UFC Apex: Taira vs Park - Aug 2 ??

[wandshogun09]

After a little break, unfortunately we’re back at the Apex…

ESPN MAIN CARD
Tatsuro Taira vs Hyun Sung Park 

Mateusz Rebecki vs Chris Duncan

Esteban Ribovics vs Elves Brener

Karol Rosa vs Nora Cornolle

Neil Magny vs Elizeu Zaleski Dos Santos 

Danny Silva vs Kevin Vallejos

ESPN+/FIGHT PASS PRELIMS 
Rinya Nakamura vs Nathan Fletcher

Rodolfo Vieira vs Tresean Gore

Nick Klein vs Andrey Pulyaev

Austin Bashi vs John Yannis

Rafael Estevam vs Felipe Bunes  

Piera Rodriguez vs Ketlen Souza 

 

 

First off, not sure the bout order is right but you know the drill. These things change multiple times a day sometimes. I’ll keep it updated as best I can. Second, it’s the Apex so I’m not going into detail on this bastard. Life’s too short. Few quick thoughts though…

• Yeah, I’ve started titling these things ‘UFC Apex’ instead of ‘UFC Vegas’ so you come into these threads with managed expectations. 

• I do actually really like Albazi vs Taira as a main event. Shame it’s wasted on the Apex but it should be a good fight and both are kind of in the same spot at the moment. Both Top 10 in the Flyweight rankings, both coming off a loss to an established name in the division (Albazi lost to Moreno, Taira lost to Royval) and both kind of have something to prove. Good stuff.

• What the fuck do they have against Esteban Ribovics? The lad was one half of what most had as the FOTY in 2024, his next fight was at the Apex and now he’s in another fight at the Apex. Him and Brener should be a scrap and a half as well. They deserved a proper crowd. But no. Get out.

• Azamat Bekoev will make the undercard worth checking out. He’s become pretty popular on social media for having a bit of a sense of humour but he’s been a lot of fun so far in the cage as well. Again, he shows potential that he might actually go on to be something, why stick him in the warehouse?

• Few other names I enjoy watching on there. Rebecki is coming off that bloodbath war against Orolbai. Nakamura is trying to rebound from his first loss. Silva vs Vallejos could be a bit of a sleeper. Vallejos had a great debut. 

Yeah, there’s a bunch of dogshit smeared on there as well but, for the Apex, overall this actually ain’t that bad.

 

Apex…

Edited July 30, 2025 by wandshogun09

[wandshogun09]

Sounds like next weekend’s main event of Albazi vs Taira is off. Albazi’s out. Seen Marcel Dorff’s retweeted something about the fight being off so it’s legit. 

Times like this I’m glad I don’t do the previews for these Apex shows anymore ? It became enough of a chore writing about them as it was, having to keep editing the posts when fighters fell out was an actual ball ache.

Not a clue what’s gonna headline this card now. Honestly wouldn’t hate Ribovics vs Brener getting the bump. That was always my favourite fight on this card anyway. But it sounds like it’s gonna be a completely new fight. I’d guess they’ll try to keep Taira on the card and bring a replacement in but on less than a week’s notice fuck knows? 

[wandshogun09]

Triple post twat. Here’s the new main event…

Not ideal but on a few days notice there weren’t a lot of options. Park looked good in his last fight from what I remember. Doesn’t scream main event but think yourself lucky. There was a rumour yesterday that they were trying to make a Waldo Cortes Acosta vs Tallison Teixeira main event for this one. I’ll take Taira vs Park over that any day.

Azamat Bekoev’s fight’s been delayed to October as well.

Apex fight week everyone! 

[Dai]

Surely a Top 5'er of all time on the 'Worst Apex Main Event' list, if we are just going on 'name' value, right?

Edited July 28, 2025 by Dai

[Bruce85]

Might give this one a miss

[wandshogun09]

3 hours ago, Bruce85 said:

Might give this one a miss

It’s looking like one you can skip and not really miss much. I’m definitely gonna give Ribovics vs Brener a watch though. The rest I can take or leave really but I’ll be watching that fight and I’ll give the main event a look. It’s gonna be one of them where I blast through the whole thing within an hour on Sunday though.

Just realised as well, putting Hyun Sung Park in the main event here has left Steve Erceg without an opponent on the Apex card the following week. Proper robbing Peter to pay Paul shit. Begs the question why they couldn’t have done Taira vs Erceg on this one instead. Would’ve been a better headliner. All I can think is Erceg said no, which I wouldn’t blame him at all considering he’s coming off three straight losses and he’d already agreed to fight Park as a replacement when the original opponent Alex Perez dropped out. Assuming they offered this Taira fight to Erceg as well, that would’ve been the third opponent he’d have been scheduled to fight this training camp and they were bringing the fight forward a week. Bollocks to that. 

Edited July 28, 2025 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

19 hours ago, Dai said:

Surely a Top 5'er of all time on the 'Worst Apex Main Event' list, if we are just going on 'name' value, right?

Its up there for sure.

[Bruce85]

Well don’t judge a book by its cover I guess. That turned out to be a very enjoyable card. 

[wandshogun09]

I skimmed a lot of the prelims but, yeah, it was a better overall card than it looked going in.

Tatsuro Taira looked a right handful in the main event. Outclassed Hyun Sung Park really. Yeah, the circumstances weren’t ideal with Park stepping in on late notice but they weren’t ideal for Taira either having his opponent switched so late in the day. Especially coming off his first loss. It felt like this could’ve been a real banana skin but Taira dealt with him no bother. Clearly a level above Park and got the sub in the second round. Not sure what the move is now for Taira. When he lost to Royval it was a really good fight but it kind of felt like it was a step up too soon. So throwing him straight back in the deep end might not be the best idea. But he’s already ranked #6 so he can’t exactly go backwards at this point. Of the names above him, they could try rebooking the Albazi fight but you can’t rely on Albazi to show up. I wouldn’t be against seeing Taira against Kai Kara-France or even Brandon Moreno next. 

Chris Duncan vs Mateusz Rebecki stole the show. Proper scrap that was. Never been that arsed about Duncan before and I’m still not convinced he’s that good, but he’s tough and definitely a bit better than he was earlier in his UFC run. Rebecki’s got form for these kind of fights but he might need to change something because his last few fights have probably knocked years off his life.

Esteban Ribovics vs Elves Brener was the other show stealer. No surprises with this one, it always stood out to me as the highlight of the card. I’m glad both this fight and Duncan vs Rebecki got FOTN bonuses. Would’ve been a shame to leave one out or choose one over the other. Both cracking fights. They really need to get Ribovics in front of crowds from here on out though. Ridiculous to me that him and Zellhuber had the 2024 FOTY at the Sphere and the UFC decided to reward Ribovics by sticking his next two fights in the Apex.

From what I saw of the rest, I thought Kevin Vallejos looked really good in his win over Danny Silva. Definitely gonna be worth keeping an eye on him.

Rinya Nakamura responded to his first loss the way you’d want him to. Just shut Fletcher down with the early body kick.

 

Yeah, not bad at all. Those back-to-back bangers with Ribovics vs Brener and Duncan vs Rebecki instantly elevate this card above pretty much every Apex one you’ve probably seen. And the main event is worth checking out for Taira’s performance.