10 Things I Like at UFC Vegas 58

From a compelling lightweight main event to a bunch of emerging names to track, here's what I'm paying attention to this weekend.

This is a Spencer Card if I’ve ever seen one.

When I popped on the Couchside Judges MMA Podcast with Scott Fontana and Dan Urban on Monday, we did a couple minutes at the end about this card and when Scott asked if there were other fights or fighters that caught my eye, he prefaced it by saying something along the lines of “I know you like every fight,” and I had to laugh.

I really do.

This is a middling fight card — a classic Hangover Card in every sense — and I’m genuinely looking forward to it because I want have questions about each of these contests and look forward to seeing how they’re answered and how things play out in the Octagon this weekend. While I always skew optimistic in my outlook about these events, this one, more than any card in the last six weeks, feels like it could turn into a bit of a slog.

And yet I’m still intrigued.

And here’s why… but first, definitions:

Spencer Card: (1) an event with a pair of ranked fighters in the main event and a hodgepodge of bouts between prospects, Contender Series graduates, Fighters I Can’t Quit, and like assembled on the undercard; (2) a card the most prominent voices covering the sport will either downplay or largely ignore; (3) a card where the names might not be familiar or formidable, but action will be entertaining nonetheless.

Hangover Card: a Spencer Card that follows a pay-per-view, where the interest amongst the general populous is even less because they’re still “hung over” from the much larger event the previous weekend.

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Dos Anjos’ “Driving Test” Moment

I was trying to think of a way to articulate what I fight like this is for a veteran talent that has been a contender for a really long time, but now we’re not quite sure if they still fit that description and this is what I came up with.

At a certain age, adults have to take physical exam to show they’re still physically capable of getting behind the wheel; it’s called a Drivers Medical Examination Report (DMER) and you have to have one every two years once you turn 80. In MMA, when you get into that late 30s range, you get a fight like the one Rafael Dos Anjos is facing on Saturday night: a main event pairing with Rafael Fiziev, a streaking ascending talent looking to leapfrog the former champion in the lightweight hierarchy.

It serves the same purpose as the DMER in that it immediately assesses whether you’re capable of still being a contender or whether you need to take a step back in the division because your best days are now behind you.

Dos Anjos has looked the part since returning to lightweight, but one fight in the last eight months isn’t necessarily an accurate representation, especially when it came against a veteran opponent on short notice. This matchup with Fiziev will make it clear if the 37-year-old Brazilian still has some gas left in the tank or if it’s time to park his championship aspirations once and for all.

Fiziev’s Next Big Test

Fiziev is at the point every fighter wants to reach: the stage of your career where each subsequent fight is your biggest test to date.

He’s been operating in this space since defeating Alex White in his second UFC appearance, progressing through Marc Diakiese and Renato Moicano before defeating Bobby Green and Brad Riddell; each fight a little more difficult, a little closer on paper than the last. So far, it’s been smooth sailing for the ascending lightweight, who splits his training between Tiger Muay Thai and Kill Cliff FC (formerly Sanford MMA) in South Florida.

Saturday’s bout with Dos Anjos is a two-part test — a matchup against a former champion and highly regarded veteran, as well as his first UFC main event, which means a potential chance to see how his conditioning holds up over five rounds. Dos Anjos is the perfect person to test him in this regard as he hasn’t been knocked down since his UFC debut (shouts to Richard Mann’s Fight Forecaster for that nugget) and this weekend will be his 12th UFC main event.

He’s passed each of his last five tests with flying colours, but this one is the hardest yet, by far.

Can I Get an Encore?

I’m not sold on Caio Borralho.

I said in my massive Fighters to Watch 2022 series at the start of the year that I wasn’t including DWCS grads because it was so difficult to have a good read on them because many had faced marginal competition (at best) on the way to that showcase and even beat overmatched competition to punch their ticket to the UFC. Borralho is one of those question mark fighters, and while he looked solid in his promotional debut against Gadzhi Omargadzhiev, that’s him beat another member of the Class of ‘21, so can we really take too much away from that effort?

Here’s the other reason I’m not sold on Borralho yet: rather than get him in there with an established middleweight and really look to get him over, he faces another member of the Class of ‘21 this weekend in Armen Petrosyan, who looked okay in earning a split decision win over Gregory Rodrigues in his debut earlier this year.

His Natan Levy Number is an ugly (-12), but is skewed by the fact that he fought professional Luiz Carlos Alves twice, and he went on to lose his twice more before their second meeting, and five more times after that. Pulling Alves from the data set, his number would be (+1), which is much better, but the fact that he fought Alves twice on the way up is sketchy.

Petrosyan might offer a test, but he could also get taken down and dominated on the canvas, as his DWCS opponent, Kaloyan Kolev, was able to take him down three times in a fight that ended at 4:17 of the opening stanza.

I’m going to need to see a lot more from Borralho before I’m convinced of his upside.

* Natan Levy Number: an MMA formula where you tabulate the combined records of an emerging fighter’s opponents following their meeting in order to get a greater understanding of the level of competition said newcomer faced on their way to the big stage. The better the record, the better the competition, in theory. Levy was the first fighter I did this for, so it’s named in his honour.

Nurmagomedov’s Next Assignment

Said Nurmagomedov returned from a 15-month hiatus with an impressive 47-second submission win over Cody Stamann in January.

Now, as he makes what is a relatively quick return for him, it’s time for the 30-year-old fighter from Dagestan to show whether he’s someone that is going to be a legitimate factor in the bantamweight division or just an ultra-talented enigma on the edges of the Top 15 for the next couple of years.

Nurmagomedov has all the requisite skills, talents, and pedigree to be a player in the 135-pound ranks, but a “once a year” schedule for much of his UFC tenure has muted any momentum he’s ever been able to build and kept him from really climbing the ladder. Saturday’s fight with Douglas Silva de Andrade can change that, however, as it’s a second assignment this year, and one against a fighter on a two-fight finishing streak that is going to push him from he jump.

Much like Borralho, Nurmagomedov falls into that “you’ve just got to convince me” category right now, because as much as I recognize the diversity of his game and the danger it presents, I could also see him falling into getting finished in relatively quick fashion this weekend if he’s more mercurial than we might otherwise think. As much as I would have liked to have seen him in there with someone a little further up the depth chart, this is a solid pairing that should answer some of those lingering questions and hopefully put him in a position to make a third appearance later this year.

Lightweight Questions

Michael Johnson is coming off a win and I’m curious to see if he can build off that effort. Jamie Mullarkey is coming off a loss and I’m eager to see how “The Hooligan” responds. The lightweights meet in Saturday’s main card opener, which should be an entertaining scrap, and it really feels like the kind of bout that is going to reveal a great deal about where each man is at in their respective careers.

Johnson feels like someone capable of occupying a Jim MIller-esque role in the division, facing newcomers, ascending hopefuls, and the odd veteran here and there in order to remain active and continue competing without getting tossed in the wood chipper like he did earlier in his career. All kind of bettors were backing Mullarkey heading into his fight with Jalin Turner after consecutive knockout wins over Khama Worthy and Devonte Smith, but that didn’t work out too well for the sharps or the Australian, and how someone bounces back after getting finished is always intriguing to me.

I think they meet in the middle and sling hands from the jump, and I’ll be paying close attention to see how each of these upper-middle-class lightweights look this weekend.

Flyweight Questions

Just as the main card opener has piqued my interest, so too has the flyweight matchup between Cynthia Calvillo and Nina Nunes that closes out the prelims.

There was a time when Calvillo was pushed by the UFC and a prospective contender in the strawweight division, and even after catching her first career loss (in a fight against current champ Carla Esparza), she turned around and rattled off a 3-0-1 mark in her next four fights. That last win came in her flyweight debut against the now-retired Jessica Eye and she hasn’t won since, entering this weekend’s event following a fight against Andrea Lee where he corner threw in the towel following the second round.

Nunes worked her way into the Top 5 in the strawweight division on the strength of a four-fight wining streak capped by a victory over Claudia Gadelha, but she’s 0-2 since. The first of those losses came against unbeaten prospect Tatiana Suarez, who has been out of action since and turns 32 this December, and the second came against Mackenzie Dern in her first fight back after giving birth to her daughter.

Someone is getting their hand raised on Saturday (in all likelihood) and I genuinely have no idea who that will be right now. Calvillo has historically been a solid grinder, but got picked apart in a major way last time out, while Nunes is a solid striker, but is susceptible to getting taken down and controlled on the canvas. This is a crossroads fight and a clash of styles, and right now, just a couple days before they hit the Octagon, I don’t have any real sense of what to expect from these women this weekend.

Post-TUF Debut for Turcios

Ricky Turcios makes his post-TUF debut this weekend against Aiemann Zahabi and I’m fascinated to see if the Season 29 bantamweight winner can go on to have a productive, impactful career inside the Octagon.

It’s been real mixed results for the last 10 fighters to join the roll call of TUF winners: Tatiana Suarez was on her way to being a contender before getting sidelined with injuries, Macy Chiasson has gone 5-2, and Ryan Hall has gone 4-1, but we’ve also seen Jesse Taylor get released before even making his return to the Octagon, Juan Espino show little interest in a professional fighting career at all, and Nicco Montano fight once, miss weight a grip of times, and get cut.

You have to go back to Seasons 20 & 21 to find truly impactful winners in current champs Kamaru Usman and Carla Esparza.

Turcios profiles as someone more likely to fit into the Andrew Sanchez, Tim Elliott, Michael Trizano role — somebody that sticks around for a bunch of fights, but hovers around .500 while putting on a handful of entertaining scraps along the way.

Zahabi is a good first test for the Team Volk alum, and how things shake out this weekend should provide a good initial indication of what’s reasonable to expect from “Pretty Ricky” going forward.

David Onama is Fighting After All

Here’s a very small BTS nugget for you: generally speaking, I file all my content for the UFC website by Sunday evening before that particular Fight Week begins, which means that things like Fighters on the Rise is in the books before the week begins, since it usually runs on Tuesdays.

This week, I sent it in as normal, and got an email from my editor, the great Tom Gerbasi, asking me for “another name because Onama is out,” and my heart sunk.

I had been looking forward to David Onama’s return since his first-round win over Gabriel Benitez. He was going to be the first person to be a two-time Fighter to Watch on the Keyboard Kimura Newsletter, but his fight with Austin Lingo got scuttled and it didn’t seem like he was going to compete this weekend… but he is!

Onama will face promotional newcomer Garrett Armfield, an 8-2 fighter training with the Kill Cliff FC crew, and the person Onama beat in what was their joint final amateur appearances. Onama scored the unanimous decision win, ending his amateur days at 10-0, while the loss dropped Armfield to 6-1, and now they’ll run it back on the big stage.

Short notice fights are difficult to glean anything from, but just getting to see Onama compete again makes me happy. I think he’s a future Top 15 talent in this division, and I’m eager to see him out there on Saturday evening.

Something’s Gotta Give (Times Two)

The flyweight fight between Antonina Shevchenko and Cortney Casey, and the light heavyweight pairing between Karl Roberson and Kennedy Nzechukwu both feel like “Something’s Gotta Give” matchups to me.

Casey is the only one coming into Saturday off a victory, but she and Shevchenko have the same winning percentage (.429) in the UFC, coming in a tick below Roberson, with Nzechukwu being the only one at .500 or better. Each has shown flashes in the past, but never been able to sustain those moments, and each is likely at risk of getting released with another setback this weekend, which should mean all of them come out fighting with a profound sense of urgency, but who knows?

I don’t think wins and losses are the only way to measure a fighter’s value to the promotion and place in the divisional ecosystem, and I’d like to see all of these athletes continue competing on this stage even if they lose on Saturday. But if ever there was a time for these four to dig deep and deliver, it has to be this weekend.

They all need victories, but only two of them will emerge victorious, and I’m eager to find out who that will be.

Bantamweight Prospects Collide

The opener on Saturday is a tasty little bantamweight matchup between Ronnie Lawrence and Saidyokub Kakhramonov that honestly should be further up the playbill, but will be a nice way to kick off the show nonetheless.

Lawrence has looked good in his first two UFC appearances, earning a pair of wins while showcasing a diverse and fluid skill set, plus a little bit of grit to hold on down the stretch against a hard-charging Mana Martinez last time out. Kakhramonov debuted on short notice last year, collecting a third-round submission win over Trevin Jones that forced people to sit up and take notice, but he’s been out of action since, resulting in the momentum and intrigue he had generated having already dissipated.

This should be a good measuring stick bout for each fighter, and while Lawrence is a little older and a step ahead in terms of experience, Kakhramonov might be the better overall prospect.

You know how I feel about bantamweight and the crush of talent push forward in the division, and the winner of this one will have to be included in that ascending herd looking to make some noise in the second half of the year.