10 Things I Like at UFC Vegas 23
After a week off, the action returns to the Octagon (and ABC) on Saturday and there is plenty on the slate that piques my interest
Not having a UFC event last weekend was weird.
For just the fifth time in the last 47 weeks, the UFC pressed pause on its schedule, which meant instead of watching men and women punch, kick, wrestle, and generally try to beat the bejesus out of one another inside the Octagon on Saturday night, I sat down to a nice meal (Easter leftovers!) and a bottle of wine (Red Rooster Pinot Gris) with my wife as we continued our binging of The Handmaid’s Tale (I’m late to it, I know) before retiring to the deck for a fire.
It was a wonderful little departure from the norm and I enjoyed every single minute of it.
I’m also happy things are getting mostly back to normal this weekend because I absolutely adore watching fights and writing about fights and as a creature of habit-slash-kind of OCD lunatic, breaking from the pattern of things has a way of knocking me off-kilter and out of rhythm for a couple of days and who wants to have their routine go all cattywampus?
Not I, fair readers; not I.
So, with the action heading back to the Octagon this weekend, I’m back with my usual pre-fight look at what intrigues me about this weekend’s fight card.
Please enjoy responsibly.
Early Morning Face-Punching
The only thing better than a Saturday evening on the couch watching fights is a Saturday morning on the couch watching fights because coffee and face-punching is the absolute best in my books and that’s what we’re getting this weekend.
With the return to ABC comes the return of an early start, with prelims kicking off at 9am here on the West Coast and the main card slated to commence at noon, which means everything will be wrapped up by roughly 3pm, meaning I don’t have to miss the afternoon stroll with “The Mayor of Bateman Park,” Skippy the Fox.
Besides allowing me to partake in Saturday afternoon walks with my dog, the main reason I adore fight cards that start in the morning out here is that I’m a morning person, while my wife is not, so it means I get to knock out all my work while she’s having a slow start to her day, and by the time I’m done, she’s entering her “ready to tackle the day” sweet spot and we can tackle a couple household projects, have a nice dinner and bottle of wine on the deck (Saturday’s selection will be a 2018 Gran Passione Rosso).
Plus, let’s be honest: peanut butter and bacon toast with piping hot coffee alongside this fight card is just a tremendous start to the weekend.
Perpetually Angry Marvin Vettori
Some guys walk around with a chip on their shoulders; Marvin Vettori has the entire Campania volcanic arc strapped to his.
The rising middleweight always seems aggrieved and aggressive, like that one dude in your group that always took every little slight a little too seriously, a little too personally, and seemed ready to fight pretty much anyone at all times, including you. Maybe it’s because he feels overlooked and under-appreciated despite ascending into the Top 10 in the middleweight division or perhaps it’s because a number of his contemporaries still refuse to acknowledge him as a legitimate threat in the division.
Current champ Israel Adesanya has mocked him for clinging to the belief that he won their April 2018 encounter on FOX, and the man he was supposed to face this weekend, Darren Till, has been berating and belittling him on social media for the last week, saying he was going to be easy prey. While I can understand how those things could get under one’s skin, the fact of the matter is that Vettori only needs to keep doing what he’s been doing of late inside the Octagon and none of this other stuff will matter.
The 27-year-old showed major improvements and made me a believer last December when he dominated Jack Hermansson to collect his fourth straight victory and if he can push his winning streak to five on Saturday, he’ll be the clubhouse leader for the next title shot in the middleweight division. Now, Robert Whittaker can claim that spot back with a victory over Kelvin Gastelum the following weekend, but winning keeps Vettori moving forward and takes a lot of the steam and sting out of the performative chatter that genuinely seems to bother him.
The best way to respond to Till is by showing up and showing out this weekend, and if he continues stacking quality wins, he could earn a second chance to face Adesanya before too long.
As someone who constantly walks around feeling like the “direct to DVD” version of Vettori, I understand where the Kings MMA product is coming from. But I also know that being perpetually angry is a tough way to go through life and the best way to combat it is to channel those emotions into performing so well that you can’t be denied.
Andiamo, Marvin! Buona fortuna!
The Maddening Mr. Holland
As soon as news broke that Till was out of this weekend’s main event, I knew Kevin Holland was going to step in to replace him because this is a textbook Kevin Holland kind of opportunity.
Just three weeks after laying an egg in his headlining clash with Derek Brunson, Texas’ “Trail Blazer” is stepping back into the Octagon with a chance to earn what could be considered an even bigger win against an opponent with an as-yet-undefined ceiling on Saturday, and if he’s successful, it’s likely that his poor showing against Brunson would get swept aside in favor of renewed optimism and excitement about what Holland brings to the table.
The fact that none of that sounds completely unreasonable is what makes Holland such a maddening figure to me.
He’s clearly talented and certainly capable of beating Vettori on Saturday, but he was also more than capable of beating Brunson and instead, he was more focused on yapping with people outside the cage than putting himself in advantageous positions and avoiding takedowns, resulting in a poor showing that killed a good portion of the momentum that he built by winning five fights in seven months last year.
Some people will skip passed the Brunson effort (or lack of effort) if he looks good this weekend, but the stink of that fight is going to stick on Holland for some time, at least for me, because even if he runs through Vettori on Saturday night, the fact that he’s also capable of looking like he’s just happy to be in there is the kind of thing you don’t shake with one strong outing.
As talented as he is — and he’s definitely talented — Holland needs to show he actually wants to be a contender before anyone should consider him as one, and it should take more than a victory over Vettori this weekend to convince people that’s what he wants.
I love that he’s always eager to tackle these kinds of challenges; now I need to see if he understands the opportunity before him and if he’s capable of capitalizing on it on Saturday afternoon.
A Perfect Pairing, Part I
The featherweight co-main event between Arnold Allen and Sodiq Yusuff exactly the right fight at exactly the right time for both competitors.
Allen is one of the best kept secrets in the UFC — a 27-year-old upstart with a 16-1 record overall, 7-0 mark inside the Octagon, and all the skills and tools required to be a permanent fixture in the title conversation in the 145-pound weight class as soon as later this year.
Yusuff has garnered a little more attention and acclaim since impressing on the Contender Series and earning four straight victories to begin his UFC career. Like Allen, “Super Sodiq” has the makings of a perennial contender, and only needs a victory in a fight like this to catapult him into pairings against Top 10 opponents.
The timing of this fight is what makes it so perfect because rather than have them meet earlier in their careers, Allen and Yusuff are sharing the Octagon at a time where a loss won’t do much of anything to diminish their standing within the division; all it will do is delay their ascent, while establishing the victor as the top emerging threat in the featherweight class.
Neither man has a big name or big following yet, but that is going to change here soon, and this might be the last opportunity you have to hitch your wagon to one or both of them before they break into the top tier in the division and start becoming more established figures.
A Perfect Pairing, Part II
The main card strawweight pairing between Nina Nunes (nee Ansaroff) and Mackenzie Dern is a perfect piece of matchmaking because it presents each competitor with an opportunity to answer one of the major question is everyone has about each of them.
Nunes is competing for the first time since losing to Tatiana Suarez at UFC 238 and welcoming her first child, Raegan Ann, with her wife, UFC “champ-champ” Amanda Nunes, last fall, and gets the chance to show that she’s still an elite contender in the 115-pound weight class. Losing to Suarez rightfully didn’t cost her any ground in the title chase, and now after nearly two years away, the 35-year-old veteran has the opportunity to walk back into the Octagon and deliver the kind of performance that says, “I’m back and I’m still a contender” by handing Dern the second loss of her professional career.
For Dern, this is a chance to show how much she’s grown since losing to Amanda Ribas in her first fight back after giving birth and continue building on the strong efforts she’s turned in since. As good as she’s looked over her last three fights, this is the 28-year-old’s toughest test since facing Ribas and the kind of fight she needs to win if she wants to be considered a contender before the year is out.
While I’m not often a fan of matching a fighter coming of a loss (and a layoff) against a fighter on a winning streak, it makes sense here because both women have something to prove and the best way for each of them to do it is by facing each other.
No matter how it shakes out, we should have a little better understanding of how things stack up in the strawweight division by Saturday evening.
Fighter I Can’t Quit: Jim Miller
If I were to compile a list of the athletes I’ve spoken with the most and written about the most over my dozen years hammering on the keys, Jim Miller would likely fall in the Top 10 and for good reason: the UFC lightweight is one of the best interviews in the game and a true professional in every sense of the word.
Of anyone on this card, he’s the guy most fighters would say they’re tuning in to see compete this weekend if they were surveyed because whenever Miller steps into the Octagon, you know he’s going to do everything in his power to have an entertaining fight and try to get his hand raised, and that’s the kind of thing that resonates with his contemporaries… and with me.
When we spoke last summer before his bout with Roosevelt Roberts, Miller said something that has stuck with me to this day and is the precise way of summing up why he’s such a respected figure in this sport, telling me, “there is a difference between ‘fighting professionally’ and being a ‘professional fighter’ and I am a professional fighter.”
Being a professional fighter is far more complicated, far more challenging than fighting professionally, and Miller has never wanted to do anything differently, which is why regardless of his recent results or who he’s set to face, if Jim Miller is on the fight card, I’ll be tuning in.
I Want to Know More About… Mateusz Gamrot
Mateusz Gamrot was on the long list of fighters I considered when I jumped the Protect Ya Neck podcast last week to discuss my Top 5 Dark Horses in MMA with my guy Dan Tom:
While “Gamer” didn’t end up surviving to the short list, that doesn’t mean he’s not someone I’m still not intensely interested in seeing compete again this weekend.
The 30-year-old Polish lightweight suffered the first loss of his professional career in his UFC debut last summer, dropping a split decision to Guram Kutateladze on Fight Island. It was a close, competitive battle that showcased some of the positives of Gamrot’s game, but also some of the areas he needs to work on as well, but overall, it simply left me wanting to see more of what the former KSW two-weight world champion can do inside the Octagon with his debut out of the way.
Saturday provides that opportunity and it does so with a tremendous matchup against divisional stalwart Scott “Hot Sauce” Hotlzman, a battle-tested veteran who should be able to force Gamrot to be at his best in order to get the victory.
This is precisely the kind of matchup I was hoping for when Gamrot dropped his debut because given his experience and age, there is no real reason to bring him along slowly or work to build him back up — he faltered out of the gate, so now let’s see how he does against an athletic, all-around talent with excellent conditioning like Holtzman.
The outcome of this one will re-set the baseline for Gamrot as he looks to forge a path for himself in the UFC lightweight division, and I’m very interested to see how it plays out in order to get a better read on what the future may hold for him.
Prospects to Watch: Erin Blanchfield, Ignacio Bahamondes
Saturday will see a pair of intriguing prospects make their first appearances inside the Octagon as Invicta FC alum Erin Blanchfield makes the walk to face Norma Dumont, while Contender Series graduate Ignacio Bahamondes squares off with Canadian veteran John Makdessi.
Blanchfield tags in for Bea Malecki, who was forced out with an injury, and she arrives sporting a 6-1 record overall and riding a three-fight winning streak. The 21-year-old earned a victory over Kay Hansen in a “Battle of Super-Young Prospects” at Invicta FC 32 and her lone loss thus far came to Tracy Cortez by split decision, which should give you an indication of what kind of talent we’re talking about here. She still young, still raw, and still developing, but Blanchfield has already established a strong foundation for her career and I’m very excited to see this next stage begin this weekend.
Bahamondes is freakishly tall for the lightweight division, standing six-foot-three and brandishing a 75.5-inch reach that he uses well, which means opponents are always going to have to work a little harder to get inside. The 23-year-old trains with the Valle Flow Striking crew in Chicago and earned his UFC contract by front-kicking Edson Gomez in the mush midway through the second round of the Contender Series clash last fall, which made him an instant “have to remember to watch his debut” guy for me.
The fact that he’s facing someone as seasoned as Makdessi is an added bonus, as a win over the Canadian provides an immediate baseline for the newcomer, unlike Blanchfield, who is facing a fellow neophyte in Dumont.
Both are a long ways from contention, but each has shown the kind of quality early flashes that make them worth keeping tabs on for the next couple years as they continue to gain experience competing at the highest level in the sport and grow into themselves as fighters.
Jack Shore is Fighting
One person who did make my Top 5 Dark Horses list was Jack Shore, the Welsh bantamweight standout who returns to action this weekend against Hunter Azure in what he hopes and I hope will be his breakout appearance in the Octagon.
I’m genuinely perplexed that more people aren’t fawning over Shore’s resume and upside given that he went 12-0 as an amateur and is 13-0 as a professional with 12 finishes, including two submission victories in his first two UFC appearances. Even though he’s been the opening fight of the night each time he’s stepped into the Octagon, an unblemished record and a sky high finishing rate are the kinds of things that usually get folks talking, but when it comes to “Tank,” there has been a lot of radio silence.
To his credit, the 26-year-old isn’t bothered by the lack of attention he’s garnered thus far, telling me when we spoke ahead of this weekend’s contest, “If they’re not talking about me now, I guarantee that by the time this year is over, they definitely will be.”
This fight with Azure is the kind of opportunity he was after and the type of matchup that should vault him into the greater MMA consciousness if he’s able to remain unbeaten and collect another finish.
I really believe Shore is capable of being a contender in the loaded bantamweight division and am looking forward to seeing if he continues to validate that belief this weekend.
A Tremendously Interesting Opener
It’s always fun when the opening bout of any card carries some kind of intrigue and this week’s curtain-jerker fits the bill, as Impa Kasanganay moves down to welterweight to take on Sasha Palatnikov.
Kasanganay has shown solid fundamentals and natural talent thus far in his two Contender Series appearances and two subsequent UFC appearances, profiling as a natural athlete who needs more time in the gym and experience in the cage in order to unlock his full potential as a fighter. In addition to moving down a division, the 27-year-old has also relocated to South Florida, where he now trains with the team at Sanford MMA, which could expedite his development.
For the second consecutive fight, Palatnikov is paired off with a Contender Series graduate in the opening bout of the evening, and after his come-from-behind finish of Louis Cosce in his debut, I’m very curious to see what the first UFC fighter from Hong Kong can do for an encore.
The 32-year-old Palatnikov is one of those guys who is far more experienced than his 6-2 MMA record suggests and the kind of steely, well-rounded fighter that should pair off nicely with Kasangany to deliver an entertaining start to this weekend’s festivities.
Enjoy the fights!