Let's Book the Lightweight Division!
Figuring out how to align the 155-pound weight class is a challenge, but who doesn't like a challenge?
The last two weeks have provided some clarity in the UFC lightweight division; some being the key word.
Arguably the deepest collection of talent in any weight class, things in 155-pound ranks have always been difficult to decipher because there are so many moving parts, so many established names, and so many emerging talents that no one wants to fight, for very understandable reasons.
But with the next title fight figured out and Islam Makhachev putting on another patient display of domination this past Saturday, now feels like the right time to sit down, dive into the depths of the lightweight division, and see if we can’t figure out the best way forward.
(Note: all rankings based on UFC Fighter Rankings as of 9am PST on Tuesday, July 20)
Let’s start this endeavor by listing off the fights that are currently booked within the division that feature either ranked fighters or emerging names to keep tabs on:
Carlos Diego Ferreira vs. Grant Dawson
Bobby Green vs. Rafael Fiziev
Clay Guida vs. Mark O. Madsen
Joe Solecki vs. Jared Gordon
Jalin Turner vs. Uros Medic
Paddy Pimblett vs. Luigi Vendramini
How all of these bouts shake out will obviously have an impact on bookings in the final months of 2021 and early part of 2022, as the victor in each fight would be in an interesting position going forward.
I love the Ferreira-Dawson booking because the former is looking to stem the tide after dropping two straight, while the latter has been waiting on a step up in competition and needs a win like this to establish himself as a potential Top 15 guy.
And like everyone else, I’m excited to see Fiziev get another good name and good test in the form of Bobby Green, who, despite losing his last fight, remains a quality litmus test for ascending talents.
With those fights covered and those athletes locked into what could very well be their final appearances of 2021, let us now shift our attention to the fantasy side of this venture and figuring out what to do with the Top 15 and those looking to earn a place in that exclusive group in the not too distant future.
Charles Oliveira vs. Dustin Poirier for the UFC lightweight title
As soon as Poirier earned his second consecutive win over Conor McGregor, we knew this one was happening, and it feels like the right ending to the uncertainty that swirled around the division at the start of the year.
It’s a great fight, a competitive fight, and one that obviously sets the course of where the division will go in 2022, and I can’t wait to see it.
Nothing more needs to be said.
Justin Gaethje vs. Beneil Dariush
There were a few different ways to go with the names in the top tier of the division, and you can make a lot of good cases for any number of pairings. Here’s why I went in this direction:
Gaethje started the Tony Ferguson downward spiral, delivering an absolute masterclass last May at UFC 249 before running into Khabib Nurmagomedov. Dariush is the latest fighter to benefit from beating Ferguson (Oliveira is the middle man) and riding a seven-fight winning streak overall, beating Ferreira and Ferguson this year.
While I dislike that Gaethje hasn’t fought since losing to Khabib last October, losing to Khabib shouldn’t knock you too far out of the mix, but you can’t just sit around and not fight either. He gets a tough test against a surging, durable, dangerous opponent, while Dariush gets the marquee name he needs to beat in order to lock down a potential title shot.
Michael Chandler vs. Islam Makhachev
My guy Shaheen Al-Shatti nailed it in his post-fight takeaways from Saturday over at MMA Fighting: the time to slow play Makhachev is over.
The 29-year-old from Dagestan earned his eighth straight victory on Saturday night, methodically grinding down Thiago Moises before forcing him to tap in the fourth round, becoming the first person to finish the talented Brazilian. It’s his second straight submission win, his fourth finish in his last six outings, and the kind of performance that makes you sit up and realize just how special a talent Makhachev is.
Guys like that shouldn’t be expect to keep crawling up the ranks at a glacial pace; they deserve to be hustled up the divisional ladder in fights where we keep testing to see where their ceiling rests because it might turn out to be higher than everyone anticipated… and higher than everyone else in the division.
Chandler makes the perfect dance partner to me because he set a baseline for himself in the UFC with his first-round knockout win over Dan Hooker, and then had a really strong first round against new champ Charles Oliveira before getting put away in the second. He’s in that “needs one good win to be back in the conversation” camp right now and beating Makhachev is the kind of good win that could hustle him right back into a title shot, depending on how some other things shake out.
The other piece of it — and I say this with the utmost respect and admiration — is that there is no value to me of Makhachev facing Rafael Dos Anjos, who just constantly gets positioned as the guy you have to beat to get into the title conversation. It likely looks very similar to this fight with Moises from a stylistic standpoint, and my guess is few people would value a Makhachev win appropriately because “Yeah, but RDA is washed” and whatnot.
So let’s just skip it, make Chandler versus Makhachev, and see where that leads us.
Speaking of Dos Anjos though…
Rafael Dos Anjos vs. Gregor Gillespie
This is the kind of fight I want to see for the 36-year-old former champion next — a battle against an emerging talent that isn’t quite there yet, or at least hasn’t proven he’s there yet, rather than sending him into the fire against someone like Makhachev that would likely maul him in a fight that doesn’t do much of either guy.
RDA looked good in his return to the division against Paul Felder, but beating Felder on short notice doesn’t make you a contender in my books. In order to get there, you need to beat one of these up-and-coming pressure guys like Gillespie, who struggled early only to rally and beat Ferreira earlier this year. I actually feel like RDA has a little more to prove in his return to the division he once ruled before getting into things with the upper tier of talent in the division, and Gillespie would be a worthy test.
From the other side of things, “The Gift” gets a chance to face a former champion, a guy with a pressure style and proven ability to go 25 minutes, in a fight that could vault him into the thick of the chase if he’s successful. While he’s not quite in the twilight of his career, Gillespie is 34, so it’s not like he has a couple more years to take the slow and steady route up the rankings.
Both these athletes need one more real quality win in order to land on the fringes of contention and pairing them together puts one of them there with a victory.
Tony Ferguson vs. Dan Hooker
Tell me this doesn’t have the potential to be incredibly entertaining.
If anyone is going to bring “The Old Tony Ferguson” out of the current Tony Ferguson, it’s Hooker, who has never shied away from a fight, has a proven ability to give out and take on punishment, and will give “El Cucuy” every chance to show he’s still got something left in the tank.
I have my doubts about Ferguson at this point — you don’t go from being a berserker that always found a way to having absolutely nothing for Oliveira and Dariush without something being off or that spark being gone. Those two are admittedly tremendous talents, but also the kind of guys Ferguson battled and beat throughout his lengthy winning streak, and he had nothing for them, which makes me believe he’s reached the “Cowboy” Cerrone stage of his career.
Hooker is the kind of guy that will give us an answer one way or another, and while a win over a beaten up and battered Ferguson doesn’t necessarily elevate him in the rankings, it does help him cement his position in the pecking order and get moving in the right direction again after consecutive losses to Poirier and Chandler.
Brad Riddell vs. Mateusz Gamrot
I love watching Riddell fight — he’s a little bulldog that is pretty good everywhere, as tough as they come, and may still have a little more room to grow as a competitor — but I think he tops out as someone who lives in the 8-15 range in the rankings.
If you know me, you know I fully believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with being one of those fighters — it’s great work if you can get it — but it also sucks when all you want, all you crave is to clear that next hurdle and join the elite. (makes Bullet Club hand gesture, which is really the nWo hand gesture)
Gamrot wrecked Jeremy Stephens on Saturday and before anyone launches into a “yeah, but Jeremy Stephens is washed” retort, show me which of the Top 10 featherweights that beat him that did that to him.
I’ll wait.
“Gamer” is 19-1 with one No Contest in his career, a two-division champ under the KSW banner, and a potential handful for anyone in the division, especially now that he’s doing his camps at ATT and considering a move to South Florida, which is closer to happening now that he just earned a second straight Performance of the Night bonus.
When you blow through Scott Holtzman and Stephens in back-to-back fights three months apart, you merit a major step up in competition. There is no reason to keep slow playing things with Gamrot, so get him in there with Riddell, let them duke it out, and the winner comes away in a much stronger position, while the vanquished doesn’t cede much ground.
If you can’t tell by now, I’m all about booking high upside fights where getting beaten doesn’t cost the defeated fighter too much, especially not when we’re talking about fighters in and around the Top 15 in one of the most competitive divisions in the sport.
Thiago Moises vs. Guram Kutateladze
Losing to Makhachev on Saturday shouldn’t diminish Moises’ stock too much — he’s still young, still talented, and still won three straight prior to running into that steamroller, so suddenly dropping him into a preliminary card pairing with a middling lightweight wouldn’t seem right.
Kutateladze is kind of the forgotten man on the fringes of the Top 15 at the moment, having beaten Gamrot in their joint debuts last fall on Fight Island, only to have a pair of fights against Don Madge fall through, leaving him sidelined and out of the picture for far too long.
Combine the two and it feels like a perfect fit of a matchup — Moises faces a tough competitor positioned just outside of the rankings coming off a win that looks even better now than it did at the time, while the “Georgian Viking” gets a chance to potentially break into the rankings by facing off with a Top 15 fighter.
The winner lays claim to a spot in the lower third of the rankings, and the loser takes a small step back into the rich collection of talent dire to break into the Top 15.
Arman Tsarukyan vs. Renato Moicano
With Fiziev having a matchup on tap and Makhachev seemingly bulldozing his way into a marquee assignment, that leaves Tsarukyan as the leader of the “Guy No One Wants to Face” set, and with good reason.
The 24-year-old gave Makhachev a good test in his short-notice debut a couple years back and has won three straight since, out-grappling grapplers Olivier Aubin-Mercier and Davi Ramos in back-to-back outings before beating Matt Frevola in a weird fight that came together on 24-hours notice after each of their opponents were forced off the card. He’s 16-2 overall, has won 15 of his last 16 appearances, and looks like a future nightmare matchup in the lightweight division.
While I get other emerging hopefuls and current contenders wanting nothing to do with the Armenian rising star, this to me is the kind of fight a veteran like Moicano should be chasing down, even if it could derail his hopes of climbing the divisional ranks.
A long-time fixture in the featherweight Top 15, the 32-year-old Brazilian is 2-1 since moving to lightweight, and isn’t going to get where he wants to get by consistently facing off with guys like Damir Hadzovic and Jai Herbert. He needs to beat someone like Tsarukyan to spark a little interest in moving him up the ladder, and while it’s a tall order and a tough ask, that’s the chance Moicano needs to take as a veteran guy coming into a talent-rich division, looking to make up ground on the young bucks ahead of him in the pecking order.
Between the fights that have already been announced and the above collection of hypothetical pairings, that takes care of the Top 15 — at least in terms of active fighters and actual lightweights — but the division doesn’t end there.
Here’s a couple other matchups to consider, plus notes on a few additional intriguing names to keep track of going forward.
Damir Ismagulov vs. Jeremy Stephens
Ismagulov is 23-1 overall and 4-0 in the UFC, including wins over Moises and Joel Alvarez (more on him shortly), and has done enough to merit a bout against the kind of name that will bring a little more attention to his next fight.
Stephens wants a quick turnaround after his quick submission loss to Gamrot, but he’s not in a position to ask for anyone in particular, so why not use this moment to get him in there with a talented, but unheralded fighter like Ismagulov and see how things shake out?
Either the unsung up-and-comer adds an established name to his resume or the struggling veteran gets back in the win column by toppling someone that’s showing a little bit of Top 15 potential at the moment.
Nasrat Haqparast vs. Joel Alvarez
Haqparast is becoming a little difficult to root for because he’s been forced to pull out of a few key fights and got beaten soundly in his toughest assignment to date, which leaves him as someone that carries a reasonable amount of hype despite not really having done much to merit that buzz.
To be clear, I think he’s ultra-talented and has the potential to be a Top 15 fighter down the road, but I really just want to see it and see it consistently before I can commit wholeheartedly to that position.
Alvarez has rebounded from his debut loss to Ismagulov with three straight stoppage wins, pushing his record to 18-2 overall. Visa issues knocked him from an assignment opposite Christos Giagos in May, and he doesn’t have anything else booked yet, which continues to shuffle him out of the conversation a little more with every quality lightweight effort, but he too looks like someone with upside and I would love to see him get a chance to face an opponent with a little bigger name.
Line these two twenty-somethings up across from one another to battle it out for the buzz Haqparast has and the Alvarez already deserves.
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Mike Davis: “Beast Boy” looked good in his January win over Mason Jones and his two career losses are to Sodiq Yusuff and Gilbert Burns. With sharp hands and continued development, it wouldn’t shock me if the 28-year-old found a groove and continued stacking wins.
Terrance McKinney: it’s not just the seven-second knockout win over Matt Frevola in his short-notice debut, but that certainly doesn’t hurt. If you’ve watched McKinney (and I’ve watched McKinney), he looks like a classic “wait until this kid figures it all out and puts it all together” kind of talent, and while he may not be there yet, he’s getting closer and it really could be scary if he ever gets all the pieces in place.
DeVonte Smith: the Factory X Muay Thai representative got off to a hot start in the UFC, suffered an upset loss to Khama Worthy, and then endured a miserable year outside the cage in 2020. He returned to the win column with a terrific effort against Justin Jaynes in early February and should still be someone people are keeping tabs on in the 155-pound ranks.
Mason Jones: the former two-division Cage Warriors champ showed toughness and grit in his debut loss to Davis, and then was on his way to a victory over Alan Patrick in his sophomore effort before an eye poke halted the action and left him with a No Contest result. The 26-year-old from Wales remains an intriguing addition to the division and his luck has got to change after an inauspicious start to his UFC career.
Fares Ziam: boasting tremendous height and length for the division, Ziam has earned back-to-back decision wins since dropping his short notice debut to Don Madge, and at 24, he still has tons of room to grow and develop going forward. He’s still raw, but the upside is there and there is little harm surveying his improvements over the next couple of years.
Don Madge: the South African is one of those forgotten names in the division because he hasn’t been able to compete since beating Ziam at UFC 242, which was his first fight in nearly a year. If he can ever sort out the visa issues that continue to keep him out of the Octagon, the 30-year-old “Magic Man” could be a dark horse to track in the 155-pound division.