wandshogun09

New main event and it’s Heavyweights 🤢 In all seriousness, fair play to them for cobbling together a completely new fight on this notice, but yeah, Heavyweights. And not just any Heavyweight. Fucking Waldo. Come on Johnny.

Wouldn’t be surprised if they just bumped Suarez vs Jandiroba up to main event at this point. Not gonna be easy to find a replacement to fight Bonfim on a week’s notice.

Yeah Volk’s higher for me but Aldo was incredible at his peak. One of those fighters who raised the bar and probably directly led to the next generation upping their game, because they had to. I think Volk’s nudged past him now though and if he gets his way and gets the crack at Gaethje at 155, and wins, it’s a wrap at that point. Volk moving up and winning a second division’s title, on top of the body of work he already has, would absolutely cement his position at the top of the pile. We’re talking about two all time greats regardless though. There’s room on the Featherweight Mount Rushmore for both.

If you’d have asked me before Saturday, I’d have said that if Yan wins it’ll probably be Yan vs O’Malley 2. If Merab wins it’ll probably be Merab vs Song Yadong. Just because I doubt they’d have gone with Merab vs O’Malley 3. But I’m not so sure now. Song was there in attendance on Saturday, they kept showing him on camera during the Yan post-fight bit and it felt like they were pushing Song as being the next in line. Things can change and they love O’Malley. I wouldn’t be surprised if they throw him at Yan instead. Song KOing Umar really put him in the conversation but as much as I don’t like O’Malley, he did beat Song as recently as January so he’s got a good argument to be ahead of him.

Yeah, I think if there was any doubt that Volk is the Featherweight GOAT, that’s gone now. I think that debate is over. The other two in the conversation are Aldo and Holloway and, not only has Volk beat those two head-to-head (three times in the case of Holloway!), I think he’s pretty much outdone what they were able to accomplish during their great title reigns as well. And not just 145, he’s gotta rank high in the overall GOAT convo at this point as well, hasn’t he? I remember when Jon Jones beat the shell of Stipe Miocic at MSG a couple of years ago, and in the fallout I was reading all sorts of cobblers from his fans about how Jones was “the GOAT” and “the debate is over now” and all that. No denying Jones has an all time great legacy at Light Heavyweight but I never got why his fans were crowing about the GOAT stuff after that win. I genuinely believe the version of Stipe he fought that night adds practically nothing to Jones legacy. If he wasn’t the GOAT before that night, that wasn’t the win that was gonna get him over that line. This Evloev win for Volk is kind of like if Jones would’ve taken that Aspinall fight and demolished him. Even for a hardcore Jones hater like me, I would’ve had to give him his full due for that and to beat a legit Heavyweight who was young, in form and dangerous like Aspinall would’ve been legacy boosting stuff for Jones. Volk is that guy. To go in there at 38 and, not just hand the younger, undefeated, nailed on top contender his first loss but to put him away inside two rounds, is some special stuff. I don’t think anyone was calling Volk by stoppage. I’d even convinced myself Evloev was gonna beat him. Very happy to be wrong. What a legend. Volk with his old man there. Not sure what’s next now. Despite how good he looked here and how great the win was, I think we all know this isn’t gonna go on much longer. Despite what he says I don’t think Volk’s gonna have many more fights. He keeps pushing to go up to 155 again and do the champ vs champ thing against Gaethje and even said “That’s something I’d retire for. If they want to give me that opportunity, win or lose I’d retire”. I don’t know. I can’t say I’m really feeling a potential Volk vs Gaethje fight but it’s what Volk wants and he’s kind of earned the right to call for something like that. It’s not like the 145 division has a bunch of obvious challengers at this moment either. I keep seeing people mention Jean Silva and I guess he would be the guy at 145 but he’s coming off a win over a Jose Delgado who was a substitute opponent. Volk reckons he could do the fight without holding up the Featherweight title picture but the main problem I’d have with Volk vs Gaethje is that it holds up the Lightweight title picture even longer. We’ve already had Gaethje sitting on the sidelines since June, with zero timetable for when he might return and he keeps hinting that he might retire. You’ve got Tsarukyan, Topuria and Pimblett all there. Throwing Volk into the mix now really muddies it even more. I don’t know. I can’t really see the UFC doing Volk vs Gaethje myself though, just because there’s a high chance that they both just retire straight after the fight and then what? One fight resulting in two titles being vacated and two divisions left in shambles. I know the UFC have never cared less about this stuff than they do right now but even by their standards today I think they’d rather avoid that if they can. Yan vs Merab 3 was class. Incredible fight and the best of their trilogy for me. One of the best fights of the year. Like the main event, I was back and forth on who I thought would win this and I picked wrong again 😂 went with Merab on points in the end, part thinking his insane schedule last year might’ve burnt him out and also after hearing Yan had back surgery early this year. Well you wouldn’t have known he’d had back surgery watching this. I do think burnout played a part last time for Merab and he started stronger here than in their last fight. Even knowing that Yan’s typically a slow starter, after the way the first two rounds went I thought we were in for a Merab shutout. But Yan got back in it, kept defending the takedowns and started busting him up to the body again and by the time the 5th round came I had them 2-2 but Yan had the momentum. It all came down to that last round. And I honestly can’t remember the last time a trilogy came down to the final round of the third fight. In the end, Yan just pulled ahead again and did more damage. Right man won. I wasn’t sure he could replicate that career best performance in December, especially coming off the back surgery, but he did it again. What a trilogy. Each fight was better than the last and, like I said, everything came down to that last round. The 15th round of their series. You’d never have watched that first fight in 2023, seeing how badly Yan got dominated, and predicted he’d come back and win the trilogy 2-1. I keep seeing people say Yan “solved the puzzle” and I get what they mean. He did solve it for himself. The thing is, I’m not sure there’s another guy in the division who can do what Yan did against Merab. Who else has that combination of five round conditioning, insane takedown defence and accurate and damaging striking? Maybe someone might have one or even two of the three but I think you really need all three against Merab. Otherwise your only real chance is to just catch him with the perfect shot. The ‘puncher’s chance’. I don’t think Merab slows down in the third round against anyone else because nobody else would’ve defended about a million takedowns in the first 10 minutes like Yan did, forcing Merab to work even harder than usual. Even as great as Aldo’s defensive wrestling was, he was able to defend Merab’s takedowns but he couldn’t separate himself from him and got held against the fence over and over again. Yan was able to 1) repeatedly defend the initial takedown, 2) create separation and 3) punish Merab with strikes. And not only that, his choice of strikes being heavy on body attacks just added to his success and drained Merab’s gas tank. I know Merab’s 35 now but I genuinely think this is more of a style thing than any kind of decline. Yan’s laid a blueprint out on how to beat Merab but I don’t think anyone else can follow it. And even Yan had to go deep into the trenches and basically concede the first couple of rounds to make it work. Gotta be Song Yadong or Sean O’Malley next for Yan. Both would be rematches but still feel kind of fresh. Guessing they’ll go with Song considering they seemed to be pushing that more on the broadcast. Lone’er Kavanagh getting the first round finish over Temirov was really impressive and a great way to bounce back from the Royval loss. Temirov was being talked about as a bit of a dark horse or boogeyman of the Flyweight division and I did think it might be a rough one for Kavanagh, especially coming off a loss. Needn’t have worried… Sweet finish. Kavanagh’s a funny one. He always seems to lose the fights I think he’s gonna win but then looks great in fights I think he’s gonna lose. Great to watch either way though. Don’t think there’s been a dull moment yet from him since he signed with the UFC. I’d love to see him put a win streak together now, find some real consistency and eventually challenge Josh Van for the strap. With or without the belt, I think there’s a FOTY contender to be had with those two somewhere down the road. With both still in their 20s it seems inevitable they’ll cross paths sooner or later. Volkov vs Kuniev was pretty much exactly as expected from what I saw of it. Had the show on live and I took the opportunity while this fight was on to use it as a piss break, snack grab break. Looked a bit of a plodder. I like Volkov, just don’t really enjoy his fights much these days. Still, glad he won and I did like his post-fight interview. Aaron Pico made short work of Losene Keita in the main card opener. Think everyone expected this to end inside the distance. Seemed like the safest bet on the card for a finish. I actually felt a tad disappointed, to be honest. I was hoping for a bit more of a back and forth and a few more fireworks before it ended but whatever. Didn’t even look like much, just landed on the sweet spot and Keita’s legs were all over the gaff. Great win for Pico this. And I liked that he mixed some wrestling in there in the short time the fight lasted before finish as well. I still don’t see him going all the way because he’s always gonna have that tunnel vision aggression which puts him in harms way and I think that’ll be his undoing again at some point. But I’ve liked what I’ve seen from him in these last couple of fights. Very vocal on the mic after as well, although I felt like the call for a Lerone Murphy rematch was a waste of time. Can’t see that happening yet. Wouldn’t mind seeing them just rebook that Pico vs Arnold Allen fight that was meant to happen on this card. Dominick Reyes got back on track in a big way, stopping Murzakanov in a round. Solid win for him. Murzakanov’s gone from undefeated to getting chinned two fights in a row now. Tough times. And he’s already 37. Anyone catch Reyes absolutely going in on Cormier on Twitter after? Not a fan of DC’s commentary at all apparently. Seemed a bit out of the blue here, I don’t think DC said anything bad about him on this card. Must’ve been something that’s been bugging Reyes for a while. And, to be honest, his overall point wasn’t wrong. DC is arse on comms. Yakhyaev blew through Krylov without much bother. Krylov’s not great and he’s seen better days but this was a definite step up for Yakhyaev compared to the absolute jobbers he’d been fed previously, and he still treated it like a total squash. Not sure how good he actually is but I’m interested to see how he does now as he goes up in levels. Abus Magomedov choking Cam Rowston all the way out and hitting the Nate Diaz pose in the process is the best thing he’s done in the UFC by far… Still don’t really rate him but at least there’s something else to talk about now besides the time he shat the bed against Strickland. Didn’t catch much from the early prelims but did watch the Thicknesse vs Chopurov fight on the Fight Pass bit. So much for Chopurov’s hype eh? Close fight but Chopurov wasn’t nearly as impressive as I’d hoped/expected given all the stuff I’d heard and read about him going in. Still young enough to potentially bounce back but this was obviously far from the ideal debut.

Main and co-main event announced just now for the Toronto card in January. @Bus Surfer it’s happening, Prates vs Morales for the interim belt…

I flip flopped so much in that last post that you might’ve missed it but I did talk myself back around to predicting a Merab win this time. It’s partly just me thinking he might’ve been burnt out last time but also, to your second point there, this stuff about Yan having back surgery in January makes me wonder if Yan will be as effective at defending against Merab’s relentless onslaught this time. We’ll see. The usual fight day shite. Remember it’s an early start. Prelims kick off in less than two hours! Going with Evloev, Merab, Temirov, Volkov and Pico on the main card but I’m really not confident in any of them. Yan vs Merab I’ve gone into at length. I’ll go Merab by decision. Main event I was initially leaning towards Volk and I really hope he wins but I’ve let the doubts creep in this week and I’ve got a bad feeling Evloev wins on points. Can see Temirov taking a decision by grinding out Kavanagh but I hope it’s more of an action fight. And Volkov should win. He should beat Kuniev but who knows at this point? And who cares? Pico vs Keita feels like a bit of a coin flip as well but I’m feeling a Pico KO win in a wild one. Which probably means he’s getting chinned again. Don’t wanna jinx it but I could see this being one of those main cards with mostly close fought, gruelling decisions that people are calling ‘boring’ tomorrow, whether they are actually boring or not. The opener Pico vs Keita feels like the most likely to end with a bang. But I reckon there’s a very high chance we see the top four fights all going the distance. After a few cards full of finishes, I can see there being a load of moaning about this card in the aftermath but there’s way more quality on this one. I’ll take the higher possibility of a bunch of decisions on a card of mostly well matched fights with actual stakes and top level fighters over a card full of quick finishes in meaningless regional level fights that you won’t even remember by Tuesday every time.

Yeah I’d be all for Morales vs Prates. As annoying as it is that Makhachev is so inactive, I think Morales vs Prates is the fight I actually wanna see most in the 170 division at the moment anyway. More than Makhachev against either of them, or anyone really. I love that pairing. It’s mad though how much of a mess the titles in the UFC are these days. Feels like almost all the divisions now have inactive champions and vacant/interim titles. Heavyweight - Gane vs Hokit got promoted to ‘undisputed’ solely because Aspinall vacated. Light Heavyweight - Champ Ulberg out with a blown out knee. Wouldn’t be surprised to see an interim created soon. Middleweight - Champ Strickland is currently at odds with the UFC over pay. Fuck knows when he next fights? Welterweight - See above. Makhachev out. Possible interim. Lightweight - Champ Gaethje out until at least next year but has been making noises about weighing up whether he even wants to fight again or just retire. Featherweight - Volk! Legend. Defending tonight against the undefeated top contender. Flyweight - Van! Active, young and fresh champ at the top of a really exciting, thriving division. Women’s Bantamweight - Champ Kayla Harrison defending against Amanda Nunes next month. But Harrison kills herself to make 135, is coming off a neck injury and has been quoted as saying she’s not cutting to 135 again after the Nunes fight. So could be another vacated or interim belt coming up by the end of the year. Also, Harrison is already 36 and Nunes in 38. Women’s Flyweight - Natalia Silva just won the vacant title by beating prelim4life Wang Cong, after Shevchenko relinquished it. Strawweight - Mackenzie Dern is champ but only because Zhang Weili vacated to challenge Shevchenko at Flyweight. And Zhang hasn’t fought in almost a year now and is 37 years old anyway. So she’s probably on the way out soon. Fuck me. Typing it all out like that, it’s even more messed up than I thought 🤣 it’s literally just Volk and Van holding the fort. The rest of the title pictures are a shambles at the moment.

It’s Yan vs Merab 3 day so I’m revisiting their last fight before the big rubber match tonight. If you wanna refresh your memory on their first fight from 2023, I did a full review of that in the UFC 323 thread last year before the second fight. But basically, both came in hindered by hand injuries and it was a one-way traffic decision for Merab. This was their rematch in December last year. It was the last title fight of 2025 and I don’t think anyone expected much more than another successful title defence from Merab. And probably in another lopsided points win. I know that’s how I thought it’d go. As good as Yan is/was, I think the general consensus was that his peak had come and gone and it was Merab’s time. That feeling was only strengthened by the fact that Merab had already defended the belt three times already in 2025 with dominant wins over Umar Nurmagomedov, Sean O’Malley and Cory Sandhagen. Whereas Yan was coming off a win over mid level Marcus McGhee in a solid but unspectacular performance. It felt like Yan was only even getting the title shot because Merab was burning through challengers at such a rate that there wasn’t really anyone else to slot into that position at that moment. Felt like another run of the mill title defence for Merab. And a win here would see him set the record for most title defences in a calendar year at four. Merab was already being talked about in the GOAT 135ers conversation at this point and he seemed to be a lock for Fighter Of The Year. Merab Dvalishvili©️vs Petr Yan - Bantamweight Title UFC 323: Dvalishvili vs Yan 2 December 6th 2025 Las Vegas, Nevada Usual PPV commentary squad here of Jon Anik, Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier. And Marc Goddard is on refereeing duties. Yeah I completely dismissed Yan’s chances going into this rematch. The way the first fight played out plus with Merab going from strength to strength since that first fight, becoming champ and the momentum he had coming into this one, I just couldn’t see past another one-sided decision for him. I hoped Yan would make a bit of a fight of it but I definitely didn’t expect it. My interest in this fight was pretty much all based on seeing if Merab could make history and get that fourth title defence in before the year was out. Here we go. Round 1: Yan immediately coming forward as the fight starts and Merab seems happy to strike a bit for now. He lands a few decent punches early. He’s never been a great striker but he’s definitely shown improvements in that area in his last few fights. He looks comfortable on the feet here early on. Yan trying to get his jab going. Halfway through the first round and Merab hasn’t made any attempts at grappling yet. Big right hand by Yan stuns Merab for a second… Merab didn’t look majorly hurt by it but it definitely registered. With that one punch alone, Yan has already done better than he did in the first fight. That’s how one-sided it was back in 2023. Yan sticking the jab in his face and now Merab wants that takedown. It’s a struggle though and Yan defends it. It was never gonna be easy. The one thing Yan did really well in the first fight was defend takedowns. Apparently Yan defended 38 of them in the first fight. Thirty eight! Insane. The problem was Merab just kept on him and Yan wasn’t able to make anything count on the feet. Like the first fight, Merab is finding it hard to get the takedown here but he’s able to clinch up and stifle Yan against the fence for a good chunk of the end of the round. It’s 10-9 Merab for me. Yan had that one big punch but I don’t think it was enough to win him the round. Round 2: Merab going the takedown route much earlier in this round. Took him less than 20 seconds to shoot in. Again though, Yan’s defending it beautifully. Merab has to abandon it. Yan has gotta be one of the best anti-grapplers of all time, right? Crazy how difficult he is to take down and keep down. And fuck me… Yan actually takes Merab down! Incredible. Doesn’t last. Merab rolls through and ends up taking Yan’s back briefly. But very impressive that Yan was able to hit that takedown on him at all. Merab has the waistlock and they stand up but now Yan rolls out of it. This is great. They throw hands for a second and Merab immediately goes for the single leg. Yan not only defends it on one leg, he’s landing strikes as well. Defending and doing damage at the same time. I wish more fighters would or could do that. Merab still managing to mostly neutralise Yan against the fence late again though and that’s never how you wanna end a round. They finally separate with seconds left in the round. Yan with a hard right and Merab lands a few punches. And that’s another round in the books. Gotta say, I’ve got it 10-9 Merab again. Could see it for Yan but, as impressive as the takedown was, he wasn’t able to do anything with it. And Merab controlled more of the round. Round 3: Yan marching forward again to start the round and he’s throwing kicks to the body and head. They don’t really find their target but it shows that Yan has no fear of Merab’s takedowns, for him to be kicking that freely. Merab’s nose is looking mashed up now, well even more than usual. Merab lands a nice right hand and hooks Yan’s head like he’s going for a standing guillotine. Yan’s having none of it, picks him up and just dumps him on his head… Christ. Merab pops back up right away but eats a couple of digs on the break. Merab trying to strike but Yan is starting to bust him up a bit now. He’s getting the better of the punching exchanges and lands a good knee. Merab’s face is starting to show the damage a lot as well. He’s still in it though. Yan is straight back up, Merab holds onto the waist and drags him back to the mat, Yan’s back up again. This is absolutely gruelling stuff. Yan’s defended it again though and breaks free. Back in striking range and, at this point, it’s pretty clear this is not where Merab wants to be. He goes for another single leg but Yan stuffs it again. Another couple of half hearted attempts to initiate takedowns come nowhere near. It’s starting to look a bit desperate for Merab now. The commentators seem to be trying to start the ‘Yan is slowing down’ narrative but this is by far his best round so far. Yan with a body kick, stops another takedown and lands a couple of punches. Yan’s defended so many takedowns here I haven’t even attempted to keep count. Nice knee to the body by Yan. Around 20 seconds left in the round… And Yan blasts Merab with a fucking horrible kick to the body. Merab actually lets out a scream and can’t help but kind of hunch over for a second, grimace and go on the retreat. Brutal kick. He’s lucky it was the end of the round because he manages to just tie Yan up for the last few seconds and survive. Obviously a Yan round that. The clearest by either man so far. Into the ‘championship rounds’ we go. Round 4: Merab coming out with a little bit more urgency here, goes for a takedown right away but Yan hits a lovely switch. Merab goes for a guillotine but Yan’s defending it well, pops his head out of danger and now he’s on top. They’re back up and Yan with a knee to the body on the break. Bit messy now on the feet, both throwing but nothing significant landing clean. Merab’s only throwing to try to open up his chances to grapple but Yan’s basically shut that down at this stage. Looks like Yan connects kind of on the top of the head/temple area and has Merab on wobbly legs again. Merab gets through it and recovers but Yan’s all over him now. Merab looks completely out of ideas and physically he looks proper battered now. He tries again for a takedown, Yan again defends it easily and then rips in a nasty left to the body… This is miserable for Merab at this point. Everything he tries, Yan has an answer for and it’s usually a painful one. Merab’s tough as shit, there’s no doubt about it. Because some of these shots to the body would’ve easily folded a lesser fighter. Somehow he’s gutted through it but Yan’s just walking him down and slowly dismantling him here. Yan tries that spinning punch thing he did in the Sandhagen fight but it doesn’t quite connect. You can see he’s feeling it though. He is looking tired at this point, anyone would, but he’s in the zone here. Merab still throwing punches in the dying seconds as Yan walks towards him like the Terminator. Another clear Yan round. So I’ve got them even at 2-2, or 38-38, going into the last round. But the momentum of the fight is clearly with Yan. Round 5: Yan coming out with side kicks to Merab’s knee now. As if Merab wasn’t suffering enough with his face now looking like raw mince and his body in bits. Now you’re gonna try to kick his kneecaps backwards? Little bastard. Merab just getting into a sloppy Boxing match now, right until Yan digs a fist into his body again and he immediately goes for another takedown. No luck and Yan continues the mugging. Anik tells us Merab has gone a dismal 2-25 on takedown attempts and we’re 22 minutes into this 25 minute fight. Jesus. Merab’s face is pissing blood, his nose is clearly broken, he’s been battered to the body, the commentators said something about his jaw being injured. And on top of all that, mentally he’s gotta be completely frazzled and frustrated beyond belief because he can’t get anything going at all here. Merab with a desperation guillotine attempt that goes nowhere and there’s only about 90 seconds to go now. Yan with another devastating body kick… Merab’s facial expression there says it all, doesn’t it? Just complete and utter despair. That’s the face of a man who really wishes he took the day off work. To Merab’s credit, there’s no quit in him. He soldiers on like he has through the rest of the punishment he’s soaked up in this fight. But it’s crystal clear that this is a battle he can’t win on this night. He goes for another takedown, because at this point what else can he try, and Yan shuts that shit down again and knees him right in his already smashed up face for his efforts. Merab still throwing punches with his face falling apart in the last minute, bless him, just trying to make something happen. Yan with a headkick and… In the dying seconds of the fight, Yan puts one last exclamation point on a truly great performance. And that’s it. It’s a wrap. And it’s obviously another Yan round. So my final scorecard is 48-47 Yan. Which is closer on paper than I thought I’d have it but Yan didn’t really fully turn the heat up until the last three rounds. I felt like Merab probably edged the first two rounds. I could definitely see the case for having it wider for Yan though, either by giving him another round or maybe there’s an argument for a 10-8 in there. Because he certainly won his rounds more convincingly than Merab won his. Regardless, however you chop it up it’s a Yan win. He gets redemption, evens the score with Merab to 1-1 in their trilogy and he’s the champ once again. Winner - Petr Yan by unanimous decision. I’m not even exaggerating when I say I genuinely think this from Petr Yan was one of the absolute greatest title fight performances in MMA history. When you factor in who he beat, how he did it, how he rebounded from that one-sided shutout in the first fight, the fact Merab had been steamrolling the whole division coming into the fight. It was a special kind of performance. Easily the best of Yan’s own career but it ranks among the best I’ve ever seen in all my years watching this stuff. Completely unexpected as well, as I said. You look at other high level, all timer performances, like say Volkanovski’s third win over Holloway, it was as elite a performance as it gets but Volk winning that fight in itself wasn’t necessarily unexpected. This one was both a phenomenal performance from Yan but also in a fight he wasn’t even expected to win. I don’t think enough was made really of how incredible a win this was. I think fans and media move on to the next thing so quickly these days because of the endless schedule but now the third fight is upon us, people are remembering ‘oh yeah, Yan did something pretty amazing there’. How does Part 3 go then? Honestly I don’t even know what to think anymore. I was so sure going into that last fight that Merab was gonna go 2-0 and move onto the next contender. Yan shocked me and totally flipped the whole thing upside down. My initial thought was that I do think Merab fighting so much last year probably did cause some level of burnout and that could’ve been a factor. I do believe there’s something to that. I keep saying ‘Merab had already defended the belt three times in 2025 before that Yan rematch’ but when you really look at Merab’s schedule, it’s even worse than that. If you go from the Sphere card in 2024 where he won the title from O’Malley, he actually fought five times in 15 months. And these were all title fights, so he was basically in constant training camps all that time, training for five rounders against the best guys in arguably the toughest weight class in the UFC, and had five weight cuts in just over a year. Call it excuses if you want but that’s fucking mental. I still give Yan the bulk of the credit because he fought out of his skin. But I can’t help but wonder if Merab was also at the end of his rope a bit with all the stress on his body and overtraining. So I was kind of thinking a rested up and fresh Merab might get it done this time. Then I saw this recent quote from Merab on the loss to Yan in the second fight… “In the second round, I really tried to get my takedowns going again. But within ten seconds, all my energy was gone, and I was like, ‘What now?’ I didn’t think I could take him down anymore. The plan was to do whatever I wanted. I said I could try to strike with him, and if I wanted to, I could take him down. I was striking with him, and he got me. Then, in the second round, I tried to take him down, and I was like, ‘What should I do now?’ In the second round, I realised I wasn’t going to win this fight, so I decided to just enjoy it.” - Merab Dvalishvili Bit concerning that. I’ve seen some comments calling him a “quitter” for this quote but this doesn’t seem like quitting to me. If he wanted to quit, there were a bunch of times in the fight where he could’ve easily found a way out. No-one would’ve blamed him or thought much of it if he went down from one of those body shots. It sounds to me like he knew from very early on that he was outgunned on the feet and he wasn’t gonna be able to get Yan down and keep him there so basically his roads to victory were closed off. Him still fighting on, gutting through some brutal moments and giving the effort he did right to the very last minute in a fight he already knew he was most likely gonna lose, that’s the opposite of quitting. But still, it does make me wonder, what can he do differently this time? Petr Yan is still gonna be the better striker. That’s never gonna change. So if he can’t get his grappling going again this time, it’s probably gonna go badly for him again. The only thing I can think is that he believes it really was a case of burnout last time. He mentions “all my energy was gone” as early as that second round. He also tweeted after that fight something about having norovirus. Who knows? But all this talk made me kind of flip and start thinking Yan might win again. Then I saw something the other day that Yan had back surgery in January. And now I don’t know where the fuck I sit with this. Back surgery obviously isn’t something you rush back from and you’re never gonna be quite the same after something like that. I imagine it’s a good few months of just recovery time before you can start living like a normal person again. And Yan’s somehow done a whole training camp and weight cut and is back in the cage within 10 months? I don’t like the sound of it. I might’ve come full circle here actually, think I’m back to picking Merab 😂

Another Apex filler card… PARAMOUNT+ MAIN CARD Gabriel Bonfim vs TBA Tatiana Suarez vs Virna Jandiroba Davey Grant vs Elijah Smith Seok Hyeon Ko vs Wellington Turman Billy Elekana vs Lucas Fernando Mantas Kondratavicius vs Wes Schultz PARAMOUNT+ PRELIMS Gabriel Lorenco vs TBA Karine Silva vs Gabriella Fernandes Murtazali Magomedov vs Jose Delano Keiichiro Nakamura vs Ollie Schmid Austin Bashi vs Lucas Brennan Priscila Cachoeira vs Nina Milosevic Jonny Parsons vs Jose Souza Mitch Raposo vs Marcos Degli Not as bad as some of the Apex shows on paper but standard stuff mostly. Bonfim vs Brady is a solid enough main event, to be fair. Might not be a barnburner but it’s a decent fight. Bonfim’s on a nice little win streak and coming off that one-sided points win over Belal Muhammad in June. And we last saw Brady getting a fairly easy decision over Joaquin Buckley at UFC 328 in May, which was a good rebound after that devastating loss to Michael Morales in his previous fight. Rest of the card isn’t amazing. Suarez vs Jandiroba’s alright but isn’t really grabbing me. I was sure those two had fought before but apparently not. Davey Grant’s usually worth a watch but he’s coming up on 41 years old now and Elijah Smith is being talked about as a bit of a prospect. Feels like they’re feeding Grant to him at this stage but we’ll see. The smashingly named Wellington Turman is back after a long hiatus, which I’m sure @Dai will be pleased about. And Murtazali Magomedov is the guy who won via Twister in his UFC debut a few months ago. It’ll do, I guess. Passes a week before the MSG card.

Jacobe Smith’s stepped in against Randy Brown in the co-main. Bit of a much needed boost to the card that, more interesting than the original Brown vs Carlos Leal fight in my opinion and a decent step up for Smith.

Good shout. No surprise really either considering how great a bumper Sarge was in his day. Maybe it’s something in the name…

Every now and then I see people talk about who took the best Stunner. As always, the answer is Bret Hart. The snap on that. Always see people say The Rock, Scott Hall or Shane McMahon took it best but they were all so over the top they look silly to me. Bret took it in such a way you thought it might’ve broken his neck. Looked brutal whereas the others looked comical.

I don’t know, I feel like if the Basharats were such a pain to deal with behind the scenes, we’d have heard something about it in the past. Farid never came across as problematic or like he had a bad attitude or anything and it’s not like Dana is usually shy about slagging his fighters off if they cause him headaches. If anything, Farid went out of his way to be a company man. He actually still went ahead with a fight after his opponent (Victor Hugo at UFC 308) came in a whopping 9.5lbs over the weight limit. This isn’t like the Mokaev situation where there was clearly shit going on with him like the time he sucker punched Manel Kape at the PI or wherever it was. When Dana hinted at him being a nightmare to deal with, it rang true. Never got that same vibe off Basharat though. I think it’s just because they see him as boring. Which is fine. It’s their prerogative who they renew or let go. I just think Dana’s waffling shite again. ‘There’s a reason he’s gone…but I’m not telling you’. Piss off. Mad though when being boring is considered a sackable offence but being a rapist, racist or domestic abuser is fine and dandy.

The thing is, even if he does go on some killer run now and starts finishing opponents left and right, that will just strengthen the UFC boot lickers stance of ‘well he couldn’t do this against UFC level guys’. But if he keeps just out working guys it’ll be ‘see, the UFC were right to not renew him’. Can’t win. You’ll never please the Dana/Zuffa arse rimmers. The narrative gets twisted regardless. I don’t think Farid’s the type to let it phase him too much though. Saw a clip of Dana being asked about this whole thing yesterday and he said something like ‘if a guy with that kind of record gets released, there’s a reason for it’. Being all cryptic again like the time he pretended he knew where AJ vs Fury was taking place when clearly he didn’t. Who knows? Maybe Farid was a massive pain in the arse behind the scenes or something. But I doubt it myself. Given what we know about 2026 Dana, I suspect he doesn’t even know who Farid is so didn’t know how to answer the question, but wanted to sound like he was in the loop.