Saturday night’s UFC card was incredibly short on names but very long on action, with a number of crazy comebacks and stoppages that made it low-key one of the most watchable shows we’ve seen in a while. Beyond that, Bellator put in a strong Friday offering, anchored by a light heavyweight title fight that crowned a new champ.
Here’s our Three on the Rise coming out of the weekend:
Frankie Edgar
I didn’t expect to include a 38-year-old ex-champion dropping down yet another weight class and praying he could turn back the clock, but you have to feel great for Frankie Edgar. Edgar’s fight with bantamweight contender Pedro Munhox felt like his last chance at relevance. His run at featherweight was a generally successful one – who could forget that short left hook that slept Chad Mendes? – but we when we last saw the former lightweight champion, he got absolutely squashed by Chan Sung Jung and was sent crashing out of the 145 pound division.
Frankie Edgar is one of the toughest dudes we’ve ever seen in the UFC, and he’s been in more wars in the Octagon than maybe any man alive. Even so, I don’t think many people had him lasting five full rounds with the younger Munhoz, a technically sound striker who memorably snatched the soul of former champion Cody Garbrandt in a crazy fight last year.
But not only did Edgar last five rounds in a stand-up chess match with Munhoz, he fought at a crazy impressive pace, especially for an older fighter making a bigger weight cut for the first time. Edgar wound up taking home a split decision victory, winning three rounds on two of the judges’ scorecards.
Personally, I thought Munhoz edged the fight. The Brazilian landed the harder shots throughout the contest, establishing his lead jab and doing some damage with leg kicks throughout the fight. But the volume game definitely went to Edgar, who didn’t slow down for 25 minutes and put on a performance impressive enough that while I thought the judges were wrong, I wasn’t mad about the result. Edgar took some good shots from Munhoz and kept going, landing combinations of his own throughout the fight and earning even more respect from the MMA world.
It’s a tough break for Munhoz, who has now dropped his last two since the Garbrandt knockout made him a name. On the other hand, it’s huge for Edgar, who’s trying to become the first UFC fighter ever to challenge for a title in three different weight classes. It really felt like Edgar needed this win to retain some type of legitimacy as a top fighter in the year 2020, and he looked legitimately impressive all the way through.
Literally everyone likes Frankie Edgar, so that’ll be enough for people to look past a somewhat controversial decision. And as “The Answer” approaches eight total hours of time spent inside the UFC cage, he’s instantly become a factor in his new division.
Vadim Nemkov
There are few martial arts stories more classic than that of a student avenging his fallen sensei. Last year, Vadim Nemkov had to sit and watch as Ryan Bader punched Fedor Emelianenko’s head off his shoulders to become Bellator’s heavyweight champion.
And on Friday night, with Fedor in his corner, Nemkov sent Bader to the Shadow Realm. The former world sambo champion completed a rapid rise to the top of the Bellator light heavyweight division by knocking out Bader in the second round – and boy, did the vengeful Nemkov draw it out, with the help of a referee who let it go on way too long. The ref could have stopped it after the head kick and the first few follow-up punches, but I’m sure Nemkov didn’t mind the chance to punish Bader a little bit more.
Friday was a crowning for legitimately one of the most exciting and promising young light heavyweights anywhere in the world. Sambo has been proven time and time again to be an absolutely fantastic base for MMA, and it gives Nemkov a powerful submission wrestling base – but the dude loves to strike, and he’s really good at it. He mixes kicks and punches extremely well, and he doesn’t let up when he senses weakness.
Nemkov, 5-0 in Bellator, has now beaten former champions in his last four fights. He’s 12-2 in pro career in total, and he’s undefeated over the last four-plus years – one of his two losses came in a back-and-forth fight with Czech serial killer Jiri Prochazka, whom I suspect we may see wearing UFC gold in the near future. Not only did his domination of Bader free Bellator’s heavyweight champ to defend his remaining belt full-time and never attempt to cut weight again, it’s exactly what Bellator needed to freshen up a light heavyweight division that has sat stagnant for the better part of three years.
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Lyoto Machida, who has vacillated between 185 and 205 over the last couple years, will rematch with former champion Phil Davis on Sep. 11, and it’s likely that the winner gets Nemkov next. With a win, that could have the Russian staring down Bellator’s newest big-name UFC defector, top-five light heavyweight contender Corey Anderson. With the belt in hand, Nemkov now has the chance to further establish himself as one of the top 205-pounders in the game. After all this time, it’s nice to finally have some movement and life in this division.
Jordan Wright
This past weekend was pretty light on intriguing names. I thought about writing about Bellator heavyweight Valentin Moldavsky, who outpointed the veteran Roy Nelson in a fight largely contested up against the cage, but “Big Country” is 44 years old and has lost 12 of his last 16 fights, so how impressive is that really? Outside of the Edgar-Munhoz fight, the UFC card was almost entirely devoid of fighters anyone had ever heard of, especially after Ovince Saint Preux tested positive for COVID-19 and his fight with Alonzo Menifield was called off the day of.
But even though UFC Vegas 7 was one of the most anonymous UFC events in recent memory, it delivered on action. Bantamweight Trevin Jones and welterweight Daniel Rodriguez both scored absolutely absurd comeback knockouts after nearly being finished in the first round – Rodriguez, who’s now 13-1 with a 3-0 record in the UFC, may be one to watch. Meanwhile, .500 flyweight Shana Dobson scored one of the biggest upsets we’ve seen in the UFC in years, TKOing Mariya Agapova as an 8-1 underdog.
Most of the heroes that made UFC Vegas 7 a surprisingly entertaining card will probably soon be forgotten, nevertheless. But I’m gonna keep my eye on light heavyweight Jordan Wright, who scored a TKO win over Ike Villanueva on the prelims. Against a much larger opponent – Villanueva made his UFC debut as a heavyweight a few months back – Wright blasted Villanueva with a gorgeous wheel kick in the opening seconds and opened up a huge cut with some follow-up knees in the clinch. The cut was bad enough that the doctor called a stop to the fight after just 91 seconds, giving Wright one of the most violent finishes of the night.
It was an aesthetically pleasing win in Wright’s UFC debut – he actually lost on Dana White’s Contender Series in June 2018, but the loss was vacated due to opponent Anthony Hernandez failing a drug test. That means that Wright is officially 11-0, and he’s shown a huge flair for the early finish: only three of his wins lasted longer than two minutes, and only one reached the second round.
Between that impressive record, and a sweet nickname like “The Beverly Hills Ninja,” it’s easy to see Wright getting a little bit of a push in the coming months. Expect his future to be at 185: his frame looks a little bit better suited to that weight, and he fought extensively at middleweight before his UFC debut on Saturday.
The Big Fight 