Another fight weekend is in the books, headlined by another UFC card on Fight Island and a few entertaining Bellator shows in Milan, Italy. Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie headlined the UFC show with impressive wins, and I’ll have more on the absolute mess that is the UFC women’s bantamweight division this week.
But as usual, here are three fighters outside the main event who boosted their stock this week:
Saturday’s UFC card was relatively light on super competitive fights, but we got some sparkling individual efforts that were worth watching. Whether it was Holm’s complete performance in the win over Irene Aldana, de Randamie nabbing the first submission victory of her career, Luigi Vendramini scoring a highlight-reel KO in his UFC debut, or Thai boxer Loma Lookboonmee using all eight limbs to beat down Jinh Yu Frey, we got to see some fighters at the top of their game.
But for me, maybe the single most impressive win of the night belonged to bantamweight Casey Kenney, a former LFA champion who scored his fourth win in five UFC bouts with a dominant unanimous decision win over China’s Heili Alateng.
Kenney was a junior national champion in judo and a high school state champion in wrestling, so he knows a thing or two about locking up. But Saturday was a display of how well-rounded Kenney actually is: the fight with Alateng was contested entirely on the feet, and Kenney looked remarkably impressive in dominating his opponent. The native of Portland, Indiana absolutely tenderized Alateng’s ribcage with repeated body kicks that would have made Jan Blachowicz envious, turning the poor guy’s midsection into hamburger:
He was absolutely ruthless attacking that body, too. It was just a brilliant all-around striking performance from Kenney, who earned two 10-8 rounds on one judge’s scorecard. His movement was crisp, those kicks brutal, and his punches incisive. He looked quick and deadly, and he was in control for every moment.
Credit to Alateng for taking an absolute beating and never backing down. But Kenney looks very much like a future star to watch at bantamweight: his only UFC loss came against Merab Dvalishvili, a smothering Georgian wrestler who could be fighting for the title sooner rather than later.
Combining that grappling pedigree with striking that stiff? Casey Kenney might have some legs at 135. I’m really looking forward to seeing what he’s got next.
Dusko Todorovic came into Saturday with a decent amount of hype for a debuting fighter: undefeated at 9-0 with a strong all-around game, the Serb holds a knockout win over Michel Pereira, an insanely talented middleweight whom I’ve profiled in this column before. And his first official UFC fight came in a prime spot in the opening fight on the main card. Facing powerful Michigander Dequan Townsend – who had dropped three straight in the Octagon – the stage was set for Dusko to make an impression.
And color me impressed. Dusko had a big size disadvantage in the bout – he could probably easily fight at welterweight if he wanted to, while Townsend is a natural light heavyweight moving down to 185 – but he kicked Townsend’s ass. Todorovic is deceptive – he seemed to lull Townsend to sleep at times, and when he throws, they don’t always look like his strikes have malicious intent. But they absolutely do, and they always seem to find a way around his opponents’ guard.
Townsend survived some absolutely massive bombs from Todorovic throughout the first round, only for Todorovic to take him down in the second, get full mount, and absolutely beat him down until the referee was forced to step in.
Brilliant, brilliant performance. As I said before, it felt like it was all set up for Todorovic to look good and get some eyeballs on him, and that’s exactly what happened. Todorovic was placed in a winnable matchup against a guy who still carried some danger, and he held up his end of the deal. Still undefeated, and the arrow is pointing up.
At just 26 years old, Dusko has some good years ahead of him. I can’t wait to see what he makes of them.
There’s nothing I love more than when someone wins an MMA fight with a submission that I’ve never heard of before. I jumped out of my chair when the Korean Zombie pulled out a twister to submit Leonard Garcia in 2011. It made my year when we got not one, but TWO Suloev stretch kneebars in the same night a couple years back, courtesy of Aljamain Sterling and Zabit Magomedsharipov.
So imagine my reaction when I was perusing the results of Bellator’s Thursday show and saw this:
What in the goddamn hell is a SCORPION CRUNCH?
Like, seriously, what on Earth? Naturally, I had to go watch. This may be one of the only recorded instances of an MMA fighter finishing a fight with a scorpion crunch, but it’s a real Brazilian jiu-jitsu hold. It’s basically a body triangle on steroids, executed when you have your opponent in your guard – if you pull your legs up high towards the top fighter’s shoulders, lock your hands around their back and squeeze, you can create a ton of pressure on their ribs and maybe force a tap.
That’s exactly what 24-year-old Slovak Monika Chochnikova did on Thursday night, in her pro debut in the opener of Bellator’s undercard. When opponent Jade Jorand dragged her to the mat in the second round, Chochnikova went for it and held on tight, and pulled out the submission win.
Commentators Mike Goldberg and “Big” John McCarthy – two men who have seen as many MMA fights as any human being alive – have absolutely no idea what Chochnikova is doing, and don’t react to the submission at all until the moment Jorand taps. It probably helps that Chochnikova and Jorand are atomweights, fighting at 105 pounds – there’s not exactly a lot of padding there to protect Jorand’s ribs from the submission. Even so, it’s a remarkable way to debut on the pro scene. To even think of going for a move like that, let alone actually pulling it off? That’s just sick.
I have absolutely no idea where Monika Chochnikova’s career is going to go after this, if anywhere. But she’s always going to be the girl who hit the scorpion crunch, and for that, she’s going to be remembered.
The Big Fight 