UFC 269: One Question for Every Fight
The final pay-per-view of 2021 brings a loaded fight card where important questions will be answered in every bout
Saturday’s fight card lands on the medal podium for me as one of the three best pay-per-view events of the year, but I can’t decide if it garners silver or bronze.
UFC 259 earns the gold for me by a wide margin, with three championship bouts, a bunch of critical matchups between compelling contenders, and a host of emerging talents that turned in impressive, memorable efforts early in the night.
This weekend’s show is locked in a tight battle with UFC 269 to determine who is taking home silver and who is taking home bronze, and right now, I’m leaning towards Saturday’s event at T-Mobile Arena being the second-best pay-per-view card of 2021, but it’s close. The deciding factor for me are the early prelims.
Last month’s card at Madison Square Garden featured a prospect in a showcase assignment, a couple Contender Series grads getting wins, and entertaining, but mostly non-impactful fights featuring Chris Barnett and Dustin Jacoby, while this weekend’s slate features two genuinely compelling matchups in the flyweight division, an unheralded dark horse contender at middleweight, and three additional “guaranteed action” matchups, which gives it the slight edge for me.
Now matter where this event lands in your personal hierarchy of this year’s pay-per-view shows, I think we can all agree that the lineup is stacked and there is something intriguing about each and every tandem set to hit the Octagon on Saturday night.
Here one thing that piques my interest about every pairing.
Charles Oliveira vs. Dustin Poirier
Q: Everything hinges on this one, right?
This is a legacy fight.
While there have been other “big fights” this year, this is the first one that really feels like it will shape the legacy of each man, win or lose, going forward.
If Oliveira wins, all the questions about his place at the top of the division have to stop and the narrative arc of his career solidifies as “started young, struggled to find consistency, dominant once he put it all together.” There will still be fresh challenges, dangerous challenges ahead of him, but no one will be able to legitimately suggest he’s on shaky footing while standing atop the lightweight division.
If Poirier wins, it’s the final piece of the puzzle in a career that has been better than Oliveira’s overall, but is thus far missing an undisputed title. He was tabbed as the best lightweight in the division when Khabib Nurmagomedov walked away last year and this would prove it, while also putting him in a position where he’s already finished the No. 1 contender, Justin Gaethje.
How we talk about each of these men going forward hinges on this contest, which feels like it could go any number of ways. It’s one of those fights that gives me butterflies and I cannot wait to see how things play out this weekend.
Amanda Nunes vs. Julianna Peña
Q: What are the chances Peña pulls off the upset?
In speaking with Amanda Nunes on Tuesday, “The Lioness” correctly pointed out that everything Peña is saying about being the one to unseat her from atop the division is a new recording of the same things that everyone else that has tried to claim the bantamweight belt has said in the past. None of them were successful, and Peña won’t be either, at least according to the champ.
But if we were to try and put an actual percentage on it, what would it be? And why is it that because that number would be lower than the one assigned to former challengers like Germaine de Randamie and Holly Holm, I’m actually more curious to see how this one plays out?
I don’t give Peña much of a chance of beating Nunes — let’s say 10% —but that’s mostly because I think Nunes is the greatest female fighter I’ve ever seen compete, and she’s showing no signs of slowing down. It’s also that I don’t know what Peña’s avenue to victory is here. She likes to say she’s the best grappler in the division, but she got out-grappled by de Randamie, who in turn got out-grappled by Nunes, so…
But that “I don’t think it can happen” piece actually makes this fight all the more interesting to me be at least I know Peña is tough and scrappy and not going to shrink in the moment. She’s not going to walk into the building looking like she knows she’s being led to the slaughter, even if most people think she’s being led to the slaughter, and if Saturday night happens to be that one time in 10 when the stars align and Peña pulls off the upset, it’s going to be wild.
Geoff Neal vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio
Q: Is this fight still happening? Should it be?
I know that’s two questions, but they are obviously connected and it makes sense to ask them together.
For those that don’t know the story, Neal was arrest on Thanksgiving Day in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI) and unlawfully carrying a weapon. His lawyer explained to ESPN’s Marc Raimondi that Neal submitted to a blood test in order to prove he was not over the legal blood-alcohol limit, and if that were the case, the weapons charge would disappear because Neal has a permit to carry the firearm.
It’s a weird situation that won’t be resolved until the results of Neal’s blood test are known, which means the bout, as of this writing, is carrying on as scheduled… but should it be?
Listen, I’m not one to tell other grown folks how to handle their business or approach their lives — figuring myself out is struggle enough — but with Neal on a two-fight slide and having this hanging over his head, I wonder if there was any consideration given towards postponing the bout and seeing what happens with his Thanksgiving Day police encounter?
That option sucks for Ponzinibbio, who has done his part and is looking to score a second consecutive victory to close out the year, and it sucks because Neal would be postponing a pay day as well, but entering on two straight losses with this hanging over your head is more than I could contend with.
Of course, if Neal is confident that he will be cleared of all charges and doesn’t want to squander a training camp (and miss a pay day), then carrying on makes complete sense.
In regards to the UFC having no issues about moving forward with this contest on Saturday, I don’t see how anyone would really chastise them for doing so, outside of the standard “Being Critical of Every Decision the UFC Makes” approach, as everyone is waiting on the results of Neal’s blood test before moving forward, he’s free to leave the state and continue living his day-to-day life.
This is a compelling matchup between a pair of fighters that could really use a statement victory on Saturday, but this situation is understandably going to overshadow the contest itself.
Kai Kara-France vs. Cody Garbrandt
Q: Will “No Love” find himself at flyweight?
This is the question about this fight.
A shade under five years removed from his breathtaking championship victory over Dominick Cruz, Garbrandt is moving down to flyweight, not for a championship opportunity like was originally planned last year, but for a clash with the dangerous Kara-France, in hopes of breaking out of a 1-4 funk and getting things moving in the right direction.
Garbrandt is in a weird place because while some will quickly point out two of those losses came to TJ Dillashaw, who was subsequently suspended for using EPO and whom Garbrandt long claimed to be a cheater, the last two losses in this run came against Pedro Munhoz and Rob Font, two athletes with zero sketchiness in their backgrounds, and in very different fights.
Against Munhoz, Garbrandt got goaded into a clash of egos and got rocked. Against Font, he got out-boxed. In each, he looked like someone that was going to struggle to win fights against composed, top-end talents, and now he’s moving down a weight class to face a guy that has a similar profile to Munhoz.
It’s not that Saturday’s bout is a must-win for the former bantamweight champion — it’s his first trip to flyweight, so a second chance to make the weight feels automatic, provided things don’t go terribly — but it’s the only way he avoids continuing to move backwards and avoids more questions about what went wrong and if he’s ever going to figure things out.
Kara-France is a perfect opponent to welcome him to the 125-pound weight class, and I’m aching to see how this one plays out.
Raulian Paiva vs. Sean O’Malley
Q: Does this fight answer any questions for Sean O’Malley?
A couple, but not the ones that matter the most.
Paiva is a quality opponent — the second-best opponent O’Malley has faced to this point — and coming off a gutsy come-from-behind win over Kyler Philips earlier this year. He’s shown a little pop, a bunch of grit, and should, in theory, be more locked in than ever before because this is one of those “make a name for yourself” opportunities.
But most expect O’Malley to win and he most likely will because he’s an extremely talented fighter, and that’s the problem.
I want to see “Suga” in there with someone that he’s not supposed to beat. I want to see him go in there and be tested in a fight that doesn’t provide him built-in excuses like he has from his loss to Marlon Vera. As much as I think Paiva is a good fighter and capable of pulling off the upset this weekend, I’m not going to be shocked if O’Malley delivers another dominant performance because I think the world of this kid as a talent, but I’m also more than ready to move on from this part of O’Malley’s career.
And listen — I think he’s doing the right thing from the business side of things by stacking up wins, working through contracts, and waiting to take the major fights when there is major money involved; it’s just that if he’s as good as he constantly says he is and is going to be out here saying, “Give me that fight” when Aljamain Sterling is forced out of his UFC 267 matchup with Petr Yan, I want to see you fighting someone other than Raulian Paiva.
Josh Emmett vs. Dan Ige
Q: Can Josh Emmett make a run at the title?
Emmett is the forgotten man at featherweight, but that’s because he’s been out of action since his instant classic with Shane Burgos last spring. That in a nutshell encapsulates the struggles the Team Alpha Male staple has dealt with throughout his UFC run.
Each time he gets some momentum going, something goes sideways — a gnarly injury, a prolonged layoff, running into Jeremy Stephens that results in both of those things happening — and even though he returns this weekend on a three-fight winning streak, it’s difficult to see Emmett putting the pieces together to make a real run at the top of the division.
Not because of a lack of talent — he has fight-altering power, is a good wrestler, has excellent conditioning — but because he’s now 36 and playing catch-up in a division where half-a-dozen new names have emerged in the time he’s been sidelined. It feels like he’s stuck because you want to see him stay healthy through a couple fights in order to get him into the mix with the top guys in the division, but it seems like each fight is a roll of the dice.
I know that’s universally true — anyone can get hurt in any fight — but there are some fighters that just seem to get injured more frequently than others, and Emmett is one of those guys, and it has really detracted from what is otherwise a really solid run over his nine-fight UFC career.
He’s currently stationed at No. 7 in the rankings, and a win on Saturday should land him a pairing with either one of the few men ahead of him in the hierarchy or one of the up-and-coming names in the division like the winner of the Movsar Evloev-Ilia Topuria scrap in January. If he wants to make a run, Emmett is going to need to keep stringing together victories and take on whoever the UFC puts in front of him.
Dominick Cruz vs. Pedro Munhoz
Q: What does the future hold for Dominick Cruz?
The former bantamweight champ was on one of the first episodes of Embedded talking about only wanting to move forward, not wanting to be a gatekeeper in the division he once ruled, and while I completely understand the sentiment, I’m just not sure that there is a real path forward for Cruz at this point of his career.
The 36-year-old has only fought eight times since matriculating to the UFC with the bantamweight title around his waist in 2011. He lost long stretches of his career to multiple serious injuries, several of which have been knee and foot-related, which directly impact his fluid style, and while he’s made some impressive comebacks, it really feels like his best days are behind him.
Saturday’s contest should give us a clearly picture of where Cruz stands, because if he comes out and styles on Munhoz, perhaps then I could see him getting a bit of a step up in competition next time out and feeling frisky, but after battling Casey Kenney to a split decision earlier this year, I need to see it before I can forecast it happening. It’s not that Kenney is a bad fighter — he’s not at all — it’s just that he’s a guy Cruz would have left befuddled in his heyday, so to essentially run level with him for 15 minutes is a sign to me that “The Dominator” isn’t so dominant any more.
Then again, I thought the same thing about Aldo heading into his fight with Munhoz and look at him now, so what do I know?
Jordan Wright vs. Bruno Silva
Q: Who’s getting knocked out?
To be clear: this question is based on their shared penchant for finishing fights, and not a knock on either competitor.
Wright is 12-1 with one No Contest, having finished all of his wins, only needing more than five minutes to accomplish the task once. Silva, meanwhile, is 21-6 and riding a six-fight winning streak where all the victories came by way of stoppage.
Someone is getting knocked out in this one and I’m genuinely interested to see who suffers that fate.
Wright is someone who thrives when moving forward, but has struggled in the limited instances where he’s been the nail, rather than the hammer, while Silva was getting dominated for two-plus rounds last time out before finding a finish against Andrew Sanchez. Each has their own flaws, but they have clear strengths as well.
As such, I think we’re going to get these two meeting in the center of the Octagon right off the hop, and I would be surprised if it made it out of the opening round.
Augusto Sakai vs. Tai Tuivasa
Q: Will “Bam Bam” join the ascending pack at heavyweight?
Cyril Gane has already won interim gold.
Chris Daukaus can cement his standing as a contender with a fifth straight victory next weekend in his main event clash with Derrick Lewis, Tom Aspinall has been steadily climbing the ranks and looks like the real deal himself, and Sergei Pavlovich looked sharp last time out, although he’s been AWOL for a couple years now.
And then there is Tuivasa, who enters this fight on a three-fight winning streak, eager to break back into the Top 15.
He was there once before, when he posted three straight wins to start his UFC career, only to get launched into the deep end of the talent pool against Junior Dos Santos, get soundly beaten, and then lose two more to fall to .500 inside the Octagon and get bounced from the rankings. People seemed to forget about the tough cuss from West Sydney after that slide and the one-year hiatus that followed his third defeat, but since then, “Bam Bam” has been on a roll and it feels like he’s primed to make a real push.
My read on Tuivasa was always that he was a fighter learning to be a mixed martial artist on the fly and that his training habits and the professional side of things weren’t always there. He confirmed as much when he spoke to James Cooney for UFC.com ahead of this weekend’s clash with Sakai, and I think both acknowledging and correcting those things could lead to the Australian joining that ascending pack to close out the year.
Tuivasa is a big, powerful, athletic kid with zero hesitation when it comes to getting in a punch-up, and if he pushes his winning streak to four on Saturday, he should end up opposite a ranked opponent, probably with a number next to his name as well, the next time he’s looking to trade shots inside the Octagon.
Andre Muniz vs. Eryk Anders
Q: Did everyone really forget what Andre Muniz did to Jacare Souza?
This is another one of those “we never treat similar things the same way” situations that never make sense to me.
Kevin Holland (I know, I pick on him a lot… though it’s not actually him I have quarrel with) knocks out Jacare to cap his five-win year, and everyone rushes to heap praise on the talkative “Trail Blazer” for finishing the Brazilian veteran in the first round.
Five months later, Muniz became just the third person to take Jacare down in and the first person to submit him in MMA competition, catching him in an armbar that left the Brazilian veteran with a broken right arm, and there has been next to nothing said about the emerging 31-year-old who is now 3-0 in the UFC, 21-4 overall, and has won 15 of his last 16 fights.
I don’t get it.
Paul Craig dislocates Jamahal Hill’s elbow? Big deal. Muniz dominates Jacare and leaves him with a broken arm? Crickets.
A dominant effort on Saturday over Anders isn’t going to change any of that, and I don’t think a win against his original opponent, Dricus du Plessis, would have either, which really sucks for the talented Brazilian, because going 4-0 in the UFC with a standout performance like the one he turned in against Souza in May should be the kind of thing that puts you on the radar.
Instead, he’s likely to still be relegated to the background; overlooked in a division where he’s steadily gaining momentum and guys on losing streaks are holding onto spots in the rankings.
Erin Blanchfield vs. Miranda Maverick
Q: How did ESPN rank Blanchfield No. 20 on its Top 25 Under 25?
This is the kind of shit that makes me an asshole and doesn’t do me any favors professionally, but screw it — I want to be honest and truthful and present full pictures when I write and pretending like ESPN’s recent list of the Top 25 Under 25 in MMA isn’t a mess would be disingenuous.
I don’t know how Mariya Agapova is ranked three spots behind Sabina Mazo after beating her up and choking her out just a couple months ago.
I don't know why Nick Maximov is No. 13 on the list after barely holding on to beat Cody Brundage at UFC 266 in September.
I don’t know why T.J. Laramie is on the list, but Saladine Parnasse is not, and a whole host of other things, but the one that really stands out the most is Blanchfield being ranked No. 20.
Blanchfield is 22 years old, 7-1 overall, and looked outstanding in her UFC debut. Her lone loss came by split decision against fellow UFC hopeful Tracy Cortez in a fight that I’ve watched multiple times and still can’t score for Cortez, plus she’s a legit black belt who has fought quality competition throughout her MMA career.
Despite all that, she’s six spots behind Kay Hansen, whom she beat three years ago, and 10 spots behind Cory McKenna, who is only a couple months younger, has the same number of UFC victories, and fought a weaker slate prior to arriving in the UFC.
I get that these things are always fluid and need to be adjusted based on results and observations, but what about Maximov’s exhausted effort against Brundage, who took that fight three days before the event, makes him seven spots better than Blanchfield, who dominated Sarah Alpar in her debut? I don’t understand how you can watch those two fights and think, “This Maximov guy really has a bright future” and not be even more impressed by Blanchfield.
Sorry, I just can’t get there.
And yeah, that’s just my opinion and no one has to listen to me, but what is the point of doing these things if they’re going to be this messy?
Alex Perez vs. Matt Schnell
Q: Remember Alex Perez?
It’s rare that someone can be ranked in the Top 5 in their division and still feel like they could turn up on the side of a carton of milk as a missing person, but that’s where Perez is at heading into this weekend’s early prelim clash with Schnell.
The last time he fought, Perez was challenging for the flyweight title against Deiveson Figueiredo, who choked him out in under two minutes at UFC 255. He’s 6-2 in the UFC overall, still holds down the No. 4 position in the rankings, and feels like a giant question mark heading into this event after spending the last year and change on the sidelines.
Perez looked outstanding in his two wins prior to facing Figueiredo, choking out Jordan Espinosa and kicking the legs out from under Jussier Formiga, and he should still be considered a legitimate threat in the 125-pound weight class, but it also feels like he needs a monster effort on Saturday to re-introduce himself to the audience and re-establish his position in a division where a few new names have popped up already this year and Garbrandt is set to enter own Saturday evening.
Ryan Hall vs. Darrick Minner
Q: Can we please just see “The Wizard” is fun matchups two or three times a year?
Now that Ryan Hall’s winning streak has been snapped, can we just get him in the Octagon a couple times a year against other non-contenders in hopes of having more weird fun than we’ve had in the six years since he won The Ultimate Fighter?
Hall is one of the most entertaining wonks in MMA — a guy that does his own thing, looks awkward as hell at times, but is incredibly dangerous if you mess around with him on the canvas — and I want to see him compete more than once a year. I don't need to see him trying to climb the divisional ladder, because I don’t think he’s going to more too much higher in the division than he was prior to his fight with Ilia Topuria this summer, which ended badly for “The Wizard,” and there aren’t many folks in the Top 15 that want to run the risk of getting caught by the 50/50 guard specialist either.
Instead, can’t we find some similarly aged, similarly skilled, “looking to stay active and get into a fight” fellows that we can lock in the cage with Hall every four-to-six-to-nine months, depending on health, and just have fun watching him do weird shit?
Is that really too much to ask?
Randy Costa vs. Tony Kelley
Q: Where does Randy Costa fit in the bantamweight division?
Costa is an enigma, wrapped in a puzzle, wrapped in a vest to me.
For the opening three minutes of his fight with Adrian Yanez earlier this year, the Massachusetts native looked incredibly sharp, working behind a good jab and an assortment of kicks as he beat Yanez to the punch and bloodied him up. But then he just went in reverse. Yanez gained back all the ground he lost early to draw level in the opening frame, and earned a stoppage win two minutes and change into the second, halting Costa’s modest two-fight winning streak and dropping him to 2-2 in the UFC.
Now Costa returns to face Tony Kelley, a solid veteran coming off a solid win, and I have no idea what to expect from the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups enthusiast.
He’s one of those guys that is well-liked and seems like a genuine great hang, which feels like it clouds how people talk about him as a fighter at times. He’s 27 years old, has lost both of his fights that have lasted more than two-and-a-half minutes, and seems like he starts to wilt when the guy standing across from him doesn’t fall over after getting hit with a couple good shots.
There are obvious skills there to build upon and I love that he’s working at Sanford MMA, which I think is one of the better camps in the sport, but I need to see something more than a one-hitter-quitter on Saturday in order to get a sense of where “The Zohan” fits in the bantamweight division going forward.
Gillian Robertson vs. Priscila Cachoeira
Q: Can “The Savage” bounce back after longest break of her UFC career?
Robetson has fought nine times since submitting Emily Whitmire in their TUF 26 Finale encounter at the end of 2017, amassing a 5-4 record in those contests, and never taking all that much time between fights.
But after dropping consecutive decisions to Taila Santos and Miranda Maverick, “The Savage” has spent the last nine months on the sidelines, working with a handful of different people in a handful of different spots, and it’s going to be interesting to see if the time away can help her break out of this funk.
Now, losing to Santos and Maverick isn’t the end of the world — the former has since climbed into the Top 5 and the latter is one of the top prospects in the UFC — but this is still (mostly) a results-based enterprise and the results just haven’t been there for Robertson of late.
She’s a massive favorite in this fight (-400 on Bet365 as of this writing) which only further ratchets up the pressure, and makes me all the more curious to see how things play out in Saturday’s opener.
Robertson is one of those Fighters I Can’t Quit, but like Mickey Gall last week, if she doesn’t show me something this weekend against Cachoeira, it might be time for me to force myself to do so going forward.