Another fight weekend is here, baby, and you love to see it. The next couple of days offers another UFC card on ESPN+ from the Apex in Las Vegas Saturday night, as well as an LFA show featuring some interesting prospects tonight on UFC Fight Pass.
As always, here are looks at three of the fights I’m going to be looking at closest this weekend:
Alistair Overeem vs. Augusto Sakai, UFC Vegas 9
Through good times and bad, Alistair Overeem keeps chugging along. There may not be a single fighter in the world who has been relevant longer than Overeem, who debuted in 1999 and spent many years as a comparatively lithe 205-pounder in Pride before gassing himself up on horse meat and bull testosterone and becoming UBEREEM, one of the most physically imposing heavyweight knockout artists on Earth.
Seventeen years after he fought Chuck Liddell in the Pride Middleweight Grand Prix, 11 years after he cracked the unbreakable skull of Kazuyuki Fujita with a knee from the depths of Hell, nine years after he obliterated Brock Lesnar in an exhilarating UFC debut, Alistair Overeem is still one of the world’s top heavyweights. And on Saturday night, the Demolition Man will be the biggest test in the young career of the 15-1-1 Augusto Sakai, who recently entered the top 10 of the UFC heavyweight rankings for the first time.
Sakai – no relation to Jin Sakai, the protagonist of the video game Ghost of Tsushima – is trying to become the first graduate of Dana White’s Contender Series to eventually attain a UFC title shot. He’d elevate himself big-time with a win over Overeem, who at 40 years old and 65 professional MMA fights is both quite dangerous and quite beatable.
Even at his best, it’s not like Overeem had an iron chin or anything. You can knock him out. He’s eaten quite a few KOs over the decades – 14, as a matter of fact, with the first coming against Bobby Hoffman over 20 years ago. All seven of his UFC losses have come by knockout, and it’s a who’s who: Stipe Miocic, Francis Ngannou, Curtis Blaydes, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, hell, even Ben Rothwell.
Anybody who’s anybody has knocked out Alistair Overeem at some point or another. You just got to land that bomb, but that’s never a guarantee against one of the most decorated kickboxers in MMA history. Overeem is still a tough obstacle to overcome on the feet: he was very handily outworking Rozenstruik, one of the division’s top strikers, last December before Jairzinho winged a right hand that knocked him out with four seconds left.
Last May, he was back in the cage against Walt Harris, another powerful striker who has knockouts in all of his career wins. And yeah, Harris landed some big ones early. Overeem got dropped. Overeem got bloodied. But Alistair Overeem has been knocking bad dudes out since I was in kindergarten. Overeem survived the danger, re-established control, whacked Harris with an ungodly right high kick-left hook combo in the second and punched his head over and over until the ref waved it off.
Overeem isn’t the marvelous physical specimen that he used to be, but he’s battle-tested, technically sound, and he still retains a lot of his quickness and power. So the question of the night will likely be: does Augusto Sakai have the pop it takes to crack Overeem’s chin?
We’ll have to see. Sakai doesn’t have the elite one-shot power that some other heavyweights do, but he’s got a strong Muay Thai base and mixes up his strikes real well. In his last fight, against Bulgarian sambo champion Blagoy Ivanov in May, Sakai landed some stiff shots but wasn’t able to wobble Ivanov – understandable, since Ivanov is one of the most freakishly tough fighters in the division.
But Sakai really kind of pissed me off in that fight. After starching Marcin Tybura in less than a minute the year before, the Brazilian allowed himself to be outstruck for significant stretches of the bout. Then, in the third round of a very close fight, Sakai blatantly held the fence on a Ivanov takedown, which should have been an easy point deduction. Sakai won a split decision, but he should not have been allowed to take that W home.
I came away from that fight really unimpressed with Sakai despite his impressive record. He was overall better than Ivanov on the feet, but Ivanov isn’t a natural striker – and that terrible fence grab left a very bitter taste in my mouth. And I think if it comes down to it, if it’s going to be a stand-up battle, Overeem is just better. He can still put on a clinic when he needs to.
There are fewer and fewer fighters of Overeem’s generation left. In the end, I just want those guys to thrive.
Marcos Rogerio de Lima vs. Alexander Romanov, UFC Vegas 9
This weekend features another relatively uninspiring UFC card with few fights that really get your blood going. I’ve already written about the event’s co-main, a light heavyweight bout between Ovince Saint Preux and Alonzo Menifield, a couple weeks ago before OSP tested positive for COVID-19 and the fight was pushed back. I’ll have my eyes on that one, particularly to see if the frighteningly powerful Menifield has learned how to not turn into a pumpkin if he doesn’t knock his opponent out immediately.
But plumbing the depths of the card, something caught my eye. An undefeated heavyweight prospect who’s finished every single one of his fights? He’s from an obscure Eastern European country? He’s a former SUMO WRESTLER? Alexander Romanov……………. hello.
The 11-0 Moldovan signed with the UFC last October, and this is the third attempt at booking his debut fight in the Octagon. He was originally scheduled to face Raphael Pessoa back in April before the event was canceled due to the pandemic, and a prospective bout against Marcin Tybura in July was dropped when Romanov came down with the coronavirus himself.
But now, he’s here. And HOLY HELL, is this guy strong.
That’s Romanov in his most recent fight, last February, beating 6-1 Sergio Freitas by just German suplexing him on his head and making him quit. When I see KO (slam) on a fighter’s record, my eyes explode out of my head like I’m in Looney Tunes. Romanov has transformed his body over the last couple of years, slimming down and becoming a bit quicker and more explosive, but his M.O. has remained the same: he wants to come at you and just maul you. It’s quite fun, and so far, no one’s been able to stop it.
I have no idea if he has any stand-up at all or if he can last more than one round. But he has a thing that he does really well, and in the shallower ends of the heavyweight division, that can get you by.
Ten-fight UFC veteran Marcos Rogerio de Lima will be a nice test for Romanov in his UFC debut. “Pezao” moved up to heavyweight two years ago after missing weight twice cutting to 205, and he’s since gone 2-1 in his new division. A good striker with knockout power who traditionally fares better against shorter, more compact guys, de Lima is another guy whose fights don’t tend to last too long. He’ll pose a major threat to Romanov if he manages to fend off the Moldovan’s charge and keep it on the feet – again, I’ve watched a few Romanov fights, and I genuinely have no idea if he has any striking game whatsoever. He usually just runs at guys and Donkey Kongs them around the ring.
And you can beat de Lima fighting the way Romanov wants to do. The Brazilian is susceptible to the takedown and doesn’t always fare well off his back – take, for instance, his fight with shorter Dagestani wrestler Gadzhimurad Antigulov, who single-legged him 20 seconds into the fight and then put him away with a choke less than a minute later.
This could be an opportune matchup for Romanov. Or not. I have no idea. I have so many unanswered questions about him and his game. But he seems weird and exciting, and we don’t have enough of those guys these days. I’m so hyped for this fight.
Ricky Steele vs. Zviad Lazishvili, LFA 90
Ricky Steele is one of those fighters who’s been hanging around the periphery of the UFC but hasn’t quite gotten there yet. The Boise-based bantamweight made the cast of The Ultimate Fighter two years ago and won his first fight on the show, but got injured and had to drop out shortly afterward. He later made an appearance on Dana White’s Contender Series last August and beat previously-undefeated Phil Caracappa by decision, but didn’t receive a further opportunity in the Octagon.
Steele’s had some long layoffs in his career due to injury – those two bouts that I mentioned are his only pro fights since 2016. He’s 32 years old and still just 6-0, and the clock is starting to tick. The best thing he can do is get back to work, and he’ll be back in the cage in the main event of the LFA’s offering on UFC Fight Pass tonight, in a battle for the promotion’s vacant bantamweight title.
The LFA usually puts on interesting cards filled with prospects on the way up, and their champions are routinely raided by bigger promotions. The last three fighters to win that bantamweight title – Ricky Simon, Casey Kenney and Miles Johns – are all now with the UFC. Steele’s time might be coming. Tall and long for the division, Steele has a karate base and it shows – he’s constantly moving, switching stances and throwing kicks from odd angles. He has plenty of skill, but the best ability is availability.
His opponent, the Georgian-born Lazishvili, returned from a four and a half-year layoff last November, beating well-traveled veteran Josh Huber by unanimous decision. Lazishvili has a wrestling background and a tendency to pull out some neat submissions from positions you don’t expect, making Friday’s fight an interesting clash of styles. Somebody’s 0 is gonna go – Lazishvili is entering with a career record of 12-0.
Give this fight a look. You might see the winner in the Octagon in the near future.
The Big Fight 