UFC 316: Dvalishvili vs O’Malley 2 - Jun 7 ??

[wandshogun09]

Off to New Jersey for this one…

PPV MAIN CARD
Merab Dvalishvili©️vs Sean O’Malley - Bantamweight Title 

Julianna Pena©️vs Kayla Harrison - Bantamweight Title 

Kelvin Gastelum vs Joe Pyfer

Mario Bautista vs Patchy Mix

Vicente Luque vs Kevin Holland 

ESPN PRELIMS
Bruno Silva vs Joshua Van

Azamat Murzakanov vs Brendson Ribeiro

Serghei Spivac vs Waldo Cortes Acosta

Khaos Williams vs Andreas Gustafsson

ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS
Ariane Da Silva vs Wang Cong

Joo Sang Yoo vs Jeka Saragih

Quillan Salkilld vs Yanal Ashmouz

MarQuel Mederos vs Mark Choinski  

 

 

Not in love with this one myself. Neither of the title fights are really doing it for me, although I’ll be into the women’s fight solely because I’m invested in the result. Couple of alright fights on the undercard but overall it’s not the best for a PPV this. I suspect they’re trying to hold the better stuff back for 317 on International Fight Week but they’ve been oddly quiet on announcing stuff for that one.

 

 

Merab Dvalishvili vs Sean O’Malley 2 then. Yeah, not feeling this. Just feels way too soon for a rematch here to me. Although, looking at the current lay of the land in the Bantamweight division, they don’t have a ton of options now. When this fight was made, the top of the rankings was full of guys who were either coming off a loss or an unsatisfactory win or Merab had already beaten them convincingly. We’re getting to the point now where if Merab keeps winning, pretty soon it’s gonna be all rematches for him. So I get they didn’t have a lot to choose from. But still, O’Malley literally just lost to Merab in his last fight and he’s done fuck all since to warrant another crack at it. And it wasn’t like it was some crazy back and forth war. I could maybe understand running it back then. No, Merab won clearly.

This is where the whole Merab vs Suga thing began. At UFC 288 in May 2023. Merab’s friend/teammate, and Bantamweight champ at the time, Aljamain Sterling had just successfully defended his title against Henry Cejudo. It was common knowledge that O’Malley was gonna be next in line to challenge Aljo so he got in the cage for the face-off. But it was Merab who stole the show. He had nothing to do with it apart from being Aljo’s mate but he upstaged the moment when he stole O’Malley’s jacket and hopped on the Octagon wall with it. From then on, O’Malley and Merab were taking shots at each other in interviews and it felt like a matter of time until they’d cross paths. When O’Malley knocked out Aljo in the August to become the new 135lb champion, it was a no brainer that O’Malley vs Merab was the fight to make. But O’Malley didn’t seem keen and ended up defending against Chito Vera instead at UFC 299 in March 2024. In the meantime, Merab dominated Cejudo, further cementing himself as the clear #1 contender. O’Malley was left with no choice and the fight was finally made for UFC 306. The big card at the Sphere in September.

It was on. I remember being quite surprised going into this fight by how many people seemed to be picking O’Malley to knock Merab out. I get a lot of predictions wrong, I think MMA in general is such a difficult sport to predict because there are so many variables and ways to win or lose. But I always felt like Merab was probably the nightmare matchup for O’Malley. I felt like if Sean could get past Merab, he could probably beat anyone at 135, but I had major doubts. The closer the fight got though, I saw so many picking O’Malley, and not just fans I’m talking fighters and media as well, that I started second guessing myself and thinking maybe I was missing something. I still picked Merab to win but some doubts were starting to creep in by fight week. Needn’t have worried.

Merab won by unanimous decision and became the new UFC Bantamweight champion. I think I had it 4-1 Merab. Two of the judges had it closer though and scored it 3-2 and I remember thinking that was a bit off at the time. I’ll definitely be giving the fight another watch before the rematch so I’ll do my usual and drop a review of it in here during fight week. From what I recall, it wasn’t a great fight but oddly entertaining and I think I had O’Malley only taking the last round but it was too late by then. He needed a finish and it just never came.

Merab then successfully defended the belt at UFC 311 in January, beating Umar Nurmagomedov on points in a tremendous fight. Seriously, probably my front runner for FOTY so far. Such a great fight. And it was a pleasant surprise because Merab was acting quite weird in the build up to that one and it was really looking like he didn’t want the Umar fight at all. Right from the moment Merab took the title from O’Malley, he was asked by Rogan in the cage about facing Umar next and he wouldn’t entertain it. Then in the months that followed he was trying to insert anyone and everyone else other than Umar into the mix as his next fight and seemed overly wound up and angry whenever Umar was around. It wasn’t a good look, it genuinely seemed like he was rattled. But then the Umar fight got announced out the blue and he came in and put on a hell of a performance. Despite what some would have you believe, he didn’t dominate Umar like he has a lot of his opponents. It was a really competitive battle and Umar fought well. He just couldn’t keep up with Merab’s insane pace down the stretch. Incredible performance from Merab though. 

So yeah, since Merab vs O’Malley 1 at the Sphere, Merab’s defended the title in arguably the best fight of the year so far and handed the previously undefeated Umar Nurmagomedov the first loss of his career. Meanwhile, O’Malley’s done…nothing.

He’s been off the grid completely. Until this rematch got announced, I don’t even remember seeing any interviews or quotes from him anywhere. He seemed to just vanish. Like I said, had the first fight been close or controversial or a FOTY contender or something, I could see the logic in re-running it. It was one-sided though and I’m not convinced O’Malley’s going to have been able to make enough significant adjustments to change that in one training camp. He’s talking a big game (and throwing in some excuses for the loss last time) but I’m not buying it…

“Last camp we had some shit going on. I don’t want to sit here and make excuses. We had a great camp, I showed up, I was in shape, we did what we could with what we were able to do. This camp has already been a lot different. I’m feeling good. I’m excited to go out there and take care of business. Last camp, every single journal entry was like, ‘My groin kept me up at night’, because I tore my labrum 10 weeks before the fight. I was having serious groin pain. It wasn’t ideal. I was able to train, I was able to tough through it, but obviously it’s not ideal to go into a fight - especially against a fucking murderer. Well, not a murderer but a stud, an absolute machine. How we’ve been able to train the last few weeks, if I can just keep this pace up all the way up to the fight, I’m going to be 70% better than I was in that first fight. I’m going to be significantly more mobile, agile, better shape. I’m going to fight at my full potential, whereas my last fight, I was very happy with how I was able to perform considering how I felt.” - Sean O’Malley

He also kind of explained why he’d been so quiet before this Merab rematch was announced…

“I decided that in 2025, I’m done with social media. I don’t get on social media and I feel like that’s changed my life. I haven’t gamed either. I quit gaming. We’ve been playing a lot of Texas Hold ‘Em poker with the fellas. I quit smoking weed too. I just stopped randomly. I just didn’t like the way it made me feel. I haven’t j’d the peen once this year. Not once in 2025.” - Sean O’Malley

Excuse me being an old cunt but “j’d the peen” is twat speak for “had a wank”, right? Too much information, Sean. But assuming he’s actually telling the truth about all this, I find it hilarious that Merab’s basically made him rethink his whole existence. Especially the giving up weed bit. There was a time when smoking weed seemed to be O’Malley’s whole personality. If he comes into this fight with no funky hair colours as well then you know Merab really took his soul in that first fight.

Here we are then. Not the fight I wanted but what can you do? I’m not saying O’Malley should never have gotten a rematch. I just don’t think he should’ve got an immediate rematch. He’s done sod all since September, other than seemingly giving up weed and wanking. He should’ve at least had to win one fight, in my opinion. Feels very much like when Adesanya lost the title to Strickland in a one-way traffic fight and then immediately got another title shot against Du Plessis in his next fight. This is just a straight up rematch of a fight we just saw a few months ago. Whatever. It’s happening now and that’s that. I think I said before the first fight that the two most likely scenarios were either O’Malley catching him early or Merab just drowning him with his relentless pace and pressure. It’s the same thing here, isn’t it? There’s always the chance O’Malley lands something big early. But how likely is it? Merab’s never been stopped by strikes before and O’Malley couldn’t do it in 25 minutes last time. What’s changed between September and June? Think Merab dogwalks him again here. Hopefully he gets a finish this time.

 

Julianna Pena vs Kayla Harrison co-headlines. One of those weird ones where there’s a high chance of it being an awful fight but I’m still invested just because Pena’s a dickhead and I’d love nothing more than to see Harrison finally put a permanent end to her shitty 15 minutes of UFC championship fame. And actually, it’s more than 15 minutes because this is her second ‘reign’ as champ. She’s into her second lot of 15 minutes now. 30 minutes of fame? Christ. I know I’m the resident Pena hater on here and I’m fine with that. She’s shit and I’ll go to my grave believing that. The fact we’re at the point where she’s became a two time UFC champion is an absolute disgrace and all involved should be ashamed. From Amanda Nunes for somehow losing to the scrub in the first place and starting this ridiculousness, to the other women in the division for not being good enough to leave her in the dust, to fans and media who have somehow bought into Pena’s bullshit, gassed her up and lowered their standards to such a level that she’s seen as a ‘star’ these days.

Embarassing. Be like putting the WWF title on Mantaur in 1995. Yeah, yeah, fair play she beat Nunes. It was one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. Maybe the biggest in all honesty. Because as much of a shock as Matt Serra beating GSP was at the time, 2007 Serra is still a vastly superior fighter compared to 2021 Pena. As unlikely as him beating GSP was, he was a legit BJJ black-belt, durable as fuck and heavy handed. Pena, on the other hand, was always mediocre at best going into that first Nunes fight. A grappling ‘specialist’ who had somehow been submitted by Germaine De Randamie, a Dutch kickboxer who never subbed anyone else in her career, before or after that Pena fight. Pena’s best wins were over older and/or rusty opponents like Sara McMann and Cat Zingano and her biggest accomplishment at that point was winning TUF in 2013. She was absolutely bang average in a rotten Bantamweight division. Her becoming UFC champion was a massive over-achievement and I have to begrudgingly give her some credit for that. But even then, that first Nunes fight is remembered (wrongly) as if she just went in and outclassed Nunes and exposed her somehow. She didn’t. She was losing most of that fight was as well. It’s been rewritten as if Pena had a great performance, she didn’t. She had a good couple of mintues in a fight she’d been losing up to that point. They both started swinging sloppily and Pena got the better of it. That’s all. Credit to her for being tough enough to hang in there long enough to score that upset. Can’t take that away from her, but that’s it. She caught Nunes on Nunes’ worst night of her career.

The rematch about eight months later set the record straight. Pena was tough enough to survive the full five rounds but she got battered, bloodied and schooled to a shutout. Not gonna call the first fight a fluke because I don’t really believe in flukes in MMA. But nobody will convince me Pena beat the best version of Nunes that first time. For Nunes to fade that quickly and that badly, in a fight she was winning, when she’d been 5 rounds a bunch of times and hadn’t really shown form for fading before, something was off about her that night. I found it weird how so many seemed hell bent on insisting Pena beat the best version of Nunes that night. You can’t watch Nunes crushing Cyborg and then tell me that’s the same fighter who gassed and was getting tagged by fucking Pena! Get out. She looked much more herself for the rematch and we saw what happened there.

Since then…

Yep. The belt’s back on Pena. Only because Amanda Nunes retired in June 2023 after beating Irene Aldana, leaving the title vacant. That was actually supposed to be Nunes vs Pena 3 but Pena pulled out with a rib injury, yet somehow she still goes on like Nunes ducked her. Anyway, the title was vacated and then Raquel Pennington won the belt by beating Mayra Bueno Silva in maybe the worst fight of 2024. Then Pena took the title off Pennington in October…in another strong contender for worst fight of 2024. And I’m not even sure Pena won that one! Pretty sure I had Pennington winning. Some might say that’s just me being a hater but a lot of people agreed. Apparently, out of 26 media outlets scoring the fight, none of them scored it for Pena. Not one. 25 had Pennington winning, the other one had it a draw.

Save us, Kayla. For fuck’s sake. I’m still not 100% convinced by her at 135lbs but she’s really our best hope of putting a stop to this Pena silliness. She’s a two time Olympic gold medalist in Judo at the 2012 and 2016 games. In MMA she’s 18-1 with 13 finishes and was the PFL Lightweight champion. Made her Octagon debut at UFC 300 last year and looked incredible steamrolling and submitting Holly Holm. But then she looked very lacklustre in her points win over Ketlen Vieira in October. Can’t remember much about that fight other than it wasn’t much good and it felt like it kind of cooled the hype on Harrison a bit. Her and Pena have been going back and forth since pretty much the second Harrison signed with the UFC though so I expect this one to heat up a bit as the fight draws closer.

“We’ll see, we’ll find out. There’s always that little bit of unknown when you fight a new opponent. Skill-wise, I don’t think she’s the top of the top. But I think in terms of heart and maybe experience, she’s got some good experience. And she’s definitely got confidence. I would argue cockiness, maybe.”

“I want to have a lot of respect for Julianna because she’s a single mom, she’s a veteran of the sport, she scratched and clawed her way to the top, she believed in herself when nobody believed in her. I really want to have admiration for her and I think probably deep down, I do. I love that she’s confident and she says what she thinks. But she’s just pretty dumb sometimes. So, it’s hard. It’s difficult. Just some of the stuff…cheesy, very cringe. She reminds me a lot of Henry Cejudo. Trying too hard.” - Kayla Harrison

The big doubt for me on Harrison is the weight cut. She’s a big girl. Most of her pre-UFC MMA fights were at 155lbs and I think she won her Olympic gold medals at 172lbs. But when she signed with the UFC, it was 135 or nothing. To cut down to 135 in her mid 30s is a tough task. And she hasn’t actually made 135 yet. Knowing the work and dedication that goes into reaching Olympic gold medal status, I didn’t doubt she’d put the graft in to make weight. She’s a pro. But she came in at 136lbs for her first two UFC fights and she looked like this on the scales…

Obviously, this being a title fight, there’s no 1lb allowance here. She’ll have to hit 135 on the nose this time. And looking at her there, I’m not sure there’s another pound she can take off. It’s clearly a rough weight cut and it’s probably gonna be hit and miss with how it affects her performances from one fight to the next. One weight cut isn’t always gonna go as smoothly as the last. She looked a force against Holm but really flat against Vieira and the weight cut was likely a factor in that.

There’s gonna be one very interested onlooker for this fight as well…

Amanda Nunes was at the 316 press conference and she’s confirmed she’s coming out of retirement to challenge the winner of this fight either way. She’s going into the Hall Of Fame in June and I thought the comeback stuff was just talk but reading up on it to do this post, apparently she’s all in on returning. Not sure how I feel about that, to be honest. It felt like she was on the slide a bit when she retired so I’m not exactly glass half full about a 37 year old Nunes coming back off a long layoff. But on the other hand, sod it. The division needs her at this point. It needs something because it’s been dead for a while.

“Kayla or Julianna, I want my belt back and I’ll fight for it. I’m driven by challenges. Kayla is strong as hell, that’s the one I want. It could be Julianna, cool. I fought her twice, I’ll fight her again. Kayla is strong, she’s coming now and is on a good level, has good Judo and great grappling, she’s evolving on the feet. That’s the one I want. This new thing.” - Amanda Nunes

Interesting. Nunes coming back wouldn’t fix all the division’s problems. It’s still shallow as fuck and there isn’t much in the way of new blood coming in. No next generation. But fuck it. For now, this’ll do. It’s better than nothing. Either Nunes vs Harrison or Nunes vs Pena 3 are better than anything else the division has going for it right now. Count me in.

How we seeing this then? I know what I want to happen and if you’ve read this far I think it’s no mystery who I’m rooting for. But as sad as it is to say, I’m not massively confident in a Harrison win. And it’s all to do with that weight cut. Call it ready made excuses all you want, the fact is she’s killing herself to make Bantamweight and there’s no question that it’s taking something out of her and her performances are gonna suffer for it at some point. We might’ve seen signs of it in the Vieira fight last time. She’s gotten away with it up to now but it’s worth remembering those Holm and Vieira fights were both three rounders. This’ll be five if it goes that long. As shit as I think Pena is, given the weight cut, I think Kayla might struggle if this goes long. Hopefully she just bulldozes Pena early and we don’t have to find out.

 

Kelvin Gastelum vs Joe Pyfer is back on. This was originally supposed to go down on the Mexico City card in March. And for once Gastelum actually made weight…only for Pyfer to pull out on the day of the fight due to illness. Can’t make it up. Pyfer made a right tit of himself after as well.

“I did all this work to still get sick? Some people are saying it wasn’t the food, saying I got altitude sickness. I’m not a fucking, geographic fucking, you know, elevation fucking scientist but I was told as long as I acclimated, which I did, for two months I slept in a tent and on the fucking floor. I did everything that I could to prepare. If that’s what altitude and elevation is, fuck that country, I will never fight there again. Shithole. Not going back. Don’t care if that’s offensive to you, you’re not the one fighting. Suck my balls, literally.” - Joe Pyfer

Yeah, so he agreed to the fight knowing it was gonna be at high altitude. He signed the bout agreement. He supposedly “acclimated” for two months. Then got a tummy ache on the morning of the fight and pulled out. How’s that Mexico’s fault as a country? Calling it a “shithole” because he fucked up his prep. And that’s what happened. One way or another, he got something wrong. Everyone else on the card showed up and fought. This isn’t the first time Pyfer’s came off as a prick either. I’m not the biggest fan of Gastelum with all his weight missing over the years but I’ll be fully rooting for him here. Not sure what’s gonna actually happen though. Gastelum’s been floundering for years now and Pyfer’s coming off that nasty KO win over Barriault but I’ve never been fully sold on him. Fuck knows? Does it even happen this time? You can’t rely on Gastelum to make weight and Pyfer could break a nail and get his mum to write him a sick note. If it does happen, I hope Gastelum waffles him.

 

Mario Bautista vs Patchy Mix is on! Was supposed to be Bautista against Chito Vera, Chito dropped out and here we are. The long awaited UFC debut of Patchy Mix. I like it. It’s got a little something extra that I felt the Chito fight was missing. I guess it’s the intrigue of finally seeing Mix in the UFC. Could be a tricky test for his first night in, especially coming off an 11 month layoff, but we’ll see how it goes.

Patchy Mix is 31 years old, 20-1 with 15 finishes (13 by submission), he’s on a seven fight winning streak and he was the last ever Bellator Bantamweight champion when the promotion was taken over and absorbed by PFL. Couldn’t have really came at a worse time for him because he was on a strong run and Donn Davis and PFL, for whatever reason, decided to just put Patchy on ice. He was on a run which included wins over James Gallagher, Kyoji Horiguchi, Raufeon Stots, Sergio Pettis and two wins over Magomed Magomedov. After the second Magomedov win in May 2024, Patchy couldn’t get a fight to save his life. It’s the same weird situation other Bellator fighters found themselves in, most notably Patricio Pitbull who just recently escaped the red tape and bullshit and jumped over to the UFC. Like Pitbull, Mix also got frustrated with the lack of activity and took to social media late last year…

That was December, it’s taken until now for them to finally let him out of his contract, despite them clearly having no plans for him. I don’t know what they’re playing at. Why would you let one of your best fighters sit idle like that? It’s almost like PFL bit off more than they could chew when they took over Bellator and had to navigate those fighters into their own roster. It seems like it should be fairly simple on paper and the UFC did it seamlessly back in the day when they merged the WEC and Strikeforce guys onto their roster. But there must be a reason why PFL are doing this. Letting top fighters sit on the sidelines as their prime years fade away is criminal. Luckily for Patchy, at 31 he’s still got some time. It’s not like Pitbull where it feels too late for him and his jump to the UFC is literally just gonna be a case of getting a few paydays in before calling it a day. Mix is a different case. He’s coming into probably the toughest and deepest division in the game but he’s still in his prime and has the potential to make a splash the way Reinier De Ridder is doing up at 185. Good stuff. Bautista could be awkward though and possibly the spoiler. He’s also 31 and also on a seven fight win streak. He should be flying right now coming off the biggest win of his career, the decision over Jose Aldo in October. But it was a snoozer and Bautista got much of the blame and flack for that. I don’t necessarily think that’s entirely fair. It takes two to tango and Aldo was unable to stop him from implementing his gameplan so that’s on him. But winning his biggest fight to date in that fashion, it’s a rep that’s gonna follow him now unless he can make people forget. 

 

Vicente Luque vs Kevin Holland is a solid enough fight. For some reason I was certain these two had already fought before but no. An OK fight but it’s kind of just there. Luque’s 33 now, 23-10-1 and just pulled off a sweet anaconda choke submission over Themba Gorimbo at UFC 310 in December. I’m a broken record at this point but I’m still a bit uncomfortable watching him fight due to the brain haemorrhage after the Geoff Neal fight but here we are. He’s gone 2-1 since then so they’re gonna just keep clearing him until something tragic happens, I guess. Then it’ll be all ‘but he had a bleed on the brain in 2022, how was he cleared to fight?’ You tell me. And Holland’s about as inconsistent and hot and cold as it gets. You never know what you’re getting out of him from one fight to the next. He’s lost 4 of his last 6 but he’s coming off a points win over part timer Gunnar Nelson on the London card in March. Not a clue how this goes.

 

Bruno Silva vs Joshua Van is gonna be ***WAND’S ONE TO WATCH*** this time. It’s not the deepest card and I wasn’t exactly spoilt for choice with great undercard fights but this is probably a safe bet for a fun scrap. I feel like I’m always highlighting Van’s fights in these posts but it’s with good reason. If you’ve seen him fight you know what I mean. If you haven’t, get on board. He’s great to watch.

Only 23 years old, 13-2 and on a three fight winning streak. He’s been pretty consistently in fun fights win or lose since signing with the UFC as well. His last fight in March against Rei Tsuruya was his least exciting but was probably his best actual overall performance to date. It wasn’t as exciting as some of his other fights but that’s because he made it one-sided. He completely shut down Tsuruya’s attempts to wrestle and I don’t remember Van’s defensive wrestling being particularly impressive in previous fights. Obviously being so young, he’s gonna improve at a more noticeable rate from fight to fight. Before that fight, he’d rattled off six straight bangers since his UFC debut but oddly is still yet to receive a POTN or FOTN bonus. Scandalous! Silva’s decent. He had a cracker against Cody Durden back in July, which he won by knockout. He’s quite entertaining to watch himself but he got battered by Manel Kape last time out in December. And at 35 years old, he’s a guy I think Van really should be beating at this point in both of their careers. We’ll see though. At the very least I’m expecting a bit of a dogfight here.

 

Azamat Murzakanov vs Brendson Ribeiro wasn’t the original plan. This was supposed to be Murzakanov against Johnny Walker which despite Walker’s dodgy form lately, would’ve been a nice scalp for Murzakanov had he won and would’ve moved him up the rankings. But Walker’s out and Ribeiro’s in. Unfortunate break for Murzakanov because a win over unranked Ribeiro doesn’t really do anything for him. I like Murzakanov so far. He’s undefeated at 14-0 with 11 inside the distance, 10 by knockout, and he’s coming off a brutal KO win over Alonzo Menifield last August. But he’s also 36 so he could really do with some big fights now that will propel him up the rankings at 205. Walker would’ve been a good start to that so it’s shite that he’s out. Ribeiro’s stepping in on a few weeks notice. He’s 28 years old with a 17-7-0-1 record and 16 finishes. So if nothing else, he goes for the kill. He’s not great though. He’s gone 2-2 in the UFC so far but he is coming off a submission win over some fucker called Diyar Nurgozhay in March. Murzakanov should be dealing with this guy but you never know with these replacements.

 

Serghei Spivac vs Waldo Cortes Acosta is doing absolutely nothing for me. Heavyweight bollocks. I don’t dislike Spivac, he’s not as boring a lump as most of the division are. But he’s not that good either. He’s 17-5 now and has submission wins over Derrick Lewis and Marcin Tybura. There’s definitely worse in the division. He did squash Greg Hardy a few years back as well so that’s probably where my soft spot for him started. But he’s going nowhere. Anytime he’s stepped up a level, he’s been found out. Gane smacked him up on a Paris card a couple of years ago and Jailton Almeida just ran through him in a round in January. I’m hoping he wins this one though because I just can’t be doing with ‘Salsa Boy’ Acosta. He’s 13-1 and on a four fight win streak but I’ve mostly found him rotten to watch. And cocky with it for some reason. He’s got no reason to be cocky given some of the stinkers he’s had. I see he’s coming off a KO win over Ryan Spann in March. That was the Vettori vs Dolidze 2 card I skipped though so fuck knows. Yeah, the fast forward button will probably be doing overtime in this one.

 

Khaos Williams vs Andreas Gustafsson has been patched together and chucked onto this card last minute. Third scheduled opponent for Khaos this. Both Uros Medic and newcomer Albert Tadevosyan dropped out. He’s never gonna trouble the rankings but he’s alright for his spot in the pecking order. He’s 31 now, 15-4 with 9 finishes, 8 by knockout. I remember when he burst into the UFC back in 2020 and ironed out Alex Morono and Abdul Razak Alhassan in less than a minute combined. He looked like a can’t miss prospect back then but to say he’s gone off the boil would be an understatement. He’s gone 4-3 in his last 7 now and just got choked unconscious by Gabriel Bonfim in February. As for Gustafsson, first off as far as I know, he’s no relation to Alexander Gustafsson. Looking him up he’s 34 years old and 11-2 with 9 finishes. He last fought on DWCS last August. There’s been a couple of attempts to get his UFC debut sorted but they’ve fallen apart up to now. He was supposed to fight on the Apex card at the end of March but it went tits up. So both guys needed replacements and here we are.

 

Ariane Da Silva vs Wang Cong I’m neither here or there on really. Fine as prelim filler. The Cong hype fell off a cliff quick, didn’t it? Shame it didn’t work out because if she’d turned out to be the real deal, she’d might’ve been a real boost to the Flyweight division. Especially with the backstory of having that win over Valentina Shevchenko in their Kickboxing days way back. Getting finished by ham and egger Gabriella Fernandes killed that stone dead though. Oh well. Cong bounced back with a decision win over Bruna Brasil in February. Da Silva’s a couple of years younger at 31 and she’s 17-10 and coming off back-to-back losses to Karine Silva and Jasmine Jasudavicius. Not a lot else to say. She’s been knocking about for years, on the UFC roster since 2019, but she’s never managed to put together any kind of consistent run of performances.

 

Joo Sang Yoo vs Jeka Saragih. Don’t know, don’t particularly care. Yoo’s making his UFC debut here. He’s South Korean and undefeated at 8-0 with 4 finishes. Sherdog doesn’t even have an age listed for him. Saragih’s Indonesian, 30 years old with a 14-4 record. He got in off Road To UFC in 2023 and has gone 1-1 in the UFC since. He got armbarred in a round by Westin Wilson in his last fight last June. And Wilson’s a bum so that isn’t good.

 

Quillan Salkilld vs Yanal Ashmouz could be a fun one actually. Haven’t seen much of either but what I have seen I’ve enjoyed. Salkilld’s Australian, 25 years old and has a record of 8-1 with 6 inside the distance. He got subbed in his MMA debut in 2021 but has been doing nothing but winning ever since. He made his Octagon debut at UFC 312 in Sydney back in February and made quite a first impression.

19 seconds was all it took him to put Anshul Jubli away. OK, granted, Jubli’s not much good but as an introduction on the big stage it doesn’t get any better than that, does it? Ashmouz is from Israel, 30 years old and also 8-1 with 6 finishes. So identical records numbers-wise. Another similarity is that Ashmouz also scored a quick KO in his UFC debut back in 2023. He smoked Sam Patterson with an absolute barrage of punches in just over a minute. He then suffered his first defeat, dropping a decision to Chris Duncan, but came back with a points win over Trevor Peek in September last year. Like I said, I haven’t seen enough of these two to have any particularly high or low expectations. But I definitely think the ingredients for an exciting scrap are there.

 

MarQuel Mederos vs Mark Choinski. Dunno. Barely remember Mederos and never seen Choinski. It’s been thrown together just a week out from the show as well, which is never ideal. Mederos is 28 years old, 10-1 with 6 by KO/TKO and he’s on an eight fight win streak. He beat Austin Hubbard on points last time out on the Mexico City card in March. Choinski is making his UFC debut. He’s 29 years old, undefeated at 7-0 with 5 submissions and he fights out of Roufusport. Saw Anthony Pettis bigging him up on Twitter when this was announced. We’ll see.

 

 

UFC 3:16…

Edited June 1, 2025 by wandshogun09

[wandshogun09]

Potentially interesting development here. Chito Vera is out of the fight with Mario Bautista. The rumour I’m seeing a lot is that Patchy Mix is either now signed to the UFC or about to and he’s gonna step in.

Not sure how true that is or how likely we are to get Mix vs Bautista but he’s definitely gone from PFL and it does seem like he’s UFC bound if Helwani’s info is correct. This was just the other day…

PFL just fumbling left and right. Hopefully Dakota Ditcheva is next! 

[Egg Shen]

Mix would be a cracking addition to this

[wandshogun09]

It would definitely add a little something this card is missing. 

[wandshogun09]

Well it’s happening. Confirmed during the Apex card last night. Patchy Mix is officially a UFC fighter and he’ll be making his debut against Mario Bautista on this card…

I’ve updated the opening post with a little preview. 

 

[wandshogun09]

Yeah, Kayla Harrison’s not making weight is she? Expect some drama on Friday.

[Egg Shen]

I'm picking Pena for the upset here. I think 5 rounds over a gritty vet like Pena could spell disaster. If this was at 145 i'd be going the other way.

[Bruce85]

12 hours ago, Egg Shen said:

I'm picking Pena for the upset here. I think 5 rounds over a gritty vet like Pena could spell disaster. If this was at 145 i'd be going the other way.

I also have a feeling Pena is going to win this one. Really really can’t stand Pena, not even to the point where I want to see her lose, I just don’t want to see her at all. 
 

How do we see the main event going? I think unless Sugar can land something big in the first couple of rounds it’s going to be a long night with it playing out similar to the first fight. 

[wandshogun09]

The thing with O’Malley is, he’s made such a big deal of making changes in his personal life, taking everything more seriously this time, being injured last time and how it’s gonna be so much different in the rematch now he’s healthy and dialled in. If he gets dominated again I think it could really fuck with his head. He’s convinced himself that everything was wrong in his preparation last time, if he’s done everything right this time and still loses, it might be a difficult one to bounce back from.

But yeah, unless he catches Merab with something early on, and it could happen, Merab’s not unhittable, I see it looking very much like the first fight and Merab will just rag him about and wear on him for 25 minutes. 

[Carbomb]

It's a shame he's so unlikeable, because his style is a lot of fun. Said it before, but he's like an MMA version of Hearns, I think.

[wandshogun09]

Well Kayla Harrison made championship weight, 135 on the nose.

I don’t know if it’s just me trying to be glass half full but, although she looks rough there, I think she looked worse for the Vieira fight last time and she was 136 then. Still, she can’t keep doing this. It’s no good. If she wins tomorrow night I can see her hanging around for the Nunes fight and I genuinely wouldn’t be surprised if she retires after that. It’ll leave an already weak division in tatters again but so be it. I’d rather she didn’t…like…die. She can’t be making these weight cuts long term.

At least she’s made 135 though. I had doubts. Would’ve been a complete shambles if she missed weight, made herself ineligible to win the title and then beat Pena anyway. Then what? 

[Carbomb]

Know what I'm dreading, wand? 

That Kayla beats Peña for the belt, then decides she can't keep doing the cut, and vacates it - leading to a fight for the vacant BW belt in which Peña wins it for the third time.

[wandshogun09]

30 minutes ago, Carbomb said:

Peña wins it for the third time.

It’s probably on the cards regardless, to be honest. I’ve resigned myself to that horror. The division’s just so weak that she’ll probably always be in the mix until she retires now. They just don’t have many options and because she’s a gobshite, she’ll get opportunities she won’t always deserve. Harrison’s turning 35 in July and probably won’t be around too much longer just due to the weight cut not being feasible long term. Nunes is meant to be coming back but she’s 37, past her prime and is unlikely to fight much more than a few more times. And even Pena, she’ll be 36 in August. Even if Harrison is somehow able to stick around for a bit, there’s nobody for her to fight outside of Nunes. And vice versa with Nunes. She’s got a rubber match with Pena and the Harrison fight tops. Nothing else at 135 is interesting in the slightest and there doesn’t seem to be any standout new blood coming through. The division is literally surviving purely on the strength of three women who are 35+, one’s coming out of retirement, one’s killing herself to make the weight and one’s fucking shit. Once they’re gone, all we’ve got to look forward to is Dumont vs Pennington level title fights.

[Carbomb]

21 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

It’s probably on the cards regardless, to be honest. I’ve resigned myself to that horror. The division’s just so weak that she’ll probably always be in the mix until she retires now. They just don’t have many options and because she’s a gobshite, she’ll get opportunities she won’t always deserve. Harrison’s turning 35 in July and probably won’t be around too much longer just due to the weight cut not being feasible long term. Nunes is meant to be coming back but she’s 37, past her prime and is unlikely to fight much more than a few more times. And even Pena, she’ll be 36 in August. Even if Harrison is somehow able to stick around for a bit, there’s nobody for her to fight outside of Nunes. And vice versa with Nunes. She’s got a rubber match with Pena and the Harrison fight tops. Nothing else at 135 is interesting in the slightest and there doesn’t seem to be any standout new blood coming through. The division is literally surviving purely on the strength of three women who are 35+, one’s coming out of retirement, one’s killing herself to make the weight and one’s fucking shit. Once they’re gone, all we’ve got to look forward to is Dumont vs Pennington level title fights.

In fairness to Sandra Buttock, she's on a five-fight streak, so she might have a chance of stopping Peña. Not a great prospect, I grant you.

Also just checked some other BW names, and it seems Ailin Perez has the exact same record as Dumont. So the Arse-weight division is doing well.

EDIT: Just seen someone called Jacqueline Cavalcanti. Seems to be on a bit of an undefeated streak in the UFC, but not exactly a who's who (but then who the fuck is who in WBW apart from the usual three or four names?). I'm guessing they'll probably keep her away from the title scene for a while.

Edited June 6, 2025 by Carbomb

[Bruce85]

1 hour ago, Carbomb said:

Know what I'm dreading, wand? 

That Kayla beats Peña for the belt, then decides she can't keep doing the cut, and vacates it - leading to a fight for the vacant BW belt in which Peña wins it for the third time.