UFC 276: 10 Things We Learned, Main Card Edition
When you've got a main card this good, there are easily 10 takeaways to discuss from those fights alone
And Still
Israel Adesanya retained his middleweight title with a tactical, technical, unanimous decision win over Jared Cannonier, out-classing the challenger while sweeping the scorecards, earning 49-46 scores twice and a 50-45 tally from the third official.
Following a tremendous walkout where he aped The Undertaker, complete with carrying an urn baring the name Jared, Adesanya opted for patient, measured, skillful superiority, happily working from range and sniping at Cannonier. The challenger was content to fight on those terms for long stretches, despite having his best moments when he looked to create chaos and blitzed to get inside. He had some success against Adesanya on the fence, but couldn’t keep him there long or find a shot that really swung the fight in his favour, and once they retreated back into space, the titleholder resumed flashing his superior technical acumen.
Fans exited the building en masse during the fight, with video of people heading for the exits hitting social media ahead of the fifth round, which is isn’t surprising — it wasn’t a brawl, it was pretty clear that Cannonier wasn’t going to find a finishing shot, and they didn’t feel like sticking around for more technical work from Adesanya.
He didn’t make any additional fans with this effort, but he remains undefeated at middleweight, and continues to forge a legacy as a master technician.
Unreal Expectations
Everybody is entitled to their opinions and to like what they like, so please, understand that I recognize and acknowledge that first and foremost and always.
The idea that folks look at that fight and lament that Adesanya doesn’t do more to provide them with greater entertainment and excitement is befuddling to me; not in that I can’t believe they feel that way, because that’s automatic, but that they feel owed more or entitled to something more from “The Last Stylebender.”
I get wanting more, sure, but owed? Entitled? Naw, man; none of that.
Adesanya is in their putting his health and well-being on the line against a legitimately talented, dangerous fighter and what he did was determined to be not enough before the fight is even finished. The expectation is that he push more, chase more, work harder to get Cannonier out of there so that fans can be more entertained, but it’s those same fans that would quickly call him stupid for chasing down a finish and getting caught if things were to go sideways.
Could he have done more? Sure. Does he have to? Absolutely not.
What’s interesting to me is that there were all these comments lamenting Adesanya’s performance, but I didn’t immediately see many deriding the challenger for his approach, for not pushing more, for not chasing the finish that he clearly needed.
It’s a weird wrinkle to this sport that I will never understand.
Alexander the Greatest
It was a question at the outset of the week, but it’s a statement now: Alexander Volkanovski is the greatest fighter walking the Earth today, as made evident by the one-sided drubbing he handed out to Max Holloway in Saturday night’s UFC 276 co-main event.
After a pair of close, competitive fights, the third instalment was one-way traffic from the outset, with Volkanovski busting Holloway open in the second round and never letting off the gas. While he couldn’t get the Hawaiian out of there, the only question about the scorecards this time around was whether or not the champion was going to collect any 10-8 rounds from the judges. This was a mauling, and a beautiful effort from a still underrated superstar.
Volkanovski has continued making adjustments and improving his skills while facing absolute elite competition these last couple years. There are no holes in his game. His conditioning is off the charts. He works with outstanding coaches and training partners, and he works like a savage at honing his craft.
He just made one of the Top 10 pound-for-pound fighters on the planet look like he had no business being in the Octagon with him — what other champion has done something like that in the last couple years?
Volkanovski is the best fighter on the planet.
Holloway Had His Moment
The thing with this sport is that no one’s moment lasts forever — stick around long enough, stay in there frequently enough and time passes you by, and at the championship level in the featherweight division, Holloway’s moment has passed.
He’s still the second best featherweight in the UFC, and probably by a reasonable margin, given what he did to Brian Ortega in their fight and the success he had against Yair Rodriguez, but what felt like a half-step deficit to Volkanovski coming into this fight was proven to be a full step, as the Australian has continued to level up while Holloway remains the same guy he was at the outset of his run to the title.
Do not misconstrue what I’m saying: Holloway is still an outstanding fighter, but they could do this seven more times and Volkanovski is winning each and ever one of them because he’s just that much better than “Blessed” at this point, and Holloway’s approach is no longer effective against him.
The really interesting question is where does Holloway go from here?
He went up to lightweight once before for an interim title fight that didn’t go his way, and a proper relocation could provide opportunities, but it’s not like he’s got a clear path to the top of the division if he were to go up at the start of next year. Lightweight is brimming with talent and while there are fun options — Holloway vs. Michael Chandler, anyone? Justin Gaethje? — those are also bouts that could shave more years off his life.
Sticking around featherweight and going the “permanent silver medalist” route doesn’t seem appealing as he’s not getting another sniff of the title as long as Volk is on the throne.
After more than a decade of fighting, it wouldn’t actually surprise me if he just opted to call it a day, honestly. He’s nothing left to prove — he had a brilliant career and a quality run on top, but those days are over, and the future doesn’t look particularly appetizing to me.
Pereira Makes His Statement
Alex Pereira has been chasing down a chance to face Adesanya since he touched down in the UFC, and he gave himself the opportunity to be next on Saturday night, handing Sean Strickland a first-round knockout loss that could very well set up a showdown between the former kickboxing opponents later this year.
Though he looked a little wary of getting taken down early in the fights, once he figured out it wasn’t coming, the former two-division Glory champion let loose, finding a home for a clubbing left hook that sent Strickland to the ancestral plane. Everything else that followed was academic.
Make no mistake about it: this is a great win and a brilliant effort for the ascending Pereira, as Strickland was on a six-fight winning streak, had won all five of his fights since returning from a two-year absence, and had never lost at middleweight before this evening. On top of that, it was the kind of highlight reel showing against a bona fide talent that should cement his standing as the next challenger in the middleweight division.
He’s a hulking human being with menacing power, and while he’s short on MMA experience, this fight showed he’s scary with small gloves on too.
Questionable Approach
You have to wonder what the game plan was for Strickland.
Most, myself very much included, expected to see him try to close the distance and wrestle, avoiding prolonged exposure to standing with Pereira in the one place he’s dangerous in the fight. Instead, he marched forward, hands in front of his chest, and coming up a little slow, like always, and he paid a hefty price.
Now, it’s entirely possible that the idea was to box with him for a little bit and wrestle after making Pereira feel comfortable, but the trouble with that approach is that you have to get to the point of making him comfortable and turning to the wrestling, and that just didn’t come to pass.
A loss like this is far from the end of the world for Strickland, who is 31, a proven Top 15 talent, and took this nightmare matchup when he probably could have dug in his heels and waited for something less dangerous to come around. But he wanted to fight, had designs on securing a title opportunity of his own, and now he’s got to figure some things out.
I just think, given how much I’ve talked with him about logging gruelling rounds on the canvas with light heavyweight standout Magomed Ankalaev, why this wasn’t wrestle first, wrestle often, and wrestle for as long as it takes?
We’ll likely never know.
All Bangers, All the Time
Bryan Barberena is the Kendall Roy of MMA fighters — “All Bangers, All the Time.” Shouts to the seven people that get that joke, including my guy Zac.
For the second time in four months, Barberena marched into the Octagon and got into a fist fight with a veteran, and after going the distance and getting the split decision win over Matt Brown in March, “Bam Bam” went out there and kept the judges out of it by knocking out Robbie Lawler late in the second round.
The durable 33-year-old ran level with the former champion in the opening frame, landing more volume and some quality shots, especially in tight, while Lawler connected with the more immediately impactful blows. It was trending that way in the second as well, until Barberena smushed home and elbow that rattled Lawler’s cage and sent him backing into the fence. The surging welterweight waded into the fire, continued bashing home shots, and ultimately got him out of there for easily the biggest win of his career.
Barberena has now won three straight and seems to be finding his groove while staying extremely active. Saturday was his fourth fight in basically a year after competing just once in two years due to a couple serious health issues. He game and gritty, happy to get in a brawl and only really seems to get moving once his nose starts bleeding, and he’s really starting to put things together.
Maybe he doesn’t make a run all the way to the top of the division, but there should be some interesting fights for him on the horizon if he keeps this up.
It’s a Young Man’s Game
As much as I will never tell any fighter when they should walk away, I will say this: MMA is a younger man’s game, and or these fighters getting up in age and that have competed for years and years and years, finding the right time to call it quits is important.
Lawler looked good through the opening round and was ahead for much of the second, but one shot turned it. One shot opened the door for Barberena to go hunting and while it took him a minute, the 33-year-old found the shots that put the former champion on shaky legs and prompted the stoppage.
We’ve seen a lot of tenured talent land on the wrong side of the results in recent weeks, many of them in fights that had difficult to watch finishes, and that should be a sobering moment for others in their cohort to think twice about continuing to compete, even if the desire is still there. It takes a different breed to step into the Octagon and fight for a living, and that “want to” is probably always going to be there, in part, but at a certain point, the question has to shift to “Should I?” and most of the time, that answer is no.
Anticlimactic End to An Intriguing Clash
The fight between Sean O’Malley and Pedro Munhoz was shaping up to be a competitive affair, with the veteran doing well in the first round and the emerging star beginning the second by making quality adjustments and finding his range. Unfortunately, the bout was halted midway through the round after O’Malley inadvertently pointed Munhoz in the eye, leading to the Brazilian being unable to continue.
It goes down as a No Contest.
Munhoz banged home leg kicks out of the gate, while O’Malley offered rangy jabs, the two men operating tactically through much of the opening stanza. In the second, O’Malley was more active, offering more power shots, a lovely spinning hook kick, and a little more variety as it looked like he was settling in. But just passed the halfway mark of the round, Munhoz pressed in and O’Malley extended his hand to defend, landing a finger in each eye and forcing a pause. When the doctor came in, Munhoz was unable to continue and a the bout was waved off.
Obviously, this is a disappointing result and not the way anyone wanted this fight to go down, but as Gus Johnson once famously said, “These things happen in MMA.”
Lingering Questions for Suga Sean
It’s going to be really interesting to see what the UFC does with O’Malley next.
Now, if you wanted to skip re-booking these two, that would be fine by me as I think you can find even more interesting matchups for each of them at this point in their careers. However, I think the better course of action, given how things were playing out, is to pair them off again later this year, maybe in the fall, but make it a five-round main event fight.
We were just starting to see O’Malley have success after having no real answer to the leg kicks in the opening round, so why not get them back out there together, and see what “Suga” looks like in a five-round fight while we’re at it?
His aspirations are to be a championship contender and a titleholder at some point, so let’s start getting him experience at the championship distance and see what kind of adjustments he does or doesn’t make when fighting a seasoned veteran like Munhoz in that kind of battle.
Be sure to check out the Prelims Edition of 10 Things We Learned to catch up on what happened ahead of the pay-per-view