10 Things I Like at UFC Vegas 26
Saturday's card is top quality, plain and simple.
There was a lot of hand-wringing about the depth of this card when the original main event was scuttled and Diego Sanchez was pulled from his fight against Donald Cerrone (re-read that sentence and tell me how that’s real), but as I said last week in my “Unpopular Opinion” piece — this card is really good and if you think otherwise, I feel like you value names over actual competitive fights and might just be someone who always wants to complain about everything.
But hey — if you want to go through life disliking everything and being aggrieved by everything, it’s a weird choice, but it’s your choice to make.
Have fun with it — I’ll be over here looking for silver linings and actually enjoying things.
Like the following 10 Things about this weekend’s event at the UFC APEX.
Main Event Marina Rodriguez
If you want to argue that there was no need to match strawweights Marina Rodriguez and Michelle Waterson together in a five-round main event at flyweight on short notice given the quality matchups scattered throughout the rest of the main card, you won’t get any quarrel from me.
But if you suggest Rodriguez isn’t main event material, that’s where I beg to differ.
Last time out, the Brazilian Muay Thai stylist absolutely clocked Amanda Ribas with a right hand that twisted her up into herself. Given that Ribas was going to get a rocket ship strapped to her back had she won the bout and the way it played out, I feel like doing anything other than giving Rodriguez a high profile opportunity like this would squander that effort and limit her potential to breakthrough a establish herself as a real contender in the strawweight division.
While I understand the push-back on putting someone who is 1-1-1 over her last three fights in a main event, let’s unpack that a little because just saying she’s 1-1-1 doesn’t quite offer the full context of how she arrived that that record.
The draw came against Cynthia Calvillo in a fight where Calvillo missed weight by a considerable margin, while the loss came by split decision against streaking former champion Carla Esparza. In each instance, a case could be made for Rodriguez winning the fights, and she’s since added the stoppage win over Ribas, which feels like one of those instances where there has to be a transference of momentum.
Rodriguez has proven she’s a legitimate Top 10 talent and with one round, on one card, in two fights, no one would be batting an eye at this assignment. It’s not the ideal way to headline for the first time in the UFC, but it puts a potential fresh contender in the spotlight in a division we’re all excited about, and if she finishes Waterson the way she halted Ribas’ run of success earlier this year, Rodriguez will position herself as a dark horse title threat in the 115-pound weight class.
A Better Measuring Stick for Cowboy Cerrone
I get that everyone wanted to see former teammates turned rivals Donald Cerrone and Diego Sanchez beat the holy hell out of each other. I spoke to “Cowboy” on Wednesday and he admitted to putting a lot more into this training camp because he was ready to unleash a serious ass-whipping on Sanchez, so yeah, it would have been action-packed and violent.
But it also probably would have been kind of sad because Sanchez hasn’t looked like a competent UFC fighter for a couple years now and Cerrone beating the ever-loving snot out of him wouldn’t have told us a damn thing about where the 38-year-old stands at this point in his career. You could argue that the five-fight winless streak he rides into Saturday’s event tells us everything we need to know, but I’m not sure I want to hold losses to Tony Ferguson, Justin Gaethje, Conor McGregor, and Anthony Pettis against someone, and battling a tough savage like Niko Price to a draw is still a solid result, all things considered.
This weekend, Cerrone shares the Octagon with Alex Morono, staying on the card to face the solid welterweight from Houston in a short-notice scrap that should provide a little more clarity about how much “Cowboy” has got left in the tank. It’s a winnable fight, but not a gimme like the pairing with Sanchez appeared to be, and given that Cerrone has always maintained he’d keep fighting until the wheels fall off, I’m curious to see how he looks after a hard training camp against a solid, middle-of-the-pack welterweight.
My guess is Cerrone’s got a couple more years of fun, entertaining matchups against veteran names left in him, but a sluggish effort on Saturday night could shrink that timeline and prompt the man with the most appearances in UFC history to really start to think long and hard about riding off into the sunset.
Neil Magny: Proud Journeyman
Neil Magny gave me one of the best quotes in a long time when we spoke a couple weeks back ahead of his fight on Saturday against Geoff Neal.
We were talking about how tenured Top 10 fighters like him don’t always get the respect and recognition they deserve, and the articulate, thoughtful welterweight offered up the following words of wisdom and truth:
“People throw the ‘journeyman’ label out there, but you know what? Being a journeyman is pretty hard… If you want to come out here and get these 30 fights, more power to you, but let me know how it goes though, because it’s not an easy task to accomplish.”
Magny was already one of my guys, but now, he might be the team captain.
This weekend’s fight will be the 25th of his UFC career, and he’s spent the last seven or eight years positioned inside the Top 15, both of which are massive accomplishments that not enough people recognize, respect, and appreciate. There aren’t many people that can say they’ve achieved either, yet alone both, and yet here’s quiet, humble Neil Magny, going out and fighting three, four, five times a year, winning 17 of his first 24 UFC fights, cementing his place in the Top 10, and folks want to call him a journeyman like it’s some kind of slanderous designation.
I love that Magny wears the title with pride and speaks about how difficult it actually is to be a journeyman in MMA these days because what he’s accomplished inside the Octagon is something for him to be proud of and something a lot of dudes that get a lot more attention haven’t come close to achieving yet and probably won’t.
You can have all the folks that burn hard and fast and fizzle out quickly — I’ll take the journeymen, the grinders, the rounders; those are my people, and I’ll support them ‘til the end.
Geoff Neal’s Make-up Exam
This is not to take anything away from Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson and the performance he delivered in the final fight of 2020 — he looked great, did his thing, and rightfully earned a unanimous decision win over Neal.
It’s just that when you know everything that was going on with the Fortis MMA product prior to that fight and right up until he stepped into the Octagon, it kind of feels like the Contender Series grad (Class of ‘18) deserves a do-over of sorts this weekend.
This fight was supposed to happen last August, but Neal had to pull out… because he got rushed to the hospital, where he stayed in the ICU for a couple days because he was septic, needed dialysis, and was dealing with congestive heart failure. As Neal put it on Instagram, he almost died.
After getting healthy and signing on to fight Thompson, he ventured to Vegas without his coach, as Sayif Saud got diagnosed with COVID-19 and couldn’t accompany his charge to the APEX. As much as his teammate Ramiz Brahimaj did a solid impersonation of Coach Sayif on Fight Night, it’s not the same as having “The General” in your corner, and I think that, combined with the whole “I almost died less than five months ago” thing kind of merits a make-up exam before we make up our minds on where Neal fits in the welterweight pecking order.
“Wonderboy” is a miserable matchup for everyone and capable of beating the very best the division has to offer on any given night, so losing to him shouldn’t lessen the positive thoughts people had about Neal prior to that contest. This weekend’s pairing with Magny is a perfect “let’s see where he fits” fight because only legitimate contenders have gotten the better of things against the TUF 17 cast member over the last bunch of years, so Saturday’s outcome feels like it will be more instructive about where “Handz of Steel” stands in the 170-pound hierarchy.
Fun Heavyweight Finishers Collide
I’m a simple man with mostly simple tastes and that includes enjoying fun, relatively meaningless heavyweight fights between guys like Marcos Rogerio de Lima and Maurice Greene that like to finish early and in funky ways.
The Brazilian has been to the scorecards three times in 25 career fights; Greene has made it to the judges four times in 14 bouts, but only once in seven UFC starts. Combined, they gone the distance in less than 20 percent of their fights, and I’m guessing that their bout this weekend lands in that 80-plus percentile where the judges aren’t needed.
Look: I know we’ve all languished through innumerable heavyweight matchups that seemed destined to end early and turned into slop-fests, and there is a potential this one does too, but de Lima’s last three fights and Greene’s last five fights have ended before the final horn and I believe there is a very strong likelihood that is how things shake out between them on Saturday.
I also think we could get something weird — de Lima got put to sleep with a forearm choke last time out, while Greene has is a non-discriminate sprinter, finishing and being finished by strikes and submissions during the course of his UFC career.
On a main card that is actually quite strong with quality matchups carrying legitimate divisional significance, I don’t mind a little heavyweight palate cleanser before getting to the final couple courses.
This Week’s Super-Dope Lightweight Matchup
Just about every week there is a really fun, really meaningful, really intriguing lightweight matchup that takes place and this week’s entry is all three as Carlos Diego Ferreira makes a hasty return to square off with the returning Gregor Gillespie.
Ferreira had his six-fight winning streak snapped earlier this year in a close, competitive scrap with Beneil Dariush, while Gillespie was slated to return in late March opposite Brad Riddell before the bout was scrapped at the 11th hour when the City Kickboxing representative was scratched due to COVID protocols. Now “The Gift” finally returns in a bigger, better, more competitive fight and we get a super-dope lightweight matchup to enjoy on Saturday night.
It’s a little weird to me that Gillespie is the more hyped, more highly regarded fighter of these two, even now, after well over a year away following the first loss of his career. Don’t get me wrong, he looked great in his first six UFC appearances and I too had him pegged to beat Kevin Lee before he got left slumped up against the fence at MSG, it’s just that Ferreira rattled off six straight victories of his own, capped by a dominant effort against Anthony Pettis, and showed a couple months back that he’s still very much in the thick of the chase in the lightweight division.
Of course, that’s also why I adore this pairing so much: in one fight, we get to find out where Gillespie stands in the grand scheme of things and try to figure out whether his loss to Lee was simply a bad night, a great performance by the mercurial “Motown Phenom,” a little bit of both, or none of the above.
This is an outstanding fight and it legitimately hurt my feelings when people were knocking the quality and depth of this card last week knowing this fight was set to happen.
Battle of the Beloved Strawweights
Amanda Ribas and Angela Hill are two of the most universally beloved fighters on the UFC roster, and they’re facing each other this weekend, and that's both awesome because it should be a terrific fight and awful because it means one of them has to lose, and that’ll mean one of them lands on a losing skid, which sucks.
As mentioned earlier, Ribas was poised to be launched in to the title conversation heading into her bout with Rodriguez at UFC 257 after winning each of her first four UFC fights and looking more and more impressive each time out. Calling her “bubbly” doesn't quite do her personality justice, but she’s the total package from a potential superstar standpoint and it will be real interesting to see how she responds to getting clocked and stopped last time out when she steps in with Hill on Saturday.
Depending on who you ask, “Overkill” either went 2-2 in her four 2020 appearances or would have gone 4-0 if the judges knew how to score fights, as she dropped her last two bouts of the year by split decision in close fights many argue should have gone the other way. Either way, last year was a breakout campaign for the TUF 20 alum and regardless of the fact that she officially enters on a two-fight slide, Hill has shown a tremendous amount of growth over the last couple years and will serves as a great test for Ribas on Saturday.
Much like the main event, this is a great fight between Top 15 talents in one of the most interesting and competitive divisions in the UFC. If you’re not looking forward to this one, I don’t know what to tell you.
Prospect Clash: Phil Hawes vs. Kyle Daukaus
This feels like one of those fights we’re going to look back on in a couple years and think, “Wait — they fought already?” the way we do with Kamaru Usman and Leon Edwards now that they’re the champion and a top contender in the welterweight division.
While I’m not necessarily forecasting Hawes or Daukaus to reach the top of the middleweight mountain, I do think this is an outstanding matchup between two genuinely intriguing prospects in the 185-pound ranks and one that could morph into a pairing of Top 15 fighters in the not too distant future.
Hawes looked great in his debut win over Jacob Malkoun and then struggled in his last fight against another prospect, Nassourdine Imavov, while Daukaus lost his debut to Brendan Allen, then looked sharp beating Dustin Stoltzfus last time out to register his first UFC victory. Hawes is the more powerful of the two, while Daukaus is the more technical and tested, which makes this an interesting interplay of styles where one guy should be favored early (Hawes) and the other considered the better bet the later it goes.
I love fights like this because I’m pretty high on both guys and rather than seeing them endure a slow build, the UFC is throwing them in against one another in order to figure out which one takes a big step forward on Saturday and which one has to regroup.
I Want to Know More About… L’udovit Klein
When you’re 17-2 overall, coming off a first-round knockout win over a tough out, and your nickname is “Mr. Highlight,” you have my attention.
Klein looked very good in his debut win over Shane Young, taking the fight on short notice and needing a little over a minute to dispatch the City Kickboxing representative at UFC 253. The one knock on the 26-year-old Slovakian fighter is that he missed weight by a healthy margin (five pounds), and needs to make sure he has that squared away before he steps into the Octagon this weekend against Mike Trizano.
Provided the weight isn’t a recurring issue, Klein looks like an intriguing addition to the featherweight ranks and is the kind of fighter I’m dying to get a second look at because it’s hard to build too many thoughts off a 76-second fight where you missed weight. Trizano is a solid grinder and former Ultimate Fighter winner returning for the first time in nearly two years, so the potential for rust makes this a sub-optimal second viewing opportunity because there are obvious “yeah, but…” outs available if you want to stay skeptical about Klein or question a potential strong performance.
For me, any chance to gather further information is great and sure, I’d rather see Klein face someone that has been active and is a little further up the food chain than Trizano this weekend, but there is still a lot to learn about the UFC sophomore and I’m eager to see what kind of information I can gather on him on Saturday night.
Fighter I Can’t Quit: Tafon Nchukwi
Yes, I’m staking this position early because I already know that Tafon Nchukwi is one of those guys I’m going to believe is one good win away from putting it all together for the rest of eternity… unless he actually puts it all together and becomes the terrifying monster he looks like he could become somewhere down the road.
Here’s what I said about Nchukwi following his debut win over Jamie Pickett on last year’s final fight card of 2020:
Pencil in the name Tafon Nchukwi near the top of your list of Fighters to Watch in 2021. The middleweight newcomer looked excellent over 15 minutes against Jamie Pickett, registering the first decision win and fifth consecutive victory of his career. The 26-year-old is built like a truck, works with a very good team, and is too athletic, too quick for a guy his size, which is going to make him a problem going forward.
And here’s what I said when I discussed Nchukwi as a prospect in the middleweight instalment of the Fighters to Watch series:
If you’re not already paying close attention to Nchukwi, remedy that, because “Da Don” is one of the most promising new additions to the roster in quite some time.
Now, I’m never going to be the guy who forecasts championship glory for someone after one outing and before we’ve seen them share the cage with established, seasoned competition; it’s just not my style. What I will say, however, is that I really like a lot of the foundational pieces Nchukwi showed against Jamie Pickett and believe that with more experience and more time in the gym, he could develop into something special.
I was really glad to see him move down to middleweight after earning a contract as a light heavyweight because I think it’s a better fit for him given his size, and his power should translate a little better.
He has the potential to be a Top 5 middleweight down the road, but it’s all going to come down to his training, how he gets booked, and his ability to continue making big strides in his development as he faces tougher competition.
I stand by it all.
I’m all-in on Nchukwi as a prospect and suggest you join me before the bandwagon gets too crowded.