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UFC Fight Night 110 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *UFC 212 was one of the best cards of the year thus far, even if the Rio faithful probably wouldn't agree, as native son Jose Aldo finally turned mortal, and Max Holloway knocked him out to become undisputed featherweight champion. It was a strange sight to behold, given how good Aldo looked in his last fight against Frankie Edgar, and how good he looked in the first round here, uncorking a bunch of shots and generally making Holloway look like another streaking contender who would fall at his hands. But Holloway just hung in there and waited for his opening, and as the quick pace surprisingly began to tire Aldo, Holloway just started to take over, landing combinations and generally out-quicking Aldo before landing a quick combination of jabs that would mark the beginning of the end. Aldo just kept surviving to the end, as it seemingly took about a minute and a half for Holloway to finally put Aldo away, but at a certain point Holloway was landing so many shots that John McCarthy had no choice to stop the fight. So Max Holloway is primed to reign over featherweight for the next few years - though you never know with this sport - as he's somehow still only 25 years old and keeps looking better than ever. Frankie Edgar is the obvious next title challenger, and one wonders if Holloway will finally get the UFC card in his native Hawaii that he's been wanting for years, though the stadium situation there always makes the possibility somewhat iffy. As for Aldo, it's an open question as far as what's next - maybe it's finally time for him to move up to lightweight, so he can finally try and get revenge against Conor McGregor. *UFC 212 had a bunch of finishes, but the most unexpected might have come in the co-main, where Claudia Gadelha polished off Karolina Kowalkiewicz in a shade over three minutes via rear-naked choke. Gadelha winning wasn't a surprise to a lot of people (though I picked Kowalkiewicz), but she's mostly been a decision machine in the UFC, and if nothing else, Kowalkiewicz has proven both strong and durable despite looking so unassuming. But after a brief feeling out process, Gadelha scored big on her first takedown attempt of the fight, got Kowalkiewicz to the ground, and worked for the choke in fairly short order. A masterful, career-best performance, though I'm not really sure it closes the gap between her and champion/career rival Joanna Jedrzejczyk, since Jedrzejczyk's also coming off her own career-best performance against Jessica Andrade. But c'est la vie. *Well, Vitor Belfort's fight against Nate Marquardt turned out to be kind of pointless. Initially, this was supposed to be Belfort's retirement fight, but as we got closer to the bout, Belfort started talking like it was only going to be his last UFC fight. And then it came out that this wasn't even the last fight on Belfort's UFC contract, so as always, it's unclear exactly what Belfort was thinking. So anyway, Belfort's fight with Marquardt just sort of...happened - basically, Belfort might be a more technical striker than ever, but it's come at the cost of his finishing ability, so now he's just a dude who doesn't knock people out - and while most people had Marquardt winning a fairly nothing-happening fight, it was Belfort who, somehow, got his first decision win in the UFC after all these years. And then Belfort announced his intention to fight out his contract, which apparently contains five more fights. I have no idea where the hell you go from here. *The card also saw some big goings-on at bantamweight, even if the biggest thing was a veteran holding onto his spot. The worst case pretty much happened with the debut of former WSOF champ Marlon Moraes, one of the best bantamweights outside of the UFC and a guy who was expected to move up the ladder quickly. He faced Raphael Assuncao, who's been a top contender in the division for years, and rather than this being the usual violent Marlon Moraes fight, this instead became a Raphael Assuncao fight, with Assuncao basically neutralizing his fellow Brazilian's offense with his defense and counters. So the fight was a boring slog, but the strong consensus was that Moraes still did enough to win, so hey, all's well that ends well when it comes to creating a new contender, right? Wrong, as the judges rather stunningly gave the fight to Assuncao. So...great. But on the plus side, at least two other talents broke through on the card. UFC's matchmaking with Californian grappler Matthew Lopez has been oddly aggressive, pitting him against a bunch of tough vets, but Lopez has stunningly risen to the challenge and looked awesome here, knocking out Johnny Eduardo in under three minutes. Eduardo's primarily a Muay Thai artist, so it's no surprise that Lopez had the advantage grappling, but Lopez's hands are coming along nicely - he held his own here, and rather than going for submissions, Lopez unleashed some brutal ground and pound to finish the fight. And the most stunning result of the card was Brian Kelleher tapping out divisional stalwart Iuri Alcantara in his UFC debut. This was an odd bit of matchmaking, since it looked like UFC was just feeding Kelleher to a Brazilian vet, but the fight was seemingly just getting started when Alcantara left his neck open for a guillotine, and then suddenly tapped out in under two minutes. Kelleher then made the most of his mic time after the fight, antagonizing the Brazilian crowd to the point he needed extra security, and demanding a bit fight on his native Long Island this July - and while it's not a huge opponent, Kelleher did in fact get one of the last spots on that card, as he's slated to face Marlon Vera on about a two month turnaround. *There was some other interesting stuff up and down the card, including a bunch of finishes. Top Brazilian prospect Paulo Borrachinha looked surprisingly good against Oluwale Bamgbose; Borrachinha's a bit of a high-risk, high-reward prospect, as he's got a bodybuilder physique and has a career entirely consisting of quick knockouts, but this fight suggested he may actually have some fight IQ to work with. Bamgbose just came out throwing all sorts of ridiculous offense, and rather than spark his usual brawl, Borrachinha just sat back and let Bamgbose tire himself out, scoring a stoppage in the second round. On the other side of things, it looks like Erick Silva is now pretty much done as any sort of high-level fighter. Like Vitor Belfort above, but only more pronounced, Silva has become a more technical fighter, but it's too little, too late; now rather than a violent one-round danger, Silva's now less explosive on offense, but still as porous on defense, and Yancy Medeiros was able to eventually nail Silva for a second-round stoppage, even if the referee did definitely step in a bit too early. Middleweight prospect Antonio Carlos Junior looked good, getting a second-round sub after some fun grappling against Eric Spicely; this was pretty much a gimme of a matchup, since Spicely essentially does an inferior version of what Carlos is great at, but given "Cara de Sapato"'s tendency to lose winnable fights, nothing should be taken for granted. Luan Chagas showed some of the best form of his career against Jim Wallhead; like Paulo Borrachinha, Chagas is a young guy who has mostly just tried to throw heat for much of his career, but started to pace himself here en route to still getting the knockout. Deiveson Figueiredo looked good in his UFC debut, taking out Marco Beltran with a stoppage as the horn sounded at the end of the second round - it's hard not to feel bad for Beltran, though, as he lost a crucial fight just two days after the death of his mother. And in one of the more blah fights on the card - though it may have been the best of the three decisions - Viviane Pereira won a battle of strawweight prospects against Jamie Moyle rather handily. Pereira was just much better on the feet, and after getting shut down early, Moyle didn't really even try to impose her grappling game, so she just sort of coasted to a loss. *So, Demetrious Johnson has pretty much had it with UFC's bullshit, apparently. Between a statement to MMA Fighting and an appearance on Ariel Helwani's weekly interview show, there's a lot to unpack, mostly about Johnson's discussions with UFC about his next fight. So, apparently Johnson was offered - or, I guess in UFC's eyes, given - Ray Borg as a next opponent. Johnson offered some other options, as he preferred Sergio Pettis as a next contender, feeling Pettis (probably rightly) was a bit more marketable, or the Cody Garbrandt fight that the bantamweight champ had teased in some interviews. Johnson was still forced to take the Borg fight, essentially - UFC also refused his request for any future pay-per-view points, and also told Johnson that a fight with Garbrandt, basically, wasn't a marketable or money fight. Now, I understand that for UFC, the T.J. Dillashaw fight was the obvious fight, from both a sporting and a promotional standpoint, for Garbrandt to have next, but going so far as to say that Garbrandt isn't a money fight for Johnson was pretty unnecessary, particularly with how things played out. Admittedly, I'm not sure if any Johnson fight is all that marketable, but the Garbrandt one (or whoever is bantamweight champ, honestly) probably tops that list, so I have no idea why you'd tell Johnson that. So, UFC eventually strong-arms Johnson into taking the Borg fight, and shortly thereafter, Garbrandt hurts his back, his fight with Dillashaw is cancelled, and things go to hell. So, Dana White suddenly reverses course and wants Johnson to fight Dillashaw instead of Borg, even though, again, UFC basically forced Johnson to take the Borg fight, and apparently contracts were already signed. Johnson, rightfully, points out that UFC has already told him a fight with Garbrandt wouldn't draw, and then asks, in that case, why he should bother fighting a bantamweight who isn't even the champion. Plus, Johnson has concerns that Dillashaw can even make weight for a title fight, and says that he'll think about taking the bout if they guarantee that Johnson will get both his purse and Dillashaw's if Dillashaw can't make weight. Dana White apparently blows up at all of this. He goes on to say that Johnson is taking away Dillashaw's opportunity - which, as Johnson brings up, it's unclear why Johnson would care about T.J. Dillashaw's career - and actually threatened to shut down the entire flyweight division if Johnson refused to fight Dillashaw. So Johnson called the bluff, telling UFC to go ahead and shut it down, and...nothing happened, save White telling some media that a Johnson/Dillashaw fight was on, an obvious attempt to make Johnson look bad. In Johnson's telling of the story, the only UFC employee who comes off looking even decent is new matchmaker Mick Maynard, who comes off as a relatively rational guy forced in a tough spot by his bosses, White and fellow matchmaker Sean Shelby. Now, there are some assumptions of Johnson's that I disagree with, namely when it comes to his promotion. Johnson's griped for a while that UFC doesn't promote him as strongly as they should, which I do agree to to an extent, but I think Johnson makes the incorrect assumption that UFC promoting him will automatically make his fights a big deal. I think his last fight against Wilson Reis was fairly emblematic of this - consensus was that UFC did a pretty great job pushing Johnson as one of the greatest all time as he attempted to tie Anderson Silva's record for title defenses, but the result was a horrible rating that was one of the lowest in UFC's history on the network. But treating Johnson like this is fairly indefensible, given that he's mostly been a good company man. So it's unclear where this all stands, or what it means for UFC 215, which was assumed to be built around Johnson fighting in his hometown of Seattle. And, of course, since this is an industry of alpha males, Johnson has apparently already rebuffed the idea of MMA fighters needing a union, so none of these problems will probably ever change. *Not a ton else in terms of news, with the only other decent-sized story being War Machine finally getting put in jail for a whole bunch of assault and battery charges related to his ex-girlfriend, porn star Christy Mack. Machine (yes, it's dumb) has gotten a life sentence with a possibility of parole after 36 years, so we won't be seeing him again until he's into his seventies. Good riddance to bad rubbish. ------ BOOKINGS: *Not a ton of new bookings, with the biggest news related to such being that "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung's comeback is going to be a short-lived one for the moment. Jung pulled out of his fight at UFC 214 against Ricardo Lamas after completely tearing up his knee, blowing out both his ACL and MCL. It's similar to one of the many injuries that kept Dominick Cruz out of action, so it'll probably be until late 2018 - at the earliest - that we see Jung back in action. Damn. I hate to say there's a silver lining, but at least we still get a fairly fun fight, as rising prospect Jason Knight steps in to take on Lamas in the biggest fight of his career. Knight has looked excellent in his four UFC wins to date, all exciting affairs, so the chance is well-earned. *Mexico City got a few interesting fights, most notably Rashad Evans trying again at middleweight, this time against "Smilin'" Sam Alvey. Evans lost a narrow decision to Dan Kelly in his middleweight debut, and is just struggling to get any sort of momentum going, so pitting him against Alvey's weird, low-volume, counter-attacking style is...bizarrely perfect? Mexico City also adds lightweights Alvaro Herrera and Jordan Rinaldi, an obvious attempt to get lower-tier Mexican fighter Herrera a win, and, bizarrely, a middleweight bout between Sweden's Jack Hermansson and England's Brad Scott. UFC has a show in Scotland this July and a card in the Netherlands this September, so those would be more obvious fits for a fight between two Europeans...but I guess the Mexican fans demanded it? *A fight between Hector Lombard and Anthony Smith is scheduled for...sometime. It appears to be set for August 19th, which is assumed to be the UFC 215 card from Seattle that may include Demetrious Johnson, but nothing's been announced. But even though we have no UFC 215 yet, UFC 216 is starting to get some fights. Henry Cejudo and Wilson Reis square off at flyweight, as UFC looks to take advantage of the large Mexican and Brazilian populations in Edmonton, apparently. Canadian bantamweight Sarah Moras returns from over two years off to take on Ashlee Evans-Smith, and Canadian wrestler Arjan Bhullar, the first-ever UFC fighter of Indian descent, makes his debut at heavyweight against Luis Henrique. Alan Jouban is out of his UFC 213 fight with Brian Camozzi due to injury, scrapping a weird pairing that seemingly existed only to get Jouban a win. As mentioned above, Brian Kelleher gets a quick turnaround from an impressive UFC debut, getting a fight on his native Long Island against Marlon Vera next month. And highly touted Chinese featherweight Guan Wang is apparently off the Singapore card, with no reason as to why. When the Singapore card was announced a few months back, Dana White teased the signing of a potential Chinese star, who turned out to be Wang, and word got out shortly thereafter that he was slated to face Alex Caceres on this show. But the fight never got officially announced as best I can tell, as just two weeks before the card, UFC announced that Caceres was on the card, but facing newcomer Rolando Dy instead of Wang. Huh. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Chris Camozzi (24-13 overall, 9-10 UFC, last fought 5/28/17, L vs. Trevor Smith): Camozzi announced that his contract with the UFC is up, ending his third stint with the promotion and second one that saw some crazy up-and-down runs. Camozzi looked like he'd be sort of a footnote - he was on TUF 11, but got injured and never had a fight in the house, and his first UFC stint mostly saw him get fed to hometown fighter Kyle Noke on a card in Australia and then immediately cut. But Camozzi was signed back up within a year and after a loss to Francis Carmont, suddenly went on a four-fight win streak. None of them were particularly dominating - Camozzi would just sort of win a mediocre kickboxing contest via a narrow decision over and over, as I believe it was well into double-digit UFC fights before he even attempted a takedown, but four wins are four wins, and it eventually earned Camozzi a late-notice slot against Jacare Souza, who memorably choked Camozzi unconscious in about three and a half minutes. From there, Camozzi's luck pretty much ran out - he was still taking fights to narrow decisions, but this time he was on the losing end; and after a while, four straight losses were four straight losses, and Camozzi got cut once again. That figured to be that, but once again, Camozzi found himself back in UFC within a year, and this time in fairly amusing fashion, as he was crazy enough to step up and face Souza again on about a week's notice when a replacement was needed. And this time, Camozzi got tapped even faster, losing in just two and a half minutes. From there, things pretty much picked up where they left off, with Camozzi winning kickboxing contests, but 2016 saw him show some of the better form of his career, at least at first - he ran through a decrepit Joe Riggs, then actually mixed in some wrestling and looked excellent in a one-sided beatdown of Vitor Miranda. But like before, all those wins just earned Camozzi some ass-kickings, as his last three fights showed that for all his offensive improvements, Camozzi's defensive wrestling was still quite lacking. Thales Leites and Dan Kelly pretty much threw Camozzi around at will, and his last fight against Trevor Smith was an awful affair where Smith pretty much just held Camozzi down for three rounds. Camozzi's still 30, so I can't wait to see who he returns to take on in, say, February, given the way history has gone. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 6/17 - UFC Fight Night 111 - Singapore, Singapore - Bethe Correia vs. Holly Holm, Andrei Arlovski vs. Marcin Tybura, Colby Covington vs. Dong Hyun Kim, Rafael dos Anjos vs. Tarec Saffiedine 6/25 - UFC Fight Night 112 - Oklahoma City, OK - Michael Chiesa vs. Kevin Lee, Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks, B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver 7/7 - TUF 25 Finale - Las Vegas, NV - Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Johnson 7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Amanda Nunes ( c ) vs. Valentina Shevchenko, Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker, Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler 7/16 - UFC Fight Night 113 - Glasgow, Scotland - Gunnar Nelson vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio, Joanne Calderwood vs. Cynthia Calvillo 7/22 - UFC on Fox 25 - Uniondale, NY - Kelvin Gastelum vs. Chris Weidman, Dennis Bermudez vs. Darren Elkins, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Jimi Manuwa vs. Volkan Oezdemir, Jason Knight vs. Ricardo Lamas 8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis, Sam Alvey vs. Rashad Evans 9/2 - UFC Fight Night 115 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Stefan Struve vs. Alexander Volkov 9/9 - UFC 216 - Edmonton, AB - Henry Cejudo vs. Wilson Reis, Rick Glenn vs. Gavin Tucker ----- UFC Fight Night 110 - June 10, 2017 - Vector Arena - Auckland, New Zealand So this is a pretty solid card, at least as far as UFC's jaunts to Oceania tend to go. UFC's card from Melbourne in November was a one-fight show, with Robert Whittaker against Derek Brunson and then absolutely nothing, and this marks a much better card on paper than UFC's first effort from New Zealand. That card, in June of 2014, was focused around James Te Huna of all people, as the veteran light heavyweight attempted to cut to middleweight and failed fairly miserably, getting tapped out in about four and a half minutes by Nate Marquardt. But even that card, which is among the lowest in terms of starpower in UFC history, was fairly emblematic of UFC's cards in Australia and New Zealand - no names, but usually some pretty fun fights, as regional fighters are just good enough on offense and bad enough on defense to make for some excitement. Plus add in some of the better crowds of the world, and pretty much every Oceania card is at least worth watching. And this should be no exception, at least as far as the main card, as we get an important heavyweight bout, the continuation of an unlikely underdog story, plus fights that either promise good action or showcase solid prospects. Just, uh, maybe ignore those prelims. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 10:00 PM ET): Heavyweight: (#6) Derrick Lewis vs. (#7) Mark Hunt Middleweight: (#8) Derek Brunson vs. (#15) Daniel Kelly Lightweight: Daniel Hooker vs. Ross Pearson Light Heavyweight: Ion Cutelaba vs. Henrique da Silva Flyweight: (#8) Tim Elliott vs. (#12) Ben Nguyen Featherweight: Mizuto Hirota vs. Alexander Volkanovski PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Lightweight: Damien Brown vs. Vinc Pichel Welterweight: Luke Jumeau vs. Dominique Steele Flyweight: (#11) John Moraga vs. Ashkan Mokhtarian Welterweight: Kiichi Kunimoto vs. Zak Ottow PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 7:00 PM ET): Women's Strawweight: J.J. Aldrich vs. Chan Mi Jeon Lightweight: Thibault Gouti vs. Dong Hyun Kim THE RUNDOWN: Derrick Lewis (18-4 [1] overall, 9-2 UFC, 0-1 Bellator) vs. Mark Hunt (12-11-1 [1] overall, 7-5-1 [1] UFC, 5-3 PRIDE): Derrick Lewis wound up being a bit of a breakout star in 2016, only a year or two later than expected. The gigantic Texan burst onto the UFC scene in 2014, obliterating Jack May and Guto Inocente within minutes and showing off some of the most brutal power in the entire heavyweight division. But a move up the ladder against Matt Mitrione resulted in a 41-second loss, and after a rebound win over Ruan Potts, Shawn Jordan also stopped Lewis rather easily, causing many to just sort of write Lewis off as a flawed knockout artist with too limited of a game to accomplish much. And, well, Lewis is still a flawed knockout artist, but he's gotten much better at making that game work, enough so that Lewis suddenly has a six-fight winning streak. Combine that with a pretty great social media presence - Lewis pretty much acts like the human embodiment of black Twitter, and at some point will surely cross a line he shouldn't, but in the meantime, it's quite entertaining - and Lewis has become a cult favorite who UFC is increasingly relying on to headline some of these small- to medium-sized shows. In fact, this seems like kind of an attempt at a changing of the guard, as the reigning king of the cult favorite knockout artists is the man in the other corner, Auckland's own Mark Hunt. Hunt's had a pretty crazy career path to get here, not even counting his fairly horrible upbringing - a kickboxing star with K-1, PRIDE brought Hunt into MMA for seemingly more freakshow reasons than anything, and after some early success, fighters figured out that if you could take Hunt down, you could submit him fairly easily. PRIDE was eventually absorbed by UFC, and Hunt was one of the few who refused to have his contract bought out, insisting UFC honor the last two fights on his deal. This dragged on, as Hunt fought elsewhere in Japan, and by the time UFC gave in and brought Hunt in, the "Super Samoan" was riding a five-fight win streak. And Sean McCorkle, of all people, made it six, following the blueprint and tapping out Hunt in about a minute. With one fight left on his deal, UFC decided to match Hunt up with fellow brawler Chris Tuchscherer, and Hunt scored the upset by getting a second-round knockout. And then, well, Hunt suddenly went on a winning streak. Some of it was Hunt being matched up with people who wanted to stand and trade, but as UFC put him against some guys with grappling skill, Hunt finally showed some takedown defense, at which point opponents were sitting ducks for Hunt's destructive power. The unlikely run finally ended against Junior dos Santos in a number-one contender's fight, but for the last few years, Hunt has mostly hung around as a top contender, even earning a spot in an interim title fight against Fabricio Werdum. But a one-sided loss to Stipe Miocic in 2015 has started to mark a decline for Hunt, who's 43 - there were quick wins over Bigfoot Silva and Frank Mir, but Brock Lesnar out-wrestled Hunt fairly easily (and then failed a drug test, leading to a Hunt lawsuit against UFC that is still ongoing, a weird detail hanging over this fight), and March's fight against Alistair Overeem made Hunt look fairly slow before Overeem cracked Hunt's legendarily tough chin. So in a deeper division, Hunt's probably the kind of guy who would be aging his way down the ladder, but those fighters don't really exist at heavyweight outside of, well, Lewis and Francis Ngannou. Before I attempt to pick a winner in this fight, first I must mention the caveat that this is pretty much a pick 'em - not only is it between two hard-hitting heavyweights, which is almost always a coin flip, this is also one of those deals where Hunt would be, by far, Lewis's best win, while all of Hunt's losses in the UFC (save the McCorkle fight) are to top-five heavyweights in the world. But I think I'll take Hunt. Lewis's last few fights, pretty much since UFC decided to run with one, have all been weird deals, with Lewis getting in a lot of trouble early. Roy Nelson and Shamil Abdurakhimov were able to control Lewis with wrestling and clinch-work, while Travis Browne was able to damage Lewis quite a bit with some outside kicks to the body. But, of course, these all eventually swung back Lewis's way - Nelson just couldn't really do much of anything offensively, giving away a decision to Lewis, and while Abdurakhimov and Browne continued to win the fights until they got knocked out, well, Lewis only needs a little bit of an opening to get the knockout thanks to his immense power. But I don't really see Hunt doing any of that - sure, he may use the distance a bit like Browne did, but Hunt is mostly there to bang it out, and counter-intuitively, that may be the best way for someone like him to handle Lewis. Someone like Abdurakhimov just respected Lewis's power too much to do much in the way of effective offense, which, admittedly, may have been the way to go for him, since Abdurakhimov doesn't really have one-hitter quitter power. But Hunt does, and Lewis is both there to be hit and, judging from those Mitrione and Jordan fights, doesn't really like to be hit, so I could see Hunt just wading in to try and score a big blow, and once he does, finish the fight in rather short fashion. Admittedly, this could just as easily go the either way - if Hunt's chin has in fact slipped even a bit, Lewis could just as easily knock him out, even when Hunt has an advantage - but give me Mark Hunt by first-round knockout. Plus, admittedly, Hunt knocking off UFC's top rising heavyweight at the same time he's suing the promotion would be pretty amusing. Derek Brunson (16-5 overall, 7-3 UFC, 3-1 Strikeforce) vs. Daniel Kelly (13-1 overall, 6-1 UFC): The continued success of Dan Kelly has been one of the better stories in the UFC over the last few years. Kelly seemed destined to be a footnote - a four-time Olympian for Australia in judo, he didn't even really pick up MMA in earnest until he was 35, and didn't really show much on a one-off Canada versus Australia edition of TUF, getting tapped out by Sheldon Westcott. UFC didn't even pick up Kelly immediately off the show; he went back to Australia for one more win, before UFC, figuring they would run Australia more as they continued to expand globally, decided to sign him for a card in Sydney. After some wins over guys with missable UFC careers like Luke Zachrich and Patrick Walsh, Kelly got knocked out rather quickly by Sam Alvey, seemingly resigning Kelly to be a regional fan favorite and interesting curio rather than anything else. But Kelly rebounded with a win over Steve Montgomery, and then it was off to the races, as that started a run of four straight underdog victories by Kelly - in fact, he's been an underdog in every UFC fight to date, including this one. The peak thus far was Kelly's last fight, a stunning win at UFC 209 over former light heavyweight champ Rashad Evans, in Evans's middleweight debut; while Evans did the best job of anyone during this run in dealing with Kelly's relentless pressure, Kelly was relentless enough to make it pretty much an even fight, and wound up getting the decision. So, amazingly, Kelly is getting a completely-earned shot at the top ten months before his fortieth birthday, and it comes against Derek Brunson, who could really use a win. Brunson was kind of a wrestling-heavy blanket during his days in Strikeforce, but once he came into UFC, the North Carolina native suddenly discovered his striking game and streaked towards becoming a top contender. Brunson did lose early on to Yoel Romero before anyone realized quite what an eater of worlds Romero would become, but outside of that fight, Brunson just pretty much blew through the competition, including a string of four first-round knockouts over Ed Herman, Sam Alvey, Roan Carneiro, and Uriah Hall. That earned him a main-event slot against Robert Whittaker, which, well, became quite an infamous performance. Brunson decided to go for an impressive knockout to cement himself as a top contender, but did so in about the dumbest way possible, spending the entire fight basically just charging at Whittaker while winging power shots as hard as he could. It actually worked for a few minutes because, well, what the hell, dude, but then Brunson ran at full speed into Whittaker's fist like he was Bald Bull, and that ended the fight rather quickly. From there, Brunson had another super-weird fight against Anderson Silva, since, well, all late-career Anderson Silva fights are pretty weird. The balance of the fight saw Anderson Silva doing Anderson Silva bullshit, but leaving out the part where he actually hits the other guy really hard - it wasn't like Brunson ever really pressed the action, but he was definitely doing more in terms of offense than Silva. Still, Silva got the decision, so now Brunson is looking to turn things around from a two-fight losing streak. And I think he has a good shot here, even if there is the chance Kelly can throw him off. I don't know if I've done justice just how strange Kelly's success is - his knees are completely shot and completely wrapped up (one knee is apparently barely functioning, but Kelly is so old that his career can't afford a surgery layoff, so he just guts through it), and his game is basically based completely off of ridiculous toughness and dad strength, as Kelly just kind of lurches forward through the abuse to get his hands on his opponent and muscle them around. But the Sam Alvey loss did show the secret to beating Kelly, and this is going to sound fairly dumb - you need to knock him the hell out, or at least on his ass. Alvey is the only guy that Kelly's faced who I'd say has knockout power, and while guys like Chris Camozzi and Evans couldn't put Kelly away, when the Aussie waded in, Alvey just used his main skill - power - and obliterated Kelly in under a minute. And, well, Brunson has power. Now, Brunson's last few fights have been weird enough that there's the chance that, for whatever reason, this is the fight where Brunson decides to abandon his aggression and let Kelly hang around to potentially steal a decision, but the knockout's there if Brunson wants it. It does pain me, since Dan Kelly really is one of my favorite stories, but this seems like a fairly easy pick - Brunson by knockout, and I'll say in the first round, though I suppose I do pick against Dan Kelly at my own risk. Daniel Hooker (13-7 overall, 3-3 UFC) vs. Ross Pearson (19-13 [1] overall, 11-10 [1] UFC): One of the highlights of UFC's first show in Auckland was the debut on Dan Hooker, who's turned out to be fairly solid for a guy probably signed only because UFC was going to be in his hometown. Hooker ended his fight with Ian Entwistle in fairly unique fashion - Entwistle, a stocky leglock specialist, tied up the leg of the lanky Hooker as he went to work, and Hooker basically realized he was tall enough to just sit up and elbow Entwistle in the head until he got the eventual finish. From there, the Kiwi's been a solid B-grade prospect - he's not athletic enough to really move much up the ladder, but he's fairly crafty and dangerous. After a loss to Jason Knight, Hooker basically decided to stop putting his body through the cut to featherweight, so he makes his debut at lightweight here against Ross Pearson, who's badly in need of a win. Pearson didn't quite turn into the UK star that UFC might have expected once he won season nine of TUF, but the Sunderland native has stuck around on the roster as a pretty fun mid-card action fighter. But we're starting to hit a period of diminishing returns, as Pearson has lost three straight to Will Brooks, Jorge Masvidal, and Stevie Ray; admittedly all of those save the Masvidal fight were fairly close losses, but losses are losses, and UFC rarely keeps a guy coming off four straight. Pearson's a solid enough fighter, but the story of his fights are fairly simple - he's pretty much just a somewhat quick straight-ahead boxer, but if his opponents can successfully pressure him and try to make him fight moving backwards, Pearson isn't nearly as successful - plus if his opponent can actually wrestle and take Pearson down, things also start to unravel fairly quickly. And honestly, I could really go either way on if any of that applies to Hooker - again, he's long and lanky, even moving up a weight class, but Pearson does figure to be the quicker fighter, and Hooker isn't exactly a guy who's been able to control where fights take place. Still, I'm assuming Hooker does have enough of a fight IQ to at least try and implement a grappling-based gameplan, since that's probably where he's strongest; and even if it isn't completely successful, just moving forward and trying to make things happen might be enough to scare Pearson off and prevent him from looking good either. So I expect, like a lot of Pearson fights, a fairly fun, if unmemorable fight that goes to a narrow decision, and by pretty much the slimmest of margins, I'm taking Hooker to get the decision win in his hometown. Ion Cutelaba (12-3 [1] overall, 1-2 UFC) vs. Henrique da Silva (12-2 overall, 2-2 UFC): Even though neither of these guys is from anywhere near Australia or New Zealand, this is the best type of fight you can hope for on a lot of these smaller Oceania cards - two guys who are near the cut line, but are pretty much guaranteed to have a fun fight. Brazil's Henrique da Silva goes by the nickname "Frankenstein", and it's fairly appropriate; he's big for the division, and his gameplan is pretty much all size, aggression, and a complete lack of defense, as da Silva just sort of plods forward through whatever shots his opponent throws and tries to just punch them or pull them to the ground. Add in the fact that da Silva seemingly knows just enough grappling to get both him and his opponent in danger, and it's a weird, sometimes effective game. But over the course of just about a year, da Silva has already had a UFC run of highs and lows - not much was expected of him at first, but wins over Jonathan Wilson and Joachim Christensen had people thinking of da Silva as a possible prospect, only for the Brazilian to get tapped out by Paul Craig and then pretty much dominated by top prospect Jordan Johnson. So da Silva looks to turn things around against Ion Cutelaba, who's struggled to gain a foothold in the UFC thus far. Cutelaba's been on the MMA radar for a few years, since he was a 19-year old knocking out guys in his native Moldova, but as he's gotten to the UFC level, the finishes have dried up. The approach still hasn't changed, as Cutelaba is still looking for the knockout at pretty much all times, but he's been 1-2 in the UFC and struggled to break out of the pack, even if all of his fights have been pretty fun brawls. This fight is going to pretty much be a fun trash fire that could go either way, but I like Cutelaba fairly considerably here - while there's the chance that da Silva is big enough that he can just march down Cutelaba, I think the Moldovan can also pretty much tee off on da Silva as he tries to do so. Add in the fact that da Silva appears to have the much worse gas tank, and I see a fun brawl where both guys have their moments until Cutelaba puts da Silva away with a knockout sometime in the third. Tim Elliott (14-7-1 overall, 3-5 UFC) vs. Ben Nguyen (16-6 overall, 3-1 UFC): So this was originally supposed to be Joseph Benavidez getting thrown yet another mid-tier flyweight in Ben Nguyen, as UFC continues to shy away from giving Benavidez a deserved third title shot - and while I'm not happy the injury that took Benavidez out of this fight looks to be rather serious, it did give us a more interesting fight between Nguyen and Tim Elliott. Elliott's had a bit of a strange career path - during his first UFC stint, UFC just kept matching him up against some of the toughest guys in the division, and while Elliott typically acquitted himself well, he racked up enough losses that UFC decided to cut him, even though he was ranked in their own top ten at the time. So Elliott went ahead and won a few fights outside of the UFC, and eventually got another shot via last winter's season of TUF, an all-flyweight show where the winner got a shot at Demetrious Johnson. Elliott won the season and gave Johnson his toughest test in a while - which, admittedly, means Elliott won the first round and then proceeded to get blown out for twenty minutes - and after a win over Louis Smolka, Elliott looks to get some momentum going for the first time in his UFC career with a win over Ben Nguyen. Nguyen's an interesting story of his own - he was a non-prospect in his native South Dakota, but eventually found his way to Southeast Asia and Australia, and improved enough once he put down roots in Brisbane, UFC signed him up. And Nguyen has had a fairly solid amount of success - admittedly, UFC hasn't put him against the best competition, but Nguyen has looked good in all of his fights, including his lone UFC loss to Smolka. So this should be a really fun style matchup - both guys are decent enough on the feet, but they're both at their best when scrambling for submissions, and both had pretty great fights against Smolka, a guy in a similar mold. I'm taking Elliott here, though not without reservations - he's the bigger guy, and in fact pretty massive for the flyweight division, and probably the better grappler, but Nguyen does have his avenues to victory. First, any scramble-heavy fight can be sort of a 50-50 proposition, given that enough chaos is happening that either guy can clamp on some sort of submission. And second, Elliott being big for the division means he can sometimes gas, and I can easily see a scenario where an action-packed first two rounds gives way to a third where Elliott is too tired to do much, particularly with his herky-jerky striking style, and Nguyen is able to use his underrated striking game to great effect. But at the end of the day, I see most of this taking place on the ground, and Elliott probably has the advantage there, so my pick is Elliott by decision. Mizuto Hirota (18-7-2 overall, 1-2-1 UFC, 0-1 Strikeforce) vs. Alexander Volkanovski (14-1 overall, 1-0 UFC): This is the right step up in competition for Alexander Volkanovski, who's an interesting Australian prospect. Volkanovski had a bit of hype coming in as one of the better prospects in Australia, and in his UFC debut, he mostly came through, fighting Japanese lightweight Yusuke Kasuya and showing off some brutal ground and pound for the finish, plus some charisma to boot. I'm kind of interested to see how Volkanovski looks here, though, as he's moving down to featherweight (and honestly, is short and stocky enough he could even cut down to bantamweight) and has a tough test in another Japanese vet, Mizuto Hirota. Hirota will probably be best known for having his arm broken via hammerlock by Shinya Aoki during a big fight in Japan, but he's carved out a solid enough career for himself - he's been a top fighter in Japan when he's spent time there, and while his first Strikeforce and UFC run was fairly unmemorable, the second time around has already gone better, with Hirota getting a draw against Teruto Ishihara before beating Cole Miller. This is an interesting test of technicality versus physicality - Hirota has fairly solid fundamentals everywhere, as he's able to box at a solid level, but as the Miller fight showed, can take over a fight with wrestling if he needs to. But Volkanovski, again, is a stocky, powerful guy who throws heat on the feet and, as Kasuya found out, seems fairly hard to keep down in grappling exchanges. Still, I favor Hirota here - for as good as Volkanovski looked in his UFC debut, his pre-UFC fights didn't really impress me (though I seem to be in the minority), and I just have a lot of questions about how well his game works. I think there's even odds Hirota can control him on the ground, and even if he can't, Volkanovski just kind of wings things, and I could see Hirota just sort of avoiding the Aussie's big shots and mostly neutralizing him. Part of my hopes I'm wrong - Hirota's not particularly exciting and Australia deserves some interesting talents - but my pick is Hirota by fairly blah decision. Damien Brown (17-9 overall, 2-1 UFC) vs. Vinc Pichel (9-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): A strange little fight here where it's hard to know exactly what's going to happen, since Vinc Pichel is returning from a three-year layoff. A TUF 15 alum, Pichel made his UFC debut back in 2012, which is probably his most memorable UFC fight, though not for reasons Pichel would want - he was matched against fellow newcomer Rustam Khabilov, and Khabilov went full pro wrestling, knocking out Pichel by suplexing him directly onto his head. But the Los Angeles native eventually rebounded from that embarrassment, winning two straight and looking like a solid mid-tier lightweight before basically suffering all of the injuries; for reference, Pichel's last fight was a win over Anthony Njokuani all the way back at UFC 173, the card in May of 2014 that saw T.J. Dillashaw upset Renan Barao to win the bantamweight title. So Pichel finally returns to face Brisbane's Damien Brown, who has pretty much already exceeded expectations by notching two UFC wins. Brown had already gotten his shot outside of Australia when he went over the Cage Warriors in Europe and had no success, so when UFC signed him as a late injury replacement a little over a year ago, he figured to be like a lot of Australian signees - a guy who has just enough wrestling to have a ton of success at home, but really get nothing done once he gets to a UFC level. And, well, that's still sort of true in general for Brown over the long term, but after an unimpressive UFC debut, he was able to knock out (the admittedly frail) Cesar Arzamendia and then pretty much rely on his boxing to steal a narrow decision from Jon Tuck. I don't see Brown really getting much further, but with the right matchmaking, he's the kind of guy who can hang around a while beating the bottom rungs of the UFC roster. Again, I don't know what Pichel is going to look like after such a long layoff, but if he shows up resembling anything like his 2014 form, he should be able to beat Brown - his wrestling looked good in those two wins way back when, and given that Brown's grappling hasn't looked up to snuff in his UFC fights, that alone should be enough for Pichel to win some rounds as he gets back into a groove. So my pick is Pichel by a fairly clear decision, though obviously, given the layoff, that comes with a ton of apprehension. Luke Jumeau (11-3 overall) vs. Dominique Steele (14-8 overall, 1-3 UFC, 0-1 Bellator, 1-0 Strikeforce): Well, UFC has carved out a role for Dominique Steele, and it's the guy that they sent out there for the hometown fighter to try and beat. Two of Steele's UFC fights have seen him face (the lightweight) Dong Hyun Kim in Korea and Court McGee in McGee's native Utah, and after a fight against Australia's Kyle Noke in Melbourne fell through, Steele faces New Zealand's Luke Jumeau here in Auckland. Steele's a fine enough fighter, though his game's sort of weird - he's big for the division and aggressive, and just sort of bulls forward to try and clinch his opponents into the cage, though once he gets there he doesn't really do much with it. That sounds like it'd be boring, but Steele is hittable enough coming in and leaves enough openings when it comes to his control that his opponents are still able to get some offense off, resulting in some weird decisions weighing control against offense, assuming nobody gets finished first. As for Jumeau, I'm beginning to wonder if it's me, in that I seemingly never really like any newcomer coming out of Australia or New Zealand once I watch some tape of them. I was looking forward to watching Jumeau's fights, because he had some hype, and his last two losses have been to Jingliang Li and Jake Matthews, who are both on the UFC roster, but...eh. There is stuff to like - Jumeau has some athleticism, and if nothing else, seems to have some dangerous power, but I watched his last fight, against UFC washout Vik Grujic, and Grujic was more or less using his grappling to dominate the fight before he gassed and was a sitting duck for a Jumeau knockout. It's not impossible Jumeau gets a win here - again, he has knockout power, and some of the more hyped Australia/New Zealand prospects like Alexander Volkanovski have impressed in their UFC debuts - but I just see Steele's size, physicality and aggression working here. Hopefully Jumeau is able to do enough to make it fun, but my pick is Dominique Steele via decision. John Moraga (16-6 overall, 5-5 UFC) vs. Ashkan Mokhtarian (13-1 overall): So, this is pretty much the last chance for flyweight stalwart John Moraga, who's suddenly finding himself aging out of the division. Moraga was one of Demetrious Johnson's first title challengers as the flyweight division shook itself out, and then just sort of kept hanging around somewhere between the top five and top ten of the division, losing to the elite but also winning a lot more than he lost. But after losing a decision in 2015 to Joseph Benavidez, Moraga took about a year off due to injuries and then completely lost his groove, dropping decisions to Matheus Nicolau and Sergio Pettis. Moraga doesn't really look shot, but he's always been dependent on dangerous bursts of offense, and between his athleticism slipping into his thirties and younger fighters coming in with more evolved games, Moraga just hasn't really been able to do John Moraga things. Luckily for him, and I hate to sound like a broken record, Ashkan Mokhtarian is yet another Australian newcomer who doesn't really impress me. There's nothing I can find of Mokhtarian, at least of any value, since 2015, so maybe he's improved a bit, but while he seems to be a decently athletic grappler, he also doesn't really seem all that great or defensively sound. Though, to be fair, based off his record, if you're going to sign any Australian flyweight, Mokhtarian seems fairly obviously to be the guy. Maybe Moraga has lost enough steps that just being a bit faster and a bit more athletic is all Mokhtarian needs to win, and again, I'm looking at old film, but I'll lean towards the known quantity and say Moraga takes a decision, even if the trendline isn't particularly great. Kiichi Kunimoto (18-6-2 [1] overall, 3-1 UFC) vs. Zak Ottow (14-4 overall, 1-1 UFC): Well, Kiichi Kunimoto is a lot less interesting now that he's lost a fight. Kunimoto's a decent enough Japanese vet who UFC signed up in 2014, when the company figured they'd be running a lot more shows in Asia, and then just kind of kept winning fights via weird fashion. His debut sort of set the tone, as he went for a takedown against Luiz Dutra, who just decided to repeatedly elbow Kunimoto in the back of the head until he was unconscious, giving Kunimoto the DQ win. Then Kunimoto faced Daniel Sarafian, a typical middleweight who had an awful weight cut to 170 in a one-time experiment, and was too drained to do anything, and then Kunimoto got a robbert decision win over Rich Walsh. So, heading into 2015, Kunimoto was 3-0 in the UFC and suddenly a going concern at welterweight, even though he had shown pretty much nothing. So UFC then fed him to rising contender Neil Magny, Magny pretty much dominated their fight, and Kunimoto has spent the last two-plus years out of action with injuries. So now Kiichi Kunimoto is pretty much just a guy. Also just a guy is Zak Ottow, a Milwaukee native who got signed as an injury replacement last October. Ottow came into UFC advertised as a BJJ player, but he's mostly gotten by on his striking thus far in his two UFC fights - he won a close fight standing against Joshua Burkman for his debut, and then rightfully tried to keep things standing against top-shelf BJJ practitioner Sergio Moraes. This is...a fight that is definitely going to happen. Both guys can do a little bit of everything, but are more technicians than anything, and not particularly dynamic, so I just sort of expect this to be a close decision. Kunimoto's wrestling may be the best individual skill of either guy, but I like Ottow's size and athleticism to be enough here. I'll take Ottow by split decision, though frankly, the real upset will be if anything that interesting happens. J.J. Aldrich (4-2 overall, 0-1 UFC, 3-1 Invicta) vs. Chan Mi Jeon (5-0 overall): An interesting bout here, if only because they don't come much rawer than South Korean newcomer Chan Mi Jeon. Born in August of 1997, Jeon is the youngest fighter on the UFC roster (beating Japan's Naoki Inoue, who debuts in Singapore next weekend), and has pretty much no real experience. Jeon's last win was over Megumi Yabushita, a then-44 year old who seems to be a pro wrestler more than anything nowadays, and hadn't fought since 2013 or won a fight since 2010, and all her other bouts were against women making their MMA debuts. Watching some of Jeon's fights, you can see the potential, as she's definitely an athlete, but a lot of these bouts are ones where nobody really seems to know what the hell they're doing; one saw the two fighters simultaneously have each other in an inverted triangle, which is kind of emblematic of the all-offense, no-defense style of these women just doing whatever comes to mind. I'm still kind of confident that Jeon will be good one day, but I have no idea if she can improve quickly enough to actually get some wins and stay on the UFC roster. She faces Colorado's J.J. Aldrich, who's a fine enough prospect; at her best, Aldrich is a solid Muay Thai artist who can apply a lot of pressure and throw some solid shots in the clinch, but she's struggled against more powerful opponents who just try to wrestle her - Jamie Moyle and Tatiana Suarez both pretty much ran through her, and UFC was kind of cruel in making her debut against Juliana Lima, who pretty much does nothing but grind out decisions. This is already a pretty important bellweather fight for Jeon; unless UFC is just going to sign people for her to fight, Aldrich is probably one of the better bets as far as someone she can just overwhelm with her sheer physicality. But I'm not willing to pick her purely on potential, so I'll say Aldrich gets the decision victory, though I do hope that Jeon impresses in this fight. Thibault Gouti (11-3 overall, 0-3 UFC) vs. Dong Hyun Kim (14-8-3 overall, 1-2 UFC): If only Thibault Gouti was as good at surviving in fights as he is at surviving on the roster. The Frenchman was a fine enough signing when UFC needed a late replacement on a card in Europe last year, but he got stunned on the feet and then tapped out by Teemu Packalen in just 24 seconds, and while he had his moments against top Canadian prospect Olivier Aubin-Mercier, he was little more than a roadblock before Aubin-Mercier also tapped him out. So Gouti figured to be two and out in the UFC, but then he wound up as a bounce-back opponent for another Canadian fighter, as Chad Laprise knocked him out in about a minute and a half. So, you'd think after three fights and showing little, UFC would cut Gouti, but you'd be wrong; Laprise blew weight for their fight, and rumor was that Gouti would only agree to fight Laprise if he was guaranteed another fight - and I guess those rumors were right, because now Gouti is back against "Maestro" Dong Hyun Kim. This isn't the longtime welterweight contender "Stun Gun" - he fights next week - but rather the action lightweight, best known for his insane brawl at UFC 199 with Polo Reyes that was one of the best fights of the year. Kim's all-offense, no-defense, like a lot of Korean fighters, but the Reyes fight was a bit of an outlier in terms of punches thrown; Kim's a big lightweight, and keeps moving forward, but mostly just tries to get things into the clinch and ugly them up. Really, Gouti's shown me little, and while Kim might be hittable for a technical boxer like Gouti, Kim's also proven to be ridiculously tough, so I'm not really sure Gouti's going to be able to get anywhere. So Kim should be able to control the balance of this fight, and while Gouti might be able to survive, why pick against his streak of getting finished? I'll say Kim gets a stoppage sometime in the third round.

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