10 Things I Like at UFC 260
Setting the table for Saturday's pay-per-view with a look at the elements that excite me
Miocic’s Shot at Immortality
Stipe Miocic is already the greatest heavyweight in UFC history and one of the very best of all-time in the division, but Saturday night, the reigning champ has a chance to cement himself as an immortal in this sport by registering a second consecutive victory over Francis Ngannou.
That might sound strange to some because beating a guy you’ve already beaten once before, who has never been a champion doesn’t necessarily feel like the victory that moves you into that rarified air only the true icons on the sport occupy, but it’s all about context.
Miocic was the underdog in their first encounter, positioned as the sacrificial lamb being led to the slaughter against an unstoppable juggernaut just a handful of weeks removed from sending Alistair Overeem’s skull into orbit. He was expected by many to lose, allowing the UFC to usher in “The Ngannou Era,” but instead, the Cleveland native fought a smart, tactical fight, exhausting the inexperienced challenger by repeatedly wrestling him to the canvas en route to a unanimous decision win.
Three years later, they’re set to do it again and the setup is eerily similar, right down to Ngannou having registered four straight first-round stoppage victories in order to land opposite Miocic.
This time, there is the expectation that the challenger has grown since their first encounter — that he’s shored up his takedown defence, learned how to regulate his cardio better, become a more complete fighter instead of just a hellacious boxer — and that as good as he has been, Miocic will cede his position atop the division to the man many feel has long been destined to rule the heavyweight ranks.
But Miocic is just as likely to spoil those plans once again, as he too has grown as a fighter since their first encounter, becoming even more cerebral, even more of a tactician, even more savvy when it comes to deploying his weapons and making adjustments on the fly, and if he beats Ngannou for a second time this weekend at UFC 260, it will make his star shine even brighter.
You can chalk the first fight up to inexperience, to a quick turnaround for Ngannou, to the challenger being unsettled in terms of his coaching situation and readiness to deal with the crush of media that comes with fighting for championship gold. But he’s addressed all those things this time around, and once again looked like a destroyer of worlds over his last four fights, needing just 162 seconds to dispatch four highly skilled, dangerous heavyweight opponents.
This is supposed to be Ngannou’s do-over and if Miocic makes it another instance where he proves to be the better fighter, the reigning, defending, undisputed champion will further distance himself from the rest of the heavyweight pack and rise to the pantheon level of all-time greats, having stared down an ominous foe ticketed for the top of the division and turned him back, twice.
Answering That Lingering Question
One of the things I love about every fight night is that there are always a collection of questions that are going to be answered once the action in the Octagon gets underway.
This week, however, we’re going to get an answer to that one gigantic lingering question that has loomed over the prospects of this rematch since Ngannou started running through the competition for a second time: is the challenger going to be able to defend the takedown or get back to his feet should he be put on the deck?
What makes this all the more interesting is that we’ve literally had no indication that Ngannou has, in fact, become better at stuffing takedowns and scramble to his feet if and when he gets taken down because no one has been able to wrestle him, and no one has been able to wrestle with him because the menacing challenger is separating them from their consciousness before they get a chance.
Cain Velasquez came the closest, changing levels to attack Ngannou’s hips early in their February 2019 fight in Arizona, but before the former champ could really threaten to put him on his back, Ngannou crashed home and uppercut that stopped Velasquez dead in his tracks.
While neither Junior Dos Santos nor Jairzinho Rozenstruik were looking to wrestle, Ngannou wasted little time getting things done, and it’s entirely possible that the same holds true on Saturday night, which means his improved takedown defence and ability to get back up could become one of those mythical abilities we never end up because he never has to use it.
Can I say without a shadow of a doubt that Ngannou has made major strides in his wrestling? No, I cannot.
What I will say is that one of the big points of emphasis and interest with Ngannou when he was first getting started in the UFC was his uncanny ability to synthesize information and put it into practice quickly, like the kimura he used to submit Anthony Hamilton that he allegedly learned in the back just a few minutes before the fight. Even if he’s only half as good at picking things up quickly and implementing them into his arsenal as the legend suggests, three years of working with Nicksick & Co. at Xtreme Couture is ample time to deploy his obvious athletic gifts, unquestioned work ethic, and clear willingness to learn towards becoming a better defensive wrestler.
Personally, I’m torn on whether I want to actually see this question answered on Saturday night.
Part of me does just so we can know, but part of me likes the idea of it becoming another one of those theoretical skills we never actually see deployed in the Octagon, like Dos Santos’ jiu jitsu or a motivated BJ Penn.
Jon Jones Looming
Another one of the really captivating elements of Saturday’s main event is that it serves as a precursor to one of the biggest fights in UFC history, as the winner has already been penciled in to welcome Jon Jones to the heavyweight division later this year.
For the better part of his decade atop the light heavyweight ranks, Jones and everyone in the sport talked about his eventual move to heavyweight, but it only became a reality last year when “Bones” vacated the light heavyweight title and really started to reshape his body for a move up a division. Since then, UFC President Dana White has said that the 33-year-old will face the winner for the heavyweight title next, and each of the possible options are positively scrumptious.
Miocic getting the chance to defeat Ngannou and Jones in the same year would only further his case for immortality and a four-fight winning streak that went Cormier > Cormier > Ngannou > Jones would be quite the way to wrap up a career if you ask me, while Ngannou and Jones talked about the prospects of fighting each other a bunch last year on Twitter and back-to-back wins over the top fighters heavyweight and light heavyweight history would be a pretty impressive double for the big man from Batié, Cameroon.
And that says nothing of the potential of Jones venturing up to heavyweight and claiming championship gold in his debut, which would make it real hard to argue against him as the greatest fighter of all time, at least in terms of what he’s accomplished inside the cage.
In non-COVID times, this would be one of those fights where Jones was present throughout fight week and definitely stationed in the front row the night of the event before being ushered into the Octagon for a stare-down with the winner, setting the stage for the impending clash.
Even though that’s unlikely to happen this weekend, knowing a showdown between whomever emerges victorious on Saturday and the debuting heavyweight version of Jones at some point later this year is just a perfect little bow on top of this already nicely packaged present set to hit the cage at UFC 260.
A Big Moment for “The Silent Assassin”
Vicente Luque has spent the last four or five years establishing himself as one of the most consistently entertaining fighters in the UFC, amassing a staggering 12-2 record with 11 finishes since losing his promotional debut while climbing into the Top 10 in the talent-rich welterweight division.
Saturday night, “The Silent Assassin” gets a second chance to take a step forward and establish himself as a bona fide contender as he squares off with former champ Tyron Woodley in what is now this weekend’s co-main event. And before anyone says, “Oh, but Woodley is washed blah blah blah” — if he wasn’t washed last year when he fought Gilbert Burns and Colby Covington, both of whom bolstered their cases for title contention by beating “The Chosen One,” he’s not suddenly washed now heading into this weekend’s clash with Luque.
Last time Luque got this opportunity, he landed on the wrong side of a unanimous decision loss to Stephen Thompson at UFC 244 in a bout that earned Fight of the Night honours. The Brazilian started well, but “Wonderboy” made the better adjustments, deploying his signature hard-to-hit style while sniping at Luque from range, halting his six-fight winning streak in the process.
Woodley brings a completely different approach than Thompson and stylistically, this is a much better matchup for Luque, which is why this is such a crucial fight for the 29-year-old upstart.
You only get so many opportunities to graduate to the next tier, especially in the deeper weight classes, and while Luque still has a few more years of his athletic prime to work with, a second straight loss in a bout of this nature will knock him back a few steps in the welterweight ranks. Between his needing to reset and regroup and the non-stop crush of competitors looking to claw their way into contention, it could take three or four more impressive victories for him to get back to this point again should he come up short on Saturday.
And let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with settling in for a lengthy stay in the 8-12 range in the welterweight rankings — it’s great work if you can get it and there are plenty of hopefuls that would be happy to trade places with Luque — but for someone with championship ambitions, an exciting style, and a penchant for finishing fights, topping out on the fringes of contention would surely sting.
This is a huge moment for Luque and as someone that has been closely watching his rise this entire time, I’m really curious to see how he does this weekend.
Proving Time for Sean O’Malley
Sean O’Malley can’t lose this one.
That may seem harsh to say about a 26-year-old fighter with just a handful of UFC appearances under his belt, but O’Malley hasn’t been treated like a run-of-the-mill prospect and hasn’t carried himself like your standard, “slowly building to something special” upstart, and as such, he needs to win on Saturday night against Thomas Almeida and he needs to win emphatically.
O’Malley isn’t the one that produced the ridiculous pre-fight package that compared him to the likes of Ronda Rousey, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Russell Westbrook, Luka Doncic, and Lamar Jackson ahead of his bout with “Chito” Vera last summer at UFC 252, and you can’t fault the kid for being confident when he’s turned in some genuinely impressive showings, BUT…
When you turn up talking about how you’re still undefeated because an injury doesn’t count as a loss in your mind and your positioned against a guy who was in your position five years early, but has largely struggled since, you’re not giving yourself any options outside of “I need to win this fight in blistering fashion.”
I think O’Malley has the talent to be a legitimate title contender and a potential superstar in the UFC — his size makes him a problem, we’ve seen the power and precision with his hands, and he’s got the kind of personality that has already made him a bigger name than his accomplishments would otherwise dictate — but he might be too brittle physically to deal with the rigours of this sport and he might be too high on his own supply to ensure that he puts his considerable talents to best use and makes the most of the opportunities before him.
Almeida was once the rising star of the bantamweight division — a menacing finisher with a 21-0 record, four straight wins, four bonuses, and three straight finishes inside the Octagon. Since then, the Brazilian has gone 1-4, entering this weekend’s event on a three-fight slide spread out over four a little less than four years because he was sidelined for a stretch with an eye injury that many worried would end his career.
At this point, he’s being positioned as a guy that O’Malley should beat and stylistically, things line up nicely for “Suga” as the Brazilian has major holes in his striking defence that he should be able to exploit, but those things only ratchet up the pressure further.
Two straight losses at this relatively early stage certainly wouldn’t be a death sentence for O’Malley, but it would deaden any remaining hype surrounding the Contender Series standout and put him in a position where he’d be facing a true must-win situation next time out.
That’s a rough spot to be in given the early hype, early push, early promise that he showed and I'm genuinely counting down the hours until we get to see if O’Malley can bounce back and do so in impressive fashion.
Prospect to Watch: Miranda Maverick
On the very last day of last year, I wrote about my picks for the top prospects in each division, and dubbed Miranda Maverick the one to watch in the flyweight ranks, and after a false start earlier this year, I’m curious to see her finally make her sophomore appearance inside the Octagon this weekend against Gillian Robertson.
The things that really stick out for me about Maverick, 23, are the completeness of her repertoire at an early age, her fluidity and athleticism in a division where both are premium traits, and the way she was able to make adjustments on the fly in her debut win over Liana Jojua last fall. After getting touched up at range early in the bout, she changed her approach, closing the distance when she wanted to throw hands, and staying outside of Jojua’s range to throw kicks, and it resulted in Maverick piecing up the Georgian prospect and opening a fight-ending bleeder on the bridge of her nose.
She had a tremendously successful 2019, avenging an early loss to DeAnna Bennett in the finals of the Invicta FC Phoenix Series tournament, and then beat UFC vet Pearl Gonzalez before getting the call to the Octagon, so she’s already faced solid competition in these early stages of her career and looks like someone that could very well make some serious noise in the 125-pound weight class in the not-too-distant future.
Robertson is a good test for Maverick at this stage of her career — a nine-fight UFC veteran with a slick ground game and bushels of toughness, so how things shake out here will go a long way to determine how far and how fast the Virginia-based flyweight may climb in 2021.
Gillian Robertson’s Weird Pattern
Speaking of Robertson, it’s already been established that she’s a “Fighter I Want to Know More About” and her loss to Taila Santos at the end of last year did nothing to change that for me.
It did, however, continue a very odd, probably coincidental pattern to Robertson’s UFC career though, as the Din Thomas protege has now put together three consecutive “win two, lose one” stretches to begin her time in the Octagon.
While we’re still a couple more instances away from reaching Randa Markos territory where the pattern becomes a hilarious anecdote to each of her fights, it’s also something to watch because each of those setbacks came when Robertson took a step up in competition, so how this one plays out on Saturday should, in theory, tell us where Maverick fits in the divisional hierarchy.
These are the weird little things that I’m sure only a handful of people even notice and even fewer care about, but on a card that has been ravaged by changes, it’s curious patterns like this that give me one more thing to pay attention to on Saturday night.
I Want to Know More About Jared Gooden
The first time I saw Jared Gooden’s name on a UFC fight card, I thought it was a misprint, believing it was Jared Gordon. My second instinct was to conjure up a face-mash between Gordon and UFC broadcaster John Gooden, which made me chuckle to myself.
But then I did my due diligence on the Georgia-based welterweight and watched him compete against Alan Jouban and “Nite Train” quickly became a guy I want to know more about.
He was a finisher over the second half of his days on the regional circuit and showed some flashes that intrigued me against Jouban, a durable, talented veteran. Now he gets a second opportunity to compete inside the Octagon against Abubakar Nurmagomedov, and I’m really curious to see if he can replicate some of the success he had outside of the UFC in this more even sophomore showing.
Gooden profiles to me as one of those fighters that started early with minimal training and marginal coaching and would probably benefit greatly from working with a more established team, as who you train with and who is leading those sessions are major keys to success at this level.
Maybe that will happen at some point in the future, and maybe it won’t, but for now, he’s someone I’m looking forward to getting another look at on Saturday.
Big Moment for Young Light Heavyweights
It’s kind of surprising to me that more people aren’t keying in on the light heavyweight pairing between Modestas Bukauskas and Michal Oleksiejczuk on Saturday night given that both men have shown flashes of upside and are 27 and 26 years old respectively.
Now, each man is coming into this fight after getting finished by Jimmy Crute, and Oleksiejczuk has been stopped in two straight, but Crute is arguably the top young talent in the division and stumbling against someone of his caliber shouldn’t prevent either of these two from being considered promising young names to track in the traditionally shallow 205-pound weight division.
Additionally, this profiles as a sure-fire banger early in the card on Saturday night, which means Twitter will likely be alight with folks singing their praises after the fact, and for me, as always, I want to be out in front of that love.
Oleksiejczuk looked great in a pair of early 2019 wins over Gian Villante and Gadzhimurad Antigulov before his current two-fight slide, and Bukauskas impressed in his debut win over Andreas Michailidis, so we’ve seen sporadic glimpses of what each man can do inside the Octagon, and my guess is that we get another dose of that from each this weekend.
Fighter I Can’t Quit: Shane Young
Any time you put Shane Young on a fight card, I’m tuning in; simple as that.
The ultra-tough New Zealander debuted with a hard-fought loss to current featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski, followed it up with a pair of strong outings against Rolando Dy and Austin Arnett, and then got stopped last time out by late replacement Ludovit Klein, who missed weight by a considerable margin, sending him into this weekend’s pairing with Omar Morales with something to prove.
Young is a bit of a throwback in my eyes — a guy who is more tough than naturally talented, but who has figured out how to weaponize his toughness and resolve, pairing it with crisp, heavy hands and quality coaching to be a miserable assignment for anyone in the middle of the featherweight pack.
I get a real Paul Taylor, Marcus Davis kind of vibe from Young and though neither of those guys ever became contenders, they were can’t miss additions to every fight card they were on, and I feel the same way about the 27-year-old City Kickboxing representative.