“There’s stuff here, you just gotta look for it.” The UFC Fight Night From Rochester Preview
A rather blegh month of May continues onward with a rather blegh fight night out in Rochester! If we're being 100% honest, this is absolutely not a bad card. It's got a bevy of action fights on the card, some pretty intriguing main card fights and a potential barometer for how yet another top 10 LW can do sans a killer weight cut in the main event. If WMMA is your thing then you've got fights at both bantamweight AND the first official featherweight fight of the year on the card. There's even some old dudes slopping it out in the mid life crisis division 205 lbs if you're that kinda dude. It's not a bad show in the slightest; it's just a filler show. It's the sort of show where you hope for it to be a) quick enough that it doesn't take up too much of your time and b) violent enough that the time it does take up isn't wasted.
Debuts: Austin Hubbard, Felicia Spencer, Charles Jourdain, Michel Pereira
Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 1 (Elizeu Zaleski vs Neil Magny CANCELLED)
Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 6 (Neil Magny, Kevin Lee, Rafael Dos Anjos, Zak Cummings, Charles Oliveira, Patrick Cummins)
Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 4 (Rafael Dos Anjos, Julian Erosa, Patrick Cummins, Ed Herman)
Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 6 (Will Lentz, Charles Oliveira, Vicente Luque, Davi Ramos, Mike Trizano, Trevin Giles)
Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC): 31-11
Rafael Dos Anjos- 3-2
Kevin Lee- 3-2
Neil Magny- 2-2
Vicente Luque- 4-1
Aspen Ladd- 2-0
Sijara Eubanks- 2-0
Ian Heinisch- 1-0
Antonio Carlos Junior- 3-0
Charles Oliveira- 5-1
Nik Lentz- 3-2
Davi Ramos- 3-1
Austin Hubbard- 0-0
Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):
Welterweight- 3 (32)
Lightweight- 3 (33)
Middleweight- 2 (17)
Featherweight- 2 (23)
Women’s Bantamweight- 1 (6)
Light Heavyweight- 1 (18)
Women's Featherweight- 1 (1)
Women’s Strawweight- (12)
Women’s Flyweight- (14)
Bantamweight- (24)
Heavyweight- (15)
Flyweight- (7)
2019’s Records We Keepin’ Track Of:
Debuting Fighters (13-31): Austin Hubbard, Felicia Spencer, Charles Jourdain, Michel Pereira
Short Notice Fighters (14-17):
Second Fight (33-7): Grant Dawson, Ian Heinisch
Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (10-20): Trevin Giles, Antonio Carlos Junior
Undefeated Fighters (17-22): Trevin Giles, Aspen Ladd, Felicia Spencer, Mike Trizano
Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (6-7): Ed Herman
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”) (14-10): Kevin Lee, Sijara Eubanks, Mike Trizano
Twelve Precarious Ponderings
1- So dig this, this is the THIRD card in a row with a women's bantamweight fight on it. To find the last time you had three straight cards with women's bantamweight fights? You have to go back to late February of 2018 when the UFC had three bantamweight fights from February 18th to March 3rd. Maybe this will spark some life back into an otherwise sleepy dormant division. March 3rd by the by was the last time the UFC had a featherweight AND a bantamweight fight on the same card as well.
2- Keeping with women's featherwieght, is this going to actually be a thing? We don't get a lot of non-Cyborg fights at 145 lbs and even less non Holly Holm fights so this Felicia Spencer vs Megan Anderson fight should have a bit more interest behind it. It would be easy to look at the planned Cyborg (rumored to be in late July) and Anderson fights as just wrapping up some contracts and going through some details but the UFC has apparently been signing a few 145ers on the sly and Anderson has mentioned there's a bit of a commitment to keeping up with the division. Dana White has also said that they're actually going to TRY to rematch Cyborg vs Nunes depending on whether they can get a longer commitment from Cyborg so if you're a fan of women's featherweight, there does seem to be something resembling a commitment. I just have my doubts about how committed they are to the commitment.
3- It's not the 165 lb class he's been clamoring for but we are FINALLY going to see Kevin Lee trickle up in weight with a potential long term move to 170 lbs. By this point, the story of Kevin Lee's career has been pretty easy to figure out. He starts out quick, puts out a tremendous pace early and then his lack of defensive chops and his questionable cardio lead to collapses in big fights. Kevin Lee is a high quality front runner but maybe that's just due to the beast of his weight cut. Perhaps more than any division, there IS a track record of being able to go from 155 lbs to 170 lbs without losing much of your game as evidenced by Rafael Dos Anjos, Benson Henderson, Donald Cerrone and most recently Anthony Pettis. Let's see if Lee can fit into that mold.
4- What's interesting (or perhaps even fun) with this fight is that both guys are sort of kind of the type of fighter that the other guy hates to see across from them. Both hate pressure fighters to varying degrees; RDA hates the sort of guy who can pressure him and make him fight the kind of fight where consistent takedown attempts and top control force him to get taken out of what he wants to do (which is also use pressure and consistent takedown attempts to set up his striking). Kevin Lee hates THAT kind of guy; the sort of versatile, all three phases threat that doesn't get tired and will force him to back up. If he can't take you down then he's going to tire himself out attempting to take you down and as such, an RDA type who can stifle 99% of fighters against the cage is the worst possible outcome for Kevin Lee. It's a compelling fight on paper that could figure to be a pretty dull one over the course of 25 minutes.
5- Was anybody calling for an Aspen Ladd vs Sijara Eubanks rematch? Or Lentz vs Oliveira 3 for that matter?
6- There's an under the radar tie in between this main event and the Pettis-Wonderboy fight; both of these fights came together due to Santiago Ponzinibbio. Ponz turned down Wonderboy which opened the door for Pettis to get the fight and the UFC yanked Ponz from the running for the RDA fight due to him backing out from the Wonderboy fight.
7- Neil Magny was originally scheduled to fight a violent under the radar Brazilian who can win fights on the ground or standing up and whose only losses have been to his style of fighting. He is now scheduled to fight a violent under the radar Brazilian who can win fights on the ground or standing up and whose only losses have been to his style of fighting. Dread It. Run From It. Destiny Still Arrives.
8- What do we make of Charles Oliveira at this point? I mean the run he's on at 155 lbs has to be considered a real thing, yeah? Wins over Jim Miller, David Teymur and Clay Guida are all absolutely legitimate and the way he's winning these fights is cause to believe that he might actually be making the turn from fun finisher to potential top 10 lightweight. He's still not even 30 yet despite having over 35 pro fights and holding the UFC submissions record. I kinda don't think we're going to learn anything vs Nik Lentz but for a guy who has been accused in the past of wilting under pressure and looking for an easy way out of fights, this figures to be at least something to keep an eye on. At the very least Oliveira is turning into a must watch can't miss attraction at his new weight class.
9- Julio Arce vs Julian Erosa is buried on this card as the show opener which is a mistake because on paper it's better than about 8 fights ahead of it. Erosa is more than likely going to find himself in a similar niche to Kurt Holobaugh; guys who really are better suited for testing fighters trying to get into the UFC than anything they could do inside of the org themselves. That said he was a fine test for Grant Dawson in his last fight and I get the feeling that Erosa is going to give the hittable yet insanely good Arce a fine test. Watching Julio Arce on offense is a masterpiece and even coming off a tough loss to Sheymon Moraes, he more than had his moments in a bloody violent back and forth fight. This will be worth your time if you get there early.
10- Charles Jourdain is making a relatively short-ish notice call up to the UFC but he's a really solid Canadian out of TKO. Another dude a la Marc Andre-Barriault who maybe isn't quite UFC ready yet but figures to be intriguing as long as he's around. Unfortunately for him, I just can't think of a worse challenge to face in my debut ON short notice than a guy like Des Green.
11- I don't know what I am to expect out of Michel Perreira vs Danny Roberts other than to let folks know it'll be a madhouse.
12- Patrick Cummins vs Ed Herman. No me gusta.
