UFC Apex: Moicano vs Duncan - Apr 4 🇺🇸

[wandshogun09]

Apex…

PARAMOUNT+ MAIN CARD
Renato Moicano vs Chris Duncan 

Virna Jandiroba vs Tabatha Ricci

Brendson Ribeiro vs Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev 

Ethyn Ewing vs Rafael Estevam 

Tommy McMillen vs Manolo Zecchini  

Robert Ruchala vs Jose Delano 

PARAMOUNT+ PRELIMS
Guilherme Pat vs Thomas Petersen 

Alessandro Costa vs Stewart Nicoll

Lando Vannata vs Darrius Flowers 

Alice Pereira vs Hailey Cowan 

Azamat Bekoev vs Tresean Gore

Dione Barbosa vs Melissa Gatto 

Kai Kamaka III vs Dakota Hope 

 

Not much to this one at all. Even the main event isn’t doing it for me and the Apex cards lately have at least had decent headliners. Moicano vs Duncan isn’t a bad fight and I do kind of like that they’re giving Duncan a main event after that banger with Mateusz Rebecki last summer and then the quick sub against Terrance McKinney. Nice to see him get a bit of spotlight. Moicano just doesn’t interest me at all anymore though. Either in the cage or his tired schtick. Looking down the card, it’s random stuff that stands out for me on this one. Like I’m looking forward to seeing Ethyn Ewing back in there. If you remember he beat and derailed Malcolm Wellmaker in a really good fight in his UFC debut. Think he took it on short notice as well if I’m remembering right. Tommy McMillen is debuting, don’t know him but he’s 9-0 with 8 finishes. Might be worth a look. Erm, Vannata vs Flowers might be decent? That’s about it.

 

Back to the Apex we go.

Edited April 4 by wandshogun09

[Egg Shen]

Yeah this is about as Apex as Apex gets. Still, really happy to see Chris Duncan get a headline spot!

[Egg Shen]

McMillen is the Sean O'Malley protege. Bit of buzz about him and he came through a tough fight on Contender Series. Seeing alot saying it's absolutely insane he's such a heavy favorite here.

 

[wandshogun09]

Coming off the best card of the year so far and now we’ve got the weakest card, on paper at least, of the year so far. Really not grabbing me this but I’ll skim through tomorrow with an Easter Egg or something. Hopefully it’s one of those pleasant surprise Apex cards that happen every now and then.

Note the wrong date on the card graphic below. It’s March 28 again apparently. Seems even the official UFC social media accounts can’t be arsed with this card 🤣

Also, what did Tommy McMillen’s opponent Manolo Zecchini turn up as? Guessing it’s some religious Easter thing but the state of this cheap looking clobber gave me a chuckle. 

 

[wandshogun09]

Not sure if anyone bothered with this but I watched it in instalments over the last week. Wasn’t bad, to be fair.

Moicano proved he’s a level or two above Chris Duncan in the main event. Disappointing but not surprising really. I was hoping Duncan might rise to the occasion here but it was always gonna be an uphill battle if Moicano could get hold of him and drag it to the mat. Moicano has fully settled into that gatekeeper role at 155 at this point. He’ll lose to the top guys but when he faces someone who’s not elite or they’re lacking somewhere, usually he wins. The recent exception being him somehow losing to old man Dariush but whatever.

I’ve said a bunch of times that I’m sick of Moicano’s schtick at this point. Somewhere along the line he decided saying “mothafokka” every five seconds was gonna be his gimmick and it was mildly amusing for a minute but got old fast for me. Then he started shoehorning weird political bollocks in and, like Duncan here, I tapped out. I just don’t need to hear a cage fighter’s political opinions ever. Then this time he goes from praising Duncan, to a minute later calling him a “bullshit guy”. Can’t make head or tail of his ramblings. I guess that’s the appeal to some but it’s tiresome now to me. I did kind of enjoy him having a moan about the Apex to the media after though. There can never be enough Apex slander for my liking.

Nice to see Virna Jandiroba bounce back from the loss against Dern. Wasn’t a great fight to watch but I don’t think anyone expected a FOTY contender here. Jandiroba was able to get her grappling going though and she’s gonna win most of the time when she can do that. Ricci really didn’t have any answers. Jandiroba calling for a third fight with Dern though, not gonna happen is it? I kind of get why she did it. She’s nearly 38, time’s running out on her career. But she’s already 0-2 against Dern and her performance last time wasn’t the type that’s gonna have anyone beating down the doors to see a third one. Plus, Zhang Weili is surely coming back to Strawweight and there’s no way they don’t give her an immediate shot at the belt she never actually lost.

Abdul Rakhman Yakhyaev made easy and short work of Brendson Ribeiro. First round sub. Not much you can take from this because Ribeiro’s a bit of a scrub. But I guess the other way of looking at that is, Yakhyaev dealt with him the way any rising prospect should. Stays unbeaten, now 9-0 and he’s already booked again for the Azerbaijan card in June.

Really becoming a fan of Ethyn Ewing. His debut, derailing the hype train of Malcolm Wellmaker was impressive. Happy to see him pick up another win here. Rare you see a proper body shot finish like this in MMA…

A liver shot Bas Rutten would be proud of. Took a couple of seconds to register and then the grimace of pain on Estevam’s face told you he was absolutely done. Not sure what’s next for Ewing but I’ll definitely be making time to watch it. So many potential corkers for him at Bantamweight as well.

Tommy McMillen had a fun but sloppy one round finish over Manolo Zecchini. Not really convinced he goes too far based off this performance though. It was exciting to watch but I can definitely see him getting ironed out in the not too distant future if he keeps swinging wide like that with his chin hanging out there asking to be tagged. You can get away with that against a Zecchini type ham and egger but he’s gonna pay for that sooner or later. He’ll probably get the Dana White Privilege treatment like Paddy and his buddy O’Malley got early on though. Bisping was already starting with the “new superstar” bollocks. Like I said, he’ll be entertaining to watch but I saw nothing here that makes me think we’ve got something special on our hands.

Alice Pereira scored a beautiful stepping in knee knockout in her fight. Look at this shit…

Reminded me of Joachim Hansen’s KO against Caol Uno way back in the K-1 Hero’s days. Pereira needed something like this after her awful showing in her UFC debut. Only just turned 20 as well so she’s got time.

Never watched all of the Dione Barbosa vs Melissa Gatto fight but I did catch this…

Oof. Flashbacks to Wandy and Shogun in Pride for me. I’m still not sure it actually landed on Gatto’s face though. Some camera angles it looked borderline, others it looked like it hit the chest/neck at most. Even the matter of whether Gatto was a downed opponent when the kick landed was being debated and the replays only seemed to muddy it more. It looked like the knee was just about still down to me though. Whether it actually hit the face, chest, neck, whatever. Barbosa throwing that kick was stupid. Too risky and too much room for error. She was fortunate to walk away with the win after that really. A different ref might’ve just DQ’d her.

Actually thought the Kai Kamaka III vs Dakota Hope curtain jerker was the FOTN myself but unsurprisingly it went to McMillen. Really good fight this. Wasn’t expecting much, barely remembered Kamaka from his previous stint and I’d never seen Hope. Only left it on because I was up when the card started. Good stuff though. Shame they never got some bonus money. 


Yeah, a better card than it looked going in. Would’ve been difficult to fall short of the rock bottom expectations though.