10 Things I Like at UFC Vegas 35
A low-key card with a lovely main event and two TUF finales is the perfect way to mark my return to this series after taking an event off
We’re back, Baby!
After taking last week off from the preview and review hamster wheel for a little downtime with the wife and focusing on some deadline jobs, Saturday’s event at the UFC APEX feels like the right card for me to get back at this with because it’s a quintessential ESK fight card — a low-key affair with a great headliner and a whole bunch of lesser-known talents, including the bantamweight and middleweight finales from Season 29 of The Ultimate Fighter.
While most are going to dismiss this card — or at least downplay the significance and value of it — I’m all-in with it because as always, I have questions and fights provide answers, and big names or not, finding out those answers and the next set of questions that need to be asked is always interesting to me.
So let’s get into it.
A Moment of Appreciate for Edson Barboza
Here’s the slate of opponents Edson Barboza has fought in the last seven-plus years ahead of Saturday’s main event showdown with Giga Chikadze:
Donald Cerrone
Evan Dunham
Bobby Green
Michael Johnson
Paul Felder
Tony Ferguson
Gilbert Melendez
Anthony Pettis
Beneil Dariush
Khabib Nurmagomedov
Kevin Lee
Dan Hooker
Justin Gaethje
Paul Felder
Dan Ige
Makwan Amirkhani
Shane Burgos
People were rightfully talking about the non-stop diet of tough competition Kelvin Gastelum has faced over his career after his loss last weekend, but Barboza never gets enough credit for the hellacious schedule he’s kept throughout his career and especially since the start of 2014. The fights haven’t always gone his way, but the 35-year-old hasn’t shied away from anyone, has never been in a boring fight, and has re-invented himself over his last three as a potential featherweight contender.
The Brazilian is one of those athletes that has never fought for gold, never quite been considered elite, but has nonetheless spent the better part of the last decade as a Top 10 fighter in the lightweight and now featherweight division, and deserves a ton of credit for being a stalwart in two of the deepest, most competitive divisions in the UFC over that time.
For all the time we commit to talking about “of the moment” athletes that have limited experience or have yet to beat anyone of true significance, we should make a point to carve out a little more time to give fighters like Barboza their flowers because they’re beyond deserving.
Giga Chikadze’s Next Big Test
From here on out, every fight for Giga Chikadze is going to be “the biggest fight of his career,” as the 33-year-old Georgian kickboxer is on the ascent and climbing to new heights in the featherweight division with each subsequent victory.
After folding over Cub Swanson with a kick to the body just over a minute into their May 1 showdown, Chikadze gets his first main event assignment on Saturday, lining up opposite Barboza in a bout that has the potential to be a wonderful striking battle featuring an impressive and impactful array of kicks to all levels. That victory pushed Chikadze’s record to 6-0 in the UFC and extended his winning streak to eight overall, giving validity to his being heralded as a potential threat in the 145-pound weight class, and putting him in a position to merit a matchup like this.
While I’m not yet sold on Chikadze being a real threat in the featherweight division, it’s impossible to ignore his success and be genuinely intrigued by this matchup, as Barboza is the precise kind of veteran test the Kings MMA product needs to pass in order to take another step forward in the division and validate some of that buzz. There are still stylistic questions that need to be answered — like seeing him in there with a high-level grappler — but you can only beat the person you’re in there with, and thus far, Chikadze has beaten them all.
If he maintains that streak through Saturday night’s showdown with Barboza, Chikadze will be in line to face another of the rising stars inside the Top 10 and a win away from a date with one of the established contenders hovering just outside of title contention in the featherweight ranks.
Bryan Battle Might Be Kelvin Gastelum 2.0
TUF 29 middleweight finalist Bryan Battle, who takes on his teammate and late replacement Gilbert Urbina on Saturday, is looking to join Kelvin Gastelum as the second fighter selected with the penultimate pick to win the competition.
While he sounds a lot like Season 1 light heavyweight winner and former light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin, Battle has shown to be more similar to Gastelum in more ways than where they were each selected in the competition. Like the TUF 17 champ, there is no one part of Battle’s game that really sticks out, and he’s not one of those hyper-athletic types that often jumps off the screen on the show; he’s just a fundamentally sound, coachable, well rounded talent who rose to each challenge put before him during the competition to reach Saturday’s finale.
Alexander Volkanovski, who coached Battle during the competition, raved about his adaptability and how well he listened to and learned from coaches, which are crucial elements for an inexperienced fighter to have, especially when they’re in that “grow by leaps and bounds” range as the 26-year-old is right now.
Despite his recent slide, Gastelum has been one of the more successful TUF winners over the last 12 seasons, working his way into contention at both welterweight and then middleweight, where he battled for interim gold in an instant classic with Israel Adesanya a little more than two years ago. While I’m not forecasting Battle to become a title contender at this point, I do think he has a similar “ball of moldable clay” vibe to him heading into the finale and wouldn’t be surprised to see him enjoy a long, largely successful career inside the Octagon going forward.
Ricky Turcios Ready to Make a Run?
Ricky Turcios made his way to the bantamweight finals by earning hard-fought wins over Dan Argueta and Liudvik Sholinian, pulling things out in the deciding round each time, which made me take a deeper look at the Texan’s record in order to get a better sense of where he’s at heading into his clash with Brady Hiestand on Saturday.
I remembered Turcios from his DWCS loss to Boston Salmon and knew him as one of those guys that for the most part thrived on the Texas regional scene, and heading into this weekend, he honestly feels like he just me be ready to go on a little run here.
The reason I think that is Turcios is 28 now, has dealt with a couple tough setbacks, but from the show, he looks like he’s got everything dialled in and is more concrete in understanding who he is as a fighter and an individual. He had his routine, knows who he is inside the cage, and is able to both fight with his frenetic style and still do what is required to get the win when the chips are down, which is what he did against both Argueta and Sholinian.
Sometimes it takes fighters a couple extra years to get sorted and be able to make a run, and if there is any time when Turcios is going to do so, it’s now. He’s more experienced than Hiestand, has more weapons at his disposal, and should, in theory, be able to push the pace, and if he joins the collection of Ultimate Fighter winners on Saturday, the Houston native is get every opportunity to string together a few wins and climb the ranks going forward.
Brady Hiestand’s Untapped Potential
Brady Hiestand turned 22 at the end of April, so regardless of what happens on Saturday, his upside is still tremendous.
The Spokane, Washington native takes on Turcios in the bantamweight finals and is looking to be the third fighter from the city’s Sikjitsu squad to earn a six-figure contract and the designation of being The Ultimate Fighter, joining Michael Chiesa (Season 15) and Julianna Pena (Season 18). He reached the finals by gutting out a hard-fought battle with fellow Spokane native and his roommate on the show, Josh Rettinghouse, and then finishing Vince Murdock in the semifinals, and more than anyone else on the show, Hiestand profiles as the kind of young, inexperienced fighter this show is designed to discover and showcase.
He’s six fights into his career and just 22 years old — the vast majority of his career is still in front of him — and he’s only going to keep getting better as he logs more rounds in the gym, more time in the cage, more everything. He’s shown a solid grappling base and he’s clearly got the blue-collar toughness Spokane is known for, plus he has a good team around him that can help him acclimate to this level and show him all the areas he needs to work on in order to have lasting success in the UFC.
This feels like one of those situations where five years down the line, Hiestand might be far and away the best fighter to come out of Season 29 — not because anyone faltered, but because he developed into a terrific fighter the same way that Giannis Antetekounmpo went 15th overall in the 2013 NBA Draft, but is unquestionably the top player from that draft class.
Again, I’m not saying Hiestand will be a Giannis equivalent in the UFC, I just think he could become the best of this bunch and I’m very much here to see how he develops going forward.
Kevin Lee’s Must-Win Moment
Before the start of the week, Kevin Lee’s fight with Daniel Rodriguez on Saturday was nothing more than a quality welterweight bout and a chance to see what “The Motown Phenom” looked like in his first fight in well over a year and second appearance in the 170-pound weight class.
Then he went on The MMA Hour, talked all kinds of junk about a whole bunch of different things, and turned this into a must-win situation for himself.
Lee set the bar exceptionally high by declaring that Khabib Nurmagomedov never faced the kind of quality competition to warrant being considered an all-time great and that he already believes he’s one of the Top 5 welterweights in the UFC, two statements that he didn’t back up with any kind of supporting evidence and that are incredibly difficult to comprehend because they’re both incorrect and wholly unnecessary, especially because he’s got a tough-ass fight ahead of him this weekend.
As I said in the above tweeted story, Lee has to win now and win with style points because you can’t say all of this stuff and then go squeak one out against Rodriguez, who is as game as they come and could 100 percent win this fight on Saturday.
While I can appreciate the self-confidence, this is one of those “maybe you shouldn’t have said this quite yet” situations where Lee has set the bar ridiculously high when we’re not even sure he can clear where it’s at right now. It’s like demanding someone load an extra plate on each side of the bar before you’ve even done a single rep with the initial weight — just show me you can handle this and then we talk to me about doing more, because I kind of want to make sure you can deal with this before we do anything else.
This isn’t even a “weird flex, but okay” situation because he’s flexing with unfounded, unsubstantiated claims that his own track record doesn’t back up.
This is “not sure why you said all that” territory and I’m fascinated to see whether it all comes to bite him in the ass on Saturday.
We Need More Fighters Like Daniel Rodriguez
You gotta give it up to Daniel Rodriguez, who will be making the walk for the seventh time since the start of 2020, filling in on short notice to face Lee in a no-risk, all-reward assignment, eyeing his third win of the year.
As the subheading says, we need more fighters like Rodriguez — rock solid veterans that are always ready to scrap and aren’t worried about maintaining their winning streak or their place in the pecking order.
Now, he’s certainly looking to increase his standing by jumping in here because for whatever reason, people think really highly of Lee and see him as the A-Side of this pairing, so a win would elevate Rodriguez going forward, but setting that aside, there is something to be said about a fighter that is truly always ready, always willing, and always able to step into the Octagon and give just about anyone a tough fight as the 34-year-old welterweight will surely do against Lee this weekend.
I talk about it all the time in these spaces, but people like Rodriguez are the lifeblood of the MMA ecosystem and criminally under-appreciated. He’s also proven that he’s a legitimate Top 25 welterweight in the UFC, with five wins in six starts and his lone setback coming in a close battle with Nicolas Dalby, so win or lose, I hope more people come away from this weekend appreciating what Rodriguez brings to the Octagon and where he fits within the welterweight hierarchy.
Is Makhmoud Muradov the Real Deal?
Makhmud Muradov has won 14 consecutive fights, the last three of which have come inside the UFC Octagon. Saturday night, he takes on veteran grappler Gerald Meerschaert in another “pass this veteran test” assignments designed, in theory, to provide a little more clarity to where the surging 31-year-old fits within the middleweight hierarchy.
While beating Meerschaert isn’t enough to say with confidence that Muradov is the real deal, it is another one of those solid indicators that what we’re seeing in terms of his prolonged success isn’t smoke and mirrors, much like how Khamzat Chimaev took another step towards validating the ridiculous hype he garnered last summer by trucking “GM3” in the fall. Additionally, this feels like one of those instances where if Muradov picks up a fourth straight UFC win (and a third straight finish), he could ultimately skip a level next time out and find himself sharing the cage with someone in the lower-third of the Top 15 like Andre Muniz, whom he was originally supposed to face in January when the scored a third-round stoppage win over Andrew Sanchez.
I’ll be honest: I’ve been skeptical of Muradov as a potential Top 15 middleweight from the jump, but with each successive triumph, he’s changing my mind and if he styles on Meerschaert this weekend, I’ll be fully on board with giving him a considerable step up in competition next time out and advocating for him as someone to pay close attention to going forward.
Alessio Di Chirico’s Encore
Here’s one of those crappy things about the MMA world that has never sat well with me:
Last year, Joaquin Buckley went viral (rightfully) with his video game knockout of Impa Kasanganay. He garnered a ton of attention and hype and was pushed as someone to watch coming into 2021. In his first appearance of the year, Buckley was knocked out in violent fashion by Alessio Di Chirico barely two minutes into the fight.
Did any of Buckley’s buzz transfer over to Di Chirico? Of course not.
Sigh.
I get that it wasn’t the same flashy finish as Buckley scored last year on Fight Island, but it was an impressive finish nonetheless and yet no one (other than the great Al Zullino) is counting down the minutes until Di Chirico returns this weekend, where he takes on fellow opponent-less competitor Abdul Razak Alhassan in a cobbled together middleweight matchup.
I know everyone can like who they want to like and promotions are going to push who they want to push, but I just wish that there was a little more transference of interest and retention of attention in situations like this because it really is a big part of how athletes can build a little bit of buzz and maintain some momentum. A knockout like that over Buckley should have gotten more than just Al and I excited about seeing “Manzo” make the walk again, but that doesn’t seem to be the case and that’s disappointing to me.
Pat Sabatini’s Sophomore Appearance
Pat Sabatini is one of those guys that took a little longer to get to the UFC than expected, but now that he’s reached the highest level in the sport, I anticipate him sticking around and having more success than failures.
The 30-year-old is 14-3 overall after beating Canadian veteran Tristan Connelly in his promotional debut in April, having spent the majority of his career competing on the rugged East Coast loop that includes CES, Ring of Combat, and CFFC, where he was a two-time champion. He fought solid competition the whole way along, including registering a win over current UFC bantamweight Tony Gravely early in his career, and comes from the same Daniel Gracie camp as Sean Brady, who has maintained his high level of performance since reaching the UFC a couple years ago.
Sabatini is a grinder with good finishing instincts, if that makes sense — he likes to grapple and is patient, but is also looking to get you out of there, rather than being happy to ride out time in control positions. He’s paired off with Jamall Emmers on Saturday in a bout that should be another solid measuring stick of where he’s at in the division, as Emmers pushed headliner Giga Chikadze in his short-notice debut before beating Vince Cachero in his own sophomore showing.
With a second straight win this weekend, I could see Sabatini getting a little bit of an accelerated push in the division, both because he’s a little older than some of the other prospects and because his work thus far warrants it.