UFC Vegas: Muniz vs Allen - Feb 25 🇺🇸

[wandshogun09]

Yet another Saturday night at the Apex this week. Hopefully one of the last times we’ll be doing this shit…

ESPN MAIN CARD
Andre Muniz vs Brendan Allen 

Augusto Sakai vs Don’Tale Mayes 

Tatiana Suarez vs Montana De La Rosa 

Mike Malott vs Yohan Lainesse

ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS 
Erick Gonzalez vs Trevor Peek

Gabriella Fernandes vs Jasmine Jasudavicius 

Jordan Leavitt vs Victor Martinez 

Ode Osbourne vs Charles Johnson

Joe Solecki vs Carl Deaton III

Nurullo Aliev vs Rafael Alves

 

Not much better than the Andrade vs Blanchfield card, to be honest. It’s gonna get shat all over. I do think it’s a slightly better card overall just because there’s a couple of interesting fights on the undercard but I’m way less into this main event. Oh well. Can’t wait for them to finally get these shows back on the road. It’s always “fuck the Apex” in this house.

 

Andre Muniz vs Brendan Allen is a good fight. I think it’s better than the main event myself. Muniz is one of the real darkhorses of the Middleweight division to me and has been for a while. I don’t see him ever becoming champion or anything but he’s a tricky fucker to deal with and a potential banana skin for a lot of guys coming up through the rankings. Probably why there isn’t a line of 185ers who seem too eager to fight him. He’s 33 years old now, a 3rd degree BJJ black-belt and has a 23-4 record with 19 finishes. 15 of them came by submission. He’s won his last 9 fights in a row and he’s 5-0 in the UFC with 3 first round armbar submissions in there. His most notable win to date came in 2021 when he finished Jacare Souza with a brutal armbar, breaking his arm in the process.

Nasty stuff. You actually heard the snap on the broadcast. That wound up being Jacare’s last fight as well, he announced his retirement a few months later, although there have been rumblings of him returning to grappling competitions and even doing a Boxing match since, it seems the Muniz loss was his farewell to MMA. To finish a decorated BJJ beast like Jacare with an armbar like that is a hell of a feather in the cap. Since then Muniz also armbarred Eryk Anders and then won a decision off Uriah Hall in July. And guess what? Hall then announced his retirement! Fucker’s snapping limbs and ending careers left and right.

You’d think people would be talking more about him but he’s almost the forgotten man at 185. This is where Brendan Allen deserves credit. Like I say, there hasn’t been a line of guys offering to fight Muniz. But Allen called him out after his last win. No silly fake beef, just genuinely seems to want to test himself in a tough fight, which is always admirable. He originally called for the fight to go down at UFC 283 in Brazil in January, which was even more ballsy. Not only challenging a guy who seems to be being avoided, but wanting to fight on his turf? Fair play. It obviously never got done in time but I’m glad they did make the fight. Allen’s no pushover himself either. His confidence will be high coming off a first round sub over Krzysztof Jotko in October. That was a good win for Allen. I’ve made no secret of my complete apathy towards Jotko. He’s a real dullard. The male, Polish version of Katlyn Chookagian. But he’s not easy to beat, and even harder to look good against. He was 24-6 and had just beat Gerald Meerschaert going into that fight, so for Allen to strangle him inside a round was good going. Allen’s 20-5 now, with 16 finishes and 11 submissions in his own right. He’s won his last 3 fights. This is a legit fight. I’d favour Muniz just because it’s probably gonna end up on the ground at some point and, as good as Allen is, Muniz is next level there. But Allen’s as game as they come and will be bang up for this. Really looking forward to it.

 

Augusto Sakai vs Don’Tale Mayes. Yep. Every single card has to have one of these shitty Heavyweight fights. This isn’t as bad as some we’ve been subjected to of late but it’s still not a fight I’m looking forward to. Sakai is 15-5-1 and on a horrible 4 fight losing skid. He was stopped in all 4 fights. He went 4-0 in his first 4 UFC fights, then went 0-4 in his following 4. They matched him up tough in his last 4, to be fair, but that’s the point. Losing decisively to the Overeems, Rozenstruiks, Tuivasas and Spivacs just confirms he’s not on that level and never will be. As for Mayes, he’s 9-4-0-1 and his best wins are Josh Parisian and Roque Martinez. Yeah. He got ragged about by Hamdy Abdelwahab last time out but then Hamdy got done by USADA so it’s a No Contest now. Hopefully this just descends into some wild, sloppy, fun brawl but I’m fully expecting a shite, plodding decision. Remember when Angle, Benoit, Edge, Mysterio, Eddie and Chavo were dubbed the “Smackdown Six” when they were tearing it up in TV matches every week? Well Sakai, Mayes, Parisian, Sherman, Martinez and Collier are basically the “Apex Six” and it’s the total opposite. Every combination produces pure shite.

 

Tatiana Suarez vs Montana De La Rosa is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** this time. Might seem an odd choice and I’m not sure how good of a fight it will actually end up being but it’s the one I’m most intrigued by on the whole card and it hasn’t got much at all to do with De La Rosa. She’s 12-7-1 and 1-2-1 in her last 4. Never really done much of note or been particularly impressive from what I recall. My interest here is all to do with it being Suarez’s return after a load of setbacks and a massive layoff. I’ll give a bit of backstory because I’m not sure how well it’s known. Her story is pretty crazy.

She started wrestling at just 3 years old after seeing her older brother wrestle and nagging her mum to let her do it. She fell in love with it, became obsessed and as she got older she dreamed of winning Olympic gold one day. She stuck at it and it turned out she was really good. By 20 years old, she was preparing for the 2012 London Olympics.

“Going into an Olympic year, I was like ‘I’m finally going to do what I said I was going to do - I’m going to be an Olympic champ.’ It was so close, and then it happened.” - Tatiana Suarez

The “it” she’s referring to is cancer. She went for a MRI because she was suffering with neck pain and during the scan they found it.

“They said ‘By the way, you can’t wrestle anymore. There’s a node on your thyroid you have to get checked out, it might be cancerous.’ I’m like, I’m 20 years old! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me. So I go there and they tell me it’s definitely cancer and I need to get treated. I was like, what? It was a very difficult time. I stayed to myself. I didn’t involve my family too much.” - Tatiana Suarez

It took a long time for her to get through it and get the all clear but during her recovery she discovered Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which naturally led her to MMA. By 2014, she was making her MMA debut.

“I was in a really low place when I found MMA. Wrestling was very serious to me. It was everything, it wasn’t a hobby. Even in high school, I didn’t have a social life. I didn’t go to prom, I didn’t even walk at my graduation! I was at Olympic trials. I had a higher goal and it was all about getting that gold medal. So when it didn’t go my way, it was very hard to find my way back. But I did. Now I’m here. I’m trying to be the best in the world at this now. I feel like people have seen one percent of what I can do. When everything starts coming together, I 100% believe nobody will be able to stop me.” - Tatiana Suarez

She came into the UFC through The Ultimate Fighter back in 2016, won the Strawweight tournament and then followed up with 4 more wins in the UFC. By the summer of 2019, she was undefeated at 8-0 and had beaten Alexa Grasso, Carla Esparza and Nina Ansaroff (now Nunes) in her last 3 fights. The fact that she was a high level grappler in a division more heavy on strikers had people thinking the sky was the limit for her. She brought a different skillset and posed different problems than anyone else in the division at that time. It all seemed to be lining up perfectly. Then it all went wrong again. Another neck injury has seen her forced to the sidelines again. She was scheduled to return in 2021 against Roxanne Modafferi but again had to withdraw through injury. Just fucking brutal. She’s still undefeated, she’s still relatively young at 32 years old, but she’s now been on the shelf for a whopping 3 and a half years. We’re only a week away from the fight now. Hopefully she can finally stay healthy and start making up for lost time. Who knows how she’ll look now? She was thought to be possibly the next big thing at one point. All bets are off now though. She just needs to get back in there, get herself a win and go from there. She’s moving up to Flyweight as well. Things are getting very interesting. Shevchenko’s got her upcoming defence against Grasso next month. There’s always that Taila Santos rematch, we’ve just seen Erin Blanchfield emerge as a fresh challenger. Suarez obviously has a lot of work to do but if she can get back on track she can add her name to the mix. Can’t help but root for her after all the shit she’s been through. What an amazing story it would be if she can somehow go on a run at the title against all the odds.

 

Mike Malott vs Yohan Lainesse might seem like a nothing fight at first glance but I’m kind of looking forward to seeing Malott back in there. He’s Canadian, 31 years old and has a record of 8-1-1 with all 8 wins being finishes. He got a quick submission on DWCS in 2021 and made his UFC debut in April against Mickey Gall. The way that fight played out probably had poor Mickey pining for the glory days of fighting CM Punk. It did not go well.

Timmy Malott made him do the old Flair Flop at 3:41 of the opening round. Nice debut but he sat out the rest of the year so any momentum he gained from that has fizzled away now. Lainesse is 9-1 with 6 knockouts. Got his arse handed to him in his UFC debut by Gabriel Green and that’s his only loss so far. He bounced back in September with a points win over Darian Weeks.

 

Erick Gonzalez vs Trevor Peek is a complete patch up job. They were both originally paired off with different opponents but injuries took those guys out so the matchmakers slung these two together. The UFC really hasn’t been kind so far to ‘Ghost Pepper’ Gonzalez. He got knocked out by Jim Miller in his debut, then got subbed quick by Terrance McKinney in his last fight in August. Record stands at 14-7. This’ll be Peek’s first Octagon appearance. He’s 28, undefeated at 7-0-0-1 with 7 knockouts. The one blip was a No Contest in his MMA debut due to an accidental kick in the bollocks. Aside from that, it’s been all wins and all by knockout. He stopped ex UFCer Khama Worthy in August and got another KO on DWCS in September.

 

Gabriella Fernandes vs Jasmine Jasudavicius isn’t leaping off the page. Brazil’s Fernandes makes her UFC debut. She’s 29 with an 8-1 record and 5 finishes. She’s been fighting for LFA most recently and stopped her last couple of opponents there. Jasudavicius is Canadian, 7-2 overall and 1-1 in the UFC. She won a decision off Kay Hansen in her debut but got completely schooled by Natalia Silva last time out. Not overly impressed by her but I don’t know enough about Fernandes to really judge this one.

 

Jordan Leavitt vs Victor Martinez is whatever. I don’t mind Leavitt but I haven’t forgiven him for losing to Pimblett yet. It’s too soon and he’s yet to redeem himself. He’s 10-2 and quite average really. His most noteworthy win is probably his highlight reel slam KO against a washed up Matt Wiman a couple of years back. I like him though because he gets the homophobes of the MMA fanbase (so most of the fanbase) all wound up with his Louis Spence mannerisms. I don’t even know if Leavitt is gay, nor do I care, none of our business. I just love the insecurity he provokes in the neckbearded weirdos. Don’t think I’ve ever seen this Martinez bloke. Nickname is ‘The Brick’ apparently. Like ‘The Rock’ but rectangular, I guess. Vic ‘The Brick’. He’s 13-4 and coming off a decision win on DWCS in September.

 

Ode Osbourne vs Charles Johnson is a decent enough undercard fight. Osbourne’s never gonna really advance up the ladder, especially in the stacked lower weight classes, but I usually enjoy watching him. He’s 11-5-0-1 and hasn’t really had those standout wins but he’s one of those guys I watch and think he should probably be doing a little bit better than he is.

There he is knocking Zarrukh Adashev dead back in June. Sweet finish. Problem is he then got stopped by Tyson Nam in his next fight in August. He just can’t seem to put the wins together for whatever reason. He’s a decent fighter though. I seem to recall even in some of his losses he had his moments. I’m sure he was giving Manel Kape some issues before Kape got the finish. And Johnson is just a tricky little bastard. He lost his UFC debut to Mokaev but he did manage to take Mokaev the distance and make him work for it. Since then he’s took a decision off Zhalgas Zhumagulov and finished Jimmy Flick. He also stopped Carlos Mota in the 5th round of their LFA title fight early last year. He’s no joke, he’s never been finished and he’s not easy to look good against.

 

Joe Solecki vs Carl Deaton III. Not a clue. Solecki’s a pretty good fighter from what I remember seeing of him. Solid grappling, 12-3 record and has wins over Jim Miller, Matt Wiman and Alex Da Silva in the UFC. He’s won 7 of his last 8 and the only loss was a split decision against Jared Gordon. Same Jared Gordon who FUCKING BEAT PADDY PIMBLETT in December! Never forget. Solecki was meant to fight on the Andrade vs Blanchfield card a week earlier but his opponent dropped out and here we are. Never seen this Deaton III chap. Nor did I ever see Carl Deaton II or Carl Deaton I. He’s 33 and fights out of American Top Team. His record is 17-5-0-2 and 12 finishes. Only names I recognise on his record are ex UFC fighter/jobber Justin Jaynes, who Deaton beat on points last year. And Abel Cullum, who submitted Deaton back in 2014. That’s about it on him.

 

Nurullo Aliev vs Rafael Alves has my attention. Admittedly solely because of madman Alves but a quick search on Aliev and he’s also piqued my interest. He’s only 23 years old and 8-0. Got a first round TKO on DWCS in his last fight. Still though, Alves is the ‘A-side’ here.

🤣 Little lunatic. He’s never going far, he’s got a proper journeyman record of 20-11 and he usually loses when he faces stiff opposition. But he’s a lot of fun to watch, has 15 finishes and he does have a first round submission over Marc Diakiese. His last fight against Drew Dober in the second gif there was brilliant. I loved that fight. He got put away with a body shot in the third round but it was tremendous fun while it lasted. Hopefully more of the same here. Tough test for Aliev in his debut.

 

So. Back to the Apex we go. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by wandshogun09

[kev2050]

Your commitment to these threads even with cards like the last couple is amazing. 

For cards like this, your thread is the only hype I see for them, but it manages to make me interested. 

I appreciate you Wand! 

[Egg Shen]

we all appreciate wand!

[wandshogun09]

[Carbomb]

Nothing much to add which we haven't said over the years, wand. The MMA poster award should just be called the "wandshogun09 Award".

BTW, dirty old bollocks that I am, I noticed Hailey Cowan in the write-up:

[wandshogun09]

The Jose Johnson vs Garrett Armfield and Hailey Cowan vs Ailin Perez fights are both off. Don’t know why, haven’t bothered looking, don’t really care. Shorter card is probably a good thing anyway and it’s an early kick off as well. 

[Egg Shen]

im sure they just take fights off the Apex cards last minute on purpose to make them abit easier to sit through

[wandshogun09]

1 hour ago, Egg Shen said:

im sure they just take fights off the Apex cards last minute on purpose to make them abit easier to sit through

They’ve been a bit smart/crafty this time as well because they’ve put the Rafael Alves fight as the Fight Pass opener so I’ll be tuning in from the start for that at least. I’ll probably check out sometime before the main card starts though and I’ll do my usual Sunday catch up.

The good thing is, like you mentioned before, this is the last card at the Apex for the foreseeable future. Looking at all the upcoming cards after tonight’s, all the ones on the current schedule will be in front of crowds! 

[Bruce85]

Did anyone bother watching this? 

[Dai]

I did. I wasnt looking foward to the main event, so the fact that it got cancelled didnt bother me at all. What you were left with was a perfectly watchable main card, that had a solid main event scrap, and that was done in two hours. Perfect for a show like this.

Malott looked pretty good, and finished it with a lovely head and arm. It was fantastic to see Tatiana Suarez back in there, and also look very impressive. The fact she was a weight class higher than she usually is, and still dominated the fight will send a big message to her regular weight class. If she stays injury free, shes easily looking at a title shot come the end of the year.

The Sakai fight was pretty dull, and it was clear that Mayes was easily a few levels beneath him.

The big story was, of course, Brendan Allen subbing the BJJ wizard. Huge victory for him. The striking was pretty much 50/50 for the whole fight, but bizarrely, it was Allen who dominated on the ground in R2 and then before the sub in R3. The R2 ground exchange was very strange, as Muniz didnt do anything off his back, and sort of just accepted defeat. When hes such a high level sub guy, it was very strange how bad he looked in R2 on the ground. Even the back defence that led to the finish just seemed a bit off too. Not sure what happened to Muniz. Fun fight, with a finish which will surely lead to Allen getting a nice opportunity in his next fight.

[wandshogun09]

On 2/26/2023 at 5:45 PM, Bruce85 said:

Did anyone bother watching this? 

Well I started watching this on Saturday night. Watched the prelims live on Fight Pass. Was already starting to feel a bit tired, then the main card kicked off with Megan Olivi telling us the main event was off and that was my cue to hit the sack. Not that 5 rounds of Nikita Krylov vs Ryan Spann was ever worth staying up for, I’d have never lasted. But that announcement was just the kick up the arse I needed to take a long hard look at myself and not give any more of my Saturday night to another shitty Apex card. Apparently, Krylov vs Spann has been rescheduled for the Yan vs Merab card on the 11th March. Yay 😏

I said in the opening post that I thought Brendan Allen vs Andre Muniz was a better fight than the main event. So to see it actually become the main event was kind of cool. The way the fight played out wasn’t what I expected at all though.

I don’t know if I felt it was more Allen looking class, Muniz looking a bit off or maybe it was Allen forcing Muniz to look off? Either way, there was just something about Allen going into this one. He’s never been a cocky type or that outspoken before but he made a point of calling out Muniz after his last fight, and initially wanted to do it on Muniz’s turf in Brazil! He clearly saw something in Muniz’s game that made him fancy it. And it turns out he was right. Now we know why he fancied it. He was always gonna be the better striker but, while he’s definitely no slouch on the ground, I thought Muniz would prove too much for him in the grappling. Allen wasn’t having it though. I don’t think anyone was calling Allen by submission here. That seemed like the most unlikely outcome. Muniz was weird. Seemed to just shrink in there once Allen started to get rolling. Thought he was starting to look a bit tired and demoralised from fairly early on. 

Strong win for Allen. That’s twice in a row now he’s gone in there and submitted awkward tricky fighters. Jotko and now Muniz. And he’s calling out everyone now. Since the win on Saturday night I’ve seen him call for a Sean Strickland rematch, a Chris Curtis rematch, and he’s name dropped Jack Hermansson and Dricus Du Plessis. The DDP fight would be fun.

Augusto Sakai vs Don’Tale Mayes…yeah, no comment.

The Tatiana Suarez comeback was the highlight of the show for me and a real feel-good moment. With the shite she’s been through in life, not to mention the horrid run of injuries the last few years, you’d have to be a right shithouse to not be pulling for her. Nothing even against De La Rosa but I think about 98% of the MMA world was rooting against her in this one.

Considering the massive layoff and all the setbacks, Suarez looked good here. I’ve seen people on about her chances in the title race and I get the intrigue but you’ve got to put wins like this in perspective. De La Rosa isn’t that good. She’s not awful but she’s not much cop. There’s a reason she was chosen as the first opponent back for Suarez. Not that I think they’re ‘protecting’ her, more she needed a sensible and reasonable matchup after such a long time on the shelf. Under those circumstances, she looked about as good as you could’ve expected. Controlled the pace and mostly where the fight took place, then turned it up in the second round and got the finish. You could see the relief on her face when it was over. Like a huge weight was lifted. 

I really hope she can stay healthy now and get a string of fights in. This was her blowing off the cobwebs fight. She’ll only improve and build on this if she can stay busy and get a few fight camps in now. The Flyweight division really benefits from having her back as well. Not sure who she’ll be paired up with next but there’s a few cool fights to make. I wouldn’t do it next but Suarez vs Blanchfield could be very interesting down the line given both of their grappling skills.

This Mike Malott bloke looks decent. Granted he hasn’t faced anyone that good yet but he’s handled the opposition thrown at him very well so far. Knocked Mickey Gall out cold in his debut, has a fairly long layoff and now comes back and submits Lainesse in a round. Looked like he barely broke a sweat.

Trevor Peek got the first round finish in his UFC debut against Erick Gonzalez and somehow looked kind of terrible at the same time 🤣 it’s weird criticising him when he got a first round knockout but he looked sloppy as shit the whole fight really. Gonzalez was ragging him about and then when they were striking Peek’s punches were just flailing shots that looked like how a 6 year old kid would throw punches. But a couple connected and that was that. He’s got away with it so far and it’ll work against someone like Gonzalez but it’s not gonna cut it against anyone better. He won’t be dull to watch, I’ll say that for him. When do you ever see someone throwing hillbilly hammerfists in the standup? Fucking hell 🤣 

Why couldn’t Jordan Leavitt have done this to Laddy Paddy?

Chute Boxe style! Not much else to say about this one. It was over before it ever got going but I was happy to see Leavitt back in the win column here.

I enjoyed the Ode Osbourne vs Charles Johnson fight. Close one and they were well matched but I felt like the right man won. Just about. Neither are ever gonna be in title contention in the UFC but both have become undercard highlights on these Fight Night cards the more I’ve seen of them.

Joe Solecki schooled new kid Carl Deaton. Gave him a proper grappling lesson, Deaton had sod all for him on the ground. In fairness, Deaton had stepped in on late notice so probably not a fair reflection. But he seemed more of a striker so jumping in against a grappler like Solecki probably wasn’t the wisest move. Hopefully Solecki gets a decent fight next. This is a guy who beat Jim Miller not so long ago, and he’s only lost once since (to Jared Gordon via split decision) yet it seems like he’s moving down the ladder if anything. I get that Deaton was a substitute but even the original opponent Benoit Saint Denis felt like a step down.

Nurullo Aliev had an interesting Octagon debut. Got the win over a tough guy in Rafael Alves, which isn’t a bad way to kick off a UFC career. They were going mad for him in Tajikistan as well.

Crazy scenes. He’s only 23 as well. Stays unbeaten and improves to 9-0. Yet another one to keep an eye on at Lightweight. Wasn’t without controversy though. The whole thing with him supposedly biting Alves’ finger. Cost him a point, which could’ve been a big deal if he hadn’t dominated enough of the rest of the fight to make up for it. For what it’s worth, Aliev is denying there was ever a bite. He’s claiming Alves was trying to fishhook and caught his finger on the teeth that way. Fuck knows? But that makes more sense to me because why would Aliev bite at that point when he was on top and in control? Whatever. Looking forward to what’s ahead for him.

Not the best show, not the worst. I actually think losing the main event improved it in a weird way. Oh well, onto 285. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by wandshogun09

[Bruce85]

I seldom skip ufc events and almost always watch every fight but despite having nothing today all day Sunday I didn’t bother with this event. I watch the main event on Monday and thought Allen looked pretty good but like you said not sure if that was down to him being on form, Muniz being off or a bit of both. Be interesting to see who he gets next. 
 

Don’t mind Spann/krylov being rebooked as long at it’s a 3 round fight on a semi decent show. 
 

But yeah, the next few events look much more promising! 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Bruce85