“Some good fights, a title fight, some prelims to like. It’s all good here.” UFC in Uruguay Preview
Joey
August 7th, 2019
International Expansion! After ignoring the majority of South American since the start of its expansion in 2013/2014, the UFC has been dabbling more and more in South America as we approach the roarin' 2020s. The UFC heads to Uruguay for its first ever show, bringing a title fight and a surprisingly not bad card with it! It's a heartbreak and a bummer that some of the fights on this card fell through but what remains isn't half bad. At the top of the bill, Valentina Shevchenko gets a quickie turnaround by most champions standards, rolling back around in August after icing Jessica Eye. It's not the best title fight possible but it is A title fight and that's what counts. Under the flyweight title fight you have a tremendous action fight between Vicente Luque and Mike Perry, a pretty good light heavyweight fight between Volkan Oezdemir and Ilir Latifi, the debut of proven BJJ ace Rodolfo Vieira against solid Polish fighter Oskar Piechota coming off his first career loss and as well as the return of underrated featherweight Enrique Barzola against Bobby Moffet. The prelims are standard UFC overseas affair for the most part, some interesting fighters on some interesting fight plans.
Fights: 13
Debuts: Luiz Garagorri, Rodolfo Vieira, Cyril Gane, Raphael Pessoa, Rodrigo Vargas
Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 5 (Ashlee Evans-Smith OUT, Ariane Carnelossi IN vs Talia Santos/Talia Santos vs Ariane Carnelossi CANCELLED/Rachael Ostovich OUT, Polyana Viana IN vs Veronica Macedo/Rafael Fiziev OUT, Rodrigo Vargas IN vs Alex da Silva/Laureano Staropoli OUT, Gilbert Burns IN vs Alexey Kunchenko)
Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 6 (Ilir Latifi, Volkan Oezdemir, Valentina Shevchenko, Liz Carmouche, Mike Perry, Tecia Torres)
Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 4 (Tecia Torres, Volkan Oezdemir, Humberto Bandenay, Polyana Viana)
Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 5 (Valentina Shevchenko, Liz Carmouche, Vicente Luque, Gilbert Burns, Alexey Kunchenko)
Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 27-15
Valentina Shevchenko- 4-1 Liz Carmouche- 2-1 Mike Perry- 4-3 Vicente Luque- 5-1 Humberto Bandenay- 1-2 Luiz Garagorri- 0-0 Ilir Latifi- 2-1 Volkan Oezdemir- 3-3 Oskar Piechota- 2-1 Rodolfo Vieira- 0-0 Enrique Barzola- 3-1 Bobby Moffett- 1-1
Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):
Welterweight- 2 (46) Featherweight- 2 (39) Women’s Flyweight- 2 (26) Middleweight- 1 (26) Women’s Strawweight- 1 (20) Light Heavyweight- 1 (31) Heavyweight- 1 (23) Flyweight- 1 (11) Bantamweight- 1 (40) Lightweight- 1 (49)
Women’s Featherweight- (7) Women’s Bantamweight- (13)
2019 Number Tracker
Debuting Fighters (20-45)- Luiz Garagorri, Rodolfo Vieira, Cyril Gane, Raphael Pessoa, Rodrigo Vargas
Short Notice Fighters (21-28)- Rodrigo Vargas, Poliyana Viana, Gilbert Lewis
Second Fight (43-21)- Geraldo de Freitas, Alex da Silva, Rogério Bontorin, Raulian Paiva
Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (17-28)- Oskar Piechota
Undefeated Fighters (25-29)- Alexey Kunchenko, Cyril Gane, Raphael Pessoa, Rodolfo Vieira, Luiz Garagorri, Marina Rodriguez
Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (9-8)-
Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (24-17)- Gilbert Burns
Twelve Precarious Ponderings
1- The biggest risk Valentina Shevchenko is taking has little to do with Liz Carmouche. Now Carmouche is a respectable fighter who is a credible challenger on a bit of a winning streak. She's here to fill up a spot vs Shevchenko but here's where the challenge comes in; going into the Jessica Eye fight, the narrative on Valentina Shevchenko was that she was the most boring champion in the UFC by far. She had officially replaced Amanda Nunes as the face of boring dull WMMA title fights and like how Nunes reversed the trend by finishing Cyborg, Shevchenko blasting out Jessica Eye flipped the script. Suddenly Shevchenko went from being a dominant yet patient dull point fighter to having the best knockout of 2019. Rather than rest on that, the UFC called and Shevchenko immediately hopped right back into camp for another fight. MMA fans are fickle beasts who often don't remember the favor booking as Mighty Mouse learned. There's no virtue to "saving the show" if you're a favorite or a champion. Valentina Shevchenko's stock has never been higher and this is a serious risk. Another five round snoozer title fight and we're not talking about how Shevchenko saved a show, defended her title, remained active and kept active. We'll be talking about the aberration of the Jessica Eye KO and how Shevchenko is the most boring champion in the UFC.
2- How quickly will Valentina turn around after this fight? Think we see her in MSG or in Australia?
3- Is Mike Perry technically better than a top 10 fight for Vicente Luque? With so many violent finishes from Vicente Luque, he seemed destined for a big step up namewise but what wound up happening is that most of the guys he asked for (Robbie Lawler, Ponz) opted not to fight him. The rankings are pretty much tied up with everybody except the injured folks like Woodley, Ponz and Thompson tied up; Mike Perry might be a better fight for Luque than the likes of Demian Maia or Neil Magny or Elizeu Zaleski. Mike Perry is probably more famous than any top 10 fighter and he's the sort of stylistic matchup that Luque will favor.
4- Could Mike Perry crack the top 15 if he finishes Luque?
