UFC Louisville: Cannonier vs Imavov - Jun 8 ??

[wandshogun09]

OK, we’re off to the KFC Yum! Center (really) in Louisville, Kentucky with this lot…

ESPN MAIN CARD
Jared Cannonier vs Nassourdine Imavov 

Dominick Reyes vs Dustin Jacoby 

Raul Rosas Jr vs Ricky Turcios 

Brunno Ferreira vs Dustin Stoltzfus 

Julian Marquez vs Zach Reese 

Punahele Soriano vs Miguel Baeza 

ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS
Thiago Moises vs Ludovit Klein 

Charles Radtke vs Carlos Prates

Brad Katona vs Jesse Butler

Andrea Lee vs Montana De La Rosa 

Daniel Marcos vs John Castaneda 

Eduarda Moura vs Denise Gomes

Cody Stamann vs Taylor Lapilus 

Puja Tomar vs Rayanne Dos Santos  

 

Yeah, kind of similar to that Lewis vs Nascimento card in St Louis, this looks like an Apex card but it isn’t. At first glance you might look at this and think it’s a bit of a weak card to take on the road in front of actual people. And you’d be correct. But isn’t that what we wanted? Obviously a stronger card would be better but considering a card like this would automatically be at the Apex usually, the fact they’re starting to put some of these weaker cards in front of crowds again is surely a good sign? Hopefully this is the start of them actually fully phasing out the Apex. Dana teased it after St Louis but he’s done that before so forgive me if I’m not quick to believe him. This is a step in the right direction. And to be fair, although I’m not into the main event, there are some good fights on this.

 

 

Jared Cannonier vs Nassourdine Imavov is your headliner. Back to Middleweight main events. Yay. Hopefully it’s better than my low expectations because, right now, I’m not feeling this at all. As I type, Cannonier is ranked #4 in the division, Imavov is ranked #8. Kind of says it all about the 185 division these days. Anyone who claims it’s not a shallow pool needs to look no further than this. Cannonier hasn’t fought for almost a whole year yet keeps his 4th ranked spot. And Imavov has looked bang average throughout his UFC run yet he’s in the Top 10. This is what we’re working with. Maybe I’m being overly harsh but these Middleweight headliners just leave me cold.

I don’t really mind Cannonier, in fairness. He’s had his moments and I did actually enjoy his Apex main event with Marvin Vettori last time out. Wasn’t a FOTY contender barnburner or anything but it was a lot better to watch than I expected going in. But that was last June. It was arguably Cannonier’s best performance to date and I remember he broke some record for most significant strikes in Middleweight fight history or some shite. But his inactivity in the year since has meant he’s lost any kind of momentum he should’ve had coming off that win. He’d won a decision over Sean Strickland in his fight before that as well, and obviously Strickland went on to become champion shortly after. So if Cannonier had been able to stay active after those Strickland and Vettori wins, he might actually have been back in the title mix by now. The reason for the layoff was he tore his MCL. He was scheduled to fight Roman Dolidze in December but that injury shelved those plans. Hopefully he’s fully fit now. He turned 40 in March. Whatever he can squeeze out of his next few fights is pretty much gonna be it for him, you’d have to assume.

Imavov I’m just really indifferent to. He’s the much younger man at 29 and has way less wear and tear on him. But I don’t know, I’m yet to be convinced by him. He’s French but Dagestani born and has a 13-4-0-1 record with 9 wins coming inside the distance. He beat Roman Dolidze on points in their 5 round Apex main event back in February. Really wasn’t a fan of that fight. I’ve mostly blocked it out but, from my vague memory, Imavov looked decent early on but the fight descended into a sloppy mess fairly quick. And despite Dolidze fading terribly, Imavov was unable to capitalise and take him out. Just a poor fight. Before that he’d beat Joaquin Buckley, lost a decision to Strickland and had that No Contest due to a clash of heads with Chris Curtis. Just a bit of a disjointed run all round. He did show little flashes of quality in that Dolidze fight but those moments were fleeting. Maybe he’ll go on to prove me wrong but I don’t particularly rate him. The fact he’s in a weaker division is what flatters him. Highly doubt he’d sniff a Top 10 ranking in any division lower than 185.

Man, I’ve been well negative on this, haven’t I? Sorry. Just really struggle to get up for these 185ers getting top billing. It was bad enough when they were constantly rotating mediocre Middleweights mains at the Apex, now they’re infecting the cards with actual crowds as well! I guess the crowd could help though. Could potentially bring something more out of these two. But yeah, fully rooting for Cannonier. And as much as you’d think Imavov should probably be winning a fight like this at this stage of both men’s careers, I’ve been so unconvinced, unimpressed and unmoved by Imavov’s performances that I’m far from confident he does. Unless that injury has left Cannonier a total shell of himself, which at 40 is a possibility, I think this is a fight he could still win. I just hope it’s better than I’m expecting but it probably won’t be.

 

Dominick Reyes vs Dustin Jacoby. Not sure what to think about this. Reyes has to have had one of the weirdest UFC runs and sharpest drop offs in form ever. Going back to early 2020, Reyes was undefeated at 12-0 and facing Jon Jones for the Light Heavyweight title. He ‘lost’ a decision but most people felt he won so his stock only raised in defeat and, in the fallout of that fight, the assumption was that he’d be seeing Jones again in a rematch before long.

Little did we know, Reyes’ career had already probably peaked at that point. Jones then went off the grid for 3 years and started planning for his move up to Heavyweight. So Reyes was never getting a second crack at Jones regardless. But then it all went tits up for Reyes anyway. He faced Jan Blachowicz for the vacant belt and got knocked out, came back and got knocked out again (fucking brutally) by the spinning elbow of Jiri Prochazka, then took 18 months off and came back only to get knocked out again by Ryan Spann in about a minute. Just a disaster for him. At just 34 years old, he might well be shot already. Coming off those 4 straight losses, and especially 3 consecutive bad knockouts, it’s gonna be hard to come back from that. And it doesn’t help that the Spann loss was about 18 months ago now. He was actually supposed to face Carlos Ulberg in January but pulled out. I don’t know if the layoff will have helped or not. In theory, taking time out after KO losses is always a good idea. But he did that before the Spann fight and still got starched. Jacoby’s 36 now with a 19-8-1 record and has lost 3 of his last 4 fights. On paper, this is perfectly reasonable and sensible matchmaking for Reyes. But I’m still not sure he’s got it anymore. Jacoby last fought in December, losing a decision to Alonzo Menifield. If nothing else, Jacoby’s at least been active. He fought 3 times last year. If they were both in form I’d probably pick Reyes. But who knows where he’s at mentally after all those losses and the time away?

 

Raul Rosas Jr vs Ricky Turcios is ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** then. Second attempt at this one. It was all set to go down on the Mexico card in late February but Rosas fell ill and the fight got scrapped literally just before they were due to go out. Pure speculation but I wonder if it was more of a nerves thing. 19 years old, fighting in Mexico, the altitude etc. There were briefly reports that it was gonna be rebooked for the Apex card in early March but it never ended up happening. Glad they’ve stuck with this pairing though. Should be a really entertaining fight.

Rosas hasn’t had a dull moment yet from what I’ve seen. He came in with a fair bit of hype and buzz around him because of his age but suffered his first defeat at UFC 287 last April, losing on points to Christian Rodriguez. It sounds weird to frame that as a positive but I think it might be in the long run. Getting that first loss out of the way early might end up being a bit of a blessing in disguise. It takes away the pressure that comes with being an ‘undefeated prospect’ and, if there was any chance of him starting to believe his own hype and get cocky, that loss should keep him grounded. Plus he’s only 19, it’s not like a decision loss like that is a career killer. He returned on the Mexican Independence Day card in September and wiped out Terrence Mitchell in just 54 seconds…

OK, Mitchell isn’t much good but, again, Rosas is only 19. He’s got bags of time. At that stage, coming off his first loss, it was probably for the best for him to just get back in there and get a quick win to get a bit of that confidence back. This should be a tougher fight. Turcios is a scrappy little fucker. He won TUF back in 2021, dropped a decision to Aiemann Zahabi but then won an exciting fight against Kevin Natividad after that. The thing going against him here is inactivity. That Natividad fight was November 2022, so he’s been out well over a year now. And despite being 31 years old, at 12-3 he’s not much more experienced than Rosas. It’s definitely a fight I think Rosas can win. I can see why the matchmakers probably like his chances here. But you never know. Like I said, Turcios is wild and game as they come. Neither are defensive marvels from what I’ve seen so if it turns into a firefight it could just come down to who bobs when they should’ve weaved. Hopefully it happens this time because it’s got potential FOTN written all over it.

 

Brunno Ferreira vs Dustin Stoltzfus is whatever. Might be alright. Brunno ‘The Hulk’ hasn’t bored me yet, to be fair. He’s Brazilian, 31 years old and 11-1 with all 11 wins not making it to the scorecards and 8 of them came by knockout. He’s gone 2-1 in the UFC so far. He jumped in on short notice in his debut last year and knocked out our boy Gregory Rodrigues in a round. He got ironed out himself by Nursulton Ruziboev in a minute in his next fight. Then in January, he did this to Phil Hawes…

Fun fighter, win or lose. Probably won’t amount to much but the more entertaining fighters they fill out the Middleweight division with the better. Stoltzfus is 15-5 and has gone a dismal 2-6 in the UFC so far. I mostly remember him as the guy who got front kicked in the gob by Abus Magomedov but he did rebound from that with a submission win over Punahele Soriano in December. Inoffensive enough and Ferreira should make it worth watching.

 

Julian Marquez vs Zach Reese. Dunno. Marquez has had his share of exciting slobberknockers over the years. His fight with Darren Stewart back in 2017 is a real forgotten slugfest, well worth firing up Fight Pass for if you’ve never seen it. He even dragged a FOTN out of fucking Sam Alvey in 2021, which is a minor miracle really! I think it might be starting to catch up to him now though. He’s 34 years old now and has been stopped viciously by Gregory Rodrigues and Marc-Andre Barriault in his last couple of fights. The Barriault loss in particular I remember just being a proper beatdown. Reese is 6-1, made his UFC debut in December and got knocked out in less than 2 minutes by a Cody Brundage powerbomb. Yeah, what a way to make a first impression. Maybe unfair but I instantly wrote him off after that. Brundage is a shitarse and Reese made him look like 1996 Sycho Sid. He’s got some serious redeeming to do.

 

Punahele Soriano vs Miguel Baeza is currently set to kick off the main card. Weird one for me because at one point a few years ago, I genuinely thought these two might be decent prospects. They were certainly fun to watch early in their respective UFC runs. And they kind of came on the scene around the same time so it was actually a matchup I remember thinking about back then. Both fought on DWCS in June 2019 and made their UFC debuts later that year. And both got off to strong starts. Soriano brutally knocked out Oskar Piechota in his debut, then followed up with a TKO over Dusko Todorovic. While Baeza rattled off 3 straight finishes over Hector Aldana, Matt Brown and Takashi Sato. Things were looking good. Soriano was 8-0, Baeza was 10-0. Then within weeks of each other, they both suffered their first loss in June/July 2021. Neither of them have been able to get back on track since. Soriano’s now 9-4, has lost 4 of his last 5 and is coming off being finished by Kopylov and Stoltzfus in back-to-back fights. And Baeza is 10-3, has lost 3 in a row and hasn’t fought at all since April 2022! It’s a cruel sport. With all that said, I expect anything but a boring fight out of these two. They’re both gonna be looking to come back with a bang and they’re both dangerous offensively and a bit reckless defensively. So it’s got all the ingredients for a really explosive and exciting bombfest. Perfect main card opener really.

 

Thiago Moises vs Ludovit Klein is a really good piece of matchmaking. Despite still not hitting 30 yet, Moises has been around a while. He’s 18-7 and has been in with the likes of current champ Islam Makhachev, Beneil Dariush and Benoit Saint-Denis. He’s also got wins over Bobby Green, Michael Johnson and Alexander Hernandez. He’s been on a bit of a hot and cold run in recent years though. He got put on an Apex card in March and was relegated to the Fight Pass prelims against Octagon newcomer Mitch Ramirez. Moises seemed to take that as an insult and proceeded to chop Ramirez down with a leg kick TKO. I recall he was fired up in the post-fight interview as well, seemed pissed about the card placement and called out Dan Hooker. Shame he never got his wish but this’ll do nicely…

There’s Klein dismantling poor AJ Cunningham back in March. That was Cunningham’s welcome to the UFC. Beautiful finish when you’re not on the receiving end. I’m sure Cunningham thought it sucked. Klein’s Slovakian, also 29 and has a respectable record of 21-4-1 with 17 finishes. He’s had a couple of setbacks in the UFC but he’s gone 4-0-1 in his last 5 with solid wins over Mason Jones and Ignacio Bahamondes in there. At first glance this looks like a case of Moises the grappler against Klein the striker. But as Moises showed last time, he’s not to be slept on in the striking himself. I do think he’s gonna try and go with a more ground based approach for this one though. We’ll see how it plays out but I like this pairing.

 

Charles Radtke vs Carlos Prates might be alright. Haven’t seen enough of either to have any strong opinions on it. Radtke’s 33 years old, has a record of 9-3 with 6 finishes and is coming off a first round stoppage over Gilbert Urbina in February. Can’t say I recall that fight, although I probably did watch it. Prates made his UFC debut a week after that fight and did this…

A second round KO over Trevin Giles. Couldn’t have wished for a better way for his debut to end. I vaguely remember Giles having a good first round as well, so Prates did well to turn things around and pull out that kill shot. He’s 18-6 now with 16 finishes, 13 by KO/TKO. Like I said, not familiar enough with these guys to give any real insight but if nothing else they’re both on good form and coming in on winning streaks. Not bad.

 

Brad Katona vs Jesse Butler feels like a matchup purely designed to get Katona back in the win column. Maybe I’m overlooking Jesse Butler but I think that’s the matchmakers thinking. We’ve only seen Butler once in the UFC, admittedly on short notice, and he got bombed out in just 23 seconds by Jim Miller. That was back in January. Since then he’s had a couple of fights booked and cancelled. Let’s see if he makes it to this one but, yeah, I think they’re looking at him as cannon fodder here. Katona is 13-3 and to date is the only fighter to win TUF twice. Former Brave CF champ, returned to the UFC and beat Cody Gibson in the TUF finals last summer. He surprisingly dropped a decision to Garrett Armfield in his last fight in January though. This feels like a fight set up for him to shine in but fuck knows? Maybe Butler is better than that short notice clobbering off Miller suggests.

 

Andrea Lee vs Montana De La Rosa 2. A rematch I didn’t even know was a rematch until now. Apparently they fought in June 2019 on a Fight Night headlined by the Korean Zombie vs Renato Moicano. Lee won a unanimous decision. Yep. I will not be doing my rewatch and review thing for that if that’s OK with you. This is a nothing fight. Never rated either and they’re both coming into this fight on bad losing streaks. This should really be a ‘loser leaves’ match but with all these cards to fill up, I won’t be surprised if they’re both kept around regardless of the result here. Lee is 35 years old with a 13-9 record and has lost her last 4 fights on the bounce. De La Rosa is 29 years old, 12-9-1 and has lost her last 3. Shite.

 

Daniel Marcos vs John Castaneda should be a good fight. The Bantanweights do generally deliver. Marcos is Peruvian, 31 years old and currently undefeated at 15-0-1 with 8 knockouts. He went to a No Contest with Aori Qileng in his last fight due to an accidental kick to the balls and Qileng couldn’t continue. It’s been a bit of a strange start to Marcos’ UFC stint. He stopped Saimon Oliveira in a really fun little fight in his debut but since then he’s had a surprisingly dull decision over Davey Grant (who never usually has dull fights) and then the NC last time out. Castaneda’s 21-6 and coming off a couple of points wins over Muin Gafurov and Kyung Ho Kang. Nothing is really jumping out in the memory about Castaneda other than I hazily remember enjoying his performances against Gafurov and Miles Johns. Hoping the Daniel Marcos from his debut shows up for this one.

 

Eduarda Moura vs Denise Gomes is an all Brazilian clash in the Strawweight division. I quite like this actually. Moura’s 30 years old and undefeated at 10-0 with 9 finishes. I’ve only seen one fight out of her so far, her UFC debut on the São Paulo card in November. And she absolutely dominated Montserrat Conejo en route to a second round TKO. It was an impressive debut on the face of it, despite Conejo not being the strongest of opposition. But Moura put a grey cloud over it by missing weight. I was half expecting her to move up to Flyweight for her next fight but here we are again at Strawweight. Hopefully she makes 115 this time and there’s no controversy but she looked huge last time, too big for Strawweight. Gomes is 24 and has an 8-3 record. She scored a shocking upset last year, knocking out highly touted prospect Yazmin Jauregui in just 20 seconds but she lost to Angela Hill on points in her last fight. I expect Moura to ragdoll Gomes here, to be honest. But Gomes definitely has a thump on her. Especially for a 115lber.

 

Cody Stamann vs Taylor Lapilus is a very decent fight for such low billing. And again, Bantamweight. The quality in that division is so good, these guys are at the lower end of 135! Stamann’s 34 now, so maybe starting to get a bit long in the tooth for a lighter weight class fighter. He’s 21-6-1 and coming off a decision loss against Douglas Silva De Andrade last May. So it’s been just over a year since he last fought. He’s never fared well when he’s stepped up to that next level but he’s always been a decent fighter to throw on these Fight Night cards. Lapilus is 32 with a 19-4 record. He’s fought all over the place and this is his second UFC stint. He took a decision off Caolan Loughran on the Paris card last September but then lost a decision to Farid Basharat at the Apex in January. To be fair, Lapilus was on a nice little 6 fight win streak before that. A win here would get him right back on track and I expect we’ll see him again on the next Paris card later in the year.

 

Puja Tomar vs Rayanne Dos Santos is currently slated to jerk the curtain. History making fight actually as Tomar will be the first Indian woman to ever fight in the UFC! Pretty cool. She’s 30 years old and has an 8-4 record with 6 wins coming by KO/TKO.

“I’m very excited for this because when I started practicing MMA, my only dream was to one day fight in the UFC and this dream is finally going to be fulfilled. For an Indian woman, to fight on such a big stage is a great achievement so I’m very happy for this.” - Puja Tomar

She actually fought Stamp Fairtex in ONE back in 2020 but lost via first round TKO. That was her last loss and she’s since won her last 4 fights and became champion in a promotion called Matrix Fight Night. Also, Sherdog has her listed at 4’9”, which has to make her the shortest fighter in UFC history, right? Fucking 4’9”! Brazil’s Dos Santos is the bigger lady at a massive 5’2” here ? she turns 29 the day of this show, has a record of 14-7 and was the Invicta Atomweight champ before signing with the UFC last year. She made her Octagon debut in December and lost to Talita Alencar by split decision. Not expecting much from this but it’s noteworthy with Tomar being the first female representative of India in the UFC.

 

The fucking KFC Yum! Center and no Heavyweights on the card? 

Edited June 12 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

Not at the Apex? God bless the Colonel!

!

[wandshogun09]

Barely even remembered this was tonight. 

[Panhead]

It was a pretty decent main card! I enjoyed it more than last week's nonsense. 

[Dai]

Yeah, it was a fun main card, with plenty of nice finishes. Thankfully the main event finished when it did, as I was drifting out of it toward the end of R2.

[wandshogun09]

Agreed with the above. Pretty enjoyable main card. Prelims weren’t the best though. First 6 fights went the distance and none of them were great to watch. I watched some of the prelims live and a lot was being made of there still being no knockouts since the new gloves were brought in. That streak was finally broken on this card but it took a while. Between UFC 302 when the new gloves were introduced and this card, there were 18 straight fights without a KO or TKO. And even the fight which snapped that streak, it ended with a knee to the body so the gloves didn’t actually have any bearing on it. To date, with 2 full cards in the books, there’s still yet to be an actual clean knockout via punches with the new gloves.

Anyway…

As expected, Imavov vs Cannonier wasn’t anything to write home about but it wasn’t quite as shit as I feared it’d be. Still can’t say I enjoyed it but the shitness mostly came in the stoppage. I think Jason Herzog is generally one of the better referees in the sport these days but I think he got this one wrong myself.

Cannonier was obviously hurt and on wobbly legs and I’m usually all for refs being more on the cautious side. Rather that than them stop fights too late. But I thought he jumped in a bit prematurely here. I’ve watched the finishing sequence back a couple of times and, after the initial punch that starts it all off, Imavov really doesn’t land anything that looks majorly significant or damaging to where you’d even think Cannonier needed ‘saving’ or whatever. So even the erring on the side of caution thing doesn’t really wash. It should’ve been left to play out a bit longer for me. The way this ended felt like it kind of robbed everyone. Imavov of a more legit, decisive finish and Cannonier of his opportunity to fight through the moment and possibly make a comeback. I had Cannonier up 2-1 at that point as well, and 2 of the 3 judges had it the same. Cannonier’s already called for a rematch in Paris. Not relishing the thought of seeing it again but it’s probably the right move. Although I won’t be surprised if Imavov wants to just move on. Up until the finish, he wasn’t exactly looking great against a 40 year old coming off a layoff here. Can see him wanting to just take this win and fight someone else in Paris.

Dominick Reyes finally getting back in the win column after that brutal 4 fight losing skid was the feel-good moment of the night. Can’t even say I’m particularly a big fan of Reyes. I don’t dislike him either just always been kind of indifferent. But even still, it’s hard not to feel a bit of happiness for him getting that first taste of victory since 2019!

Too short of a fight to really take too much away from it but I thought Reyes was looking good while it lasted, and obviously he finally got the result. It’s not like Jacoby is some massive win, granted, but it’s a start. Reyes just needed a W, badly. Hopefully he can build off this. Like I said, not even a huge fan but he’s better than that 4 fight losing streak showed and it would’ve been sad to see him just fizzle out on a 5 fight slump. You could see the relief on his face when he got that finish. Hopefully they don’t just throw him straight back in with one of the very top guys again just yet though. Maybe a fight with Rakic or something?

God, Raul Rosas subbing Ricky Turcios turned out to be such a satisfying result. I was rooting for Rosas anyway just because I’d like to see him do well. But I didn’t particularly have a dog in the race. That’s until Turcios declined Raul’s glove touch at the start of the fight, shouted “FUCK YOU” at him and threw a kick. What a little prick! From that second on the lines were drawn and there was a clear babyface vs heel divide.

Needless to say, I was well happy with how it turned out. Turcios had his moments but let’s face it, trying to choke Rosas? You’re never getting the forearm under that chin. Rosas was clearly the better grappler anyway and once he got the takedown again in the second round it felt like just a matter of time. Gotta assume Rosas is a lock for that September card at the Sphere. Not sure who against but Bantamweight is full of exciting fighters up and down so you can’t really go wrong.

Brunno Ferreira with the spinning elbow from hell was probably my favourite bit of the card, to be honest. Just look at it…

Christ!

I saw some talk on Twitter of it being the Knockout Of The Year but I’m not having that. MMA fans have the shortest memories. I doubt any KO this year is beating Max Holloway’s buzzer beater killshot vs Justin Gaethje at UFC 300. Come on man. And even if we’re just going purely on style points, I’d rank Vinicius Oliveira’s flying knee on Sopaj over this. But regardless, Ferreira’s elbow would be on the list. Really becoming a fan of him. Probably won’t amount to much but excitement is what the Middleweight division could do with more of and Ferreira brings it every time.

I said in the opening post that Zach Reese needed to redeem himself after losing to that jobber Cody Brundage. Well…

A 20 second demolition of Julian Marquez isn’t a bad start. Marquez might be done at this point. At 34 years old and just 14 fights into his career, it’s hard to see how he’s gonna turn things around. This is the third time in a row he’s been stopped now and it’s not like he’s getting any better. The crowd chanting “USA! USA! USA!” after the finish was hilarious considering both are American!

Soriano vs Baeza wasn’t anything like the fireworks display I pictured it to be in my head. Disappointing but Soriano badly needed a win and he secured it with a dominant wide decision. Just bullied Baeza around, to be honest. Wasn’t much of a fight, Baeza just got ragged about and really had nothing in response.

Ludovit Klein looked good and got a strong win over Thiago Moises. Aside from the leg lock attempt in the second round, it was pretty much all Klein.

Liked this performance from him. Shame he wasn’t able to get the finish but it was about as good as he could’ve looked without a stoppage.

If you watched the prelims, you’ll know what I mean when I say thank fuck for Carlos Prates! After 6 straight lacklustre decisions to kick off the night, Prates was the one who finally broke the streak and damn near broke Radtke’s ribcage in the process…

Prates is 2-0 in the UFC now, and 2 for 2 for vicious stoppages. Could be worth keeping an eye on him. Not saying I think he’ll go all the way but he’s got something about him for me. Powerful, lanky for 170, can end fights early or late. I like what I’ve seen so far.

Montana De La Rosa vs Andrea Lee 2 got almost none of my time. By this point in the card, after 4 straight decisions and very little of note happening, I found myself losing the will to live and hitting the fast forward button more frequently. I don’t regret it. Saw De La Rosa won. I’ve never enjoyed watching either of them but Lee’s the shits and this was her 5th loss in a row so hopefully she’s gone now.

Comfy points win for Daniel Marcos. Thought he looked pretty good, although not really spectacular. But I had him winning every round and never let Castaneda get much going. Marcos remains unbeaten. Probably won’t be for too much longer but this was a good showing from him.

Was happy to see Denise Gomes beat Eduarda Moura. Shitty fight but I was pleased with the result just because balls to Moura. That’s twice now she’s fought in the UFC and twice she’s missed weight. I said in the opening post that she looked too big for Strawweight in her debut and here she was again coming in heavy. Taking that into consideration, it was a nice win for Gomes beating a bigger opponent, who probably barely even tried cutting weight, and was also undefeated. Crap fight but satisfying outcome. Moura either needs to move up to Flyweight or be shown the door at this point.

Taylor Lapilus had a solid performance and points win over Cody Stamann. Nothing much to say about it really. Both have knocked about a bit and neither are spring chickens for 135. Lapilus just got the better of it though. No doubt he’ll be on the upcoming Paris card in September.

Puja Tomar made history in the Fight Pass opener. Not just the first Indian woman to compete in the UFC, but the first Indian fighter full-stop to win in the UFC. Not sure about the scoring. Felt like it was a close fight and I didn’t have a problem with Tomar edging it, the one judge having her 30-27 up was bollocks though. Wasn’t an amazing fight but I kind of enjoyed it, to be fair. Lacked technically but the effort was there and they were both going for it. They must’ve got Tomar’s height wrong though. They announced her as 5’4” but she was noticeably shorter than Dos Santos who was announced as 5’2”? I’m going with Sherdog’s listing of 4’9”. She looked tiny.

?

Edited June 12 by wandshogun09