CARL'S FIGHT BREAKDOWNS, EPISODE 33: THE MARKETING WAR

UFC Fight Night: Dern vs Yan

PRELIMS 1 PM PST / 4 PM EST VIA ESPN+ | MAIN CARD 4 PM PST / 7 PM EST VIA ESPN+

Sometimes you have cards built around rehabilitating prospects, sometimes you have cards about trying to push people over the top towards relevance, and sometimes you have cards that are built around the UFC saying god dammit, these people are marketable and we've put too much time in them to not want our investment back, leapfrog them to a title as fast as fucking possible. That's where we are, now. This is the UFC trying as hard as it can to make good on its desired products, to the point that they booked this card with two fights that mattered and didn't bother hammering out a single other thing, and then one of those fights fell apart, and now you have a Francisco Trinaldo co-main event. As I was writing this, in fact, the news broke that this fight night will be completely closed to the public and media. Is it an experiment in metaverse advertising? Is it just the least the UFC has ever cared about anything? Let's find out, unfortunately.

MAIN EVENT: WAIT, SHE GOT KNOCKED OUT BY WHO
WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Mackenzie Dern (12-2, #5) vs Xiaonan Yan (15-3 (1), #6)

It's time to talk about something uncomfortable: Sexism in marketing.

The UFC is very choosy, and not at all subtle, about who it does and does not push. Leon Edwards had to go undefeated for nearly a decade to get a shot at the champion while the ostensibly more marketable Brit Darren Till skyrocketed into the spot. Chael Sonnen got a shot at Jon Jones despite not having a fight at the weight class in nearly a decade, but Corey Anderson was cut after a single loss to Jan Błachowicz. José Aldo was just inexplicably denied a title shot, but later this month, having never defeated a top ten opponent in his life, Sean O'Malley is fighting in a title eliminator. Demetrious Johnson got traded away for Ben Askren. The UFC likes to put its thumb on the scale.

I have been writing these pieces for going on ten months, and I have tried to discuss everything as directly and honestly as I can, from the UFC's moral failings to the prevalence of bigotry in the industry to, above all, my total ineptitude in correctly predicting fights, but the role of marketing in women's mixed martial arts is a thing I have always shied away from. There's no way to discuss it, particularly as exactly the kind of plain-ass cis-man said marketing is intended for, without feeling as though I am contributing to the problem. I've been following women's mixed martial arts since Erica Montoya was inexplicably in a UFC video game on the PS2 just under BJ Penn and no one could agree on how many Is were in Megumi Fujii; watching it go from a niche of a niche of a niche the president of the UFC would openly scoff at to a worldwide phenomenon has been one of my favorite parts of being a combat sports fan.

It's also no secret we're firmly ensconced in the era of MMA that wholly and completely embraces marketability over credibility--not that the sport ever didn't prioritize it, we've always had Bob Sapps--but where for men that comes down to shit-talking and catchphrases and doing your best to never, ever shoot a takedown, for women, conventional sex appeal is still a deeply valued part of the sport. And the UFC has gotten much better at lampshading it, which makes it feel even scummier to talk about. Mixed martial arts has come a long, long way from the mainstream emergence of women's MMA back in the late 2000s, when Fight Girls would have lingering shots of Michelle Waterson in her underwear and MMA executives made jokes about Cris Cyborg looking like a man and Mauro Ranallo would openly refer to his erection while commentating Gina Carano fights. The UFC, for its many, many failings, is run by smart people. They know better than to openly pander.

But then you can't help noticing that some fighters come up more than others, and, boy, Paige VanZant sure did get a lot of marketing push that more accomplished peers didn't, and, man, wasn't it weird when Miesha Tate unretired after half a decade and was an unavoidable advertising centerpiece perpetually one fight away from a title shot, for some strange reason?

And the fact that the UFC is very careful to not acknowledge that they do this makes me feel like a complete asshole for stating it aloud, because it feels incredibly disrespectful to all of those exceptionally fucking talented fighters. Paige VanZant is one of the toughest women I've ever seen. Miesha Tate is one of the only people on the planet capable of finishing Holly Holm.

But it's dishonest not to. It's dishonest to talk about the UFC's marketing and shy away from discussing the very real sexism that's still alive in the industry, especially when the UFC is strapping a rocket to Mackenzie Dern while Joe Rogan is laughing as Joey Diaz talks about what her asshole smells like. It's dishonest to talk about why Mackenzie Dern, on a one-fight split decision win streak, is being discussed for title contention if she beats an opponent who's ranked lower than her and hasn't won a fight in two years.

And it doesn't make me feel any better about it, because I don't want to talk about the value Mackenzie Dern's million Instagram followers bring to her career, I want to talk about her being a good fucking fighter. I want to talk about her ridiculous twenty-two grappling championships and the ways she easily submits very, very tough people. I want to talk about her losing her undefeated streak to Amanda Ribas and responding by finally tightening up her striking game in the hopes of never getting blown out of the water again. Hell, I want to talk about her last fight, where she almost broke Tecia Torres' arm in half by catching her in a kimura while hanging horizontally in the air by way of one foot on the fence, and how that fight demonstrated both the real growth she's made as a well-rounded martial artist while also displaying her vulnerabilities to crisp striking, particularly once she gets tired.

And I want to talk about Xiaonan Yan and her very weird place in the sport. Yan was one of the highlights of the UFC's expansion through the Chinese market, a near-undefeated fighter who joined up with the shirtless dynamos of Team Alpha Male to round out her wrestleboxing tendencies and proceeded to stomp her first six UFC opponents into the ground in clear, dominant decisions. A championship showdown seemed inevitable, and the UFC was deeply interested in the possibility of a huge China vs China championship fight with Yan vs then-titleholder Weili Zhang. Booking Yan against former champion Carla Esparza, the smaller, weaker and seemingly stylistically outmatched fighter, must have seemed like the biggest title-eliminator layup in the world.

Except Carla Esparza, who hadn't recorded a stoppage in seven years and had never stopped anyone on strikes in the UFC, dropped and knocked out Xiaonan, who'd never even been rattled and whose only loss was just months into her career back in 2010.

And in one six-month period, both Yan AND Dern ran into the divisional brick wall that is Marina Rodriguez, a woman who's beaten absolutely everyone the UFC has thrown at her--except, once again, for Carla Esparza. So the promotional darlings fell to the wayside, and Carla Esparza, to Dana White's deep-seated chagrin, rose to the top and reclaimed the championship she created. But Marina Rodriguez is still the #3 in the division, and she's on a four-fight win streak, and her last two victories were over both of these women, so she's on deck for a title eliminator, right?

No, my friend, she is fighting the #8-ranked Amanda Lemos, winner of one straight fight, at a random fight night next month that the UFC currently doesn't even advertise on its website.

Mackenzie Dern, whom she beat, is fighting Xiaonan Yan, whom she beat, to get into pole position for a title shot. ...if Dern wins. Because, after all, Xiaonan is riding a two-fight losing streak, so she'd need another win.

But Mackenzie'd be fine.

For some strange reason.

It sucks. It sucks to be constantly aware of the low-frequency hum of sex appeal marketing and how it impacts every women's division in ways big and small. It sucks to factor it into conversations about divisional placement instead of being able to simply focus on how amazing the fighters themselves can be. It sucks to feel exhausted by the concept, talk to the sparing few women I know who love mixed martial arts, and realize just how much worse it feels for them.

And it sucks to feel even the slightest twinge of disappointment about saying Mackenzie Dern by submission, because she's a fantastic fighter who works her ass off to earn her victories, and Xiaonan is an incredibly tough opponent whose trouble with superior grapplers is, I believe, going to cost her dearly in this fight. Mackenzie Dern does not deserve the disappointment I feel with the UFC. But we are all stuck in this wonderful, terrible, pseudo-sport fandom and we must all deal with its bullshit together.

CO-MAIN EVENT: THE RUDEST WOOD
WELTERWEIGHT: Randy Brown (15-4) vs Francisco Trinaldo (28-8)

Once upon a time this was going to be Cody Garbrandt vs Rani Yahya, but that fight turned out to be repeatedly cursed and rather than replace it, they said baby, it's Massaranduba's time to shine.

This is one of those rare fights that takes place on the precise corner of relevance and comedy. Brown and Trinaldo are both fighters who repeatedly came precariously close to true contender status, repeatedly demonstrated the skills to be one of the best, and were instead derailed by the sport's insistence that some fighters be sacrificed on the pyre of absurdity.

"Rudeboy" Randy Brown got scouted by the UFC very, very early in his career. When he debuted in the organization back in 2016 he was 25, 6-0, and had only been a professional fighter for a year and a half. As a 6'3" welterweight he stood out immediately and his skills backed up his build: His long, rangy strikes, his violent attacks in the clinch and his quick positional control on the ground have all made him a relevant welterweight mainstay for the 6+ years he's been with the company. So why haven't you seen him get into contendership?

Because he keeps losing, and it's very funny. Brown may been in the UFC for 6+ years, but 2022 is the first year in which he's managed three consecutive victories. He made his triumphant debut; he got choked out by the underrated but ill-fated Mike Graves. He scored two wins; he got wrestled into paste by Belal Muhammad. Humiliate Mickey Gall; get knocked out from the bottom position by Niko Price. Knock out Bryan Barberena; get knocked out by Vicente Luque. Each and every accomplishment has been met by an equal and opposite setback. He only narrowly avoided it this year, too: His last fight against Khaos Williams back in May was a razor-close split decision that saw him dropped and nearly finished in the third round.

Francisco Trinaldo, by contrast, hasn't had a lot of absurd things happen to him--Francisco Trinaldo is the absurd thing. Conventional wisdom in MMA favors larger, younger opponents, especially at the lower, more athletically-inclined weight classes, and when "Massaranduba" joined the UFC as part of The Ultimate Fighter Brazil back in 2012, he was a 5'9", 34 year-old lightweight. And he fucking ruled. He looked older than he already was, he was smaller and squatter than nearly everyone he faced, his strategy began and ended at "I am going to march towards you like the Terminator and bully you," and it was shockingly effective. Between 2014 and 2016 Trinaldo ran up a genuinely impressive 7-fight streak that culminated in his being the one and only person to ever finish Paul Felder after thrashing him for two and a half rounds and ultimately breaking his entire eyebrow open.

But he couldn't beat Kevin Lee, or Michael Chiesa, or Alexander Hernandez, and by 2020, he needed a change. The great irony is Massaranduba was doing just fine at the time--he was on a three-fight streak that included a huge knockout over hyped British prospect Jai Herbert--but he was 42, and he was tired, and his body just didn't want to cut weight anymore.

So he moved to welterweight. And now he's a 5'9", 44 year-old welterweight. And he's 2-1. Because this sport is hilarious.

And now we have the shortest welterweight in the division (wikipedia says it's Jim Miller but it's wrong, they're tied) vs the tallest, and I really have to think they did that on purpose just to see if they could. Who takes the battle of inches?

Randy Brown by decision. Trinaldo's power and sheer inevitability are going to be a problem, as he is absolutely strong enough to bully Brown into the fence and suffocate him there, but he's going to be dealing with jabs and kicks on his way in and he's going to be struggling to score against a defensive grappler like Brown who can keep him from mustering real offense. It's going to be a long fight and more competitive than it will look in the fight photographs that will make it look like Brown was fighting the tiny dancing man from the Black Lodge, but he'll edge it out in the end.

MAIN CARD: A FIGHTER ON THIS TELEVISED CARD IS REPRESENTED ON THE UFC'S WEBSITE BY A SHADOW

BANTAMWEIGHT: Raoni Barcelos (16-3) vs Trevin Jones (13-8 (1))

This is very likely to be fight of the night, half because both of these guys are underratedly good, half because they're both, in all likelihood, fighting to keep their jobs.

Barcelos and Jones were both considered potentially championship-level prospects. Raoni was the reigning featherweight champion of the Resurrection Fighting Alliance when he was signed by the UFC in 2017, and he immediately distinguished himself as a contender worth watching, an incredibly fast, vicious striker with deceptively tricky trips out of the clinch, and his talents earned him eight consecutive victories, most notably a domination of current contender Said Nurmagomedov, whose record over the last eight years is 10-Raoni. And then Raoni got COVID, and missed half a year, and came back to incredibly stiff competition in Timur Valiev, who just barely took a majority decision that could easily have been a draw, and then he was upset in a tough but losing effort against the debuting Victor Henry.

While all of this was happening, "5 Star" Trevin Jones was having an unfortunately more traditional run of bad luck. Jones had been a fixture on regional prospect lists across MMA media, a talented wrestler with huge punching power who'd been a mainstay of the fight scenes out in Guam, Russia and South Korea for years, but was continually held back by razor-close split decision losses. His call up to the UFC came as the shortest of short-notice replacements, stepping in on just 48 hours' notice to ironically face the aforementioned Timur Valiev, whom he shockingly knocked out in two rounds. Which would be a fantastic debut, and a great way to instantaneously entrench yourself as a contender.

Except 48 hours wasn't enough time to not piss hot for that most vile and evil of performance-enhancing drugs, Weed. So the fight was nullified and he was suspended for half a year. He returned to competition in 2021 and scored a redemption victory over Mario Bautista, but injuries and botched weight cuts kept removing his opponents, and by the time another half-year had passed he was stuck with super-grappler Saidyokub Kakhramonov, who dominated him. Another half-year of injuries later, and it was Javid Basharat's turn to play matador and soundly defeat Giles.

So you have two former ultra-hyped prospects who are now fighting to not get the dreaded, contract-endangering third consecutive loss on their records, and they're both striking machines. The like factor here is Timur Valiev; one of them couldn't get past him, the other knocked him out in seven minutes. Is that predictive of how Trevin Jones will do in this fight?

Nah. Raoni Barcelos by TKO. The problem here is defense. Jones knocked Valiev and Bautista out, but he also nearly got finished in the first round of each fight. His questionable defense has caused each of his UFC losses, and the fluidity and ferocity Barcelos brings to the table, alongside Jones' willingness to take a punch to land one, means when Barcelos finds his chin, unlike most, he's not going to let up.

FEATHERWEIGHT: Sodiq Yusuff (12-2, #12) vs Don Shainis (12-3, NR)

Sodiq Yusuff is very, very mad.

Yusuff was one of the early Contender Series babies back in 2018, and unlike most of his peers, he's been making an excellent run of things. 5-1 in the UFC, with two violent knockouts and his only loss coming in a highly competitive fight with Arnold Allen, who's about to fight for a ranking in the top five of the division. This fight was supposed to be Yusuff's biggest moment in the spotlight yet, a co-main event showdown with last year's biggest hype train, Giga Chikadze, as the ultimate test of Yusuff's power and accuracy. And then Chikadze dropped out, twice, and the fight got rescheduled, twice, and then he gave up entirely.

And now Sodiq Yusuff is fighting "Shameless" Don Shainis. The UFC went through their entire catalog of fighters who'd agree to a fight against a hyped prospect on a month's notice, and the answer was 'nobody,' so they poached a regional champion. And, like so many regional champions, he's very hard to properly evaluate because the competition he's facing is too aggressively silly. I can tell you he's a wrestleboxer with what seems like a decent top game, but the last three demonstrations of said skills came against the 9-8 Brice "Lion Kid" Picaud, the 16-9-1 UFC washout Cody "The Pfist" Pfister, and quite possibly the most prolific jobber in mixed martial arts, Jay goddamn Ellis, who is currently sitting pretty at a total record of 16-106. No, there are no misplaced 0s there. (Fun fact: Two of those 16 wins? Then-rookie Gerald Meerschaert and the debut fight of future Bellator featherweight champion and domestic violence enthusiast Daniel Straus.)

Sodiq Yusuff by KO. But boy, the MMA gods like stupid things, and Don Shainis upsetting Yusuff would be very stupid. Will it happen? I severely doubt it; Yusuff seems to be better than him at all of his strengths. Should Yusuff still be pissed that he went from a marquee fight against one of the most visible competitors in the division to a nobody that poses nothing but risk with virtually no reward? Absolutely.

CATCHWEIGHT, 140 LBS: John Castañeda (19-5) vs Daniel Santos (9-2)

You COULD read the next few sentences and decide who you want to win this fight, but you could also just learn from this one that Castañeda's nickname is "Sexi Mexi" and Santos's is "Willycat" and decide for yourself based solely on which one makes your mouth feel grosser.

Still with us? Brave. Both of these guys are blitzers, but they operate under very different parameters. Castañeda isn't a knockout striker, he's an overwhelmer. He's uncomfortable dealing with fighters at range and he prefers to handle that discomfort by crashing into the pocket and either slinging dozen-punch flurries or looking for clinch trips, and consequently, nearly all of his victories come from ground-and-pounding or choking out wounded opponents. In his three UFC fights we've seen all sides of this: How Nathaniel Wood outjabbed him easily from a distance, how Eddie Wineland gave him fits until he finally found his mark, and how Miles Johns had no answer for his aggressive charges.

Daniel Santos, on the other hands, wants to fuck you up in style. A training partner of Charles Oliveira and one of the remaining students of the still-extant Chute Boxe, Santos is one of those fighters who learned striking fundamentals for the specific purpose of discarding them so he could instead spin around in repeated circles with his legs outstretched as though trying with all of his heart to one day master Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick and become unstoppable. There's nothing unpredictable about his style: He wants to walk straight towards you, he wants to baffle and hurt you with spinning kicks, and if he gets up close, he wants to use his Chute Boxe-learned clinch attacks and break your face with elbows and knees. And this made his UFC debut end exactly the way you'd think: Julio Arce calmly picking him apart from the outside by engaging in the forbidden art of 'moving sideways.'

It has been pointed out to me that my most constant fight prediction error is assuming fighters will wisely use their strengths. This feels like one of those inevitable errors. Castañeda's quick movement and versatile attacks are easily poised to give Santos fits--if he uses them well. If he doesn't, he could just as easily charge facefirst into a spinning heel or a flying knee and get hurt. I'm still choosing to believe in John Castañeda by decision, but if he screws it up, by god, I hope I learn my lesson.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Mike Davis (9-2) vs Viacheslav Borshchev (6-2)

I think Viacheslav Borshchev is making a mistake. I wrote this about his previous fight with Marc Diakiese back in March:

Viacheslav "Slava Claus" Borshchev is yet another in Dana White's endless Contender Series army, a 30 year-old Russian native who moved to California to train with Team Alpha Male and join the UFC. He supposedly is also a kickboxing champion with 300+ fights under his belt, but like most kickboxing records, who the fuck knows. He is a visibly talented technical striker who knocked out his opponent in 5 of his 6 victories and he made his UFC debut in January and wrecked the very tough Dakota "Hairy" Bush's shit with a liver punch, so record on the record or no, his talents are undeniable.

This has the potential to be a VERY good striking contest, and Diakiese may well have a better kicking game, but his composure has been shaky and someone as technical as Borshchev could walk him down and gradually punch him out. If anything, Borshchev may have to actually look out for Diakiese's wrestling.

That wound up being unfortunately prophetic: Diakiese spent the entire fight taking Borshchev down and controlling him with ease, allowing the striker to land only 17 significant strikes in 15 minutes. If you are Viacheslav Borshchev, or at least Team Alpha Male's presumably shirtless agent, you look at that fight and you try to get Slava booked against, say, Brad Riddell, or Hayisaer Maheshate, or Nikolas Motta--someone who's going to desperately want to stand and trade with him, even at their own expense. You do not see that Mike "Beast Boy" Davis, a hard-punching power wrestler who just derailed the once-heralded, now-released Mason Jones in his last fight after shooting on him all night, lost his opponent and put your pure striker in as a two-and-a-half-week replacement.

Davis could choose to stand with Borshchev, but it would be an aggressively silly choice that de-emphasizes his strengths for virtually no benefit. Mike Davis by decision after wrestling Slava Claus into dust again, but boy, I would really like it if he's just been trapped in a Sacramento flat shirtlessly training wrestling with Urijah Faber for the last six straight months to keep it from happening again.

PRELIMS: HUMAN BRICKS
HEAVYWEIGHT: Ilir Latifi (15-8 (1)) vs Aleksei Oleinik (60-16-1)

This is actually the third rescheduling of this fight, which leads me to believe something extremely silly will happen on Friday that will scratch it all over again. On the plus side, this means I get to be lazy and recycle content from March. Thanks, UFC!

Only one man can be the widest man. Aleksei Oleinik is one of the last OGs left standing, having made his debut in goddamn 1996. When he introduced himself to American audiences by becoming a semifinalist in the Bellator heavyweight tournament that gave us the gift of Cole Konrad, he was already entering his third decade of combat sports competition. This is his fourth, and while he's still one of the most threatening grapplers in the sport he's about to turn 45 and is finally showing it. He's on the first three-fight losing streak of his life--which is mind-boggling when you consider this will be his 77th fight--and he's looked precariously slow in his last few appearances.

And he's fighting a cartoon character. Ilir Latifi is a 5'10" heavyweight and somehow that works for him. He's at a size and reach disadvantage against everyone he fights, and yet somehow he's deeply effective against almost all of them, but never consistently. He's one of only four men to ever force Derrick Lewis to win by decision, but he got knocked silly by Ryan Bader. He's got rocks for hands, but he couldn't knock out Gian Villante. His last fight was an ultra-tight split decision victory against once-heralded prospect Tanner Boser that saw him implementing his wrestling effectively to shut down a superior striker. That would, of course, be a considerably riskier thing to do against Alexey Oleinik.

But I don't think he's going to have to. Ilir Latifi is going to get a TKO. Oleinik has a reach advantage, but he also throws some of the roundest, slowest punches in the division; Latifi is thick but quick, and more than capable of sticking him with straights. I think he's also smart enough to avoid the ground altogether, and a good enough wrestler to stop Oleinik from dragging him there. Latifi wears him down with leg kicks and ultimately punches him out, and we all get a little sad.

WOMEN'S STRAWWEIGHT: Jessica Penne (14-6, #15) vs Tabatha Ricci (7-1, NR)

It's time for a grapple-fight, whether both fighters want it to be one or not. Jessica Penne has had a rollercoaster of a UFC career: She was the last runner-up on the season of The Ultimate Fighter that crowned the inaugural Women's Strawweight champion, she emerged as an undeniable 11-2 top contender, and then she got her face bludgeoned in by Joanna Jędrzejczyk and Jéssica Andrade, was out of action for four years, only just re-emerged in 2021 and proceeded to have a two-fight win streak dashed after she was outstruck by the debuting Emily Ducote. Even as a 39 year-old with a decade and a half of mileage, Penne looks in no way spent as a fighter--she wrecked Karolina Kowalkiewicz just last year, and even in the Ducote fight she fought through massive adversity and made Ducote pay for every strike she landed--but it's hard to imagine that she hasn't hit her ceiling as a fighter.

Tabatha "Baby Shark" Ricci is only just getting started. The judo black belt and Mackenzie Dern training partner didn't really start her MMA career until 2020, she was a top talent in the Legacy Fighting Alliance within nine months, and she was in the UFC within a year. Which wound up being unfortunate, because she got utterly demolished in her debut by Manon Fiorot, the French striker who's one fight away from a title shot at the next weight class up. Ricci went back to 115 and, thanks to her grappling expertise and her nigh-unstoppable positional control, ran up a two-fight winning streak. With the momentum on her side, Penne's last loss, and Penne taking this fight on short notice, Ricci is a sizable betting favorite.

And I'm not convinced. Ricci won her last two fights, but not only were both of her opponents much less well-rounded than Penne, they both outstruck her. Jessica Penne is a solid grappler who's not going to be as easy to control as Ricci's other opponents, she's got much better striking, and she's got a considerable size advantage. Jessica Penne by decision after spending more time on the bottom than she'd like to, but doing more damage and having the more effective offense anyway.

LIGHTWEIGHT: Joaquim Silva (11-3) vs Jesse Ronson (21-11 (1))

Jesse Ronson has had a deeply unfortunate UFC career. He first appeared in the organization in 2013, dropped three straight and was immediately released, and he was brought back in 2020 despite having just washed out of the Professional Fighters League as a last-minute replacement opponent for Nicolas Dalby, a well-hyped, highly-respected prospect out of Denmark, and Ronson shocked the world by not just defeating Dalby but becoming the first fighter to finish him. And then the win was rubbed out after he tested positive for Dianabol. Nearly two years of his career was lost to suspension, and he came back earlier this year and promptly got trucked by Rafa Garcia in two rounds. He was supposed to be facing Vinc Pichel, but Pichel was forced to pull out and was replaced by Silva, a TUF Brazil 4 semifinalist who's been hanging around the UFC since 2015. His motivation here is clear: Thanks to the pandemic he's only fought twice in nearly four years, he lost both of them, and as both a hard-hitting kickboxer and a black belt in jiu-jitsu, he's desperate for a win and thinks he can pick Ronson off.

I don't think he's wrong. Ronson's successes all come from bullying people with punches or his top game, and Silva's got both the kicks to hold him out of punching range and the grappling to keep him from opening up with ground and pound. Joaquim Silva by submission.

MIDDLEWEIGHT: Brendan Allen (19-5) vs Krzysztof Jotko (24-5)

This fight is here because the UFC's pretty sure it's going to be boring, and that sucks, because both men deserve better. Brendan Allen is a very, very solid middleweight whose only UFC losses have come against top prospects, Krzysztof Jotko has been a UFC mainstay for just shy of a decade and spent a good chunk of that hanging out in the top fifteen, both men are coming off two-fight win streaks, either is pushing into the rankings with this win. It's beyond silly that the UFC is so wrestling-phobic that there's no place on the televised card for a fight this inherently relevant.

But then, on the day I wrote this there was an episode of Dana White's Contender Series in which the titular president gave a fighter shit for daring to shoot takedowns instead of using his kickboxing skills, even though he destroyed his opponent's face with elbows and punched him until all of his blood was on the outside of his body, so this is just the sport now, I think.

Krzysztof Jotko by decision. Brendan Allen is a very good, dynamic fighter and grappler, but Jotko is an expert at kiting people and forcing them out of their gameplans, and Allen's inherent aggression could play into Jotko's hands.

LIGHT-HEAVYWEIGHT: Maxim Grishin (32-9-2) vs Philipe Lins (15-5)

It's the battle of used-to-be-heavyweights. Grishin's stay at the division was brief: Grishin's gameplan of pecking leg kicks, looping hands and Sambo clinch trips was not long for the big boy division, and his immediately unsuccessful short-notice-replacement stint led him right back to 205. Except for that one fight where William Knight missed weight by 13 pounds. I guess that was technically also heavyweight. Thanks, Mr. Knight. Philipe Lins is a sacrifice in the name of continually reinforcing the irritating reality of the UFC's place vs the B-Leagues of the world, as he ran through PFL's 2018 heavyweight tournament with a series of violent stoppages, won the championship with ease, and was in the UFC one fight later getting outstruck by a 76 year-old Andrei Arlovski. And then he got knocked out by Tanner Boser. And then this happened:

Two straight goddamn years of issues later, Lins was down at 205 fighting Marcin Prachnio. It wasn't pretty: He won the decision, but he was nearly knocked out, he was decidedly outstruck, and by midway through the third round his output had dwindled.

And all of those things are bad news against someone like Grishin, who's going to be harder to take down and harder to outstrike. Maxim Grishin by decision.

CATCHWEIGHT, 140 LBS: Julija Stoliarenko (10-6-1) vs Chelsea Chandler (4-1)

If this fight stays standing, I revoke my recommendation. On the ground, though, it's a fucking banger.

Julija Stoliarenko is a specialist. I don't mean that in the 'she loves to grapple' sense, although she does--I mean she loves armbars. Just armbars. Of her ten victories in mixed martial arts, nine are armbars. Her stay in the SEI*ZA combat judo scene? Four victories, three armbars. Her exhibition performances on The Ultimate Fighter 28? One victory, and you fucking guessed it: It was an armbar. In fights where Julija Stoliarenko CANNOT find an armbar, she's 1-6-1. She knows how to do The Thing, and she's been doing The Thing for a decade. Chelsea Chandler, as her record shows, is still extremely fresh to the sport, and Invicta's been treating her respectfully and matching her against similarly-inexperienced opponents--her last fight was the 4-2 Courtney King--and she looks, at risk of being a jerk, pretty green. Her striking can be windmilling to the point of knocking herself off-balance, her positional control is slippery, and she's facing the stiffest test in her career.

And it's a much more interesting fight than it should be. Stoliarenko has her One Weird Trick Her Opponents Hate, but she's also vulnerable to blitzing attacks and has run into trouble against grapplers strong and canny enough to avoid her attacks. Ironically, Chandler's flailing blitzes might be a very effective weapon against Stoliarenko's nervously porous defense. But this fight is almost certainly going to the ground, and that's where the lack of control is going to cost her. Julija Stoliarenko by submission. No points for guessing which one.

BANTAMWEIGHT: Randy Costa (6-3) vs Guido Cannetti (9-6)

Man, I don't fucking know. I just don't. In the red corner, you have Randy "The Zohan" Costa, a man named after the forty-eighth worst Adam Sandler movie, who hasn't fought in most of a year, is coming off two straight knockout losses and was last seen getting fucked up by everyone's least favorite idiot, Tony Kelley. In the blue corner, you have Guido "Ninja" Cannetti, an Argentinian brawler who's somehow been in the UFC for almost nine years, has a total promotional record of 3-7 if you include The Ultimate Fighter, and was given to Kris Moutinho as the UFC's way of saying thank you and throwing Moutinho a softball after he saved promotional darling Sean O'Malley's fight on the Poirier/McGregor 3 card--only for Moutinho, who absorbed 230 strikes against power puncher O'Malley without missing a beat, to get punched stupid and stopped on the feet by Cannetti in just two minutes.

Does this mean Cannetti is actually good? Probably not! He still gets beat up constantly. Does this mean he CAN win? Totally! Randy Costa likes to walk into punches and Cannetti clearly has power left in his about-to-turn-43 hands! Am I going to pick him? No! Randy Costa by submission.