UFC 270: One Question for Every Fight
Twin championship battles and an abundance of intriguing pairings make up Saturday's first pay-per-view of the year
It’s almost here.
I know it’s gauche to be genuinely excited for a pay-per-view these days — what with the price increase and only having two dynamic title fights on the main card and whatnot — but I’m genuinely excited for UFC 270 and have been since the twin championship bouts took shape.
You could stick those two fights alone on the pay-per-view portion of the event, ask me to fork over the $64.99 Shaw will be charging me on Saturday, and I’d happily hand you the money because those two fights — Francis Ngannou vs. Ciryl Gane and Brandon Moreno vs. Deiveson Figueiredo — are that damn compelling to me.
But there is something that intrigues me about every matchup on this card and plenty to pay attention to earlier in the evening, so let’s run through the lineup the way we do here on Wednesdays.
Francis Ngannou vs. Ciryl Gane
Q: How big is a victory for Ciryl Gane?
It’s unbelievable to me that we, the collective MMA audience and fanbase, haven’t made a bigger deal of Gane’s meteoric rise to the top of the UFC heavyweight division.
He made his mixed martial arts debut on August 2, 2018 with a win over Bobby Sullivan.
He won the interim UFC heavyweight title on August 7, 2021 with a win over Derrick Lewis, pushing his record to 10-0 overall and putting him in a position to potential stand as the undefeated and undisputed UFC heavyweight champion just three years, five months, and 21 days after making his professional debut.
That is absolutely mind-blowing.
The fact that he’s even at this point that quickly is a testament to what an insane athlete and dynamic competitor the 31-year-old Frenchman is, because as much as some will try to play the “… yeah, but who did he really beat” card, he’s clearly beaten some very good fighters and made it to a championship showdown with Ngannou without incurring a loss, which isn’t something that happens all that often, especially in the heavyweight division.
Ngannou lost twice before claiming gold. Stipe Miocic got finished in the second round by Stefan Struve. The last time a fighter challenged for the heavyweight title without a blemish on his record was when Cain Velasquez unseated Brock Lesnar more than a decade ago.
So how big would a victory over Ngannou this weekend be for Gane?
Personally, I think it’s massive and the kind of thing that will make a bunch of people take a good, long look at what “Bon Gamin” has achieved thus far and re-evaluate their positions on him, because a five-fight run with wins over Junior Dos Santos, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Alexander Volkov, Derrick Lewis, and Ngannou, regardless of whether they came by stoppage or on the scorecards, is a pretty terrific run, and he’ll have done it in 14 months.
FOURTEEN FREAKIN’ MONTHS!
This dude will have gone from making his UFC debut to standing atop the heavyweight division, having toppled those five competitors (plus three others before them) in 29 months, and from making his professional debut to being the best heavyweight in the world in 41 months.
A win for Gane this weekend is huge, and would force people to finally recognize just how incredible his emergence has been.
Brandon Moreno vs. Deiveson Figueiredo
Q: Which version of “Deus de Guerra” will turn up this weekend?
In their first encounter, Deiveson Figueiredo looked like the marauding force that blitz Joseph Benavidez on Fight Island to claim the vacant flyweight title. He threw with speed and power without swinging for the fences every time, and largely controlled his hastily arranged fight with Brandon Moreno, retaining his title after an errant low blow resulted in a point deduction and the fight being scored a majority draw.
He looked so good that many, myself very much included, didn’t think an immediate rematch was necessary and that when it did happen, Moreno didn’t have much of a chance to changing the result.
In their second encounter, the Brazilian looked frazzled right out of the gate — forcing everything, reaching on everything, trying to put Moreno down with every shot while the Mexican challenger stood rock steady, avoiding the winging blows and picking him apart before forcing him to tap midway through the third round.
Figueiredo looked like a guy that didn’t want to be there; like someone that was ready to be done with defending the flyweight title, and fighting in the 125-pound weight class altogether. He was quick to celebrate Moreno, which is always a weird thing to me because if some person just whipped my ass and took the thing I’d worked my whole life for in front of hundreds of thousands of people, I would have no interest in parading around singing their praises… at least not right away.
And so now as they ready to run it back for a third time, the biggest question for me is which version of Figueiredo are we going to get on Saturday?
He’s been training with Henry Cejudo and the crew at Fight Ready, looks like an absolute unit in his latest Instagram posts, and is saying all the right things about wanting to get his title back and all that, so it seems like we’re going to get the focused, dialled in version of “Deus de Guerra” this weekend, but I reserve the right to revisit that assessment on Friday morning after we see what he looks like on the scale and how gnarly the weight cuts has been on him this time around.
Michel Pereira vs. Andre Fialho
Q: Is “Normal” Michel Pereira the better Michel Pereira?
Pereira entered the UFC with a well-earned reputation as a wild man.
There were highlights of him doing backflips off the cage in the middle of fights and throwing any number of unorthodox, crazy-ass moves while he traveled around competing in different promotions and different weight classes. When he got signed by the UFC, everyone expected him to bring those same antics to the Octagon, and through his first three fights, “Demolidor” didn’t let anyone down.
His debut against Danny Roberts was an acrobatics routine disguised as a cage fight, with the Brazilian bouncing off the fence, diving on the canvas, and getting a running start into striking exchanges on more than one occasion. But the big movements and flamboyant tactics didn’t help him in his second bout against Tristan Connelly, a gritty regional veteran who turned a hometown, short-notice opportunity into the biggest moment of his career and a UFC victory.
In his next fight, Pereira was disqualified more than halfway through the final round after blasting Diego Sanchez with an illegal knee. He was dominating the fight, but didn’t recognize that Sanchez was down, blasted him with a knee, and the fight was halted, giving Pereira a second straight defeat.
Since then, the 28-year-old has dialled back the crazy and the result has been a three-fight winning streak, including back-to-back decision victories over Khaos Williams and Niko Price.
Coincidence? I think not.
As fun as Pereira was racing around the cage like a lunatic, it also resulted in a lot of wasted energy, and when you’re working your way up the ladder in a division like welterweight, you can’t be burning fuel running up the side of the fence for no good reason.
Pereira is a legit talent — he’s huge for the division, has power and submission skills, plus a wealth of experience to draw from — and taking this tamer approach just might be the way he works his way into the Top 15 in 2022.
Cody Stamann vs. Said Nurmagomedov
Q: Can Stamann steady himself in ultra-competitive bantamweight ranks?
Stamann was a fixture in the Top 15 at bantamweight for several years.
I say “was” because in the latest update, the 32-year-old Michigan native, who trains at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas, is no longer listed in the rankings, and he heads into Saturday’s clash with Nurmagomedov on a two-fight slide.
Stamann is one of those guys that I tend to talk about a lot on here — a perennially ranked competitor that never quite pushes into the upper tier in their respective weight class; someone that lives in the 7-15 range, is a tough out, and gets points for being game every time they step into the Octagon. But the thing with those kinds of fighters is that when your division suddenly has an influx of young talent, holding onto your spot in the pecking order becomes increasingly difficult, which is where Stamann finds himself now.
Last year, he lost to Merab Dvalishvili, the streaking Georgian wrestling machine, and since then, fighters like Song Yadong, Sean O’Malley, and Ricky Simon have earned victories that vaulted them into the Top 15, knocking other veterans down a few pegs and Stamann out of the rankings. Now he faces Nurmagomedov, who is 3-1 in the UFC, 2-1 in the division, and looking to use this weekend’s bout as his chance to make a statement about where he fits in the bantamweight hierarchy.
Fights like this are endlessly fascinating to me because I don’t think most people appreciate how difficult it is to carve out the kind of career Stamann has built for himself. They see that he’s 5-3-1 in the UFC and lost to the biggest names he’s fought and think, “He’s just a guy,” as if average fighters go the distance with Yadong, Jimmie Rivera, and Dvalishvili.
This is a tough fight, but if he can secure a victory, I think Stamann should be able to cement his place as a quality veteran test just outside the Top 15 that all these emerging names in the 135-pound ranks will have to pass in order to move into the rankings.\
Rodolfo Vieira vs. Wellington Turman
Q: Should I abandon hope of Rodolfo Vieira becoming the next Demian Maia?
When Demian Maia first arrived in the UFC, I was instantly in love.
The way he swiftly, but non-violently stormed through the competition at the outset of his middleweight run was beautiful to me. The setup to his triangle choke finish of Chael Sonnen remains one of my favorite setups to this day, and that early adoration of the Brazilian jiu jitsu standout blossomed into a career-long appreciation of his work and the man himself.
I desperately want there to be another Maia in the UFC, and when Vieira first arrived on the scene, I had a momentary hope that he could fill that void, but the more I’ve seen him compete, the more I think that I have to give up that hope.
First and foremost, Vieira is built very differently than Maia, and that physical difference results in performance differences inside the Octagon. Where Maia had a nondescript physique and the ability to shoot takedowns and hunt grappling entanglements late into fights, Vieira is a brick shithouse and has shown a propensity for getting tired after about seven minutes of strenuous exercise, which is very, very relatable.
Secondly, we’ve already seen Vieira lose, which is something that didn’t happen for a handful of fights for Maia, who won his first five outings and six of seven before challenging for the middleweight title.
Now, I like that Vieira rebounded from his loss to “Fluffy” Hernandez with a third-round submission win last time out, and I want to see what he brings to the table this weekend against Turman, but even with a victory, I’m leaning towards giving up hope that he can become a Maia-like figure at middleweight and simply appreciating the 32-year-old for who and what he is, instead of who he is not.
Raoni Barcelos vs. Victor Henry
Q: Who else is pumped to finally see Victor Henry in the UFC?
Yeah, I’m repurposing this from when these two were supposed to scrap on the final card of 2021, but it’s my newsletter and I get to make the rules.
Here’s what I said then and how I still feel now:
I know there probably aren’t many people with their hands in the air at the moment, but I was jazzed to hear the news that Henry was stepping in for Trevin Jones opposite Barcelos this weekend because he’s been one of those “How’d he never get a chance in the UFC?” guys for me for quite some time.
A catch wrestling protégé of Erik Paulson and Josh Barnett, Henry has spent the majority of his career fighting in Japan. He has wins over Japanese veterans Hideo Tokoro and Masakatsu Ueda, current UFC bantamweight Kyler Philips, and former UFC competitors Anderson Dos Santos and Albert Morales, whom he beat on October 30 to claim the LXF bantamweight title.
Learn more about him by checking out this rad video profile E. Casey Leydon put together a couple years ago, and know that just because he’s never fought in the UFC before and you’re not familiar with him doesn’t mean he’s got zero chance of getting his hand raised on Saturday.
Henry’s a talented dude, and this fight with Barcelos should be competitive.
Ilia Topuria vs. Charles Jourdain
Q: Will Jourdain make a jump in 2022?
Charles Jourdain bet on himself going into his fight with Andre Ewell on the December 18 fight card in Las Vegas, opting to fight out his contract, knowing that a strong performance could net him a better deal going forward.
He won in impressive fashion, re-upped with the UFC, and then raised his hand to replace Movsar Evloev opposite Topuria on Saturday, jumping into an ultra-dangerous fight with little prep time only a handful of weeks after his last bout. It’s the kind of move that, win or lose this weekend, positions Jourdain on the radar in the featherweight division right out of the chute in 2022, and gives him a very good chance to take a major step forward in the competitive 145-pound weight class.
The 26-year-old French-Canadian has struggled to find consistency since signing with the UFC, but looked outstanding in his victory over Ewell. If he can follow that up by pushing or even beating Topuria this weekend, the former two-weight TKO titleholder will establish himself as another quality emerging talent moving forward in the featherweight division at the moment.
Jourdain is as game as they come and has taken a lot of steps to address some of the inconsistency issues that plagued him earlier in his UFC tenure, as we discussed before his fight in December, and I think it showed in that victory to end the year. This weekend’s fight is going to be an outstanding measuring stick opportunity, and how it plays out should speak volumes about where Jourdain stands at the moment and what is reasonable to expect from him in 2022 and beyond.
Jack Della Maddalena vs. Pete Rodriguez
Q: Will “Della” deliver in his UFC debut?
I follow a lot of folks from Australia and New Zealand on Twitter and they are amped about seeing Jack Della Maddalena make his promotional debut this weekend.
Hell, they were amped about “Della,” as they call him, fighting on Dana White’s Contender Series this fall, which tells you how invested these folks are when it comes to supporting fighters from their region. (Note: I LOVE IT! Don’t ever change, you lot!)
The 25-year-old is 10-2 overall, has won 10 straight after starting his career with consecutive losses, and looked like the kind of game, indefatigable, well-rounded fella I could get behind when he secured his contract by beating Ange Loosa in September. While I would definitely would have preferred to see him march into the Octagon against Warlley Alves this weekend because that fight would have provided an immediate understanding of where the Australian fits in the division, I’m also just happy that he’s found a dance partner and gets to compete on Saturday.
There is a lot of anticipation for Della’s debut (at least in the ANZAC region) and I will be curious to see if he can open a few more eyes with a successful first showing this weekend in Anaheim.
Tony Gravely vs. Saimon Oliveira
Q: Will we get a repeat of last weekend’s “US Veteran vs. Brazilian DWCS Grad” fight?
Last weekend, Bill Algeo out-hustled Joanderson Brito to kick off the main card in one of those fights that felt like an odd pairing and curious betting line to me right out of the gate.
Despite being just 1-2 in the UFC, Algeo had fought a tough slate in getting to the big stage, was skilled everywhere, and profiled as the kind of guy that could kill much of Brito’s momentum before it ever really got started, and that’s precisely what happened.
Now we have this pairing between Gravely, an American with a 2-2 record in the Octagon, quality resume from the regional scene, and the kind of grappling to frustrate just about anyone, and Oliveira, a recent Brazilian graduate of the Contender Series who has won five straight heading into the weekend, but is another fighter that you have to do The Natan Levy Calculation for, much like Brito.
I’ve covered every season of Dana White’s Contender Series, and while there were a couple competitors last season that I am really interested to see tested early in the UFC, Oliveira, like Brito last week, isn’t someone I came away thinking was going to make immediate waves inside the Octagon. We’ll see if he can prove me wrong at UFC 270, but my early feeling is that we get a repeat of what transpired last weekend in this one.
Trevin Giles vs. Michael Morales
Q: Is welterweight the solution to Trevin Giles’ problems?
Yes, I’m giggling by myself in my office having worked Giles’ nickname (“The Problem”) into my question for this fight because little things like that make me smile and giggle and I will not apologize for it.
Giles makes his welterweight debut this weekend after a seven-fight stay at middleweight, where he went 4-3, earning two decisions and two stoppage wins while getting finishes in each of his three losses. He was an intriguing prospect when he arrived in the UFC, having beaten Ryan Spann and Brendan Allen under the LFA banner, but never quite put together the kind of consistent success needed to make a real impact in the 185-pound ranks.
Now he’s shifting down to welterweight, and I’m curious to find out whether the 29-year-old can put things together and go streaking or if it’s going to be more of the same from the inconsistent Texan.
My gut feeling is that it’s going to be more of the same from Giles, because it has never appeared to me to be a skill issue that has limited him — it’s been about application and Fight IQ. He makes too many mistakes and is too loose with his technique inside the cage. Against top level fighters, those mistakes are going to get exposed, and there are still plenty of top level fighters at welterweight.
Morales is one of several DWCS graduates representing the Entram Gym and one of the more intriguing long-term prospects from last season that I’m interested in tracking going forward, but he’s also pretty raw and inexperienced, so judging Giles’ welterweight potential off a win this weekend feels like it could be a fool’s errand… if he wins, which isn’t guaranteed.
It’s always curious to me when fighters opt to change weight divisions instead changing camps or changing their approach, and I will be eager to see what, if anything, this move down in weight does for Giles’ prospects in the UFC.
Silvana Juarez vs. Vanessa Demopoulos
Q: Is this Vanessa Demopoulos’ last chance to get a UFC win?
Listen, I never say this stuff to be incendiary or snarky or anything like that — I just want to be as honest as possible in my assessment of these athletes, and my honest assessment of Demopoulos is that I don’t think she has what it takes to be a consistently successful fighter in the UFC.
The 33-year-old has some success as an amateur back in the day and raced out to a 5-1 record to begin her career, capturing gold under the LFA banner, but since then, “Lil Monster” is 1-3, losing to each of the three UFC caliber fighters she’s faced — Cory McKenna, Loopy Godinez, and JJ Aldrich.
She is, in my estimation, an excellent regional talent — someone that can thrive against middling competition and consistently be in the title picture in LFA or a similar quality promotion, but is always going to struggle against more well-rounded, high-level fighters — and should continue to find success there in the future.
Which is why I’m really curious to see if she can secure a victory this weekend because Juarez is a comparable talent and coming off a quick first-round submission loss to Godinez in her debut last fall.
This feels like Demopoulos’ best chance to get a victory in the UFC — a favorable stylistic matchup against a solid, but not spectacular opponent — and if she can’t get it done here, I’m not sure if she’ll get another chance to garner a victory later this year.
Matt Frevola vs. Genaro Valdez
Q: Will Valdez set the tone for the evening for the Entram Gym?
Valdez is one of four fighters representing the Tijuana outfit competing on Saturday night, the others being Juarez, Morales, and Moreno, and it’s going to be interesting to see how his effort opposite Frevola in the second bout of the evening potentially sets the tone for the rest of the team later in the night.
We’ve seen this kind of situation play out all kinds of different ways in the past — from fighters getting shaken by their friends and teammates losing to others paying it no mind and everything in between — and while my immediate thought is that each of them will compartmentalize things really well and not let the previous result impact them in any way, that doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to seeing that hypothesis tested on Saturday.
The 30-year-old newcomer, who earned his contract with a second-round stoppage win on DWCS in October, is 10-0 for his career, but his first six of his first nine opponents never fought again after their encounter, resulting in his Natan Levy Calculation setting off some red flags for me. Frevola is 8-3-1 as a pro and already had a couple solid appearances in the UFC, even if he does enter on a two-fight skid, so this should be a chance to make a quality initial read on where Valdez fits in the division.
And then we’ll see what impact, if any, his result has on the rest of the team throughout the evening.
Kay Hansen vs. Jasmine Jasudavicius
Q: Can Hansen get things moving in the right direction again?
Coming into last year, I genuinely believed that Hansen would be one of the top young talents working their way up the divisional ladder in the 115-pound weight class. Instead, she took the entire year off to deal with personal health issue, and returns this weekend as a flyweight, squaring off with Canadian DWCS grad Jasmine Jasudavicius in the first bout of the evening.
As I wrote on Monday, I still believe Hansen has the skills and intangibles to join the pack of promising Under 25 talents that have established themselves in the 125-pound weight class over the last couple years, and I believe that Saturday’s fight with Jasudavicius will serve as a good way to gauge how quickly she could make that happen, if at all.
That said, I still think this fight and this year (if not longer) are more important in terms of development and gaining experience for Hansen than anything else, so a loss on Saturday wouldn’t be the end of the world.
She started fighting early and has been through some difficult spots, inside and outside of the cage, and more than anything, I’m happy to see that she’s in a good place, focused on her health, and eager to compete again.