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UFC International Fight Week 2016 Preview

So this massive preview is already a little bit outdated - Jon Jones had his drug test for UFC 200 flagged, so his fight with Daniel Cormier is off as the main event of the show. I'll have more in the next preview (since there's already another card on Wednesday) after this all shakes itself out, but I've already written all these words, so I'm leaving things as is. ----- WHAT'S HAPPENING: *UFC's debut in Ottawa wound up being a pretty fun show - it really says something about how strong the UFC product has gotten that a card this solid up and down can happen, only for it to be rather glossed over and forgotten by about a week later. The main event was a pretty love it or hate it affair, as Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson won a five-round decision over Rory MacDonald that was filled with more tension than action. It was a pretty interesting chess match at first - MacDonald's fights, his five-round ones in particular, can start a bit slow as he starts to feel out his opponent - but with time it became apparent that MacDonald didn't really have many answers for Thompson's unorthodox karate-based style, so the fight just sort of became Thompson keeping MacDonald at bay as the Canadian never really chose to throw caution to the wind and try to engage for a come-from-behind finish. This was a pretty crucial fight for MacDonald, and while it could've gone worse, a loss was still pretty damaging, as this is the last fight on MacDonald's UFC contract, and a win here pretty much would've forced UFC's hand into re-signing him as the presumptive top welterweight contender. Instead, MacDonald's lost a decent amount of leverage, though as a top welterweight besides and UFC's best active Canadian fighter, it'll be interesting to see how things play out - although it might take a while, as MacDonald apparently continues to have issues with his nose dating back to his loss against Robbie Lawler, which also raises a bunch of lingering concerns. As for Thompson, this caps a pretty amazing rise that almost definitely puts him in line for a title shot against Lawler, in what should be a pretty awesome fight when it takes place. In fact, given that nobody really seems all that psyched for the main event of UFC 201, can we just put Thompson in Tyron Woodley's place? *Thompson got the biggest win on the card, but the best performance of the night easily belonged to Donald Cerrone, who surprisingly looked better than ever in his second fight at welterweight. Many people, including myself, thought Cerrone would have some trouble against a large natural welterweight like Patrick Cote, but Cerrone instead pretty much ran through him in all facets of the game, showcasing his underrated grappling in round one before showcasing some of the best striking of his career the rest of the fight. Cerrone even managed to be the first guy to stop Cote due to strikes in the Quebecer's 14-year career, cracking one of the most notoriously indestructible chins in the entire sport. Just outstanding stuff from start to finish for Cerrone, and given how frequently he fights, it wouldn't be surprising to find him challenging for the welterweight belt within a year - hell, he's already slated for another step up the ladder in August, facing Rick Story at UFC 202. *And the craziest fight of the night was easily third from the top, as Steve Bosse won a decision over Sean O'Connell in a crazy back and forth brawl. Each of these guys has pretty much guaranteed action every time out, so it wasn't a surprise that this fight was great, but it was pretty shocking that it just kept going, as the two just wailed on each other repeatedly and somehow managed to keep coming back from the abuse. O'Connell in particular was impressive, as by the end he was basically a zombie, charging forward, continuing to eat shots while trying to hit Bosse back. Just nutso stuff, and one has to thank Quinton "Rampage" Jackson for attempting to come back to UFC, as it was his contract issues that made UFC lure Bosse out of retirement as a potential replacement. The crazy thing is, with another win, the former hockey enforcer might actually become a going concern in such a thin light heavyweight division - but if he tops out as an action fighter and keeps giving us brawls like this, that's more than fine. *There was some other fun stuff throughout the rest of the card, probably led by a rejuvenated Joanne Calderwood looking pretty great in a win over Valerie Letourneau in UFC's first-ever women's flyweight bout. This was pretty much the Calderwood everyone wanted in the UFC, coming back from a disappointing 2015 where a messy breakup with her head trainer back in Scotland led to a whole bunch of issues regarding her training camps. But Calderwood trained at Montreal's famed Tristar Gym for this bout, and just looked absolutely amazing, showing off some of the best kickboxing of her career and eventually finishing a tough Letourneau about halfway through the third round. There were a few odd moments, however, when it appeared Letourneau was having some issues with getting kicked to the body - instead, it seems to have been an issue with her Reebok gear, as it was basically too loose in spots and at one point or another threatened to give everyone a show, forcing Letourneau to have to stop and adjust herself throughout the entire bout. Another black mark on this whole Reebok deal, though apparently Letourneau's already met with the Reebok team to voice her concerns. Though, given that this is far from the first Reebok issue and this sort of stuff still happens, I doubt anything will change. *Running through the rest of the card - Olivier Aubin-Mercier and Misha Cirkunov both had similar fights, as the former judokas showed some slightly improved striking, but still struggled a bit early before using their grappling to get wins over Thibault Gouti and Ion Cutelaba, respectively. Cirkunov should be fine in the long run, particularly since he's still in the much thinner light heavyweight division, but one gets the feeling we're going to need to see a jump from Aubin-Mercier soon for him not to get lost in the mix at lightweight. Poland's Krzysztof Jotko got the most impressive win of his career, knocking out the resurgent Tamdan McCrory in just under a minute - if he has some finishing ability, that's a huge plus for Jotko, who's been an under-the-radar middleweight and may have earned himself a solid step up in competition here. Jason Saggo won a fairly unmemorable split decision over Leandro Silva, but it does make it a 3-1 UFC run for the underrated Canadian grappler. Joe Soto almost definitely saved his UFC career with a come-from-behind submission win over Chris Beal - Soto was better than his 0-3 UFC record going in, but he was running out of chances and pretty much came through when he needed to most. Elias Theodorou won a decision over Sam Alvey in a disappointing bout, as Alvey's passive, purely counter-based style pretty much resulted in him doing nothing, and Theodorou having trouble feeling him out - but a win's a win, and while I was worried UFC was going to cut Alvey, he's already booked on next week's show from Sioux Falls. Randa Markos won a decision over Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger in a fight that didn't really do either any favors - they both gassed out in pretty short order, and the result was a ridiculously sloppy and not particularly exciting bout. Colby Covington ground out and submitted the debuting Jonathan Meunier as somewhat expected, and Ali Bagautinov opened the show with a fun decision win over Geane Herrera. Herrera acquitted himself well, getting Bagautinov in some tricky grappling positions at points, but I'm still unsure what the point was of putting a raw prospect like Herrera in there against a top veteran flyweight like Bagautinov. *Outside of Stephen Thompson, the biggest talking point coming out of the show may have been, as always, UFC fighters having issues with money. When asked about his next fight, Donald Cerrone made a remark about how his pay shows he doesn't matter to UFC - Dana White later followed up with a comment about how Cerrone is too inconsistent, despite having lost only one fight in the last three years or so and saving a whole bunch of cards, but I guess whatever issues have been settled to an extent with Cerrone now booked on UFC 202. Also notable was Joanne Calderwood, fresh off a career-best performance after training in Montreal, posting on Instagram about how, not getting a performance bonus, she has to go back to Scotland for a bit and work to earn money so she can train in Canada. At the very least, UFC seems to have issued her a new contract - Calderwood was apparently still on her cheaper deal from The Ultimate Fighter - so...small progress, I guess. *In the biggest story looming over the sport, nobody's sure what the hell's going on with the UFC sale now, or if it'll even happen. Yep. *So...Georges St. Pierre pretty much sounds like he's ready to come back, more or less stating as much that he's open to it if UFC gives him a call. And what's more, it sounds like he's most interested in a shot at middleweight champion Michael Bisping - it's understandable, but it really is pretty amusing how everyone's lining up to get a shot at what seems like a vulnerable champion. *As far as other people rumored to come to UFC, Fedor Emilianenko, considered one of the greatest heavyweights of all time, sure had himself a fight for EFN in St. Petersburg a few weeks ago. It actually was a pretty entertaining show, as always - where else can you see a woman in a giant inflatable spider costume sing "Fighter" by Christina Aguilera as the combatants come to the cage - headlined by Fedor against Brazilian UFC vet Fabio Maldonado. This was obviously a setup fight for Fedor to win, and, well, I guess he technically did, even though it was probably a draw at best - Fedor was doing fine enough in the first round until Maldonado absolutely clocked him and pounded on him for what felt like twenty minutes - but, given that the referee was appointed by the Russian MMA union, the president of which is...Fedor Emilianenko, Maldonado pretty much had to kill Fedor to win the fight, and he fell short of that. Fedor probably did win the last two rounds, as Maldonado wasn't able to do much after the Russian recovered, but still, very obviously fixed. There's still always the rumors of Fedor finally coming to the UFC, though this fight showed that if it happens, they're basically doing it just to do it. *In a sad note, former UFC light heavyweight Ryan Jimmo passed away last week in a pretty horrifying scene. Jimmo was looking to move back to Edmonton after training out of Arizona for a bit, and while back in Alberta, he apparently got into an argument in the parking lot of a night club, when the other guys decided to run Jimmo over, killing him in a hit and run. Just awful and senseless. It was a weird UFC run for Jimmo, who eventually made it into UFC after a long, decision-heavy winning streak in his native Canada, which made it amusing when he somehow scored the quickest knockout in UFC history in his debut, putting away Anthony Perosh in just seven seconds. But that proved to be false advertising, as Jimmo traded wins and losses in fights that were, frankly, quite boring, and between that and his overly vocal criticisms of UFC management, he was unsurprisingly cut after two straight losses last year. He hadn't fought since, but he'll be missed, since he was apparently one of the nice guys of the sport. Sigh. *Nevada's apparently going to require a neurological assessment for fighters starting this August. California looks to follow shortly, and it'll be interesting - it seems to be less a case of "pass" versus "fail" and more monitoring the brain health of fighters over time. We'll see what comes of it. *For those that remember Frankie Perez knocking out Sam Stout and then retiring on the Saskatoon show last August, Perez's retirement is apparently short-lived, as the two-time UFC vet says he's ready to return to action. Alright then. *Let's talk drugs! In suspension news, BJ Penn has received a six-month ban for out of competition IV use, and he'll be cleared to return in late September, while Wanderlei Silva protege Ricardo Abreu is the latest to have a drug test flagged and is awaiting a suspension of his own. Meanwhile, USADA has apparently relaxed their rules on Meldonium, re-instating Islam Makhachev and allowing Daniel Omielanczuk to fight this coming Wednesday despite getting flagged for the drug. Meldonium's been in the news lately, mostly with the suspension of tennis star Maria Sharapova - basically, it's a heart medication, legal and common in Russia, that a lot of athletes have been using to increase blood flow. USADA banned the use of meldonium effective January 1st, but it appears they did so without doing much research - there's not a whole lot out there on its actual effects in people with normal working hearts (versus those with the heart problems the drug is meant to help), and more importantly, there's no research on how long meldonium stays in the system, so USADA might be flagging people for doses taken sometime before 2016. So USADA's sort of taking the stance of letting these guys fight for now, but if they find out meldonium actually does something, then they'll be in trouble. And facing a two-year suspension for a flagged drug test, Frank Mir is asking UFC for his release. He's probably headed to Russia if he gets it - Mir versus Fedor sounds good, but I hope we get, like, Frank Mir versus DaDa 5000 on a boat. ------ BOOKINGS: *So, UFC 202, the Nate Diaz/Conor McGregor rematch show in August, is looking like a pretty stacked card. I've mentioned Donald Cerrone/Rick Story a few times already, but that's looking like the number four fight on the show at best, as UFC also announced an excellent welterweight bout between Demian Maia and Carlos Condit that might decide a top contender, as well as moving the Rumble Johnson/Glover Teixeira #1 contender's fight from Chicago to here after some personal issues with Johnson. Plus there's some other great stuff - Cody Garbrandt looks to capitalize off his big win over Thomas Almeida by taking on bantamweight Takeya Mizugaki (in a bout that's surprisingly not in Garbrandt's native Ohio at UFC 203), plus two more top welterweights go at it in Neil Magny and Dong Hyun Kim. Tim Means finally comes back to bring the violence to Sean Strickland, plus there's a fun little fight at the bottom of the card, as McGregor teammate Artem Lobov faces off against Diaz teammate Chris Avila in a bout that probably won't be that great, but should bring some entertainment. *UFC 203 got a big fight too, as the CM Punk debut, rumored for 202, is in fact taking place a month late in Cleveland. So...that'll sure be something. Plus 203 got some decent undercard fights - Erik Koch, fresh off a big win over Shane Campbell to come back from a long injury layoff, takes on Drew Dober at lightweight, plus longtime middleweight C.B. Dollaway moves up to 205 to face Francimar Barroso. *The South Dakota show on Wednesday got a bit gutted - first, Michael Chiesa had to pull out of what looked to be a pretty awesome main event against Tony Ferguson - the bantamweight bout between Michael McDonald and John Lineker, a firecracker in itself, is the new main event, and Ferguson will now face newcomer Landon Vannata. Amusingly, the same scenario happened when Ferguson had to pull out of a scheduled fight against Khabib Nurmagomedov, forcing Khabib to fight a debuting fighter - Ferguson criticized Khabib at the time, so Khabib returned the favor right back here. TUF 22 winner Ryan Hall's bout against Alex White was also scrapped thanks to a White injury, so in its place are two new fights - Sam Alvey gets a quick turnaround against TUF 23 vet Eric Spicely, and bantamweight Lauren Murphy faces a debuting prospect herself in Katlyn Chookagian. *Alright, let's go through the rest of the bookings. Alexander Gustafsson teased retirement, but instead he'll be coming back on the Hamburg show in September, facing Poland's Jan Blachowicz in what looks like an easyish win to get Gustafsson back on track. Vancouver in August still doesn't have a main event, but it will have Paige VanZant, as PVZ has rebuffed movie roles and a WWE appearance to make her comeback against Bec Rawlings. Claudio Silva is out of an undercard bout at UFC 201 against Siyar Bahadurzada, but Jorge Masvidal is in as a replacement, which is frankly an improvement. UFC doesn't really appear to be trying for Salt Lake City in August - a bunch of fights have been announced, mostly featuring debuting talent, with the one solid matchup being Dennis Bermudez against TUF Brazil 1 winner Rony Jason. There's been nothing officially announced, but apparently UFC is returning to Brasilia, Brazil in September - no main event has been announced, but apparently Francisco Trinaldo/Paul Felder and Alan Patrick/Stevie Ray are both slated for that card. And things are slowly coming together for October - UFC announced a return to Manila, in which half-Filipino John Dodson figures to feature prominently, and there are rumors out of Brazil that Michael Bisping and Dan Henderson have verbally agreed to a title fight at UFC 204 sometime during the month, perhaps in England. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Bruno Korea (4-1 overall, 0-1 UFC, last fought 11/7/15, L vs. Matheus Nicolau): With Matheus Nicolau fighting on Friday, I went to go see what was up with the man he beat in November, fellow TUF: Brazil 4 alum Bruno "Korea" Rodrigues, and saw he's been fighting in Brazil, so I assume he's been cut. Most guys who lose their first post-TUF fight are, but I thought UFC might make an exception for Korea, given that he has a pretty fun striking-heavy style and was the standout personality on the show, a ladies' man who actually managed to get with one of the ring card girls that UFC was holding concurrent tryouts for. But nope, UFC let him go, and given that he's a solid prospect on their radar, I wouldn't be shocked if he's eventually back - hell, he's already won two fights in 2016. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 7/13 - UFC Fight Night 91 - Sioux Falls, SD - John Lineker vs. Michael McDonald, Tony Ferguson vs. Landon Vannata 7/23 - UFC on Fox 20 - Chicago, IL - Holly Holm vs. Valentina Shevchenko, Edson Barboza vs. Gilbert Melendez 7/30 - UFC 201 - Atlanta, GA - Robbie Lawler ( c ) vs. Tyron Woodley, Demetrious Johnson ( c ) vs. Wilson Reis 8/6 - UFC Fight Night 92 - Salt Lake City, UT - Alex Caceres vs. Yair Rodriguez 8/20 - UFC 202 - Las Vegas, NV - Nate Diaz vs. Conor McGregor, Anthony Johnson vs. Glover Teixeira, Carlos Condit vs. Demian Maia, Donald Cerrone vs. Rick Story 8/27 - UFC on Fox 21 - Vancouver, BC - Charles Oliveira vs. Anthony Pettis, Bec Rawlings vs. Paige VanZant 9/3 - UFC Fight Night 93 - Hamburg, Germany - Andrei Arlovski vs. Josh Barnett, Jan Blachowicz vs. Alexander Gustafsson, Ryan Bader vs. Ilir Latifi 9/10 - UFC 203 - Cleveland, OH - Stipe Miocic ( c ) vs. Alistair Overeem, Ben Rothwell vs. Fabricio Werdum, Mickey Gall vs. CM Punk 9/24 - UFC Fight Night 94 - Brasilia, Brazil - Paul Felder vs. Francisco Trinaldo, Alan Patrick vs. Stevie Ray 12/3 - TUF 24 Finale - Las Vegas, NV - Joseph Benavidez vs. Henry Cejudo ----- UFC Fight Night 90 - July 7, 2016 - MGM Grand Garden Arena - Las Vegas, Nevada Alright, let's do this. For the second time, UFC's running three shows in three nights, and UFC 200 weekend starts with a pretty fun one on Fight Pass. First, we get the first men's title fight in the history of the streaming service in what should be a pretty fun matchup, and then a solid heavyweight brawl in the co-main. Past that, it's a mix of prospects and action fighters - not much in terms of name value, but if everything breaks right, we should get some fun bouts, along with some guys getting an opportunity to separate themselves from the pack. So while it's pretty much a two fight show, there's still more than enough to justify this card's existence, and it should be a really fun appetizer as things start to get going. Three shows in three nights, people. MAIN CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 10:00 PM ET): Lightweight Championship: (C) Rafael dos Anjos vs. (#2) Eddie Alvarez Heavyweight: (#10) Roy Nelson vs. (#12) Derrick Lewis Welterweight: Alan Jouban vs. Belal Muhammad Lightweight: Mitch Clarke vs. Joseph Duffy PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:30 PM ET): Welterweight: Alberto Mina vs. Mike Pyle Lightweight: Mehdi Baghdad vs. John Makdessi Bantamweight: Anthony Birchak vs. Dileno Lopes Bantamweight: Russell Doane vs. Pedro Munhoz Bantamweight: Felipe Arantes vs. Jerrod Sanders Lightweight: Gilbert Burns vs. Lukasz Sajewski Bantamweight: Marco Beltran vs. Reginaldo Vieira Welterweight: Alvaro Herrera vs. Vicente Luque THE RUNDOWN: Rafael dos Anjos (25-7 overall, 14-5 UFC) vs. Eddie Alvarez (27-4 overall, 2-1 UFC, 9-1 Bellator): It's a funny thing - for as much of a talking point as it is that the lightweight division is probably the best and deepest in UFC, these two guys might be the best in the division, and they're among the most underrated elite fighters in all of MMA. Dos Anjos has a pretty boring personality, but he's come out of nowhere to go on one of the best runs in all of MMA, winning 10 of his last 11, and coming off one-sided wins over Benson Henderson, Nate Diaz, Anthony Pettis, and Donald Cerrone. Dos Anjos made his UFC debut all the way back in 2008 and just sort of hung around for a few years as a middling submission-focused lightweight before going on a bit of a run in the midcard and earned some bigger fights. And it was still somewhat rough going - a big win over Donald Cerrone gave way to a one-sided loss to Khabib Nurmagomedov, who has now recovered from injuries and lurks as a top contender himself - until really that Henderson fight, when dos Anjos's focus on improving his striking all clicked into place, making him one of the most lethal pressure artists in all of MMA. In a pretty stunning move given his initial skillset, dos Anjos has developed into a guy whose main gameplan is to keep moving forward, get in your face, and basically just try to keep you on the defensive as he tries to wreck you. The starkest example of this was the Anthony Pettis fight - Pettis's style is mostly predicated on getting distance from his opponents to try single, dynamic strikes, and dos Anjos pretty much had none of it, pressing through whatever Pettis tried, pushing him against the cage, and basically just rag dolling and beating up the then-champ for five rounds - and the Cerrone rematch might have been even more impressive, as dos Anjos crumpled the challenger with a body kick and swarmed him for the finish in just 66 seconds. Being such a gifted fighter, it's a shame dos Anjos as champ hasn't really clicked yet, both thanks to his lack of personality and his title reign coinciding with the first spate of injuries in his career, as there's been eight or nine months before each title defense. But hey, maybee it'll click here against Eddie Alvarez, who's always ready for a brawl, even if his UFC career to date hasn't really shown it. It's been a weird run - Alvarez vacated the Bellator championship to get into UFC after a long career basically putting on awesome fights all over the world, gaining a rep as the kind of badass that pretty much every kid from Philadelphia seems to fancy themselves as. But, well, Alvarez's three UFC fights have been somewhat low on action - his UFC debut, a close decision loss to Cerrone, was a solid enough affair, but he mostly relied on his wrestling to take care of Gilbert Melendez, and caught a ton of flak for his follow-up win over Pettis, which saw him pretty much adapt the dos Anjos playbook and just rush the former champ, although Alvarez was pretty much content to neutralize Pettis rather than mount a ton of his own offense. But if anyone deserves a pass for two lackluster fights, it's probably Eddie Alvarez, particularly since taking that tact has finally earned him a long-awaited UFC title shot. As far as the fight, it should be an interesting one - dos Anjos has been so dominant, and against such a great slate of competition, that he's easily the favorite, but Alvarez also might be the best prepared of the bunch to deal with dos Anjos's pressure-filled style, as guys like Cerrone and Pettis depend on distance for their striking, and Diaz came into their fight woefully out of shape. But if dos Anjos runs through Alvarez, it's another gigantic feather in his cap, and if Alvarez is able to withstand the barrage and fight back - well, Eddie Alvarez might finally add a classic UFC fight to the many other great fights he's put on throughout his career. Roy Nelson (21-12 overall, 8-8 UFC) vs. Derrick Lewis (15-4 [1] overall, 6-2 UFC, 0-1 Bellator): Well, this should certainly be something, as two of the more notable personalities in the heavyweight damage go out there and try to knock each other's heads off. It's been a long, weird ride for Roy Nelson, who quickly became a huge fan favorite upon his UFC debut, thanks to his fat, scruffy look, his everyman persona, and his tendency to pretty much just hunt for the big knockout and get it more often than not. There was always a sort of inside joke with Nelson - while his game was pretty much a "chicks dig the longball" approach to fighting, there was always the knowledge that Nelson had a rep a pretty excellent BJJ practitioner, suggesting there was actually a rather skilled mixed martial artist somewhere beneath that beard and layers of blubber. But now Nelson's 40 years old, and the last few years have pretty much seen his years of not taking care of himself catch up with him - he's lost five out of his last seven (after a three-fight winning streak that saw him on the verge of a title shot), and now, more than ever, his game consists of hunting for the big knockout punch, only now it comes a little bit slower, and Nelson has a bit more trouble getting in the right position to set it up. On the other side of things, we have "The Black Beast" Derrick Lewis, who's sort of taking Nelson's mantle as the entertaining heavyweight personality du jour. Lewis maintains an active social media presence, often posting all sorts of weirdly funny photoshops about various stuff going on at the moment, and frankly, he fights a lot like Nelson, at least in terms of basically looking for nothing but the knockout. And what a knockout it is - Lewis might be the hardest hitter in all of the UFC, putting all of his, what, 280 pounds behind every knockout blow and possessing a whole lot of prison strength - this is a man that served three and a half years for beating a KKK member within an inch of his life. And if Nelson's knockout punches are getting a little bit slower, it's been just the opposite for Lewis, who's slowly getting better and better at getting in position to hit those knockout shots, doing just that in three straight fights against Viktor Pesta, Damian Grabowski, and Gabriel Gonzaga. It's a pretty easy fight to call as far as what's going to happen - either Nelson gets knocked out, or Lewis gets knocked out - but it's a surprisingly crucial one, as these two are some of the few stuck between the contenders and also-rans at heavyweight. Plus, hell, it's a division so thin, particularly at the top, that when you combine that with each fighter's popularity, there's always the chance that a bit of momentum could propel the winner somewhere near the top of the division. Should be an entertaining car crash to watch - ahhhh, heavyweights. Alan Jouban (13-4 overall, 4-2 UFC) vs. Belal Muhammad (9-0 overall, 2-0 Bellator): Alan Jouban's a fascinating cat, as the Louisiana-born Los Angeles native has been one of UFC's more reliably exciting fighters since he debuted just under two years ago. Jouban has a side job as a professional model, and he does have the look for it, but his fighting style doesn't match that at all, as he seems to hold very little regard for his face - Jouban's game is mostly predicated on trying to swarm and overwhelm his opponents with strikes, defense be damned, as Jouban basically relies on his excellent recovery ability to bounce back and get back to attacking his foe whenever they manage to drop him. And hey, it's worked really well so far - Albert Tumenov's the only guy who's been able to put down Jouban so far, and pretty much all his fights have been exciting affairs to varying degrees, mostly depending on his opponent's ability to fight back. It is a bit of a highwire act - one gets the feeling that if or when Jouban's chin starts to crack, things might go downhill really quickly - but for now, it's exciting to watch, and Jouban's started to carve out a niche as a must-watch fighter. And he'll be an interesting first test for the debuting Belal Muhammad, an Illinois native who's put together a pretty decent resume, capped off with a welterweight title win in Titan FC over Steve Carl. Muhammad should be an interesting contrast in styles for Jouban, as while Jouban pretty much looks for pressure and the finish, Muhammad's more of a steady, accurate boxer, looking to break his opponents down over time. He's probably more of a five-round fighter than a three-round one - his win over Carl was the first five-round fight of his career, and probably not coincidentally, his first finish in over three years - but it'll be interesting to see if he can weather the storm or keep Jouban at bay over three rounds for the victory. Good stuff here, and hey, it's an Alan Jouban fight, so you know it'll be exciting. Mitch Clarke (11-3 overall, 2-3 UFC) vs. Joseph Duffy (14-2 overall, 2-1 UFC): Should be a fun bout here, even if it looks like a bit of a bounceback fight for much-hyped prospect "Irish" Joe Duffy. Duffy, who I believe I'm contractually obligated to mention was the last man to defeat Conor McGregor before Nate Diaz, looked like UFC's next big Irish star with a pretty unique background - he started as a submission expert, then took about three years off to pursue a career in pro boxing, coming back to MMA in 2014 and looking pretty excellent in running through Jake Lindsay and Ivan Jorge in his first two UFC fights. But his first big step up in competition, against Dustin Poirier, exposed a lot of holes in Duffy's game, particularly defensively. While Duffy did well enough on the feet, as one would expect, Poirier was pretty content to take Duffy down at will and beat him up on the ground, and Duffy was either unable or unwilling to get back to his feet, instead hunting for submissions that never really came through. That all said, Poirier now looks to be well on his way towards becoming a top lightweight contender (if he isn't already), and Duffy gets a much more favorable matchup against Saskatchewan's Mitch Clarke. Clarke's been a pretty solid guy for UFC to have around, even if there seems to have been a long layoff in between fights - he's pretty universally regarded as one of the good guys of the sport, and while he's a fairly one-dimensional submission expert, he's one of the better ones around, both in terms of skill (his biggest career win was an absolutely beautiful D'Arce choke over Al Iaquinta in 2014) and excitement, as a bunch of his fights have wound up being pretty fun back and forth grappling affairs. It'll probably be good news for Clarke - and the fans, frankly - if this fight winds up being one of those, as Duffy also has excellent ground chops, but one does worry that Clarke isn't even able to get it there, as Duffy might be content to keep things on the feet, where he'll probably chew Clarke up. So while this looks to be a bit of a setup fight for Duffy to win, it should be a tricky one that Duffy would do well to take quite seriously - after all, Iaquinta was pretty much beating Clarke from pillar to post before he finally found himself trapped in a choke and losing consciousness. One just hopes that it's a fun one, and upset or no, that UFC keeps the losing fighter around. Alberto Mina (12-0 overall, 2-0 UFC) vs. Mike Pyle (27-11-1 overall, 10-6 UFC, 1-0 Strikeforce, 2-0 WEC): Who the hell knows what to expect from this one. Mike Pyle's nearing on 41 years old and 17 years as a fighter (long enough ago that his MMA debut was against Quinton Jackson in the first fight on both men's careers), but he hasn't really been slowing down - a quick knockout loss to Jordan Mein in 2014 looked like it might've been the end, but in the ensuing two years, he's looked game in a decision loss to Colby Covington and had a come-from-behind finish to put away Sean Spencer. He's not building a campaign towards a title or anything, but the crafty vet looks to be far from done, showing off a well-rounded package of solid striking and slick submission skills whenever he steps into the cage. He faces Alberto Mina, who makes his Stateside debut, and has his first UFC bout outside of Asia, as the Brazilian has called Hong Kong home the last few years. Mina was sort of an enigma when UFC signed him in 2014 - he had finished all ten of his opponents over a nine-year career, but had a bunch of periods of inactivity, the most recent of which was a prolonged contract dispute with Bellator - but he looked good in his UFC debut, winning a sprint of a bout against Shinsho Anzai via knockout. The follow-up, well, wasn't so great - Mina did manage to get the split decision win over Yoshihiro Akiyama in Korea, but it wasn't all that convincing - Anzai did well enough early, but by halfway through the bout, had gassed so badly that he spent most of the third round laying on his back, trying to goad Akiyama into coming to the ground and basically just making a poor show of himself. But, still, two of the judges thought he did enough in the first half of the fight to give him the win, and a win's a win. It'll be interesting - Pyle's savvy and usually pushes the pace, but he is in fact almost 41 years old, while Mina is still relatively unproven - one just hopes Mina at least acquits himself better than he did last time around. Mehdi Baghdad (11-4 overall, 0-1 UFC) vs. John Makdessi (13-5 overall, 6-5 UFC): I'd say this is John Makdessi looking into his future, but he's actually somehow a few weeks younger than Mehdi Baghdad, despite their gap in UFC experience. I crack that joke just because at a very superficial level, it's a matchup between two guys who seem similar - both are French-speaking striking specialists of Arabic descent, as Makdessi's a Lebanese karateka from Quebec, and Baghdad's an Algerian Muay Thai artist from France. Makdessi's carved out a niche as a solid action lightweight - while he's never really reached the highs that his first few UFC fights, which contained an array of impressive spinning strikes, suggested, he's been good enough to basically trade wins and losses while putting on pretty solid fights. He has his back against the wall, though, after a one-sided loss to Donald Cerrone and a controversial decision loss to Yancy Medeiros, but thankfully Baghdad is seemingly a bit of an advantageous matchup. Baghdad didn't really impress too much on TUF 23 despite having one of the better resumes of the bunch, but UFC picked him up anyway as a late injury replacement, and his debut in January saw Chris Wade pretty much take him down and choke him out in fairly short order. So, in a way, it's also about as good a matchup as Baghdad can ask for as well, given that Makdessi shouldn't be looking for the takedown and should probably keep things standing, where Baghdad's more comfortable. Of course, that's also where Makdessi is more comfortable as well. So this should just be fifteen minutes of solid MMA kickboxing, which is fine enough for what it is. Anthony Birchak (12-3 overall, 1-2 UFC, 1-0 Bellator) vs. Dileno Lopes (18-2 overall, 0-1 UFC): While this should be a really fun fight between two underrated bantamweights, there's a distinct possibility that the loser gets cut, which would pretty disappointing to see. Anthony Birchak's a pretty fun fighter, as the Arizona native pretty much lives up to his "El Toro" nickname, constantly charging forward to pressure his opponent. And, if nothing else, it's given us three memorable first-round finishes, even if they all haven't gone Birchak's way - while he lit up Joe Soto for his sole UFC win, that came in between him charging right into a heel hook from Ian Entwistle, and his brutal knockout loss to Thomas Almeida, a highlight-reel KO that saw Birchak crumple to the mat in a pretty horrifying manner. On the other side of things, we have Dileno Lopes, who's finally earned his UFC shot through TUF Brazil 4. It's been a long road - Lopes was chosen for TUF Brazil 1 back in 2012, but had the bad luck of running into eventual winner Rony Jason in the qualifying round, and shortly after that, Lopes wound up losing his first career fight. But Lopes chained together another winning streak, made it into TUF Brazil 4, and pretty much cashed in on his last chance to make it to UFC in his prime, although he lost a somewhat controversial decision to Reginaldo Vieira in the final. This should be a really good one - Lopes is a really solid, well-rounded fighter, and if nothing else, Birchak brings enough aggressiveness to make sure this stays exciting. It's just a shame one of these guys has to lose, especially given their precarious positions on the roster. Russell Doane (14-5 overall, 2-2 UFC) vs. Pedro Munhoz (11-2 [1] overall, 1-2 [1] UFC): Similar to the last fight, this is another really solid bout between two guys coming off losses, which makes it worrisome that one of these two could be cut, since they're both solid entrants in a pretty fun bantamweight division. Pedro Munhoz came into UFC back in 2014 with a decent bit of hype, running through a pretty solid slate of competition with his submission skills, and early returns were decent, as he held his own against top contender Raphael Assuncao, then reeled off quick wins over Matt Hobar and Jerrod Sanders. But things have kind of gone off the rails over the last year and a half - Munhoz basically spent a year in purgatory arguing with the Nova Scotia athletic commission over a high testosterone ratio, thus overturning the Sanders win, and then he lost a close decision to fellow top bantamweight prospect Jimmie Rivera. So, for all his talent, Munhoz suddenly finds himself without much momentum and badly in need of a win. And the same could be said of Russell Doane, as the Hawaiian suddenly finds himself on a two-fight losing streak. Doane looked good in his first two UFC fights, tapping out Leandro Issa and then winning a tough fight over Marcus Brimage, but Iuri Alcantara ate his lunch, and then Doane shockingly lost a pretty one-sided decision to Sanders last July. The matchup favors Munhoz - Doane's most comfortable on the ground, where he might run into some trouble against a BJJ black belt like Munhoz - but Doane's a solid enough foe that it shouldn't quite be a blowout. Felipe Arantes (17-7-1 [2] overall, 4-3-1 UFC) vs. Jerrod Sanders (15-2 [1] overall, 1-1 [1] UFC, 0-1 Bellator): This could be an interesting one. There's really not a ton to say about Felipe Arantes, as few guys have fought as much in the UFC while leaving as little of an impression - he's perfectly fine everywhere, and that UFC record pretty much says it all as far as his run at featherweight, alternating wins and losses (with a draw thrown in for good measure) without either impressing or embarrassing himself. But he made his debut at bantamweight last August, and the results were pretty good, as he was able to slip a slick armbar onto Yves Jabouin and get a first round submission. On the other side of things we have Jerrod Sanders, who it looked was well on his way out of UFC about a year and a half ago - a decorated wrestler at Oklahoma State, Sanders showed little in his first two UFC bouts, getting injured against Yosdenis Cedeno and then following that up with a 39-second submission loss to Pedro Munhoz. But issues with Munhoz's drug test earned Sanders another shot, and he surprisingly made good on it, finally showing that wrestling and winning a clear decision over Russell Doane. This one could go a number of ways - on paper, it's an interesting matchup of Sanders's wrestling against Arantes's submission skills, but in practice, either guy might not want to take it to the ground, and we could get an iffy kickboxing match instead. Oh well, as long as it's fun. Gilbert Burns (10-1 overall, 3-1 UFC) vs. Lukasz Sajewski (13-1 overall, 0-1 UFC): A pretty obvious bounceback fight here for Gilbert Burns as he tries to remain a top lightweight prospect. "Durinho" came to UFC with some hype - he's a multi-time world BJJ champion who acts as Vitor Belfort's grappling coach, and his striking is coming along nicely - but after three impressive wins, UFC threw him in there with Rashid Magomedov, a very talented striker who was able to dominate Burns on the feet pretty easily. So, it's time for a step back down for Burns to keep getting time in and develop his game, and Poland's Lukasz Sajewski looks like just the opponent. Sajewski had a solid record coming into UFC, but showed little in a decision loss to Nick Hein last June - stranger things have happened, but this really looks like a case where the important thing will be how good Burns looks in his inevitable win, since him winning isn't really in any doubt. Marco Beltran (7-3 overall, 2-0 UFC) vs. Reginaldo Vieira (13-3 overall, 1-0 UFC): Well, this is certainly happening. Reginaldo Vieira was an unlikely winner of the bantamweight bracket of TUF Brazil 4 - a 33-year old veteran, Vieira basically just looked to be filler, but thanks to an injury giving him a second shot in the competition, Vieira used a combination of some crafty grappling and iffy scorecards in the final to go ahead and win the whole damn thing. That said, I'm not sure where we go from here - Vieira's perfectly fine and all, but there's little upside and he's not particularly dynamic. And I guess the answer is a deep undercard matchup against TUF: Latin America alum Marco Beltran, who, among a bunch of fellow Mexican fighters who have impressed way more than expected, has probably done the least of the bunch. It's unclear if that's talent or more a lack of opportunity than anything - Beltran's had long layoffs in between fights, and his only fight since the TUF finale has been a pretty boring decision win over TUF: China winner Guangyou Ning. Beltran seems to have a well-rounded enough game, but it's still pretty hard to get a read on exactly how good he is, and this fight should help that. Yep. It is what it is. Alvaro Herrera (9-3 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Vicente Luque (8-5-1 overall, 1-1 UFC): This looks like a pretty easy win for Vicente Luque. The Brazilian doesn't look to be a stud prospect or anything, but he's a decent enough fighter with some slick submission skills, as his win over fellow TUF 21 vet Hayden Hassan showed, as Luque was able to choke Hassan out in just a little over two minutes. Here, Luque faces TUF: Latin America 2 alum Alvaro Herrera, who showed nothing on the show, but as a Mexican, still got the call to fight on the finale, where he knocked out Panama's Vernon Ramos in just thirty seconds flat. Of course, that probably had a lot to do with him fighting Panama's Vernon Ramos. Pretty much all the Mexican fighters UFC has brought in have overachieved, so maybe Herrera looks much improved here, but, well, it's hard to forecast that at the moment. ----- The Ultimate Fighter 23 Finale - July 8, 2016 - MGM Grand Garden Arena - Las Vegas, Nevada TUF 23 was a pretty fun one - things didn't quite hit the boiling point of some of the all-time best coaching rivalries, but Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Claudia Gadelha were more or less at each other's throats the entire season. Things started off pretty excellently, as Jedrzejczyk was just harassing Gadelha non-stop (and at one point even started trash talking one of Gadelha's assistant coaches, who, well didn't really speak English), but as the season went on, Gadelha's team started dominating the competition and most of Jedrzejczyk's wrath was directed at her charges. Still, this all has been an excellent build for what should be an excellent fight here, plus we get the debut of one of MMA's best free agents, and, hey, the talent on this season of TUF wasn't all that bad either, even if a lot of the light heavyweight prospects (a division that needs prospects) are probably moving down to middleweight. Good stuff all around. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 10:00 PM ET): Women's Strawweight Championship: (C) Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs. (#1) Claudia Gadelha Light Heavyweight: Khalil Rountree vs. Andrew Sanchez Women's Strawweight: Amanda Cooper vs. Tatiana Suarez Lightweight: Will Brooks vs. Ross Pearson Featherweight: Doo Ho Choi vs. Thiago Tavares Lightweight: Andrew Holbrook vs. Joaquim Silva PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Featherweight: Fernando Bruno vs. Gray Maynard Flyweight: (#6) John Moraga vs. Matheus Nicolau Light Heavyweight: Cory Hendricks vs. Josh Stansbury Middleweight: Cezar Ferreira vs. Anthony Smith PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 7:00 PM ET): Lightweight: Kevin Lee vs. Jake Matthews Welterweight: Jingliang Li vs. Anton Zafir THE RUNDOWN: Joanna Jedrzejczyk (11-0 overall, 5-0 UFC) vs. Claudia Gadelha (13-1 overall, 2-1 UFC, 1-0 Invicta): Well, this should be pretty great. There's bad blood with these two going back to December of 2014, when the two faced off in a #1 contender's bout - with TUF 20 determining the inaugural strawweight champion, UFC sort of put on an unofficial four-woman tournament for the first title shot, and these two each won their UFC debuts to get a fight against each other. The result was somewhat controversial - Jedrzejczyk did a lot of damage, but Gadelha controlled most of the fight, so it was a bit surprising when two of the three judges awarded the fight to Joanna. And from there, the Pole pretty much took over the division - she showed much-improved takedown defense just three months later when she completely obliterated then-champ Carla Esparza, then she laid a similar beatdown on Jessica Penne before getting a dominant decision victory over Valerie Letourneau. Jedrzejczyk's basically using an updated version of the old Chuck Liddell playbook, using defensive wrestling to keep the fight standing, and when it's standing, God help her opponent, since it's hard to keep up with the accuracy and pace of a multi-time Muay Thai champion like Jedrzejczyk. And, scarily enough, Jedrzejczyk just only passed the four-year mark of her MMA debut, so she's at a point where she's probably still getting better. On the other side of things we have Claudia Gadelha, who hasn't been nearly as active since her and Jedrzejczyk first fought, only taking one fight, a one-decided decision victory over former top strawweight Jessica Aguilar. Gadelha has a rep as a smothering grappler, and it's well-deserved, but the Aguilar fight did show off some much-improved striking from Gadelha, so she's far from one-dimensional. Still, her best bet here is to use a similar gameplan as the first fight, taking things to the clinch and basically not allowing Jedrzejczyk to get going, and hopefully it'll help break Joanna down better over five rounds than it did over three. But that's also a big ask, particularly if Jedrzejczyk has improved as much as it appears since the last bout. This'll be a great one to watch, given that Gadelha's the clear second-best fighter in the division and the only one to give the champion any trouble, plus Jedrzejczyk is pound-for-pound one of the most wonderfully violent fighters around. Add on the grudge match aspect, and this is pretty much as good as MMA gets, female or male. The only worry is if Jedrzejczyk makes this look easy, who's going to be able to stop her? Khalil Rountree (4-0 overall) vs. Andrew Sanchez (7-2 overall): When the cast of TUF 23 was announced, it was somewhat assumed that unless they met during the season, Khalil Rountree and Phil Hawes would be the heavy favorites to make it to the finals, given that they were close to the consensus two best prospects at middleweight - well, one of two ain't bad, and even that was a close call. Hawes, a training partner of Jon Jones with ridiculous physical tools, didn't even make it into the house, and that's because he ran into Missouri's Andrew Sanchez, who pretty much stuffed all his takedowns en route to a decision victory. Sanchez was the clear standout over the course of the season - he's shown his excellent BJJ background, his striking looks good - basically, he looks like someone who can definitely make an impact at middleweight once TUF is over and done with. On the other side of things we have Rountree, a powerful kickboxer who'll be fighting in his hometown of Las Vegas - Rountree actually lost on the show to training partner Cory Hendricks in a bout where Hendricks was able to take Rountree down and tap him out in fairly short order, but he was brought back after Hendricks got injured and looked pretty great on the show besides. Rountree's just precise and hits really hard, and the most impressive part of his game is probably his killer instinct - against Muhammed Dereese and Josh Stansbury, once Rountree stunned his opponent, he would just rush in with a ridiculously violent barrage of punches and kicks that made sure the fight would be over. So it's an interesting striker versus grappler battle - I'd favor Sanchez, if only because he's looked a lot more comfortable on the feet than Rountree has on the ground - but either way, it's just a good thing that UFC found two good prospects this late in the TUF game. Amanda Cooper (1-1 overall, 0-1 Invicta) vs. Tatiana Suarez (3-0 overall): The light heavyweight final will probably be a better bout, but the strawweight final of TUF is also a somewhat interesting one between two raw prospects. Tatiana Suarez was probably the best of the bunch over the course of the show - an accomplished wrestler, Suarez was able to take down, smother, and often submit all of her foes without much trouble. But Amanda Bobby Cooper will be an interesting test - Cooper flashed a well-rounded game, but more pertinently, she's a natural flyweight whose weight cuts were a source of drama on the show, so it'll be interesting to see if she's strong enough to stop Suarez's takedown game. There's really not a lot to glean here - Cooper's one fight of any note was a loss in Invicta where she didn't show much, and since Suarez came up in Gladiator Challenge, a circuit notorious for helping pad records, this is essentially her professional debut - but both looked interesting on the show, and we'll see where they go from here. Will Brooks (17-1 overall, 9-1 Bellator) vs. Ross Pearson (19-10 [1] overall, 11-7 [1] UFC): This should be pretty great, as it's the much-anticipated UFC debut of former Bellator lightweight champ Will Brooks. Basically, Bellator tried to set up a trilogy fight between then-lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez and former champ Michael Chandler, hoping that Chandler would beat Alvarez before Alvarez took his wares to the UFC. But Alvarez got hurt (and wound up negotiating his release later, never fighting for Bellator again) and Will Brooks pretty much crashed the party, winning a controversial split decision from Chandler and then earning a much more clear-cut fourth round knockout in the rematch. But then things pretty much went to hell between Brooks and Bellator - he chafed at a perceived lack of promotion from the company, which is probably justified given that he got second billing in the Chandler rematch despite being champ, and while Brooks isn't a particularly dynamic personality, he was also probably the best fighter Bellator had under contract. At any rate, with Brooks's contract coming up, Bellator decided to stick it to Brooks by releasing him outright, getting rid of a lot of Brooks's leverage, and shortly thereafter he rejected bigger money offers to take a shot with UFC. There was some suspense about if UFC would go after Brooks - again, he's more talented than exciting, and UFC can be kind of weird with guys who are top contenders, but not particularly dynamic - but here he is, and Ross Pearson is an excellent first test. Pearson never quite rounded out into the next British star that many expected, but he's a perfectly solid lightweight striker who's more or less the platonic ideal of a gatekeeper, hanging around the upper-middle of lightweight and alternating wins and losses. He doesn't really offer much in the grappling department, which Brooks figures to exploit, but he's always got a puncher's chance with his solid fundamentals, and this should serve as a pretty great opportunity for Brooks to showcase his stuff to the UFC fanbase. Should be a good one to watch, and it's all onwards and upwards from here for Brooks. Doo Ho Choi (13-1 overall, 2-0 UFC) vs. Thiago Tavares (20-6-1 overall, 10-6-1 UFC): Alright, here we go, as this is a pretty big test for "The Korean Superboy" Doo Ho Choi. Choi's looked pretty awesome in the UFC thus far, melting the faces of Juan Puig and Sam Sicilia with some scarily accurate and powerful striking, but it's hard to glean much, given those two bouts lasted a combined 1 minute and 51 seconds. Choi's exciting, no doubt, plus there's a pretty amusing contrast between his super-youthful, babyfaced appearance and his brutally effective fighting style, but it remains to be seen exactly how well his game translates as he moves up the ladder. And this fight should go a long way towards figuring that out, as Thiago Tavares is a pretty excellent, well-rounded test. Tavares just passed his nine-year anniversary in UFC, and while he never developed into the future lightweight champ that many expected, he's still really good - his striking's decent enough, plus he possesses an excellent jiu-jitsu game, winning three of his last four fights with a first-round submission. And that's really the fascinating thing here - if Tavares manages to get this to the ground, we're pretty much in uncharted territory for Choi, and we'll get to see if he's just an excellent knockout artist or a well-rounded contender. Of course, if Choi just manages to keep this standing and knocks Tavares out, that'll also work. Andrew Holbrook (11-0 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Joaquim Silva (8-0 overall, 1-0 UFC): This is certainly a fight, as these two guys will look to carve out a niche for themselves in a crowded lightweight division. TUF Brazil 4 alum Joaquim Silva is sort of a redux of that old joke about Vitor Belfort, and how he would knock his opponents out and then scream about the power of jiu jitsu. Silva goes by "Netto BJJ" and talked a lot about jiu jitsu on his season of TUF, but at least thus far on TUF and in UFC, he's primarily been a striker, and a perfectly decent one. After beating castmate and Argentinian veteran Nazareno Malegarie in his UFC debut, he gets his first post-TUF fight against Indiana's Andrew Holbrook, who comes back from about a year-long injury layoff. It's still pretty hard to tell how good Holbrook is - he didn't really face much of anyone in his pre-UFC days, and his UFC debut against Ramsey Nijem mostly saw Holbrook get taken down and work for submissions from the bottom, which made it pretty surprising when he was somehow awarded the decision win. So it looks like striker versus grappler, and hey, maybe someone will impress. Fernando Bruno (15-3 overall, 0-1 UFC) vs. Gray Maynard (11-5-1 [1] overall, 9-5-1 [1] UFC): So it's come to this. Back in 2011, Gray Maynard was one of the best fighters in UFC's lightweight division, if not necessarily one of the more exciting ones - the TUF 5 alum racked up decision after decision and got constantly passed over for a title shot in favor of more interesting fighters, until he finally put together so many wins that UFC couldn't deny him. His New Year's Day 2011 title fight against Frankie Edgar was an instant classic, a back and forth affair that somehow managed to end in a draw, and the rematch that October saw Edgar finally put away Maynard, scoring a knockout late in the fourth round. And then Maynard went through one of the more shocking falls from grace you'll ever see in MMA. He did manage to win his next fight, a weird decision that saw Clay Guida basically refuse to engage for 25 minutes, but then Maynard appeared to be completely shot, losing to T.J. Grant, Nate Diaz and Ross Pearson via knockout on pretty much the first solid punches of each fight, and then dropping a decision to Alexander Yakovlev last year. Yes, that's four losses in a row, and it's pretty much a testament to how good Maynard once was that UFC is still giving him another shot, this time in his debut at featherweight. He faces Fernando Bruno, the lightweight runner-up of TUF Brazil 4 that cuts back down to his natural 145 here, and thankfully it's an advantageous matchup, as Bruno is pretty much a veteran submission expert. On the plus side, Maynard probably won't get knocked out, and this is as good a chance as any to prove that he still has something, anything left - but it's still sad that it's come to this. John Moraga (16-4 overall, 5-3 UFC) vs. Matheus Nicolau (11-1-1 overall, 1-0 UFC): Some...interesting matchmaking in the flyweight division continues, as much like the Bagautinov/Herrera fight in Ottawa, UFC appears to be throwing another prospect to the wolves. John Moraga is really freaking good - he's not quite a champion-level fighter, as he's fallen short against the very top of the division, but he's pretty much a gatekeeper to that elite class of flyweights, as he can strike, wrestle, and has a good submission game, plus he's already turned away prospects like Justin Scoggins and Dustin Ortiz. In fact, the only three guys to beat Moraga might be the three best flyweights on the UFC roster in Demetrious Johnson, Joseph Benavidez, and John Dodson, even though Dodson is now plying his trade at 135. So, yeah, it looks like a tough time for TUF Brazil 4 alum Matheus Nicolau, who made the final four of that season's bantamweight bracket. Nicolau was considered one of the better prospects on the season and showed it, flashing a well-rounded game, though the fact that he was fighting up a weight class seemed to hurt him at times. His first post-TUF fight, against fellow season alum Bruno Korea, went well enough, ending in a third round submission, and, well, UFC skipped a whole lot of steps in throwing the 23-year old against Moraga. If Nicolau manages to pull this off, it'll be huge, but, well, this looks like more of a case where he's going for the moral victory rather than the actual one. Cory Hendricks (3-0 overall) vs. Josh Stansbury (7-2 overall): A fight between two of the more interesting TUF competitors on the men's side of the bracket, and I honestly hope the loser isn't outright cut, as is tradition - unlike the final, which features two middleweights at 205 since they didn't want to cut too much weight during the show, these two are actual light heavyweight prospects in a division that badly needs them. Cory Hendricks probably deserves to be in the finals, if his body hadn't betrayed him - Hendricks somewhat shockingly upset friend and training partner Khalil Rountree in the first round of the house despite having a busted foot, then a nerve issue with his shoulder basically made it impossible for Hendricks to continue fighting, so he dropped out of the competition. In his brief time on the show, though, Hendricks looked like a slick submission artist and a good athlete, so there's potential there. On the other side of things we have Josh Stansbury, a well-rounded vet from Ohio who's getting to UFC three years later than planned - Stansbury was actually on season 19 of TUF, but while dominating Chris Fields in his fight to get into the house, Stansbury managed to tear up his leg going for a takedown, regrouped, and winds up here. A solid matchup between two well-rounded, athletic guys - should be fun, and hopefully both guys manage to stick. Cezar Ferreira (9-5 overall, 5-3 UFC) vs. Anthony Smith (25-11 overall, 1-1 UFC, 2-0 Bellator, 2-2 Strikeforce): Well, now that we've established that Cezar "Mutante" Ferreira isn't a high-level concern, let's at least see how he does as far as hanging in the UFC. Mutante won the middleweight bracket of TUF's inaugural season in Brazil, and UFC tried to push him as one of their up and coming stars in the country. Early results were fine enough to start, as Mutante won his first two post-TUF fights, but he wasn't exactly beloved in the country thanks to his portrayal on the show, with fans often shouting gay slurs at him in Portuguese, and then Ferreira dropped three of four once it became apparent that he couldn't take a solid punch. He was at least able to get a bounceback win in April with one of his better performances in a while, using his grappling to outlast Oluwale Bamgbose, but there's not much evidence to suggest Ferreira is anything more than a glass cannon - he's got a ton of offensive skills, but it doesn't really matter when you go down on the first solid shot of the fight. On the other side of things, there's Anthony Smith, a Midwestern vet who had a one-fight cup of coffee with UFC in 2013 after coming over from Strikeforce, then eventually earned his way back as a late injury replacement with a seven-fight win streak. That return fight, against Leonardo Augusto Leleco in February, was a particularly ugly and sloppy affair, but a win's a win. This could provide some excitement - Mutante can always get knocked out, and Smith is both durable, and at 6'3", ridiculously lanky for middleweight - but we'll see how it goes, as it could just as easily turn into an ugly, grinding affair. Kevin Lee (12-2 overall, 5-2 UFC) vs. Jake Matthews (10-1 overall, 4-1 UFC): Fight Pass does it again, getting a pretty fun featured bout between two of the better young guns in the lightweight division. UFC's still looking for an Australian star, and Jake Matthews just might be the guy - he's somehow still over a month shy of his 22nd birthday, and he's already had a pretty good run of it thus far, even though there's been some bumps along the way. His first two fights were more or less gimmes against Dashon Johnson and Vagner Rocha, but a bump up in competition against James Vick didn't go so well - Matthews was doing fine enough until Vick accidentally poked him in the eyes, and after that stoppage, Vick more or less dominated things and was able to tap Matthews out. Matthews bounced back with a win over Mexican vet Akbarh Arreola, but even that was a bit worrisome - Matthews was eventually able to get a doctor stoppage, but even that had much more trouble with what figured to be an easy rebound win. Coming off of that, a lot of people, including myself, thought it was too much too soon to throw Matthews in there against a tough underrated vet in Johnny Case, but Matthews pretty much showed us, earning a late submission after putting on a career-best performance. So the sky's still the limit, and Matthews comes off that showing to make his stateside debut against Detroit's Kevin Lee, who at 23, is the old man of this matchup. Lee got thrown to the wolves right away, losing a decision in his UFC debut to Al Iaquinta, but he rebounded with a four-fight winning streak. The first three fights of the streak were all decisions, where Lee pretty much took his opponents into the clinch and outworked them in the grappling department, but you could obviously see the potential that Lee had, as everyone just waited for everything to click. It looked like his July 2015 win over James Moontasri was that fight, as Lee was able to tap out Moontasri in fairly short order, but his next fight saw Lee get stunningly knocked out by BJJ artist Leonardo Santos, and so it's back to the drawing board. Lee put in some more work in April, rebounding with a win over Efrain Escudero, but it was more the same sort of neutralizing affair, as Lee seemed to be back to favoring effectiveness over dynamism with his back against the wall. So this should be a really good one - two top athletes who hang their hat on grappling, and given how young each guy is, they could come out looking much improved from the last time we saw them. A win's big for the winner, but a loss probably doesn't derail the loser - good stuff. Jingliang Li (10-4 overall, 2-2 UFC) vs. Anton Zafir (7-2 overall, 0-1 UFC): Well, at least UFC's aborted expansion into China found one half-decent fighter in Jingliang Li. "The Leech" is a pretty apt nickname for Li, as he's at his best when he gets to be a smothering grappler - it can be ugly a lot of times, but hey, it works. Or, well, it works most of the time - Li's last bout actually saw him lose in dramatic fashion when Keita Nakamura was suddenly able to clamp on a rear naked choke and squeeze Li unconscious in a come-from-behind victory. But Li figures to rebound here against Australia's Anton Zafir, who seems to fit into the same mold as a lot of UFC's Australian signings - basically, Australia doesn't have much of an infrastructure when it comes to wrestling, so anyone who's a half-decent wrestler or grappler can have a ton of success racking up wins in Australia, only to completely hit a wall when it comes to UFC-level competition. Li's not amazingly unbeatable or anything, so maybe Zafir can get it done, but you'd have to favor Li, given how much more proven he is at this point. ----- UFC 200 - July 8, 2016 - T-Mobile Arena - Las Vegas, Nevada It's here. UFC 200 is missing a certain Irishman, but other than that, it's got pretty much everything you could ask for - three title fights, one of the better grudge matches of all time, and Brock Lesnar. Cormier/Jones doesn't seem to have peaked like it did last time, so there's no one thing that bowls you over, but this card is just ridiculously deep - hell, T.J. Dillashaw, fresh off losing his bantamweight title, is eighth from the top, and it's somewhat justifiable. Just crazy stuff, and now there's nothing to do but sit back and enjoy. We are blessed. MAIN CARD (Pay-Per-View - 10:00 PM ET): Light Heavyweight Championship: (C) Daniel Cormier vs. (IC) Jon Jones Heavyweight: (#8) Mark Hunt vs. Brock Lesnar Women's Bantamweight Championship: (C) Miesha Tate vs. (#4) Amanda Nunes Interim Featherweight Championship: (#1) Jose Aldo vs. (#2) Frankie Edgar Heavyweight: (#2) Cain Velasquez vs. (#7) Travis Browne PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Women's Bantamweight: (#3) Cat Zingano vs. (#5) Julianna Pena Welterweight: (#6) Johny Hendricks vs. (#12) Kelvin Gastelum Bantamweight: (#1) T.J. Dillashaw vs. (#3) Raphael Assuncao Lightweight: Enrique Marin vs. Sage Northcutt PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:30 PM ET): Lightweight: Joe Lauzon vs. Diego Sanchez Middleweight: (#8) Gegard Mousasi vs. (#15) Thiago Santos Lightweight: Takanori Gomi vs. Jim Miller THE RUNDOWN: Daniel Cormier (17-1 overall, 6-1 UFC, 8-0 Strikeforce) vs. Jon Jones (22-1 overall, 16-1 UFC): Well, here we are, as the current (and probably all-time) pound-for-pound best fighter in the world is going for the belt he never lost against, at worst, another top-three pound-for-pound fighter and his blood rival. I'm not really sure what else needs to be said, but I'll prattle on. Let's go back to UFC 100, which was already seven years ago - Jones choked out Jake O'Brien in the prelims, and by then, "Bones" was already on the fast track towards future stardom. In fact, that was Jones's last time on the prelims, as after that they started to main event him on smaller shows and feed him a bunch of veterans to look impressive against, like Brandon Vera, Vladimir Matyushenko, and Matt Hamill...though that last one didn't exactly work perfectly, as a bullshit disqualification due to illegal elbows cost Jones his undefeated record. But anyway, 2011 saw UFC officially strap the rocket on Jones - he tapped out then-fellow top prospect Ryan Bader, and got the call to fight Mauricio "Shogun" Rua for the light heavyweight title - and one one-sided win later, Jones was officially the king of what had historically been UFC's premier division. And then, in the ensuing eight title defense, Jones pretty solidly established himself as the best fighter in the world, not only beating a pretty impressive slate of competition, but barely getting challenged in doing so - he apparently didn't really train for the Alexander Gustafsson fight and dropped two rounds in the process, and Vitor Belfort once got a deep armbar on him. That's it. And the coup de grace was Jones's win over Cormier to kick off 2015 - the former Olympic wrestling captain looked to be Jones's stiffest challenge yet, and the two talked an immense amount of shit leading up to the fight, but the result, as always, was a fairly one-sided win by Jones, as Cormier was able to win a round and not accomplish much else. And then, as the cliche goes, the only man that could defeat Jones wound up being himself. Slated for a title defense against Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, who was pretty much the last man Jones had to beat to effectively clean out the division, things completely spiraled out of control outside the cage for Jones - first, days after the Cormier fight, it came out that Jones was flagged for cocaine in an out-of-competition test, then Jones committed a hit-and-run that April, the latest in a string of vehicular incidents following Jones. At that point, UFC had apparently had enough, suspended Jones indefinitely, and stripped him of his belt. That opened a spot up for Cormier, who upset Johnson to take what he claimed was the one true, undisputed light heavyweight championship of the world. Theoretically, it should've been a crowning achievement for Cormier - a runner-up as a highly decorated collegiate wrestler, and unable to compete in the Olympics thanks to some freak weight cutting complications, this was the first time that Cormier had climbed the top of the mountain as a professional athlete - and instead, the fanbase pretty much turned on him. Cormier would call himself the true champ, since Jones had "disqualified himself" from champion status, but everyone basically called Cormier a fake and a paper champ, since Jones won their fight handily and had never actually lost the title in the cage. An outstanding five-round war between Cormier and Gustafsson looked like it might briefly change things, but...nope, Cormier was still somewhat...hated is too strong, but things did get more heated once Jones was reinstated and came back, often carrying a belt of his own. The big rematch, Jones's return fight, was initially slated for April, but after Cormier had to back out due to a knee injury, Jones wound up taking on Ovince St. Preux, and the results were...middling. It was still a dominant win, but Jones looked obviously rusty with less of the killer instinct that we'd seen in the past, and the bout took on the feel of a glorified sparring session more than anything else. Even Cormier, who was on commentary for the fight, remarked that it was hard to back out of the fight, since he knew this rusty version of Jones would be his easiest shot at affirming himself as the one true champion. And, well...will it? This is a pretty amazing legacy fight, particularly for Cormier - even if Jones somehow suffers his first legitimate loss here, he's young enough to still go on and further establish himself as the all-time best, while this is probably Cormier's last, best shot at 38 years old to affirm himself as the true, unchallenged best at his chosen field of sport. Honestly, odds are this fight will probably look a lot like the first, but there's more than enough doubt that that could hold true - is Jones still going to look like the flatter version of himself that we saw in April? Or was Cormier's fight with Gustafsson one war too many, taking the Olympian out of his prime just before his shot at redemption? Who knows what's going to happen, except that I doubt the result is going to do anything to quench the rivalry. Mark Hunt (12-10-1 overall, 7-4-1 UFC, 5-3 PRIDE) vs. Brock Lesnar (5-3 overall, 4-3 UFC): Alright, let's get weird, as for one night only (maybe), Brock Lesnar has suddenly returned from WWE to fight in UFC. It's pretty amazing to look back on what Brock did in just eight career MMA fights, managing to win the UFC heavyweight title in a little over a year, and then going on to headline some of the biggest events in company history as champion. There wasn't really much to Lesnar's game at its peak - basically, he rushed you, got on top of you, and as a gigantic human being, stayed there as he rained destruction upon thee - but stopping it was always much easier said than done. That said, the way Lesnar went out wasn't exactly great - Cain Velasquez and Alistair Overeem showed that if you nailed Brock hard enough, he'd get panicked and basically become a sitting duck for any follow-up shots - so between that and Lesnar's issues with diverticulitis, it seemed like the end of 2011 was the right time for getting out for Lesnar. But four and a half years later, days before his 39th birthday, the beast is back, and if nothing else it'll be an entertaining collision when he faces Mark Hunt. Hunt's been a ridiculous comeback story - UFC only brought him in because he refused to take a buyout of his PRIDE contract, and in his forties he's somehow managed to put everything together and become one of the top heavyweights in the world. Hunt is 42, and it's not a stretch to say he might be the best mixed martial artist he's ever been - he went from entertaining attraction to legitimate threat by shoring up his takedown defense, and he's looked in excellent shape ever since adopting a vegan diet about a year ago. But all that said, Hunt's still a power puncher at heart, and that's pretty much the story here, since there's one of two clear outcomes as far as how this fight ends - either Lesnar takes Hunt down and pounds him out, or Hunt knocks Lesnar's head into the third row before he gets the chance to do so. Who knows what the odds are of each happening, but it'll be fun as hell to watch it play out. Miesha Tate (18-5 overall, 5-2 UFC, 6-2 Strikeforce) vs. Amanda Nunes (12-4 overall, 5-1 UFC, 1-1 Invicta, 1-1 Strikeforce): With Holly Holm fighting in two weeks, I'm not sure why UFC just didn't run back a Tate/Holm rematch, but instead we still get a really fun first defense of Tate's bantamweight title. Tate winning the title was a pretty emotional moment, since it looked like the championship was passing her by, both in the Holm fight itself and in general - there was a brief period there after the retirement of Gina Carano where it looked like Tate was going to be the face of female MMA, but as soon as she upset Marloes Coenen for Strikeforce's bantamweight title, she had it taken away from her by upstart Ronda Rousey, who went on to look absolutely unbeatable. Tate wound up getting a rematch about a year and a half later in UFC, and while she became the first person to last more than a round against Rousey, it was just as one-sided a loss, and it seemed like Tate was on the outside looking in, particularly as she kept racking up wins and UFC kept deciding not to book a trilogy fight. But then Holm upset Rousey, the division opened up, and Tate was finally given another shot - and while Holm basically kept her at bay for the better part of four and a half rounds, Tate managed to come from behind, grab a takedown, and then choke Holm out to finally reclaim her spot atop the division. The fight pretty much encapsulated what makes Tate a champion-level fighter, as while she's often outmatched, she's ridiculously tough and, cliche as it sounds, never gives up - her fight with Sara McMann is another big example of that, as McMann managed to break Tate's orbital bone in the first round of the fight, only for Tate to come back and somehow outwrestle an Olympic silver medalist to take the decision. And that's what makes this fight so interesting - if Tate is a slow-starting fighter who often has to come from behind, Nunes is the complete opposite, a well-rounded offensive berserker whose plan A and B is to finish her opponent in the first round - nine of Nunes's twelve victories have been first round finishes, and her last fight against Valentina Shevchenko was actually the first time Nunes has ever won a decision. So that makes the tale of this fight pretty clear - seeing how the styles match up, it's basically a given that Nunes is going to beat Tate pretty handily to start things off - it's just a matter of if Tate is able to weather the storm and come back for the victory once again, or if Nunes is the opponent that can finally separate Tate from her senses. Jose Aldo (25-2 overall, 7-1 UFC, 8-0 WEC) vs. Frankie Edgar (20-4-1 overall, 14-4-1 UFC): It really speaks to how deep this card is that this fight is fourth from the top, given that it's a pay-per-view level main event between two of the all-time greats in the lighter weight classes - hell, maybe even the two greatest. Jose Aldo's in a fascinating position of, somewhat, needing to prove himself - for years, Aldo was pretty handily the most dominant fighter of any champion in their division - above, I mentioned the few times Jon Jones has been in trouble, while with Aldo, he never really had that - sure some opponents fought him tough, but that really seemed to make Aldo step his game up more than anything else, as if there was one criticism of the then-featherweight kingpin, it's that he had a tendency to coast once he realized his opponents couldn't match him. And that's what made UFC 194 so stunning - not even that Conor McGregor was able to unseat Aldo, but that he managed to do it with one punch, knocking Aldo out in just 13 seconds, a record speed for a UFC title fight. Aldo's hunting for two things - his belt and revenge against McGregor - and with it looking less and less likely the Irishman returns to 145 pounds (though I wouldn't be surprised if Aldo followed him up a weight class just to get the fight), Aldo gets the chance to check off one of those two boxes in an interim title fight against Frankie Edgar. Edgar's one of the more underrated fighters of all-time, probably since he never quite connected with the fanbase in a big way while reigning over the lightweight division - Edgar's round-winning style resulted in a lot of close decision victories, and eventually that tide turned against him with two close losses to Benson Henderson. After that, Edgar moved down to 145 for an immediate title shot against Aldo, and once again, it was a close decision loss, even though this time was a bit clearer than the two Henderson fights. But since then, Edgar's retooled and basically been on a tear - he's gotten more comfortable as a featherweight and basically turned from a round-winner into a killer - what would've been clear decisions over guys like Cub Swanson and Chad Mendes turned into a fifth-round ground and pound stoppage and a first round KO, respectively. Edgar's just looked like a monster - his striking is as crisp as ever, and his wrestling, which has always been his calling card, has gone from a way for him to control the fight to the beginning of him bringing the pain, as he's gotten much better and not just controlling his foes, but doing so while brutally bashing them with any manner of blows. This is a complete toss-up, solely because each guy is so good - Edgar has much more momentum, but Aldo's still the all-time great in the division, so unless the McGregor loss was just the sudden beginning of the end for the former champ, this should be an excellent battle in all phases and five rounds of MMA at its finest. Fourth from the top. Ridiculous. Cain Velasquez (13-2 overall, 11-2 UFC, 1-0 Strikeforce) vs. Travis Browne (18-3-1 overall, 9-3-1 UFC, 1-0 Bellator): This is a big redemption fight for former heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez, who somehow hasn't won a fight since October of 2013. Velasquez was, at one point, clearly the scariest man on the planet, a gigantic human being with a ton of natural athleticism that shouldn't have been able to keep such a ridiculous pace, but continued to overwhelm his opponents with high-level wrestling and solid striking for round after round. But as the cliche goes, the only man who could beat Velasquez was himself, as the ridiculous pace he would set in training resulted in injury after injury, most notably a near two-year layoff before his 2015 title defense against Fabricio Werdum. And there things went to hell in what should've been a big moment for the Mexican-American Velasquez, as the fight took place in Mexico City - the elevation had obviously affected fighters up and down the whole card, but Werdum decided to spend a few months (and a lot of money) living in Mexico City at elevation, so when Velasquez, who did no such thing, hit a wall, Werdum was there to outlast him and clamp on a guillotine choke for a stunning third-round submission. Since then there's been a lot of talk - was it just elevation that did Velasquez in, or have all the injuries just caught up with him - and a subsequent year-long layoff thanks to back surgery hasn't exactly helped the discussion when it comes to the latter. At any rate, Velasquez gets a huge chance to redeem himself and prove he's still a top contender here against Travis Browne. The last year...well, it's certainly been something for Browne. First the Hawaiian had to fight domestic abuse allegations from his estranged (and I believe now ex-) wife, and shortly thereafter it came out that he was now dating Ronda Rousey, so...yeah. Sure is something. Anyway, as a fighter, Browne's always been a solid top five-to-ten heavyweight, a gigantic human being at 6-foot-7 who has always been pretty solid and using that length, even if he can sometimes fall in love with throwing spinning kicks and the like, low percentage stuff, just to show that he can. But dating Rousey has come with some drawbacks inside the cage, as his fundamentals and general game have seemingly fallen apart since leaving Greg Jackson's for the same Glendale Fight Club team that Rousey is on - shock, that. Still, Browne's a tall, talented guy, and apparently willing to fight dirty, as the repeated eye pokes he used in his last fight against Matt Mitrione showed. So this all pretty much comes down to Velasquez, although with the power involved, more or less every heavyweight fight can be a coin flip - if he's completely down, this will probably be a sad end for his time as a top contender (though given the long half-lives of the heavyweight division, who knows), but this could also be the start of the former champ's resurgence. Cat Zingano (9-1 overall, 2-1 UFC, 1-0 Invicta) vs. Julianna Pena (7-2 overall, 3-0 UFC): If Ronda Rousey keeps delaying her comeback, there's an outside chance that this fight could crown the next top contender at bantamweight. It's been a weird, difficult UFC run for Cat Zingano - the Coloradan was earmarked as Ronda Rousey's first top contender after stopping Miesha Tate with some vicious knees, but wound up tearing her ACL and watching Tate go on to coach the ensuing season of TUF and get the big-money title fight. Then in the middle of recovery, her estranged husband committed suicide, and that's why it was a pretty emotional moment when Zingano was able to come back from sixteen months out and score a come-from-behind finish over Amanda Nunes to finally get her title shot. There was a ton of emotion behind Zingano going into her title fight against Rousey, given all that she'd been through and the feeling that Zingano could be the first fighter to give the champ a real test, but instead it all came crashing down with a 14-second submission, at the time the quickest defeat in UFC title fight history. It looks a little bit better now that it's part of a run in which Rousey dispatched her goes in under a minute, but that doesn't make it any less crushing in the moment, and between that and some injuries, Zingano's taken the last sixteen months or so to recover and regroup. She looks to get back in the mix here against Spokane's Julianna Pena, who's one of the better prospects in the bantamweight division, even though it's unclear exactly what that's worth at the moment. Pena looked like a future contender coming off of TUF 20, showing a well-rounded game, plus having the looks and personality for UFC to market (even if that personality seems to be a bit crazy, as her subsequent tendency to get into bar fights has seemingly backed up). But shortly thereafter, she suffered a severe knee injury, missed about a year and a half, and it's hard to tell what to glean from her two fights in 2015 - she overwhelmed an outmatched Milena Dudieva, and her decision victory over Jessica Eye was more a result of Eye's complete lack of fight IQ than anything Pena really did. She's fine if unproven, though I suppose in a division as thin as 135 on the women's side, that's enough to make Pena a top eight or so fighter by itself. So this is really a proving ground sort of fight for each fighter - Zingano to prove she can bounce back and still has it as far as being a contender, and Pena proving that she's actually good and not the product of a weakish resume. Good stuff, particularly since there might be a title shot on the line. Johny Hendricks (17-4 overall, 12-4 UFC, 2-0 WEC) vs. Kelvin Gastelum (11-2 overall, 6-2 UFC): In an amusing bit of matchmaking, UFC has taken two welterweights whose careers have been a bit derailed due to weight issues and matched them up against each other, even if the veteran versus prospect dynamic is a bit odd. Just a few months ago, Johny Hendricks was the uncrowned champion at welterweight, even if everyone's love of Robbie Lawler meant they were pretty much fine with that - Lawler won a close and somewhat controversial split decision in December of 2014 to take the belt from Hendricks, and Hendricks showed up to his subsequent fight with Matt Brown in the best shape of his life, re-establishing his wrestling in dominating Brown and basically giving notice that he was far from over as a champion-level fighter. But Hendricks basically abandoned all those improvements for his next fight, a #1 contender's bout with Tyron Woodley, showing up out of shape and subsequently having an attack of kidney stones during the weight cut that forced Hendricks out of the fight. That cost him his shot at the title, and then things went even further south this past February, when Stephen Thompson shockingly ate Hendricks's lunch, winning things handily on the feet before knocking Hendricks out in just three and a half minutes. So in the process of about five months, Hendricks has gone from being some people's pick for the best welterweight in the world to having to answer questions if he's already done, so a win against Kelvin Gastelum is very much needed. Gastelum's lost a similar amount of momentum over the last year and a half - as UFC has hunted for a Hispanic star, Gastelum pretty much fell in their lap back in 2013, as the Mexican-American from Arizona came out of nowhere to upset Uriah Hall and win TUF 17. Gastelum quickly established himself as one of the best prospects in the company, capping off a five-fight win streak with a submission over Jake Ellenberger, though things got derailed in early 2015, funnily enough with weight issues in a fight against Woodley. Gastelum reportedly passed out and had to be taken to the hospital while cutting weight, but for some reason he was still allowed to weigh in ten pounds over and go on with the fight, even if he (understandably) looked completely flat in losing a clear decision to Woodley. UFC forced Gastelum to move up to 185 for a bout, where he took apart Nate Marquardt, but Gastelum followed that up with a close decision loss to Neil Magny - a loss there's no shame in, but with two straight losses in big positions, Gastelum, even at 24, still could use a win to regain some momentum. That does make this matchmaking a bit weird - even with a rough 2015, Gastelum's still an excellent prospect with the added bonus of being a potential Hispanic star, so I'm not sure why UFC would give him another tough fight, unless Hendricks is completely done. On paper, Hendricks's combination of power punching and his high-level wrestling - particularly if Hendricks shows up in shape, which is always an if - should be too much for Gastelum, but Gastelum's still improving, and again, Hendricks looked so bad in his last fight, who the hell knows. But a really interesting bout here - and I really just have to laugh, since the depth of UFC 200 makes it an afterthought. T.J. Dillashaw (12-3 overall, 8-3 UFC) vs. Raphael Assuncao (23-4 overall, 7-1 UFC, 3-2 WEC): A really interesting battle here that you'd have to imagine is a #1 contender's bout at bantamweight. This is a rematch of an October 2013 bout that Raphael Assuncao narrowly won, but instead it's T.J. Dillashaw that's been on a tear since that fight took place. Dillashaw was always recognized as a talent prospect, a gifted wrestler then working out of Team Alpha Male, but in 2014 his striking really came together - it looked fine against Mike Easton, but when Dillashaw got the short-notice call to take on then-bantamweight champ Renan Barao, it all clicked together, as Dillashaw spent four and a half rounds outquicking and outboxing the formerly unbeatable champ, even putting Barao away with an emphatic late knockout. And in title defenses against Joe Soto and Barao again, Dillashaw remained dominant, showing off some of the quickest, cleanest combination striking in the sport. But in January, Dillashaw met his match, as Dominick Cruz stunningly came back from what was essentially a four-and-a-half year layoff to basically match Dillashaw in terms of speed and footwork, taking the belt in a narrow decision. A lot of people figured that with how close and how great the fight was that Dillashaw would get an immediate rematch, but instead he looks for revenge here against Assuncao, who honestly hasn't done much since beating Dillashaw in the first place. Assuncao's won two decisions against Pedro Munhoz and Bryan Caraway that, each time, was seemingly setting Assuncao up for a title shot, but he's just spent a ridiculous amount of time injured and on the shelf - hell, even the title shot that went to Dillashaw in the first place was originally supposed to be Assuncao's. Assuncao's spent almost two years off thanks to injury, and he's been sort of the forgotten man, if, honestly, he was ever remembered in the first place - despite having a 7-0 record against impressive competition since moving down to bantamweight, Assuncao isn't particularly dynamic or exciting, just taking rounds with a well-rounded game and winning every time out. But with another win here, he'll probably be undeniable...as long as he doesn't get hurt again. But it should be a fun one - even with what I said about Assuncao, it's good to see him back, and it'll be interesting to see how he copes with the much-improved striking of Dillashaw - so it should be a good opportunity for either Assuncao to re-establish himself, or for Dillashaw to show how far he's come in the last three years. Enrique Marin (8-3 overall, 0-1 UFC) vs. Sage Northcutt (7-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): Let's try this again. It's easy to see why UFC signed Sage Northcutt - he's got that perfect, blond, all-american look, and he's already become one of their more notable personalities, but as a fighter in UFC, it's pretty hard to tell exactly what to do with him, given how ridiculously raw he is. The 20-year old has a ton of athleticism and a highly decorated karate background, but not much else at this point - UFC was able to give him two easy wins against guys like Frank Trevino and Cody Pfister, but given (what seemed like) a modest step up at the time, Northcutt got pretty much outclassed by Bryan Barberena, looking somewhat lost when things got the ground and tapping out shockingly early from a Von Flue choke. It's really too early to tell exactly what Northcutt's going to be - that quick tap may have been inexperience, or just a sign that he's not a natural fighter, at least when it comes to coming back from adversity - for every positive about Northcutt's athleticism, there's the negatives of cautionary tales about athletes whose fathers were too involved in their careers, and it's all ridiculously difficult to parse out as far as which factors are going to win out over the others. That's in the long term, though - in the short term, UFC's set up Northcutt with another seemingly easy win against TUF: Latin America 2 runner up Enrique "Wasabi" Marin, UFC's first fighter from Spain. On the show, Marin was one of the more interesting guys, an introspective, thoughtful fighter - and the amusing way he would pronounce "UFC" as "Oofathee" didn't hurt - but as a fighter, he was pretty much just a guy, and while he did well against a weak slate of competition, there wasn't much to suggest he'd be a future UFC-level fighter. He's got a shot - again, Northcutt's as raw a fighter as you'll find on the roster - but he's more Pfister than Barberena, so we'll probably get another Northcutt showcase win and then figure out where the hell we're going from there. Joe Lauzon (25-11 overall, 12-8 UFC) vs. Diego Sanchez (26-8 overall, 15-8 UFC): Two of UFC's more reliable action fighters over the last decade somehow haven't met, so what the hell, let's do this before one of them retires. Griffin/Bonnar gets all the love, but it was actually Diego Sanchez who got crowned the first ever Ultimate Fighter, and somehow, over 11 years later, Sanchez is still going. It's especially impressive given that Sanchez's style is mostly predicated towards powering through taking a ton of abuse, although in the latter years, it's gotten a bit rougher to watch - Sanchez has a tendency to win undeserving decisions through his sheer aggressiveness, so discounting some scorecards he probably didn't deserve, you could make the case he should've been on a seven-fight losing streak heading into 2016, which combined with his tendency to take so much abuse, had a lot of people calling for Sanchez to finally retire. But, shockingly, Sanchez looked excellent in his fight this past March with Jim Miller, refocusing on his wrestling, looking super-active, and basically controlling a lot of the fight without getting hit, getting as close to vintage Diego Sanchez as we've seen in years. Strangely enough, it's been just the opposite for Joe Lauzon, the Boston-based submission artist who's consistently been one of the more exciting fighters in UFC since debuting a little under a decade ago. Lauzon's always been able to hang in there with every opponent - he'd win two or three for everyone he lost, and the loss would typically be an entertaining affair against a top contender - but this past December was the first time that Lauzon really looked flat, as he didn't really do much in a methodical decision loss to Evan Dunham. Still, as Sanchez showed, some of these longtime vets can summon a resurgent performance at any time, so hopefully we get that here - at the very least, Sanchez is aggressive enough on his own that whatever ensues won't be boring. Gegard Mousasi (38-6-2 overall, 5-3 UFC, 4-1-1 Strikeforce, 2-1 PRIDE) vs. Thiago Santos (13-3 overall, 5-2 UFC): This should be pretty great, as one of the more interesting rising middleweights gets his shot at a division stalwart. Not much was expected of Thiago "Marreta" Santos when UFC signed him as a late injury replacement in 2013, and indeed, the raw striker got tapped out by Cezar Ferreira in just 41 seconds upon his UFC entry. But, surprisingly, Santos managed to stick around, and suddenly finds himself riding a four-fight win streak. A lot of Santos's game is still predicated upon just hitting you really hard - he put away Andy Enz and Steve Bosse with some beautiful picks, and knocked out Nate Marquardt pretty easily - but his decision win over Elias Theodorou showed that Santos is doing an excellent job transitioning from athlete to mixed martial artist, able to control the fight and pick his spots to maximize when he does his damage. We'll see how well everything is able to come together against Gegard Mousasi, who's been at this seemingly forever and is still hanging around the upper tier of the sport. The unflappable Dutchman made his name in Japan and Strikeforce before coming to UFC, and while he's fallen just short of getting into title contention - a stunning KO loss to Uriah Hall being his latest setback - if you're not a top-ten level fighter, he'll pretty much thrash you with a deep set of skills and a killer instinct. This should be a really fun one - Santos is dynamic and violent enough that there's always the chance of a highlight reel knockout, and if he doesn't get it, chances are Mousasi will be beating the piss out of him the balance of the fight. Good stuff. Takanori Gomi (35-11 [1] overall, 4-6 UFC, 13-1 [1] PRIDE) vs. Jim Miller (25-8 [1] overall, 14-7 [1] UFC): Similar to the Lauzon/Sanchez fight, we kick things off between two of the former top lightweights in the world at the tail end of their career. It's been a sudden slide for Jersey's Jim Miller - back in 2011-12, he was twice one fight away from a title shot, losing to Benson Henderson and Nate Diaz, and thanks to his "fight anyone, anywhere, anytime" attitude and well-rounded skillset, there was a point where he held the most wins in UFC lightweight history. But the first knockout loss of his career, to Donald Cerrone in 2014, seemingly signaled the beginning of the end for Miller as a contender, and since then things have been shockingly rough - he has a close win over Danny Castillo in his last four fights, but other than that it's been pretty decisive losses, getting outgrappled and outworked by Beneil Dariush, Michael Chiesa, and even Diego Sanchez this past March. Miller's looked game, but being a step slower has sapped him of a ton of effectiveness, so he badly needs a win here against Japanese legend Takanori Gomi. We're about a decade removed from when "The Fireball Kid" was considered the top lightweight in the world, and hell, even by the time UFC brought him in back in 2010, Gomi was already considered to be on the downslide. But Gomi's put in a solid few years as a middle-tier lightweight who can put on some excellent fights, though the last two years have been pretty rough. Gomi's fought infrequently, and when he has, he's looked somewhat shot - Myles Jury was able to put him away in short order with a knockout punch, and he offered little resistance in a similarly quick loss to Joe Lauzon last year. We'll see what these two can summon this late in their career, but hopefully this is more a case where we're happy these two got to fight instead of being depressed about what could've been.