED THE CRASH
PRELIMS 1 PM PDT / 4 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 4 PM / 7 PM

It's a week later. The cleaning crews came and went, but we never left the Apex. We are still here, trapped in its depths, fists banging desperately on cheap aluminum doors, for one more night of imprisonment.

The good news: This is it for a bit! The rest of August, September and October are all booked up with nary an Apex visit between them. We're actually going on a bit of a world tour--Shanghai at the end of this month, then Paris, Australia, Brazil, Canada and back to Abu Dhabi all in the next nine events.

But we gotta survive this week first.

how low the erceg has fallen

MAIN EVENT: MIDDLEWEIGHT DRAG
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Roman Dolidze (15-3, #9) vs Anthony Hernandez (14-2, #10)

It's been hard not to complain about main events this year. If it isn't cynical marketing ploys like Derrick Lewis vs Tallison Teixeira or Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree Jr., or unearned title rematches like du Plessis vs Strickland and Dvalishvili vs O'Malley, it's panic-button late-replacement main events like Taira vs Park or Kape vs Almabayev. So much of the writing I do these days winds up focusing on the gross business of the fight business that it's distressingly easy to lose connection with the core of the sport that made me want to watch it in the first place.

This is actually a very good main event. It's really goddamn nice when they get out of their own way and simply let organically-matchmade fights like this happen. And I'm still mad as hell it's happening in the Fight Locker where only a fraction of the audience will see it.

Roman Dolidze has been stuck on the precipice of contendership for several years. He'd gotten some looks from fans and matchmakers alike for his unconventional grappling and loose but effective striking style, but it wasn't until the end of 2022 that he legitimized himself as a genuine prospect. Jack Hermansson was one of the tougher outs in the Middleweight division, a divisional gatekeeper who'd bounced a number of hopefuls back out of the top ten and would do it again in the future. Beating him was virtually required to prove your worth at the top of the division, but most folks who accomplished it did it by the skin of their teeth. Roman Dolidze wrapped him up in a pro-wrestling STF and punched him in the head until the referee had to rescue him from inevitable death.

It was a terrific performance, a terrific win, and a terrific way to announce himself to the division as a big deal. He followed it up by spending the next two years getting absolutely nowhere. He success got him onto a pay-per-view for the first time in his UFC career and he celebrated by dropping a close decision to Marvin Vettori. He came back for his first UFC main event and lost to Nassourdine Imavov so badly that Imavov lost a point for kicking him in the face while he was on the floor and still took a wide decision. After a serious of unfortunate events Dolidze wound up fighting Anthony Smith at Light Heavyweight, won, and dropped back down to face the division-hopping Kevin Holland, who busted his ribs in the first round and couldn't continue.

In other words, two consecutive wins that did absolutely nothing for Roman as an actual Middleweight contender. It wasn't until this past March that he picked up his first top ten win since 2022--and it was a rematch with Vettori, whose own fortunes had led him back to Roman's door. His style and his outright toughness have all kept Roman vital even through his losses, but in a division as currently logjammed as Middleweight, what he needs more than anything is a victory that lets him maintain his momentum.

And the momentum is finally with Anthony Hernandez. "Fluffy" had the opposite of the Dolidze experience: He came in with hype as an LFA champion and within a year of signing with the UFC most of the world had already forgotten about him. His Contender Series win was infamously overturned after he pissed hot for marijuana, the most dangerous of PEDs, and despite a reputation as a crafty grappler with a tough chin he had been both choked and knocked out in his first three UFC fights--the latter of which came courtesy of Kevin Holland, who at the time was also only 3-2 in the company and hadn't yet made a name for himself. When Anthony started his 2021 by fighting Rodolfo Vieira, an undefeated fighter who was also one of the most decorated grapplers in the world, the odds were firmly and understandably against him.

But sometimes you do something cool enough that it snaps your hype right back into place. Anthony outlasted Vieira, gassed him out, and shockingly submitted a man with 17 gold medals in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It was a massive statement.

It was also his only statement. Hand injuries left Hernandez on the shelf for more than a year after his career-defining win, and by the time he came back he had to start all the way at the back of the line. What's worse, his ranked matches kept finding ways of getting cancelled. He was supposed to get a matchup with Dricus du Plessis in 2022; he wound up with Josh Fremd. 2023 saw him finally getting a ranked match with Chris Curtis; he wound up having to wait another five months and still ultimately had to settle for Roman Kopylov. It's only in his last two fights that Hernandez finally got ranked competition, four years after that Vieira victory.

So Anthony settled for simply dominating everyone in his path. If Roman's style is built on spiting convention, Anthony's is built on a deep, abiding love for it. Solid bread-and-butter boxing, inexhaustible cardio and direct, technically proficient grappling are the core of his style, and in a division like Middleweight, that makes him a goddamn godsend. He hasn't just beaten people, he's worn them down to nothing and broken them through simple technique and tirelessness.

Both men have been orbiting relevance for years and until just a few months ago both men were denied the opportunity to get it. Dolidze needs a legitimizing win to get him another shot at the top; Hernandez needs a victory over someone who touched the top to show that he, too, belongs there.

He's probably going to get it, too. The conventional wisdom here has Fluffy as a big favorite and I'm inclined to agree. Dolidze likes wide shots and opportunistic groundwork but he tends to fade; Hernandez likes straight volume boxing and he fended off Rodolfo goddamn Vieira on the floor. Over five rounds, chipping Dolidze down to nothing seems extremely likely. ANTHONY HERNANDEZ BY DECISION.

CO-MAIN EVENT: FINALLY FIGHTING DOWN
FLYWEIGHT: Steve Erceg (12-4, #10) vs Ode' Osbourne (13-8, NR)

The UFC is giving me what I wanted, but man, I didn't want it this way.

At this point, I have written multiple essays about the UFC's insatiable love for Steve Erceg. A year and a half ago Steve Erceg knocked out Matt Schnell, who was 1 for his last 4 and picked up his first win in three years this past April. On the strength of that singular knockout, Erceg was made a permanent fixture at the top of the division. He got a shot at world champion Alexandre Pantoja, and when that failed he was given a title eliminator against top contender Kai Kara-France, and when that, too, failed, he was booked into a Mexico City main event against Brandon Moreno, the #2 ranked Flyweight in the world.

Before those three losses, Steve Erceg was ranked #10. After those three losses, Steve Erceg is ranked #10. By only ever being given fights high above his station, he has been given the grace of never losing it.

That grace period has finally ended, but as is the way of Erceg, fortune has still blown in his direction. Until a week ago Erceg was here to prospect-test Hyunsung Park, South Korea's Road to UFC winner and 2-0 prospect, in what would've been a massive step up in competition for a promising young talent. But our last main event of Tatsuro Taira vs Amir Albazi fell apart when Albazi couldn't make it to the show, and Park wound up fighting one of the top contenders in the division instead, who, predictably, ate him alive.

Instead, we have Ode' Osbourne.

Maybe it's unfair to say that with quite such a sense of anticlimax. Ode' Osbourne has been around the block, man. He beat Charles Johnson! That counts! Hell, we just saw Osbourne knock out Luis Gurule in a big upset performance, we should put respect on his name.

But Gurule was making his UFC debut after barely getting through the Contender Series, and that's the real story of Ode' and his UFC success: Everyone he's lost to has been at least somewhat successful and the folks he's beaten have rarely stuck around. His five company wins combine for an overall UFC record of 10-18--and six of those victories were just the aforementioned Johnson, who, coincidentally, took him to a close split decision. Without him, it's a considerably more dismal 4-13. Which is precisely why Ode' could be an underdog against a fighter barely anyone had seen: It was a statistically safe assumption that he would lose.

Except for me. I picked Ode'. Sure, my pick rate as of late might be dismal and I went something like 4 for 14 just a few weeks ago at Holloway/Poirier 3, but I picked Ode' Osbourne, motherfuckers.

Which means I am responsible for putting him here, where he is almost assuredly about to get picked apart by a better, faster boxer he probably can't outwrestle. Sorry, buddy. STEVE ERCEG BY DECISION.

MAIN CARD: PLANETARY BODIES ORBITING AN UNKNOWABLE VOID
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Iasmin Lucindo (17-6, #8) vs Angela Hill (18-14, #12)

The differences between the tops and bottoms of divisions can be staggering. For the last year and a half Iasmin Lucindo has torn a four-fight winning streak through Women's Strawweight that took her all the way from 0-1 to a top ten contender, and that's the kind of career path every fighter envies. But when you look at who she actually beat to get there, things fall into perspective. Brogan Walker has no UFC wins. Polyana Viana is 4-7. Karolina Kowalkiewicz was riding her best winning streak in years, but it, too, was over less successful fighters, and it, too, followed a five-fight losing streak against top competition. Even Lucindo's big, legitimizing win was a coinflip of a split decision over Marina Rodriguez, who was 1 for her last 4 and just one more loss away from retirement. So when Iasmin got her shot against former title contender Amanda Lemos this past March and got completely dominated, it wasn't a huge surprise. But it did leave people wondering what on Earth they'd do with her next.

When you don't have an answer, you send in Angie. Angela Hill is the living structural pillar of Strawweight. She's been in the cage with world champions and jobbers alike, she's showcased great striking skills and creative, unexpected grappling, she's gone from the UFC to Invicta and back, and in twelve years of professional competition against the top women the world has to offer she's never been knocked out and only submitted twice, and that last time was more than six years ago. She's unbelievably tough, she's exceptionally well-rounded, and she's never, ever an easy out. She's also 13-14 in the UFC. For all her many talents, for all her great moments, she's just never been able to put everything together and break through the glass ceiling. Sometimes it's the lack of impact she channels into her strikes, sometimes it's getting outwrestled by stronger grapplers, sometimes it's simply being unable to deal with the all-out assaults of women like Mackenzie Dern. Angie's the best, but she's never been The Best, and now she's 40 and looking down 41 and trying to hold on as long as she can.

But I simply want to have faith she'll hang on here. ANGELA HILL BY DECISION.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Andre Fili (24-12 (1)) vs Christian Rodriguez (12-3)

Every once in awhile I accuse the matchmakers of putting a fight together simply because it is funny, and this is one of those occasions. Andre Fili is one of the UFC's longer-tenured road warriors--it'll be 12 years for him if he makes it to October 19--and over that time he's fought absolute luminaries of the sport and also Artem Lobov. Every fight now makes him swing precariously over the balance of a near-50/50 record in the company and he still comes out guns blazing every single time, often to his detriment. Christian Rodriguez is one of the UFC's more put-upon young prospects, having been repeatedly chosen as the designated victim for fighters the company would really like to push. But he beat up Raul Rosas Jr. and Cameron Saaiman and Isaac Dulgarian and Austin Bashi anyway, even if repeated weight misses forced him from 135 to 145 as a punishment. One could make the mistake of seeing this as an attempt by the UFC to finally throw Christian a bone by letting him fight an established name. One would be wrong.

Five and a half months ago, Andre Fili was tipped for the prelims underscoring Henry Cejudo vs Song Kenan. Fili fought Melquizael Costa, and for just the third time in his very long career, and the first time in an entire decade, Fili got choked out. One month later, to my considerable chagrin, Costa got picked to add a little more power to the UFC's March 29 trip to Mexico City--so in his second fight in four weeks, he beat one Christian Rodriguez by a decision.

That is why this fight exists. The matchmakers want to feel something again, and they are getting their kicks by putting together the two guys who just got beat by the same man in a one-month span. This is the battle to determine who got beat worse. CHRISTIAN RODRIGUEZ BY DECISION is the call, but like Salieri before me, I know when God is mocking me.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Miles Johns (15-3 (1)) vs Jean Matsumoto (16-1)

If the last fight was a battle of neighbors in loss, this is a battle of neighbors in risky career decisions that did not pay off. Miles Johns has struggled to find purchase in the UFC. Like so, so many fighters he is tough as hell and extremely well-rounded, and like so, so many people who get described that generically, he's ten fights deep in his UFC tenure with very little to show for it. His repeated attempts at Bantamweight prominence got derailed by poorly-timed losses, and after spending the back half of 2024 waiting on a big breakout matchup with Cody Garbrandt that kept getting derailed by injuries, Johns decided to bet on himself and take a one-month's-notice bout with hot prospect Felipe Lima--at Featherweight. If it had worked, it would've been great! Instead Johns got completely shut out and now all that momentum is gone all over again.

Jean Matsumoto is in a similar space. He came up through the Contender Series as another big, promising, undefeated regional champion out of Brazil--through the rightfully-maligned Standout Fighting Tournament, one of those record-padding promotions that dares to ask questions like 'can our 10-1 prospect beat this 9-8 challenger who loses in the first round an awful lot'--and he legitimized himself internationally by fighting and winning in the LFA, which was plenty impressive. He rolled into the UFC and continued to pick up steam with solid if unspectacular wins, and he was scheduled for a gatekeeper's matchup with Chris Gutierrez, but abandoned it at the UFC's behest in favor of a short-notice fill-in against the king of all Bantamweight gatekeepers, Rob Font. And it was close! But ultimately, the split went to Font and Matsumoto has to fall back in line.

This seems more eminently winnable for him. Johns is the physically stronger man, but if he can't manhandle Jean he's going to get outpointed. JEAN MATSUMOTO BY DECISION.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Eryk Anders (17-8 (1)) vs Christian Leroy Duncan (11-2)

I refuse. I refuse! Do you remember when I wrote that one Eryk Anders fight write-up that was just an extended Babylon 5 joke about how painfully forgettable his fights are? That was almost three years ago! That was three fights ago and we are still here, by god, we are still here and we are not permitted to leave. There are three* men who have a reasonable claim to the title of greatest UFC champion of all time, and they're Georges St-Pierre, Demetrious Johnson and Anderson Silva, and most folks will pick Anderson because he could fight like a martial arts movie hero stepped off the screen and into real life, and that's a completely acceptable answer. He's one of the most iconic fighters in the history of fighting, and when Chris Weidman destroyed him--twice, and once nearly literally--it made Weidman a name overnight. He was the man who slew The Man. He Mattered.

Eryk Anders retired Chris Weidman in his last fight. He took one of the most important Middleweights in UFC history and slaughtered him so badly that he finally, mercifully left the UFC, and I will bet all of the money in my pockets against all of the money in your pockets** that you didn't remember it until I brought it up. That is the power of Eryk Anders. It's been six years that somehow felt like a decade and eighteen fights that felt like damn near one hundred, and I can name every titleholder in the UFC in order off the top of my head, but I could not tell you when the age of Anders began, nor when it will end.

We merely suffer. But we suffer together. ERYK ANDERS BY DECISION.
_{*Jon Jones does not count, because being stripped of a title three times and vacating it twice is just too big a roadblock to seriously consider the argument.
**I write leftist fight critique, there is no money in my pockets.}

PRELIMS: YOU HAVE TO DESTROY THE BRAIN
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Julius Walker (6-1) vs Raffael Cerqueira (11-2)

Six months ago, Julius "Juice Box" Walker was scheduled to fight Mark "The Wolf" Currier, who was 3-5, at Synergy Fighting Championship 19: Latchman vs Tabbytite. Instead, he was signed to the UFC and given the chance to compete for a ranking as one of the fifteen best Light Heavyweights on the planet. Eleven months ago, Raffael Cerqueira was scheduled to make an appearance on the Contender Series against the 9-1 Uran Satybaldiev. When Uran was injured, it became the 6-3 Patryk Grabowski. When Grabowski pulled out, it fell to the now 4-2 Francesco Mazzeo, at which point the UFC decided to acknowledge this was all pointless and simply sign Cerqueira to the UFC proper. Walker lost and is just now returning; Cerqueira got knocked out twice in four months.

Don't look away. This is it, man. This is the future. This is a preliminary headliner. Light Heavyweight is the model for the future of the UFC and we're all going to have to live with this kind of disposability in our sport when it becomes the unavoidable nature of reality. JULIUS WALKER BY TKO.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Elijah Smith (8-1) vs Toshiomi Kazama (11-4)

This isn't just America, either. Elijah Smith is the model of the modern UFC general: A rookie raised on other rookies who got picked up for the Contender Series before he could even get to his eighth professional fight and signed to the UFC before his twenty-third birthday. Toshiomi Kazama is the surprisingly consistent Japanese equivalent: A young man who joined Pancrase's Neo-Blood rookie tournament, won, and made it to ten professional mixed martial arts bouts having barely scraped proven competition. But Smith got to make his UFC debut against Vince Morales, a struggling prospect with a 3-8 company record; Kazama got the undefeated Rinya Nakamura and the tough out that was Garrett Armfield. Consequently, Smith is winning and a massive favorite, while Kazama just got his first UFC win in his last fight--which was already an entire year ago--and is remembered mostly for getting knocked out repeatedly.

He's also smaller and slower and he's probably going to have a very bad night. ELIJAH SMITH BY TKO.

WOMEN'S BANTAMWEIGHT: Joselyne Edwards (15-6, #14) vs Priscila Cachoeira (13-6, NR)

Joselyne Edwards is ten fights into her time in the UFC and only now finally getting somewhere. Those first nine bouts were a mixture of wins, losses and some all-time bad judging decisions in her favor, and Joselyne managing to miss weight in a full three of her six victories didn't really endear her to the fanbase or the matchmakers. But this past April she fought Chelsea Chandler--also a bit on the outs with the company for her inability to make weight--and blasted her out in just two and a half minutes, which finally earned Joselyne her spot in the rankings. It was supposed to set her up for a shot at former title contender Mayra Bueno Silva, too, but Mayra couldn't make it, so in her stead, we have Priscila Cachoeira. Back in March I wrote about Cachoeira somehow still being here despite being 4-6 and having not had a ranked win in years, but I discounted the fact that she still hits really fucking hard. She met Josiane Nunes, my favorite human tank, and punched her out in the first round.

And now I must return to doubting her entirely. JOSELYNE EDWARDS BY DECISION.

WELTERWEIGHT: Uroš Medić (10-3) vs Gilbert Urbina (7-3)

Oh, Gilbert Urbina. We had hopes for you, once. Urbina was a semifinalist on The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ) but got punched off the show by Tresean Gore, and as anyone who watched Tresean Gore miss weight and get outstruck by Rodolfo Vieira last week can attest, that is a loss that has aged very, very unfortunately. Urbina's career, at this point, exists to form a sort of cascading sequence of mixed martial misery. The man who knocked him off TUF? 2-4 in the company. Orion Cosce, the one man Urbina beat under the UFC's banner? 1-2 in the company. Cosce's single win? Israel Adesanya's training partner Blood Diamond, who went 0-3 in the UFC and has not won an MMA fight at all in more than five years. And now he pins his hopes for a corporate future on Uroš Medić, who is barely afloat at 4-3, just got dropped in thirty-one seconds by Punahele Soriano, and has a deeply unfortunate history of getting repeatedly stomped into dust by grapplers.

But I still value his striking skills over Gilbert's tendency to lead with his chin. UROŠ MEDIĆ BY TKO.

WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Gabriella Fernandes (10-3) vs Julija Stoliarenko (11-8-1)

No one is going to care about this except me, because I am a broken obsessive, but this is the kind of stuff that's quietly ruining the sport and for all the apathetic excuses we collectively come up with about how companies value entertainment over sport, this is, at its core, a sport. The entirety of combat sports is built around the inherent promise that the best fighters will succeed and success will propel you upwards. But Martin Buday got cut last week despite being 7-1 at Heavyweight, Taylor Lapilus got cut on a two-fight winning streak, and Gabriella Fernandes is here. If you've been watching the UFC, there's at least some chance you recognize Wang Cong. She's one of the UFC's spearheads for getting more out of the Chinese market, an undefeated wrecking machine they really wanted to get into the rankings, and when the company went to Macau last November they made damn well sure she was on the televised main card fighting a 1-2 woman she was a -1000 favorite to beat. That woman was Gabriella Fernandes, and in front of a shocked crowd, Gabriella choked Cong unconscious. While this is obviously not what they wanted, back in the old days, the UFC operated on a the-house-always-wins policy. Sure, your marketing favorite lost, but on the plus side, Gabriella Fernandes just went to China and destroyed a -1000 favorite in her own territory. You could market the shit out of that!

This is the first time since that fight last November that Gabriella has been booked. In the same period of time, Wang Cong got a tune-up fight against a woman who competes a weight class down and a ranked fight against Ariane da Silva, who, conveniently, was on a two-fight losing streak. Both fights were attached to high-exposure pay-per-view prelims.

Gabriella is fighting an unranked woman in the Apex. Until twelve hours ago this was actually curtain-jerking the card; it has since been supplanted by Cody Brundage vs Eric McConico, which was just booked on Monday.

It shouldn't suck this much. It doesn't have to and it didn't always. GABRIELLA FFERNANDES BY DECISION.

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Cody Brundage (11-6-1 (1)) vs Eric McConico (9-3-1)

And then there's this, a fight that, undeniably, exists. Cody Brundage is the living embodiment of the modern chaos of the UFC. He was supposed to be a rehabilitation fight for our old buddy Tresean Gore, and he knocked him out, and then he got destroyed three times in a row. He was supposed to get beaten again and released, but instead he got the rare DQ victory after Jacob Malkoun elbowed him in the brainstem. Despite being elbowed in the brainstem the UFC had him back in the cage nine weeks later to be fed to their new Contender Series darling Zach Reese, and Brundage powerbombed him to death in a minute and a half. So they let him go get destroyed by Bo Nickal for his troubles, and then he got a No Contest because Abdul Razak Alhassan somehow also elbowed him in the brainstem but this time it only got a No Contest, so they tried to serve him up to TUF winner Ryan Loder but he couldn't make it so instead we got Brundage vs Julian Marquez, who hadn't won a fight in four years and is best known for trying to date Miley Cyrus and after Brundage won that the UFC sent him to yet another undefeated Contender Series prospect who somehow also flagrantly fouled Brundage by headbutting the shit out of him and the fight had to be waved off to a technical decision except the technical decision was administered against state regulations so now it's a Draw instead and what fucking subreality does this entire career arc exist in and how damned are we to be witnessing it happen in realtime.

Eric McConico got signed by the UFC four days ahead of his debut because they wanted Nursulton Ruziboev to have a warm body. He is 2 for 2 on the company booking him into fights as filler with less than a week to prepare. This is the Super Bowl of combat sports. CODY BRUNDAGE BY TKO.