CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 193: A GEOGRAPHY LESSON
UFC Fight Night: Medić vs Rodriguez
SATURDAY, AUGUST 1 FROM THE BELGRADE ARENA IN BELGRADE, SERBIA
EARLY START TIME WARNING | PRELIMS 7 AM PDT / 10 AM EDT | MAIN CARD 10 AM / 1 PM | EARLY START TIME WARNING
There was a time when I would have really enjoyed the phrase “UFC Serbia” as a testament to the growth and universal appeal of mixed martial arts. To some extent, that kind of self-identification with the product is how we wound up in this particularly terrible present day for the sport, but when Pride died the UFC became the sole global face of mixed martial arts, and expanding the sport internationally meant falling in line. People used to talk about MMA joining the Olympics, man. People used to wonder what the future of MMA as a fully globalized industry would look like--interpromotional title fights, grand prix tournaments across national borders, a world cup of combat sports!
We’re here. We made it. It turns out the face of international mixed martial arts is Uroš Medić vs Daniel Rodriguez as a main event.
MAIN EVENT: SPORT AS A SECONDARY FACTOR
WELTERWEIGHT: Uroš Medić (13-3, #14) vs Daniel Rodriguez (20-5, #15)
This is it. This is the end of our long, dark month of terrible main events. We survived the Conor McGregor comeback tour, we shrugged our way through Kamaru Usman’s Middleweight title eliminator, we stared in disbelief as Bogdan Guskov got a shot at the top of the 205-pound ladder. Next week, we’re free. Next week we emerge from our cocoon of bad fights into a long string of genuinely good main events. Mateusz Gamrot vs Quillan Salkilld! Anthony Hernandez vs Gregory Rodrigues! Umar Nurmagomedov vs Song Yadong! The UFC finally signed Salahdine Parnasse and he’s main eventing in Paris against Dan Hooker! Our first actual title fight in two goddamn months, and it’s Islam Makhachev vs Ian Machado Garry!
It’s a legitimately great run. It’s the kind of cleansing string of cards that makes you feel motivated to watch this sport, for all of the terrible things it chooses to do to the world and to you, as a fan, for caring about it.
But that’s next week.
This week, you have to survive Main Event Uroš Medić.
Is he on a winning streak? Sure! Granted, two of them were Muslim Salikhov and Gilbert Urbina--more on that later--but he knocked out Geoff Neal! Geoff Neal matters, right? Why, I remember Geoff Neal being nigh-unto a contender once upon a time!
That time was four years ago. In the last four years Neal is 1 for 5 and said win was Rafael dos Anjos, who was fighting on his honest-to-god 40th birthday, which made it especially funny when his knee collapsed ninety seconds into the fight. By the transitive property, Uroš is a ranked fighter because Rafael dos Anjos doesn’t have any cartilage left in his kneecaps.
Before that, Medić was a good-but-not-great competitor. He tried his hand at Lightweight, he went 1-2 and the weight cut kept killing him, so he moved up to Welterweight and promptly went 2-2. But those two pick-offs were Matthew Semelsberger, who got cut shortly after on a losing record, and Tim Means, who was, also, past 40. Mytykbek Orolbai tapped Uroš easily and Punahele Soriano punched his head into the third row in thirty-one seconds.
Hell, Punahele’s on a four-fight winning streak. If we still believed in the UFC’s line about the best rising to the top, he’d be here. He is not here. He isn’t booked at all right now, actually.
But Uroš is Serbian, and we’re in Serbia, so by god, let the man in. Who do we have to fight him? Well, fortunately, Daniel Rodriguez just got out of a Mexican prison.
Just to be clear, that’s not some dumb joke. Daniel’s been plagued by problems maintaining momentum thanks to poorly-timed losses and a history of hand injuries, so when he finally ran up a three-fight winning streak last year that culminated in a win over Kevin Holland only to drop off the face of the Earth again, everyone--by which I mean the incredibly small handful of people still plugged into mixed martial arts enough to know or care about Daniel Rodriguez--wondered if he was having contract issues or if he’d busted his hand up again.
Nope! Mexican prison. He got busted crossing the border to Tijuana with an ounce of weed in his backpack, got stuck in prison for eight months, and only narrowly avoided a six-year sentence over it. At one point he was going to be fighting for a top ten berth in one of the sport’s best divisions and then he left an 11th-grader’s sandwich bag worth of reefer in his car and that was most of a year of his life gone, because we are still, collectively, really fucking weird about marijuana*.
*In full disclosure: I am not cool enough to smoke weed.
Only a few months ago D-Rod said the UFC sent him a contract to fight Leon Edwards for International Fight Week. I wonder if being in a main event in Serbia instead carries any kind of comfort. I wonder if knowing the UFC values him so much that they’d shunt him towards hopefully putting over their biggest Serbian fighter in Serbia makes him feel any better about his professional comeback.
I dunno. I do know I still don’t really believe all that strongly in Uroš Medić. He hits like a fucking truck, there’s no way to doubt that unless you’re covering your eyes and screaming every time he fights, which, in all fairness, is a fully acceptable way to survive being a mixed martial arts fan in 2026. But his best work comes against people who are willing to trade recklessly, and Daniel’s always been good, to a fault, at keeping his distance, flicking jabs, and slowing the pace of a fight all the way down if it means he doesn’t catch a fist upside the head.
As always, though: That was a year ago. Is another long layoff, this time in prison, going to mess with his head? Is nearing 40 going to take a toll on his defensive speed? Will Uroš feel the power of Serbia surging through his veins?
Are you emotionally invested in the answer? You should not be. The main event of this show is Uroš Medić vs Daniel Rodriguez. That is a main event in the UFC. This is the first time in a longi time that I have more to say about a co-main than its main, and if I am going to make fun of the Professional Fighters League for Main Event Salamat Isbulaev, I can at least be fair enough to know this sucks ass, too. DANIEL RODRIGUEZ BY DECISION.
CO-MAIN EVENT: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH, PART 2
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Jan Błachowicz (29-11-2, #4) vs Navajo Stirling (10-0, #15)
But last week, Khalil Rountree Jr. got injured. This left the UFC in a pickle. Fortunately, Jan Błachowicz and Bogdan Guskov were scheduled for a fight on the UFC’s card in Serbia next week, in an attempt to
get Jan out of the rankings once and for allrun back the majority draw they went to last December, but that means Jan was fresh and available. It even made perfect sense as a fight. Jan’s the #4-ranked man in the division, he’s a former world champion, and he and Ankalaev also have unfinished business--back in 2022 they fought for the then-vacant title and it ended in a controversial split draw.
The two highest-ranked available fighters, and they’re both former champions and multiple-time main event talents, and they have a built-in backstory to finish. It’s rare that the universe gives you a better replacement fight than the original would’ve been, but the gods of combat smiled on the UFC and sent them a gift.
So anyway, Jan’s fighting the unranked Navajo Stirling next week. Ank’s got Bogdan.
Well, thank god they made the right decision, because Magomed Ankalaev vs Bogdan Guskov was a terrible fight that served only to remind the world that a) there are levels to this and b) Light Heavyweight is at its lowest possible point. It was the kind of fight that made the commentary team begin nervously discussing the way that, sure, Magomed is completely outclassing the opponent deemed an acceptable challenge for him, but is he, the undisputed #1 contender, winning impressively enough to justify getting a shot at the title?
You know. The prestigious Light Heavyweight title, whose champion is out until sometime next year and whose next logical top contender is Paulo Costa, a man whose only Light Heavyweight bout before 2026 was a decision loss to Marvin Vettori, who is, notably, not a Light Heavyweight. Did Magomed Ankalaev, who beat Alex Pereira and hasn’t lost to anyone but him in nearly a decade, do enough to justify being in the contendership discussion alongside such luminaries of the sport as Literally Fucking No One Because We Don’t Have Any Contenders Left Please God Can One Of Our Contender Series Wage Slaves Do Something To Separate Themselves From The Pack And Save Us From The Wreckage We’ve Made Of What Was Once The Most Popular Division In The Sport?
Oh, hey, Navajo Stirling. You heard us call your name.
Last week we played the “look at how we got here” game with Bogdan Guskov, and Navajo’s even less visible, so we’re going to go even deeper. We’re not just talking about his UFC tenure, this is The Full Navajo Stirling Story.
Debuts in his native New Zealand with a decision victory over fellow debutant James Craughwell, who eventually retires at 0-3; despite being between two 0-0 guys this fight is for the Shuriken Fight Series Heavyweight Championship
Defends his title by knocking out the 15-13-2 (1) Kevin Filtial, who has one victory in the last seven years and it came against Ben Schneider, a 3-29-1 Welsh fighter who mysteriously loses almost all of his fights by TKO within 90 seconds
Stops Stu “Tumbleweed” Dare, a 9-8 Heavyweight out of Tasmania
Becomes a two-division champion after winning the HEX Light Heavyweight title against Sam Kei, who promptly retires at 8-9
Wins his UFC contract on the Contender Series after knocking out Phillip “The Doctor” Latu, who is 6-1 at the time; Latu is now 7-5, including somehow losing a decision--a decision--against Greg Hardy
Makes his official UFC debut with a decision over Tuco Tokkos, who is cut from the UFC a year and a half later after going 1-3
Earns another decision victory over Ivan Erslan, who is cut from the UFC a year later after going 1-3, with that one win being, of course, Tuco Tokkos; this is demoted to the prelims
Gets a decision over Rodolfo Bellato, which makes Rodolfo officially 1-1-1 (1) in the UFC; as of March, he now has two wins; you better believe this was a fuckin’ prelim
Knocks out Bruno Lopes, who is 1-2 in the UFC and was once denied a Contender Series contract after getting knocked out by Brendson Ribeiro, who, as of last week, is 2-6; this fight is even LOWER on the prelims
Outlasts Ion Cuțelaba, who is 9-11-1 in the UFC and has never beaten a ranked opponent, marking Navajo’s first main-broadcast fight since his debut a year and a half earlier
Gets picked on short notice to fight the former world champion for the #4 spot in the division.
You may assume that I am here to tell you what a terrible thing it is that this is the route you now take to reach the top of the Light Heavyweight division. You may assume that I am going to say Jan Błachowicz deserves better. And you’re absolutely right! Both of those things are true. But, also, here’s every fight Jan has had since Navajo started his professional MMA career in September of 2022:
Goes to a split draw with Magomed Ankalaev (which Ank should 100% have won) for the vacant Light Heavyweight title, leaving the belt unclaimed
Loses a split decision to Alex Pereira in the latter’s 205-pound debut
Spends almost two years on the shelf with a shoulder injury
Comes back in 2025 and loses a unanimous decision to Carlos Ulberg
Goes to a majority draw with Bogdan Guskov
Turns 43
Tears his meniscus and goes right back on the shelf for half a year
I need you to understand: This is the fourth-best Light Heavyweight in the UFC, and he deserves that distinction, and he also hasn’t won a fight in more than four years. Jan is one of the best men in this weight class in the world, and he’s also 43 and has spent most of the last five years of his career recovering from injuries.
Up until one fight ago, you could defend Jan by pointing out that he was fighting the absolute best of the best in the sport. Ankalaev, Pereira and Ulberg are the last three men to hold the Light Heavyweight Championship, and Jan wasn’t just competitive with them, some folks had him outright beating all three on the scorecards. We’re one Ron McCarthy coinflip away from living in the reality where the Alex Pereira era never came to pass because Jan almost strangled it in its crib.
But that Bogdan Guskov fight? That was rough on its own terms, let alone re-examined after watching Guskov look completely, utterly lost in the cage against Ankalaev. And that was Jan before tearing his meniscus at 43 and having to make a combat sports comeback within the same calendar year against an undefeated man in his twenties who is also taller, rangier, and pretty defensively sound.
I don’t think the UFC is wrong to invest in Navajo. He is, by the standards of Light Heavyweight, pretty darn good. He doesn’t make many silly mistakes, he controls his weapons, and he knows how to wait for his chances. He’s a rock-solid prospect. He’s also not going to save the division. Nothing that is currently happening is going to save the division. There is, arguably, no saving this fucking division. The UFC is bending over backwards to find a way, any way, to keep from booking another Magomed Ankalaev title fight, and if you think they wouldn’t bounce Navajo all the way to top contendership should he knock Jan out, you have not been paying attention to the way they do business now.
And that’s the problem. They put all their eggs in the Alex Pereira basket and when he hatched into a beautiful failure of a Heavyweight, they had nothing left. They spent years kneecapping Ankalaev. They got Jiří Procházka murdered in three straight title fights. They overpushed Jamahal Hill and were subsequently stunned by his sudden lust for imploding his own leg tendons. They slow-rolled Azamat Murzakanov and now after one loss he’s already done. They jumped the gun on Guskov and now no one will take him seriously as a contender.
And their best plan--their original plan, the thing they actually intended to do--was have Ankalaev fight Khalil Rountree Jr., a man with 0 wins over active Light Heavyweights in the last four years, and have Jan fight an immediate rematch with Guskov, a fight no one was asking for, and have Navajo fight a fight against (blank), because he just beat Ion barely a month ago and they hadn’t figured out what to do with him yet.
Because they don’t have a plan.
Some divisions do! They parked the entire Heavyweight division for Alex Pereira! They froze multiple contenders to put Sean Strickland in the driver’s seat at Middleweight! Christ, they spent years arranging the dominos necessary to belt up Mackenzie Dern. With Pereira gone, there is no plan for Light Heavyweight. There’s no anointed prospect, there’s no up-and-coming star, there aren’t even many international prospects waiting in the wings. Middleweights are moving up to Light Heavyweight to try to take over the division again because it is ripe for the taking. But there’s no promotional aid package coming for anybody. They’re just throwing darts and hoping to God that one of them somehow sticks.
This will, probably, stick. I have appreciated Jan for a very long time, but unfortunately, I have appreciated Jan for a very long time. I would absolutely love to see him come out and batter Navajo’s legs and wear him down until he can’t avoid one of those big Jan Błachowicz hooks anymore, but after watching him struggle against Bogdan, who I genuinely believe is worse at fighting than Navajo, and knowing that he’s coming back from a serious leg injury and will almost certainly be even more diminished than he has been the last couple of times we’ve seen him, I think this is just about the end of the road.
Prove me wrong, Jan. I need one more run. NAVAJO STIRLING BY DECISION.
MAIN CARD: THE EXODUS
HEAVYWEIGHT: Aleksandar Rakić (14-6, #13 at Light Heavyweight) vs Marcin Tybura (27-11, #12 at Heavyweight)
I used to believe in you, Aleksandar. I thought you were gonna be a damn champion one day. You had the tools, you had the power, you were big as heck for 205 pounds and you could maintain a fighting pace for fifteen minutes, and by jove, that puts you ahead of the game. But then you got signed to fight Jan, and you twiddled your thumbs for a year waiting, and when you got there the gods of humor and hubris ripped your ACL in half in mid-fight, and since then everything’s been fucked. You were gone for two whole years, you looked solid against Jiří Procházka for a round before you got flattened, you had nothing for Magomed Ankalaev and Azamat Murzakanov knocked you out in one round with a fucking jab. The Light Heavyweight world cast you out, and you are leading the charge up to the Heavyweight division in the hopes of reinvigorating your career, because if there’s one thing leg ligaments love, it’s deciding to make them support even more weight than they did when you were healthy.
Don’t you look so smug over there, Marcin, you’re in trouble, too. You’ve been one of the UFC’s most reliable gatekeepers--maybe we have to forgive you for letting Augusto Sakai through, but we forgave Anderson Silva for losing to Daiju Takase, everyone gets one mulligan--and you will always have our eternal gratitude for putting a stop to the rise of Greg Hardy. But the fact remains that you have been doing an unfortunate job lately. You beat Mick Parkin! That’s good! But you let Ante Delija blast through you in two minutes, and then, when we needed you to show some signs of improvement, you let Tyrell goddamn Fortune take your spot in the top ten. Being an unstoppably grinding wrestleboxing meat wall is your entire reason for being, and you let a guy who needed a doctor’s stoppage to beat Demoreo Dennis take the crown from you. Now you’re trying to hold the door against the Light Heavyweight invasion. Ciryl did it! Now it’s your goddamn turn.
I think Aleksandar is a lot faster than Marcin. I think he has more tools in his belt. I also think putting on more weight and trying to compete at a higher weight class at this stage in his physical progression is a really difficult path. But above all: I think Heavyweight is Bad. ALEKSANDAR RAKIĆ BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Duško Todorović (13-6) vs Robert Valentin (11-6 (1))
Really roll that fight around on your tongue. Main Card Robert Valentin. In the past three years, these two men combine for a truly outstanding UFC record of 2-6. They’ve both been stopped twice and they’ve both lost a decision. And their sole wins? Eleven months ago Duško knocked out José Medina, who was released one fight later for being 0-4 in the company, and this past April Robert saved his contract by choking out Julien Leblanc, who was making his UFC debut thanks to his truly incredible victory on the Quebecois regional circuit over the 6-10 Ryan “The Lion” Rohovich. That is how deep they had to dig to find people who could feasibly lose a fight to either of these men. “But Duško has other UFC wins,” you plaintively cry from the alcove where I told you I kept the Amontillado. And you’re right! He does! He has three whole other wins! The most recent one was almost four years ago, and the three of them put together were just 3-14 in the UFC, and brother, you don’t want to know who the three poor motherfuckers were that they beat, and also, no one can hear you.
However, and this may shock you: Duško Todorović is Serbian. Sorry, everyone else. Nothing to be done. Gotta sell those Serbian tickets, and if that means Duško Todorović and Robert Valentin get a big bright spot on the main card, that’s what’s best for the sport. Wanna hear something fun? This is the 25th UFC held this year, and presuming it doesn’t face any last-minute cancellations, by the time it’s over, there will have been 140 main-card fights broadcast in 2026. Seven of those main-card slots went to women. That’s five percent. It is so worth it to the UFC to make sure there’s broadcast space for folks like Duško Todorović and Vlasto Čepo to secure those lucrative government grantsinternational audiences, but heaven forfend you have lady parts, because there’s definitely never been any money in women fighting in mixed martial arts.
This fight is bad and neither of these guys have done much to prove they belong here but we’re just gonna keep on trucking, I guess. DUŠKO TODOROVIĆ BY TKO.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Vlasto Čepo (14-3) vs Gilbert Urbina (7-4)
Do you even need me to say anything? Do we need to talk about this fight? Are context clues enough for you to know why the UFC booked a debuting Serbian fighter against a guy with half as many wins and yet more losses than him? Can I just communicate my feelings through pictures?
No? I need to be a professional? Why the fuck! Why do I have to give a shit about this more than they do.
Here’s your cypher: Vlasto Čepo is Pretty Good, he’s been fighting in OKTAGON and doing a bang-up job of it, he’s Serbian as fuck and he’s finished everyone he’s ever beaten, most of them by knockout. Gilbert Urbina managed to lose The Ultimate Fighter 29 (jesus christ) twice (jesus christ). He has won exactly one fight not just in the UFC but in the last five+ years of his life, and that was against Orion Cosce, who seemingly retired from shame on the spot because that was in mid-2023 and he still hasn’t fought again. Otherwise it’s been a half-decade of getting knocked out or choked out, over and over. Which is why he’s still under contract. They’ve been waiting for a Vlasto Čepo to book him against.
Congratulations, matchmakers. Your day has come. VLASTO ČEPO BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Miloš Janičić (19-3) vs Noah Gugnon (9-2)
One of these men fights out of Serbia. One of them fights out of France. You may be able to subtly guess which is which! It’s a sign of where the sport is right now that Janičić is simultaneously a genuinely promising Lightweight prospect and he’s spent more of the last three years on kickboxing, bareknuckle boxing and my personal favorite, the Dirty Boxing Championship promotion that runs out of sweaty rooms in Miami and has the goddamn Schmo as an interviewer, than he has on MMA. This is how you make money as a regional fighter now. You go to fucking DBX. Noah Gugnon has been beating folks up in France’s ARES FC, and he was born in the year 2000, and that should be illegal and I do not appreciate it. Do not tell me a fighter born in the year 2000 is closing in on thirty, because I assure you, I cannot do math.
I dunno, man. I like Janičić’s offense and the way he lances forward into his jabs and straights, it’s very Whittakery, and I like how Gugnon drives forward and gets real aggressive on the ground, but Janičić also has some trouble getting outwrestled, and Gugnon also keeps his head bolt-upright way too often, and I cannot help seeing both men getting hurt badly by the time they get anywhere close to the Lightweight ladder.
But we’re not actually there yet, so whee! NOAH GUGNON BY DECISION.
PRELIMS: THE LAST STAND OF COWAN
LIGHTWEIGHT: Ľudovít Klein (24-5-1) vs Tofiq Musayev (23-6)
Ľudovít Klein continues to exist as an example of just how bizarre the path to success is in the UFC today. He was a steady, reliable winner as a Lightweight prospect, but despite going three years and seven fights without a loss (albeit one slightly embarrassing draw against Jai Herbert) he was no closer to a ranking, or a ranked fight, than any of his managerially-favored peers. Then, suddenly, they threw him in there on relatively short notice with Mateusz Gamrot, one of the ten best Lightweights on the goddamn planet. Klein lost, so now it’s back to back to the prelim mines forever. One fight ago it was scraping out a decision over Mateusz Rębecki; now it’s battling Tofiq Musayev, former Rizin and Bellator veteran turned currently 50/50 fighter in the UFC. Myktybek Orolbai ruined his much-ballyhooed debut after submitting him in one round, but Musayev managed to take his own decision--the first victory by decision he’d earned in six and a half years--after beating on-again off-again marketing darling Ignacio Bahamondes. Who is, coincidentally, the man Klein pissed off the UFC by beating almost three years ago to the day.
I still like Musayev, but I think the UFC’s going to continue to be a very tough run for him. ĽUDOVÍT KLEIN BY DECISION.
WELTERWEIGHT: Oban Elliott (12-4) vs Michael Oliveira (9-0)
Oban, buddy, I think they’re tired of you. We’re barely two years removed from Oban’s debut as a big Contender Series prospect out of the UK, and it went well, in the sense that he beat several folks with losing UFC records, and then he kept getting injured and struggling to get a visa (which is clearly his problem and has nothing to do with America), and then he dropped two fights in a row, and now his fortunate son status has been revoked and he’s on the DWCS welcoming committee. Michael Oliveira is your new Brazilian knockout guy. A year and a half ago he was in the Legacy Fighting Alliance beating a 13-11-2 guy named Aldo Pereira, then he was winning on the contract mill show by destroying Victor Valenzuela, who wound up signed to the company anyway. Oliveira is trained by our old Strikeforce buddy Rafael “Feijão” Cavalcante, and it shows, because he really likes big, angry punches and does not appear to be sufficiently concerned with pacing himself.
Oliveira also has this style of defense that centers entirely around moving his head just barely enough to avoid punches, which is going to work incredibly well right up until the moment it very violently does not. Fortunately, that probably won’t be tonight. MICHAEL OLIVEIRA BY TKO.
BANTAMWEIGHT: Mark Vologdin (12-4-2) vs Borislav Nikolić (16-2)
Remember back in April, when I introduced you to Mark Vologdin, the 5’3” Bantamweight who the UFC signed despite losing his DWCS fight because his entire fighting style can be summarized by that Simpsons gif of Bart walking forward while constantly windmilling his hands? Good news! He’s still here. I said he’d lost his debut match against John Castañeda, and he would have, were it not for John getting docked a point over errant groin shots. Funnily enough, even with the deduction most of the media still thought Castañeda won, but that’s just not how this works. Vologdin was supposed to meet in a prospect-filtering fight with fellow struggler Josias Musasa here, but Josias couldn’t make it, so instead it’s Borislav Nikolić, who is--try to be surprised--a Serbian guy who stops almost everyone he beats. He’s half a foot taller, he hits a lot harder, and primarily, I just don’t think Mark Vologdin is great at this.
And I normally love my short guys! Just not this one. BORISLAV NIKOLIĆ BY TKO.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Dennis Buzukja (12-6) vs Bogdan Grad (15-4)
Speaking of fights featuring people who are inexplicably still here, there’s this, which will probably be a lot of fun. Bogdan Grad is an adherent of the modern-day meta whereby winning excitingly is more important than fighting well, and consequently he needed two chances to win on the Contender Series and he’s on a two-fight losing streak that could, with one more fall, very easily get him fired. Dennis Buzukja got signed as a replacement for a replacement for another replacement, he’s a whole 1-4 in the company, and he would’ve been released already had his losses not been separated by a knockout over the incredibly unfortunate Connor Matthews.
Buzukja’s solid, but aside from being in unfriendly territory he’s also been booked into this fight despite being just under three and a half months separated from getting completely, utterly, limp-on-the-ground knocked out by Márcio Barbosa. In the old days, he wouldn’t even have been cleared to spar until about two weeks ago. They know what they are doing. BOGDAN GRAD BY TKO.
LIGHTWEIGHT: Mateusz Rębecki (20-5) vs Kyle Prepolec (18-10)
How many times do you think we can write about people who probably shouldn’t be here? Spoiler: This isn’t the last time on this card. Kyle Prepolec was hired as a last-minute replacement to keep Benoît Saint Denis on a card in Quebec, meaning Kyle punched his ticket to a UFC contract by defeating no less than the 25-33 Gustavo “Show Man” Wurlitzer, and now he’s 0-2 in the company and he’s gotten completely fucked up in both fights and the second was a brutal mauling at the hands of the aging Drew Dober, but that, too, was in Canada, so it made sense to put the Canadian in. Now he’s in Serbia fighting a guy whose name I have to copy-paste because it’s easier than finding the character map and manually keying in the combination to make the ę, which I have only just today discovered has a Polish name that honest-to-god translates as “e with a little tail” and I don’t know if there’s any inherent purpose in life but that’s the kind of factoid that makes me glad to still be living it. Kyle, they want to kill you. I’m sorry. Mateusz is their big brawler and he’s on a losing streak and someone in matchmaking thinks Poland and Serbia are close enough together that this is fine and you are here to be destroyed.
I hope Quebec welcomes you home. MATEUSZ RĘBECKI BY TKO.
WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT: Nina Milošević (8-1) vs Hailey Cowan (7-5)
Hailey Cowan, it’s now or never. It’s very hard to imagine now, but four years ago the UFC put a surprising amount of hype behind Hailey after she won her Contender Series contract. It would be very easy to be cynical and say they only cared about her because she’s a blonde American lady from Texas and they have no idea how to market any female fighters who aren’t generically photogenic to American audiences. Very, very easy. Even easier now, because in the last four years Hailey’s fought three times and she’s lost every one of them. She lost her debut by decision, she spent two years on the shelf, she got choked out by noted kickboxer Nora Cornolle, she went back on ice for another year, she got knocked out by Alice Pereira this past April, and even though it’s barely four months later they’re cutting bait and shipping her off to Serbia to get eaten alive. Because that’s what’s going to happen, right? I mean, Nina Milošević is 8-1! She’s the Serbian champion in Serbia! She hasn’t lost a fight since her rookie outing! All of this is true. It is also true that Nina and Hailey both have exactly the same number of career victories against women with winning records, and that number is Two, and you only get that far if you are willing to think of “2-1” as a winning record. I watched Nina’s tape and I’ll tell you, man, it isn’t great. Neither of them are great. Hailey still looks lost a lot of the time and Nina tends to throw punches like she’s swimming, and I want to tell you neither of them belong here, but is that even true anymore? Miesha Tate is still a ranked Women’s Bantamweight and she has one ranked win in the last decade. Bia Mesquita is the most exciting prospect in the division and one fight ago Melissa Mullins had her basically dead on her feet, but gave away the bout taking the half-conscious world champion grappler to the ground only to react in Pikachu shock when she got armbarred seconds later. Joselyne Edwards is the only new, genuinely-cultivated contender Bantamweight has had in years, and she isn’t even two years removed from constantly missing weight and being unable to stop Ailín Pérez.
I don’t know if I can say the bar is too high for anyone anymore. Throw all the talent into a pool. Invest real time and money in them. See what happens. Hailey, this is your chance. HAILEY COWAN BY DECISION.
HEAVYWEIGHT: Jovan Leka (13-2) vs Alexander Poppeck (21-5 (1))
Like this! This is a perfect continuation for that conversation we were just having, because Heavyweight and Women’s Bantamweight are, inherently, the same division. Legendary champion and international celebrity who left the company? Check. Current champion sidelined with injury issues the UFC really doesn’t want to talk about? Double check. Former champion the company wants to bury? You better fuckin’ believe that’s a check. Thrown-together matchups? Buddy, one of these Heavyweights isn’t even a Heavyweight. Jovan Leka is! He’s a 6’5” meatbrick whose primary skills are Wrestling, Kind Of and Being Dense. I strongly encourage you to go watch the footage of his last fight against Danilo Suzart--the iron-brained will remember him as the guy Waldo Cortes-Acosta nuked on the Contender Series back in 2022--and observe, as Jovan looks visibly confused by Suzart walking at him throwing giant winging overhands again and again until the moment it clicks in Leka’s head that he is half a foot larger and can simply push the other man over and choke him. Poppeck, funnily enough, is also a former DWCS guy--he’s the one who got pounded out by Jamahal Hill way back in 2019 and in so doing helped steer us onto the dark, terrible course into which we now have no escape. He’s been fighting as a constant favorite in OKTAGON as a 205-pounder and he’s actually visibly mobile and has a couple legitimately solid wins and he’s content to take his time attacking and defending and once he’s back at his home weight class I think he might have some work to do.
Here, I think he’s gonna get smothered by the actual Heavyweight in this Heavyweight bout. JOVAN LEKA BY DECISION.
WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Marina Spasić (7-1) vs Stephanie Luciano (7-2-1)
There’s been some level of attempt to get Marina Spasić some debut hype, here, but I’m not feeling it. The sentence “the best Women’s Strawweight in the Balkans” is one of those things that’s so utterly specific that it feels like an insult more than an endorsement, and when you look at her record and watch her tape and see her struggling with women who are only barely staying afloat in the sport, or watch her need two and a half rounds to dispatch Samara Santos, who is 12-11-1, has never beaten anyone with a winning record and whose opponents have a truly, genuinely incredible combined record of 16-60, you begin to realize why I both focus on numbers as a way of evaluating where someone’s been in the sport and fully recognize just how useless they can be. After all, I loved Jingnan Xiong, and it took her three rounds to knock out Santos, too. Is struggling with Samara Santos an equivalent exchange to Stephanie Luciano losing a split decision to Sam Hughes? What’s a 50-50 on the regional scene worth vs a 50-50 in the UFC? Is Stephanie choking out Ravena Oliveira really any more impressive than Marina knocking out journeywoman Maristela Alves?
I don’t know. Nothing in her tape wows me, though. STEPHANIE LUCIANO BY DECISION.