UFC Vegas 47: About Last Night...
Detailing what happened inside the Octagon on Saturday and what it means for the athletes and divisions going forward
Strickland Still Rolling
Sean Strickland collected his second straight main event victory and sixth straight triumph overall, working behind his jab for five rounds to out-point Jack Hermansson in Saturday’s finale.
Officially, it was a split decision, but no.
The fight was ostensibly decided in the first when Strickland stuffed a pair of Hermansson takedown attempts along the fence, as doing so forced “The Joker” to engage the streaking American on his terms, which has been a losing battle for everyone as of late. Standing in striking range for the duration of the bout, Strickland worked behind his sharp jab and smooth defensive movements, sticking Hermansson with short, crisp shots and rolling out of the way of much of what the Swedish-born middleweight offered in return.
While Hermansson had a little more success in the fifth when he started to throw caution to the wind and chase a finish, Strickland still managed to read his rhythm, take the best that came at him, and return in kind. With the win, the 30-year-old moves to 20-0 as a middleweight, and 25-3 overall.
There is absolutely nothing exciting about how Strickland fights, but goddamn the guy is effective. As Paul Felder said during the fight, he has five-round fight conditioning because he’s putting himself through hard, live rounds in the gym on the regular. While some question his love of going hard and live, it clearly works for him, and after two years on the sidelines, Strickland has rattled off five wins in 16 months to move into contention in the middleweight division.
One of Those Fights That Just Doesn’t Make Sense
Nick Maximov edged out Punahele Soriano in the co-main event, landing on the happy side of a split decision verdict in a fight that stands out as one of those verdicts that does not make any sense to me.
In the first and second, Soriano thoroughly out-landed Maximov, connecting with a high percentage of his shots and taking little damage when the Nick Diaz Academy representative took him to the ground. Even in the third, when Maximov repeatedly dragged Soriano to the deck, he did little with the takedowns, opting to hold position and keep the Hawaiian on the ground for long stretches while offering no real meaningful offence. Scoring the fight at home, I had it 29-28 for Soriano, giving Maximov the third, as he controlled the majority of the frame and the Hawaiian’s responses were nowhere near as sharp or powerful as they were earlier in the contest.
Two of the three judges disagreed, with one official, Douglas Crosby, awarding Maximov all three rounds.
I’m going to have to watch it back with nothing else going on, but having been over the scoring criteria countless times, I’m surprised the damage done by Soriano throughout the first two rounds, when Maximov’s control time was less than half a round in each frame, didn’t carry more weight, since damage is supposed to be what the judges are looking for, particularly when things are close.
Yes, Maximov dragged Soriano to the canvas multiple times, and threatened with a choke early in the fight, but he didn’t advance positions, didn’t amass any significant stretches of control time, and didn’t hurt Soriano; he just held positions.
It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Still Undefeated
Shavkat Rakhmonov is a threat in the UFC welterweight division and showed that once more on Saturday night, pushing his record to 15-0 with a first-round stoppage win over Carlston Harris. Now 3-0 inside the Octagon with three finishes, the surging fighter from Kazakhstan is ready to graduate from being a prospect to facing Top 15 competition.
Early in the contest, Rakhmonov was patient, getting a read on Harris’ movements and sorting out his range before stinging the veteran from Guyana with a spinning back kick that landed clean. The two clinched along the fence and Harris did well to scramble to his feet after Rakhmonov hit a lovely throw to get him on the deck, but soon after, “Nomad” spun again, connecting with a heel kick to the dome that sent the 34-year-old clattering to the canvas once more.
Rakhmonov gave chase, connected with a series of heavy shots, and put Harris out, sealing the victory in a little more than four minutes. The 27-year-old welterweight entered as one of the best prospects on the roster, and showed Saturday that it’s time for a step up in competition. He has a diverse arsenal and looks like the real deal, so why not get him in there with someone with a number next to their name and find out if that’s true or not?
Mission: Accomplished
I can’t say for sure, but I would hazard a guess that this is what Brendan Allen was thinking when he volunteered to replace his teammate Phil Hawes opposite Sam Alvey this weekend went something like this: “I lost in December, so lemme get in there and get a victory over a guy that hasn’t won a fight since 2018.”
And that’s exactly what he did.
After avoiding danger through the opening half of the first round, Allen found success in the late stages of the frame, stinging Alvey and putting him on the deck momentarily before the horn halted the action. Buoyed by how the first ended, the 26-year-old came out more aggressively in the second, catching Alvey with a short left hook inside that once again put him down. Allen followed him to the deck and fished his arm under Alvey’s chin, securing the choke without any hooks and squeezing out a tap.
This was the kind of performance Allen needed following his loss to Chris Curtis to close last year, and is the type of effort you want to see more frequently from the Sanford MMA representative. Allen has a ton of natural talent and has shown flashes of real upside, but he’s struggled to find real consistency thus far. Saturday’s win is a step in the right direction, but the real measure of how impactful this victory is will come whenever he returns to middleweight and faces someone else on the fringes of breaking into the rankings.
Bryan Battle, Still TUF 29’s Top Middleweight
Bryan Battle already won the middleweight competition on Season 29 of The Ultimate Fighter back in August, beating Gilbert Urbina by second-round submission. But he was originally scheduled to face Tresean Gore, who was scratched from the contest due to a knee injury, postponing the contest until Saturday night, and when the totals were tallied, it was Battle that emerged triumphant.
The Team Volkanovski member controlled the action in the first, throwing a lot of volume and out-hustling Gore, with the tides turning in the second as Gore found a home for some power shots that clearly hurt Battle. Level at one round each heading into the final five minutes, gore connected with a couple individual shots, but Battle’s output and overall effort was greater, resulting in his winning the round on all three scorecards and securing the victory.
Gore is the more impressive physical talent and you can see why people would be high on him as a prospect, but Battle has shown resilience and tenacity through his first two fights, while also understanding that output and diversity of attacks can carry you pretty far in these early UFC appearances. Two or three years from now, who knows how these two will stack up, but this weekend in Las Vegas, Battle was the better man, proving conclusively that he was the top middleweight on TUF 29.
Every Bit the Wild Opener We Expected
Julian Erosa and Steven Peterson beat the living shit out of each other in the opening bout of the main card, spilling a ton of blood, landing spinning attacks, and just straight up got after it for 15 minutes, with Erosa coming away on the happy side of the split decision victory in what was easily the most entertaining fight of 2022 so far.
When folks were questioning the quality of this card, this one serving as the opener should have been an indicator that it was going to be an entertaining main card because Erosa is humanly incapable of having an entertaining fight and Peterson is pretty well impossible to put away. That’s not me speaking with the benefit of hindsight either:
Peterson is an attacking fighter from the Fortis MMA crew who is tough to put away, which means Saturday’s main card opener is fixing to be a slobberknocker, and if that doesn’t excite you, I don’t know what to tell you.
That leads me to think we’re going to get a 15-minute battle, and in a fight like that, I’m not sure if I should favour the guy with the more dynamic offence and the greater chance to find a finish or the guy that has more frequently shown he’s capable of going the distance in a gruelling, drawn-out battle?
Win or lose, Erosa is good times, and this fight played out exactly as anticipated, delivering all kinds of excitement to start the main card and proving once more that you don’t have to be a big name to put forth a helluva fight inside the Octagon.
Preliminary Card Thoughts & Highlights
John Castaneda made a statement in the final preliminary card fight of the night, running level with Miles Johns through the opening five minutes before taking over in the second and putting the Fortis MMA representative to sleep with an arm triangle choke early in the third.
Castaneda pressured from the outset, bring the fight to Johns and staying in his face at every turn. After things were close in the first, with Johns looking to set traps and land heavy counters, the 30-year-old veteran turned up the pressure and pace, hurting Johns in a couple spots. As soon as the third began, he was right back on the hunt, stinging Johns again before climbing into position and sinking in the fight-ending choke.
This was an outstanding effort from the former Contender Series competitor, who has earned back-to-back finishes to solidify his place in the division and likely earn himself a step up in competition next time out.
Calgary’s Hakeem Dawodu looked sharp in returning to the win column with a unanimous decision victory over Michael Trizano. The Canadian featherweight came out more aggressive to start the contest and got into a rhythm early, attacking all three levels and mixing up his strikes against the game former Ultimate Fighter winner.
Dawodu had his five-fight winning streak snapped last time out by Movsar Evloev, an unbeaten emerging star in the division, but bounced right back on Saturday, solidifying his position as one of the most technical kickboxers in the 145-pound weight class. He chopped at Trizano’s lead leg early, popped his head back with clean jabs, and work beautiful left hooks to the body throughout, offering up the kind of variety that keeps opponents off balance and allows him to get in his bag and do work.
Wrestling is always going to be a question mark with Dawodu, but he’s steadied himself just outside the Top 15 with this victory and should get another established name next time out.
Sometimes nicknames don’t make sense or are dumb. Sometimes, they call you, “Chidi Bang Bang” and you go out and register a 15-second knockout win in his promotional debut.
Chidi Njokuani walked out, hit Marc-Andre Barriault with a clean one-two right out of the gate, dropping the French-Canadian and quickly pounding out the finish. A 28-fight veteran prior to make his UFC debut on Saturday, Njokuani wasn’t a typical Contender Series graduate, and he showed it this weekend, running through a streaking, tenured middleweight to put himself right in the thick of things in the 185-pound weight class. After a quick win, he should get a quick return, and has the potential to make a real impact in the division in a very short period of time.
Veteran Alexis Davis navigated her bout with Julija Stoliarenko to get back into the win column on Saturday, with the tandem combining for the bloody, competitive affair everyone expected. The main point of interest — at least for me — was the late first-round upkick that resulted in a brief pause in the action, but no point deduction.
Here’s what happened: with less than 30 seconds remaining in the round and Davis working from top position, Stoliarenko, who is an armbar specialist and was hunting all frame, straight up kicked Davis in the face. While she was just looking to create space and not necessarily clip the Canadian, she did, with force, prompting referee Mark Smith to call “time” and bring in the doctor. After making sure Davis was good to continue, Smith put them back in the same position, re-started the fight, and away we went.
Here’s what I want to know: if fighters aren’t going to be penalized for clear and obvious fouls — intentional or otherwise — what reason is there for someone to not try to get away with whatever they can in order to gain an advantage? We joke about it all the time, but honestly, what’s the point if you’re never penalized?
Stoliarenko’s kick clearly had an impact on Davis, and although she was fine to continue and still won the fight, it was clearly a foul and should have cost the Lithuanian a point, at least in my opinion.
Remember the name Jailton Almeida.
The DWCS grad absolutely mauled fellow Brazilian Danilo Marques to collect a first-round stoppage win in his promotional debut, pushing his winning streak to 10 in the process. Mere moments into the fight, Almeida put Marques on the deck and he never let him back up, patiently biding his time before working to mount and raining down hammerfists to secure the finish.
There was a ton of hype behind Almeida coming out of his Contender Series victory, and while I have been taking a “let me see them again” approach with most of the members of the Class of ‘21, including Almeida, I’m sold on his upside now — not because he beat Marques, but because of how he did it. This was one-way traffic from start to finish and the 30-year-old newcomer looks like the goods.
Philip Rowe scored his second straight victory on Saturday, rebounding from getting out-wrestled in the first to stop Jason Witt. “The Fresh Prince,” who owns a massive reach, finally got loose with his hands after spending the first six-plus minutes getting wrestled, and put Witt down, connecting with a clean right hand to collect the finish.
Watching Rowe start slowly and not utilize his reach right away honestly had me thinking about just how impressive it is that Neil Magny comes out, gets on his bike, and gets pumping that jab every time out. We talk all the time about reach advantages and how impactful it can be, but you’ve got to use it in order for it to matter. If Rowe starts using it consistently, he’ll continue to climb the ladder.
Folks are going to downplay the result because of how the stoppage occurred, but Malcom Gordon turned in an impressive effort in the opener, taking the fight to newcomer Denys Bondar before the Ukrainian was forced to tap after he suffered a left elbow dislocation early in the opening stanza.
The Canadian veteran clipped Bondar right out of the gate, prompting the debuting flyweight to change levels and look for a takedown. Gordon immediately attacked a triangle choke before shifting to an armbar, torquing Bondar’s arm at an uncomfortable angle. While Bondar escaped, Gordon stayed heavy on an overhook as they scrambled, and when Bondar went to post on his left arm, his elbow gave out, halting the fight. It’s not how Gordon drew up collecting a second straight victory, but he looked sharp out of the gate and the finish wasn’t a fluke — the armbar surely caused the damage that ultimately resulted in the fight-ending injury.