CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 178: EROSION
UFC Fight Night: Moicano vs Duncan
SATURDAY, APRIL 4 FROM THE GREAT WASTES OF THE APEX
PRELIMS 2 PM PDT / 5 PM EDT | MAIN CARD 5 PM / 8 PM
There are three ranked fighters out of twenty-four on this card, the highest-ranked ones aren’t in the main event, and Tommy McMillen vs Manolo Zecchini is a main card fight.
I could write more, but I don’t know that a better joke exists.
MAIN EVENT: A HEADLINER IN ANY ARENA
LIGHTWEIGHT: Renato Moicano (20-7-1, #10) vs Chris Duncan (15-2, NR)
One of the most interesting parts of following this sport since its inception has been witnessing multiple generations of fans find their points of entry, frustrate themselves to the point of departure, and see their era of the sport wiped away by revisionist history. Fans of the nascent no-rules bloodsport days were bored by MMA’s turn towards regulation and professionalism and saw their era written out of the sport’s origin story because it was barbaric, ugly, and, most importantly, impossible to attribute to the business genius of Dana White, protagonist of the world. The mainstream fan boom from the drama of The Ultimate Fighter led to fans who were widely maligned as uninformed casual viewers (because lord knows everyone who watches sports has to be an expert) and the era of sterile corporate genericizing drove them away and deemed their time with the sport as embarrassing and insufficiently profitable. The McGregor Era brought in a massive new audience and the most money mixed martial arts had ever seen, but the trade-off was having to deal with Conor fucking McGregor, and as the UFC desperately chased more of him rather than building new stars, they lost those eyeballs entirely.
We bid farewell to the ESPN era at the start of this year. It wasn’t a particularly fun time to be a mixed martial arts fan. There were high points--there always are--but the reduction in card quality, the growth in antipathy towards the fanbase and the open embrace of the right wing all sapped a great deal of the joy out of following the UFC. And yet, when we learned that the ESPN era was ending and ushering in the Paramount era, one that would give the UFC its biggest operating budget ever and give them greater connection to the fans by killing the boundaries of pay-per-view, instead of celebrating, I was deeply concerned.
I really hope this leads to something good. There's no reason it can't! This could easily lead to increased fighter pay, an emphasis on higher-quality cards and better, less sterile production. After all, they just made seven point seven billion fucking dollars. There's no reason everything shouldn't get better!
Except that they already made seven point seven billion fucking dollars.
I hope I am wrong but I think things are on a trajectory to get worse than they have ever been.
We're only now settling into the Apex era of the sport, and as more and more longtime fans fall away from the sport in its current state, I have noticed a growing sentiment amongst the modern-day faithful that older fans are, in fact, whiny babies. The UFC isn't worse, we are, and instead of paying attention to what's actually happening and getting invested in the Contender Series we only care about old, retiring fighters. Our complaints about card quality have nothing to do with the actual quality of said cards, and are, instead, a sole measurement of our own disenchantment with a sport that has outgrown us.
I respect it. I respect standing up for the validity of the era that you, yourself, found a passion for something. When I fell in love with mixed martial arts Keith Hackney was a star, I understand digging your heels into the dirt and defending what you care about, however ugly it might be. "Things were better back in my day" is one of the rustiest axioms there is. Some things will always be better in the past. Some things will always be worse.
But all of those things are collectively irrelevant, because you are defending the era that gives us Renato Moicano vs Chris Duncan as a main event.
This wasn't an accident. This isn't one of those cases where Derrick Lewis gets sick or Maycee Barber has a seizure and suddenly you're stuck with Main Event Ion Cuțelaba. They intended to do this. They did this on purpose. We're only three out of eighty-four months into this bright new no-pay-per-view era of the sport and already, just 3.6% of the way into it, we are at the point where a fight between a man who's only ever main evented as a B-side against a man who isn't even close to a ranking is a completely sensible headliner.
That is how little they think of their cards. That is how little they think of you.
Renato Moicano has never been the guy. They've given him chances, they've tested the waters, and every time he's been thrown into them he's drowned. Brian Ortega was choking him out damn near a decade ago. Chan Sung Jung was already in the twilight of his career when he flattened Moicano in a single minute. Rafael Fiziev destroyed him. Rafael dos Anjos destroyed him. Renato Moicano is, canonically, the last person José Aldo ever knocked out in combat sports.
Hell, the single biggest moment of his career was a mistake. He was slated to have an outer-top-ten fight with Beneil Dariush the week Arman Tsarukyan infamously fucked up the main event of UFC 311, and despite Dariush being right there and higher-ranked, the UFC decided to give Moicano the shot. And he talked his shit, and he vowed to shock the world, and then, as one does, he got choked out in a single round. Five months later they gave him his originally-planned shot at Beneil's ranking anyway, Beneil beat him, and they were going to have The Rematch Of The Guys Who Keep Losing by giving Ortega his long-awaited Lightweight debut against Moicano but Ortega's body won't stop imploding so instead, we're here.
With Chris Duncan.
Chris Duncan is a good fighter. Yes, getting knocked out by Slava Claus is a little unfortunate, but having a funny loss in your background is a prerequisite for greatness in mixed martial arts.* Duncan hits hard, punches straight, and has gotten very, very good at jumping on chokes when the opportunity presents itself. A four-fight winning streak is a great accomplishment at any division, let alone Lightweight.
*Khabib, you know as well as I do what happened in the Gleison Tibau fight.
But the best person Duncan beat during that streak was either Terrance McKinney, who got knocked silly by Ismael Bonfim, or Mateusz Rębecki, who got his lights shut out by a going-on-40 Diego Ferreira. Your other two choices are Bolaji Oki, who stands now at a whopping 2-3, and Jordan Vucenic, whom the UFC valued so highly that they cut him right after Duncan submitted him.
Funny story. Beneil Dariush, the man who beat Renato Moicano? His next fight after that was a match-up with Benoît Saint Denis, whom Moicano had recently destroyed. Chris Duncan's last loss came at the hands of Manuel Torres back in 2024, and now Duncan is fighting for a spot in the top ten, and the UFC tried to book him into a fight for #12 against--once again--Beneil Dariush.
It's okay if you like this. It's great if you like this. Combat sports can be a beautiful thing and they exist to provide joy. But don't let them convince you they're not breaking that beauty down into the cheapest possible chunks they can before they sell it to you, nor that your fandom, in the post-pay-per-view age, isn't being measured in terms of what the absolute minimum value is that they can possibly give you before the joy you derive is no longer worth the time you spend, just as it did for your forefather fans.
Set your own value as a fan of the sport. Don't let the sport dictate it for you. I may like Duncan but I cannot stop seeing the way Torres wrapped him up in the back of my eyelids when I think about this fight. RENATO MOICANO BY SUBMISSION.
CO-MAIN EVENT: A MAIN EVENT IN A BETTER SPORT
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Virna Jandiroba (22-4, #3) vs Tabatha Ricci (12-3, #7)
Virna: I'm still mad at you.
I know the deck was stacked against you. I know they picked you to face Mackenzie Dern for the vacant Strawweight belt because you were the only top contender she'd already beaten before. I know your style is 90% grappling by volume and another, better grappler is your kryptonite, but we were relying on you to save us from the marketing future. You could have stopped this from happening. Now it's 2026 and Mackenzie's already almost half a year into a title reign the UFC spent years trying to set up and now has no idea what to do with.
You could have saved us and now you are stuck having to save yourself, because Virna: This is it. This is the plan for you now. You're a grappler who lost a shot at the top but you're too goddamn dangerous for them to trust with the ascension of anyone they care about. You already fucked up Loopy Godinez and Xiaonan Yan for them, they don't want it happening again. I don't know if you've looked out the window and glanced past the rest of your division, but Tatiana Suarez, the top contender, is fighting halfway down the rankings against Loopy in the vain hope that they can trade their tarnished wrestler for a slightly more marketable wrestler who hasn't yet lost a title fight.
So congratulations, Tabatha. Even though you are on a one-fight winning streak, even though your only wins in the last three years came against women of perpetual suffering, even though you have losses to Loopy and Xiaonan younger than the entire UFC careers of multiple title contenders and you really should have lost that decision to Tecia Pennington back in 2024, you're on deck. In total fairness: Your last fight was pretty fucking brutal. After an entire career spent using her judo background and her grappling strengths to control her opponents and cruise to decisions, Tabatha notched her first knockout victory in almost half a decade by smashing Amanda Ribas in the face with her elbow until she broke the same orbital bone Maycee Barber had already fucked up a couple years prior.
That goes a long way in women's MMA. Whether I hate it or not, finishes--knockouts, if we're being really honest--are the biggest currency in the sport. Joselyne Edwards went from toiling away in prelims to fighting for the #3 spot at Women's Bantamweight not because her competition got better, but because she started knocking them out and dumping them on their heads. Ricci smashed her way into this position and I cannot complain about her commitment to facial violence being rewarded.
But I don't think it's gonna pay off for her. Virna's bigger, stronger, and a fantastic grappler in her own right; Ricci's best chances might be on the feet and I'm not convinced she can keep Virna off her long enough to make it count. VIRNA JANDIROBA BY DECISION.
MAIN CARD: A MAIN CARD NOWHERE
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev (8-0) vs Brendson Ribeiro (17-9 (1))
What did we say when Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev made his UFC debut last November, again?
AbdulRakhman Yakyaev certainly appears to be a legitimately talented fighter. He held gold in France, he’s shown off both decent striking and wrestling, he’s looked altogether impressive if not yet wholly tested. Who does the UFC put in front of him for his contract test? Alik Lorenz, who’s been fighting guys with losing or near-losing records in the LFA for almost his entire career. Shockingly, Lorenz got knocked out in thirty seconds. How do you follow that up in Yakhyaev’s debut?
You feed him Raffael Cerqueira, who’s already 0-3 in the UFC and has gotten knocked insensible in two of those performances. Sorry, Raffi.
The UFC got exactly what it wanted. Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev (sidenote: I wish the UFC had any consistency in how they transliterate names) got his next soft lunch in Abu Dhabi and disposed of him effortlessly. He landed an instant spinning wheel kick, punched Cerqueira across the cage, dropped him with a headkick and choked him out in thirty-three seconds, because when you are a four-figure favorite, that is what you are supposed to do. But, hey: You got it! You got the big highlight. Your new guy got on the show and he crushed a dude and now we can give him a more reasonable test, right?
Right! Right. Silly question. You give him Brendson Ribeiro, who is 2-4 in the UFC and has been knocked out in 3/4 of his losses. How could you do anything else? You need to give him another crazy knockout so you can put contextless clips on Twitter to try to convince the five people who still care that he’s the next big thing, and then, maybe, you can give him a fight with stiffer competition like Austen Lane or, possibly, the ring cap on a can of potted meat.
ABDUL RAKHMAN YAKHYAEV BY TKO.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Rafael Estevam (14-0) vs Ethyn Ewing (9-2)
This is an extremely rad fight under slightly unfortunate circumstances. Rafael Estevam was one of the UFC’s most promising prospects at Flyweight. Undefeated, well-rounded, a smart defensive fighter who knows how not to overextend himself--in one of the toughest divisions for prospects to break through, Rafael ran up a three-fight winning streak that included no less than Charles Johnson, the man who beat the champ. You may have subtly noticed that Rafael is not in that division anymore. In three fights at Flyweight Rafael only actually made weight once, and that doesn’t even include his originally-scheduled debut getting scratched after he botched the cut so badly he didn’t even make it to the scale. However promising a prospect you may be, if you can’t make the division, you can’t fight in it.
But he’s not giving up any size here, and that’s especially funny, because Estevam is coming up from Flyweight while Ethyn Ewing is coming down from Featherweight. All of his success down on the regional circuit came from the 135-pound division, but last November saw promotional superprospect Malcolm Wellmaker lose two opponents in rapid succession, and the UFC needed a last-minute replacement, and Ethyn was willing to take the risk. I heavily doubted him, and like the rest of the world, I was dead wrong. Ewing went up against one of the scariest knockout artists in the lower weight classes as a massive underdog and just marched right through his offense. He outstruck him, he outwrestled him, he made an immediate name for himself, and, in a sign of genuine smarts, he immediately went back to the weight class he knows best.
Comedy option: Fight never happens because Estevam pulls the Kelvin Gastelum/Bryan Battle tribute act and misses weight even worse at a higher class. Failing that? It’s a genuinely interesting one and given how Estevam’s biggest weakness was his tendency to get tired as fights wore on, moving up to 135 could be great for his gas tank. But I just like Ewing’s moxie too much to rule him out. ETHYN EWING BY DECISION.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Tommy McMillen (9-0) vs Manolo Zecchini (11-4)
There’s a reason I singled this fight out in the introductory blurb as a singular example of how far we’ve fallen. Somehow, impossibly, I have seen hype for this--specifically, for Tommy McMillen. He’s undefeated! He’s stopped almost everyone he’s fought! He’s a Tim Welch student who trains with Sean O’Malley and has styled himself with the same fauxfro-and-bad-tattoos getup! He had a great comeback to win the decision in his Contender Series fight!
All of that is true! It is also true that what got him on DWCS was beating the 21-27 Dumar “El Legendario Samurai” Roa, who fights almost once a month and is currently 1 for his last 15. The man McMillen beat for his UFC contract was David Mgoyan, who got there with a thrilling victory over the 9-17 Luciano “El Aguila” Ramos, who is a far more palatable 1 for his last 12. And Mgoyan dropped McMillen, nearly knocked him out and damn near choked him unconscious, and McMillen only barely escaped a draw.
Who do they have waiting to complete this story, now that he’s in the big show? Why, it’s Manolo “Angelo Veneziano” Zecchini, who has spent nearly his entire career fighting overmatched opponents with more losses than wins. He’s got one fight in the last three and a half years, and that was his UFC debut in 2023 where Morgan Charrière--who is, also, 3-3 in the UFC--folded him in half with body kicks in one round.
Of this, main cards are made. Tommy is a -1000 favorite and he absolutely should be, this entire campaign is an attempt to lay the groundwork for a marketing darling and I’m fully aware TOMMY MCMILLEN BY TKO is the extremely likely result, but Manolo catching him would please the part of me that hates these fucking setups.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Robert Ruchała (11-2) vs José Delano (16-3)
When first we saw Robert Ruchała last September I wrote that he was one of the UFC’s better international pickups, a champion in Poland’s KSW whose only career loss came against Salahdine Parnasse, one of the best fighters in the world, and despite matching him up against France’s William Gomis on his home turf in Paris they were likely hoping Robert could end William’s streak of split decisions. He succeeded, in that he is now the first person to ever lose a unanimous decision to Gomis in the UFC. Robert’s first round was solid, but Gomis was able to adjust to his aggression and Robert didn’t have an answer for his range, and if I am overanalyzing this one fight, it’s because we haven’t seen Robert in the seven months since and his UFC career has a sample size of one.
But that’s one more than José Delano, who is making his promotional debut after winning his Contender Series contract last August, and I’ll tell you, man, if this was the general product DWCS was putting out, I’d complain a lot fucking less. In the land of untested prospects against the trash collectors of the sport, José stands out as the tier of competitor that’s already done the damn thing. He’s experienced, he’s fought some extremely legitimate competition, he held gold at Featherweight out in the Legacy Fighting Alliance, his only loss in almost a decade came against the criminally underrated Gabriel Santos, and his tape is just fucking fun to watch. His takedown defense is on point, his ability to dart in and out of range behind his back hand is stellar, and until the day he gets knocked out doing it, I’m gonna enjoy it.
Hell, I’m gonna enjoy this. When I talk about expecting more from the sport, this is part of it. This is a well-trod LFA champion against an already-accomplished KSW champion. They’re both solid and experienced and fluent in a martial language other than striving for viral knockouts at all cost. They could do this more often instead of giving you Tommy McMillen vs The Spirit of Italy thirty-three times a year. JOSÉ DELANO BY DECISION.
PRELIMS: I GUESS THIS IS ABOUT RIGHT FOR HERE, THOUGH
HEAVYWEIGHT: Thomas Petersen (10-4) vs Guilherme Pat (6-0)
Last week, Tyrell Fortune beat Marcin Tybura to become the #10-ranked Heavyweight in the UFC. It was his first fight in the company. Rizvan Kuniev is #7 despite being just 1-1 in the company, thanks to his victory over the 8-3 Jailton Almeida, who was cut from the UFC immediately after the fight. Tallison Teixeira, who is #12, 2-1, and just got knocked out by Derrick Lewis, has a shot at the #3-ranked Sergei Pavlovich next month. Curtis Blaydes is #5 and has only ever lost to world title contenders, and next week he’s defending his spot against the unranked Josh Hokit, who is going from the absolute outer reaches of the division to top contendership because he can cut lukewarm 1980s professional wrestling promos. The interim title is about to be contested by Ciryl Gane, who has failed to win the world championship in three separate attempts, and Alex Pereira, who has never fought at Heavyweight before in his life, and this will be the second time in the last three years that Heavyweight gold will hang in the balance for a Light Heavyweight fighter.
Guilherme Pat has one fight against a man with a winning record in his entire career, and it was in his UFC debut last December, and the man he beat, Allen Frye Jr., was one fight removed from an MMA event held at the gymnasium of a water park in Arkansas. It was terrible, as was Pat’s victory. Thomas Petersen is 2-3 in the UFC since his debut two years ago, and in those two years, 3/5 of the men he’s fought--including Jamal Pogues, who beat him--have been removed from the roster.
We talk almost weekly about how bad Heavyweight is, but you are not prepared for how bad it has yet to become. THOMAS PETERSEN BY DECISION.
FLYWEIGHT: Alessandro Costa (14-5) vs Stewart Nicoll (8-2)
As much as I could very easily play the same ‘hey, look, it’s a preliminary fight between two largely unsuccessful guys the UFC doesn’t know what to do with’ here, I don’t have to, because I am safe under the warm, comfortable blanket of the Flyweight division. Alessandro Costa got to the big show on the back of victory over a career jobber and now has more UFC losses than wins and just got blown out of the water by a debuting Alden Coria, and Stewart Nicoll was brought into the corporate fold as yet another Australian fighter meant to bolster the subsidy benefits the UFC gets from the Australian governmentshowcase the prowess of their regional scene, and he, too, got immediately choked out by Jesus Aguilar and dominated by Lucas Rocha, and there’s a pretty good chance neither guy is ever going to crack the top of the division, and it’s Flyweight, so that’s fine. It’ll be fast and sharp and fun and whoever wins will get to go fight Park Hyun-sung in Baku or something.
ALESSANDRO COSTA BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Lando Vannata (12-7-2) vs Darrius Flowers (12-8-1)
Remember at the top of this write-up, when I excoriated the ‘the old-school fans need to let go’ mindset? This is the one place where it is true. We need to let go of Lando Vannata. We had one beautiful moment where Lando burst onto the scene and nearly stopped Tony Ferguson at the height of his power, and he looked unorthodox and creative and tough as nails, and we all, collectively, lost our shit at the promise held in his strangely gesticulating hands. Everyone wanted the Lando Vannata future, and my friends: This is the Lando Vannata future. We made it. That fight was ten fucking years ago. That fight happened when Barack Obama was still in office. He hasn’t come up with one single back to back victory in the last decade of his life. Every person he’s beaten has at best been out of the UFC for years or at worst has outright retired. He’s pulled out of four fights in the last five years and only made it to the cage twice. Lando’s ship has sailed. We need to be realistic about the dark, terrible times we live in and finally let this one go. We need to embrace reality. The world is cold, the universe is cruel, and your new hero is Darrius Flowers, who has been here for almost four years and has never won a UFC fight and was last seen getting squashed by Evan Elder. And that’s fine! That’s the world and we just need to grow up and accept things the way they are and stop thinking about spinning wheel kicks that are as dated now as slap bracelets and Chrono Trigger.
But I fucking love slap bracelets and Chrono Trigger. LANDO VANNATA BY TKO.
WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT: Hailey Cowan (7-4) vs Alice Pereira (5-1)
We spoke a summoning incantation back in February, and it has come to fruition.
The Contender Series provides virtually all of the UFC's roster replacements nowadays, they've signed somewhere around 400+ contracts off it--not including random late replacement signings--and about 250 of those were in just the last five years. Do you know how many of those 250 contracts went to fighters at Women's Bantamweight?
One.
They signed Hailey Cowan four years ago and then she lost and they gave up.
You may have missed it at the time, but they wanted Hailey. She didn't get the kind of full-court press the UFC reserves for its male talents--even Kayla fucking Harrison debuted on the prelims under Calvin Kattar and Bo Nickal--but by the standards of 7-2 Contender Series winners, they were positively aglow. Hell, when Hailey got scratched from her legally obligated Apex debut, they booked her on an honest-to-god road show. And then she missed that. And then when she finally showed up, she missed weight, too. But she sure didn't miss Jamey-Lyn Horth punching her in the face dozens of times. It took two years for Hailey to come back from that loss, and once again, the UFC put her on a road show--a road show with Alexander Volkanovski and Paddy Pimblett on it, no less--and she got choked out in seven minutes by Nora Cornolle. Now the old must meet the new, as Alice Pereira's hype also needs rescuing. "Golden Girl" came into the UFC with a bit of intrigue that almost exclusively came from people who thought she was Alex Pereira's kickboxing sister, which, for the record, is AliNe Pereira, who is fighting on Netflix's Carano/Rousey card next month. Alice is the regional lady who'd never beaten anyone with a solid record and used her height and reach advantage to throw too many flying knees and get caught with haymakers from way too far out on a regular basis. The UFC tried to give her an at least vaguely gentle landing by booking her to debut against Montserrat Rendon, who has been equally historically unsuccessful, and Pereira couldn't manage to get past her, either.
Y'know, Hailey won her DWCS fight by a narrow split decision, and the woman she beat, Cláudia Leite, is 3-0 since then. They don't have space for her, apparently. No problem with Hailey Cowan, though. The odds are dead even on this one, not because it is hotly anticipated, but because no one knows what to make of either of them or if there's any reason they should still be here. I'm gonna say HAILEY COWAN BY DECISION because I think she's just a bit more well-rounded.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Azamat Bekoev (20-4) vs Tresean Gore (5-4)
Azamat Bekoev, you are the latest example of just how vicious the pace of this sport can be. One fight ago Bekoev was on a four-year, eight-fight winning streak, had just successfully entered the UFC by punching out Ryan Loder, winner of The Ultimate Fighter 32 (jesus christ) in a single round, and was widely heralded as a real Middleweight prospect. Then, this past October, he engaged in a back-and-forth war with a debuting Yousri Belgaroui and got knocked out in the third round. Now? He's stuck with Tresean Gore, whose career highlight is either choking out Josh Fremd or almost winning the season of The Ultimate Fighter that gave us Bryan Battle and Ricky Turcios. Gore had a lot of promise, man! But then his body broke down and his training plateaued and now he's missing weight and losing decisions to Rodolfo Vieira, a man famous for having a bad gas tank.
On the plus side, Azamat: They want you to win and they set this up to rehabilitate you, which means they see genuine value in you. On the minus side, if you somehow lose to Tresean Gore you are going in the Bog of Eternal Stench for the duration of your contract. AZAMAT BEKOEV BY TKO.
WOMEN'S FLYWEIGHT: Dione Barbosa (8-4) vs Melissa Gatto (9-2-2)
It's real rough to not get ranked in the top fifteen when you're in one of the least populated divisions in the company. Both Dione and Melissa are essentially 2-2 in the UFC--Gatto's technically 3-2, but the third win was a short-notice Bantamweight bout against Tamires Vidal, so we can dismiss it as non-canonical--and it's a bit tough to divine the boundaries of their successes and failures from it, because the ebbs and flows of Flyweight mean you're talking about going from fighting genuine contenders like Miranda Maverick or Tracy Cortez to, say, Diana Belbiţă or Victoria Leonardo. We also haven't seen Gatto in almost two years, where we just watched Barbosa run back a six year-old regional bout with Karine Silva and come up short this time, because fighting in the UFC is harder than fighting in Pinhais.
Either way: DIONE BARBOSA BY DECISION.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Dakota Hope (11-1) vs Kai Kamaka III (17-7-1)
This got added to the card on Monday, and unlike most short-notice fights it wasn't a replacement or a substitution, just one of those cases where the UFC decides their event isn't quite good enough as booked and what it needs is the Fury Fighting Championships giving up their main event so the Apex can live. Dakota Hope was going to fight Carlos Calderon for FFC's Featherweight belt in mid-May, but instead, he's taking his winging punches and lunging haymakers to the UFC so he can welcome Kai Kamaka III back to the company. Sharp memories may recall Kai having a UFC stint back in 2021, which got him cut after a somewhat uninspiring 1-2-1, but he went on to be a mainstay in Bellator's Featherweight division and even took PFL champion Brendan Loughnane to a split decision in what was probably his career-best performance, even in loss.
It's good to have him back and hopefully this stint goes better than the first. KAI KAMAKA III BY DECISION.