wandshogun09

Coming off a barmy UFC 300, it’s back to reality, back to the mundane routine and back to the Apex… ESPN MAIN CARD Matheus Nicolau vs Alex Perez Ryan Spann vs Bogdan Guskov Ariane Lipski vs Karine Silva Jhonata Diniz vs Austen Lane Jonathan Pearce vs David Onama Tim Means vs Uros Medic ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS Rani Yahya vs Victor Henry Austin Hubbard vs Michal Figlak Don’Tale Mayes vs Caio Machado Marnic Mann vs Ketlen Souza James Llontop vs Gabe Green Ivana Petrovic vs Liang Na Hayisaer Maheshate vs Gabriel Benitez A little bit of a comedown from 300 🤣 Doesn’t help that the original Nicolau vs Kape 2 headliner fell apart but, looking at the entire card, there’s really not much at all to like about this. Even by Apex standards, I think this is at the lower end of the scale in terms of quality. Couple of bits I’ll actively seek out but I get the feeling I’m gonna be skimming through a LOT of this. So yeah, Matheus Nicolau vs Alex Perez tops the bill. Not an amazing headliner by any stretch but I’ll take this over a lot of the rotters they’ve served up at the Apex. It’s not a Heavyweight, Middleweight or Holly Holm fight so it’s at least a step in the right direction! Worth pointing out that this was originally supposed to be Nicolau vs Manel Kape 2. A rematch of their Apex clash back in 2021. But true to form, Kape withdrew. He’s become one of the most frustrating fighters on the roster for me. Talks a load of shite about everyone else but when it comes time to get in there and back it up, he calls in sick a lot of the time. Seriously, one look at his Tapology page will tell you all you need to know. In his UFC stint, he’s had more cancelled fights than fights he actually showed up to. Nicolau vs Kape 2 was actually supposed to go down in January but - surprise, surprise - Kape missed weight and the fight got scrapped. So they rescheduled it for this card and, once again, Kape’s out. Rib injury this time, apparently. Who cares at this point? Nicolau’s a very decent fighter. Currently ranked #5 in the Flyweight division. He’s Brazilian, just turned 31 years old and holds a record of 19-3-1 with 10 of those wins coming inside the distance. He was initially on the UFC roster in 2015 but was let go after one loss (harsh) to Dustin Ortiz in 2018. He went away and won a couple of fights and was brought back in 2021. That’s when he beat Kape by decision. He beat Tim Elliott and Matt Schnell after that but he’s mostly gone under the radar really. Looking over his record now, I watch pretty much everything but I can’t say much of it is jumping off the page as particularly memorable. I don’t recall anything bad, he’s just fairly nondescript and has kind of blended into the background on a bloated roster. Especially in the Flyweight division with the logjam we’ve had there at the top end over the last few years. Not many new contenders have been able to really break away from the pack and stand out with all the endless rematches but that cycle seems to have been broken for now. Time for the rest of the 125ers to step up. Nicolau was on a solid 6 fight win streak before getting knocked out by Brandon Royval in his last fight last April. So it’ll have been a whole year on the shelf for him by the time he walks up the Octagon steps here. Alex Perez is taking a bit of a risk here. He’s already coming off 3 straight losses so jumping in on short notice here mightn’t be the wisest move. Depends how you look at it though. If he loses this fight, obviously a 4th loss on the trot wouldn’t be good, but him stepping in and ‘saving the card’ here will no doubt earn him some brownie points with the UFC big wigs. Under these circumstances, even losing a 4th straight, he’d likely get another chance. Perez fought recently as well. He lost that dull decision against Muhammad Mokaev in early March. So he shouldn’t have strayed too far out of condition. And in fairness, his 2 losses prior to that were against Pantoja and Figgy. No shame there, obviously! Perez is a funny one for me though. He’s clearly not good enough to beat that elite level of Pantoja/Figgy. But he did stop Jussier Formiga in a round with leg kicks that time. And the thing I think has really hurt and hindered Perez in recent years has been his lack of activity. His last 3 fights have all had long gaps between them. He lost to Figgy at the end of 2020, was out a good 18 months before losing to Pantoja in mid 2022, then had an even longer layoff before the loss to Mokaev in March this year. If nothing else, the quick turnaround here is better than that. That’s that then. Not a fight I’m gonna be counting the days to but it’s not bad or anything. It’s a weird one really because it’s far from ideal circumstances for either man. Nicolau’s coming off a year out and Perez is taking it on short notice and is on a 3 fight losing skid. Who the fuck knows? Hopefully this goes ahead though regardless. Hate to even mention it and possibly put a jinx on it but it’s not like Perez is any better than Kape for showing up to fights. Again, I’m looking at his Tapology and it’s pretty grim. Since his UFC debut in 2017, Perez has fought 10 times. And he’s had 13 scheduled bouts cancelled! And worryingly, 10 of those fights that got binned were in the last few years. His sicknotes are becoming more frequent. Had to chuckle really when Kape dropped out and they called Perez. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if this fight goes ahead, to be completely honest. Ryan Spann vs Bogdan Guskov as co-main is rotten but it’s the Apex so it’s about what we expect these days. I don’t know, maybe it’ll be better than my low expectations but I can’t pretend I give much of a bollocks. Typical Light Heavyweight. You know the drill. Outside the top few 205ers, it’s generally shite. It’s Heavyweight but with slightly less flab. Spann’s been on the roster since 2018 now and has first round finishes over the likes of Little Nog, Ion Cutelaba and Dominick Reyes. He’s also somehow gone to a split decision with Sam Alvey so there’s that. He’s coming into this fight off back-to-back losses to Nikita Krylov and Anthony Smith. And speaking of Anthony Smith… I do find it kind of amusing that Spann has gone 0-2 against Anthony Smith and now here he is trying to get one back against Smith’s doppelgänger. Guskov is from Uzbekistan, 31 years old and has a record of 15-3, all finishes. He made his UFC debut on the Paris card in September but got subbed in a round by Volkan Oezdemir. He bounced back in February with a brutal first round knockout over Zac Pauga. Can’t see him amounting to much but he hasn’t bored me yet, which is more positive than I can be about most of the lower end of 205. Hopefully this exceeds my expectations. It’d be difficult not to really. Ariane Lipski vs Karine Silva is a fight I’m kind of into actually. Not in love with it or anything but it should be worth a look. I’ve been neither here or there on Lipski for most of her UFC career. She’s far from the worst fighter in the Flyweight division but she’s just been a bit too inconsistent to really put a proper run together. She’s only just turned 30 and she is coming off 3 wins now, so maybe she’s turned a corner. She had possibly her best showing yet last time out, armbarring Casey O’Neill at UFC 296 in December. Karine Silva is why I’m interested in this one though… Haven’t seen a ton of her but what I have seen I’ve liked. She’s Brazilian, she’s also not long turned 30 and she’s 17-4 with all her wins coming inside the distance and she’s on an 8 fight winning streak. She made her UFC debut in June 2022, subbing Poliana Botelho in a round. Then she absolutely mangled Ketlen Souza’s knee with a horrible leg lock in June last year. Then in her last fight in August, she guillotine choked Maryna Moroz in a round, avenging a loss from when they first fought way back early in her career. As always, it remains to be seen how far she can go and it’s not like she’s been beating a who’s who of opposition. But so far, she’s handled business the way any solid prospect should. Can’t ask for any more than that. Jhonata Diniz vs Austen Lane is the obligatory main card Heavyweight offering. Every Apex card has to have one for some reason. Not even gonna dump on it. I’ve never seen Diniz before and I’ve seen very little of Lane. So I can’t really say much about it, positive or negative. Diniz is making his debut here. He’s Brazilian, 32 years old and undefeated at 6-0…all first round knockouts. He also has a 22-7 Kickboxing record with 15 knockouts and went the distance with Rico Verhoeven on a GLORY card back in 2013. Lane’s 36 years old and a former NFL player. He transitioned to MMA in 2017 and he’s 12-4-0-1 with 12 finishes, mostly by KO/TKO. He made his UFC debut against Justin Tafa last June but it ended as a No Contest due to an eyepoke. They rematched in September and Tafa chinned him in about a minute. So either Diniz stays undefeated or Lane gets that elusive first UFC victory. Hopefully it’s short and sweet either way. Jonathan Pearce vs David Onama is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** on this show. Wasn’t spoilt for choice here was I? This is a fun one though, on paper. Pearce is one of those decent fighters that, for some reason, I took a bit of a disliking to early into his run and I can’t even put my finger on why. Something about him just bugs me. So needless to say, I was quite pleased to see him get submitted by Joanderson Brito in his last fight in November. He was on fairly good form before that though, rattling off a 5 fight win streak and beating Christian Rodriguez and Darren Elkins along the way. Make no mistake though, Onama is the reason I wanted to highlight this one… We haven’t seen him since last June but he’s been nothing but entertaining to watch so far in the UFC. If for some reason you never saw his 2022 fight with Nate Landwehr, fix that immediately. Fuck, even if you did see it, watch it again. Legitimately one of my favourite fights of the last couple of years. He lost a close decision that night but it was one of those losses where it felt like his stock was only raised by it. The fight was that good. Then he came back in his last fight and knocked out a game Gabriel Santos after a tough opening round. Can’t go wrong with basically any matchup you throw Onama in. He’s fought 5 times in the UFC, he’s gone 3-2 in results but when it comes to delivering fun fights, he’s 5-0. Looking forward to seeing him back in there. Tim Means vs Uros Medic might just be the sleeper on this card for me. Not a fight that immediately jumps out at you but I can see it being a good old scrap. Means is one of my favourite journeymen in the game. He’s a guy I’ve always enjoyed watching fight but it feels like he’s been around forever. He turned 40 in February and this’ll be his 51st pro MMA fight. Over the years he’s beat the likes of Nicolas Dalby, Thiago Alves, Mike Perry, John Howard and Bobby Green. He was in a slump recently, losing 3 on the bounce, but he snapped that losing streak in his last fight in September, stopping Andre Fialho in a really entertaining slugfest that got FOTN. Medic is the younger man at 30 and has a record of 9-2 with none of his 9 wins going to the judges. He’s had a few pretty exciting fights himself but comes into this one off a nasty neck crank submission loss to Myktybek Orolbai in November. I like this pairing. Rani Yahya vs Victor Henry is alright. Quite like both of these two, to be fair. I just don’t really know what to expect out of the matchup itself. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Yahya for some reason. He’s one of the last men standing from that ‘one trick pony’ era of MMA. Turns 40 in September, has a record of 28-11-1-1 and he’s been around long enough to have fought the likes of KID Yamamoto, Joseph Benavidez, JZ Cavalcante, Mark Hominick, Mike Brown and Chad Mendes. A veteran of WEC and the underrated K-1 HEROS promotion before signing with the UFC in 2011. He’s got no real striking to his game, in 40+ fights he doesn’t have one finish via KO/TKO. He’s a grappling specialist. But even still, he’s managed to win 2 of his last 3 fights. He’ll have been out of action a whole year by the time this fight gets underway though. At pushing 40, not ideal. Henry is 36 with a 23-6-0-1 record and trains under the legendary Josh Barnett. We last saw him in October getting his ballbag kicked in by Javid Basharat. Obviously all groin strikes are horrible but this was a particularly bad one. The fight was stopped and ruled a No Contest and Barnett said after that when they went to the hospital post-fight, Henry’s sack had “swollen to the size of a satsuma.” Lovely. Basharat was a complete twat about it as well, to add insult to injury. Went from denying the kick was low at all to calling Henry a quitter for not just shrugging it off. He shouldn’t have to worry about being hit low in this one though because, as I’ve said, Yahya doesn’t strike much at all. Austin Hubbard vs Michal Figlak might be decent. Hubbard’s 15-7 and this is his second UFC stint. After a mixed bag of results in his first run between 2019-21, going 3-4 overall, he was let go. He went away and got a couple of wins in 2022 then went on the TUF season last year coached by McGregor and Chandler. He made it to the finals but got submitted by Kurt Holobaugh at UFC 292 in August. This is his attempt to rebound. Poland’s Figlak is 27 years old and 8-1 with 4 finishes. He came into the UFC with some high expectations after a successful run in Cage Warriors. He made his Octagon debut in September 2022 on the first ever UFC card in France, but lost on points to Fares Ziam. He was out all of 2023 and will have been inactive for around 20 months by the time he steps into the cage here. Don’Tale Mayes vs Caio Machado. Vomit. I can say right now, I’ll be skipping this. I watch almost everything, even on these crappy Apex cards, but life’s too short for this shit. Mayes isn’t very good. He’s 10-6-0-1 and his career highlight has been his TKO win over an old, washed up Andrei Arlovski last summer. And in typical ham and egger fashion, he followed that up by losing a nothing happening decision to Rodrigo Nascimento in his next fight. And Machado has only fought once in the UFC and I’m already done with him. He’s 8-2-1 and lost on points to Mick Parkin in November in an awful plodfest. Marnic Mann vs Ketlen Souza. No opinion on this. Haven’t seen enough to care. Mann is 31 years old and 6-2 with 4 finishes. Made her UFC debut in September and lost a decision to Josefine Knutsson in a fight I don’t think I even watched. Souza’s 28 years old with a record of 13-4 and 9 finishes. She made her first Octagon appearance last June and it ended painfully for her when she got kneebarred in less than 2 minutes by Karine Silva. It was a bloody horrible kneebar as well. I remember on the replays you could actually see her kneecap completely shift 🤢 I’m actually surprised she’s back less than a year later, to be honest. James Llontop vs Gabe Green. Not sure. Never seen this Llontop fella. He’s Peruvian, 24 years old, 14-2 with 8 finishes and on a 12 fight win streak. And this’ll be his UFC debut. He won a decision on DWCS back in September and here we are. Green is in desperate need of a win here. He’s been in the UFC since 2020, has gone 2-3 since and is coming into this fight off back-to-back losses. And in his last fight he got bulldozed and knocked out by Bryan Battle in just 14 seconds. That was last May, so he’s had 11 months to sit and stew on that loss. Feels like they’re trying to set him up for another fall here but we’ll see. Ivana Petrovic vs Liang Na. Can’t say I’m arsed. I’m not really familiar enough with either of them. Petrovic is Croatian/Norwegian, 29 years old and has a 6-1 record with 5 finishes. She won the Ares Flyweight title in 2022 and successfully defended it with a 4th round submission in April last year. All sounded good but then she lost a decision in her UFC debut against Luana Carolina in July. Instant hype killer that. Could’ve been partly down to the old ‘Octagon jitters’ but losing to Luana Carolina is never a good sign. And China’s Liang is really floundering. She’s 27 years old and 19-7 with 17 finishes. But she’s gone 0-3 in the UFC so far and she’s been finished in all 3 losses. And it’s not even like she’s been facing elite opposition. Ariane Carnelossi, Silvana Gomez Juarez and JJ Aldrich have all managed to get her out of there in 2 rounds or less. Hayisaer Maheshate vs Gabriel Benitez is an OK fight. Could be fun. Maheshate made a hell of a first impression in his UFC debut a couple of years back, sparking Steve Garcia out cold in about a minute. It was some knockout. Reminded me a bit of Paul Daley’s KO against Scott Smith in Strikeforce. Garcia completely faceplanted. The old Flair Flop. It’s been all downhill since then though. He lost a decision to Rafa Garcia in his next fight and then got knocked out himself by Slava Claus in his last fight in May last year. He’s 9-3 overall now. Still only 24 years old, he’s got some time. Benitez is probably on the home stretch of his career. He’s nearly 36 now and has gone 2-5 in his last 7 fights. Not good. We last saw him getting face cranked into submission by Jim Miller in January. Back to the Apex…

Obviously I hope it’s a troll job and there’s nothing serious going on with Garcia but that clip there, the way the camera pans out to reveal a completely bamboozled Haney just cracks me up 🤣

I read someone, pretty sure it was Luke Thomas, saying they don’t count cases where a fighter hits the canvas and immediately bounces back up to their feet as official knockdowns. Obviously in Boxing is a clear cut knockdown but apparently not the case in MMA. Fucking stupid, if you ask me. So next time Holloway fights, they’re gonna keep trotting out the “he’s never been knocked down” spiel when we all saw Gaethje punch him and put him on his arse. No matter how brief a time he was down, it should count shouldn’t it? Gaethje physically knocked him down, so by definition it’s a knockdown. Yeah. His first couple of post-fight outbursts were quite funny but this one didn’t really hit for me. It seems like he’s run out of things to rant about and he’s trying too hard now. It’s just “MOTHERFUCKER, I’M BRAZILIAN BUT I LOVE AMERICA! I WANT TO BE A COP HERE IN AMERICA AND KILL THE MOTHERFUCKING BAD GUYS. I WANT MONEY! I WANT BONUS! MOTHERFUCKER! PPV POINTS! AMERICA! MOTHERFUCKER!” Everyone’s lapping it up but it’s getting really old for me already. His best moment on the mic is still this and it’s not even him who makes it funny, it’s Hadzovic and then Bisping’s chuckle in the background.

Forgot to mention this. Apparently it wasn’t counted as an official knockdown. Not sure why. A punch was thrown, a punch was landed, an arse hit the canvas. It was a knockdown. Shit, there’s not much positive Gaethje can take from this fight at all. They can’t give him that at least? Thinking about this card again, another thing I forgot to mention is how amazing it is that the card all stayed intact. Unless I’m overlooking something, I don’t think one single fight got cancelled or changed once they were officially signed. In this day and age, that’s a minor miracle! The similarly stacked 299 card pretty much stayed together as well last month. We’re gonna pay for this at some point, aren’t we? Rest of 2024 is probably gonna be in tatters.

He’s 107 years old already. So I’m guessing nothing.

This’ll be a long one. Yeah. This has to rank up there among the greatest cards the UFC have ever put on. Not sure I’d say it’s THE best. I get that people are buzzing coming out of this show and rightly so, but calling it the #1 best ever card covers so much ground. The phrase ‘recency bias’ gets overused these days but I think there’s a little bit of that with this card. But I can’t hate on the positivity and enthusiasm. And it was an incredible show. Certainly makes all the bitching about the card going in look silly. Note to future Alex Pereira opponents, do not, under any circumstances, kick him in the balls. 🤣 What a finish. Honestly looked like something out of a martial arts movie. The low blow, Herb Dean trying to step in and Pereira just casually saying ‘nah, I’ve got this’, then walloping Hill was hilarious. Proper highlight reel moment. I always find myself doubting Pereira going into his fights. Partly his relative lack of experience in MMA, partly his limited skillset overall in MMA, partly that the way he moves looks so stiff and he always just seems a bit too ‘there to be hit’. As powerful and lethal as he obviously is, he always has a slight air of vulnerability about him. That adds to the edge of the seat factor in his fights but it always has me half expecting him to get clipped as well. So I was well chuffed with this. Also happy that Pereira has now avenged the last 2 losses of Glover Teixeira’s career. Good stuff. Not a lot more to say about the fight itself. It was short and sweet and I got the result I wanted. I don’t get the feeling Pereira’s reign is gonna last long just because he made the switch to MMA so late and it still feels like there’s an obvious blueprint there to beat him which his opponents up to now haven’t fully committed to exploiting. But he’s undeniably fun to watch and definitely has an aura around him. Just enjoy the ride while it lasts. Interesting that he was pushing to get on UFC 301 in the post-fight interview. I had seen a quote from him before the fight saying similar but I didn’t pay it much attention. With how quick this fight was though, and with Pereira seemingly not taking any significant damage, he’s probably good to go for 301. Of course you never know what damage he’s taken in camp but considering he was still saying he wants on the Brazil card after this fight, he must feel like he’s up to it. The problem is though, just because he’s up for it, they’d have to find him an opponent who’s also willing to step in on 3 weeks notice. It’s easy for Pereira to do it because he’s fresh off a training camp and it would simply mean just keeping the ball rolling for a few more weeks and maintaining that conditioning and sharpness. For the opponent, they’d likely be coming in completely cold. This pic was interesting 🤔 and Pereira did mention wanting to fight at Heavyweight. But I can’t see him and Aspinall happening yet. It’d be kind of cool, I guess, but I can live without it. I’d rather see them both keep winning in their own divisions than one of them get derailed. I think it’s obvious Pereira only mentioned Heavyweight for the Brazil PPV because he doesn’t wanna have to make 205 twice in 3 weeks. Which is fair enough. Would’ve been badass if he was able to turn right back around and defend his belt against Ankalaev at 301 but, yeah, making weight twice in such a short period of time would be rough. Plus Ankalaev isn’t gonna agree to what might be his one shot at UFC gold on 3 weeks notice and no training camp, is he? The Zhang Weili fight was so weird. Not the best fight to watch but it worked out alright because I think everyone kind of needed to calm down and catch their breath after what Mad Max did in the previous fight. Talk about a tough act to follow! The end result was what I think we all expected. Of all the fights on this card, besides the Bo Nickal fight, this was the one I was most sure about. But fuck me, Zhang had me worried for a bit there. Whether it was an adrenaline dump after nearly finishing Yan twice or what, Zhang faded in the third round and I thought Yan might just run away with it. Thankfully Zhang recovered and secured the decision but it looked a bit iffy there in the middle. It’s funny though, on a card where so much of the talk was about ‘making history’, Zhang has a legitimate claim here to having beat Yan via submission, TKO and decision all in one fight! That’s a first right there. Seriously, I thought Yan was done at the end of the first round from that choke. She was out and very lucky the fight wasn’t called off there and then. She was gone. Then in the second round when she had the back mount and was just raining down strikes, I thought the ref could’ve easily stopped it then as well. Then obviously, Zhang ended up winning on points. Sod it. I’m saying she subbed her, TKO’d her and decisioned her. Count it as 3 successful title defences in one night. Max Fucking Holloway! What more can you say? One of THE single greatest overall performances I’ve ever seen in all my years watching this mad sport. It was a pretty straightforward fight to score. I think everyone had Max 3-1 up going into the last round, with Gaethje only winning the 4th. Max absolutely didn’t need to take any crazy risks in the 5th. Watching him stand there with 10 seconds left in the fight and basically throw down the gauntlet was one of those moments that will be replayed in video montages and promos endlessly. He’s done it in fights before but never on a card as big as this, in a fight as big as this and against an opponent as lethal as Gaethje. To go up in weight, against a killer like Gaethje, pretty much school him for 3 of the previous 4 rounds, then do that at 4:59 of the 5th! One bastard second to go in the fight. Insanity. And it’s mad because just think about if that went wrong. I haven’t seen much talk of that because everyone’s understandably jizzing over what did happen. But Gaethje has arguably the heaviest hands in the Lightweight division. Just imagine if he cracked Max there and sparked him. That was a very real possibility and if that happened, Max’s decision to just throw caution to the wind in that last 10 seconds would be being looked at right now as probably the dumbest move in UFC history. Again, it’s a risk Max didn’t have to take but here we are. He did it and it levelled this fight up from what would’ve already been a mega impressive performance to a nailed on all time great moment and one of the best knockouts ever. Unbelievable. It’s gonna be retconned to fuck now after the fact, and I’ve already seen a bit of it, but never forget that when this fight was originally announced it was met with a lot of doom and gloom about what was gonna happen to Max. A lot of fans looked at his last venture up to 155 and seemed to decide that because he lost that fight (in a FOTY war against an animal in Dustin Poirier, I might add) that basically closed the door on any chances he had to do well at 155 ever again. I know Gaethje is a beast but some of the talk I saw going into this fight, acting like Max was a lamb heading into the lions den, was ridiculous. As the fight got closer I started to think Max was gonna win. Wasn’t sure of it, but something about him in the build up gave me a tad more confidence in him. Plus from early on when the fight got made it looked like he was more prepared for the move up in weight this time, looking a bit bigger and stronger physically. I had some doubts about whether that could hinder his speed but that obviously turned out to be a non factor. He looked fantastic here. Hopefully we can now put to bed this impression some seemed to have that Max is on the decline. It seems like since the losses to Volkanovski, people have been trying to zip the bodybag up on Max’s prime. I remember seeing a fair few predicting he’d lose to Arnold Allen last year. There wasn’t so much of that before the Korean Zombie fight but I think that was more because everyone knew the Zombie was on the way out himself. But the amount of people I saw completely counting him out against Gaethje was nuts. Not just predicting he’d lose, I can understand picking Gaethje, but predicting he’d get badly fucked up and like he was out of his depth going up to 155. Losing a war against Dustin Poirier doesn’t mean you can’t beat other Lightweights. This fight was the perfect redemption and ‘fuck you’ to the doubters for Max. The KO itself was the cherry on top but winning like 20 out of the 25 minutes before that really proved he can hang at 155 and that he’s far from done. He had Gaethje hurt a bunch of times, including badly in the 5th even before the KO. Is this next for Holloway?! It seems like we’re getting Topuria vs Volk 2 first but fuck knows at this point. Topuria vs Holloway always seemed like a cool fight for down the road but after this and then Max calling out Topuria in the cage, then the camera cutting to Topuria in the crowd looking in shock. I think I wanna see it more than the Volk rematch next but Volk absolutely deserves another crack for the reign he had. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Seems like there’s a few really fun options for Max now. If it’s 145 there’s the Topuria fight. If it’s 155, it doesn’t make much sense but don’t tell me you wouldn’t be all over Holloway vs Oliveira for the BMF title. Then there’s the outside possibility of Holloway vs McGregor 2 maybe? Really enjoyed the Tsarukyan vs Oliveira fight. I know we already had 3 title fights on this card but, looking at how this fight played out, it’s a real shame this wasn’t 5 rounds. I agreed with the decision. Seen the usual cries of robbery but I think a lot of that is just because people like Oliveira more. He did have the more memorable ‘moments’ as well. He definitely won the first round and that guillotine looked tight. Tsarukyan did well to survive that. But Tsarukyan answered by winning round 2 in dominant fashion and, while Oliveira had the late sub attempt in round 3, I didn’t think the rest of the round was close enough for that lone sub attempt to tip it in his favour. Tsarukyan was winning for 4+ minutes before that. Right man won but, like I said, I wish it was 5 rounds. Oliveira was always dangerous and it felt like it was just starting to really heat up at the end of the third. Rounds 4 and 5 would’ve been very interesting. We talked about it in the Fight Announcement thread but Tsarukyan was offered the title shot backstage immediately following the fight and turned it down. I get it. I’m sure he’d love the shot if he could get some rest first and then get a full training camp in. But jumping straight back into camp now for a fight on June 1st isn’t the best. That’ll be why they’ve gone with Makhachev vs Poirier. The right move now, with that fight only 6-7 weeks away, is surely to just let Tsarukyan rest up and face the winner in Abu Dhabi in October or something. But you know what Dana’s like. He throws a tantrum when he gets told “no” and I’m sure he’s got the hump with Tsarukyan now for turning the fight down. But Tsarukyan challenging the winner of Makhachev vs Poirier is the most logical way for this to go now. Bo Nickal predictably beat Cody Brundage. As he was supposed to. Nothing much to read into this. I’ve made no secret of the fact I think Brundage is total shite. So if anything, him lasting deep into the second round wasn’t a good look for Bo. Don’t get me wrong, Bo was in control the whole fight and was never in any danger. But if he’s gonna be as good as he talks himself up as, he should’ve been steamrolling this bum within 5 minutes. I don’t know. It’s another win for Bo and it’s still early days so I don’t even have a problem with the matchmaking. But I can’t help but finding myself wanting to see him lose. He was pretty humble in the post-fight interview but he talks so much shite usually and it’s not even in a charming or charismatic way. He just comes off as a bit of a twat to me. And the UFC/Dana bumming him doesn’t help. Dana was right there as he left the cage apparently giving him a pep talk and shit, which you never see him do usually. Something about these golden boys/chosen ones that instantly makes me wanna see them get derailed unless they’re insanely likeable or something. Bo isn’t. Apparently Khamzat tweeted something criticising Bo’s performance and Bo went “I’m getting finishes, this guy’s going to decisions”. Because finishing Val Woodburn and Cody Brundage is definitely in the same league as going to decisions with Gilbert Burns and Kamaru Usman. I know it’s just trash talk but that’s wally talk. Jiri Prochazka vs Aleksandar Rakic was a lot of fun. It was a fight I was looking forward to but nowhere near as much as some of the others on this card. And a lot of that was down to not knowing what to expect from Rakic. He was coming off such a long layoff here and I’d been underwhelmed by him a couple of times even before the injury. But I thought he was looking really good early on. It’s odd because he had 2 years of inactivity and this was probably his toughest opponent to date but I honestly thought he was looking better in that first round than I can remember him ever looking. Even into the second round, I was getting the feeling he was well on his way to winning. Jiri was being Jiri and, despite his odd movement and wacky style, always looked dangerous. But I thought his weirdness wasn’t really working and Rakic was landing the better stuff. Until, he wasn’t… Such a stupidly fun fighter to watch. Emphasis on the stupid. And I don’t even mean that as a knock. Most of the time it genuinely doesn’t even look like he trains because no coach would recommend you fight that way he does. It’s like he just goes in there and wings it. It’s gonna end in tears eventually. In a lot of ways he reminds me of a bigger Tony Ferguson. His style looks like it shouldn’t work but it mostly does and he gets by a lot of times just by out-toughing the other guy and catching them with something off-beat or from a funny angle. But like Fergie, he puts himself in harm’s way so much that, at some point it feels like he’s gonna crash and burn in similar fashion. For now though, enjoy it while it lasts. I’ve seen Jamahal Hill call him out, wouldn’t mind that next. And I’d do Rakic vs Blachowicz 2. That’s unfinished business because the first fight is where Rakic injured his knee and they were supposed to rematch in January. Thought Aljo Sterling looked a handful in his Featherweight debut. He looked strong and actually seemed more aggressive than I remember him being in his last few fights at 135. He was coming forward and initiating the action more than usual I thought. You could chalk that up to this being his first fight in a few years that was scheduled for 3 rounds instead of 5, and I think that was definitely part of it. But I just thought he seemed to look more energetic in general and that’s surely down to not having to cut so much weight. Seen a fair bit of negativity towards this fight but I thought it was fine myself. Not gonna pretend it was mega exciting to watch and being on a card like this didn’t help it, but it wasn’t as bad as I’ve seen it made out to be. The powerbomb was quality… Rough return fight for Kattar. Coming off a long layoff and an injury only to get completely shut down and dominated like this must be utterly demoralising. It might’ve been a slightly better fight had he been more active coming in but Aljo had his way in the grappling to such an extent that I don’t think the result would’ve been any different regardless. Thought it was way harsh that they never interviewed Aljo post-fight, to be honest. Only adds to the general feeling that Aljo isn’t well liked by the bosses behind the curtain. I’ve seen people defending the UFC/Rogan not interviewing him ‘because he didn’t finish’ but that’s bollocks. I’d maybe get that if they were up against it with time constraints but the other 3 fights on the televised prelims all ended in 2 rounds or less. So that doesn’t wash with me. They definitely had time for a quick interview. You just know that choice was made via Dana calling an audible, because he hates wrestling, and telling Rogan to not give Aljo the mic. Couldn’t have been happier to see Kayla Harrison get the decisive win and finish over Holly Holm. From the second the fight was announced I was half dreading it just because it felt like it had such high dud potential. And Harrison having to cut to 135 felt like it almost guaranteed a rotten fight. I still fancied her to win, which is more indicative of my thoughts on Holm in 2024 than anything. But I wasn’t exactly confident about it. Thought she looked great though. Pretty much the perfect UFC debut and, let’s face it, about as good as you can look against the excitement repellent that Holm’s become. She looked scary here. And the UFC ruleset and her being able to use elbows is really gonna compliment her game. Made me laugh listening to the commentators being so confused and questioning why Holm was choosing to clinch with Harrison. As if Holm hasn’t been a boring clinch-and-do-nothing merchant for years on end now. Nothing against the woman personally but it was very satisfying watching Harrison just crush her here. Not only because it’s closed the door once again on Holm getting back in the title mix. But also, Christ knows the Bantamweight division has been crying out for some new blood for a long time and Harrison’s performance here was the first time I’ve been excited about anything in that wasteland of a division in yonks. Seems I’m not alone in that either… She’s got Amanda Nunes attention! I don’t know whether she was just doing this for a laugh or to keep her name out there, or whether she’s seriously thinking about coming back. I’ve got mixed feelings on that because I did feel like she got out at the right time. But I can’t lie, if Harrison keeps winning and becomes champ, then Nunes comes back to face her, it’d be the best thing to happen to the division since the Rousey days. Half the reason Nunes retired in the first place was probably because there wasn’t much in the way of exciting fights worth sticking around for. I saw Cyborg tweeting something like ‘maybe I should come back too’ or something but it’s pointless because it’s never gonna happen. She’s never gonna make 135 and she can’t fight in the UFC because she’s contractually tied to PFL and Dana hates her. Holm was ranked #5 going in. I honestly wouldn’t be shocked if they just go ahead and give Harrison a title shot now. I saw a quote from Pennington before this fight along the lines of “I’ll have a bitter taste if they let Kayla skip the line and take away the opportunity from all these other women”. By “all these other women” she means Irene Aldana, Mayra Bueno Silva, Ketlen Vieira and Julianna Pena. They’re the ones that were ranked above Holm before Saturday. Of that lot, Aldana is coming off one win but lost a lopsided decision in her title shot just before that. Bueno Silva just lost in her title shot and proper shat the bed in what’s probably the front runner for worst fight of the year so far against Pennington. Vieira’s coming off one win but lost to the current champ Pennington before that. And people are gonna argue the case for Pena but she hasn’t fought in almost 2 years when she got battered to a shutout by Nunes in a failed title shot. I’m struggling to see why any of this lot are any more deserving than Harrison. Diego Lopes did it again! As much as I’m always bigging him up I had some doubts about this fight for him. Had a feeling Super Sodiq might prove just a step too far for him at the moment. Needn’t have worried though. Blitzed him in 90 seconds. Very impressive. Yusuff’s had some losses but you just don’t see people blast through him like this. This is a guy who’s gone the distance with Arnold Allen and was coming into this fight off the back of going 5 rounds in a tough battle against Edson Barboza. And Lopes just smashes him like this? I keep saying I’m not sure where his ceiling is but he just keeps winning. And Yusuff was a ranked guy. This was supposed to be a significant step up for Lopes and he treated it like it was light work. Saw someone on Twitter suggest doing Lopes vs Yair Rodriguez on the next Mexico card. I never even thought of that but I’d be all the fuck over that fight. Can you imagine? Lopes is ace. Just a whirlwind of hair, bad tattoos and violence. Renato Moicano got it done and got to do his thing on the mic but, man, Jalin Turner must be absolutely furious with himself for letting Moicano off the hook after this… There’s obviously no guarantee Jalin would’ve ended it there if he jumped on Moicano but going for the old Mark Hunt walk-off certainly didn’t work out very well for him… Deary me. He fucked up big time and it’s gonna haunt him. Thought the finish was a bit weak actually. Moicano was dominating that second round and was dropping the ground and pound but is it just me who felt like not much of it landed? For all the ground strikes Moicano threw at the end, it looked like all but maybe one or two of them were hitting the arms. Regardless, Turner’s gonna be kicking himself watching this back. Wouldn’t be surprised if he gets another fight booked ASAP now, just to get the stink of this loss off him. Didn’t think much of the Jessica Andrade vs Marina Rodriguez fight. Andrade was aggressive as always but it just never really caught fire. Close one as well, I thought. I had Andrade winning the first round and Rodriguez winning the third. The second was the decider and, honestly, I can see the argument for either woman. I thought Rodriguez was coasting to winning that round until the last minute or so and then Andrade was all over her. Didn’t have a problem with Andrade getting the nod myself. I think she might’ve nicked that second round plus I prefer her so I was cool with it. Bobby Green vs Jim Miller was a war. Exactly the type of fight anyone familiar with these two would expect. A fight 10 years in the making but it was worth waiting for. So glad it finally happened, would’ve been criminal if these two went their whole careers just missing each other. On almost any other card, this is your FOTN. It did get rough to watch as it went on though. Miller took a bad beating. I’m vague on the scoring now but I remember him having a good first round but the second and third were just an all-out assault from Green. I had Green taking both rounds 10-8. I think the cut played a big part in Miller taking so much damage because it seemed like he couldn’t see the punches coming from that side after a certain point. Before the cut it was fairly even and still up for grabs. After the cut it was all downhill for Miller and Green just busted him up. I know he does it all the time but with all the taunting and shit talking Green was doing, I was dying for Miller to just waffle him but it never came. Shame to see Miller lose this one. Especially after winning at UFCs 100 and 200. What a tough bastard though. Even in the final seconds when he was covered in blood and all looked lost, he was still trying right to the end going for a leg lock. I know Miller changed his mind going into this fight about retiring just yet but a fight like this surely has him reconsidering that now. At 40 years old and having had such a long career and so many fights, the last thing he needed was a brutal, bloody dogfight like this. I thought maybe he’ll wait for that New Jersey PPV so he can retire in his home state but that’s early June and surely there’s no way he’s back in there that quick. Especially with a cut like that. He’ll probably fight on for a while but this was hard to watch. I liked Green’s callout of Paddy Pimblett. I’d be up for that. Not sure Paddy will be though. Figgy finishing Cody Garbrandt wasn’t a surprise to anyone but I think pretty much everyone expected a knockout. Figgy switched things up… He had mercy on Cody’s crumbling chin. Shame. I was looking forward to seeing him get flattened again. Nice of Figgy to just strangle him instead. He’s looking good at 135. Should’ve sacked Flyweight off a bit sooner. I keep saying it and I’ll keep saying it…I really wanna see Figgy vs Petr Yan or Chito Vera. Or Yan vs Chito. Any combination of those three, I want it. Figgy was actually asked by the media post-fight about possibly fighting Yan but he shut it down and said he wants a title shot? Fair enough for trying. If you don’t ask you don’t get etc. But there’s no way, is there? Not yet. O’Malley vs Merab is absolutely the title fight to make next. And even after that, Sandhagen is ahead of him and you have to think Jose Aldo will quickly be back in the conversation as well if he wins at 301 in Brazil. Hopefully the matchmakers can talk some sense into Figgy and get him in there with Yan or something. Because, as much as I’ve enjoyed Fig’s first couple of Bantamweight fights, wins over Font and Garbrandt don’t scream ‘number one contender’ do they? Barmy show. When MMA goes right, it’s something else. If there’s a better card than this to come in 2024 then we’re in for a treat.

Beterbiev-Bivol face-off. Inject this into my veins.

Maybe but when Dana initially announced Oliveira vs Tsarukyan he said it was a #1 contender fight. That lines up with why Tsarukyan was offered the title shot first. With him turning it down and Oliveira losing the only real options were Poirier or Holloway. And I think Holloway is gonna go back to 145 now so that just left Poirier.

Yeah, standard shit from the UFC but it’s bollocks that they hit fighters with that immediately after fights. No doubt Dana will turn on Tsarukyan now and claim he “didn’t want the fight” but who knows what he’s got going on physically and/or in his personal life. For him to pass on a title shot, there must be a good reason. And to be fair, turning straight back around into another training camp isn’t ideal. He’s been waiting to break through in the title mix for a while now and he’s already 0-1 down to Makhachev. He’d be a fool to accept the fight now if he feels like he can’t get a proper camp in. If he said yes and lost the fight, then he’s 0-2 to Islam and who knows when he’d get another shot? You want a full, dedicated and very specific training camp for a guy like Makhachev. And with the show only being about 6-7 weeks away on June 1st, it’s not ideal. Especially if he’s got any injuries from this UFC 300 camp or the fight itself. Or even just fearing he might overtrain doing back-to-back camps. But yeah, blindsiding fighters straight after fights to ‘negotiate’ the next fight is bullshit. Here’s my favourite example of that backfiring spectacularly…

I’ll post more when I’ve had a sleep and caught up on the stuff I missed but, fuck me, what a show. Loads of good stuff to talk about but Max Fucking Holloway man!

It’s on then. McGregor vs Chandler. UFC 303. June 29. 5 rounds at 170lbs.

Well fuck… And…

I’m going Pereira, Zhang and I’ve come around to thinking Max might pull it off the closer it’s gotten. Admittedly the Pereira and Max picks have a touch of wishful thinking to them, wouldn’t say I’m hugely confident in either getting the W tonight but I’m leaning towards both and hoping they win. Pretty sure of a Zhang win but we’ll see. Further down the card I’m actually thinking Tsarukyan might spoil the Oliveira comeback and Bo Nickal is gonna squash Brundage, obvs. On the prelims I’m fancying Aljo to beat Kattar, Jiri to KO Rakic and, fuck it, Harrison to finally put Holm out of OUR misery. Got Yusuff over Lopes as well, Turner over Moicano and Andrade over Rodrigues. Miller vs Green I’m about a dead 50/50 on but I’ll go with Miller because it’s the result I want. And I think Figgy decks Garbrandt in the curtain jerker. Oh and while I’m here, a fan caught this video last night of Jiri Prochazka just standing there, staring out the T-Mobile Arena. He was out there for at least 20 minutes according to this guy 🤣 Jiri’s a different type of cat.

I’m late but happy birthday Devon. Hope you had a good one.

Looks lovely that! Chips look perfect.