UFC 271: One Question for Every Fight
Saturday's event features plenty of intrigue, so let's address some of the key talking points about each contest
Saturday’s pay-per-view card isn’t built the way most pay-per-view events have been in recent years — there is only one title fight, the names behind it are big, but not massive, and the preliminary portion of the card is flush with emerging talents and intriguing newcomers, with only a smattering of veteran staples mixed in here and there.
While it may not appeal to those searching for multiple championship bouts and the biggest names in the sport, this is my kind of pay-per-view fight card!
The main event is endlessly fascinating. The co-main event is going to tell us a lot about what to expect from each combatant over the next couple years (if not the remainder of their careers), and the third fight on the main card could determine who is next in line to challenge for the middleweight title.
Add in a whole bunch of fighters I want to see more from, get another read on, and UFC 271 is a dream way for me to spend my Saturday night.
Here are the biggest questions I have heading into each matchup.
Israel Adesanya vs. Robert Whittaker
Q: Will the sequel be overly different than the original?
With some movies, the second film in a set or series is more a continuation of the story than a “let’s do it again!” situation, like with all the different Star Wars trilogies and the Harry Potter series. Other times, you get Jaws 2, which had an awesome tagline (“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…”) but was otherwise a complete “Let’s do it again, but not as good!” type of enterprise.
Saturday night, Adesanya and Whittaker meet for a second time, and the most intriguing piece (to me) is trying to decide and waiting to find out if the sequel is going to be overly different than the original.
We all think of the first fight as a complete blowout because Adesanya dropped Whittaker at the end of the first and finished him in the second, but in watching it back, those are the only two moments where things shift all the way in the champion’s favour. This wasn’t the Paulo Costa fight where Adesanya was toying with the unbeaten Brazilian challenger from the outset and didn’t seem to be worried about anything; Whittaker was right there in his face, and while he was uncharacteristically aggressive, he wasn’t getting busted up the way most tend to remember it in hindsight.
I don’t think Whittaker needs to be perfect on Saturday to get the job done like many are suggesting — I think he has to be the guy we saw make great adjustments in the first fight with Yoel Romero and find a way to get the victory in the second fight with the hulking Cuban. I think he needs to be the guy that dominated Darren Till and Jared Cannonier and Kelvin Gastelum on the way to this rematch, the guy that worked his way to the middleweight title in the first place.
He needs to be himself.
But that still doesn’t guarantee him anything, and that’s why this fight is so compelling to me. He can make all the right adjustments from the first fight, have cleaned up all the stuff that made him fight messy two-plus years ago in Melbourne, and Adesanya can still end this thing in a couple rounds, because he’s that good.
My feeling is that the fight itself will be dramatically different than their first encounter, but I don’t know if that means we’ll have a different ending.
Derrick Lewis vs. Tai Tuivasa
Q: Where does Tai Tuivasa’s ceiling sit?
Situations like this are one of the myriad reasons why I genuinely adore this sport and pay so much freakin’ attention to every fight card.
Tuivasa raced out of the gates with three straight wins to climb into the Top 10, looking poised to be a contender and a charismatic addition to the heavyweight ranks. He followed it up by losing three straight, culminating with a second-round submission loss to Serghei Spivac where he looked like he had no business being in the Octagon with “The Polar Bear,” which is saying something, because Spivac didn’t exactly look like a world-beater.
He went a little over a year before returning, and when he did, Tuivasa stopped Stefan Struve in the very last second of the opening round, getting himself back in the win column, and he hasn’t looked back since. The playful heavyweight has copped to not being as diligent with his training and locked in on his career as he needed to be following his early success, and his current run of results prove that he’s made the requisite changes, as he enters Saturday’s contest on a four-fight winning streak.
In Lewis, he’s facing the division’s guardian to title contention — the tough-to-beat level boss you have to clear before you can fight the big boss and possibly beat the game — and this weekend’s penultimate pairing is going to tell us a great deal about how far Tuivasa might be able to take things and what the next couple of years could look like.
This is one of those “a win changes everything” deals where a victory elevates the 28-year-old from West Sydney to contender status, and puts him in a position to face guys like Curtis Blaydes or Ciryl Gane or Stipe Miocic later this year. A loss doesn’t set him back much, if anything, but it does set a temporary ceiling on how far he can climb in the division, creating a situation where he’d need to get a couple wins before getting another chance to try and clear this hurdle again.
He stumbled the last time he was in this position, but has adopted a much more professional approach to things since then, so it will be interesting to see if he can hand Lewis a set straight loss at home in Houston and shake things up in the heavyweight division this weekend.
Jared Cannonier vs. Derek Brunson
Q: Is Derek Brunson the next Michael Bisping?
I honestly can’t believe I haven’t thought of this before today. I’m sure others have drawn the comparison (because they’re smarter than me), but is anyone else getting serious Michael Bisping vibes from Brunson these days?
Think about it: both spent many years as fixtures in the middleweight Top 10, but failed to win the key fights they needed to win in order to take the next step forward and emerge as genuine contenders. Just when it felt like they were cemented in place as Fight Night headliners that were unlikely to rise above the 6-7 range in the division, they start cobbling together a winning streak and building a little momentum to where a championship opportunity doesn’t seem out of the question.
Bisping earned a gutsy, maybe even debated decision win over Anderson Silva in London before being in the right time, at the right place to land opposite Luke Rockhold at UFC 199 and we all know what happened there.
If we’re to continue the comparison, Cannonier is Brunson’s Silva — the guy he’s got to beat to keep this going and give himself a chance to potentially face someone that has already handed him a stoppage loss in a rematch for the middleweight title.
As wild as it would have seemed even at the start of last year, Brunson’s wins over Kevin Holland and Darren Till showed that he’s matured as a fighter and is making better decisions in the cage. He’s playing to his strengths (or his opponents’ weaknesses) and keeping himself out of extended exchanges, which have long been his kryptonite, and if he can turn in another strong effort this weekend and push his winning streak to six, it will be difficult to deny him a chance to challenge for the middleweight strap.
Kyler Phillips vs. Marcelo Rojo
Q: Can Kyler Phillips build some momentum?
Kyler Phillips was likely very happy to see Victor Henry make his successful UFC debut earlier this year against Raoni Barcelos, because up until that point, most members of the UFC audience knew nothing about the first man to beat Phillips.
Now, they see he’s legit, and this weekend, it’s time to start finding out if Phillips can become a consistent factor in the talent-rich bantamweight division.
It was less than a year ago that he beat Song Yadong, racing out to an early 2-0 lead before holding on down the stretch to topple the Chinese hopeful who has since returned to the rankings. In his follow-up appearance, Phillips against started quickly, nearly getting Raulian Paiva out of there in the first round, but the Brazilian steeled himself away and then rallied, emerging with a majority decision win.
Phillips is 26 years old. He’s 3-1 in the UFC and 9-2 overall. He’s well-rounded and trains with great people, has shown flashes of elite talent, but also struggled like any young fighter still finding their way is bound to do.
Saturday’s fight with Rojo should be a good indication of what to expect from “The Matrix” in 2022 and perhaps long term, as the Argentine veteran fighting out of Tijuana’s Entram Gym will be in his face, ready to fight, demanding the best out of him from the jump.
If Phillips is going to become a factor in the bantamweight division, he has to start stringing together victories now because the 135-pound ranks are so flush with talent that every loss feels like it sets you back two spots, since there are that many emerging names push forward at the moment.
Bobby Green vs. Nasrat Haqparast
Q: Will Nasrat Haqparast ever take the next step?
It feels like we’ve been waiting for Haqparast to ascend to the next level in the lightweight division for a couple years now, and with each missed opportunity, I start to wonder a little more if it will ever come to pass.
Let me be clear: Haqparast is 26 years old, has a 13-4 record with a 5-3 mark in the UFC, and has struggled, like most younger fighters do, against the best competition he’s faced inside the Octagon. Holding a short-notice loss to Marcin Held and defeats to Drew Dober and Dan Hooker against him as major demerits feels like it would be a mistake, however, much like Phillips, this feels like one of those “if you’re going to do it, you might want to get started” type of moments for the German-born lightweight of Afghani heritage.
Green is one of the tougher unranked tests in the UFC — a 35-year-old, 41-fight veteran with crisp hands, sharp defensive movements, great scrambling ability, and a bottomless gas tank who will happily make you look bad if you think you’re going to have an easy night against him inside the Octagon.
Where Tuivasa’s fight with Lewis has a chance to give us a better understanding of where his ceiling rests, this fight should help determine where Haqparast’s floor sits, as a win over Green sets a baseline for the level of talent he can beat, and a loss shows we need to move further down the competitive ladder before starting to install the hardwoods.
Andrei Arlovski vs. Jared Vanderaa
Q: How much longer can Andrei Arlovski keep this up?
How many times have we collectively written Arlovski off for dead — two? three? four?
He looked like he’d been killed when Fedor knocked him out of mid-air at the first Affliction show, and then seemed like his career was kaput after his three-fight losing streak in Strikeforce. He then won 10 of his next 12 fights to show he was very much still alive, but then lost five straight that made everyone think, “Okay, this is probably the end.”
Nope.
He got two wins to prove he still had something left, but then promptly dropped five of his next six, which once again had us all thinking the end was near. Instead, Arlovski has gone 4-1 over his last five starts and enters Saturday’s clash with Vanderaa coming off back-to-back unanimous decision victories. What’s more is that he’s perfectly content in this role, perfectly happy to be facing these younger fighters trying to get ahead at his expense, and although he knows he can’t do this forever, he also has no interest in slowing down right now.
At some point, Father Time will catch up with the former heavyweight champion and a couple of these good, but not great youngsters will get the better of him, which will signal that it’s time for him to move on to something else. But with how his career has played out and the number of times I’ve incorrectly thought that time had already arrived, I’ve decided that rather than theorize about how much Arlovski has left in the tank, I’m just going to watch the old head keep beating these whippersnappers and enjoy it.
Roxanne Modafferi vs. Casey O’Neill
Q: How good is Casey O’Neill?
Well, we know she’s good enough to beat an increasingly talented group of unranked fighters, as she did last year during her three-win, three-finish rookie year in the UFC. This weekend, we’re going to find out if she’s good enough to send Modafferi into retirement on a three-fight losing streak and boost herself closer to — if not into — the Top 10 in the flyweight division.
Fights like this and fighters like O’Neill are endlessly intriguing to me because we know what it takes to beat Modafferi and where that victory puts you in the division, but there is also no way to know right now where O’Neill tops out because she’s 24 years old, still improving, and could be anywhere from 2-5 years away from reaching her physical prime. Plus, fighters tend to hit their sweet spot in that 29-32 range, when they’re still athletic and physically dangerous, but their smarts and savvy and guile has caught up to the rest of their game as well.
The key is going to be not rushing O’Neill too far, too fast if she should get a victory this weekend.
There will be folks that want to see her fight Valentina Shevchenko, and I certainly do too, but not yet; not in the next year. Flyweight is one of the few divisions where there are clearly defined tiers of talent between O’Neill and the champ, and it makes more sense to have the Scottish-Australian rising star progress through each of them than hustle her into a championship opportunity.
Now, if she blows out Modafferi this weekend at UFC 271 and does the same to someone further up the divisional ladder after that, I might want to revise that last statement, but for now, I want to keep seeing O’Neill compete, keep watching her develop, and keep enjoying the uncertainty of not knowing where her ceiling rests.
Alex Perez vs. Matt Schnell
Q: Remember Alex Perez?
Maybe that question sounds dismissive, but it’s been 15 months since we last saw Perez inside the Octagon — and 20 months since his last UFC victory — that it feels like a lot of people might not remember him.
Perez’s last appearance came before the Figueiredo-Moreno feud kicked off. He was Deiveson Figueiredo’s first challenger, and lasted less than two minutes before getting stuck in a guillotine choke and forced to tap, but he’s also a genuinely talented, dangerous flyweight and it is outstanding to finally have him back in the mix.
Prior to that championship loss, Perez was 6-1 in the UFC, with his only setback coming against Joseph Benavidez. He earned his title shot with a three-fight winning streak capped by back-to-back first-round finishes of Jordan Espinosa and Jussier Formiga, the latter of which came as a result of a series of hellacious low kicks. He’s 24-5 for his career, doesn’t turn 30 until next month, and current sits at No. 4 in the flyweight rankings, which should get everyone excited because it means the division is getting one of its best fighters back on Saturday.
This fight with Schnell has been booked and cancelled and re-booked and pushed a bunch of times, but it should be an exciting affair that provides an opportunity to determine where Perez is at following his longer-than-anticipated layoff, and potentially create some new matchup possibilities at the top of the division.
William Knight vs. Maxim Grishin
Q: Can William Knight become a contender?
Knight is less than four years into his MMA career, yet he’s already 3-1 in the UFC, 11-2 overall, and set to test himself against a 42-fight veteran in Grishin on Saturday. The fact that he’s 33 works against him a little bit because competitive windows don’t stay open forever, but he’s a “low mileage” fighter to this point of his career, is a physical specimen so you don’t have to worry about him lazy-ing his way to heavyweight, and so I really want to know if this dude can become a contender in the perpetually shallow 205-pound weight class?
The left hook he knocked out Fabio Cherant with was one of those “hang on a minute” deals for me, where the blow itself shouldn’t have had the impact it did, and yet there was Cherant, catatonic on the canvas.
The fact that he went three hard rounds with Alonzo Menifield last time out — regardless of how you scored the fight — showed that he’s continuing to work on his conditioning and improving some of the weaker pieces of his game.
There are still holes, as you would expect from someone with less than four years experience, but there are intangibles that Knight brings to the table that make him all kinds of interesting to me.
Saturday’s fight with Grishin should be a chance to see how much he’s improved since his loss to Da Un Jung last year, as I expect “Maximus” to look to clinch and wrestle. Generally speaking, this is the kind of fight I would expect someone in Knight’s position to lose simply because his physical gifts and talents may not be so great as to counteract the experience, savvy, and guile Grishin brings with him into the Octagon, but I don’t know.
It’s a stay away from a gambling standpoint for me (not that I gamble, but I know some folks do) and a fight I’ll be paying very close attention to this weekend.
Mana Martinez vs. Ronnie Lawrence
Q: Which of these two will build off their latest victory?
Further proof that bantamweight is the best division in the UFC at the moment comes in this one, as Martinez and Lawrence each look to build on solid debut victories in their shared sophomore appearance inside the Octagon.
Martinez got a split decision win over Guido Cannetti not long after the sudden passing of his long-time coach, the great Saul Soliz, while Lawrence finished Vince Cachero in the third round of their battle in February. Both have Contender Series connections (Martinez lost, Lawrence won and earned a contract), both train with solid camps, and both have shown flashes of being a potential “person of interest” in the 135-pound weight class, which is why this pairing intrigues me as much as it does.
Martinez is more sudden and explosive, while Lawrence is more of a “death by a thousand cuts” type, and it’s going to be interesting to see which of the two is able to implement their game plan more consistently, more effectively on Saturday night. Lawrence being out of action for basically a year would worry me if he hadn’t already dealt with similar layoffs successfully in the past, while the fact that Martinez gutted out a hard-fought victory over a veteran that was backed into a corner with everything that was going on around him last time elevated my opinion of him.
This should be a fun little scrap between a couple guys that want to make waves in a bustling division.
Alexander Hernandez vs. Renato Moicano
Q: Will Alexander Hernandez ever be more than this?
As the leader of the “Being the 13th best lightweight in the UFC is really good” brigade, I understand that me framing a question this way sounds either hypocritical or just plain shitty, but hear me out:
Hernandez didn’t just make a splash when he arrived in the UFC; he cannonballed into the deep end by knocking out Beneil Dariush in 42 seconds. He followed that up with a unanimous decision win over Olivier Aubin-Mercier, and instantly became a lot of peoples’ pick as the next great emerging lightweight. He was young, brash, and riding high heading into a showdown with Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, where he was the betting favourite and many expected him to roll.
Instead, he got stopped in the second round. He rebounded by edging out Francisco Trinaldo, then got stopped in the first round by Drew Dober. He rebounded from that loss by blasting Chris Gruetzemacher, but then got outworked by Thiago Moises before rebounding with a knockout win over Mike Breeden.
Since that first victory — and with all love to my guy OAM — Hernandez’ pattern has been to beat lesser competition and lose to superior competition, and it feels like this weekend is one more chance to change that.
To be clear: there is nothing wrong with being someone that thrives in the 20-30 range in a loaded division such as lightweight, alternating wins and losses or going 2-1, 3-2, 1-2, or whatever depending on who you’re matched up with.
But after getting so much attention early, earning so much praise from so many people, I really want to see if “Alexander the Great” is ever going to live up to those expectations and his nickname or if he’s just going to be “Alexander the Above Average” for the remainder of his career.
Carlos Ulberg vs. Fabio Cherant
Q: Can Carlos Ulberg justify the hype?
Setting aside the fact that I have a great relationship with Sayif Saud and the team down at Fortis MMA, and have written about Kennedy Nzechukwu a number of times, it never made sense to me going into Ulberg’s debut last year against “The African Savage” that he was such a massive favourite.
Ulberg was 3-0 in MMA, coming off a favourable assignment that produced a highlight reel finish and UFC contract on the Contender Series, and was buoyed by being a member of the City Kickboxing crew. While he undeniably had moments throughout that eight-minute-and-19-second battle, his inexperience showed as he punched himself out and ultimately got finished.
Now, nearly a year later, he’s back for his sophomore appearance inside the Octagon, with another favourable matchup, basking in the residual glow of competing alongside his teammate Adesanya for the second consecutive fight.
He looks the part, his team says he’s the goods, but I need to see it, and I just don’t know if he’s capable of delivering.
A victory on Saturday isn’t going to be enough for me, even if Ulberg produces the kind of finish that makes him the clubhouse leader in the Knockout of the Year race, simply because I don’t think Cherant, who got put to sleep with a Von Preux choke in his debut and slept by Knight in his sophomore showing, is capable of competing at this level just yet.
I hope he’s the goods — I’m always happy to see more skilled, entertaining fighters joining the roster — but I’m not convinced.
Prove me wrong, Carlos Ulberg.
A.J. Dobson vs. Jacob Malkoun
Q: What is reasonable to expect from A.J. Dobson?
Another week, another member of the DWCS Class of ‘21 making their promotional debut.
Dobson is a 30-year-old middleweight with a 6-0 record who looked very good in his contract-winning effort last fall. He’s from Ohio and either trains with or has trained with all the people you’d expect someone from “The Buckeye State” to have worked with, including the crew at Strong Style, Matt Brown, and Mark “The Hammer” Coleman.
He looks like a decent enough prospect, but as I’ve said throughout these first few weeks: last year’s graduating class from the Contender Series was a real mixed bag and I’m trying not to make any real assessments until I see them in the Octagon wth more experienced foes. Thus far, members of last year’s graduating class are 6-3 inside the Octagon and riding a four-fight winning streak, so things are trending in a favourable direction for Dobson, but I still don’t have a good sense of what to expect from him.
Malkoun is a solid middleweight in my estimation — better than the guy that got mollywhopped by Phil Hawes in his debut, but probably not much better than the guy that out-wrestled Abdul Razak Alhassan in his sophomore appearance — so this should be a good measuring stick opportunity when it comes to figuring out where the newcomer falls in the 185-pound weight class going forward.
Douglas Silva vs. Sergey Morozov
Q: Is this the best low-key matchup of the year so far?
It’s fights like this that really make me want to fight people when they’re hastily dismisses of preliminary card lineups and any fight not including an established, familiar name.
Silva is 27-4 overall and 5-4 in the UFC. Before his win last year against Gaetano Pirrello, the Brazilian’s last five opponents were Rob Font, Marlon Vera, Petr Yan, Renan Barao, and Lerone Murphy, with Silva alternating losses and wins during that stretch.
Yes, that means he beat Chito Vera; swept the scorecards too — 30-27s across the board.
Morozov is 17-4 for his career, 1-1 in the Octagon, and made a nice little cameo on Episode 2 of Embedded this week, throwing hands with Tai Tuivasa in the workout room. He lost to Umar Nurmagomedov in their joint debuts last January, but rebounded with a good win over Khalid Taha in July, and is another one of those experienced fighters from a former Soviet republic that very few aspiring bantamweights would like to face.
This should be a highly entertaining, highly competitive fight from the outset, much like last week’s main card opener between Julian Erosa and Steven Peterson, and even though the victor won’t be anywhere near the Top 15 or get any post-event shine anywhere but here, you should really tune into this contest because Silva and Morozov are far better than most people understand or recognize and this fight should be terrific.
Jeremiah Wells vs. Blood Diamond
Q: Did everyone forget about Jeremiah Wells’ debut?
I’m excited to see Blood Diamond debut on Saturday just like everyone else.
But I’m also surprised that there has been little to no mention of Wells in the run-up to this fight because, in case everyone forgot, the Philadelphia native knocked out Warlley Alves on five days notice in his debut last June, in his first appearance in 21 months.
Now, you can hit me with the “… yeah, but who has Warlley Alves beaten?” nonsense like y’all weren’t riding hard for Mounir Lazzez before the former TUF winner thumped him last year, or call it a fluke, but Wells still turned up, shook off nearly two years of live-action rust, and sent that man to Dreamland, and people aren’t saying much of anything about him?
This feels like the Direct-to-DVD version of when nobody was really talking about Andre Muniz ahead of his fight with Eryk Anders last December, watched him tap Anders, and then suddenly remembered, “Oh yeah — this dude is a problem!”
Wells isn’t on Muniz’ level, but he shouldn’t be getting zero mention in the lead up to this fight either.