Another fight weekend is here, baby, and we love to see it. This weekend features another UFC card from the Apex in Las Vegas that will air on ESPN+, along with offerings from several smaller promotions: KSW, LFA and Titan FC all have cards with some interesting and promising names.
Here are the three fights I’ll be watching most closely over the next couple days:
Anthony Smith vs. Aleksandar Rakic, UFC Vegas 8
Light heavyweight is suddenly wide open now that Jon Jones has vacated the title, and the next couple of months will go a long way towards sorting out a new pecking order in the UFC 205 division. The first big domino to fall will come in the main event Saturday night, in a matchup between top 10 contenders Anthony Smith and Aleksandar Rakic.
To this day, I don’t really fully know what to make of Smith, who was a double-digit-loss journeyman when he suddenly burst out of the rank and file with a huge trio of wins in 2018. Over the span of four and a half months, Smith knocked out former champions Rashad Evans and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, then submitted elite contender Volkan Oezdemir with a rear naked choke late in the third round.
In the end, the whole thing might have been a bit of a mirage. Evans, who held the title over a decade ago, was on a four-fight losing streak when Smith put his lights out with a knee from the clinch in just 53 seconds – he retired soon after. Shogun is an all-time legend who still has some juice left, but his best days were far behind him when Smith knocked him out with a devastating flurry of elbows and punches in less than two minutes. He then looked second-best for most of the fight with Oezdemir, before the Swiss star visibly tired in the third and Smith took him down, got his back and locked in a choke.
That win earned him a title shot at Jones, where he was summarily dominated and sent on his way. Smith scored a bounce-back win over a past-his-prime Alexander Gustafsson, but the last time we saw him, against perennial top guy Glover Teixeira in May, Smith ate an absolutely uncomfortable beating that had his teeth literally falling out of his face by the fifth round.
I think the Teixeira loss represented Smith settling into his level at 205. He’s a dangerous fighter with some diverse striking and a good submission game, but he’s not complete enough to beat the top guys most of the time. Still, he’s a resilient finishing machine who’s still a threat even after taking punishment, and we’ll see if it’s enough to get past the Austrian-born Rakic, a promising 28-year-old kickboxer who burst onto the scene over the last couple years.
Rakic first really turned heads with a first-round TKO win over the very tough Devin Clark in December 2018, surviving being dropped by a left hook early in the round and eating a ton of (possibly illegal) clinch knees to the head before catching a rushing Clark with a backfist and finishing him with a flurry of punches. That earned Rakic a look at established Englishman Jimi Manuwa, one of MMA’s all-time glass cannons – the Austrian annihilated Manuwa with an incredible left high kick in one of 2019’s best knockouts.
Rakic is tall and very long for a light heavyweight – him and Smith have a similar frame – and he’s a powerful and technically sound striker who has shown some ability and willingness to score takedowns as well. His most recent fight, a split decision loss to Oezdemir at the end of last year, was his first defeat in over eight years but it didn’t really damage his stock – although Oezdemir wore him down with some leg kicks that bizarrely swelled up Rakic’s left shin like a balloon, the Austrian appeared to solidly outstrike his opponent and the decision was widely panned by the fans and the media.
At any rate, it didn’t drop Rakic in the rankings at all, and a win over Smith would mean that the Oezdemir loss probably won’t mean anything in the long run. Rakic very much appears to be one of the future stars of a shallower 205-pound division, but Smith will be a stern test. Smith likely won’t be knocked out early – although we have no idea how the beatdown he ate from Teixeira back in May will affect him – and he tends to fight at a good pace and bring some pressure, which Rakic has seemed to struggle with at times in the past.
I’ve exhorted you all in the past to respect the gatekeepers, and I feel like that’s the role Smith is playing tomorrow night. “Lionheart” still carries a good amount of name recognition and respect from that breakout 2018, and he’d be a major feather in Rakic’s cap. I’m really looking forward to see if the talented Austrian can pass this exam.
Magomed Ankalaev vs. Ion Cutelaba II, UFC Vegas 8
The other most interesting fight on UFC Vegas 8 also takes place in the light heavyweight division, and it’s not entirely because both Magomed Ankalaev and Ion Cutelaba are very promising young fighters with knockout power. It’s also because their first fight, which took place in Norfolk, Va. back in February, was one of the most bizarre stoppages we’ve seen in recent memory.
In fact, some called it the worst stoppage in the history of the UFC. Ankalaev struck early in the first round with a flurry of withering head kicks and left hooks that visibly wobbled Cutelaba, but the Moldovan was still standing and still attempting to trade punches when referee Kevin MacDonald stepped in and called the fight in just 38 seconds.
The stoppage bewildered Cutelaba, Dana White, the commentators, the fans, other fighters, the media, and everyone on Earth. Ankalaev very well might have been just a few shots away from stopping him, but Cutelaba hadn’t even gone down yet! What made it worse was the first minute of the fight had been absolutely thrilling – the first Ankalaev-Cutelaba fight gave me one of the worst cases of violence blue balls I’ve ever experienced.
This time around, you have to imagine the referee is gonna let these guys have a bit longer leash. The loss dropped Cutelaba to 4-4 in the UFC, but the former European sambo champ has fought some really stiff competition – outside of the dubious Ankalaev loss, he’s lost to top 10 contenders Misha Cirkunov and Teixeira, along with one of the world’s best middleweights, Jared Cannonier. Cutelaba has a strong grappling base and the type of punching power that has kept him competitive at 205 despite being a bit short and squat for the division. His long-term future may be at 185, but at 26 years old I still see him as one of the more promising young guns in the division.
Meanwhile, at 14-1, Ankalaev might not be too far away from light heavyweight contention himself. Let’s not forget it was Ankalaev, an aggressive and dangerous southpaw striker with some violent kicks, who had his opponent in dire straits before that infamous stoppage. Go and find his UFC knockouts of Marcin Prachnio and Dalcha Lungiambula if you want some real good shit – he kills Prachnio with a left high kick that sends him tumbling across the cage like he got hit by a car, and in the latter fight, he dominates his Congolese opponent for two rounds before booting his chin into orbit with an Anderson Silva-esque front kick to the face.
Ankalaev wants to put his opponent on defense from the start, and he has really deadly power in those feet. I think it’s very possible, even likely, that the second encounter between him and Cutelaba resembles the first, as much as I like Cutelaba’s skillset. But after one of the most ridiculous stoppages we’ve ever seen, I want some resolution to this rivalry. If Magomed Ankalaev is gonna knock Ion Cutelaba out, I want to see a guy out on the canvas.
Mateusz Gamrot vs. Marian Ziolkowski, KSW 54
And now let’s do something completely different! We’re heading to POLAND, the home of Konfrontacja Sztuk Walki, a promotion that genuinely does more to get across its fighters as big stars than the UFC ever has in its history, and one where you see dudes fighting with advertisements painted all over their body like they’re Ricco Rodriguez in 2003. And one of KSW’s brightest stars is 29-year-old lightweight champion Mateusz Gamrot, who is undefeated at 16-0 in his pro career and has become regarded as one of the top overall prospects in Europe.
Gamrot recently finished off a trilogy of fights with UFC veteran Norman Parke, which saw two Gamrot wins and a no contest due to eye pokes. Parke looked very credible during his UFC run from 2012-16, and his only losses since have been to Gamrot. In their most recent meeting, which took place in July, Gamrot had little trouble controlling the fight with his sharp and accurate striking from distance, bloodying the Irishman’s face to the point where the doctor called a stop to the fight in the third round. Meanwhile, Gamrot walked away looking completely unscathed. It was one of the best boxing performances I’ve seen in an MMA fight in a long time. Watch this fight and tell me that Gamrot doesn’t look like the real deal:
It’s long seemed like a matter of time before Gamrot gets picked up by a major organization, and that time may be coming soon. His stated goal has been to sign with the UFC, and most expect this fight to be his last in KSW. He’s out to continue to build his resume.
Before any of that becomes a real consideration, however, Gamrot has a fight on Saturday, and it won’t be a walk in the park. Marian Ziolkowski is a lanky and experienced lightweight with 21 wins in 29 pro fights, and boasts a dangerous submission game on the ground. Ziolkowski is a late injury replacement for undefeated Russian Shamil Musaev, but he could pose a test of his own.
Gamrot said last month that he hopes to sign with the UFC by the end of the year, and keeping that zero in the loss column for a little bit longer will only increase his profile coming stateside. I for one am eager to see Gamrot against higher-level competition, but he’s got to get through Ziolkowski first.
The Big Fight 