About Last Night at UFC Vegas 32...
Detailing what went down on Saturday's action-packed fight card at the UFC APEX
Dillashaw Returns, Edges Sandhagen in Fight of the Year Contender
TJ Dillashaw returned to the Octagon and the win column on Saturday, edging out Cory Sandhagen by split decision in what immediately becomes the clubhouse leader in the Fight of the Year race.
Sidelined for more than two years after testing positive for EPO following his flyweight title fight with Henry Cejudo in January 2019, the former bantamweight champion Dillashaw didn’t miss a beat, striding into the cage and going shot-for-shot with the highly regarded and surging Sandhagen. The only clear round of the fight was the second, which Sandhagen won handily, busting up Dillashaw to the point that the action was momentarily paused to check on the cut Dillashaw suffered. In every other round, the action was close, with Dillashaw having some success with his grappling and serving as the aggressor, while Sandhagen seemed to land more effectively and with more impact throughout the majority of the fight.
Setting the decision aside for a moment, you have to give Dillashaw props for his performance on Saturday — he battled through a gnarly cut and a jacked up knee against a legit stud after more than two years on the sidelines, showing his toughness and championship mettle, and making it clear that he’s still an elite talent going forward.
Sandhagen was understandably crestfallen following the bout, believing he’d done more than enough to earn the victory, and regardless of the outcome, his stock doesn’t change coming out of this one. He fought an excellent fight against a two-time champion, battled hard, and can make a case for deserving the nod; there is literally nothing you can look at in those 25 minutes that should lead you to think less of the Elevation Fight Team member.
But Dillashaw got his hand raised and is likely next in line to challenge for the bantamweight title.
BTW: I’ll be running the tape back on Monday morning, putting together a Re-Watch piece, so if you’re interested in my second-viewing thought, come back at the start of next week and we’ll get into greater detail.
Paiva, Phillips Get After It
Raulian Paiva and Kyler Phillips beat the holy hell out of each other in the penultimate fight of the evening, battering each other from pillar-to-post for 15 minutes, with the Brazilian coming away with a majority decision victory.
Phillips came out of the gate like a bat outta hell, putting it on Paiva throughout the first five minutes to the point that everyone online awarded him a 10-8 score. After looking like he wanted no part of things between rounds, Paiva came out and took the fight to Phillips, reclaiming all the momentum in the second, swarming the MMA Lab representative as he started to fade. While Phillips had some strong moments in the third, Paiva did a little more, which had most believing a draw was forthcoming.
But two of the three judges failed to give Phillips a 10-8 in Round 1, and with Paiva winning the second and third on all three cards, the former flyweight ended the evening with his hand raised.
There are two big takeaways here for me:
Bantamweight is the best division in the UFC at the moment and it’s not even close, and
Something has to be done about the judging problem in this sport because there is no consistency, both in terms of how fights are scored and the individual judges themselves many times, and it’s a big, big problem that needs to be addressed.
It sucks when highly questionable scorecards take away from the action in the Octagon and impact the careers of these athletes. Something needs to be done, and it needs to happen soon.
100% Darren Elkins
Darren Elkins did what Darren Elkins does on Saturday night, getting out-hustled and busted up early in his fight with Darrick Minner before turning the tables and pounding out the finish late in the second. It was quintessential Elkins and eerily close to how I forecasted the fight would play out on Friday:
Minner is one of those guys that if he’s going to catch you, he’s going to catch you early, and if he doesn’t, all bets are off. While he’s had success in each of his last two outings and has been solid over his last five, I like the way Elkins matches up with him and believe the veteran, who is damn-near impossible to put away, should be able to grind out a win in typical Darren Elkins fashion this weekend.
The 37-year-old is as battle-tested as they come and the kind of grimy, grizzly veteran every division needs — a tough-ass litmus test for any hopeful; a dirty, indefatigable grinder to pair with another veteran — and less than a year after thinking he might hang’em up, “The Damage” has now put together back-to-back wins to re-affirm his place in the featherweight division.
At a time when the sport is getting more athletic, more technical, more polished, you have to love an old school, blue-collared, meat-and-potatoes dude like Elkins.
Please Give Maycee Barber Time
Maycee Barber walked away with a surprising split decision victory over Miranda Maverick on Saturday night, avoiding a three-fight slide in the process. Most people watching the fight, all of the media members offering up scores from home, and one of the judges scored it in favor of Maverick, believing she did enough to win the first and second rounds before Barber finally got comfortable, turned up the volume, and started having lasting success.
I’m going to watch the fight back again to see how I would score it on a second watch (I had it 29-28 Maverick initially), but there are bigger things to talk about here than the decision.
Barber has plateaued.
If I’m being completely honest, I think she’s regressed, in part because she’s moved up a division and can no longer bully smaller fighters with her size and strength the way she did at strawweight. I also think that switching camps after each fight hasn’t helped either because it keeps her from establishing a rapport with her coaches, who can than really drill down on the things she needs to improve and the adjustments she needs to make between each fight. After an 8-0 start to her career, this could have been — and likely should have been — a third straight setback, which is not what you want to see from a 24-year-old fighter that exhibited such promise early in her career.
Now, her young start works in her favor a little because she still has a ton of time to correct the issues that have plagued her these last few fights and generally figure things out. We’ve seen plenty of athletes stall out, endure a middling stretch, and then regain some momentum once they make some adjustments and fix those mistakes.
But she needs to find a way to have better starts and best deploy her obvious talents or else this could get away from her in a hurry, especially given that she asked for a fight with Jessica Eye and she’s been booked incredibly tough throughout her UFC career.
Adrian Yanez is the Real Deal
Adrian Yanez kicked off the main card with a second-round stoppage win over Randy Costa in a highly anticipated clash of bantamweight hopefuls where preferred snacks were on the line. In addition to collecting his third straight UFC stoppage win (and a month’s supply of Dr. Pepper), the 27-year-old Contender Series grad continued to show that he has the intangibles you’re looking for in potential championship contenders.
Last time out against Gustavo Lopez, the Texas native exhibited tremendous patience, never getting out ahead of himself as he stood in with Lopez, picking his spots, countering precisely before finally felling the Las Vegas-based veteran in the third. Saturday night, he got busted up by Costa’s jab in the first, needing a little time to get a read on his speed and his range while remaining unflappable in the face of heavy fire. After settling in late in the first, he turned up the pace in the second and put Costa away, clubbing him with heavy body shots, a clean uppercut, and an barrage of punches that prompted the fight to be stopped.
This was the kind of effort that we’ll look back on in a couple years as one of the moments that showed Yanez has serious upside in the bantamweight division. His durability, grit, and unflappable approach is huge positives, and not something you always see in fighters that are just three fights into their UFC careers. Each fight has been different and yet the result has been the same — Yanez getting the finish — and it makes him one of the most interesting emerging talents on the roster.
Now here’s the key: bantamweight is so flush with talent right now that the UFC should continue to bring Yanez along slowly, giving him an incrementally step up in competition next time out, rather than hustling him into the Octagon with a Top 15 fighter or someone just outside the rankings. Let him keep building, let him keep improving and impressing because he has a bright future and there is no reason to dull it unnecessarily right now.
Preliminary Card Talking Points
Brendan Allen and Punahele Soriano beat the ever-loving hell out of each other in a terrific clash of emerging middleweight talents, with Allen coming out on the happy side of the results, with scores of 30-27, 29-28, and 29-28.
After snatching up a first-round submission win last time out, the 25-year-old Sanford MMA representative showcased improved striking this time around, battering Soriano with a series of body kicks, mixing in knees up the middle while remaining patient and poised throughout. Most surprisingly, perhaps, was his ability to withstand the return fire, as Soriano landed several big shots, but Allen took them all and responded, grabbing control of the contest early in the second and never relinquishing it.
As the broadcast team said during the fight, this should be one of those outings where Soriano’s stock doesn’t fall in defeat, as he went toe-to-toe with a highly regarded prospect on the brink of the Top 15, and this was still just his ninth professional appearance.
But Saturday night belonged to Allen, who should get the Top 15 matchup he's been craving next and has used his two appearances this year to quickly re-establish himself as the top emerging threat in the 185-pound weight class.
Make sure you learn the name Nassourdine Imavov because you’re going to be hearing it in quality middleweight matchups for the next several years.
Saturday night in Las Vegas, the tall, rangy Russian, who now resides in Paris, France, picked up the biggest win of his professional career, picking apart and finishing Ian Heinisch midway through the second round. After a tight opening frame where Imavov busted up Heinisch, but ate a few shots himself, “The Russian Sniper” got more aggressive in the second, working behind his long jab, picking off the former Top 15 fighter and putting him away with a torrent of punches along the fence.
Training out of The MMA Factory alongside interim heavyweight title challenger Ciryl Gane, the 26-year-old impressed in his hastily arranged promotional debut and battled hard against Phil Hawes in his sophomore effort, dropping a majority decision to Heinisch’s highly touted teammate. Coming off this victory, he should earn another step up in competition and be someone fans are checking for and other hopefuls are avoiding going forward.
Six years and nine fights into his UFC career, Mickey Gall turned in the best performance of his career, hurting Jordan Williams on multiple occasions with his hands before dragging him to the canvas, taking his back, and securing the rear-naked choke finish. The whole thing took less than three minutes.
Gall had been a middling fighter through his last six appearances, beating competitors who quickly washed out of the UFC while falling to the better competition he faced, including a shopworn Diego Sanchez. He felt (to me) like a guy that loved being a UFC fighter, but was never going to advance beyond being “The Guy That Called Out and Beat CM Punk” and a lower-middle-tier welterweight, but his performance on Saturday now suggests otherwise.
He showed power in his hands, popping Williams with clean, heavy shots twice that led to grappling exchanges where Gall quickly attacked guillotine. While he bailed on the first one early, he used the second attack to force Williams to defend, creating a scrambling opportunity where he took the back and attacked the neck. It was a truly impressive effort from the 29-year-old New Jersey native and it will be interesting to see if this will be the start of a prolonged run of improvements and positive results for Gall going forward.
Twin surgical procedures, a shift in divisions, and more than 18 months on the sidelines didn’t slow Julio Arce in his return this weekend, as the East Coast regional standout blew through Andre Ewell with technical, polished performance on Saturday’s prelims.
After beginning his UFC career up at featherweight — and having some success, including a split decision win over Dan Ige — the Team Tiger Schulmann representative moved back down to the 135-pound weight class and looked outstanding, picking apart Ewell with counters early before becoming the aggressor, leading to a flurry of punches that prompted referee Chris Tognoni to step in and stop the fight just after the midway point of the middle stanza.
Similar to Sijara Eubanks (see below), Arce is the kind of experienced, technical, polished competitor that could become an immediate fighter to watch in his new division with good health and the right matchups. He good length and a ton of top shelf experience, and coming off a stoppage victory like this, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Arce get the chance to hustle up the ladder quicker than most going forward.
Sijara Eubanks put on an absolute clinic against UFC newcomer Elise Reed on Saturday, putting the former CFFC strawweight champion on the deck less than 20 seconds into the contest, pounding out the finish from mount before the four-minute mark of the fight.
This was the kind of effort that “Sarj” needed returning to the flyweight division, where she had previous success in the cage, but plenty of issues with the scale, missing out on a chance to compete for the inaugural UFC flyweight title because of weight cut gone awry. She made championship weight and looked great on Friday, and then showed on Saturday that she’s an instant threat at 125-pounds by mauling the talented, but overmatched Reed.
With prior wins over Roxanne Modafferi and Lauren Murphy, who is fighting for the flyweight title later this year, all Eubanks needs to do in order scale the rankings and garner the opportunities she’s chasing is continue to make weight without issue. She’s a different level grappler than anyone else in the division, she has power in her hands, and her striking is much tighter now than is was earlier in her career.
As long as she consistently makes weight, Eubanks is going to be a problem.
Diana Belbita showed off her smooth, clean striking in the opener against Hannah Goldy, piecing up the Contender Series alum over all three rounds to secure a unanimous decision victory.
The Romanian-born, Stoney Creek, Ontario-based strawweight offered glimpses of her upside in her last fight against Liana Jojua, doing good work at range early before making the mistake of working into the clinch, where she was taken down and submitted. While she still got tied up a couple times, and taken down and mounted towards the end of the fight, the 25-year-old did a much better job maintaining her range and picking apart Goldy.
Strawweight boasts the deepest collection of talent of all the women’s weight classes, so there is plenty of time and opportunity to allow Belbita to progress slowly, further develop her skills, and grow as an athlete before hustling her into far more dangerous matchups.