Another fight weekend is in the books, and boy, there was a whole lot of it. But the center of the MMA world was Fight Island, which featured two crowning performances in the UFC’s double main event: Israel Adesanya ascending to God Tier with the single greatest performance of his career, and Jan Blachowicz blasting his way to light heavyweight gold.
I’ll have more on both of them later this week. But as usual, here are looks at three fighters outside the main event who boosted their stock on Saturday:
Flyweight has long been one of the weakest and most snakebit divisions in the UFC. The legendary Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson ruled 125 for almost six years, stifling many interesting challengers from bringing their promise to fruition – Johnson was arguably the world’s top pound-for-pound fighter, but Dana White seemingly had little interest in promoting him. He finally lost the title to Henry Cejudo in 2018, but Cejudo defended it just once before retiring.
The UFC couldn’t even crown a new champion without issues: iron-fisted Brazilian hairdresser Deiveson Figueiredo had to beat Joseph Benavidez‘s ass twice consecutively to hoist the belt, since he missed weight the first time. All along, there’s been constant whispers that the UFC may get rid of the division altogether. Those have quieted since Figueiredo won the title, but UFC’s group of flyweights is still relatively thin and with relatively little public interest.
But there’s a flipside to that for UFC’s 125-pounders. There’s plenty of opportunity. A few impressive performances can almost instantly shoot you to the top of the heap. And given a prime spot on the main card on Saturday night, directly before two championship bouts, Brandon Royval seized his opportunity by tapping out top-10 contender Kai Kara-France in a thrilling bout.
Israel Adesanya blew our minds with his seemingly effortless detonation of Paulo Costa, while Jan Blachowicz blasted Dominick Reyes into the 20th row. But the most exciting fight of the night was between Royval and Kara-France, who absolutely threw down for six action-packed minutes.
Royval showed that he’s one of the most singularly aggressive fighters around on Saturday, never letting up and continually attacking, even when he got rocked. And he definitely did get rocked: Kara-France dropped him within the first minute, only for Royval to knock him to the mat with a downright absurd spinning back elbow while on wobbly legs himself. Royval is skilled on the ground, and when he was launching shots on the feet he was actively hunting submissions, continually applying pressure on Kara-France.
Royval dropped Kara-France with a knee late in the first round, and early in the second, Kara-France tried to get in with a double-leg takedown: Royval countered by simply hopping up and latching on with a guillotine choke, getting the tap.
You have to absolutely love fighters like Brandon Royval. He’s always hunting. There is no downtime in a Brandon Royval fight. He has no intention of ever letting it get to a decision. He’s constantly throwing shots with malicious intent, or if the fight goes to the ground, using his high-level grappling skill to trying and put his opponent away – I counted four different submission holds that Royval attempted before nailing the jumping guillotine.
Even more impressively – and this goes back to the whole opportunity thing – Royval is now a serious title contender after just two UFC fights. The former LFA champion debuted by upsetting veteran Tim Elliott in May, and one could easily see him already a really high-level guy next time around.
The UFC flyweight division seemed like it was on death’s door just a few months ago. But now it has an exciting champion (Figueiredo), who’s scheduled to fight an exciting challenger (Cody Garbrandt) in November, and a few exciting young contenders (Royval, Alex Perez, Askar Askarov) on their way. Things are looking up.
Over the years, the UFC itself has become more and more corporate and sanitized, showcasing the fighters themselves less and progressively becoming more of a Dana White personality cult. The way the UFC is structured reminds me more of the WWE every single year – it results in it being tougher and tougher for an individual fighter to get themselves over.
But at the end of the day, fighting is a raw, emotional sport. That will never change. It doesn’t matter if every fighter’s forced to shave their heads, wear their matching Reebok uniforms and walk out to the cage to the same song. The true intensity and personality of these fighters will come out when the battle is on. And on Saturday, rising featherweight prospect Hakeem Dawodu turned some heads by just being so goddamn pissed off. He may be the first fighter I’ve ever seen get officially warned by the referee for using foul language in the cage, after he stalked opponent Zubaira Tukhugov around the Octagon and screamed all manner of curses at him in an effort to get him to throw down.
Dawodu has a history of stuff like this. A former juvenile delinquent, Dawodu was introduced to Muay Thai as a teen in an effort to find an outlet for his anger, and he has always fought while brimming with a roiling fury. But on Saturday, he had plenty to be mad about. First, Tukhugov missed weight, showing up four pounds over the 146-pound featherweight limit. Then, Tukhugov rather blatantly ran away from Dawodu in the third round, prompting the Canadian’s outburst.
It was actually a pretty interesting and competitive fight up until that point – after dropping the first round, the 29-year-old Dawodu grew into things in the second round, starting to take control with his crisp striking and his takedown defense. After having his takedown attempts stuffed in the third, Tukhugov decided to disengage, evidently thinking he had two rounds in the bag. He was wrong, and Dawodu won a split decision.
But showing that kind of passion, that kind of desire to go after it, will always get fight fans behind you no matter the situation. As goofy as it is, I think Dawodu won a lot of support on Saturday night by getting so pissed. You know what also helps gain fans? Winning. And the former amateur Muay Thai world champ has been doing a lot of that of late: the win over Tukhugov was his fifth in a row, including this crispy head kick of Yoshinori Horie last year.
Keep being pissed and throwing bombs, Hakeem. That ref was a dickhead anyway.
Ludovit Klein may have increased his notoriety in more ways than one on Saturday night. The 25-year-old Slovakian finishing machine was a late replacement for a featherweight contest with New Zealander Shane Young, and left with only a couple of days to make 145, he ended up a few pounds over for his UFC debut and was fined 30 percent of his purse.
Young is, of course, a training partner and friend of Israel Adesanya, the crown jewel of Auckland’s City Kickboxing. It’s believed that Klein missing weight for his fight with Young was the impetus for Adesanya’s strange rant after his main event win about how fighters who miss weight should be fined 90 percent, not 30, of their earnings.
The reason why Izzy was probably so pissed that some little-known European guy on the undercard came in a few pounds over? Well, Ludovit Klein absolutely knocked the shit out of his buddy. Klein entered as a relatively well-regarded prospect – he came in as the betting favorite, even though Young was on a two-fight UFC win streak – and completely delivered. Regarded for a thumping head kick, Klein blasted Young with the ol’ left leg cemetery on Saturday, before putting him to sleep with a brilliant combination of punches.
Video game type stuff. Klein may not have been able to bank a Performance of the Night bonus due to the failed weight cut, but he may have earned something more valuable: a pathway up the ladder. Klein came in with the nickname “Mr. Highlight,” and he showed why: 16 of his 17 wins have come by finish, with his last seven by KO.
That’ll get you noticed as a young, rising fighter battling through the undercard. What will get you even more noticed? Knocking a dude out so badly that it gets one of his buddies, a world champion, pissed off enough to yell at you directly after defending his title. Literally the first thing that Izzy was thinking about after he knocked out Costa was how mad he was about Ludovit Klein! That’ll build your profile.
Maybe Klein should only fight City Kickboxing guys from now on. Can we get Brad Riddell to drop to 145? Of course, if he keeps winning, his path may cross with featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski, who trains at – you guessed it – City Kickboxing. It writes itself.
The Big Fight 