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writingsubmissions · 8 years ago

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UFC Fight Night 105 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *UFC 208 was not good. I could pretty much just stop there and just write "Sigh." about thirty straight times and call it a wrap, but I guess I do have an obligation to go over exactly what happened. Germaine de Randamie won a narrow decision over Holly Holm to become UFC's first women's featherweight champion, even though a division doesn't really exist, and the fight wasn't ever really good enough to not feel as pointless as it did going in. It was a perfectly fine kickboxing match, but after about five hours of mediocre action (and only one finish, a record-low for a UFC event), the crowd wasn't really having it, and it just fell sort of flat. De Randamie won the early rounds, but began to tire and allowed Holm to take over, and the scoring basically seemed to come down to who you thought won the third round, even though de Randamie was much more accurate in countering Holm throughout the balance of the fight. Anyway, besides the group of people who thought Holm won, the other big controversy was some late strikes by de Randamie after the horn in two rounds, one of which seemed to rock Holm pretty badly. There was an outrage in the moment that referee Todd Anderson should've at least docked a point from de Randamie, but once people looked into the rules, they didn't really have a case - apparently the by-the-book rule is that the round doesn't end until the horn sounds AND the referee steps in, and Anderson was in fact late stepping in between the fighters on both occasions. So while it's probably still a bit of a cheap shot by de Randamie, with the caveat that in the moment, she may have not been focusing on the horn, it's also hard for Anderson to punish her for his own mistakes. So, de Randamie won, and it's not unclear where any of this leads. The close scoring and the late punches by de Randamie would normally generate enough controversy that you could try to book a rematch, but nobody really cared about this fight going in, and it was uninspiring enough in practice that I don't really see any sort of clamor to run it back. During the aftermath of the fight, and on a lot of their post-fight programming, UFC was pushing a fight between de Randamie and Cris Cyborg, who was in attendance, but Cyborg's status is up in the air thanks to a failed drug test; she might be out as long as two years, though there's no whispers of UFC trying to strong-arm USADA into granting her a retroactive exemption. And complicating matters further, de Randamie said immediately after the fight that she needs surgery to repair a nagging hand injury, which should put her out of action for a bit. Fitting, though - we might as well have a champ who can't fight in a division that doesn't exist. *The co-main wasn't any less strange, as Anderson Silva won a unanimous decision over Derek Brunson despite, well, not really winning the fight. As someone who expected Brunson to pretty much run over Silva on the first exchange of the fight, Silva actually did better than expected in places - he just kind of threw enough movement and bullshit at Brunson to keep him from getting too aggressive, and did an excellent job of stifling pretty much all of Brunson's takedown attempts. But at the end of each round, you'd just sort of take stock and realize that while Silva was dictating the terms of the fight, and did a lot more in terms of attention-grabbing stuff, at the end of the day it was Brunson pretty much doing all the damage in the fight, while Silva was mostly just playing defense and missing most of the stuff he tried. But that was apparently enough to win over the judges, and Silva gave an excellent post-fight interview after, talking about how he's probably getting too old for this, but loves to fight. Still, Silva looked diminished enough here that he should probably retire by the end of the year - the upcoming card in Rio might be a good spot for that to happen; plus there's a certain dream match that's suddenly on the table again, but more on that in a bit... *Alright, let's just run through the rest of the results. Jacare Souza got the lone finish on the card, tapping out Tim Boetsch in a stay-busy fight as expected. Glover Teixeira's win over Jared Cannonier was the big disappointment on the card - there was the promise of some fireworks here, but Teixeira, who was apparently injured going into the card, just decided to take Cannonier down and work for a submission. It was impressive that Cannonier survived, and a solid sign for him as a prospect, but it was death to watch. The only really good fight on the card opened the pay-per-view, as Dustin Poirier won a decision over Jim Miller that was surprisingly tough going at times, showing that Miller still has a lot left in the tank. Miller also worked over Poirier with leg kicks that really seemed to take their toll - there was some worry that Poirier may have broken his leg, but it seems like there's been no structural damage, and he'll be good to go. The only real solid prelim was Wilson Reis's win over Ulka Sasaki that continued to cement Reis as a flyweight contender; Reis looked great here, but so did Sasaki, who has seemingly improved a ton, hanging with Reis on the feet and even getting the Brazilian's back at the very end of the fight, even though he wasn't able to get the finish. Other than that, the undercard was a whole ton of nothing - prospect Randy Brown looked flat and lost to Belal Muhammad, Islam Makhachev out-wrestled Nik Lentz, Ryan LaFlare came back from a long layoff with a solid win over Roan Carneiro, and Rick Glenn won a fairly blah decision over Phillipe Nover. Whee. *You might notice two fights missing from that rundown - on Friday, the card was seemingly set at twelve fights, but two still managed to fall through in more or less the day leading up to the fight. The heavyweight bout between Marcin Tybura and late-notice replacement Justin Willis got scrapped once Willis had complications making weight. Willis is in fact a gigantic man, but it's still surprising, since nobody can seem to remember the last time someone wasn't able to make weight for a heavyweight bout. And, of course, Ian McCall's fight with Jarred Brooks fell through, continuing a comedy of errors. This marks McCall's sixth straight scrapped bout for some reason or another, with four of the six happening during fight week. This time, there was apparently some sort of digestive issue, possibly related to gallbladder issues, as McCall had to be taken to the hospital the day of the fights. At this point, one just has to wonder what the hell seems to be going on with McCall, even though a lot of these fallings-through have been due to his opponents. Ridiculous. *Well, the ax finally fell. The UFC roster has often been hard to keep up with - on the UFC website, it'd often be out-of-date in spots, leaving fighters on the roster that were long cut or retired, and you were basically better off just gleaning what you could from fighters firsthand, or seeing who popped up in other promotions, rather than wait for the infrequent announcement from the company, which often didn't even cover everyone who was off the roster anyway. But on the brief times they would update it, the UFC website was still sort of the "end all be all" of who was on the roster - there was a period in say, 2014, 2015, where the company was reliably keeping up with the roster churn every month, and various bots and accounts dedicated to tracking who came and went were often pretty accurate. And on Friday, the day before UFC 208, UFC finally caught everything up to speed. It was initially guys who had long signed with Bellator (like, say, Matt Mitrione and Josh Koscheck) and fighters who had retired (like Urijah Faber and Miesha Tate), but by the time all was said and done, UFC had deleted over one hundred fighters from the listed active roster. Now, a great majority of these cuts were public knowledge, but that still left about 35 or so cuts that were news to everyone, including some surprises. For one, it appears like when people's contracts are over, UFC is more or less just letting them walk - known free agents Lorenz Larkin, Rick Story, and Cole Miller were taken off the roster, following up similar reports with guys like Ryan Bader, Ali Bagautinov, and Zach Makovsky - all solid, all ranked (save Miller) fairly highly, and some in thin divisions that just need talent. But it essentially seems like new ownership has taken the tact of trying to slash costs, offer guys low contracts, and then letting them go if they don't like it, unless they're a proven star. Quite short-sighted, but WME-IMG also has debt to pay off. There's also some other contract weirdness, as a bunch of guys coming off wins, but weren't known to be free agents, were taken off the roster, led by Erik Perez - but the agent of Bartosz Fabinski, a Polish fighter who was 2-0 in UFC, but was still removed in the roster, is saying that Fabinski is just facing a long injury layoff, and UFC has frozen his contract in the interim. I guess there must be some sort of time component involved in these contracts, since I don't think UFC is paying these guys while they're hurt, but, here we are. Strange new world. *And it looks like two highly-ranked contenders might be joining them in fairly short order, as Kyoji Horiguchi and Misha Cirkunov are apparently set to leave UFC. There hasn't been much publicly, but word is that Horiguchi is now a free agent after negotiations to renew did not go well, which would be yet another blow for a flyweight division that's rapidly hemorrhaging talent. Horiguchi got rushed into a title fight with Demetrious Johnson due to a lack of other options, but the Japanese prospect has shined since, putting on showcase performances against Chico Camus, Neil Seery, and Ali Bagautinov. Horiguchi's pretty obviously a top-five talent in the division, and still young enough to improve, so it's kind of ridiculous UFC would let him walk, though that looks like it's going to happen. Hell, Horiguchi can probably get a ton of money from RIZIN and other Japanese promotions, though, so good on him. And in another dumb move, Dana White said that UFC is letting Cirkunov walk after negotiations with him also didn't go well. Cirkunov's a Latvian-born judoka who emigrated to Toronto and was talked about in Canadian MMA circles for years as a stud prospect. And he lived up to pretty much all the hype, capping off a 4-0 UFC record with a win over fellow top prospect Misha Cirkunov in December. It looked like UFC could turn Cirkunov into something - they had put some promotional effort into him, and he could fulfill two badly-needed spots as both a young Canadian star and a rising light heavyweight - but instead the promotion is going to look at someone who could be a star, say that they aren't there yet, and let them walk just to save some money in the short term. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. *And in one last cost-cutting note, WME-IMG also seems to be further squeezing fighters, who already don't make enough, on the margins. Carla Esparza groused on social media that for her fight in Halifax, UFC is apparently not willing to pony up the cash for her traditional walkout music by Metallica - hopefully this is just a one-off with a notoriously litigious artist and not a sign of things to come. And Brandon Gibson, a coach with Jackson-Wink who's worked wonders for a lot of different fighters, most notably Donald Cerrone, has said that UFC is no longer willing to offer camps footage of their fighters; instead, coaches must use UFC Fight Pass, and, of course, will not get it comped, instead being forced to pay $10 per month. In addition, Fight Pass doesn't provide a lot of things (slow motion, frame-by-frame rewinding) that the old footage did, so not only are you pissing off your cheap labor, you're making it less productive. But hey, you may get a few hundred more bucks per month. Bravo. *Whenever this happened, I never thought it would be this far down on the list, but hey, among all that bad news and penny-pinching, it looks like GSP is back in the fold! Ariel Helwani is reporting that UFC and Georges St. Pierre have come to terms and are hammering out a new deal for the former welterweight champ and MMA legend, and, well, good. It looks like GSP will be set to return sometime this fall, roughly four years after his last fight, and it'll be good to see what he has to offer, since St. Pierre does seem like the kind of guy who will age well. And, hey, way to save the pay-per-view fiscal year. *So, the state of Nevada promoted Staci Alonso to take the vacant spot in the state athletic commission in December, and about two months later, someone did some research and found that, hey, she's an executive at Station Casinos. And, of course, Station Casinos is the company owned by the Fertitta brothers, who apparently still have a fifteen percent or so stake in UFC even after selling the majority of it to WME-IMG. That's not good. Nevada addressed the conflict of interests concerns by saying that, well, they trust her to report any conflicts of interest, but this is just the fox watching the hen house. *UFC announced the cast for this upcoming season of TUF, which reportedly was going to have some sort of "All-Stars" theme featuring fighters from past seasons. And, uh, they forgot the stars. The biggest names here are TUF 2 winner and former lightweight title contender Joe Stevenson, and...Jesse Taylor? It may actually be a pretty solid season, since a lot of these guys are talented fighters who just don't move the needle, but I don't expect this to draw any viewers back in. Also notable is that James Krause, a TUF alum who was already on the UFC roster, is among the cast - apparently the deal is that contestants get $10,000 for every fight they win, with $250,000 going to the winner. So, go get paid, James. ------ BOOKINGS: *UFC announced a bunch of stuff this go-round, as the company fills out its schedule for April and beyond. The headliner is, better late than never, Jose Aldo and Max Holloway unifying the featherweight and interim featherweight titles, which will main event UFC 212 on June 3rd in Rio de Janeiro. The fight was initially slated to headline UFC 208, but Holloway wound up jacking up his ankle after beating Anthony Pettis in December, so the fight had to be pushed back to here. *During the UFC 208 broadcast, UFC announced a bunch of fights for some cards in April, particularly the Fox card in Kansas City and a newly announced FS1 card in Nashville. And the Nashville main event is a weird one, as fresh off his fight of the year candidate against Doo Ho Choi, Cub Swanson will face...Conor McGregor training partner Artem Lobov, who's coming off two wins over Chris Avila and Teruto Ishihara, the latter of which was his only impressive UFC appearance to date. Um, okay. Lobov seems like a really nice guy, but this is just MMA politics slapping every fan in the face, since Lobov, who was a solid European journeyman, only even really got his UFC chance because of his ties to McGregor, and definitely only stayed on the roster because of it, since he showed nothing while losing his first two UFC fights. Admittedly, Lobov did look the best he ever has against Ishihara, but, come on, man. On the plus side, the Nashville card at least has some other fun stuff - the co-main will see the return of Al Iaquinta against Diego Sanchez, Sam Alvey gets his biggest fight to date against Thales Leites, and Dustin Ortiz and Brandon Moreno are set to square off in a fun flyweight bout. Plus Jessica Penne/Danielle Taylor, Hector Sandoval/Matt Schnell, and Scott Holtzman/Michael McBride all figure to be fun undercard bouts. As for Kansas City, no main event has been announced, but UFC did announce one fun bout that figures to be the co-main, as "The Karate Hottie" Michelle Waterson returns from her win over Paige VanZant to face Rose Namajunas. Also, top middleweight prospect Andrew Sanchez moves up the ladder against Anthony Smith, and Devin Clark and Jake Collier face off in a fight originally set for December. Strangely, the arena in Kansas City, when putting up the listing for ticket sales, initially listed Doo Ho Choi against Renan Barao, complete with UFC graphic, as the main event, but per the promotion, that fight is not happening. I assume it was probably targeted for the card, but someone got hurt or there was a snafu somewhere. *UFC 210 in Buffalo added two more really fun fights - former Bellator lightweight champ Will Brooks will take on Charles Oliveira, who moves back up from 145 after repeated weight issues, and top welterweight prospects Kamaru Usman and Sean Strickland square off. Plus the London card in March finally has a viable co-main as Gunnar Nelson and Alan Jouban will square off in a really fun grappler-versus-striker welterweight bout. Plus in some undercard bouts, bantamweights Joe Soto and Rani Yahya will go at it on the Brazil card in March, while UFC 211 in Dallas added a third heavyweight bout between Germany's Jarjis Danho and Ukrainian newcome Dmitry Poberezhets. *And lastly, it looks like some top strawweight fights are coming together, though UFC hasn't announced anything officially. Rumors out of Poland said that Joanna Jedrzejczyk would be defending her strawweight title against Jessica Andrade at UFC 211 in Dallas, but Jedrzejczyk herself debunked that shortly thereafter. Still, Jedrzejczyk/Andrade looks like it's the next title fight, particularly since Michelle Waterson, the other obvious potential contender, is now booked. And per Claudia Gadelha, who's probably still the biggest threat to Joanna Champion's crown, she'll be facing Karolina Kowalkiewicz next, though there's no indication about when or where that fight is taking place. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Brock Lesnar (5-3 [1] overall, 4-3 [1] UFC, last fought 7/9/16, NC vs. Mark Hunt): Of all the new deletions on UFC's website, Lesnar was by far the biggest name - it was assumed at the time it was UFC, somewhat unsurprisingly, cutting ties with Lesnar for the time being, but it came out shortly thereafter that Lesnar has notified UFC of his retirement from MMA...however long that lasts. Let's at least do a rundown of Lesnar's career as it stands right now, since looking back, it is fairly ridiculous. Lesnar, a former heavyweight wrestling champion at the University of Minnesota, was one of the top stars in WWE before getting burned out and deciding to leave the company in 2004, and took a pretty circuitous route to the UFC, initially trying to make the Minnesota Vikings (and apparently coming damn close), then winning a lawsuit over WWE to wrestle a bit in Japan, and then going into MMA. Lesnar's MMA debut was a bit of a scene, main eventing K-1 Dynamite!! USA, a one-off show in the L.A. Colosseum in a giant spectacle, and there, Lesnar destroyed Korean journeyman Min Soo Kim in a little over a minute. And, from there, UFC signed Lesnar and the sideshow was on, as at that time, a company signing a 1-0 fighter just for his notoriety was fairly unheard of. UFC promoted Lesnar's debut heavily through the pro wrestling media, and purchased commercials during WWE programming, and it paid off with a big buyrate, and even though Lesnar lost, his fight with Frank Mir went absolutely perfectly to set things up down the line. Lesnar immediately took down Mir, a former heavyweight champion who, at the time, was still struggling to recover from a career-altering motorcycle accident, and started beating the piss out of him, but things got restarted when Lesnar accidentally punched Mir in the back of the head. From there, Lesnar got another takedown, but got caught in a kneebar, and Mir got the submission win after just 90 seconds of a crazy sprint. It was better than anything Lesnar had scripted for him in WWE - Mir and his fans could claim that he used skill to beat the big, dumb beast, while Lesnar's contingent could, rightfully, say that most referees wouldn't have stopped things after the accidental blow to the head, and that Lesnar was well on his way to running through Mir in short order. After that, Lesnar rebounded with a win over Heath Herring, and then, in just his fourth MMA fight just seventeen months into his career, Lesnar knocked out Randy Couture to become the UFC heavyweight champion. That set up a rematch with Mir at UFC 100, and the banter between the two (along with a stacked card) built things up to create the biggest-drawing UFC card of all-time at that point, with Lesnar getting a stoppage win over Mir in the second round. But the post-fight antics were probably even more memorable, with Lesnar foaming at the mouth and flipping off the crowd, then giving one of the most infamous interviews of all time, where he said he was going to go lay on top of his wife and then drink a Coors, because UFC's primary sponsor, Bud Light, wasn't paying him anything. And that was pretty much the peak of Lesnar - he wouldn't fight for a year thanks to a sudden bout of diverticulitis, and after a comeback win over Shane Carwin (and another gigantic pay-per-view buyrate), Cain Velasquez pretty much destroyed Lesnar to take the heavyweight crown. From there, Lesnar coached a season of TUF against Junior dos Santos that was shockingly drama-free, missed another large chunk of time with diverticulitis issues, and then got finished in the first round once again, thanks to a debuting Alistair Overeem. Lesnar retired after that fight, theoretically ending a crazy, brief MMA career, and popped back up in WWE a few months later on a limited schedule, doing an excellent job of melding his MMA background into his pro wrestling skill. And so Lesnar went on, as a top attraction in WWE, though there was a brief tease that he might return to MMA before announcing he was signing a new deal with WWE, until the night of UFC 199, when a teaser for UFC 200 ended with an unexpected shot of Lesnar, who suddenly found himself back in UFC for one fight. There was apparently some sort of deal in his WWE contract that he could do a fight if WWE signed off on it, and I don't know how they got Vince McMahon to agree to it, but the fight was on. And...well, it was sort of a clown show from the start - even though the agreement had apparently been set a few weeks prior (thanks again to UFC's website briefly accidentally putting Lesnar on the active roster), UFC obtained a waiver so Lesnar could fight without going through the mandatory four months of drug testing for an unretiring fighter. Lesnar had his fight, mostly taking down Mark Hunt at will in a strange sideshow that just added to the weirdness that was UFC 200, and, of course, failed his drug test shortly thereafter. Lesnar blamed it on some foot cream, but still got fined a nominal amount and suspended for one year, which probably would've been how long Lesnar would've waited to fight anyway. Good work. And now, Lesnar's announced his retirement, though I have the feeling that when he's clear of any suspensions and the money is worth it, he'll be back. 2) Lorenz Larkin (18-5 [1] overall, 5-5 UFC, last fought 8/20/16, W vs. Neil Magny): Larkin, who was a free agent, apparently won't be given an offer by UFC, which about says it all for the state of things - a few years ago, UFC held onto Larkin even as he was losing, but now that he's come through on his talent and gone on a winning streak, the new management doesn't want to pay him. Larkin was expected to do big things when he came into UFC - the Californian was undefeated during his time in Strikeforce, and after a run as one of their top young light heavyweights, Larkin cut down to middleweight and capped off his Strikeforce career with a win over Robbie Lawler. But for whatever reason, when Larkin came over to UFC, he just showed...nothing, losing a bunch of flat decisions and going on a 1-4 stretch that included a knockout loss to Costas Philippou. Larkin then cut down again, this time to welterweight, and it looked like his January 2015 bout against John Howard was more or less his last chance in the UFC, and Larkin made the most of it. Since cutting to welterweight, Larkin has suddenly rediscovered his old fire and looked absolutely awesome - there's a narrow loss to Albert Tumenov in there, but that came after a scintillating brawl and knockout win over Santiago Ponzinibbio, and Larkin's last two fights were a win over Jorge Masvidal that continues to just look better, and then an absolute annihilation of Neil Magny, as Larkin just destroyed him with leg kicks before putting him away at the end of the first round. That was supposed to be the big win that got Larkin into big fights and title contention, but instead he's just found himself out of the company. Surprisingly, rumor is that Bellator hasn't even made him an offer yet - surprising, given his Strikeforce ties and that former Strikeforce head Scott Coker is running Bellator - but hopefully Larkin gets some solid money wherever he lands in the current landscape. 3) Rick Story (19-9 overall, 12-7 UFC, last fought 8/20/16, L vs. Donald Cerrone): Story's pretty much the most unsurprising surprising cut, if that makes sense, as he's the type of guy that UFC has often let go - a really good veteran who's probably a top ten or so fighter in his division, but not getting any better, not particularly exciting, and not particularly near getting any sort of title shot. Story's big run was from 2009 to 2011, shortly after he signed with UFC - Story's a relentless wrestler, and he used that tenaciousness to grind out wins over then-undefeated prospect Johny Hendricks and Thiago Alves. But after the Alves win, and near a title shot, Story decided to do UFC a solid and take a fight with Nate Marquardt on a four-week turnaround. Marquardt wound up having issues with his testosterone use and was pulled from the card, so instead Story faced late replacement Charlie Brenneman in a fight that Brenneman shockingly won, scoring a career-defining upset and completely derailing Story's title hopes. Story's career honestly never fully recovered from that - he'd be highly regarded, but trade wins and losses. A one-sided win over Gunnar Nelson in a main event on a smaller card looked like it was reviving Story's career, but an eighteen-month injury layoff kind of killed that momentum, and after winning a solid fight over Tarec Saffiedine, Donald Cerrone handled Story rather easily this past August. Story's good, so hopefully he finds a spot somewhere that'll pay him, but if his asking price was too high, I see why UFC would balk. 4) Takeya Mizugaki (21-11-2 overall, 8-6 UFC, last fought 12/17/16, L vs. Eddie Wineland): Sadly, this was probably the right time for UFC to cut Mizugaki, as the Japanese vet had lost four out of his last five and just seemed to be spiraling downward. Mizugaki was a solid upper-card bantamweight in WEC, and pretty much continued that after joining UFC, alternating wins and losses for a bit. But in 2014, everyone just sort of looked around and suddenly realized that Mizugaki was a bantamweight contender, as he had strung together five straight wins over decent competition without anyone really taking much notice. That earned him a shot to be Dominick Cruz's comeback opponent, and Cruz proceeded to take out all his years of injury-induced rage on Mizugaki, showing uncharacteristic aggression and knocking out Mizugaki in just 61 seconds. Sadly for Mizugaki, that was the beginning of a trend, as a win over George Roop was the only one Mizugaki would have after that, and his losses to Cody Garbrandt and Eddie Wineland were both brutal knockouts. Mizugaki was always sort of a jack of all trades, master of none, and once his athleticism and skill dipped a bit, things were pretty much all over, especially now that it looks like his chin is gone. Given his emotional interview after the Roop win where he talked about fighting for his career, I feel bad saying this, but Mizugaki's best days are probably behind him. 5) Cole Miller (21-11 [1] overall, 10-9 [1] UFC, last fought 12/17/16, L vs. Mizuto Hirota): Miller probably lasted longer than anyone could've expected, as the gangly Georgian carved out a niche for nine years a solid gatekeeper at lightweight and featherweight. Miller was pretty much the perfect test for guys rising up the ladder - Miller was skilled everywhere and ridiculously lanky for his weight classes, so UFC could basically use him to see if guys were able to adjust to an unorthodox test. And Miller had a bunch of success, winning about two fights for every loss until things turned sort of sour near the end. Miller was facing a three-fight winless skid heading into his bout Hirota - Max Holloway beat him, as expected, an eye-poke turned what was looking into a win over Jim Alers into an early stoppage and a no contest, and Miller was set to face B.J. Penn before Penn got flagged for an illegal IV, instead resulting in Miller losing to short-notice replacement Alex Caceres. So Miller was already feeling his back against the wall, and then his relationship pretty much fell apart when the Manila card in October got cancelled; the Miller/Hirota fight was initially slated to take place there, and Miller had to find out about it second-hand while he was on his way to the airport to catch his flight. UFC re-booked a lot of the Manila fights in fairly short order, but they waited a while to do so for Miller/Hirota, which pissed off Miller to no end, per an interview he gave - this basically forced him to pay for a second training camp, UFC didn't pay him anything to make up for the cancelled fight, and worst of all, he was getting the cold shoulder when he wanted to meet with UFC higher-ups about his concerns. In that interview, Miller was basically openly contemplating retirement just from being frustrated with the whole deal, and that showed in his performance against Hirota, which was a flat loss. Miller was also in the last fight of his contract, and unsurprisingly, it looks like he won't be re-signed, and frankly, it seems like both parties are going to be okay with that. 6) Erik Perez (17-6 overall, 7-2 UFC, last fought 11/5/16, W vs. Felipe Arantes): I assume there must be something else going on here, since Perez really should be in UFC's plans, since he's finally coming through on some of the potential he's had as UFC tried to push him as a Mexican star. Pretty much upon his arrival in 2012, UFC saw dollar signs in Perez, then a super-young talent who showed up just when the company was looking for someone Mexican to showcase, and his development happened in fits and starts, as whenever Perez would chain together a win or two, they'd immediately rush him into a fight against a Bryan Caraway or a Takeya Mizugaki, and then when he lost, start the cycle anew. But after missing over a year thanks to injuries over parts of 2014 and 2015, Perez returned and looked like he was finally cashing in on his potential, somewhat amusingly just as Yair Rodriguez was supplanting him as UFC's next big Mexican hope. But Perez put together wins over Taylor Lapilus, Francisco Rivera, and Felipe Arantes that were both exciting and showcased Perez's newfound striking skills, and while it didn't look like "El Goyito" would be quite the star UFC hoped, he could at least be a Mexican fan favorite with some notoriety going forward. I'm hoping that Perez being taken off the roster has something to do with him seemingly suffering a major knee injury during the Arantes fight and either freezing his contract or just letting him be a free agent until he's healthy, but I don't think they'd be paying him either way, so the whole thing is just weird. UFC's not dumb enough to let Perez go just as he's becoming a going concern...right? 7) Francisco Rivera (11-7 [1] overall, 4-6 [1] UFC, last fought 7/30/16, L vs. Erik Perez): Rivera's one of those cuts that almost had to happen, as he's lost five out of his last six at 35 years old, though it still sucks to see. Rivera's first UFC run was over before it began, as he was coming over from WEC after a loss and got cut after one more against Reuben Duran. But the Californian earned his way back and then came out of the gates blazing upon his return, winning four straight and earning some shots at bigger names. Takeya Mizugaki just straight up out-wrestled him, but the fight after that is going to be Rivera's biggest "what if," as he probably could've gotten a win over Urijah Faber in December of 2014. Rivera was pretty handily winning the first round and the earlier stages of the second, when Faber accidentally poked Rivera in the eye. But neither Faber nor the ref seemed to see what happened, and as Rivera cringed from the poke, Faber used the opportunity to just take advantage, swarm Rivera, and then eventually get a submission. Rough luck, but it looked like Rivera would be alright in the long run, as he absolutely annihilated Alex Caceres in his next fight. But that turned out to be the end of the good times - Rivera lost one of the best fights of 2015 against John Lineker, a two-minute sprint that saw both men just swing at each other in ridiculous fashion, got robbed via decision against Brad Pickett, and then simply got outclassed by Erik Perez to lose three straight. Rivera's pretty reliably a fun striker, so I was hoping they would keep him around for one more fight, but given his age and the way his record was trending (even if it did include two controversial losses), it's understandable that they cut him. 8) Phillipe Nover (11-8-1 overall, 1-6 UFC, last fought 2/10/17, L vs. Rick Glenn): Nover wasn't part of the massive UFC roster cuts, instead announcing his retirement a few days after losing at UFC 208, in his hometown of Brooklyn, to Rick Glenn. Nover was a fine journeyman, but he'll pretty much live in infamy as one of a few "next Anderson Silva"s thanks to Dana White. Nover starred on season 8 of TUF, finishing all three of his opponents in rather one-sided fashion, leading White to throw a whole bunch of crazy hyperbole Nover's way - he was the next Anderson Silva, the next Georges St. Pierre - pretty much every ridiculous thing you could think of. So, of course, Nover didn't even wind up winning the season, instead getting out-wrestled by Efrain Escudero and losing the final. Nover then lost his next two fights - though one was an iffy decision - and found himself out of the promotion within a year, at which point he started popping up on regional cards and the occasional Bellator prelim. But apparently UFC kept his name in their Rolodex, as when they decided to run Manila for the first time, they surprisingly brought Nover back, probably because the Filipino-American was one of the few "hometown" fighters they could think to bring in. Nover probably didn't deserve to win his comeback fight, a decision over Yui Chul Nam, but it was a nice moment, especially since it wound up being his only UFC win. After that, Nover's luck sort of reversed itself, as he lost a clear decision to Renan Barao that was sandwiched between split decision losses to Zubaira Tukhugov and Glenn. All of those fights showed off the flaw in Nover's game at a UFC level - he was pretty much solid everywhere, but he just didn't really have the style to finish fights or win rounds against better competition, so it just wound up being tough loss after tough loss. All in all, Nover seems at peace with the decision, as he's going back to focusing on his other job as a nurse, so good on him - despite not living up to the ridiculous expectations, he still had a fairly solid career, all in all. 9) Jessamyn Duke (3-5 [1] overall, 1-3 UFC, last fought (in UFC) 7/25/15, L vs. Elizabeth Phillips): Oh, poor Jessamyn Duke. Edmond Tarverdyan has ruined a lot of careers, and Duke's a somewhat forgotten name on that list. The Kentuckian was an interesting prospect discovered by Invicta - a former model, Duke has marketable good looks, and thanks to her leggy, lanky frame, the thought was that she could be a lot of trouble once she figured out how to use her reach. But Duke struck up a friendship with her coach on TUF, Ronda Rousey, became one of her "Four Horsewomen" group of BFF's, went to train in Glendale, and that was pretty much the beginning of the end. Duke did win her first post-TUF fight over Peggy Morgan, but after that showed nothing - Bethe Correia outboxed her handily, Leslie Smith more or less annihilated her, and Elizabeth Phillips won a fairly clear decision, as Duke just basically had no idea how to use her range or, even worse, defend anything as she was getting hit. The Phillips loss figured to be Duke's last in the promotion, particularly when she popped up back in Invicta, but word got out that UFC had allowed her to head to Invicta while still remaining under contract, because that's the kind of leeway being a friend of Rousey gets you. But Duke just looked completely broken in her last two fights, getting wrecked by Irene Aldana and tapped out in short order by Cindy Dandois, so it's not a surprise that UFC decided to cut their losses somewhere along the way. I don't know how successful Duke would've been in a different camp, but I feel bad that she wound up in Glendale. 10) Maximo Blanco (12-8-1 [1] overall, 4-5 UFC, last fought 9/17/16, L vs. Chas Skelly): Well, at least Maximo Blanco went out in appropriately ridiculous fashion. Blanco, a Venezuelan fighting out of Japan, was pretty much guaranteed entertainment every time he stepped into the cage, since he was ridiculously aggressive and it was often unclear if he was aware of the rules. His November 2013 fight against Akira Corassani is a perfect example - Blanco just decided to throw a knee full-bore at Corassani's head while Corassani was down, getting himself disqualified. And weird stuff would just follow Blanco around - there was that fight, his win over Mike De La Torre where the ref stopped it way too early, and his last fight, where both him and Chas Skelly decided to start the fight with running, flying karate kicks, Skelly's landed cleaner, and Skelly clamped on a choke for a submission in just nineteen seconds. Ridiculous. Anyway, it's probably better off that Blanco is probably headed back to Japan, where he can stomp people in the face to his heart's content. 11) Taylor Lapilus (11-2 overall, 3-1 UFC, last fought 9/3/16, W vs. Leandro Issa): UFC seems to sign fighters to four-fight deals to start, so I'm assuming Lapilus is a case where he fought out his contract, since it seems unlikely they'd go out of their way to cut a talented mid-level prospect. Lapilus had an interesting entry into the UFC - as a backstory, before UFC ran a show in Sweden back in 2014, the country's commission had pretty much ruined some smaller-level shows by refusing to license a few different fights, citing the difference in experience between some of the opponents. Local promoters cried foul about a double-standard between themselves and UFC, so when Lapilus was signed as a late injury replacement to face the much more experienced Dennis Siver, Sweden caved into local pressure and denied Lapilus a license. Lapilus wound up being a pretty solid fighter, one of UFC's better signing out of a burgeoning French scene - he lost to Erik Perez, but otherwise more or less styled on low-tier competition like Ulka Sasaki and Leandro Issa. But even after winning his last fight impressively, Lapilus didn't have enough of a name for WME-IMG to see him as worth keeping. 12) Seohee Ham (17-8 overall, 1-3 UFC, last fought 11/26/16, L vs. Danielle Taylor): Seohee Ham is awesome, and it sucks that she's off the UFC roster, particularly since he last loss was a complete robbery. Ham was one of the top atomweights in the world when UFC signed her as a late replacement to face Joanne Calderwood, and she was good for a fun action fight every time out - despite being tiny, Ham mostly lived up to her "Hamderlei Silva" nickname, constantly throwing punches, with the added benefit of much better dance moves coming to the cage than Wandy ever showed. After a 1-1 start, Ham lost a narrow decision to Bec Rawlings, which showed that the Korean had a clear ceiling and was facing an uphill battle in the UFC, since Rawlings was just able to shut down Ham at times due to her size; thankfully, UFC matched her up with the similarly small Danielle Taylor in her last fight, which everyone figured Ham had won, but somehow Taylor was gifted the decision, and it looks like that cost Ham her UFC job. Sad face. 13) Sean O'Connell (17-9 overall, 2-5 UFC, last fought 12/9/16, L vs. Corey Anderson): O'Connell was fun as hell for a few different reasons. Outside the cage, he was a fascinating guy - his full-time job was as a sports radio host in his native Utah, he wrote a sci-fi fantasy novel, and he was one of the more reliable characters at weigh-ins, often trying to get a reaction out of his opponent or the fans. But for such a renaissance man, inside the cage, O'Connell's game was fairly simple - he was a pure brawler, just trying to punch his opponent in the face as hard as he could while attempting to walk through damage to do so. Sometimes this got him annihilated, like against Ryan Jimmo and Ilir Latifi, but sometimes magic happened - a forgotten fight against Gian Villante highlighted UFC's lone card in New Zealand, and his fight last June against former hockey enforcer Steve Bosse was just a ridiculous bit of violence, a back and forth bar fight that just saw each guy seemingly knock the other out multiple times. Coming off a decision loss in that fight, UFC then pretty much fed O'Connell to rising contender Anderson, and it sounded like O'Connell was ready to retire after the fight, stopping just short of making it official. He experienced some hope that UFC would have him on in a broadcasting role, given his background in the field, but it doesn't look like that'll be the case, sadly. 14) James Moontasri (9-5 overall, 2-4 UFC, last fought 12/17/16, L vs. Alex Morono): Like Nover above, Moontasri wasn't a part of UFC's massive roster purge, but instead retired over social media in the past week. Moontasri was frustrating as hell - a former Tae Kwon Do champion, when Moontasri was on, the Californian could string together some fun, violent combinations, but more often than not he just found himself looking for the perfect shot, and would just not do much of anything while losing rounds. And as time went on, opponents like Kevin Lee and Alex Oliveira figured out they could take Moontasri down and beat the piss out of him, and that was the beginning of the end. 15) Augusto Montano (15-3 overall, 1-2 UFC, last fought 9/17/16, L vs. Belal Muhammad): Ah, the ballad of "Dodger" Montano. When UFC decided to break into Mexico in 2014, that meant they needed Mexican fighters, and to be fair, Montano was one of the better ones they could find out of a thin scene. A popular veteran, Montano had a fun, one-sided win over Chris Heatherly on UFC's debut card in Mexico City, but things fell apart the next time around, when Montano faced Cathal Pendred. The fight was awful, with Montano suddenly losing all of his aggression and not doing much of anything, to the point that he got booed by his hometown crowd, and then Montano failed a drug test shortly thereafter, getting suspended for a year. In the interim, pretty much every Mexican fighter UFC had under contract was doing way better than expectations, thus making Montano sort of expendable as an ethnic draw, and after coming back from his suspension and looking fairly blah in a loss to Belal Muhammad, he was, in fact, expended. 16) Anthony Birchak (12-3 overall, 2-2 UFC, last fought 7/7/16, W vs. Dileno Lopes): Birchak was a known free agent, and I guess this is the sign UFC isn't going to renew his deal, which is a bit disappointing, since Birchak was fairly fun. A solid prospect, Birchak lived up to his "El Toro" nickname, just sort of charging forward a lot of the time and trying to overwhelm his foes. In his UFC debut, this caused him to run immediately into an Ian Entwistle leglock, but he annihilated Joe Soto in his next fight, and looked alright against Thomas Almeida before getting dropped in one of the scarier knockouts of 2015. Birchak looked good in his last fight, a win over Dileno Lopes where the loser would seemingly get cut, and now neither man is with the promotion. 17) Bartosz Fabinski (13-2 overall, 2-0 UFC, last fought 11/21/15, W vs. Hector Urbina): Poland's Fabinski was one of a bunch of Polish fighters that UFC signed for their show in Krakow back in 2015, and he did well enough in his two UFC fights, out-wrestling Garreth McLellan and Hector Urbina fairly effectively, even if neither fight was all that exciting. Fabinski was slated to fight Nicolas Dalby in Croatia this past April, but pulled out due to injury, and as mentioned above, per Fabinski's management, his contract is being frozen as he takes time off to recover. Alright then. 18) Tiago Trator (20-6-1 [1] overall, 2-2 UFC, last fought 12/9/16, L vs. Shane Burgos): It's strange for UFC to cut someone after only one loss, but this could also be a case where UFC just decided not to renew Trator's contract after a four-fight deal. Anyway, Trator was expendable, and might be the guy I have the least to say about on this list - he wasn't particularly impressive anywhere, but on the upside, he also wasn't bad enough that I could really talk about any of his weaknesses. Trator was a Brazilian man who didn't really win that impressively, but didn't lose in blowout fashion either. He was there, and it's about right that he's near the middle of this list. 19) Lance Benoist (7-2 overall, 2-2 UFC, last fought 6/7/14, W vs. Bobby Voelker): Benoist is sort of the American version of Trator, just a guy who was decent everywhere, though there's at least the intrigue of wondering where the hell he's been for the last two and a half years. It's unclear if his contract is frozen, or if he just retired, since Benoist doesn't appear to have much of a social media presence anymore. Anyway, all four of Benoist's fights went to decision, which about says it all, but hey, at least the Midwestern vet ended his UFC career with a win over Bobby Voelker. 20) Tony Sims (12-4 overall, 1-2 UFC, last fought 1/2/16, L vs. Abel Trujillo): In another time, Sims would've probably gotten another chance in UFC after two straight losses, since at his best he was pretty exciting. Sims's first two UFC fights showed the Colorado native's strengths and weaknesses pretty clearly - his UFC debut saw him knock out Steve Montgomery on the feet, but his sophomore effort saw Olivier Aubin-Mercier just take him down and out-grapple him at will. I guess Sims tried to be well-rounded after that bout, but it cost him against Abel Trujillo - after doing pretty well on the feet, Sims decided to mix things up for the sake of mixing things up, and when he went for a takedown, he just pretty much dove right into a guillotine that cost him the fight and his spot on the UFC roster. Whoops. 21) Yaotzin Meza (21-11 [1] overall, 2-4 [1] UFC, last fought 2/27/16, L vs. Arnold Allen): Hey, Meza made it about four years in the UFC, which isn't that bad for someone who only got the gig because they were willing to step in and get smoked by Chad Mendes on about a week's notice. Meza, a training partner of Benson Henderson, was cornering Henderson on a UFC card the week before Mendes needed an opponent in Australia, so he begged for the spot, got it, and then parlayed that into a solid low-level gatekeeper role. Meza was pretty much matched up with guys in their first or second UFC fights so they could have a showcase, and for the most part, that's what happened, although Meza won just enough to keep the gravy train going for seven fights. Not bad. 22) Geane Herrera (9-3 overall, 1-3 UFC, last fought 11/26/16, L vs. Ben Nguyen): Herrera was sort of a victim of the weird structure of UFC's flyweight division, as well as the company often not having any idea about how to bring along raw prospects. Herrera was pretty much all athleticism when UFC signed him in 2015, and they immediately threw him against top prospect Ray Borg in a fight that Herrera unsurprisingly lost. And at flyweight, pretty much half the division is top-fifteen worthy veterans, so after a win over Joby Sanchez, Herrera was immediately thrown back into the fire, put in way over his head in losses against Ali Bagautinov and Ben Nguyen. The Nguyen fight was the last on Herrera's deal, and he was apparently pessimistic about being re-signed; looks like he was right. 23) Clay Collard (14-7 [1] overall, 1-3 UFC, last fought 9/5/15, L vs. Tiago Trator): Utah's Collard had an impressive late-notice debut in August of 2014 - he was completely overmatched against Max Holloway, but Collard made it entertaining, pretty much charging like a zombie through whatever Holloway would throw at him until he finally got put down late in the third round. After that, Collard rebounded with a win over Alex White, but in both that and his next two fights, Collard was more frustrating than effective, a physical talent that basically had a lot trouble turning that into anything resembling a functional MMA game. 24) Elvis Mutapcic (15-5-1 overall, 0-2-1 UFC, last fought 12/3/16, L vs. Anthony Smith): It's nice Mutapcic finally got his UFC shot, though his run wound up being fairly disappointing. Mutapcic, who fled Bosnia at a young age and grew up in Iowa, was one of the better regional middleweights out there, racking up wins against solid competition and earning a brief stint in WSOF, but UFC-level competition pretty much showed all of his weaknesses and none of his strengths. Mutapcic was just too passive to do anything against Francimar Barroso, and both that fight and his other two UFC affairs were mostly just boring slogs, at least until he got knocked out by Anthony Smith this past December. It would've been nice to see Mutapcic at least notch one UFC win, but sadly, no dice. 25) Jon Delos Reyes (8-5 overall, 1-3 UFC, last fought 10/24/15, L vs. Neil Seery): Like a few guys on this list, Guam's Delos Reyes probably would've gotten another shot at a different time in UFC roster management, since his fights were fun as hell. Delos Reyes was often overmatched, but he would throw power behind every punch and had a fun, scrambling submission style, so while he'd often lose, he'd often lose in exciting fashion. Though, that said, his lone UFC win, over Roldan Sangcha-an, was probably his most fun fight. 26) Fredy Serrano (3-2 overall, 2-2 UFC, last fought 12/17/16, L vs. Hector Sandoval): Serrano was an interesting curio for a bit - a former Olympic wrestler for his native Colombia, Serrano looked impressive in his first two fights against the dregs of the roster, knocking out TUF: Latin America castmate Bentley Syler and breaking TUF: China alum Zhikui Yao's arm on a takedown. But once Serrano faced any legitimate level of competition, it became apparent he really wasn't that good, with an offensive game consisting of little except power takedowns, and, strangely, axe kicks. Serrano didn't get into the sport until his late thirties, so there's an alternate universe out there where he starts much earlier and develops into an actual prospect, since he's a hell of an athlete, but unfortunately that universe is not this one. 27) Buddy Roberts (12-3 overall, 1-1 UFC, last fought 8/11/12, L vs. Yushin Okami): I'm not sure anyone remembers Buddy Roberts, but yes, he was still on the UFC roster. Roberts needed two tries to get his UFC debut back in 2012 - the first time, his debut got scrapped literally minutes before it was set to start, as his opponent, Sean Loeffler, managed to injure his ankle while warming up backstage. But Roberts did wind up winning his eventual UFC debut against Caio Magalhaes, then actually had a pay-per-view fight at UFC 150 as a late replacement against Yushin Okami, where Okami, then still a top contender, pretty much ran through him. And that was the last we ever saw of Roberts - he was slated to face Michael Kuiper on a card in January of 2013, but pulled out due to injury, and, well, that must have been a hell of an injury. 28) Hector Urbina (17-10-1 overall, 1-2 UFC, last fought 9/24/16, L vs. Vicente Luque): Urbina showed little on season 18 of TUF, but UFC needed Mexican fighters for their debut card in the country, so Urbina, a Mexican-American fighting out of Indiana, got the call anyway. He got a debut win over fellow underwhelming vet Edgar Garcia, but lost in one-sided fashion in his next two fights, and was cut. Amusingly, Urbina's already resurfaced as a cast member of this upcoming TUF season, so...good on him for somehow already finding a way back in, I suppose. 29) Lukasz Sajewski (13-3 overall, 0-3 UFC, last fought 10/8/16, L vs. Marc Diakiese): Poland's Sajewski was a fine prospect when UFC picked him up, but didn't really get the chance to show much in the UFC, losing a flat decision to Nick Hein and then getting matched up against top prospects Gilbert Burns and Marc Diakiese. Sajewski took the Diakiese loss on late notice, so there was some thought that doing the favor could've bought him a fourth chance, but it looks like still being around to even take the Diakiese fight may have been the favor. 30) Milana Dudieva (11-5 overall, 1-2 UFC, last fought 11/19/16, L vs. Marion Reneau): Dudieva didn't really show a whole hell of a lot over three UFC fights, although the Russian did manage to eke out a split decision win over Elizabeth Phillips in her UFC debut. After that, she got annihilated in Julianna Pena's comeback fight from a major knee injury, and then wound up taking time off due to pregnancy - I believe she was the first UFC fighter to do so, though I know Alexis Davis also got pregnant around the same time. Anyway, Dudieva came back about a year and a half later, still didn't really do much in a loss to Marion Reneau, and that's that. 31) Roldan Sangcha-an (4-2 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 5/16/15, L vs. Jon Delos Reyes): Sangcha-an was one of a few raw Filipino fighters that UFC signed in 2014, during the company's failed expansion into Asia. The most notable thing about Sangcha-an, frankly, was his young schoolboy looks, although his last UFC fight, a submission loss to Jon Delos Reyes, came in a hell of a barnburner. That fight was fun enough that I thought Sangcha-an might at least get a third fight whenever UFC ran a card in Asia again, but no such luck. 32) Brendan O'Reilly (6-3 [1] overall, 1-3 UFC, last fought 12/3/16, L vs. Dong Hyun Kim): I'm kind of surprised UFC even bothered as long as it did with Brendan O'Reilly, though I suppose he did have some popularity in his native Australia. O'Reilly didn't really do a hell of a lot on TUF: Nations, but eventually got the call when UFC needed someone, anyone, that TUF: China winner Lipeng Zhang could beat. And, frankly, when you're starting your UFC career by getting out-wrestled by Zhang, the bar is pretty low. O'Reilly managed to beat TUF: Nations castmate Vik Grujic in Australia, and that was pretty much that - O'Reilly was then weirdly pitted against Alan Jouban and absolutely annihilated, and then showed little in a loss to Dong Hyun Kim. 33) Joe Gigliotti (7-2 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 12/9/16, L vs. Gerald Meerschaert): Well, Gigliotti's UFC tenure ended quickly, lasting only two fights over four months. An Ohio native, Gigliotti had some hype thanks to some impressive finishes against solid competition outside the UFC, but Trevor Smith just out-wrestled him and wore him out, and Gigliotti could do little against solid vet Gerald Meerschaert before getting tapped out. Gigliotti's still only 23, so I wouldn't be surprised if he just keeps improving and winds up in a major organization once again, even if his run was brutally disappointing. 34) Zhikui Yao (2-4 overall, 1-3 UFC, last fought 11/26/16, L vs. Jenel Lausa): I actually watched TUF: China, and I liked Zhikui Yao, as he was one of the better prospects on the show, since he had some athleticism and a basic understanding of what he was trying to do. UFC picked him up, but he never really developed, and wasn't particularly good, with his only win coming over Nolan Ticman in a decision that Yao mostly earned with aggression rather than doing anything actually effective. C'est la vie. 35) Joey Gomez (6-2 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 9/17/16, L vs. Jose Quinonez): Gomez apparently quietly retired in December, but when he was deleted from the UFC roster and that wasn't common knowledge, the cut was still rather expected. Gomez was an interesting flier when UFC picked him up at the beginning of 2016 - a former Marine, Gomez actually faced some solid competition in the Northeast and racked up a 6-0 record with six knockouts. But UFC-level competition was too much, too soon, and Gomez lost one-sided fights to Rob Font and Jose Quinonez. 36) Fernando Bruno (15-4 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 7/8/16, L vs. Gray Maynard): I saw Fernando Bruno get to the finals of TUF: Brazil 4, but I'm still not really sure how it happened, since Bruno didn't seem to be particularly good at anything. Still, he got there before getting tapped out by Glaico Franca, and Bruno's follow-up fight saw him tire out early and just lose a flat decision to Gray Maynard. Alright then. 37) Anton Zafir (7-3 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 7/8/16, L vs. Jingliang Li): Zafir, a full-time teacher, was a late-notice replacement on a card in his native Australia, and ran into the same problem a lot of Australian fighters that are dependent on their wrestling have - people in the UFC can actually defend wrestling, so that tends to leave guys like Steve Kennedy, Damien Brown, and Zafir without a lot to fall back on. To make matters worse, Zafir took damage probably worse than any UFC fighter in recent history, as James Moontasri and Jingliang Li put his lights out with the first solid blow of each fight. Eek. 38) Adam Hunter (7-1 overall, 0-0 UFC): Adam Hunter joins the ranks of guys who wound up getting cut by UFC without ever making it to a fight. Hunter, a New Brunswick native, was signed to fight Ryan Janes in Vancouver over the summer, as UFC looked to add whatever Canadian talent they could find. And Hunter was a solid pick - an aggressive striker, Hunter ran through opponents, with all seven of his wins coming via first-round knockout. But right before the Janes fight was set to happen, Hunter was notified that his drug test had been flagged, and it turned out that he had failed for a rather impressive, Chael Sonnen-like combination of drugs. Well done. It was unclear if UFC would keep him under contract, but it looks like they decided against it. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 3/4 - UFC 209 - Las Vegas, NV - Tyron Woodley (c ) vs. Stephen Thompson, Tony Ferguson vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov, Mark Hunt vs. Alistair Overeem 3/11 - UFC Fight Night 106 - Fortaleza, Brazil - Vitor Belfort vs. Kelvin Gastelum, Edson Barboza vs. Beneil Dariush, Mauricio Rua vs. Gian Villante 3/18 - UFC Fight Night 107 - London, England - Corey Anderson vs. Jimi Manuwa, Alan Jouban vs. Gunnar Nelson 4/8 - UFC 210 - Buffalo, NY - Daniel Cormier (c ) vs. Anthony Johnson, Gegard Mousasi vs. Chris Weidman 4/15 - UFC on Fox 24 - Kansas City, MO - Rose Namajunas vs. Michelle Waterson, Gilbert Melendez vs. Jeremy Stephens 4/22 - UFC Fight Night 108 - Nashville, TN - Artem Lobov vs. Cub Swanson, Al Iaquinta vs. Diego Sanchez, Sam Alvey vs. Thales Leites 5/13 - UFC 211 - Dallas, TX - Stipe Miocic (c ) vs. Junior dos Santos, Ben Rothwell vs. Fabricio Werdum 5/27 - UFC TBA - Copenhagen, Denmark - Christian Colombo vs. Damian Grabowski 6/3 - UFC 212 - Rio De Janeiro, Brazil - Jose Aldo (c ) vs. Max Holloway (ic) ----- UFC Fight Night 105 - February 19, 2017 - Scotiabank Centre - Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada What better way to celebrate President's Day weekend than with a Sunday night fight card from Halifax? (There are many better ways.) This is a fairly solid, if thin card - the top two matches are pretty well-matched, and should do a lot to show exactly where each of the four guys are at, but past that it's a few fun fights and then just a lot of weird matchmaking in the recent mold, with interesting fighters sort of slumming it against lower-level talent. But, hey, it probably won't be as bad as UFC 208. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 9:00 PM ET): Heavyweight: (#8) Derrick Lewis vs. (#9) Travis Browne Middleweight: (#10 Welterweight) Johny Hendricks vs. Hector Lombard Featherweight: Sam Sicilia vs. Gavin Tucker Middleweight: Cezar Ferreira vs. Elias Theodorou Women's Bantamweight: (#7) Sara McMann vs. Gina Mazany Lightweight: Paul Felder vs. Alessandro Ricci PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 7:00 PM ET): Welterweight: Santiago Ponzinibbio vs. Nordine Taleb Women's Strawweight: (#3) Carla Esparza vs. Randa Markos Bantamweight: Reginaldo Vieira vs. Aiemann Zahabi Middleweight: Jack Marshman vs. Thiago Santos PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:30 PM ET): Middleweight: Ryan Janes vs. Gerald Meerschaert THE RUNDOWN: Derrick Lewis (17-4 [1] overall, 8-2 UFC, 0-1 Bellator) vs. Travis Browne (18-5-1 overall, 9-5-1 UFC, 1-0 Bellator): So...is Derrick Lewis actually a prospect? He's only 32 years old, which is young for heavyweight, and he's racked up five straight wins, so I guess Lewis kind of has to be in such a thin division, but there's a ton of red flags that "The Black Beast" has a clear ceiling. But, then again, Travis Browne is going through a whole bunch of issues of his own, so he might not exactly be the right guy to test how good Lewis is at this point. Lewis came into UFC with a bang in 2014, basically looking like the living nightmare of a white supremacist - Lewis is a gigantic black man from Houston, and his gameplan is pretty much based around using his enormous power to bash his opponents' faces in, and he did just that in quick wins over Jack May and Guto Inocente to kick off his UFC career. But after following that up by losing two out of three to Matt Mitrione and Shawn Jordan, both by fairly one-sided knockout, it looked like Lewis was more sideshow than anything else, and that he wouldn't be much more than someone who could annihilate lower-level guys and get exposed fighting anyone better than that. And since then, it's been a weird mixed bag, even though it's resulted in a five-fight winning streak for Lewis - outside of running over Damian Grabowski, Lewis has struggled as opponents have been willing to wrestle him. While he's often able to use his strength to just get opponents off of him (even Roy Nelson, who was the one man with a chin tough enough to at least take Lewis to a close decision), it's probably a bad sign that his last win over Shamil Abdurakhimov looked a lot like the first one of this streak, over Viktor Pesta, as Lewis was just helpless on the ground and losing a fight to a not-particularly-good heavyweight before coming back to get the late knockout. And Lewis's whole approach in the Abdurakhimov fight was particularly worrying, as even after getting taken down on the first kick of the fight, Lewis just kept continuing to throw kicks and get taken down, not showing an ability to adjust to the goings-on in the fight. On the one hand, Lewis has the power to knock out anyone in the division, save Nelson apparently, but on the other hand, that'll only get you so far if opponents figure out how to avoid it, and as Lewis moves his way up the ladder, guys are going to have more and more tricks to do so. But, that all said, none of this applies to Travis Browne, who's purely a striker, and is going through a ton of gameplanning issues of his own. On the same card Lewis debuted on, Browne was headlining in a #1 contender's fight against Fabricio Werdum, and was actually favored to earn the next title shot. But, well, that fight turned out to be the beginning of the end for the Hawaiian, as Werdum just outboxed him for five rounds and made Browne look completely unclassed. That started a bit of a downward spiral for Browne, who went from vicious contender to just sort of an athletically talented, but defensively crappy kickboxer, and that makes a hell of a lot more sense in retrospect, since that's about the time Browne left Jackson-Wink in Albuquerque and started training in Glendale, with the same team as his girlfriend, Ronda Rousey. After a frankly embarrassing performance in his last fight, a rematch with Werdum, and Rousey getting blown out by Amanda Nunes, there were some rumors that Browne had started training with Kings MMA, whose aggressive style would make for an interesting fit with Browne, but Browne himself debunked those, which is...not a good sign. Well, unless you hate Travis Browne, which would be completely understandable given his background of domestic violence, in which case, good sign. And it also makes this fight a whole lot harder to call - for as much hype as Lewis has, his best win is that narrow decision over Nelson, and his second-best UFC win after that is...Abdurakhimov, I guess? Add in how dependent on the finish Lewis has gotten as he's fought better competition, all of which is worse than Browne, and it gets harder and harder to consider Lewis an actual prospect and not just a fun knockout artist. But, with that all said, as long as Browne is training in Glendale, he's there to be hit - admittedly, he can probably hit Lewis himself, and Lewis's losses have shown that he can be knocked out - but Browne's probably going to box with him, not be particularly defensively sound, and wind up getting himself lamped. So, despite being fairly low on Lewis, I'm still picking the Texan to win by first-round knockout, and then probably wind up being in way over his head in his next bout. Johny Hendricks (17-6 overall, 12-6 UFC, 2-0 WEC) vs. Hector Lombard (34-6-1 [2] overall, 3-4 [1] UFC, 8-0 Bellator, 0-2 PRIDE): This is some delightfully fun and weird matchmaking, as two of 2016's biggest disappointments square off in what may be the last chance for both. Johny Hendricks, man. I remember that going into 2016, I thought Hendricks was probably the best welterweight in the world - the former champ's title loss to Robbie Lawler in 2014 was a nip-tuck decision, and Hendricks's lone fight in 2015 saw him come back in the best shape in years, outwrestling Matt Brown in one-sided fashion. Sure, Hendricks had issues with his weight cut that scrapped a prior fight with Tyron Woodley, but that seemed to be a weird one-off thanks to some kidney stones. And then, well, 2016 happened. Hendricks kicked off the year by getting absolutely destroyed by Stephen Thompson as part of Thompson's run towards a title shot, and while things would eventually get better inside the cage, they spiralled out of control outside of it. Leading up to Hendricks's fight with Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 200, word was that Hendricks was having another tough weight cut, and the scenes from the early weigh-in were rather harrowing, as Hendricks had shaved off his signature beard, was visibly shaking out of weakness, and still missed weight by three-tenths of a pound. And then a loss added insult to injury, as Gastelum won a close, but clear decision. So it looked like it was Hendricks's last gasp this past December, at UFC 207, and things somehow went even worse there. A few days before the card, at media day, Hendricks, who seemed visibly out of it, just suddenly went a little crazy, talking about how people talking about his weight didn't know what they were talking about, just sort of railing into the media, and challenging individual media members to cut weight themselves and see how difficult it is. All the while, Hendricks was promising he would be in great shape come weigh-ins, so, naturally, Hendricks missed weight by two and a half pounds, resulting in an iconically sad image of Hendricks covering his eyes as he stepped onto the scale. And it was once again a frustrating loss for Hendricks - much like the Gastelum fight, Hendricks didn't look shot or anything against Neil Magny, but just...diminished and ineffective, as Hendricks got his wrestling game going a bit, but didn't really do much while Magny did a ton of work from the bottom, and the striking was a bit of a wash. But that's now suddenly three straight losses for the former top contender, and with the weight issues, Hendricks has decided to move up to middleweight, which is understandable, but also a bit strange, given that Hendricks was somewhat small at welterweight. Though, on the plus side, that may not matter here, as Hector Lombard is a welterweight-sized middleweight himself. It was considered a coup when UFC signed Lombard away from Bellator, where he was middleweight champ - Lombard had put together a 24-0-1 record over the prior five years, a lot of which were explosive knockouts from the Cuban-Australian judoka. But his UFC run was pretty much immediately a disappointment, as Lombard lost two out of his first three - first an awful decision against Tim Boetsch where neither guy did much or anything, and then a narrow decision loss to Yushin Okami. After the Okami loss, Lombard decided to cut down to 170, and actually had some success, even if the fights weren't that great - he scored wins over Nate Marquardt, Jake Shields, and Josh Burkman, though the Burkman win was soon overturned due to a failed drug test that kept Lombard out of action for pretty much all of 2015. Still, Lombard was expected to come back in 2016 and keep gaining momentum, but instead he got two knockout losses for his efforts. He blitzed Neil Magny fairly early, but Magny survived, wore Lombard out, and eventually finished him, and then Lombard moved back up to 185 to receive of one of the more memorable knockouts of 2016, as he caught a Dan Henderson kick and then got elbowed upside his head and sent completely unconscious in Henderson's last huge bit of brutality. Now at 39 - in Cuban years - Lombard does seem to have his early burst of explosiveness left, but it's not as effective as it used to be, and honestly, there doesn't seem to be much else. This is similar to the main event, as it's kind of hard to have faith in both guys, only here it's even more extreme - I suppose I actually favor Hendricks, despite what figures to be a strength advantage, since I actually think all the weight issues and outside-the-cage stuff just winds up making Hendricks's decline seem bigger than it is. Sure, Hendricks is diminished, but there have been other fighters who have been completely shot, and even though Hendricks's game suddenly doesn't seem like it's working, I still have some confidence that he could beat guys outside the top ten or so, like, say, Matt Brown in a rematch. However, Lombard's dangerous, and while Magny and Henderson were able to survive his early offense, there's no guarantees that Hendricks can, particularly moving up for the first time into a new weight class. Still, if Hendricks survives, I like him to win a fairly clear decision - while Hendricks has had gas tank issues his whole career, Lombard's are even worse, and while I don't really think it'll be a fun fight, I just trust Hendricks a bit more to push the pace and sort of do more stuff to earn an uninspiring win. Though, at this point, for either guy, a win's a win. Sam Sicilia (14-7 overall, 5-6 UFC) vs. Gavin Tucker (9-0 overall): UFC's gotten into the trend of putting hometown fighters higher on cards lately, and this is the most obvious case in a while, as Halifax's own Gavin Tucker makes his debut against journeyman Sam Sicilia. Sicilia's pretty much the perfect gatekeeper at featherweight - he's solid enough to go about .500 over his UFC career, but save a weirdly grappling-heavy win over Yaotzin Meza, Sicilia's pretty much a one-dimensional boxer who can put on an exciting fight while testing up-and-coming prospects. After one-sided losses to Doo Ho Choi and Gabriel Benitez, it was assumed that Sicilia might be on the way out, but here he figures to get one more shot against Tucker. It's hard to know what to make of Tucker - he missed two straight years, from February 2013 to February 2015, due to injury, and has only had two fights since coming back, both of which were fairly quick knockouts. And there's not even a ton of footage out there on those, so all there is basically to glean is that Tucker looks like a pretty solid, athletic striker, though not so much so that he particularly jumps off of whatever film there is. Tucker being such an unknown makes this a coin flip, so I'll favor Sicilia via decision pretty much based solely on experience, though on the plus side, this should be a really fun bout no matter how good Tucker turns out to be. Cezar Ferreira (11-5 overall, 7-3 UFC) vs. Elias Theodorou (12-1 overall, 4-1 UFC, 1-0 Bellator): One of the nicer stories in the UFC undercard during 2016 was the sudden resurgence of Cezar "Mutante" Ferreira, who looked like a complete bust of a prospect as recently as a year ago. Ferreira won the middleweight bracket of the first season of TUF: Brazil, and the Vitor Belfort protege fought a lot like his mentor, an explosive finisher that ran through his opponents in fairly short order. But Ferreira didn't really cash in on his hype in any manner - he wasn't particularly popular with the Brazilian fans, who just plain didn't like him, and once Ferreira got any step up in competition, things pretty much went to hell. As it turns out, Ferreira was pretty much the platonic ideal of a "glass cannon" - sure, he was explosive, but if an opponent was able to weather the storm, or even just get in before it happened, Ferreira turned out to pretty much have no chin whatsoever and wound get his lights turned out on the first exchange of the fight. An ill-advised cut to welterweight for one fight didn't help, as Ferreira just looked drained before suffering another first-round knockout to Jorge Masvidal, and after a bit of a layoff, Ferreira's fight against Oluwale Bamgbose this past April looked to be his last chance. But in that fight, and his follow-up win over Anthony Smith, Ferreira showed that he had suddenly reinvented himself as a grappler, outwrestling both opponents with relative ease. And in his last win, against European vet Jack Hermansson, Ferreira flashed a pretty solid range kickboxing game while mixing in his grappling, eventually scoring a second-round submission win. It's been an impressive re-tooling, as Ferreira has basically learned to plan around his weaknesses, and just rebuilt his game in such a way that he doesn't really have to get hit. Compared to Ferreira, Elias Theodorou's slow progression up the middleweight ranks has been fairly normal. I was among a solid group of people that tabbed Theorodou for potential stardom coming off the Canada versus Australia season of TUF - Theodorou has dreamboat good looks, even appearing on the cover of some romance novels, and a star's personality that walks a fine line between likability and cockiness. And in the cage, he's been pretty solid, even if it's a bit amusing that someone so pretty fights so ugly - Theodorou just prefers to grapple and take things into the clinch, where he'll try to wear down his opponents or eventually work for a submission. Theodorou's added a bit of a striking game, mostly built around weird single karate strikes, but it's hard to tell if that's effective - his last fight against Sam Alvey just didn't see Alvey try to do much of anything, and his fight before that was a narrow loss where Theodorou had trouble with the athleticism of Thiago Santos. And that brings to mind one of the more frustrating things about Theodorou - he never really feels like he has a ton of momentum because he just doesn't fight that much. Add in the fact that a lot of his fights are on FS1 cards like these or Fight Pass, and Theodorou really does feel like a guy who would've been a star when there were fewer, more focused cards rather than sort of lost in the shuffle here. But anyway, the fight. It's a really well-done piece of matchmaking that could go either way, but I'll favor Theodorou. I figure both guys will generally want to take things into the clinch, and Theodorou just seems to be more powerful there - while Ferreira is skilled on the ground, I'm not really sure how good he'll look if it's Theodorou that's taking the advantage and getting control throughout the fight. On the other hand, I do think if Ferreira can keep this standing, Mutante's newfound mobile kickboxing game is probably too much for Theodorou to keep up with, though again, while Theodorou's not really a knockout artist, that does increase the chance of him finding Ferreira's jaw for a finish. But I do see this mostly taking place in the clinch and on the ground, and I do think Theodorou will mostly be able to control things - while it may not be pretty (outside of Theodorou himself), I'll say the Ontario native wins a clear decision. Sara McMann (10-3 overall, 4-3 UFC, 1-0 Invicta) vs. Gina Mazany (4-0 overall): So, it finally seems like Sara McMann is putting it all together, and reminding us all that sometimes prospects don't all improve on the same timeline. When McMann came into UFC as part of the first wave of female fighters, a lot of people looked at her Olympic silver medal in wrestling and thought she could be the one to neutralize Ronda Rousey's judo game and beat the most unstoppable fighter in the game. And, well, no - McMann was sort of rushed into a fight with Rousey in just her second UFC bout, and got chewed up in pretty quick fashion, falling to a standing knee in just 66 seconds. And from then on, it was just disappointment after disappointment - a wrestling-heavy decision win over Lauren Murphy that nobody really seemed to think McMann actually won, and then two fights that saw McMann's opponent pretty much take her down and beat her up, as Miesha Tate and Amanda Nunes both scored big wins over her. So heading into 2016, there were a lot of questions if McMann was really that good - her wrestling game wasn't translating much defensively, her striking was still a work in progress, and she just generally didn't seem like a fighter you could rely on to gut through for a win. But the past year has seen McMann's game surprisingly click - her win over Jessica Eye wasn't a scintillating affair, but saw her neutralize a dangerous opponent, and then she just looked excellent against Alexis Davis this past December; McMann's striking game was suddenly on point, and when she needed to, she went to the ground with a talented submission expert and wound up getting the tap herself, clamping an excellent arm triangle onto Davis. So McMann suddenly has a ton of momentum, and surprisingly seems to be a contender once again, just when it seemed like she was a lost cause for good. Initially, this was supposed to be a matchup against fellow veteran wrestler Liz Carmouche, which would've been interesting, but with Carmouche out, UFC somewhat surprisingly found Alaska's Gina Mazany to step in against McMann. Mazany wasn't really on anyone's radar, as her sole high-level exposure was getting destroyed by Julianna Pena while trying to get into the house on TUF, during the Rousey/Tate season. That was in 2013, and Mazany's only had one fight since then, a win on an Alaskan regional over a fairly overmatched opponent. In that fight, Mazany just looked like a trained athlete in taking her opponent down, getting quickly to the mount, and then winning via ground-and-pound, and having watched a surprising amount of Alaskan MMA, just being athletic and trained by a decent camp (in Mazany's case, Xtreme Couture in Vegas) puts you ahead of pretty much everyone else. This is a ridiculously tough ask for Mazany - hell, she's only fought four times since her MMA debut all the way back in 2008 - and given that McMann looks as good as she ever has, she's probably going to destroy the newcomer. Mazany may be tough enough to just survive getting taken down and mauled for three rounds, but I'll call for this to be over with merciful quickness, and for McMann to score the first-round submission. Paul Felder (12-3 overall, 4-3 UFC) vs. Alessandro Ricci (10-4 overall, 0-1 UFC, 1-0 Bellator): UFC has no idea what the hell they're doing with Paul Felder, basically. The Philly native had a solid debut against Jason Saggo, and then absolutely styled out on Danny Castillo, finishing him with a spinning back fist, and that was enough for UFC brass to decide to push Felder in way over his head. And while fights with Edson Barboza and Ross Pearson were fun, they also didn't really do Felder any favors, as he lost two straight and was facing the cut line in pretty short order. And so UFC continued to yo-yo him around - fights against Daron Cruickshank and Josh Burkman, both Felder wins, were a solid progression for Felder, but then UFC rushed him against a top fifteen opponent once again, and Francisco Trinaldo pretty much split his eyebrow open for an injury stoppage. And while this fight just sort of happened since both men's opponents got hurt, UFC is zig-zagging wildly with Felder's opposition once again, heading to the bottom of the card to face Alessandro Ricci. Ontario's Ricci made his late-notice UFC debut in August, and while he's ostensibly a muay thai expert, Ricci didn't really get the chance to show any of that, as Jeremy Kennedy more or less held him against the fence and kept him under control for fifteen straight minutes. On the plus side, this should be pretty close to a pure striking match, so if Ricci does in fact have striking chops, this is a fight where he'll get to show it off. But on the downside, this is also a ridiculous step up in competition from fight to fight. I'll give Ricci the benefit of the doubt and say he hangs in there for all three rounds, and this should be pretty fun, but this seems like it should be a pretty clear Felder win. Santiago Ponzinibbio (23-3 overall, 5-2 UFC) vs. Nordine Taleb (12-3 overall, 4-1 UFC, 2-1 Bellator): Santiago Ponzinibbio is pretty great. The Argentinian started out as a bit of a curio, a TUF: Brazil standout with a funny name, but he's turned out to be a pretty great addition to the welterweight roster, a high-volume knockout artist who's started racking up the wins. 2016 saw Ponzinibbio become the first man to stop Court McGee via TKO, then follow that up with a fun beating of Zak Cummings, and now Ponzinibbio's become a guy where those in the know perk up whenever they hear that he's fighting. Ponzinibbio might be able to win over some hearts and minds here in Canada with a win over Quebec's Nordine Taleb - based off some of the matchmaking UFC has tried to do with Taleb lately, it seems like they consider him an action fighter, but while he's not quite that, he's still a solid welterweight entrant himself. Taleb is a fairly technical, meat-and-potatoes boxer/wrestler - he's big for the division, but as a tradeoff, he's glacially slow, though Taleb more often than know just knows what he's doing and is able to handle his foes. His most recent fight was his most fun one to date, as Erick Silva got over-aggressive and sort of brought Taleb out of his shell, and Taleb eventually wound up getting his biggest win to date, catching a kick and then putting Silva's lights out with a perfect punch. I just wondering if that's a bit of false advertising, though, since as mentioned before, UFC seems to subsequently be trying to match Taleb up with action fighters in hopes of sparking up a brawl. I favor Ponzinibbio here, though I think the current betting odds that have him as a three-to-one favorite are a bit much - Ponzinibbio's not much of a wrestler, so I could easily see a boring fight where Taleb is able to take Ponzinibbio down and use his size to neutralize him for three rounds. But I think Ponzinibbio's speed and combination punching will be too much for the Quebecois, and I see him slowly wearing down Taleb before scoring a knockout or TKO stoppage sometime in the second round. Carla Esparza (11-3 overall, 2-1 UFC, 3-0 Invicta, 0-2 Bellator) vs. Randa Markos (6-4 overall, 2-3 UFC): This fight shows that sometimes, timing can be everything, as there was a point where I was hoping this fight would be made, and now that it's here, my interest is, well, not so much. UFC decided to crown an inaugural strawweight champion via a TUF season back in 2014, and Esparza and Markos were probably the two standouts; Esparza was the reigning Invicta champion and favorite to win the whole thing, and Markos was the breakout star of the whole thing, a relatively unknown fighter out of Canada who had an impressive backstory as an Iraqi refugee and came out of nowhere to score wins over Felice Herrig and Tecia Torres. And Esparza/Markos seemed to be the fight the whole season was building towards - Markos was portrayed as the obvious rooting interesting for the show, while Esparza led a pack of "mean girls" that constantly tormented her. Add in the post-show segments and interviews where the two would just throw catty shade at each other, and for a while, a fight between the two seemed like the biggest fight UFC could make at strawweight. But it didn't work out - Esparza did indeed pretty much run through the competition en route to becoming the first strawweight champ, but Markos lost her first post-TUF fight in a close split decision against Jessica Penne. After that, Joanna Jedrzejczyk suddenly burst onto the scene herself to annihilate Esparza and put her on a shelf for a year, and by that point, the moment had more or less passed. And, frankly, the ensuing two years or so haven't been particularly kind to either fighter. Esparza's struggles have mostly been outside the cage - she had that long injury layoff, and then after returning with a flat win over Juliana Lima, she apparently just had trouble getting booked - she'd openly grouse at not being able to get a fight on social media, and then apparently had to sell the motorcycle she won on TUF just to make ends meet in the interim. Meanwhile, Markos's career has just gone off the rails...and crashed...and now it's on fire, and the rails are also on fire, and everything is on fire. After a solid win over Aisling Daly, Markos moved to Tristar for one fight against Karolina Kowalkiewicz, and then left because they were making her "too passive" of a fighter, in her mind. So instead she trains in Michigan, with a team led by Daron Cruickshank, and...the results have not been great. Funnily enough, she actually looked really passive in a decision win over Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger, which was a sloppy fight that really did neither woman any favors, and then a subsequent fight against Cortney Casey just saw Markos continue to look kind of aimless, eventually going for a head-and-arm throw and leaving herself open enough in the aftermath that Casey was eventually able to work for an armbar win. Markos badly needs to figure things out, and putting her against someone as good as Esparza seems kind of cruel, frankly. Esparza's quite underrated - between her portrayal on TUF, the way she was annihilated by Jedrzejczyk, and the long layoffs between fights, people just seem to forget that she's an excellent strawweight, and probably the best wrestler in the division, with a knack for chaining together all sorts of takedowns while dragging her opponent to the floor. And given that that's theoretically Markos's wheelhouse, that only makes the fight even more difficult for the Canadian - it's not even a case where she's overmatched but has a good style matchup. Unless fighting Esparza suddenly awakens the old Markos or something, this seems like a one-sided win for Esparza all the way - I'll give Markos credit and say she hangs on for a decision, but a stoppage wouldn't surprise me. Reginaldo Vieira (13-4 overall, 1-1 UFC) vs. Aiemann Zahabi (6-0 overall): Aiemann Zahabi's a pretty interesting prospect - because of his talent, yes, but also because of his last name, as he's the younger brother of Tristar coach Firas Zahabi, GSP's main man and one of the brightest minds in the game. But as far as Aiemann goes, his record to date is a mixed bag - unfortunately, he's been relatively inactive and has faces a relatively weak level of competition. But on the plus side, Zahabi's done exactly what you'd want a top prospect to do, finishing all six of his opponents within the first round, all in fairly one-sided fashion. So it's hard to tell what to make of Zahabi - the history of high-level MMA is filled with guys who destroyed some cans on the way up and just flamed out as soon as they faced actual competition, but thankfully UFC has given Zahabi a bit of a softball to see where he's at in his UFC debut. Reginaldo Vieira was an unlikely winner of TUF: Brazil season four - for one thing, he probably didn't deserve to win the final, a narrow split decision win over Dileno Lopes. Vieira was considered a non-prospect before he won the show, and that's pretty much held true - he's a tough, experienced guy, and a bit of a solid trashy grappler, but his lone post-TUF fight saw him get tapped out by Marco Beltran, and when you're getting beaten at your own game by Marco Beltran, that's probably a sign you're not long for UFC. Vieira could easily win here - even with me being so down on him, he's still by far the best, most experienced guy that Zahabi has ever faced, and we have no idea what Zahabi's game looks like past the first round or if he can't get the finish. But I'll say Zahabi gets into some early trouble, adjusts (particularly since he's the brother of one of the best gameplanners in the sport), and gets a second-round knockout. Jack Marshman (21-5 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Thiago Santos (13-5 overall, 5-4 UFC): A really fun middleweight bout here, as it seems like UFC matchmakers are embracing Thiago Santos's destiny as a mid-tier action fighter. Santos has had a weird run - brought in essentially as cannon fodder to lose to Cezar Ferreira on late notice, Santos shockingly rebounded by knocking out top middleweight prospect Ronny Markes, and then suddenly became a thing. Santos was ridiculously raw when he came into UFC, enough so that it didn't look like he was going to make anything of his athleticism before he got himself cut, but after a rocky beginning, Santos strung together four straight wins, three via brutal knockout, and actually became a ranked fighter. But the latter stages of 2016 saw Santos pretty much lose all his momentum - a loss to Gegard Mousasi was nothing to be ashamed of, but Santos followed that up by getting tapped out by Eric Spicely in one of the biggest upsets of the year. In a weird bit of symmetry, it was sort of a similar situation as the win that got Santos on the map, as the theoretical cannon fodder instead wound up getting a first-round finish. Santos looks to rebound against Jack Marshman, the first Welshman to be signed by UFC (although countryman Brett Johns beat him into the cage), who's coming off an impressive UFC debut win over Magnus Cedenblad. That fight pretty much showed off all of Marshman's pros and cons - Cedenblad outwrestled him at will, showing Marshman's lack of grappling, but Marshman got the comeback KO and showed off that he's a fun as hell blood-and-guts brawler, who'll gladly walk through danger for a chance to hit his opponent in the face. Thankfully, Santos still has basically no grappling, so this should be a really fun stand-up fight for as long as it lasts. And it's a hard one to call - Santos's offense can just be ridiculously violent, particularly his kicks, but Marshman does seem like the kind of guy who'll be punching Santos in the face before he can try to get anything off. But that said, I still trust in Santos's athleticism and power, and I think he'll find the knockout in, say, the second round, after some fun back-and-forth action. Ryan Janes (9-1 overall, 1-0 UFC) vs. Gerald Meerschaert (25-8 overall, 1-0 UFC): Saying they were "standouts" is probably a bit strong, but this fight puts together two guys who got big UFC debut wins on the Albany card this past December after long waits to get there. Gerald Meerschaert's wait was the more typical one - after about nine years just taking fights across the country (and beating Sam Alvey in the process), the longtime Midwestern vet got the call as a late injury replacement, and handled raw prospect Joe Gigliotti pretty easily, fighting calm and taking what was given to him before getting an early submission win. On the other hand, Janes's path to the Octagon was a bit weirder. The Canadian had your typical path to getting signed, winning fights in your typical Canadian promotions, but it took him three tries to make it to the cage. Janes was first slated to debut on the Vancouver card in August, but his opponent, Adam Hunter, got pulled on about a day's notice after failing a drug test. So Janes was then slated to fight Dongi Yang on the card in Manila this past October...until that card got entirely scrapped. So Janes finally made his debut in Albany, and made it count, getting a decision win over Keith Berish. Despite being advertised as a submission expert, Janes actually depended on some solid striking to get the win, although it still wasn't all that pretty - Janes is technically fine, but just looks sort of stiff and mechanical, standing completely upright and leaving himself open to getting annihilated against someone who can connect with his chin. I'm not sure Meerschaert is that guy, but he should have more than enough well-rounded experience to handle whatever Janes throws his way. I'm not sure it'll be a pretty fight, but I just like Meerschaert to be better more or less everywhere and then coast his way to a decision, though a finish is certainly possible.

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