10 Things I Like: UFC 258 Edition
You may not like this weekend's pay-per-view that much, but I can always find reasons to watch and enjoy
This weekend’s pay-per-view took some hits to the lineup, and it didn’t start out as the kind of stacked up card where losing one or two fights was no big deal, so I’m sure you can imagine what the reaction to the current slate and, more specifically, the sticker price for Saturday’s event have been throughout the week.
And look, I’m not here to tell people how to spend their money or chastise them for saving $70 US when they don’t feel like the UFC 258 main card is strong enough to merit that kind of expenditure; I mean, that’d be some serious bullshit.
What I will say though is that despite the less-than-stellar pay-per-view slate, this is still a card that intrigues the hell of out me and I genuinely like a bunch of the matchups, which is an equally acceptable position to hold.
Here’s a closer look at the things I like about UFC 258.
Kamaru Usman: A Problem, As Promised
On his way up the welterweight ladder, Kamaru Usman told everyone they didn’t want to face him because he was, and I quote, “A Problem.”
He wasn’t lying.
Usman is 12-0 in the UFC and has successfully defended the welterweight title twice — first in a thrilling, satisfying fifth-round stoppage win over Colby Covington, and then in a grimy, “expose your flaws” decision win over Jorge Masvidal last summer on Fight Island. He’s a relentless grinder and pressure fighter who isn’t in there to chase finishes or make the SportsCenter Top 10; he’s there to make your life miserable for 25 minutes or less, depending on how long it takes him to break you and how your respond once he does.
What I like most about Usman’s approach is that it makes tremendous fighters look like they don’t belong — they get in there and after a couple rounds of punishment, they’re just trying to survive, except for Covington; that dude kept fighting until the bitter end.
That’s what pressure and pace and a suffocating style does to you, and now there is the added wrinkle of a second camp working with the maniacal Trevor Wittman in the thin air of Colorado, which means improved striking, improved strategies, and improved stamina.
He’s now an even bigger problem, and it’s going to see how Burns and the rest of the division contends with him going forward.
Gilbert Burns’ Welterweight Winning Streak
We honestly haven’t made enough about the four-fight welterweight run Burns has authored in order to earn this title shot. Maybe it’s because he’s not the biggest name or a guy that courts the media, or perhaps it’s because so many people want to just fixate on the downfall of the last two opponents he faced, but the truth is that what “Durinho” has done over his last four fights is outstanding and deserves more attention.
This whole welterweight run started on a lark when he jumped at a short-notice opportunity in Montevideo, Uruguay against Alexey Kunchenko. He’d rebounded from his knockout loss to Dan Hooker with back-to-back quality victories and wanted to stay busy, so when Laureano Staropoli got scratched, Burns hopped on a plane, headed to South America and handed the Russian the first loss of his career.
Seven weeks later, he did it again, filling in for Thiago Alves opposite Gunnar Nelson in Copenhagen, Denmark. After dropping the first round, he rallied to win the final two on all three scorecards, pushing his overall winning streak and four and sparking the first wave of “Gilbert Burns might be someone to keep an eye on at welterweight” chatter.
After that, he knocked out Demian Maia in just over half a round to push his winning streak to five and become a dark horse contender in the 170-pound ranks. Yes, Maia was in the twilight of his career, but he’d also won three straight and was never the guy you just ran through, but Burns ran through him like he was standing still.
Then came his fight with Tyron Woodley, which seemed like a real test and turned into a drubbing very quickly as Burns rocked the former champion in the first and never let off the gas. Though it went the distance, it was over inside of five minutes; everything after that first big shot that dazed Woodley was academic.
Burns won four fights in 10 months to go from “moonlighting lightweight” to “might be the guy to dethrone Usman” and we’re acting like it’s NBD.
But it’s a very big deal and it will be an even bigger deal if he goes to bed Saturday night with the UFC welterweight belt laying next to him.
Pressure Fight for Mayce Barber and Alexa Grasso
I don’t generally love throwing a prospect coming off a loss (and her first career loss at that) back into a difficult matchup like this, but truth be told, I adore this fight because each of these competitors needs to prove themselves in this kind of high profile, moderate stakes matchup if they want to continue being viewed as potential contenders in the flyweight division.
Barber was hyped to the gills coming into the UFC and earned stoppages in her first three Octagon appearances, which catapulted her into the Top 10 and had people believing she really had a chance to break Jon Jones’ record for being the youngest UFC champion in history.
Her road to the top took a sharp detour last January when she was soundly beaten by Roxanne Modafferi in a fight where she also suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament. To be clear: she was getting pieced up by the pioneering “Happy Warrior” before her knee when out, not the other way around, and she’s been sidelined ever since.
Grasso arrived in the UFC with fewer stated lofty ambitions and a little less hype, but solid momentum and a decent amount of buzz nonetheless after starting her career with eight straight wins and four consecutive victories under the Invicta FC banner. She won her promotional debut in Mexico City against Heather Jo Clark, but came up short in her sophomore appearance against Felice Herrig, which produced her ever-so-GIFable surprised reaction.
It’s been up and down since, for Grasso, who struggled to make the strawweight limit and has alternated wins and losses since arriving in the UFC. She looked good in her flyweight debut against Ji Yeon Kim, but also desperately needs another impressive showing like the one she turned in against Karolina Kowalkiewicz in order to really establish herself as a potential factor in the 125-pound weight class.
Rather than having them run on parallel paths, pairing them off together and seeing which one takes a step forward is a terrific bit of matchmaking that puts pressure on both and instantly shows which one is more prepared to make a push towards contention now.
Make or Break for Kelvin Gastelum
It’s kind of wild that less than two years after he squared off with Israel Adesanya in an epic clash for the interim UFC middleweight title, Kelvin Gastelum is staring down a potential four-fight losing streak, but here we are.
The fight game is a cruel mistress and doesn’t change for anyone.
Now, Gastelum’s three-fight skid isn’t as cut-and-dry or seriously worrisome as some three-fight slides because it started with that fight against Adesanya, continued with a split decision setback against Darren Till, and was pushed to three when Jack Hermansson quickly subbed him out last summer in Abu Dhabi, so he’s been facing tough competition, could have won the Till decision, and was 2-2 heading into the fifth round at UFC 236 before “The Last Stylebender” pulled away down the stretch.
Saturday’s fight with Ian Heinisch isn’t necessarily a must-win, but it’s definitely an “it would be a whole lot cooler if you did” situation for the UFC because nearly nine years after he beat out Uriah Hall to win the middleweight competition on Season 17 of The Ultimate Fighter, Gastelum remains someone who has come up just short of expectations despite a handful of opportunities.
As a staunch advocate of the “being the seventh-best middleweight in the UFC is still really, really good” position, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with Gastelum settling in there and enjoying a pre-championship Michael Bisping-esque second half of his career. But this is a dude who has always seemed capable of more and he’s been close to taking that next step, so at the same time, it would kind of feel like a bit of a letdown if that’s where he ended up.
Heinisch isn’t an easy out by any stretch, so this fight, more than the others that came before it, should provide a great deal of insights on where the 29-year-old veteran is at in his career and what the future may hold for him.
Jim Miller’s Longevity
Jim Miller is currently tied with Donald Cerrone for the most appearances (36) in UFC history, and will move ahead of “Cowboy” once more when he steps into the Octagon on Saturday night against Bobby Green.
He’s currently third on the all-time wins list, one back of Demian Maia and two back of Cerrone.
He’s done both of these things competing in what was forever considered the most competitive, treacherous division in the sport, and he’s done it with class, navigating the good times and the bad times with professionalism and a drive to put forth the best performance possible every time out, win or lose.
You’ve got to tip your cap to guys like that.
Miller may not be a guy that fans gravitate to or speak highly about, but he’s someone whose contemporaries hold him in high regard, and that tells you everything you need to know about the 37-year-old from Sparta, New Jersey. It doesn’t really matter what random people on the Internet think about you (a lesson we should all take to heart), but when your colleagues and those who understand what you do single you out as a guy they have the utmost respect for and love to see compete, that’s special, and Miller is very much that guy.
This fight with Green doesn’t have any real stakes — they both dropped decisions last time out and neither is in the mix in the 155-pound weight class — but this is the kind of fight that most of the roster will look forward to more than some of the hyped pairings that get fans excited because both men are allergic to being in boring fights and stakes or not, you know they’re going to compete like there is a championship belt hanging in the balance.
Maybe it’s not the high profile pairing you want to see kick off a pay-per-view, but if you can’t appreciate what these two bring to the cage every single time they make that walk, I honestly feel a little bad for you because you’re really missing out.
Rodolfo Vieira’s Next Step
I’m going to be honest with you here: I get abnormally excited about world-class jiu jitsu players making the transition into mixed martial arts, and especially geeked when they get to the UFC because in today’s landscape full of generalists, I still love me a specialist.
And Rodolfo Vieira is a specialist.
The five-time world champion is now 7-0 in MMA and two-for-two inside the Octagon, with each of those victories coming by way of submission as he heads into this weekend’s clash with Anthony Hernandez.
While the results have been there, it hasn’t been the smoothest run for the 31-year-old, who has been lumped up and busted up in each of his two UFC outings, and that actually gets me more excited for this next step because he’s had to navigate some sticky situations.
Vieira is the evolutionary successor to Demian Maia in that he’s just looking to use his jiu jitsu to secure wins and get out of there as quickly as possible, ideally without taking much damage, and I feel like he has the potential to follow a comparable trajectory as Maia, who earned five straight submission wins to begin his UFC tenure and fought for the middleweight title less than three years into his run.
He might not get there and if he does, it will surely take longer just because the landscape is loaded and it’s more difficult to move forward these days, but I’m stoked to continue watching his progression and seeing where he can take it.
Belal Muhammad: Underrated Bully
You know who more people should be paying attention to and talking about?
Belal %@#$’ing Muhammad, that’s who!
Here’s a guy that is stationed at No. 13 in the rankings, riding a three-fight winning streak and 7-1 over his last eight fights, with his only setback coming against Geoff Neal, a guy a ton of us, myself included, picked to beat Stephen Thompson just a couple months ago.
What’s crazier is that everybody loves “The Bully” on social media, where he’s dropped hilarious videos aping Tony Ferguson’s training routine, shown his inability to draw proper circles around pictures with his “Bully’s Bicks” predictions, and co-hosts “Remember the Show,” a weekly game show with Jason Anik (Jon’s twin brother) on the Anik & Florian Podcast YouTube channel, yet that support and following doesn’t seem to carry over when he sets it all aside and steps into the Octagon.
Saturday night, he takes on Dhiego Lima in a rescheduled date from mid-December that isn’t going to do anything other than keep his momentum moving forward if he wins, but believe me when I tell you that this dude is a handful and someone that more people should be keeping tabs on in the 170-pound ranks right about now.
I Want to Know More About: Mallory Martin
Mallory Martin is 10 fights into her professional career and two fights into her UFC tenure. She’s 7-3 overall and 1-1 in the Octagon, and Saturday night, the 27-year-old squares off with Polyana Viana in a strawweight matchup on the televised preliminary card portion of UFC 258.
Martin is one of those competitors that I’m just naturally intrigued by because she lost two fights early in her career against solid competition (fellow UFC 258 competitor Maycee Barber and Icelandic grappler Sunna Davidsdottir) before rattling off five straight victories and getting a short-notice call to the Octagon, where she dropped her debut to former Invicta champ Virna Jandiroba.
Progressing in this sport takes time, it takes experience, and it takes reps, and dealing with some of those setbacks is more meaningful to me than watching a prospect plow through overmatched competition, so I’m curious to see how Martin continues to grow and develop after rallying to get her first victory and logging more time in the lab with the Elevation Fight Team crew.
Viana is someone that has gotten a slight push from the UFC in the past and she looked very good in her last start against Emily Whitmire, so this one should be instructive as to where each woman is at in their continued development, and with fighters that are really still just starting out, just beginning to get their feet wet in the UFC talent pool, that’s all I’m looking for.
I don’t know if Martin has the potential to emerge as a contender somewhere down the line, but I don’t know that she doesn’t either, and as such, I just want to see her step into the Octagon again in order to be better equipped to offer my thoughts on her prospects going forward.
Fighter I Can’t Quit: Ricky Simón
What can I say? I just like this dude.
I liked him when he was making waves on the regional circuit, when he fought on the Contender Series, and when he rattled off three straight wins to begin his UFC tenure. I like that he made zero excuses for getting knocked out by Urijah Faber and gave Rob Font a quality fight in his next appearance after that, and I like that he’s admitted to shifting his approach and working for more finishes after previously seeming content to simply take people down over and over and over again.
Last month, Simón did what you’re supposed to do when you’re a tenured UFC fighter taking on a short-notice replacement, in this case, newcomer Gaetano Pirrello: he manhandled him, taking him down numerous times before sinking on an arm-triangle choke to get the finish late in the second round.
Then he got on the mic and called his shot, setting up this rescheduled clash with Brian Kelleher that closes out the early prelims on Saturday.
Bantamweight is overflowing with talent right now, but Simón is someone outside of the Top 15 to quietly keep tabs because he’s another quality win or two away from facing one of those ranked competitors and he’s got the grimy grappling game to up-end a couple of them and go on a little run.
Miranda Maverick’s Sophomore Showing
Miranda Maverick makes her second appearance in the Octagon this weekend, squaring off with Gillian Robertson in the opening bout of the evening. It’s an interesting matchup and a tough assignment for the 23-year-old UFC sophomore, but also the kind of fight that will immediately show where she stands in the flyweight division.
Maverick has been on the radar for a few years now and really climbing the ranks over the last two years after winning the second Invicta FC Phoenix Series event, following it up with a victory over Pearl Gonzalez, and collecting a stoppage win over Liana Jojua in her promotional debut last October.
While the stoppage in her debut might have been suspect — Jojua had a cut on the bridge of her nose that wouldn’t stop bleeding, but she was clearly ready, willing, and able to continue — the adjustments Maverick made during that opening five minutes are what really stood out to me and have me excited to see her return to action this weekend.
In the midst of that opening round, she went from being in a series of “give one, get one” exchanges to using her footwork and varying her attacks more, which immediately allowed her to get the better of things. The stepping elbow that cut up Jojua was tremendous and the most interesting piece of it all is that the Virginia resident is more known for her grappling than her striking.
She’s less than a year older than Maycee Barber and has faced and beaten comparable, if not better competition to this point, yet there is far less fanfare about Maverick’s emergence.
We’ll see how Saturday shakes out for both women, but don’t be surprised if more folks come away from UFC 258 believing that Maverick is the better prospect and closer to contention than her co-main event counterpart.
Enjoy the fights!