10 Things I Like about UFC Vegas 21
Saturday's fight card is low-key fantastic and I just thought you should know
Finally… Rocky Has Come Back… To… The Octagon!
Yes, I’m kicking off an MMA column with a professional wrestling reference, but after 20 long months, Leon “Rocky” Edwards is set to step back into the Octagon this weekend.
Edwards is on an eight-fight winning streak and has been deserving of a chance to face a Top 3 opponent, if not fight for the title, since he thoroughly out-worked Donald Cerrone in Singapore in June of 2018. Then again after he beat Gunnar Nelson. And once more after sweeping the scorecards against Rafael Dos Anjos.
What makes the 29-year-old welterweight such an intriguing figure in title chase is that he’s so freakishly well-rounded that there is no one in the division and nowhere a fight could take place where he feels overmatched or outgunned. His only loss since his questionable split decision loss to Claudio Silva in his debut came against the current titleholder Kamaru Usman in a fight two judges scored 29-28, and I’ve been eager to see them run it back for while now.
Because he’s a quiet dude from Erdington who prefers to let his performances speak for him, he doesn’t get as much mention in the title conversation as his contemporaries who are more boisterous about their skills and quick to jump in front of a camera, but with a ninth straight victory this weekend, Edwards will cement his standing as the top contender in the division and maybe, just maybe, put himself in a position to fight for the title later this year.
“Main Event” Muhammad Gets His Opportunity
Before his fight with Dhiego Lima last month, Belal Muhammad told he how he wanted to stay active and chart a path for himself in 2021 similar to the one forged by Kevin Holland or Khamzat Chimaev last year.
“God-willing I’m healthy after Saturday, I want to get right back into it because this is a time where guys can make a name for themselves and an era where people are tuning into the UFC a lot right now,” he said before going out and drowning Lima with his unrelenting pace and volume to earn his fourth straight victory and eighth win in nine starts.
Five days later, Muhammad jumped at the opportunity to replace Chimaev opposite Edwards in this weekend’s main event.
Win or lose, the 32-year-old welterweight is finally getting the recognition he’s long deserved as more and more people are forced to read up on the streaking Chicago native whose only loss over the last four-plus years came by decision in a fun scrap with Geoff Neal.
Muhammad is a lot like the man he’ll face this weekend in that fought a tough slate since arriving in the UFC and prefers to let his efforts inside the Octagon speak for him, while using social media to showcase his prediction skills (and lack of circle-drawing skills) and promote his entertaining YouTube game show, Remember the Show.
He’s the precise type of fighter that needed an opportunity like this — a chance to step into a main event position vacated by someone else and declined by others — because despite all his recent successes, his was destined to be a slow crawl up the rankings simply because so many of the names ahead of him in the rankings are more established and have shown little interest in risking their place in the pecking order.
I thought it was perfect when Muhammad called out “The Leech,” Li Jingliang following his victory over Lima — it was a fight he could reasonably expect to get, against the guy stationed one spot ahead of him in the rankings, who also happened to be coming off a first-round knockout win — but I’m even more excited for this matchup because this is a chance for “Bully B” to prove what he’s known all along: that he’s one of the top welterweights in the world and capable of hanging with the best the division has to offer.
Cirkunov-Spann is So Compelling
Both Misha Cirkunov and Ryan Spann have shown flashes of being potential contenders in the UFC light heavyweight division, while also having a couple moments where they’ve stumbled. Saturday night, the two meet in a truly compelling matchup that has Top 10 implications and could be the fight that helps the victor take a real meaningful step forward in the wide open 205-pound weight class heading into Q2 in the Octagon.
Cirkunov hasn’t fought since tapping out Jimmy Crute with a Peruvian necktie in Vancouver in the fall of 2019, which is a sentence that tells you a great deal about the Latvian-Canadian grappler. Crute is a legitimate prospect, and Cirkunov subbed him out with a rarely utilized, even less rarely complete hold, getting him back into the win column following his rapid loss to Johnny Walker several months earlier.
The 34-year-old struggled when given his first taste of Top 10 competition, but that doesn’t mean he’s not capable of rebounding and hanging with those ahead of him in the rankings. He’s a brute of a man (in the cage) and with a little more seasoning, a little more strong coaching, and another quality win or two, Cirkunov could be right back in a position to fight for a place in the Top 5.
Spann enters this one off a frustrating defeat in September.
After dropping Walker twice and having him on the ropes, the Fortis MMA product got a little loose with his technique and overzealous in his quest to finish, caught a bunch of shots the side and back of the head, followed by a flush elbow to the temple, and got stopped in a classic “winning right up until he lost” performance. The loss halted his eight-fight winning streak, however the quiet man fighting out of Beaumont, Texas showed during that run that he’s got the full compliment of weapons needed to make a run in this wide open division; now he’s just got to put everything together cohesively and consistently in order to climb the ladder.
When you look at the Top 15 in the light heavyweight division, it feels (at least to me) like the first two contenders are locked in (Glover Teixeira, Aleksandar Rakic), two of the next four feel shaky (Thiago Santos, Anthony Smith), and everything after that is kind of fluid, with a couple people showing real promise (Magomed Ankalaev, Crute, Jamahal Hill) and couple feeling like they’ve maybe maxed out (Volkan Oezdemir, Nikita Krylov), leaving space for the winner of this one to perhaps break into the Top 10 and start making some headway in 2021.
This feels like one of those fights that could go any number of ways, but no matter how it plays out, it’s going to be exciting, and that only makes it more compelling to me.
Gimme All the Ige-Tucker Action!
When Gavin Tucker stepped up to face Dan Ige, replacing the injured Ryan Hall, I did a little happy dance.
Okay, I did a full-blown joyous dance routine because this fight is going to be awesome and as much as I was looking forward to seeing Hall return to the Octagon, I’m more interested in seeing Tucker get a chance to share the cage with a bonafide Top 10 talent like Ige in order to see if my beliefs about the Canadian featherweight are valid.
Ige used last year as his coming out party, showing in narrow wins over Mirsad Bektic and Edson Barboza and a competitive main event clash with Calvin Kattar that he’s tough as nails, hard to put away, and of the best fighters in the ultra-competitive 145-pound ranks. Tucker, meanwhile, collected a pair of impressive victories, finishing Justin Jaynes in the third round of their August scrap before out-hustling Billy Quarantillo for 15 minutes in December, plus, I’m genuinely enthralled with Tucker’s overall approach to his craft.
Before his last fight in December, I recounted a tidbit from following his win over SeungWoo Choi at UFC 240 where he scoffed at people getting gassed up about Conor McGregor tweeting about them following their performance, and then Wednesday during his media availability, the 34-year-old from Newfoundland and Labrador dropped this line and my heart swelled:
This is a tremendous opportunity for Tucker and one of those bouts where Ige can potentially show that he’s on a different level than the massive collection of emerging, but unranked fighters looking to make headway in the featherweight division.
I love everything about this contest and cannot wait until we get to experience it on Saturday night.
Emerging Name Alert: Jonathan Martinez
Jonathan Martinez is one of those dude not many people are talking about as he readies to face off with Davey Grant this weekend in Las Vegas, but they should be paying attention to him.
It’s unfortunate, but at the moment, Martinez is best remembered for getting jobbed by the judges last February in his fight with Andre Ewell, where every media member scoring the bout scored it for “The Dragon.” But the 26-year-old heads into his 2021 debut on a two-fight winning streak that should be a five-fight winning streak, having earned a unanimous decision win over Thomas Almeida in a featherweight fight between two bantamweight staples last time out, and this feels like the kind of matchup where the Factory X Muay Thai representative could have a breakout moment.
Martinez earned stoppage wins on either side of his “loss” to Ewell, felling bout Liu Pingyuan and Frankie Saenz with a stepping knee up the middle that has become his signature strike, and showed in the fight with Almeida that he’s made clear improvements and adjustments since the beginning of last year. Grant is the kind of game, gritty veteran that is going to come forward and seek out exchanges, as he did with Martin Day last summer, and that should mean Martinez will have more than a few opportunities to land something sharp and signal that he’s yet another up-and-coming talent to track int he bantamweight division.
He fell through the cracks in my Fighters to Watch series at the start of the year — I had him listed at featherweight because of his last fight, then didn’t add him back to the 135-pound class once I discovered the error — but he should certainly be on everyone’s radar heading into this weekend, and my guess is if he’s not now, he will be once the smoke clear on Saturday night.
Manel Kape’s Second Chance
This one kind of snuck up on people last week, as the UFC tucked the news that Manel Kape was stepping up on short notice to face off with the returning Matheus Nicolau on Saturday night into the collection of two-line fight descriptors that follow the biggest matchups on the card.
Kape arrived in the UFC with a ton of hype after an entertaining series of fights and a great deal of success under the RIZIN FF banner in Japan, and landed a marquee matchup for his debut when he was paired off with Alexandre Pantoja earlier this year. But things didn’t go as planned for “Starboy,” as he was a little too judicious with his strikes and a little too hesitant early on, leading to the Brazilian earning a decision win and spoiling his debut.
Now the 27-year-old steps up to replace Tagir Ulanbekov against the talented Nicolau, who was released during “The Flyweight Purge” following a loss to Dustin Ortiz, but had previously proven he belongs in the Top 15 by earning three straight wins upon arriving in the UFC.
While not quite a “do-over,” this is a chance for Kape to show that he’s taken in the lessons learned in his first appearance and deliver the kind of performance most were expecting last time out. There is some sneaky pressure attached to this fight as consecutive losses for a highly touted newcomer who was talking about sitting atop the division by the end of the year is a tough look, but that’s also what makes his eagerness to get back into the Octagon so intriguing.
Fighter I Can’t Quit: Charles Jourdain
Charles Jourdain is one of those guys I’m just always going to root for and that I’m always going to believe is an adjustment or two away from going on the kind of run that carries him into contention in the loaded featherweight division.
Is some of this Canadian pride and bias? Absolutely — I like seeing Canadian athletes succeed and have had a number of entertaining, enjoyable conversations with the 25-year-old French-Canadian, but I also genuinely believe in Jourdain’s potential because you don’t stop Dooho Choi in his track in his home country in your second UFC appearance without having some talent, and despite a winless year in 2020, I still believe Jourdain can eventually become a contender.
He has a strong pedigree from the regional circuit, having won two belts under the TKO banner, and has shown flashes despite a 1-2-1 record through his first four starts, including a competitive split decision loss to Andre Fili last year. Everything has been a learning experience for Jourdain thus far and rather than write off the young, charismatic Canadian because he’s struggled out of the gate, I’m doubling down on my long-term belief that he’ll figure things out and — at the very least — enjoy a lengthy career as an all-action fighter in the highly competitive, talent-rich 145-pound weight class.
But if he sorts a couple things out and puts everything together…
The Return of Salty Angela Hill
(yes, you’ve read this before, but the fight got postponed, so I’m running it again here)
Let me be clear here: I love the saltiness being exhibited by Angela Hill over the last several months, which once again rose to the fore when she got into a back-and-forth with Tecia Torres prior to her fight this weekend with Ashley Yoder being announced.
Hill closed out her 2019 campaign with a stoppage victory over Ariane Carnelossi in Mexico City, and headed into 2020 wanting to stay as active as possible, figuring out that the longer she sat on the sidelines, the more time she had to overthink things. The plan worked perfectly to start the year, as “Overkill” earned victories over Hannah Cifers and Loma Lookboonmee on January 25 and February 23 respectively to push her winning streak to three and earn a step up in competition.
Each of her next two fights went the distance and ended in split decision verdicts where the TUF 20 alum was left wondering what more she needed to do in order to shift the results in her favor. What made matters worse is that many in the media saw the fights in her favor as well, with her loss to Claudia Gadelha really standing out as one the judges got wrong.
Now she’s set to kick off her year against Yoder, a fellow TUF alum (Season 23) who is just 3-5 inside the Octagon, but is a tougher out than her record indicates.
It’s not the type of matchup Hill was hoping for to being her 2021 campaign in the cage, but it also feels like the kind of matchup that ultimately could be the catalyst to getting in there with the more established names in the division again should she secure a dominant victory on Saturday.
And it’s also brought out the salty side of the usually humorous and playful UFC strawweight, and “Fired Up Angie” is fun to watch too.
Crucial Moment for Nasrat Haqparast
It’s been a weird 15 months for Nasrat Haqparast, who entered 2020 as one of the most hyped upstarts in the lightweight division and heads into his 2021 debut in need of a big effort.
The 25-year-old Haqparast put together three wins in 13 months to establish himself as a legitimate lightweight prospect, but he got stopped in 70 seconds by Drew Dober last January, slowing his momentum considerably and forcing him to regroup. He rebounded with a good win over Alexander Munoz in August, but he no-showed the weigh-ins for his UFC 257 engagement with Arman Tsarukyan citing an illness, the second time he’s had a last-minute withdrawal in his relatively brief UFC tenure.
Haqparast stepped up to replace Guram Kutateladze here, and will now be facing a short-notice replacement as well, as newcomer Rafa Garcia has tagged in for South African Don Madge, who was scratched due to visa issues. While far from a must-win, this also feels like one of those bouts where the highly regarded German lightweight would really benefit from a dominant showing.
Garcia is no slouch — he’s 12-0 as a pro, coming off a win over former UFC competitor Humberto Bandenay to claim the Combate Americas lightweight title, has beaten guys like Estevan Payan, LaRue Bentley, and Chase Gibson along the way, and trains with a quality collection of fighters and coaches, so this is far from a lay-up for Haqparast.
The 155-pound ranks are always chock full of talent and gaining traction is difficult, so when you’ve got a little hype and people paying attention to you, it’s imperative that you make the most of it.
People are high on Haqparasts upside and he’s shown flashes of brilliance in the past, but there have been a few hiccups and stumbles along the way, and he needs to limit them and log some quality performances if he wants to maximize this moment.
I Want to Know More About Gloria de Paula
As I’ve stated here before, I have a deeper interest in fighters that graduated from the Contender Series because I’ve watched 37 of the 40 events live and spent more time than most diving into the backgrounds and prospects of the athletes that have competed on the annual talent search.
Even before her fight last November, de Paula was someone that piqued my interest as she was relatively inexperienced, but trained with a good group (Chute Boxe Diego Lima) and each of her two losses came by decision against athletes that had a cup of coffee in the UFC, Ariane Carnelossi and Isabela de Padua. Even though neither of those women earned victories, those are the kind of early-career markers that stick in my head when scouting these newcomers.
When she flat out dominated Pauline Macias to earn a contract and I filed her name away as one to remember for when she makes her promotional debut, which comes on Saturday in an instant litmus test against former Invicta FC atomweight champ Jinh Yu Frey.
While Frey is 0-2 inside the Octagon thus far, she’s also someone whose skills and talents have been measured and established, which is why the victories earned by Kay Hansen and Loma Lookboonmee over the 35-year-old last year were noteworthy. Now de Paula faces the same test, with the same “this means something” potential attached to her first trip into the Octagon.
As with everyone who appears in this category when I put these pieces together, I’m not sure what the future holds for de Paula or how good she could be, but I appreciated when I saw last November when she dominated Macias and really look forward to getting another look at her inside the Octagon this weekend.
Enjoy the fights!