UFC 261 Aftermath: Championship Class Has Never Been Better
Title fights continue to highlight unprecedented level of talent in the UFC's championship class
Each of Saturday’s three championship bouts ended in finishes, each more spectacular than the next.
First, Valentina Shevchenko closed out another dominant defence of her flyweight title from a mounted crucifix, raining down elbows on a trapped Jessica Andrade, the former strawweight titleholder unable to avoid the punishment or do much of anything in the eight-minute fight.
Rose Namajunas followed that up by leaving an imprint of her left hook on the jaw of Zhang Weili, reclaiming the strawweight title with an incredible knockout just 78 seconds into the second of Saturday’s tetra-pack of title fights.
Finally, Kamaru Usman secured the decisive victory he was chasing when he lobbied to run it back with Jorge Masvidal, baptizing “Gamebred” with a clean right hand down the pipe a minute into the second round, ending their rivalry in a flash and silencing any talk about his lack of punching power once and for all.
One after the other, they stepped into the Octagon and put excellence on display, showcasing a variety of skills, turning what started as a somber, sobering pay-per-view into an exhilarating reminder of the staggering level of talent currently populating the UFC’s championship class.
In the 12 months since the UFC returned to action last May, there have been 13 pay-per-view events featuring 21 championship fights, very few of which have fallen flat.
There have been 14 stoppages, including a handful of “holy shit” moments and sublime displays of skill, like Justin Gaethje’s tactical dismantling of Tony Ferguson to claim the interim lightweight title, Israel Adesanya’s “easy work” win over Paulo Costa, and Usman’s karmic right hand on Saturday evening.
Amongst the fights that went the distance, the majority were tense, close affairs that had onlookers rapt — the rematch between Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway, Stipe Miocic winning his rubber match against Daniel Cormier, and Deiveson Figueiredo and Brandon Moreno running level for 25 minutes, setting up a flyweight title rematch later this year.
Even the lopsided efforts forced you to recognize how vastly superior certain members of the championship class are compared to their contemporaries, like Amanda Nunes’ twin featherweight title defences against Felicia Spencer and Megan Anderson.
So far this year, seven of the eight championship fights have ended inside the distance and each of them have been fascinating in their own way.
Usman weathered a blistering right hand from Gilbert Burns before putting him down in the third at UFC 258.
Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan engaged in a tug-of-war for momentum in their bantamweight title fight before an illegal knee brought things to an unsatisfying end, but kicked their rivalry into high gear.
Nunes mauled Anderson, taking her equilibrium with the first clean punch she landed before locking up a combo triangle choke / armbar submission that probably should be the clubhouse leader in the Submission of the Year race, but has instead been cast as “par for the course” for the indomitable Brazilian superstar.
Francis Ngannou answered every question about his takedown defence and overall development in the first five minutes of his rematch with Miocic before claiming the title with a nasty combination just a handful of seconds into the second round of their UFC 260 main event clash, and then there were Saturday’s fights.
The one bout that did go the distance was Jan Blachowicz’ light heavyweight clash with Adesanya, which was a tense, tactical affair that showcased the savvy of the Polish titleholder and carried a “something could happen at any minute” feel into the championship rounds, where the eldest member of the title ensemble flashed his wiles, becoming the first fighter to defeat the middleweight champion and cementing his status as the best in the division in one fell swoop.
Each fight delivered in its own way, either catapulting the victory to a new level of recognition, further proving their dominance, or setting the table for a future showdown that raises the level of interest in the bout, its participants, and perhaps even the division as a whole.
But it’s not just about titleholders either; the championship class extends beyond just the 10 athletes currently carrying UFC gold over their shoulder… or shoulders in the case of Nunes.
Some divisions feature singular entities standing miles apart from their contemporaries — Shevchenko and Nunes more than anyone else, with Usman and Adesanya each exhibiting the potential to join the grouping in the very near future with how impressively each has dominated their respective divisions.
Others have champions and challengers tightly packed together, separated by the thinnest of margins, making each championship bout and even some top-end, non-title contests must-see engagements.
The lightweight division doesn't currently have a champion in place, but each Top 10 matchup — and many outside the Top 10 — is a thrilling, competitive, high-stakes affair that draws eyeballs. At least four, but perhaps as many as eight or nine athletes could conceivably be considered in the championship class in the 155-pound weight class and matchups featuring any of them are going to be exhibitions of high-level mixed martial arts.
Bantamweight and featherweight are flush with talent and the depths are only getting deeper, with each champion already having an obvious equal and several additional contenders not far behind.
The last flyweight title fight ended in a stalemate, and Namajunas reclaiming the strawweight throne on Saturday marked the third time in less than two years that the title changed hands, with last year’s clash between Zhang and former champ Joanna Jedrzejczyk remains one of the very best fights in UFC history, regardless of gender.
As a result, there have been — and will continue to be — an abundance of outstanding matchups and performances at the highest levels of the sport over the last 12 months, and there is no sign of things slowing down any time soon.
The next three pay-per-view events feature the following championship class contests:
UFC 262 — Charles Oliveira vs. Michael Chandler for the lightweight title
UFC 263 — Israel Adesanya vs. Marvin Vettori for the middleweight title
UFC 263 — Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno for the flyweight title
UFC 264 — Dustin Poirier vs. Conor McGregor 3
There are additional fights slated in, around and even as a part of each of those events that either reach or come close to reaching that level, like the bantamweight main events on either side of UFC 262 or the welterweight clash between Leon Edwards and Nathan Diaz.
While all of those bouts may not give every fan the same little tickle of excitement as others, a few of them, maybe even all of them for some, give you that “I’m not sure how it’s going to play out, but I’m curious to find out how it does” vibe that makes you circle those dates on your calendar and get inordinately amped up the closer we get to see those competitors hit the cage.
Even though not everyone is going to be revved up to see Shevchenko or Nunes step into the Octagon against the next overmatched challenger, there is still an undeniable “my god they’re good” wave of interest that washes over you whenever they do compete, which is a feeling generally reserved for transcendent talents.
Think about Shevchenko’s performance on Saturday night at UFC 261 — everyone expected that she would beat Andrade, the talented, fearless former strawweight champ, but how many people expected it to be that clean?
When the expectations going in are already high and you’re still able to exceed them, it’s a mark of a truly elite talent, and it feels like there have been more of those types of performances, and more truly breathtaking moments over the last year than at any other time in recent memory.
It’s not that there haven’t been dominant champions and world-class challengers in the past — both have obviously been present throughout the UFCs history to varying degrees— but it’s the number of dominant champions, world-class challengers, and genuinely elite competitors congregating at the top of these divisions that makes the present a more impressive period than any other in UFC history.
At the start of the year, if there was one division or one champion that observers would have singled out as the “one of these things that doesn’t belong” in a discussion like this, it would have been light heavyweight and 38-year-old titleholder Jan Blachowicz.
As recently as two years ago, everyone was convinced that Blachowicz was a good, but not great fighter; a guy destined to live in the 5-10 range in the division, at most, even after he rattled off four straight victories before losing to Thiago Santos in February 2019.
Despite posting four additional victories on the other side of that loss, including a first-round knockout win over Corey Anderson to avenge a prior defeat and a second-round technical knockout stoppage against Dominick Reyes to claim the title, many viewed him as a paper champion, having ascended to the throne without vanquishing the division’s long-time king, Jon Jones.
This was highlighted by the fact that he entered his UFC 259 matchup with Adesanya as the betting underdog, despite having a considerable size advantage over the reigning middleweight champion.
But what about now?
After beating Adesanya — rather handily, I might add — Blachowicz has morphed into an intriguing Cinderella champion; a veteran that finally reached the summit long after his role in the division was seemingly cemented that creates a “let’s see how far he can take this” feeling in observers.
And the division feels more interesting now than it did towards the tail end of last years as well, with veteran fan favorite Glover Teixeira next in line for a title shot, fresh names like Aleksandar Rakic, Jiri Prochazka, and Magomed Ankalaev all working towards title contention, and another crop of upstarts led by Johnny Walker, Ryan Spann, and Jamahal Hill beginning to scale the rankings.
There have been bigger individual stars and bigger individual events, but as an ensemble and in totality, we’re in the midst of a special time in the UFC.
From heavyweight to strawweight, the championship class of talent in the UFC has never been better, and after an outstanding first third of the 2021 schedule, the best is still yet to come.
Be excited, fight fans.
(Shout out to my good friend Patrick Beaulieu for planting the seed for this piece during one of our Twitter interactions in the aftermath of UFC 261.)