UFC Vegas: Ankalaev vs Walker 2 - Jan 13 🇺🇸

[wandshogun09]

First UFC card of 2024. And we’re back at the Apex. Of course we are. 

ESPN MAIN CARD
Magomed Ankalaev vs Johnny Walker 

Jim Miller vs Gabriel Benitez  

Ricky Simon vs Mario Bautista 

Phil Hawes vs Brunno Ferreira

Andrei Arlovski vs Waldo Cortes-Acosta  

ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS
Matthew Semelsberger vs Preston Parsons  

Marcus McGhee vs Gaston Bolanos 

Farid Basharat vs Taylor Lapilus 

Jean Silva vs Westin Wilson 

Tom Nolan vs Nikolas Motta 

Joshua Van vs Felipe Bunes  

 

Like any Apex card, not the strongest card but we’ve had worse. There is some stuff on there worth cherry picking but it’s definitely one of those cards that’s gonna be best experienced on a Sunday morning/afternoon with the luxury of the fast forward button. Bout order is right as I type this but I’ll edit when all the inevitable changes start.

 

 

Magomed Ankalaev vs Johnny Walker 2 is our first UFC headliner of 2024. Not a blockbuster or anything and I’m rarely on board with instant rematches. This one is necessary though. They met back in October at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi. I think I said going into that one, I wasn’t mega excited for that fight mostly because of Ankalaev not exactly being known for being in entertaining fights. But it started pretty hot and it was actually shaping up to be a bit of a banger. Then about 3 minutes into the first round…

Yep. Ankalaev threw an illegal knee and the fight was over. The doctor came in and asked Walker the usual questions, if he knew where he was etc. Walker replied “I’m in the desert”. Yeah, it was over. He was fucked. The messed up thing with this was that it was declared a No Contest due to an “unintentional illegal knee”. Look at that gif again. Unintentional? I refuse to believe that Ankalaev didn’t know Walker was a grounded opponent. Walker was down on one knee and, from the position Ankalaev was in, I find it hard to believe he wasn’t fully aware Walker was down. Which makes it all the more baffling why he went ahead and still blasted him with that knee. He had to know that would result in either a DQ or a NC. He’s lucky he got off with just a NC because, to me, he absolutely should’ve been disqualified. It was as blatant and deliberate looking as it gets. Yet Ankalaev, for some reason, was angry when the fight was over. As if he was the one who’d been wronged! 

Post-fight scenes were an absolute shitshow. It all kicked off and Dana White even had to get in there between them to try to calm things down. Again, why was Ankalaev angry? It was him who was instigating the situation after the fight and he had no right to be pissed off whatsoever. He caused the whole thing! What, did he really think they were just gonna ignore that Walker was down and call it a KO win for him? Fucking idiot. It was early in the fight and there was no telling how the next couple of rounds would’ve gone. But Ankalaev had him in a bad position there and instead of capitalising on that he sabotaged himself. He’s got nobody to blame but himself.

These two are actually in the title mix now as well. Ranked #3 and #6 respectively now. Ankalaev has been in the picture for a while, to the point he was even in that vacant title fight against Jan Blachowicz just over a year ago. A combination of that fight being shite and ending in a draw, plus Ankalaev only fighting once since and squandering his chance by throwing a dirty knee has meant his progress has stalled big time. Walker being in the title shot convo is something I never thought we’d see though. It just never seemed to be on the cards, I never even entertained it because it seemed so unlikely. Even in a weird division like Light Heavyweight, he was always just so inconsistent and unreliable that I never saw him putting a run of wins together that would see him climb the rankings. But here we are. He was on a 3 fight winning streak heading into that first Ankalaev fight in October.

I’m more into this now than I was the first fight. Just because it’s got more to it now with how that mess ended and there’s actually a story to it now and a bit of juice behind it. Going into that first fight, I was fully expecting Ankalaev to drag Walker into a dull fight where he’d just outwork him and do the bare minimum to get the win. But I’ve got to say, the way that fight started, Walker was bringing it and I remember a flying knee in particular that barely missed. You just never know with a madman like Walker. But nah, I reckon this plays out like I expected the first fight to. And now it’s a 5 rounder so there’s even more snoozer potential. I’ve said before, Walker’s style doesn’t lend itself to 5 rounds. Nobody wants to see 25 minutes of him. You want one or two rounds tops of utter madness and that’s it. Hopefully that’s still what we get here but either way, I think Ankalaev comes out on top, probably in the most beige way possible. Then again, he seemed so angry after their last fight (again, for reasons I don’t know), maybe that’ll be the spark up his arse he needs to really go for the kill here. There’s definitely a fun fight to be had here. We saw glimpses of it in the short time they shared the Octagon in October. But I’m not counting on it.

 

Jim Miller vs Gabriel Benitez is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** this time. And it’s all about Jim Miller. Been a fan for well over a decade now. I was in attendance for his UFC debut all the way back in 2008 at the NIA in Birmingham and he’s had so many fun fights over the years. His bloodbath with Joe Lauzon in 2012 is still one of my favourite Lightweight fights ever. Probably second only to Poirier vs Gaethje 1 for me. He’s never been in the title mix but there was a spell when he wasn’t far off.

As I type this, he holds the UFC records for having the most fights in UFC history, most wins in UFC history, most finishes in Lightweight history and he’s close on a couple of others. Doesn’t have the most stellar win/loss record, he’s 36-17-0-1 with 26 finishes. But he’s been an absolute ironman over the years. He’s fought everyone from Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard, Takanori Gomi, Duane Ludwig, Diego Sanchez, Anthony Pettis, Joe Lauzon twice, Charles Oliveira twice, Donald Cerrone twice, Dustin Poirier, Dan Hooker…fucking hell. And he’s still here. From what I can tell, he’s hanging on for one specific reason.

The Road To UFC 300 is still very much alive. TNT Sport’s Adam Catterall did an interview with Dana recently and he actually asked him about whether Miller would be on UFC 300. Dana said to consider it a done deal. So barring something horrible happening, a nasty injury or whatever, Miller’s good to go for 300! He fought at UFC 100 and UFC 200 and he’s said in the past that if he can make it to 300, he’d be satisfied with that being his last fight. It would certainly put a bow on his career nicely. And it’d be another record for him, being the only fighter to fight at UFCs 100, 200 and 300 is insane. Unlike the other records he currently holds like most fights, most wins etc, that’s one that can never be taken away. He’ll always be the only fighter to compete at those 3 events. Pretty cool. He’s still going pretty strong as well…

He knocked out Jesse Butler just 23 seconds into his last fight in June. I love that after all these years being known as a submission artist and winning gruelling decisions, he’s just casually started knocking guys out at 40 years old and 50-odd fights into his career. He rarely ever stopped anyone with strikes for years on end, now 3 of his last 4 wins have come via KO/TKO. Benitez is 35 years old and 23-10. He’s definitely a winnable fight for Miller. He’s never really in boring fights from what I remember but he’s one of those journeymen who loses every time he steps up. Miller generally doesn’t lose at this level and I expect he’ll still have enough in the tank to get the win here. With UFC 300 being in April, this will almost certainly be his last hurdle in the way before he can make it to that milestone. What a story.

 

Ricky Simon vs Mario Bautista could be fun. Simon’s looking to redeem himself here after getting a bit of a hiding from Song Yadong in their Apex headliner back in April. Simon was on a nice 5 fight win streak going into that one and had just submitted Jack Shore in his previous fight, handing Shore the first loss of his career. That loss to Song has completely derailed any momentum he was building. Simon’s a good fighter though. I don’t see him having enough about him to ever get into that top tier in a loaded division like Bantamweight but he’s probably gonna be the guy you have to get through to get there. Bautista is on the way up so we’ll see if he can get past him. He’s 13-2, on a 5 fight win streak and is coming off a decision over Da’Mon Blackshear at UFC 292 in August. He was supposed to fight Cody Garbrandt that night, which would’ve been a nice opportunity for him to get a win over a fading name and former champ. But Cody dropped out and Blackshear stepped in. Solid matchup this.

 

Phil Hawes vs Brunno Ferreira should be an explosive way to kick off the main card. Both like to deliver a KO and both have been on the receiving end as well. On paper, it’s got the recipe for a round of mayhem ending with one of them horizontal. Whether it actually plays out that way remains to be seen though. Middleweight doesn’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to delivering great fights in recent years. Hawes is 12-5 now and badly in need of a win. He’s gone 1-3 in his last 4 and all 3 of the losses were by crushing first round KO. And Ferreira was undefeated until suffering his first loss in July, when UFC newcomer Nursulton Ruziboev shut his lights off in just over a minute. Ferreira had knocked out Gregory Rodrigues in his UFC debut before that though.

 

Andrei Arlovski vs Waldo Cortes-Acosta isn’t doing it for me. The Heavyweights rarely do but something about this one really just leaves me feeling empty. Arlovski will be 45 in February. Made his MMA debut in 1999, for fuck’s sake. There’s a fair few fighters on the UFC roster who weren’t even born then. He’s been on borrowed time for years now but he’d altered his style so much over the last decade or so that it’s really given him longevity at the back end of his career that I don’t think anyone imagined he’d have back when he was on that horrific losing streak in Strikeforce all those years ago. Fair play to him. His fights in recent years haven’t been very exciting to watch but Arlovski’s so respected and liked that nobody gives him shit for it. It’s just been nice to see him getting out there, getting paid and not getting chinned. But it seems even that might’ve finally run its course now. In his last 2 fights he’s been finished by Marcos Rogerio De Lima and Don’Tale Mayes. Andrei had been stopped a bunch of times but never by low level guys like that in this current UFC stint. Maybe it’s finally over.

And that’s how Waldo Cortes-Acosta’s last fight ended. He brutally knocked out Lukasz Brzeski in a round on the Holloway vs Zombie undercard in August. I’d been very negative on Waldo going into that fight because he’d bored me shitless in his first 3 UFC outings. Just plodding, rotten decisions against Jared Vanderaa, Chase Sherman and Marcos Rogerio De Lima. Terrible fights. Made even more frustrating by ‘Salsa Boy’ Waldo pratting about dancing and taunting mid-fight as if he was prime Anderson Silva or something. That Brzeski KO was ace though. Hopefully we see more of that out of him going forward. But not this fight preferably. Really had enough of seeing Arlovski get decked to last me a lifetime at this point.

 

Matthew Semelsberger vs Preston Parsons has been thrown together pretty last minute. Bassil Hafez was supposed to fight Parsons but he’s out. Shame. Was actually looking forward to seeing Hafez again after his surprise strong showing on short notice against Jack Della Maddalena in July. Whatever. Semelsberger isn’t a bad replacement. He’s 11-6 now and coming off back-to-back losses but he’s usually good for an entertaining undercard scrap. Parsons I’m fuzzy on though. He’s 28 years old and 10-4 with 9 submissions. Lost his UFC debut against Daniel Rodriguez, rebounded with a decision win over Evan Elder but then dropped a split decision in his last fight against Trevin Giles. I know I’ve seen at least one of those fights but I can’t remember much at all about him. Hopefully Semelsberger does his usual and we get a wild brawl.

 

Marcus McGhee vs Gaston Bolanos is decent. Could end up being the sleeper of the prelims. Not that that’s saying a lot. McGhee is 33 years old, 8-1 with all his wins being finishes. He made his UFC debut in April, submitting Journey Newson. And he followed that up with this brutal first round stoppage against JP Buys in August.

OK, he hasn’t been beating great opposition but so far, so good. If you’re fighting subpar opposition and you’ve got anything legit about you, you should at least be finishing them. And McGhee is. Can’t fault him so far. Bolanos is 31 years old and 7-3 with 6 by KO/TKO. He was a Kickboxer who made the transition to MMA and fought solely in Bellator before making his first UFC appearance in April. He beat Aaron Phillips on points in what I remember being an enjoyable fight but not a spectacular performance from Bolanos. From what I recall he’s what you’d expect of a Kickboxer who made the switch to MMA fairly late. Fun fights to make with him against strikers but he’s always gonna struggle against more well rounded fighters and grappling specialists.

 

Farid Basharat vs Taylor Lapilus is an OK fight. Basharat is 26, originally from Afghanistan but moved to the UK as a kid. Can’t remember that much about him but he’s unbeaten at 11-0, beat Da’Mon Blackshear on points in his UFC debut in March, then subbed Kleydson Rodrigues in a round on the Paris card in September. I do vaguely remember him looking great in that Rodrigues fight. Lapilus fought on that same card in Paris and beat Caolan Loughran by decision in a fight that ended up having quite a bit of buzz around it because Loughran was being a bit of a twat on fight week. The fight itself wasn’t anything special but it was a nice win for Lapilus on home soil and it was his return to the UFC after a decent run outside the promotion. Not a bad matchup at all this. A young prospect on the rise against an experienced and well travelled veteran.

 

Jean Silva vs Westin Wilson is whatever. It was supposed to be Wilson against Gabriel Santos, which I was kind of looking forward to because I was hoping to see Santos get that first elusive UFC win. But he’s out. In steps late replacement Jean Silva. Not to be confused with the Jean Silva who fought in Pride against prime Takanori Gomi at Bushido 8 in 2005. He’s 46 years old and retired now. Obviously not the same guy. This Jean Silva is 28 years old and 11-2 with 10 finishes. Looking him up on Sherdog, nothing really stands out about his record but he’s on an 8 fight win streak and coming off a decision win on DWCS in September. This is his UFC debut. Wilson is 34 years old with a 16-8 record. He made his Octagon debut in July and got squashed in less than 3 minutes by Joanderson Brito. All I really remember about Wilson was that there was a fair bit of negativity about his signing at the time, and talk that he had links somehow to matchmaker Sean Shelby. Think their Mrs’ are best friends or something. He doesn’t seem much good at all, to be honest. If Silva’s any good he shouldn’t have too much hassle with him. Even on short notice.

 

Tom Nolan vs Nikolas Motta. Don’t know. Never seen Nolan before. Looking him up, he’s only 23 years old, Aussie and he’s undefeated at 6-0 with 4 knockouts. This is his UFC debut and he’s coming in off a quick knockout on DWCS in August. Not a bad start at all that. Motta’s 30 and has a record of 13-5-0-1. A right all over the place run in the UFC. This year alone he’s had to pull out of a fight because of a massive gash on his eyebrow from training, he got knocked out by an elbow in June and then in November his fight with Trey Ogden got declared a submission for Ogden initially but later overturned to a No Contest due to a ‘premature stoppage’. Don’t know, didn’t see it. But fuck me. What an odd year. Now it seems they’re trying to get him chinned by their shiny new DWCS newcomer.

 

Joshua Van vs Felipe Bunes is another late change. It was originally gonna be Bunes vs Denys Bondar but Bondar pulled out and this is an upgrade for me. I’ve really liked what we’ve seen of Van so far in his first couple of UFC fights. He made his Octagon debut (again on short notice) against the fifth Beatle Zhalgas Zhumagulov in June and put a beating on Zhalgas in a fun but pretty one sided fight. Then at UFC 295 at MSG in November, he beat Kevin Borjas on points in a really good fight. It understandably went under the radar on such a deep card but it was a corker. Now here he is again. His third fight in about 6 months and his second on short notice. He’s only 22 years old as well. Just another exciting addition to the Flyweight division. Never seen Bunes fight. He’s 34, Brazilian, trains under the Pitbull brothers and he’s 13-6 with 10 finishes. He actually signed with the UFC a while back and was briefly scheduled to fight Zhalgas himself but it fell apart. I think that was the very same fight when Van stepped in actually. So he finally makes his debut here. He’ll have been inactive about a year by the time he steps into the cage for this one though.

 

New year. Same Apex. 

Edited January 13 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

2024 and we're still putting up with this shit 

[wandshogun09]

Not good lads. Not good. Norma Dumptruck’s fight is off. Yana Santos suffered a broken nose in training. The arse has literally dropped out of this card. 

[Kfogg1991]

Christ it's started early for this one. Strap in guys we have a way to go until this show haha

[wandshogun09]

27 minutes ago, Kfogg1991 said:

Christ it's started early for this one. Strap in guys we have a way to go until this show haha

It started earlier than that as well. I didn’t bother posting it but Bassil Hafez and Denys Bondar already withdrew from the card. They’ve both been replaced. Wasn’t as newsworthy as losing Ms. Bumont though. 

[Kfogg1991]

3 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

It started earlier than that as well. I didn’t bother posting it but Bassil Hafez and Denys Bondar already withdrew from the card. They’ve both been replaced. Wasn’t as newsworthy as losing Ms. Bumont though. 

It does suck but honestly it now just feels like the norm and standard thing so very rarely does it shock or bum me out lol 

[wandshogun09]

It’s been a while. But it’s fight week.

 

[David]

I remember thinking that Arlovski was finished and washed up when he went on a four-fight skid in Affliction MMA (remember those guys?!?)

That was 15 fucking years ago!

[Egg Shen]

It is mental how he's managed to prolong his career, I feel Saturday may be the last one though if he gets chinned. It's also mental that he's a heavyweight and hasn't won via finish in nearly 9 years.

 

[Egg Shen]

There goes Manel Kape ballsing up his title chances:

 

 

[wandshogun09]

Yep. We keep talking about Flyweight being the same few faces in the title picture but really, is it any wonder? The rest of these fuckers can’t get their shit together. 

[Egg Shen]

The fight has been scrapped

[wandshogun09]

Yeah. Kape’s officially been a flop in the UFC. I was excited when he signed but, aside from a couple of bright spots, it’s just been a series of disappointments. He seems to have gained popularity lately mostly because he had a pop at Adesanya at that press conference a few months ago. That’s been the highlight of his UFC run, which is pretty sad really.

Anyway, hopefully this is the final card and bout order.

[wandshogun09]

It’s been a while but here’s the card graphic and start times 👊

[NeverYield]

Walkers about to get a hiding.