UFC Vegas: Kape vs Almabayev - Mar 1 ??

[wandshogun09]

I’m getting later and later with these. This is tomorrow lads…

ESPN MAIN CARD
Manel Kape vs Asu Almabayev 

Cody Brundage vs Julian Marquez 

Nasrat Haqparast vs Esteban Ribovics 

William Gomis vs Hyder Amil 

Danny Barlow vs Sam Patterson 

ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS
Austen Lane vs Mario Pinto

Ricardo Ramos vs Chepe Mariscal 

Lucas Almeida vs Danny Silva 

Andrea Lee vs JJ Aldrich 

Charles Johnson vs Ramazan Temirov 

 

OK, a couple of fights fell off this card during fight week but they were pretty shit fights so no real loss. This is standard Apex fodder really but a couple of gems on there. Some frankly confusing card placement for me though, with Johnson vs Temirov as the curtain jerker especially standing out as odd. That should definitely be higher up. Especially when you’ve got fucking Cody Brundage in the co-main! Not sure what to think of that main event but at least it’s not bottom rung Heavyweights, mediocre Middleweights or womens Bantamweight.

 

 

Manel Kape vs Asu Almabayev is a bit of a weird headliner. A fight between a guy who’s spent a massive chunk of his career either pulling out of fights or not always pulling the trigger when he does show up…and a guy who’s relatively new to the roster who I’m barely familiar with. It’ll do though. Goes without saying we’ve had much worse main eventing the Apex. This wasn’t the original plan either. It was supposed to be Kape vs Royval but Royval suffered a concussion in training and was forced out. Shame. That would’ve been a solid headliner but obviously you can’t fuck about with concussions.

Kape’s been a bit of an odd one for me throughout pretty much his entire UFC run. Like I said, he’s had so many fights cancelled it’s actually insane. They weren’t always his fault but mostly it was him pulling out or missing weight. Looking back at his Tapology page now and get this - since signing with the UFC in 2020, Kape’s fought 8 times in total. He’s also had 10 scheduled fights end up in the bin. TEN! And when he has made it to the cage he’s been wildly inconsistent. He came into the UFC with a bit of buzz having knocked out Kai Asakura in RIZIN but he debuted in the UFC and immediately dropped back-to-back decisions against Alexandre Pantoja and Matheus Nicolau. He had a few decent wins after that, lost that grudge match dud against Muhammad Mokaev in Manchester last summer which failed to live up to the hype big time. Then in December he battered Bruno Silva in what was probably Kape’s best performance in the UFC to date. As I said, inconsistent. Going from probably the worst fight he’s had in the UFC to arguably his best performance in consecutive fights sums him up in a way. You never know what you’re getting out of him. 

Almabayev actually makes history here. He’s officially about to go down in the record books as the first ever fighter from Kazakhstan to headline a UFC card. It should’ve been Shavkat Rakhmonov in his title shot against Belal Muhammad in December but Belal got injured and Shavkat got demoted to co-main. So Almabayev’s gonna be the first to top the bill in the UFC. Can’t say I actually remember much about him. I know I’ve seen his UFC fights but nothing’s really jumping out in the memory. He’s 31 years old, has a record of 21-2 with 12 inside the distance and he’s currently riding a 17 fight winning streak. Sounds good but a lot of his earlier opposition is unknown. Although he did beat Zach Makovsky on a BRAVE card in 2022. In the UFC he’s gone 4-0 so far and comes into this fight off a decision win over Matheus Nicolau in October.

Yeah, don’t really have a clue what to make of this. I don’t know how good Almabayev actually is. And Kape can be so frustrating to watch because when he turns the aggression up you can see he’s got more about him than he often shows. But for all his shit talking and bluster, a lot of times he seems to just fall into a trap where he’s content to just try and coast to victory or he’ll go into his shell and lose. Hopefully Almabayev can drag something more watchable out of him because there’s definitely the potential in there for Kape to have some great fights with the right opponents. I’m not sure Almabayev fits that description though. I might be remembering wrong but I have a vague memory of Almabayev being more of a grappler. So expect Kape to be bitching about that come Sunday if this one doesn’t go his way. Bit of a funny one but I’m oddly intrigued to see how it plays out.

 

Cody Brundage vs Julian Marquez. Co-main? This? Even at the Apex there’s no excuse for a fight as shite as this to be co-headlining any UFC card, on any level, in 2025. Brundage is arse. The fact this jabroni actually has wins in the UFC is an indication of just how low the bar is now to get in. You could plonk him in 2002’s Middleweight division and he’d still be a jobber. No evolution whatsoever. He’s 10-6-0-1 now and coming off a No Contest in July where he got smashed up by some illegal elbows from Abdul Razak Alhassan. Before that he got fed to Bo Nickal at UFC 300. Marquez I actually quite liked for a spell. I remember loving his fight with Darren Stewart in the UFC years ago and he even dragged SAM ALVEY to something quite entertaining once. A minor miracle! He’s been on a downward spiral for a few years now though and comes into this fight in a 3 fight losing slump. He might actually lose to Brundage at this stage. Rotten. Yeah, co-main event this!

 

Nasrat Haqparast vs Esteban Ribovics is the piss easy choice for ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** on this card. Had no idea this was even booked and…now it’s tomorrow! Get in. Haqparast’s decent. No world beater but he’s a scrapper with the right opponent. He’s Afghan/German, 29 years old, 17-5 and on a 4 fight winning streak. He beat Jared Gordon in a bit of a dogfight on the Saudi card last June. My main reason for highlighting this though…

Yes. Ribovics is back! He’s Argentinian, 28 years old and has a record of 14-1 with 12 of his wins not requiring the judges scorecards. He’s also fresh off the back of what I rated the Fight Of The Year in 2024 when he went to war and won against Daniel Zellhuber on the big Sphere card in September. He’d lost his UFC debut against Loik Radzhabov in another really good fight and that’s the only blemish on his record. Since then he’s won 3 in a row including a stunning headkick KO against Terrance McKinney in 37 seconds and then the FOTY with Zellhuber. He’s ace. Like a lot of these guys, I’m not sure where his ceiling is but he’s game as fuck and exciting to watch and I think him and Haqparast should create some fireworks.

 

William Gomis vs Hyder Amil. Not sure about this. It’s Gomis. I’ve tried to give him a chance but I just find him dull as bastard dishwater to watch. He’s French, 14-2 and might just be on the shittest win streak ever. Dodgy decisions, groin strikes being ruled a TKO via body kick and just generally uninspiring and boring performances left and right. It says a lot when the French crowd even booed him getting the decision against Brito last time out. As for Amil, I haven’t seen much of him but already I’m a bit of a fan…

That’s how his last fight against Jeong Yeong Lee ended back in July. The whole thing lasted just over a minute and it was about as wild as a one minute fight gets. He had another fun scrap with Fernie Garcia before that as well. He’s 34 years old and undefeated at 10-0 with 7 finishes. I don’t expect him to stay unbeaten for long though. As you can see in the gif above, he’s a bit too reckless and over-aggressive and he’s probably gonna be made to pay for that at some point. It’s part of what’s made him exciting to watch though so far. Can see him getting derailed here, to be honest, and probably in the dullest, beigest way imaginable. But hopefully Amil chins him in spectacular fashion.

 

Danny Barlow vs Sam Patterson. Again, seen bits and pieces but I’m not really familiar enough with either of these two. Barlow’s 29 years old and undefeated at 9-0 and 6 finishes. Made his UFC debut last February and got a TKO over Josh Quinlan, I hazily remember him looking good in that one. He followed that up with a split decision win over Nikolay Veretennikov in August on an Apex I never even bothered watching. Patterson’s 28 and 12-2-1 with 11 finishes. He got absolutely smoked by Yanal Ashmouz in his UFC debut but has bounced back nicely with back-to-back first round submissions over Yohan Lainesse and Kiefer Crosbie. Little bit surprised they never put Patterson on the London card, to be honest. I know UK fighters shouldn’t have to only fight on UK cards but with that London show being just a few weeks away it would’ve made sense.

 

Austen Lane vs Mario Pinto then. What? You thought you were getting through an Apex show without a big horrible dose of low level Heavyweights? To be fair, I’ll give these two big slugs a chance. I’ve seen Lane a couple of times. He’s not very good from what I remember. He’s a former NFL player, 37 years old and 13-5-0-1. He’s coming off a points win over Robelis Despaigne in October. Here he is as a kid getting a big win over the Ultimate Warrior…

Ahh. The old WWF wrestling buddies! Takes me back. Anyway, this Pinto bloke is making his UFC debut here. He’s Portuguese, 26 years old and undefeated at 9-0 with 6 finishes. I don’t recognise any of the names on his record but he’s coming off a first round knockout win on DWCS in October for whatever that’s worth. Whatever happens here, I think we can all agree it’d be best if it’s over quick.

 

Ricardo Ramos vs Chepe Mariscal should be one of the best fights on the card. Ramos is nothing special and he’s lost 3 of his last 5 but he’s had the odd moment. I always associate him with those spinning elbow finishes in his wins over Aiemann Zahabi and Danny Chavez. He beat Josh Culibao by split decision in his last fight in August but he’d been subbed early twice in a row before that. Mariscal’s been fun to watch the few times I’ve seen him fight. He’s 17-6-0-1 and 4-0 in the UFC so far. He’s beat Jack Jenkins, Morgan Charriere and Damon Jackson in his last few fights.

 

Lucas Almeida vs Danny Silva could be a bit of a sleeper. Haven’t seen a lot of these two but I vaguely remember enjoying what I did see of both. Almeida’s 34 years old, 15-3 with 14 finishes and coming off a win over Tim Cuamba in June. No recollection of that but I do remember loving his UFC debut stoppage win over Mike Trizano. Silva’s 28 years old and 9-1 with 5 of his wins coming by KO/TKO. He got a win on DWCS and made his UFC debut last March, beating Josh Culibao on points in what I recall being a really good fight. Not sure why he’s been out since then but hopefully he can stay more active this year because I remember I was looking forward to seeing more of him after that Culibao fight.

 

Andrea Lee vs JJ Aldrich. Ugh. No interest whatsoever in this so I’ll just go through the motions. Lee is 36 years old with a 13-10 record and she’s on a - count ‘em - FIVE FIGHT LOSING STREAK! Looking back at her record, she’s been on the UFC roster since 2018. I’ve probably seen most of her fights in that time and I honestly don’t really remember any of it. Probably for the best. Aldrich is 32 years old, 13-7 and coming off a decision loss to Veronica Hardy last May. There’s just nothing to give a shite about at all here. Fuck all.

 

Charles Johnson vs Ramazan Temirov is jerking the curtain for some reason, which honestly baffles me. When you look at some of the utter shit on this card, why is this fight kicking off the prelim stream? Seriously, what have the matchmakers got against Charles Johnson? He’s 17-6, he’s won 4 fights in a row including wins over Jake Hadley, Joshua Van and Su Mudaerji in his last few. He’s pretty consistently in great fights as well. And he knocked Van out. Now Van’s next fight is high up the prelims of a big PPV and Johnson’s slumming it in the opening bout on an Apex card? There’s got to be more to this because it makes no sense. He’s winning fights and somehow going backwards? Temirov’s from Uzbekistan, 28 years old and 18-3 with 12 finishes. He’s on a 10 fight winning streak and made his UFC debut back in October, scoring a TKO win over CJ Vergara. Haven’t seen enough of him but he sounds better than this spot on the card as well. Why they’ve buried this of all fights, I don’t know.

 

And back to the Apex we go…

Edited March 1, 2025 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

What a comedown for Ribovics, winning the fight of the year at the Sphere, then being reduced to fighting at the Apex in his very next fight. That's like going from playing in the Champions League Final to a 3rd round FA Cup tie against someone in Non-League, the state of it.

 

[wandshogun09]

Yeah I thought that fight would bag him a PPV main card spot against a decent name, to be honest. I like this Haqparast fight but Ribovics deserved better than the Apex. If they were gonna stick him on an Apex card they could’ve at least had him headlining.

Anyway, the usual bollocks…

[Dai]

The latest Wand write up of all time? To the point I didnt even think there was a UFC show this weekend after checking the topics here, so a nice bonus. Whats the opposite of a bonus? Dom Cruz doing solo colour commentary.

Turned out to be a cracking main card this. Two short, violent stoppages, and in between were two really fun scraps that went the distance. You bigged up Ribovics and Amil, and they both delivered here again. And to be fair, their opponents brought it too, and it resulted in a couple of great fights. Ribovics really needs to vary his striking though. As fun as the intensity and headhunting is, he was extremely one dimensional.

Main event was alright, but a shame with the dodgy finish. To be fair, I thought Almabayev looked crap, and Kape was more than conformtable throughout, so am not too outraged by the finger scrape. Kape looked very good in this one.

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

Just finished watching the main after knocking off the rest of the main card yesterday. Prelims I caught live before the Chamber.

Damn work, sleep and WWE getting in the way of my UFC viewing!

That Amil vs. Gomis fight was too good for the Apex. Even Jon Anik seemed to agree as he said something like "imagine this fight in front of 20,000 people?" The atmosphere for that would've been insane with a real crowd. Great fight, and good fights all throughout really.

Main event was fun but one-sided mostly. The eye rakes were unfortunate but even without that, seemed to be a wide gap with Kape being the better fighter regardless.

[wandshogun09]

OK, what the fuck? Did we actually get an Apex card that had a) a fun Cody Brundage fight, b) a fun William Gomis fight and c) a fun low level Heavyweight fight? What’s happening?

Manel Kape looked good in the main event. I actually picked Almabayev in the poll in the end. Not because of any great confidence I had in Almabayev, I’m just never sure what we’re getting out of Kape and, because he’d had a strong showing in his last fight, I guess I just assumed he was due to shit the bed in this one. Kape legitimately looked a different level than Almabayev here though. But, man, the eyepokes again. I definitely hear the stuff about Kape being well on his way to winning anyway. He was. But Jesus Christ.

Ergh. That’s back-to-back main events now where eyepokes have been an issue. Again, I don’t think it made much difference to the end result of this fight. Everything seemed to be trending in the direction of a Kape win. But that’s not the point really, is it? These eyepokes are a major problem and have been for years. They changed the gloves last year and, while I don’t know the actual stats on whether the issue improved, it did feel like we didn’t see as many eyepokes in that period. But the general feeling was there were less knockouts with the new gloves so they sacked them off and went back to the old ones this year and…well, like I said, back-to-back headliners we’re dealing with this shit. Why don’t they just bring back the old Pride gloves? There was no shortage of KOs in them things but I don’t remember eyepokes being anywhere near as prevalent in Pride either. Bring them back. Or is Dana still so fragile he can’t admit Pride did something better? I think I know the answer to that.

But yeah…

Eyepoke or not, turning your back and actually sprinting away from your opponent like this is never a good look and it’s always a one-way ticket to the referee jumping in and waving the fight off. It’s a shame how it ended but looking at the fight as a whole, I felt like Almabayev looked a bit out of his depth here. I’ve seen a lot of calls for Kape to get the next title shot but I don’t know. I wouldn’t hate it but I think we’re gonna get Pantoja vs Kai Kara-France next. KKF is higher ranked than Kape and he’s coming off absolutely starching Steve Erceg. Whereas Kape’s coming off this Almabayev win which, fairly or not, has that bit of an asterisk next to it due to the eyepoke. It’s at least a less satisfactory ending to put in the highlight reels and promos than KKF walloping Erceg would be. Plus KKF is a fresh fight for Pantoja, Kape’s already 0-1 down. We’ll see but I reckon we’ll see Pantoja vs KKF announced soon. Maybe they can rebook that Kape vs Royval fight we were supposed to get on this card?

Cody Brundage in fun fight shocker! I’ve made no secret I’m no fan of Brundage but fair’s fair. This was short and sweet and enjoyable while it lasted.

Still think it probably says more about how shot Julian Marquez’s durability is these days than anything but it was an Apex fight that was entertaining and all done and dusted inside a round. We’ve gotta be thankful for these little unexpected gems when we get them. Marquez is surely done though. That’s 4 straight losses for him now, he was finished every time by KO/TKO and 3 of them were in the first round. And let’s face it, if he’s getting bashed up by a guy like Brundage, what’s the point sticking around? He had that little moment where he rocked Brundage though so that’ll probably convince him he’s got more in him. That’s a story that isn’t gonna have a happy ending unfortunately.

Nasrat Haqparast vs Esteban Ribovics was FOTN, officially and in my opinion. Gutted to see Ribovics lose because it really felt like he was building some momentum coming off the McKinney KO and that crazy Zellhuber fight at the Sphere. Then they shove him in the Apex and he loses a split decision? Bollocks. Ribovics is ace though. Even in defeat here, I don’t think he loses too much steam. It was a close fight and another belter and Ribovics is really earning a reputation for being in great fights now. He just never disappoints.

On 3/3/2025 at 9:09 PM, Dai said:

Ribovics really needs to vary his striking though. As fun as the intensity and headhunting is, he was extremely one dimensional.

Yeah, there’s definitely something to that. Even in that FOTY with Zellhuber, there were times in that fight where Ribovics was all over him and really pouring it on with flurries of punches but he was 100% headhunting and completely neglecting going to the body, and Zellhuber’s body was wide open to be hit. Love watching him but I would like to see him mix it up more in the future. I think just throwing in the odd left hook to the liver during his attacks would make him a lot more dangerous and less predictable.

Hyder Amil did the impossible. He had a cracking fight with William Gomis! I liked Amil anyway but now he’s solidified as a favourite of mine. Anyone who watched, sorry, endured Gomis’ previous UFC fights knows what I mean. Proper dullard and infuriating to watch. So I wasn’t sure if Amil could bring more of a watchable fight out of him or if Gomis would just drag Amil into a snoozer. I expected the latter but thankfully I was wrong. Gomis did his part, to be fair. But I think it was Amil’s constant forward pressure which really forced that out of him. He had to return fire in this one just to avoid getting steamrolled. Like I said in the opening post, I don’t see Amil staying unbeaten for too long. Generally fighters with that come forward, wild style don’t go undefeated for extended periods of time. But beating Gomis was a hurdle I wasn’t sure he could clear so I was pleasantly surprised with the result here. Great fight.

Sam Patterson knocking out Danny Barlow in a round wasn’t how I expected that one to go. I had Patterson down as pretty much just a grappler and I remembered Barlow being a decent striker and he was undefeated. The way it came about will bother Barlow because you could see on the replays that the shot which started his downfall, he basically ran into it with his hands down. Credit to Patterson for capitalising but Barlow will have been pissed at himself more than anything watching it back. I saw this as grappler vs striker going in, and the grappler wins by first round KO? Just goes to show you can’t get careless with your defence, especially when you’re dealing with the little MMA gloves.

Mario Pinto vs Austen Lane was a pleasant surprise. We’ve been conditioned to expect the absolute worst when it comes to basically any Heavyweight fight that doesn’t feature a select few names but every now and then you’ll get a barmy slugfest and this was one of them. Was OK but fairly unremarkable until late in the first round when Lane dropped him. Pinto recovered quickly. The 39 seconds the second round lasted were bonkers though. They both came out with a sense of urgency and were going after it more. Lane was mostly the aggressor…

…and it backfired as Pinto absolutely wiped him out in devastating fashion. Nasty knockout. This and the Ricky Simon one from the Seattle card last week will probably be forgotten when the Knockout Of The Year talk starts in December but, while neither will likely end up #1, they both deserve a place on that list already for me. I’m probably jinxing it now and he’ll turn out to be just another boring big slug but I liked Pinto here. Even when he got dropped late in the first round, he popped back up and had a completely unbothered look on his face like he was walking the dog or something and something about that I found endearing. Didn’t realise he was from London either. Saw the Portuguese flag and just assumed he was born, raised and trained there. Shame this wasn’t on the London card in a few weeks really. Him debuting there with a KO like this in front of a home crowd rather than Apex mutants would’ve been cool. I like him. Could do without the “BING BANG BOSH” thing he seemed to be trying to force as a catchphrase but whatever.

Chepe Mariscal continues to be a highlight for me of any card he appears on. Seriously, if you’ve never seen him fight, look him up on Fight Pass. Consistently entertaining to watch, don’t think he’s had anything close to a dull fight yet in the UFC. He dominated Ricardo Ramos here. Surprised he never got the finish, to be honest. Gave him a bit of a hiding but just couldn’t close the show.

Danny Silva vs Lucas Almeida was alright but not the fight I pictured in my head going off the stuff I’d seen of them previously. Close competitive fight but just never caught fire like I thought/hoped it might.

Didn’t watch JJ Aldrich vs Andrea Lee and I bet I missed fuck all. I did overhear the commentary during the entrances though and I think it was Dominick Cruz who said about one of them “If she wins this fight, she’ll be famous”. Ha! ? Cruz is obviously an all time great fighter, maybe the GOAT at 135 and I loved the little tribute package they played during this show for his recent retirement. But as a commentator he’s had some absolute howlers and this was one of them. That’s gotta be up there with the time he claimed McGregor was letting Khabib beat him up as a tactic to tire him out. Cruz is unintentionally funnier than Rogan has ever been on one of his shite standup comedy shows.

Thought Ramazan Temirov looked good in his win over Charles Johnson. Still don’t get why this was the Fight Pass opener but whatever. That’s Johnson’s little win streak over. He got warmed into it and had a good third round but it was too late by then and Temirov had built up a 2-0 lead. Johnson needed a finish that just never came. If a 4 fight win streak earned him nothing more than a lousy curtain jerk spot on an Apex card, this loss has probably just cemented that he’s gonna be stuck at the Apex until the end of time. Someone at UFC HQ must hate him as much as his barber clearly does. 



Oh and if you think I’m a trooper for soldiering on through this Apex shit…

Granted she’s dancing with all the rhythm of Donald Trump but she’s dancing during a CODY BRUNDAGE ENTRANCE AT THE APEX, for fuck’s sake! Forget the Crazy Plane Woman. Sod the Hawk Tuah girl. Red Dress Apex Lady is sitting through split decisions and eyepokes galore in a glorified warehouse. She’s the one.