10 Things I Like at UFC Vegas 27
A return to the UFC APEX brings an assortment of under the radar matchups and athletes worth checking out
Rob Font’s Main Event Moment
Earlier this month, when Marina Rodriguez booked a short-notice main event assignment opposite Michelle Waterson that left many people scratching their heads about the hastily cobbled together headlining act, I led off that instalment of this series by praising the booking because after registering a breakthrough win over Amanda Ribas earlier in the year, it felt like the proper escalation of Rodriguez’ career.
This feels similar to that, minus the short-notice element and critics questioning the decision, as Rob Font makes his main event debut against former champ Cody Garbrandt following his biggest victory to date.
Last December, on the final fight card of the year, the talented bantamweight returned from a year-long absence to register a first-round stoppage win over former title challenger Marlon Moraes, putting the Brazilian down with the clean boxing that has become the New England Cartel member’s signature weapon inside the Octagon. The victory extended his winning streak to three and vaulted him into the Top 5 in the ultra-competitive bantamweight ranks, putting him in a position to welcome Garbrandt back to the Octagon this weekend.
Seven years and a dozen fights into his UFC career, the 33-year-old Font has made steady progress up the divisional ladder, reaching this matchup at a point in his career where he feels best equipped to make the most of it. He’s had a couple setbacks, retooled a couple things, found a crew that has helped him take the next step, and now seems poised to establish himself as a legitimate title threat, which was never the case in his previous big assignments.
He’s navigated numerous challenges and emerged as the best version of himself, with earlier wins over new Bellator bantamweight champ Sergio Pettis and streaking grinder Ricky Simon getting better with each passing day. A victory over Garbrandt is a difficult thing to come by, but Font has the tools to get the job done, and if he’s successful this weekend, he’ll put himself on the very short list of fighters worthy of challenging for the title once the championship chase gets back into full swing later this year.
Not bad for a guy who first got interested in MMA when he was delivering pizzas for Pizza Hut.
The Re-Return of Cody Garbrandt
It’s crazy to me that it was almost a year ago that Cody Garbrandt returned to action and halted his three-fight slide with a coiled-up, swing-for-the-fences, walk-off knockout against Raphael Assuncao at UFC 250 and yet this is the first we’ve seen of the former champion since, but it’s been a long, strange year for the now 29-year-old.
Soon after that victory, Garbrandt announced his intentions to drop to flyweight to challenge Deiveson Figueiredo, with the bout getting booked for UFC 255. But a couple months later, “No Love” suffered a torn bicep, forcing him from the contest. He then acknowledged that he had previously tested positive for COVID-19 and was dealing with “long hauler” symptoms.
Now he’s set to return as the lower-ranked fighter in this weekend’s main event and I genuinely have no idea what to expect from the man who once seemed destined to dominate the division.
Garbrandt’s last five fights encapsulate the very best and very worst of how things can go when he steps into the Octagon — the Dominick Cruz fight remains one of the greatest masterpieces of the last decade; the three losses that followed highlighted his shortcomings and raised questions about his chin; and the win over Assuncao kind of cleared the slate and brought us back to where this weekend’s matchup with Font feels like that proverbial fork in the road where his career is going to head in one of two directions.
A win puts him back in the title mix, maybe in two divisions, and positions him to resume being a fighter the promotion looks to showcase and potentially build around, while a loss leaves him with just a single victory in five fights and needing to make up ground in arguably the most competitive division in the organization at the moment.
That’s a big swing on one result and it’s why I’ve been looking forward to this fight since it was first announced.
No. 1 Contenders Spot Up for Grabs
As always, nothing is for certain, but it sure does feel like Saturday’s strawweight co-main event between Yan Xiaonan and Carla Esparza could and maybe should determine the No. 1 contender in the 115-pound weight class.
Yan might be the least talked about 6-0 fighter in UFC history — an unassuming perpetual motion machine that smothers opponents with volume and pace that weaponizes her conditioning and has a penchant for distancing herself from her opponents in the latter rounds. She’s unbeaten in her last dozen fights, holds wins over Angela Hill, Karolina Kowalkiewicz, and Claudia Gadelha, and has to be considered the frontrunner for a title shot if she posts a seventh straight victory by beating Esparza.
Meanwhile, the first woman to wear UFC gold in the strawweight division is closing in on a second crack at the title, entering on a four-fight winning streak that includes a victory over Marina Rodriguez last time out, and a 7-3 mark in her last 10 that would be 9-1 if a couple split decisions went the other way. Between halting Yan’s run of success and her history with current champ Rose Namajunas, a win this weekend feels like it should punch Esparza’s ticket back to a title fight.
Even if the victor doesn’t end up being next in line, they won’t be too far off, and with the assortment of intriguing matchups available at the top of the division, this feels like one of those really important fights that you don’t want to miss.
Felicia Spencer’s Strange UFC Career Continues
Here’s a quick synopsis of Felicia Spencer’s four-fight UFC career:
victory by first-round domination
go the distance, get thoroughly out-classed, lose, show heart
victory by first-round mauling
go the distance, get thoroughly out-classed, lose, show toughness
The only people to beat Spencer to this point in her career are the two best female fighters of all time, Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes, and she’s done exceptionally well against everyone else, yet I have zero feel for just how good she really is as she readies to take on Norma Dumont this weekend.
She’s technically the second-best fighter in the UFC featherweight division by way of her win over Megan Anderson, but it’s a seven-person division at most, and that’s if you include Dumont, who was forced to featherweight after repeated weight misses at ‘35, and Danyelle Wolf, the 37-year-old former amateur boxer who was supposed to face Spencer this weekend in just her second career fight.
Spencer has enjoyed a great deal of success overall and show flashes of real legitimate skill and upside with her grappling, but it’s just so difficult to get a true read on things because her options are limited and her appearances are so infrequent. She feels like someone that could develop into a very good fighter with a little more experience and more time in the cage with quality opposition, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards in the UFC at the moment, so we could be looking at a situation where the 30-year-old “Feenom” has to take her talents elsewhere in order to take the next step in her career.
Crucial Flyweight Contest
Folks kind of sleep on the flyweight division when it’s not the absolute apex talents stepping into the cage, but Saturday’s matchup between David Dvorak and Raulian Paiva is a critical contest in the 125-pound weight class and a meeting of two tremendously interesting emerging fighters.
Dvorak, whom I profiled on the UFC website this week, won each of his two assignments last year, pushing his overall winning streak to 15 in the process. The 28-year-old is a well-rounded, focused fighter who pays a great deal of attention to the little elements that often get overlooked, like travel and acclimation, arriving in the United States two weeks ahead of his win over Jordan Espinosa last year after feeling sluggish in his debut victory in Brazil.
After losing his first two UFC appearances — the first by split decision to Kai Kara-France, the second due to a cut against Rogerio Bontorin — Paiva has also picked up back-to-back wins, out-working Mark De La Rosa and Zhalgas Zhumagulov. The 25-year-old has tremendous size and length for the division, and is a high-upside prospect with a wealth of experience already under his belt.
Both men current sit just outside the Top 10 in the flyweight rankings, and while the competition to crack the Top 15 in the 125-pound ranks isn’t as daunting as it is at lightweight, any matchup between ranked competitors carries a certain level of importance and is sure to have divisional ramifications. The flyweight title picture is wide open beyond the current title rematch and Askar Askarov standing as the No. 1 contender, so a strong showing for either man should thrust him into the thick of the chase heading into the second half of 2021.
Big Fight for Edmen Shahbazyan
Labeling the main card opener as such isn’t meant to dismiss Jack Hermansson, who squares off against the titular Shahbazyan on Saturday; it’s simply an acknowledgment that there is more on the line for his younger adversary this weekend.
This is Shahbazyan’s first fight since he suffered his first loss 10 months ago against Derek Brunson in a bout that turned one-sided and ugly in a hurry. The loss halted the momentum of the streaking Contender Series alum, who was unbeaten to that point and entering on a four-fight winning streak capped by three consecutive first-round stoppage victories. He looked poised to take a major step forward and continue his unimpeded charge up the rankings, but Brunson put the kibosh on all that and we’ve all been waiting to see how “The Golden Boy” will respond ever since.
Hermansson slipped up in his last appearance as well, getting out-hustled by short-notice replacement Marvin Vettori in December, but the 32-year-old “Joker” has a longest, more established history in the division and the sport, and is fully entrenched in his position as a Top 10 fighter in the middleweight division. As much as the result of this weekend’s contest matters for him, the outcome doesn’t carry as much potential long-term significance as it does for Shahbazyan.
By no means is this is “do or die” situation for the Glendale Fighting Club representative — he’s 23 years old, 11-1 in his career, and 4-1 in the UFC; that’s a great start and he’s still got plenty of time to make adjustments, keep improving, and develop into the fully-formed version of somewhere down the line.
There is only one champion under the age of 30 right now and none that are less than 28, which should put this into a little more perspective. That said, these are the type of moments where fighters with championship potential bounce back and make a statement, so it will be interesting to see if Shahbazyan can do that on Saturday.
Fun Little Featherweight Tussle
The prelims wrap up in the featherweight division this weekend with a rescheduled pairing between Ricardo Ramos and Bill Algeo, who were initially slated to meet in April before Ramos was forced out due to COVID-19 protocols.
I love this fight, and am really excited to see how it plays out as I have always thought Ramos was an intriguing prospect and view Algeo as one of those battle-tested veterans that could make an expedited run to contention because of the difficult path they took to reach the UFC and the well rounded skill set he possesses. Speaking with each of them ahead of different iterations of this fight — Ramos in March and April, Algeo before this one — certain upped the ante as well since both were excited to get on with it and get about the business of making some headway in the 145-pound weight class.
Featherweight is developing a little of that lightweight problem/non-problem where it takes more wins than you would imagine to gain any real ground on the Top 15, but to me, that only makes fights like this even more important, and therefore more intriguing because these are the kinds of fights you have to win in order to get the ball rolling. Both these men have the capabilities of working towards the Top 15 and potentially breaking into the rankings, but it’s a tough trail to navigate with plenty of opportunities to get tripped up along the way.
I know there is nothing sexy about this matchup and there are plenty of people that probably know very little about either of these guys, but I think this is a terrific pairing and a potential Fight of the Night contender, and I can’t wait to see how it all shakes out this weekend.
Fighter I Can’t Quit: Ben Rothwell
Do I even need to explain this one?
What’s not to perpetually like about a 39-year-old heavyweight with 51 professional fights, the appearance and demeanour of a hardened lumber yard worker that has no time for your nonsense, and the skills to both knock a fool out or choke them out with his patented modified guillotine choke?
Mix in that he went Techno Viking on Brandon Vera before knocking him out and that he’s the only man to submit Josh Barnett and you’ve got someone that I’m going to watch every time he’s on the card.
What makes this weekend’s Rothwell appearance even more appealing is that he’s fighting Chris Barnett, a.k.a. “Beastboy,” a.k.a. “Huggy Bear,” one of the most unexpectedly nimble big men in the sport and a long-time member of my “What Happened to That Boy?” All-Stars, a squad of athletes whose names stick in your head forever and require a Tapology deep dive every four-to-six months.
Everyone has their own individual tastes and I like me some awkward, veteran heavyweights, even though I’m fully aware this could turn into an absolute slop-fest in no time flat.
Bruno Silva’s Encore
Listen, no matter how I say this, I’m going to sound like a hater, so I’m just going to go ahead and come straight out with it: Bruno Silva has gotten more attention than any fighter with a 1-2 record with one No Contest through four UFC fights and it’s strictly because he’s Henry Cejudo’s long-time training partner.
Last time out, Silva finally secured his first UFC victory, collecting a second-round stoppage win over JP Buys in the final fight of his contract, sending him into this weekend’s matchup with replacement opponent Victor Rodriguez off his best performance in years. He’s said all the right things about this being his time and him finally being ready to take a big step forward, however I’m ultra-skeptical when it comes to a 31-year-old fighter with a perfectly cromulent 11-5-2 (1 NC) record whose best win came last time out against a debuting fighter, but that’s also what has me drawn to this contest.
I want to see what Silva does for an encore.
I want to see if he looks as good this time as he did against Buys, and get a better read on whether he’s someone with real upside that lost to tough competition (Dvorak, Tagir Ulanbekov, Khalid Taha) or a guy that got a shot because of his association with “Triple C,” which would make him the modern day version of Charlie Ward.
If I’m wrong and being a dick, I’ll own it, as always, but I don’t think I’m wrong and I don’t know if this weekend’s short-notice pairing with Rodriguez, who got sparked in his previous appearance, is going to provide the kind of answers I’m looking for when it comes to Silva.
We shall see.
I Want to Know More About… Damir Ismagulov
Because he’s been out of action for nearly two years, I completely understand if a ton of people ask, “Who?” when I talk about how hyped I am to finally see Damir Ismagulov back in action, but one quick look at his resume should illustrate why I’m pumped to have him returning to the Octagon this weekend.
The 30-year-old, who faces Rafael Alves on Saturday night, has a 19-1 record, a 3-0 mark in the UFC, and a 13-fight winning streak overall heading and his last two victories have aged like a fine wine during his extended hiatus.
After beating Alex Gorgees in his UFC debut, Ismagulov has earned consecutive decision wins over Joel Alvarez and Thiago Moises, who are each unbeaten since facing the talented lightweight and have each won three straight. Yes those victories came in 2019 and both Alvarez and Moises have improved since then, but wins like that have to count for something and get you at least a little excited about Ismagulov’s return, no?
I feel the same way about Ismagulov as I do about Shavkat Rakhmanov — what I’ve seen so far has been impressive, but I want to see more, and know more, and so I’m eagerly looking forward to his bout with Alves, who throws nothing but heat and needs a strong performance in his delayed debut.
And when there is something of interest in the first fight of the night, it feels like it will be a fun evening inside the Octagon, and I can’t wait to see if I’m right or not.