10 Things I Like at UFC Vegas 47
Some people will scoff at this card. Some people also don't like pizza. I am neither of those people.
This card isn’t for everybody.
I’m never going to be the person that sits here and tries to convince you that you have to watch every fight on every card because you have some kind of obligation to do so if you identify yourself as a fight fan.
You can pick and choose as you please, and I totally understand if this is one you choose not to dive into because there are few established names and this is Week 1 of eight consecutive Saturdays featuring a UFC fight card.
What I will say, however, is that there are some quality fights on this card, even if you’re not particularly familiar with the names involved, and in four-to-six months maximum, when a couple of the fighters that earn quality victories this weekend return in bigger fights, you’re going to be wondering why you’re unfamiliar with them or how come you don’t remember their last appearance, and be force to go watch it on Fight Pass.
So why not just watch it this weekend and cut out the middle man?
Here’s a look at the stuff that gets my hyped for Saturday night.
Sean Strickland is Fighting
Sean Strickland gets a lot of attention in the media for the candid, worrisome things he says and, more recently, having posted a video about his minimalist (except for guns and lube) living situation. What doesn’t get talked about enough, however, in the fact that the 30-year-old is actually a helluva fighter and on the brink of establishing himself as a legitimate contender in the middleweight division.
The streaking Xtreme Couture representative, who takes on Jack Hermansson in Saturday’s main event, is 11-3 in the UFC and riding a five-fight winning streak, with the last four of those wins coming in the last 15 months since he returned to action following a two-year absence. His only losses came during an eight-fight welterweight stint, and came against Santiago Ponzinibbio, Kamaru Usman, and Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos — a tenured Top 15 talent, the current champ, and a dangerous divisional stalwart — and he owns wins over Tom Breese, Court McGee, Brendan Allen, Krzysztof Jotko, and Uriah Hall.
I don’t know if it’s because he presents himself as a misanthrope or because he has a very basic, but very effective approach in the cage, but Strickland is an outstanding fighter who could be fighting for middleweight gold later this year if things break a certain way, and it’s high time folks start recognizing him for his talent, and not just his challenging personality.
Prospect Litmus Test
I love the pairing between middleweight prospects Punahele Soriano (above) and Nick Maximov — love it — because it comes at the right time for both fighters.
Soriano is coming off his first career loss, which for the time being, establishes a temporary ceiling on how far up the divisional ladder he’s projected to climb. He set his floor with first-round stoppage wins in each of his first two appearances, so now we’re in the process of figuring out where in between those two poles and whether there is space to raise the ceiling in the next couple years.
For Maximov, this is a chance to get a second consecutive UFC victory against someone that already has two UFC wins of his own, and prove that he’s worthy of being considered one of the top young prospects in the sport. At the same time, his debut win over Cody Brundage was okay, but nothing special, and this is an opportunity to see if maintaining a more active schedule will raise his levels.
This is the one of the points where pairing off relative newcomers makes the most sense — when they’re early in their careers and capable of re-building if they’ve got the talent to do so — and the result of this one should tell us a lot about what to expect from both Soriano and Maximov going forward.
Emerging Welterweights Collide
Just as the pairing between Soriano and Maximov comes at the right time, so too does the matchup between Shavkat Rakhmonov and Carlston Harris on Saturday.
Here’s what I wrote about the welterweight pairing when listing it as one of the 10 most intriguing matchups on tap for the month of February:
This is the exact right time to match these two ascending welterweights up against one another to determine which one takes another step forward and which one has to hold steady for a moment, and I absolutely cannot wait.
I think Rakhomonv is one of the best prospects in the UFC and believe he has the requisite wealth of skills and talent to be a contender in the not too distant future, though I also recognize that Harris is the kind of experienced, dangerous, savvy veteran who is more than capable of tripping up a young, promising fighter just when he looks primed to take the next step.
I don’t know how it’s going to play out and could legitimately see any number of outcomes, which excites me, and should excite you too. We’re either going to get an unbeaten 27-year-old taking another step forward or a 34-year-old veteran getting a huge win to continue his unexpected ascent in the 170-pound weight class.
Both options are intriguing and I can’t wait to find out which one comes to pass.
Fighter I Can’t Quit, Type 1: Brendan Allen
There are different types of “Fighters I Can’t Quit” and Brendan Allen is what I consider Type 1 — a young talent that has shown flashes of upside, but stumbled in some key spots that still has me sitting here saying things like, “Yeah, but if he can just figure out how to not get hit as much” or “… but if he gets a little better at taking shots.”
Type 1s are the reason I started using this subhead in this series — they’re the tantalizing competitors that have shown you their flaws as well as the moments when they flourish, and despite knowing better, you still pay more attention to the good, while downplaying the bad.
Allen is 5-2 in the UFC, with wins over Kevin Holland, Tom Breese, Kyle Daukaus, Karl Roberson, and Soriano. He’s looked terrific at times — particularly in the wins over Holland, Breese, and Soriano — trains with a great team at Sanford MMA, and has a slick submission game to go along with steadily improving striking. But the two losses — one to Strickland, one to Chris Curtis — showed a fighter that couldn’t get out of his own way and couldn’t figure out how to adjust on the fly when the striking exchanges weren’t going his way, and that’s a tough thing to shake.
That said, he’s still just 26 years old, so is it really fair or wise to say he’s already a finished product and couldn’t possibly work out some of these kinks in the next couple years in order to become a better version of the best fighter he’s been thus far?
How things go against Sam Alvey on Saturday should provide some clarity about whether I should abandon ship with Allen or continue to maintain my place on the bandwagon, confident that the best is yet to come.
TUF 29 Middleweight Finals
Bryan Battle and Tresean Gore each fought their way to the middleweight finals on Season 29 of The Ultimate Fighter, setting up a Team Volkanovski vs. Team Ortega showdown in the 185-pound weight class.
But soon after the final episode of the season aired and the pairing was formalized, Gore was forced out with a knee injury. He was replace by Gilbert Urbina, who started quickly and stung Battle out of the gates, only for the penultimate pick of the season to steady himself before the close of the opening stanza and secure the finish a couple minutes into the second.
Now Gore is healthy and ready to make his debut, and while Battle has already joined the cast of Ultimate Fighter winners, this still feels like the real finale to me, and I can’t wait to see how things play out.
I think Battle has a chance to develop into a pretty solid middleweight (if not more) and Gore flashed upside while registering wins over Ryder Newman and Urbina on the show, so both are worth keeping tabs on going forward.
Fighter I Can’t Quit, Type 2: Julian Erosa
Your Type 2 FICQs are guys like Julian Erosa — tenured veterans that are consistently entertaining without being able to muster consistent results; fighters that get after it every time they step into the Octagon, chase finishes, and do so while willingly exposing themselves to getting caught.
In addition to being a Fighter I Can’t Quit, the 32-year-old Erosa is one of those guys you just can’t help but be happy for when you look at the journey he’s been on over the last seven years. Here’s the rundown:
goes 14-2 to start his career, fighting almost exclusively in his native Washington state
lands on Season 22 of The Ultimate Fighter as a member of Team Faber, advancing to the semifinals, where he got knocked out by Artem Lobov
beats Marcin Wrzosek at the finale, then loses to Teruto Ishihara and gets released
goes 6-2 over his next eight fights, lands on DWCS, knocks out Jamall Emmers, but doesn’t get a contract
called up for a short-notice assignment opposite Devonte Smith less than four months later, gets knocked out in the first round, drops back to featherweight, loses two more fights, and gets released for a second time
returns home to CageSport promotion, scores another finish, and gets called up on short notice once more, rallying to beat Sean Woodson
goes 2-1 in 2021 with stoppage wins over Nate Landwehr and Charles Jourdain, and a stoppage loss to SeungWoo Choi
Dude never stopped chasing his goals and has made the most of things on his third kick at the can. No matter how things go this weekend or going forward, I will forever be on board with watching Julian Erosa compete.
Another Look at Miles Johns
While I will always continue to ride for talented fighters that fly under the radar before they step back into the Octagon, I’m also always going to do my best to make sure people know to pay attention when they do, which is why I have been writing so much about Miles Johns this week.
Look, I get that fighters improve and historic results don’t necessarily dictate how a bout would play out today, but “Chapo” earned a narrow victory over Adrian Yanez, who is rightfully getting hyped all the way up these days, back when they were battling to reach the big stage, and has gone 3-1 in the UFC, so it really is time for everyone to at least look in on him this weekend when he takes on John Castaneda.
As of right now, he’s a shining example of someone that has been doing good things, looked exceptional in his last couple outings, and will still end up getting hit with the “Where did this guy come from?” or “How come I’ve never heard of this guy before?” nonsense if he pushes his winning streak to three and lands opposite someone with a little more of an established name next time out, and I’m here to keep you from being one of the people that says that shit.
Johns is a compact, technical striker with good power and when he’s locked in, he looks like a guy that can make a run towards the Top 15 in the loaded bantamweight division. He’s the kind of guy folks should already be paying attention to, and if you haven’t been watching for him thus far, you can right that wrong this weekend.
Styles Clash
Shout out to “The Phenomenal One,” AJ Styles, whose finisher serves as the subhead to this featherweight scrap between Hakeem Dawodu and Michael Trizano, pictured above punching Ludovit Klein in the face.
Dawodu is a technical kickboxer.
Trizano is a grimy wrestler.
Something has got to give.
I’m always intrigued by pairings like this because my inclination is to think that shoring up your takedown defence to the point you can keep things standing is a more achievable task than building your striking to a point where you can comfortably stand with a polished kickboxer, but I don’t have any real empirical evidence to support my position. I don’t lean that way because I prefer striking to grappling or because Dawodu is Canadian, it’s just something I’ve always kind of maintained, and this feels like one of those matchups where I can actually gather some data that either supports or refutes my beliefs.
Here’s the other thing that makes me eager to see this fight on Saturday: for a guy whose nickname is “Mean,” has the word tattooed on his chest, and scowls almost all the time, I’ve yet to see Dawodu fight with the kind of ferocity and aggressiveness that his name implies, and I’m curious to see if we get a little more of that this weekend.
Throwing kicks is going to create opportunities for Trizano to grab a leg or shoot for takedowns, but will Dawodu be quick enough and heavy enough with his offerings to chop him down?
We shall see.
Very Different DWCS Debuts
Two members of the DWCS Class of ‘21 make their promotional debuts this weekend, but they’re doing so in very different matchups.
Chidi Njokuani arrives as a 28-fight veteran and waltzes into a clash with Marc-Andre Barriault, who has earned back-to-back victories and is unbeaten in his last three after stumbling to three straight losses out of the gate. Before they hit the Octagon, Jailton Almeida will take on Danilo Marques in a battle of Brazilians, with the 30-year-old Almeida looking to show he’s simply a late bloomer as he steps in with his one-dimensional countryman.
I’ve enjoyed covering the Contender Series from the outset and love seeing the various different types of competitors that have emerged from the show through the first four seasons, but this group of graduates from Season 5 are the most intriguing to me because more than any previous year, it really feels like they can be split into two distinct groups — those that look poised and capable of becoming permanent fixtures on the UFC roster and those that don’t — and I’m really curious to continue seeing whether or not my reads on these athletes are correct or not.
Canadian Content
There are a limited number of Canadians currently competing in the UFC, but four of them will make the walk this weekend — Dawodu, Barriault, Alexis Davis, and Malcolm Gordon — and it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I’m looking forward to seeing my fellow Canadians step into the Octagon to compete.
I honestly hope we get back to having a couple Canadians that are contenders in the UFC again, because that would mean the Canadian regional scene has gotten rolling in earnest again — or at least that Canadian hopefuls are getting more opportunities to shine elsewhere — and I think the sport is better for having quality emerging talents for all corners of the globe.
It’s been a good minute since we had a Canadian making real waves inside the Octagon and it really would be terrific to see one or more of them climb the ranks in their respective division in the next couple years.