Another fight weekend is in the books, and it was filled top to bottom with some of the most thrilling action we’ve seen in a long time. Saturday night’s UFC card was one of the most entertaining in recent memory, headlined by Cory Sandhagen‘s unreal performance in a second-round knockout of top contender Marlon Moraes.
I’ll have more this week on what that fight meant for a UFC bantamweight division in an interesting spot, but as usual, here are looks at three fighters outside the main event who increased their stock on Saturday:
With one impossible kick, Joaquin Buckley made himself a UFC legend on Saturday night.
Midway through the second round of his middleweight bout with the undefeated Impa Kasanganay, Buckley threw a left body kick that was caught. With the hulking Congolese-American holding onto his left foot, Buckley leapt in the air, spun, and put himself on every single UFC highlight reel until the end of time:
Within seconds, a consensus had already been reached: it was the single most insane knockout in the history of mixed martial arts. And having had two days to digest what we all saw Saturday night, it still defies belief. I, personally, have been watching the sport since I was 13, and I’ve never seen anything remotely like it. It’s a kick you would scoff at if you saw it in a Jackie Chan movie.
And it instantly made Joaquin Buckley a household name. The clip went more viral than any UFC moment in the social media age – I saw tons of people who either don’t watch MMA, or least never talk about it, sharing the video and raving about how incredible it was. ESPN was showing the knockout ad nauseam on shows that have nothing to do with mixed martial arts. For a weekend, Joaquin Buckley was absolutely everywhere.
It was so unbelievable that it totally overshadowed two other Knockout of the Year candidates that occurred that very same day: first, Mamed Khalidov‘s amazing jumping switch kick KO of Scott Askham to win the KSW middleweight title, then Cory Sandhagen’s wheel kick on Marlon Moraes in the UFC main event later that night. But it shouldn’t be lost that even before his fight-ending moment of magic, Buckley looked absolutely awesome against Kasanganay.
A compact, bomb-throwing striker, Buckley made his UFC debut in August, coming in on short notice to face lanky sniper Kevin Holland. Although Buckley was knocked out in the third round, I was impressed by his showing – Holland is legit, one of my favorite prospects at 185, and Buckley came in with no fear and made him really work.
Buckley always comes in very hot, blending speed and power and constantly searching for the KO. He’s an absolute headhunter, and he had Kasanganay hurt within the first 30 seconds of the fight before things settled down. Buckley’s power, aggressiveness and explosive athleticism look to ensure that his fights are always going to be entertaining, and while I knew he had pop and loved to throw bombs, I was super impressed on Saturday with just how quick he is in the cage.
Of course, he hit that unbelievable knockout, and we’ll remember it forever, but let’s be real: Joaquin Buckley is almost never going to do anything like that again. How could he? That was a once-in-a-lifetime moment. That kick is going to be incredibly important for his career, naturally – he’ll always be remembered for that moment of genius, and in the short-term it’s going to give him a profile that almost no one else in the middleweight pack can match.
In the long-term, what may be more important are the skills he’s shown in the rest of his time in the Octagon, and those have looked impressive as well. But for right now, Joaquin Buckley, go ahead and make your money. You just wrote your name in the history books.
Heavyweight has long been one of the shallower pools in mixed martial arts, populated by out-of-shape dudes who maybe have some power or some skill, but usually end up near-passed out after a round of exertion. Take for example the third-to-last fight on Saturday’s UFC card, which featured two big boys who have been hanging around the upper tier of the UFC heavyweight pecking order for a while, Marcin Tybura and 20-year vet Ben Rothwell.
I don’t want to shit on that fight too much, because we’ve all seen way worse heavyweight fights over the years – heavyweight MMA can be a bit of a running joke. But the fact of the matter is that the fight was pretty boring, and we mostly reacted somewhat positively to it because we were all afraid it would be MUCH worse. It was two large guys sweating on each other for 15 minutes, nothing that interesting happened, and I have absolutely no desire to go back and rewatch any of it.
So when a young heavyweight shows up, looks in shape and gets a quick finish or two, they can get pushed pretty quick. I’m old enough to remember when the UFC hyped up Todd Duffee after a fast KO win in his debut – turns out he sucked. Whoops!
With all that being said, Tom Aspinall, come on down! After knocking out Alan Baudot in less than two minutes on Saturday, the 27-year-old Englishman looks to be one of the hotter young prospects at heavyweight, having dominated in both of his UFC appearances – neither of which lasted longer than two minutes.
Aspinall looks physically impressive at 6-foot-5, 250 pounds, he seems to move pretty well for a guy that size, and he has some nice, clean striking. Baudot attempted to throw Aspinall off his game with some spinning backfists and other unorthodox offense, but Aspinall had little trouble moving through it – he got Baudot up against the cage, dropped him on his butt with a double-leg takedown, quickly moved into mount, and very quickly forced a stoppage with some crisp ground-and-pound.
Very tidy work for Aspinall, who had a relatively quick turnaround after debuting with a 45-second KO of Jake Collier on July 25. He’s taken basically no damage at all in two fights. Isn’t that basically what got Khamzat Chimaev on the hype rocket? And he’s in one of the deepest divisions in the UFC! The question with Aspinall, as with Chimaev, is how he does when he has to face some adversity – and crucially for a heavyweight, how his gas tank holds up. Aspinall has only twice been into the second round, and lost both times, although one was an illegal elbow disqualification.
I’m ready to see how Aspinall does against someone with a little more pedigree. Onward and upward.
Georgian featherweight Giga Chikadze came into Saturday night 3-0 in the UFC, but my perception of him didn’t match that record. A successful professional kickboxer, Chikadze had faced three straight fighters who had attempted to neutralize his stand-up skill with their grappling, and had done enough to win all three times.
At the end of the day, you’ll take it. It’s certainly better than losing. But I hadn’t gotten any reason to take real interest in Chikadze. I hadn’t seen it in him yet. But on Saturday, we finally saw it.
Facing undefeated Venezuelan Omar Morales, himself a tough and powerful striker who wanted to stand and trade, Giga Chikadze finally got to fight the fight he’s always hoped for. His kickboxing looked extremely crisp and he dropped Morales several times, and while he didn’t score his first UFC finish – not for lack of trying, you could tell he really wanted it bad – he came away with 30-27s across the board.
It was the kind of performance we’ve been waiting to see out of Chikadze. His striking was varied, fluid, precise and punishing. He thumped Morales with a bunch of shots that would have really hurt most other fighters, and he was generally able to fend off Morales’ attempts to grapple him and get the fight back where he wanted it.
Superb all-around performance. And at 4-0 in the UFC, you couldn’t put yourself in a better spot. Next up for Chikadze: trying to finally get that finsh.
The Big Fight 