#also the realization those 6 words are the last words Salim says in this ending

[hopesallwegotleft]

"Thank you, Jason. Goodbye, my friend."

The journey of Jason's facial expressions during Salim's goodbye.

[thesportssoundoff]

“I....Man I dunno, dudes.” The UFC on ESPN 5 Preview

Joey

July 29th

To be honest, I don't know. Really don't to be honest with ya folks. On paper this card is utterly unappealing. I wouldn't call it bad (we saw bad last week) but I'd call it an unappealing collection of names and faces in weirdo fights designed to fill spots on an afternoon main card. There in lies the rub though; it's an afternoon card on ESPN. It's here to kill some time, try something new and give us some fights on "free" TV. It's not awful but it's also nothing special either. This card is nondescript in a string of nondescript events leading to a much more appealing late August slate. We're gonna get there, people. Our headliner is a great fight in terms of names and rankings but a potentially stinky matchup with Colby Covington vs Robbie Lawler at the top of the bill. Under that you have three really fun on paper lightweight fights that border on being somewhat inconsequential as Jim Miller vs Clay Guida, Dong Hyun Ma vs Scott Holtzman and Joakim Silva vs Nasrat Haqparast aren't going to change your top 15 around any but will at least be damn fun. Throw in some kinda intriguing fights at 125 for both men and women and ya got something not offensive but not worth hustling to your TV to catch live.

Fights: 12

Debuts: Cole Williams, Melinda Granger, Hannah Goldy

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 3 (Volkan Oezdemir vs Ilir Latifi CANCELLED/Zelim Imadaev OUT, Mickey Gall IN vs Salim Touhari/Ramazan Emeev OUT, Cole Williams IN vs Claudio Silva)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 5 (Jim Miller, Clay Guida, Robbie Lawler, Colby Covington, Mickey Gall)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC: 3 (Robbie Lawler, Lucie Pudilova, Salim Touhari)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC: 4 (Colby Covington, Nasrat Haqparast, Claudio Silva, Matt Schnell)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2017 (in the UFC):  24-18

Colby Covington- 3-0 Robbie Lawler- 1-2 Jim Miller- 2-5 Clay Guida- 3-1 Nasrat Haqparast- 2-1 Joakim Silva- 2-1 Trevin Giles- 2-1 Gerald Meerschaert- 3-3 Scott Holtzman- 3-1 Dong Hyun Ma- 2-1 Darko Stosic- 1-1 Kennedy Nzechukwu- 0-1

Fights By Weight Class (yearly number here):

Lightweight- 3 (48) Women’s Flyweight- 3 (24) Welterweight- 3 (44) Light Heavyweight- 1 (30) Flyweight- 1 (10) Middleweight- 1 (25)

Featherweight-   (37) Women’s Featherweight- (7) Heavyweight- (22) Bantamweight- (39) Women’s Bantamweight- (13) Women’s Strawweight- (19)

2019 Number Tracker

Debuting Fighters (20-44)- Cole Williams, Melinda Granger, Hannah Goldy

Short Notice Fighters (20-27)- Cole Williams, Mickey Gall

Second Fight (42-20)- Kennedy Nzechukwu, Jordan Espinosa

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (15-28)- Colby Covington, Lauren Murphy

Undefeated Fighters (25-29)- Miranda Granger, Hannah Goldy

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (9-8)-

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (23-17)-  Matt Schnell

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- Colby Covington's "Flying too close to the wings of pastrami" run has been something to take in over the past two years in the UFC. Covington embraced a Chael Sonnen run as a heel, carving up a bit of a path of solid yet unenthusiastic decisions before really hitting his stride both verbally and in actuality when he fought Demian Maia. He beat Maia after dropping the first round (in my estimation of course) and then cut a promo on Brazil that was basically his twitter rantings done live on air. The follow up to this was Covington getting into it with Fabricio Werdum where both guys threw around the unacceptable F word and Werdum also threw around a boomerang at Covington's head. Oh and after that, Covington got into a shoving match with Charles Bennett at what I'm going to bet is Camsoda's first and only MMA event. Colby Covington's reward for that stretch of idiocy was an interim title fight vs RDA, originally scheduled for Brazil before security concerns moved it to Chicago. In what seemed like the blueprint for EVERY RDA to follow, Covington point struck with RDA long enough to close distance, mind the gaps and then  get in for clinch work. To RDA's credit, he fared better vs Covington than he did the likes of Usman and Leon Edwards which I suppose paints the plight of Covington pretty well. Colby wins but never impressively enough to carry his heel gimmick beyond certain reaches of the internet. Colby's one of those guys who is very online as they say and more often than not, the translation from being VERY ONLINE to an average audience is slimmer than folks realize. Colby then managed to turn two years of productive high level fuckery into a wasted 2019 (so far) when he turned down a September fight with Tyron Woodley, got stripped of his interim title for not being ready for the beginning of 2019, got usurped as #1 contender by Kamaru Usman, chased Dana White around a hotel with a camera phone and then finally got pretty much told he takes this fight vs Lawler or else.

This fight on one hand feels like punishment but on the other hand also feels like a solid lesson to be learned for Colby. He was never good enough or popular enough on paper to dictate his own terms. That's reserved for a very select few who ultimately turn bigger profits.  The hype has never quite always matched the results for Covington who basically got passed up by a busier more talented model of himself. Kamaru Usman fought when Covington didn't, Usman was better against their respective similar opponents. While Covington was trying to coast on a gimmick that seemingly had no real serious appeal to anybody, Usman was just trucking through main event level fights until he got the Woodley fight that Covington was offered. Now Colby's fighting Robbie Lawler in what feels like the ultimate "Win this one or fuck off" style booking. It's one MORE hurdle to a title fight but the hurdle is self inflicted by a guy who got too comfortable and assumed he was a bit chummier with the boss than he was. Perhaps that's another lesson to be learned.

2- On paper this fight feels like the perfect test between two contrasting styles of fighting. Covington is a tremendous pace and space fighter; he controls distance well, understands when to push the pace and when to take a breath, knows how to rest on the inside and finds ways to always be on offense even if he's not doing much. The addition of teep kicks at range allow him to keep fighters at bay and when a fighter starts going backwards, he's got a great understanding of how to pressure them to keep that level of discomfort at a high. On the other hand, Covington still fights like a bully who needs to go one way to win and his striking defense is so lax that Lawler feels like a high risk opponent. Robbie hits really hard and when he decides to just go, few fighters can keep up with him. I have concerns about him being shopworn and about the injuries (broken hand vs RDA, torn ACLs in the past two years alone) but against Askren he looked positively brutal up until the "submission" happened. Lawler is still prone to resting against the fence, relying on his reads defensively and giving up space which plays into the hand of Covington. I also have zero idea if this version of Lawler and off for a year Covington have the cardio to go five rounds at the pace Covington's going to want to fight at. A lot of high level intrigue at play in the main event.

3- Dana White has said/suggested that if Covington beats Lawler, the title shot is his. The question is a) when and b) will either he or Usman be healthy enough to fight before the end of 2019?

4- Jim Miller vs Clay Guida is a back up main event (Oezdemir/Latifi got moved) so I can't be too too upset but the idea that Clay Guida is co-main eventing after scraping by vs the corpse of BJ Penn is quite frustrating and downright churlish.

5- I've seen some talk that Hannah Goldy vs Miranda Granger (just added to the card mind you) could be moved up to the main card with a swap happening with one of the heavier weight class fights and that just seems like an awful lot of pressure to be honest.

6- Joakim Silva vs Nasrat Haqparast is a damn interesting fight that is well worth your time. A short notice signee, Nasrat Haqparast gave a lot of trouble to Marcin Held before losing a decision in October of 2017. Since then he beat the hell out of Marc Diakiese and followed that up by beating the shit out of Thibault Gouti before he tuckered out and took it easy in the third round. Haqparast is freakishly athletic and has a lot of those flashy highlight reel techniques you see other fighters use while also being able to wrestle really well. His cardio is a concern but it's also not damning in my eyes either. Joakim Silva has one loss in his career; a close split decision to

7- Mickey Gall has had an interesting run in the UFC. He got signed off of Lookin' For A Fight at 2-0 because the UFC was looking for guys to fight CM Punk. He beat Mike Jackson as a filler fight to get some experience and then followed that up by beating up on Sage Northcutt. From there? It's ugly. Gall is super raw but athletic but he struggles with the finer points of MMA and while he's powerful, his striking and takedown defense is ass ugly.  I feel like they feel like he's going to be good but they have no idea when that'll be and have no idea how to nurture him from point A to point B. He takes on Salim Touhari on the prelims as the big prelim fight.

8- If I had told you a dude who fought on Bellator's Fight Master wound up on a UFC card in 2019, would you be shocked, surprised or saddened? Cole Williams fought on Fight Master and is making his debut as a short notice guy vs Claudio Silva.

9- Going back to card placement, I think we can move up Matt Schnell (riding a three fight winning streak) vs Jordan Espinosa (one of the best flyweight fighters signed off of DWCS) since flyweight is gonna be a thing again.

10- Antonina Shevchenko vs Lucie Pudilova should be a fun striking battle but I also have a sneaking suspicion it's going to disappoint.

11- I'm not giving up on Trevin Giles just yet. Giles started off 2-0 in the UFC and then disappeared for a bit before returning to fight proven veteran Zak Cummings. He started really good and then just kept trying to fight at the only range Cummings could win. Sure enough he gets popped, dropped and subbed to lose his undefeated record. Giles is really talented but his chin has long since been a question, this performance now bringing his fight IQ into the discussion as well. Needless to say, this fight vs proven gatekeeper veteran Gerald Meerschaert is a big one.  

12- Is Kennedy Nzechukwu (a DWCS guy signed primarily because he's big and fought twice) vs Darko Stosic (who got shut down by Devin Clark) the worst fight ESPN is going to air this year or does that still belong to Sam Alvey vs Kleidson Abreu?