Awesomeness on the Horizon: Upcoming UFC schedule loaded with intrigue and excitement
With no event this weekend, why not get pumped for what's on tap this summer and fall?
As we head into the weekend on this rare week off from the UFC and get ready to jump into another one of those signature “X events in X+1 weeks” runs where there aren’t a lot of spare Saturdays without action inside the Octagon, I want to take a minute and see if we can savour the pre-madness anticipation and excitement of it all.
Once things get going and fights get cancelled, get delayed, or fail to live up to expectations, events drag on, and everything gets to feeling repetitive, it’s easy for that giddiness about upcoming matchups and events to fade or dissipate entirely, replaced by fatigue, exhaustion, and a desire to have a week where it’s not just “on to the next one” as soon as Saturday’s finale wraps up.
It’s natural, it’s understandable, and it’s going to happen, so before it does, can we just take a couple minutes to survey what’s on tap and revel in the sheer awesomeness of where things currently stand in the UFC, because if I’m being honest, I don’t know that I’ve ever been more excited about the slate of fights on tap for the next several months and the overall state of the UFC than I am right now.
Seriously.
Exhibit A — A list of the fights that are scheduled or in the works from now until the fall, in chronological order of when they’ll hit the Octagon
Santiago Ponzinibbio vs. Miguel Baeza
Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs. Augusto Sakai
Movsar Evloev vs. Hakeem Dawodu
Lauren Murphy vs. Joanne Calderwood
Paul Craig vs. Jamahal Hill
Demian Maia vs. Belal Muhammad
Leon Edwards vs. Nathan Diaz
Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno
Israel Adesanya vs. Marvin Vettori
Virna Jandiroba vs. Kanako Murata
Chan Sung Jung vs. Dan Ige
Timur Valiev vs. Raoni Barcelos
Tim Elliott vs. Sumudaerji
Ciryl Gane vs. Alexander Volkov
Michel Pereira vs. Niko Price
Kevin Lee vs. Sean Brady
Sean O’Malley vs. Louis Smolka
Ryan Hall vs. Ilia Topuria
Gilbert Burns vs. Stephen Thompson
Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor
Mateusz Gamrot vs. Jeremy Stephens
Islam Makhachev vs. Thiago Moises
Marion Reneau vs. Miesha Tate
Max Holloway vs. Yair Rodriguez
Punahele Soriano vs. Brendan Allen
Randy Costa vs. Adrian Yanez
Raphael Assuncao vs. Kyler Phillips
Maycee Barber vs. Miranda Maverick
Aspen Ladd vs. Macy Chiasson
Cory Sandhagen vs. TJ Dillashaw
Jose Aldo vs. Pedro Munhoz
Uriah Hall vs. Sean Strickland
Amanda Nunes vs. Julianna Pena
Charles Jourdain vs. Lerone Murphy
Derek Brunson vs. Darren Till
Alexandre Pantoja vs. Brandon Royval
Paulo Costa vs. Jared Cannonier
Alexander Volkanovski vs. Brian Ortega
Jan Blachowicz vs. Glover Teixeira
Johnny Walker vs. Thiago Santos
That’s 40 fights between next weekend and the middle of September, all of which either have championship stakes or title ramifications, are matchups between top contenders or featuring emerging talents, or are just automatically going to be wild like the welterweight pairing between Michel Pereira and Niko Price, he says, offering up prayers to the Fight Gods.
Literally every division is represented, a couple multiple times, setting up a stretch of events that are guaranteed to re-shape how several weight classes line up heading into the home stretch and on towards 2022.
What’s more is that the above collection doesn’t include more than half of the current UFC titleholders, several of whom will most likely defend their titles in the next four months, if not multiple times before the year is out.
Nor does it include light heavyweight breakout star Jiri Prochazka, last year’s summer sensation Khamzat Chimaev, or exciting, emerging talents like Rob Font, Giga Chikadze, or Mackenzie Dern, all of whom have already turned in standout efforts this year and could do so again before 2021 comes to a close.
Things are great right now.
I know it doesn’t always feel that way when we’re in the thick of it and there are five billion things going on and a bunch of fights left you disappointed for one reason or another, but on the whole, big picture, things are dope and are going to continue being dope.
Exhibit B — Every division is interesting in one way or another:
Heavyweight: The Francis Ngannou Era; Jon Jones Hovering
Light Heavyweight: Old Heads Set to Battle; New Names Emerging
Middleweight: Player One Remains; Top 10 Fluid
Welterweight: Active Champ; Plenty of Good Options
Lightweight: New Champ; Trilogy on Tap; Always Exciting
Featherweight: Championship Love Triangle; Fresh Names Rising
Bantamweight: Best Division in the UFC Right Now?
Flyweight: Rematch Coming; Askarov Waiting
Bantamweight: GOAT Doing GOAT Things
Flyweight: La Femme Valentina
Strawweight: Round Two with Rose; Options Abound
There are only two divisions where you could argue things aren’t necessarily all that interesting, but in each, you have a transcendent champion doing incredible things and taking on the next woman up every three-to-six months.
Seriously — the worst-case scenario from these divisions is having to watch Amanda Nunes and/or Valentina Shevchenko be awesome, and each time they win, it ratchets up the desire to see them run it back one more time, creating a highly anticipated fight between arguably the top two female talents in the sport right now.
Every other division features a champion looking at an intriguing collection of contenders, with a couple or more hopefuls and upstarts already jockeying for position in the title chase, all while trying to stay ahead of the pack of emerging standouts working to break through. Even notoriously shallow divisions like heavyweight, light heavyweight, and flyweight feature interesting names at every tier from contenders to hopefuls to up-and-comers.
How can you not be excited?
But it’s going to fade.
The dog days of summer are going to come, half of those 40 fights listed above will be done, a couple you were really looking forward to seeing will fall apart, making you sad, and some event you were super-jacked to see will turn into a six-hour decision-fest that drains the life out of you, making you question why you follow this damn sport in the first place.
The reason is that feeling you get every time an exciting matchup comes across your timeline and the way you can’t help but chuckle because the lineups for UFC 263 and UFC 264 are tremendous from top to bottom.
It’s because of the jolt of electricity that courses through your system whenever you see a wild knockout or the way you sit gobsmacked, staring at the television in amazement when someone orchestrates a symphony of beautiful violence inside the Octagon.
It’s because before everything becomes too much, before it all starts piling up on top of itself, week-after-week, and some of that joie de vivre disappears, we know what’s on tap is, on the whole, pretty awesome, and that while every fight card can’t be flush with killer fights, there are competitive, compelling, meaningful matchups set to take place every weekend the UFC runs a show from now until the end of the year.
And that cycle will keep on repeating itself.
More cool fights will be booked and announced.
More new contenders and prospects will make their presence felt.
More big events will come together.
More excitement will brew.
More anticipation will bubble up.
More awesomeness will transpire.
The craziness is coming and it’s hard to keep those things in perspective when the torrid schedule is in full swing, but it’s worth trying.
It’s been a tremendous start to the year and there are a whack of incredible fights on the horizon; embrace them, enjoy them, and remember how excited you are about all this right now once the chaos sets in.