10 Things I Like: UFC Vegas 19 Edition
Examining the things that excite me about this weekend's event at the UFC Apex
Curtis Blaydes’ Honesty (and Overall Approach)
Heavyweight contender Curtis Blaydes told everyone he was going to wrestle Alexander Volkov into oblivion prior to their meeting last June, and then he went out and did it for roughly four rounds before he finally slowed down and the towering Russian managed to keep things upright.
Ahead of his main event assignment with Derrick Lewis this weekend, Blaydes is right back on the “sorry about your wants and desires, but I don’t care” train, acknowledging that he’s not looking to sling leather with Lewis when their is a clear path to victory for him on the ground.
Here’s a guy that is 14 & Francis Ngannou for his career and a former JuCo National champion wrestler facing the man with the most knockouts in the history of the division, and there will legitimately be people who deride his decision to play to his strengths and not cater to their wishes by fighting Lewis on his terms.
Personally, I love Blaydes’ honesty and his overall approach, because I love seeing dominant fighters be dominant, regardless of how they dominate, and Blaydes is a dominant wrestler. Now, I’d like to see him be a little more active and aggressive from top position when the opportunities are there, but I won’t quibble with any fighter doing what they do best, even if it means alienating fans and annoying Dana White.
Yes, there is an entertainment element to this sport, but to me, it’s disingenuous to suggest that Blaydes isn’t entertaining.
He earned back-to-back stoppage wins prior to his fight with Volkov and split Alistair Overeem’s head open like a coconut with hellacious elbows from top position prior to his second loss to Ngannou, so let’s not pretend like he’s simply taking people down and holding on for dear life time and again.
Even if you want to set aside the “don’t mess with my money” element of his above statement, we really do need to get back to a place where wins and losses the biggest factors in determining championship matchups and key fights because Blaydes is doing what he’s supposed to do — win fights — and penalizing him for not doing it with enough style points is lame.
Playing the “not entertaining enough” card is a cheap way to get out of admitting that at a certain level, results take a back see to the pre-fight hype and idealized version of an epic clash you’ve concocted in your head between the defending champion and more established, less deserving contender.
And while I’ll be the first to admit that deserve doesn’t have anything to do with how fights are made these days, let’s just all be grown ups and acknowledge that up front rather than try to diminish someone like Blaydes’ standing by suggesting he needs to adopt a more entertaining style because we all know that if he abandons his wrestling and gets knocked out on Saturday, no one is going to step up and say, “That’s our fault” and lobby for him to get a do-over.
Full Strength Derrick Lewis
Derrick Lewis is a must-follow on social media for all the memes and ridiculousness. He used to also post videos and shots from his training sessions, but he’s not doing that any more and I can’t help but wonder if “The Black Beast” is hiding something?
Normally, you’d like I would mean an injury or something bad, but I genuinely wonder if Lewis is trying to keep a lower profile because after years of competing on a wonky knee, which contributed to his having a jacked-up back, the 36-year-old is finally healthy, finally putting in real hours in the gym, and planning on coming out all tucked up and finely tuned this weekend.
You laugh, but Lewis looked to be in considerably better shape prior to his win over Aleksei Oleinik in August, and has long maintained that we’ve yet to see him at his best because of those persistent injuries that limited him in the gym.
Maybe I’m reading too much into things and thinking back too fondly on my myriad conversations with the Houston resident about putting it all together and committing himself to being in the best shape possible, but after a really great showing last summer, this feels like the kind of fight where the quick-witted baritone joker might just turn up in the best shape of his life and leave everyone picking their jaws up off the floor on Saturday night.
I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but I’m not saying it’s not possible either.
I Want to Know More About: Ketlen Vieira
Ketlen Vieira might seem like a strange athlete to feature in this space given that her fight with Yana Kunistkaya on Saturday will be her seventh appearance inside the Octagon, however she’s only fought twice since blowing out her knee and got knocked out in the first of those two outings and I still don't feel like I have a real strong grasp on who she is as a fighter and where she stands in the bantamweight division.
She felt like the defacto No. 1 contender after edging out Cat Zingano at UFC 222 prior to tearing her ACL, and now she’s back in the mix and I really want to know if she’s someone that could mix it up with top contenders like Germaine De Randamie and Holly Holm.
That’s the thing with the bantamweight division at the moment: it’s not about seeing who can hang with Amanda Nunes because “The Lioness” feels like she’s operating in an entirely different stratosphere; instead, it’s about figuring out who, if anyone, can even push De Randamie or Holm because you’ve got to get through one of them first if you want to get to Nunes.
Saturday’s fight with Kunitskaya should be a solid measuring stick as the former Invicta FC standout has gone 3-1 since her short-notice debut loss to Cris Cyborg, with her lone loss coming against recovering contender Aspen Ladd.
This is the type of fight Vieira needs to win — and ideally win handily — if she wants a chance to share the cage with De Randamie or Holm, and I want to see if she’s up to it.
“Veterans vs. Newbies” at Heavyweight
The other two heavyweight bouts on Saturday’s main card are each “Veteran vs. Neophyte” matchups, as Aleksei Oleinik squares off with Chris Daukaus, and Andrei Arlovski takes on Tom Aspinall.
In each instance, the members of the old guard have so much more experience than their emerging opponents that it’s laughable, with Oleinik (74) and Arlovski (51) sporting a combined 125 professional fights and Daukaus (13) and Aspinall (11) having less than 20 percent of that between them. But therein lies the beauty of these two matchups.
Oleinik and Arlovski are established hands — tenured competitors that long ago reached their apex and are now grinding out fights as human litmus tests for upstarts looking to move forward in the division. Conversely, Daukaus and Aspinall are each just two fights into their UFC adventures and due a step up in competition after registering first-round finishes in each of their first two appearances.
If they’re to become factors int he heavyweight ranks, these are the type of savvy, seasoned pros they need to beat at this stage of the game, and I’m far more interested in figuring out if they’re capable of climbing the divisional ladder now than after a couple more unnecessary pairings against overmatched newcomers.
Each of these fights will be instructive no matter how they shake out, and I’m really curious to see what happens in each of these contests.
Middleweight Prospects Collide
When this fight was first booked in January, I wrote this about Phillip Hawes:
I’m all-in on Phillip Hawes.
If you’re looking for someone who is unranked and largely untested in the UFC with the potential to earn a place in the Top 15 in their division (and potentially higher) before the year is out, I submit Hawes as my nomination. He was a highly regarded and frankly over-hyped prospects at the outset of his career, struggled, but has persevered to reach a point where it looks like he’s put everything together and is poised to make some noise.
I didn’t have as much to say about his opponent, Nassourdine Imavov, because I was on my Phillip Hawes shit, but let me be clear: Imavov is the real deal as a prospect as well and this is going to be a helluva fight.
The middleweight division is under construction at the moment, with many of the tenured members of the Top 15 either aging out or falling off in recent years, creating openings for new names to ascend, and while neither of these two are at the point of breaking into the rankings just yet, they each have the potential to do so at some point in the future, depending on how things break for them inside the Octagon.
I know I say this all the time, but I say it for a reason (the reason being that it’s often true): this is one of those fights we could look back on in a couple years and think, “They fought each other then?” much in the same way Kamaru Usman facing Leon Edwards didn’t mean a ton back in the day, but means a helluva lot now.
Jared Gordon: Featherweight Dark Horse?
After missing weight for his promotional debut at 145-pounds and being encouraged to move up to lightweight, Jared Gordon returned to the featherweight division for his last fight and turned in a tremendous performance against Chris Fishgold, one made even more impressive when you know the numerous challenges Gordon dealt with on his way to Fight Island:
Now permanently relocated to the division where he claimed the CFFC title before graduating to the UFC, the 32-year-old from Queens believes he’s poised to make a run in the featherweight ranks and this weekend’s matchup against Danny Chavez should provide further insights into whether that will transpire or not.
Gordon is a tough out who did reasonably well fighting as an undersized lightweight, and brings a well-rounded skill set with him into the Octagon. Chavez is a kick-heavy striker with good speed, but limited experience, and the kind of guy Gordon needs to roll through if he hopes to climb the divisional ladder and make some serious noise in 2021.
Given everything he’s persevered through in his life and career, I wouldn’t recommend counting him out and I also wouldn’t be surprised if he turned out to be one of those fighters that only managed to put all the pieces together properly a little later in their careers either.
Holy Newcomers, Batman!
Saturday’s card includes five athletes making their first trip into the UFC Octagon and as always, I’m excited to see what they bring to the table. Here’s some info on each of them, including whom they’re facing.
Pat Sabatini (vs. Rafael Alves): the two-time CFFC featherweight champ from Philadelphia is 13-3 with 11 finishes, 10 of which have been submissions, and reps the Daniel Gracie crew, the same squad as unbeaten welterweight upstart Sean Brady and Paul Felder back in the day.
Rafael Alves (vs. Pat Sabatini): the 30-year-old Brazilian is a Contender Series graduate and former Titan FC titleholder, training out of MMA Masters. He’s 19-9 overall, but enters on a five-fight winning streak.
Casey O’Neill (vs. Shana Dobson): the 23-year-old “Scossie” (Scotland + Australia) is perfect in five professional appearances, trained out of Tiger Muay Thai for a number of years, and relocated to Las Vegas last fall when she signed her UFC deal. Dobson is a terrific initial test for O’Neill, who could establish herself as one to watch with an impressive win.
Drako Rodriguez (vs. Aiemann Zahabi): the subject of a contract battle a couple summers back, the 24-year-old Rodriguez finally gets the chance to show UFC audiences what all the fuss was about after earning a contract with a first-round submission win on the Contender Series last year. Zahabi is a smart, technical veteran who will test Rodriguez right out of the gate.
Jared Vanderaa (vs. Serghei Spivac): another member of the Contender Series Class of 2020, Vanderaa trucked Harry Hunsucker inside the Apex in November, then asked for this assignment against Spivac. He got his wish and now the Team Quest representative makes his debut on a card where the heavyweight division is in the spotlight.
Speaking of which…
Moving Day at Heavyweight
No matter how things shake out on Saturday night, the landscape of the heavyweight division will look different on Sunday morning.
Blaydes and Lewis are ostensibly battling to see who can serve as the back-up when Jon Jones challenges the winner of the upcoming title fight between Stipe Miocic and Francis Ngannou.
The “Veterans vs. Newbies” fights will either elevate two relative newcomers into the Top 15, cement the veterans as truth machines that still can bring the ruckus, or some combination of the two, while the winner of the Spivac-Vanderaa fight will earn a slight step up in competition and a little closer look next time out.
Combine these four contests with the Alexander Volkov’s win over Alistair Overeem, next week’s main event between Jairzinho Rozenstruick and Ciryl Gane, and the three other heavyweight pairings on the schedule ahead of Miocic-Ngannou II and we have an eight-week stretch where the bulk of the big boy division is in action.
The heavyweight hierarchy could look completely different come April 1 and this weekend will have a tremendous influence on how it shapes up.
Fighter I Can’t Quit: Drakkar Klose
Maybe it’s because he has an undeniably cool name.
Maybe it’s because he was the unknown guy his old coach John Crouch used to rave about whenever I asked him about up-and-comers in the room at The Lab that I should familiarize myself with in advance.
Maybe it’s because he’s 5-2 in the UFC with wins over Marc Diakiese, Lando Vannata, and Bobby Green, and had Beneil Dariush on roller skates last time out before getting stopped himself.
Whatever the reason, Drakkar Klose is this week’s Fighter I Can’t Quit.
The 32-year-old Klose takes on Luis Pena on Saturday in a fight that isn’t must-win for either man, but is also “it should would be a lot better for you if you won this one” for each guy as well.
He’s shown flashes in the past and is one of those guys where it wouldn’t surprise me if he suddenly got things to click and went on a run. Even if that doesn’t happen, you’ll be able to find me here, on this corner, waiting for it to happen, every time he fights.
Nate Landwehr is Fighting
Nate Landwehr is the current “this dude will put his body through inordinate amounts of punishment for your viewing enjoyment” titleholder, having won it from Darren Elkins when the two fought back in May.
The 32-year-old is what you’d get if you crossed the Tasmanian Devil from the Looney Tunes cartoons with the toughest guy at your local dive bar, trained him in mixed martial arts, and gave him a truly unique, occasionally difficult to decipher Tennessee accent and unpredictable cadence.
He’s one of those guys that you know just absolutely loves that gets to get into fistfights for a living, and his matchup with Julian Erosa on Saturday has the potential to be the type of fight deserving of being called a slobberknocker.
In fact, I’ll be a little disappointed if whomever is calling the action doesn’t refer to it as such this weekend.
Landwehr is a lunatic and I mean that in the most flattering way possible, and one of those guys I will forever be excited about seeing compete.
Enjoy the fights, friends.