10 Things I Like at UFC Long Island
Saturday's fight card is so dope that I don't even have to include the early start time as a quality selling point
Normally when a fight card starts at 8am PST, that fact would should show up below as one of the 10 Things I Like because you know how much I love early morning face-punching with a hot cup of coffee; it’s right up there on the list of my favourite non-fight fight things along with Joe Martinez’ pronunciation and John Gooden using words and phrases that confuse large segments of the audience, but make me smile.
Saturday’s return to Long Island and debut at UBS Arena at Belmont Park is one of those shows with an early morning start time, but it also has a lineup so loaded with talent and intrigue that I don’t need to include “Bacon, Eggs, and Face-Punching” as one of this week’s 10 Things because there are enough things that will be happening in the Octagon that excite me that I can skip the shenanigans and stick to the good stuff.
So let’s get to the good stuff.
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Brian Ortega is Fighting Yair Rodriguez (and They’ve Got 25 Minutes to Work)
I know this subhead is longer than the title of every Fall Out Boy song on From Under the Cork Tree (and has a similar structure with the parenthetical and all), but I didn’t want to be pithy or cute or even remotely downplay the excitement I have for Saturday’s main event matchup.
Ortega is like a featherweight submission-based Derrick Lewis — at any point in a fight, no matter how miserable things have been going for him, all he needs is one opening and he’ll snatch your neck and the victory out from under you. We saw that in his fight with Alexander Volkanovski: the champ beat the hell out of him before the guillotine attempt and after the guillotine attempt, but in that brief interaction, we all thought Ortega was going to put him to sleep and win the title.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez seems allergic to being in a boring fight, even when in those scattered instances where he’s on the receiving end of things. He’s quick and flashy and sharp and tough as all get-out, which means he’s going to be attacking and advancing and throwing fast kicks to all levels until you either get him out of there or the final horn sounds.
And now they’re facing each other with a maximum of 25 minutes to work.
This could go any number of ways, but all of them are guaranteed to leave us talking about this fight for a couple of days.
Amanda Lemos’ Quick Return
I love that Lemos is getting right back into the Octagon after her April loss to Jessica Andrade. It was one of the main things we discussed when I spoke to her earlier this week, and everything about her answers and approach resonated with me.
Rather than lick her wounds and wait for an absolutely perfect matchup, she’s jumping at the chance to hustle back into the cage, in a co-main event slot, against a fighter ranked above her in Michelle Waterson, who hasn’t fought in over a year and, to me, feels beatable when you look at the stylistic dynamic between these two.
This is a fight that will help determine where Lemos’ floor rests in the strawweight division, because I think the Andrade fight established her ceiling as being slightly below the elite class. Now we’re going to find out if she’s someone that can thrive in the 5-10 range, is more likely to be someone that resides in the 11-15 neighbourhood, or maybe just someone that had a great year in 2021 and is more likely to hover just outside the rankings for the next couple years.
She’s already 35, so there is no reason to drag this out — get in there, figure out where you stand, and keep fighting.
Salikhov’s Litmus Test
Muslim Salikhov is one of those fighters that stand in opposition to the “winning streaks mean something and we have to pay more attention to them” argument I make all the time.
It’s not that his winning streak doesn’t matter, it’s more that right now, I have no idea what kind of weight and carries and what it really tells me about the 38-year-old “King of Kung Fu." Five straight UFC victories is always impressive, regardless of the opponent, but Salikhov hasn’t exactly been rushing up the welterweight ranks in big steps with each successive victory. Instead, it’s been moderate steps, measured steps, with good wins over Elizeu Zaleski Dos Santos and Francisco Trinaldo finally being enough to merit a real test this weekend.
China’s Li Jingliang isn’t a guy you beat if you’re just some dude in your late 30s, hanging around the Top 15 on volume. He throws everything with malice intent, has real power, and has been in there with a bunch of quality opponents, with only the best of the bunch getting the better of him as of late.
I have no idea if Salikhov is someone that has a real chance to be a contender in this division, but how things shake out this weekend against “The Leech” will help provide some clarity about the situation, that’s for sure.
Intriguing & Important Flyweight Matchup
Saturday’s flyweight matchup between Matt Schnell and Sumudaerji is one of those quality Top 15 pairings that kind of slides under the radar on a card like this, but is genuinely intriguing and carries some true divisional significance in my mind.
Schnell is the veteran measuring stick in the Top 10 at the moment — a guy that has yet to rise to the rank of contender (or even close, really), but is sound everywhere, has speed and a little pop, good scrambling, and can be a handful if you get stuck in there with him on the wrong night. How you do in a fight with Schnell feels instructional to me, and that’s why I’m keen to see what this fight with Sumudaerji looks like.
I’m intrigued by “The Tibetan Eagle,” but I’m also quite surprised that he’s a solid favourite in this matchup, given that he hasn’t fought in 18 months and only looked okay in his win over Zarrukh Adashev. There are raw materials and intangibles that I like about Sumudaerji — his size and length, the power he has in his hands, stance switching, the amount of experience he’s garnered already — but he’s also never shown he’s capable of beating a Top 15 opponent, yet alone a Top 10 guy.
But here’s the thing: if he does go out and defeat Schnell on Saturday, we’ve got another interesting name to pay close attention to in the bustling flyweight division. If he doesn’t, the status quo remains the same, and it’s a pretty decent status quo if I do say so myself.
It’s a win-win kind of matchup and I can’t wait to see it.
Featherweight Banger Alert
I’m actually not going to say a lot about the matchup between Shane Burgos and Charles Jourdain because if you don’t know this is an absolute can’t-miss pairing that is the pre-event favourite for Fight of the Night and one of those matchups that could be Fight of the Year if things shake out a certain way, than you haven’t been paying attention.
There is no way this fight isn’t amazing for one reason or another, and no matter what happens, we’re going to see something cool in this fight.
Tate’s Title Bid
Optimism is my default setting, but I’m also the child of a stone-cold pragmatist and I find those influences creeping into my opinion about this fight between Lauren Murphy and Miesha Tate and Tate’s move to flyweight in general.
She’s doing this to fast-track herself to a championship opportunity, right? Can we all agree on that?
Tate can say whatever she wants about this was always the division she should have been in and not wanting to fight her friend Julianna Pena, but she never looked out of place at bantamweight and had a bunch of success there, and she didn’t have to worry about potentially challenging Pena because (a) she got her ass kicked by Ketlen Vieira last time out and wasn’t near a title shot, and (b) Pena’s probably not going to be champ on July 31, so no worries.
I don’t begrudge her going down and trying to find a quick path to a championship assignment, even if I think she’ll get waxed by Valentina Shevchenko if she gets there, but let’s just be honest with each other: there’s a reason she’s jumping in against Murphy, who will be 39 in a couple weeks and is coming off a championship opportunity (where she got blown out of the water) rather than Katlyn Chookagian or Manon Fiorot or Alexa Grasso or Vivi Araujo or Andrea Lee or Erin Blanchfield… you get my point?
This is a favourable pairing that instantly puts Tate opposite “Bullet” and brings her the marquee fight she came back for in the first place. Now all she has to do is go out and win.
This Week’s Bantamweight Gem
Everyone knows by now that I adore the bantamweight division (how could you not?) and this week’s example of why it’s the deepest, most competitive division the UFC right now comes in the form of a Top 15 pairing between Ricky Simon and Jack Shore, two ascending talents on quality winning streaks who are trying to graduate to facing established names and not fellow emerging fighters.
Simon enters on a four-fight winning streak, having knocked out Raphael Assuncao last time out, while holding a win over Merab Dvalishvili from early in their UFC days. He’s dialled up the aggression in his last several fights, working towards finishes more than in the past, and profiles as a fighter that his just now hitting his prime and putting all the pieces together in a way that can potentially carry him forward in the 135-pound weight class.
Shore is unbeaten in the UFC (5-0), unbeaten as a professional (16-0), and unbeaten in fighting in general (28-0) after posting a dozen consecutive victories as an amateur before embarking on his professional career. He’s hyper-technical with a terrific grappling game and enough hands to keep you honest, and the question this weekend is whether that technical acumen is going to be enough to carry him passed more athletic, more dynamic fighters, including Simon?
This is an utterly fascinating fight and probably the fight I’m most looking forward to this weekend.
Streaking Light Heavyweights
When we recorded the Severe MMA Preview Show last night — up later today on the Severe MMA YouTube page — Harry twisted his face up in a grotesque manner when I suggested that I was looking forward to the fight between Dustin Jacoby and Da-un Jung, with his reasoning being that Jung fought Sam Alvey to a draw…
I can’t argue against that point because it did, in fact, happen, but what I will say is this: these things happen from time-to-time, Jung has since earned good wins over William Knight and Kennedy Nzechukwu, and Jacoby is 5-0-1 since returning to the UFC.
The winner of this one is going to be fighting someone you’re quite familiar with next time out (in all likelihood) and I’m genuinely curious to see if the 28-year-old South Korea tapped into a little something in his last two outings that raises his profile and prospects heading into and coming out of this one?
Light heavyweight is always a bit of a mess, but these two are on solid unbeaten streaks and the winner is getting a step up next time out, so I want to prepare for that one by watching this one closely on Saturday.
Middleweight DWCS Alums Looking to Rebound
Punahele Soriano and Dustin Stoltzfus each enter their respective matchups on Saturday looking to snap out of spins; the former having dropped consecutive decisions and the latter being 0-3 thus far in the UFC.
Soriano graduated from Dana White’s Contender Series (DWCS) a year before Stoltzfus and had success in his first two assignments, but struggled against Brendan Allen (nothing to hang your head about) and is coming off a weird fight with Nick Maximov, while Stoltzfus has simply faced three men that are all better than him at what he’s best at in Kyle Daukaus, Rodolfo Vieira, and Gerald Meerschaert.
Each has a winnable fight before them on Saturday — Soriano against Dalcha Lungiambula in the final preliminary card bout, and Stoltzfus earlier in the day opposite former welterweight (and DWCS grad) Dwight Grant — and I’ll be interested to see how and if each is able to snap out of their respective skids and get things moving in the right direction this weekend.
Welcome to the UFC, Emily Ducote
I might be abnormally high on Emily Ducote as a promising new arrival to the UFC, but I’d rather be clear with my belief in her talents and wrong than think she has the chance to be a contender, couch it because I don’t want to look foolish, and then play the whole “I knew she would get here as soon as she signed with the UFC” catch-up thing.
I detailed all the reasons I like the 28-year-old in this week’s edition of Fighter to Watch and think a big effort against Jessica Penne on Saturday could really prompt the UFC to hustle her up the divisional hierarchy quicker than most, given that everyone from No. 7 down in the Top 15 feels fairly similar in terms of “anyone can beat anyone on any given night.”
But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself.
Penne is a perfect test to see if Ducote can replicate the success she had in her last handful of fights under the Invicta FC banner will transfer to the Octagon, and if it does, I think there will be a few people looking for seats on the bandwagon early on Saturday.
Be sure say hello when you get onboard; I’ll be the guy a couple rows back, grinning.