Another fight weekend is here, baby, and we love to see it. This week’s lineup features a UFC card on Saturday night from the Apex, along with a ONE show on Friday and an LFA show on UFC Fight Pass. It’s not deep on names, but there’s always the promise of some fun action. So as usual, here’s a look at the three fights I’ll be watching closest over the next couple days.
Jack Hermansson vs. Marvin Vettori, UFC Vegas 16
Like so many UFC main events this calendar year, the main event of UFC Vegas 16 has gone through multiple incarnations. Originally it was going to be Jack Hermansson and Darren Till, in Till’s return fight after his decision loss in a brilliant technical striking war with Robert Whittaker in June. (Seriously, go back and watch that fight if you can – it’s MMA at its highest level.) But Till pulled out last month with an injury, and was replaced by Kevin Holland, the exciting young sniper getting his first big-ticket opportunity.
I was absolutely jacked to see Holland get a shot at a fighter of Hermansson’s caliber, but Holland tested positive for COVID-19 and was rescheduled for a matchup with grappling legend Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza next week. So now, we’re onto Plan C. Thankfully, Plan C is still a pretty good one. 27-year-old Italian Marvin Vettori is himself one of the most impressive young middleweights in the UFC, and when the fight was announced, he actually opened as a -160 betting favorite over the much more proven and experienced Hermansson.
I think that Vettori as the favorite may be a little much at this point, but there’s no denying his talent. Vettori was Israel Adesanya‘s second UFC opponent, and notably pushed the undefeated future champion to a split decision. He hasn’t lost since, most recently choking out Karl Roberson in June. And he’s making history on Saturday, becoming the first Italian to ever headline a UFC card. (Suck on that, Alessio Sakara.)
Vettori is physically powerful, well-schooled on the ground, and extremely difficult to outmuscle in the clinch and in the grappling game. That’s what makes this fight so interesting – all that is exactly what Jack Hermansson wants to do to everyone he fights.
We’ve seen it time and again from Hermansson throughout his UFC career. Born in Sweden and currently based out of Norway, Hermansson has been remarkably consistent since he signed with the UFC in 2016. Hermansson has a formula down to a science: he gets the fight to the ground and either dominates with his vicious ground-and-pound or finds a submission – most often a gnarly guillotine choke.
He’s established that M.O. against some of the best grapplers in the world. BJJ black belts fall before Hermansson’s punishing style like rain. Hermansson pounded the piss out of elite ground fighters like Jacare Souza and Thales Leites – the latter after breaking his rib in the first round – on a four-fight win streak that elevated him to the middleweight elite. And back in July, Hermansson showed a different facet of his game in a win over former title challenger Kelvin Gastelum, catching his opponent in a heel hook out of a scramble and tapping him out in a little over a minute.
If nothing else, this is a matchup that profiles to be capital “P” Physical. Hermansson is a bully, and Vettori, if nothing else, is a guy who is going to be very, very difficult to bully. We may not see a flashy knockout in this main event, but what we will get is two tough guys just going at it in the truest sense.
Movsar Evloev vs. Nate Landwehr, UFC Vegas 16
UFC Vegas 16 has an interesting main event, but the rest of the card doesn’t look so hot. (Big shoutout, however, to lightweight Matt Wiman, who’s fighting Saturday and is one of the few UFC fighters who’s been with the promotion continuously since I first started watching MMA all those years ago. Pulling for you, dude!) But there is the opportunity to get another look at some relatively interesting prospects. Flyweight Taila Santos and light heavyweight Roman Dolidze are intriguing fighters getting main card looks, and both could be part of the future in divisions that could use some new blood.
If you aren’t going to give big fights, at least give us some good talents. We have quite a few of those on Saturday. And one of the ones I’m looking forward to seeing the most is Russian featherweight Movsar Evloev, a master Greco-Roman wrestler who has run out a 13-0 pro record.
Evloev signed with the UFC last year after reigning as the bantamweight champion for M-1 Global, long one of the top promotions in Europe. He’s run up three straight unanimous decision wins since, most recently outpointing Mike Grundy in July in a very entertaining showcase for the Russian: Evloev displayed some remarkably slick and inventive grappling defense against the British submission specialist, evading some sticky situations and staying alive to ultimately control the stand-up and win the fight.
It’s actually kind of funny that he’s actually fighting Landwehr now, and not two or three years ago. A native of Tennessee, Landwehr found his way to M-1 in 2017 and went on to win their featherweight title before signing with the UFC. Landwehr and Evloev were champions in adjoining weight classes in M-1 and even fought on several of the same shows, but never met in the cage.
Evloev is the real prospect in this fight, but Landwehr should be a good test for him. We’ve seen Landwehr twice in the UFC, and both outings were memorable. In his debut, Herbert Burns knocked him absolutely unconscious with a knee from the depths of Hell. Then, in May, he beat grizzled veteran Darren Elkins bloody while screaming with all his soul for Dana White’s approval.
Landwehr looks very much like a scrapper who ends up in entertaining fights. I love entertaining fights! Evloev has a lot of skill and culture to his game – now we’ll see how he fares against a guy who can make things dumb. You gotta know how to win a fight against a guy who wants to make things dumb! It’s a real skill! I’m looking forward to this one.
Koyomi Matsushima vs. Garry Tonon, ONE Championship: Big Bang
By the time you read this, this fight might have already happened – ONE airs its events on Friday mornings American time – but still, seek it out on YouTube. (Bleacher Report Live very helpfully posts full ONE shows for free.) ONE has made a habit of wholeheartedly pursuing elite BJJ competitors making the transition to MMA, and one of that crop, New Jersey native Garry Tonon, headlines the MMA portion of Friday’s ONE show.
The 29-year-old Tonon’s BJJ credentials are unimpeachable. Tonon is a member of the famed Danaher Death Squad, the group of young John Danaher-trained submission stylists who have taken over the grappling world with their seemingly unstoppable system of leg locks. Although teammate Gordon Ryan has emerged as arguably the world’s top BJJ competitor, Tonon has had plenty of international success himself, most recently finishing in third place in the ADCC world championships at 170 pounds last year.
Tonon debuted as a mixed martial artist for ONE in 2018, and has wasted little time establishing himself as one of ONE’s best featherweight prospects. And I mean that literally: Tonon has finished all five of his pro fights, the last two coming within the first round. We last saw Tonon in a ONE ring last May, where he ran through Yoshiki Nakahara in just 55 seconds with a Danaher Death Squad special, the heel hook:
Absolutely beautiful stuff: you think he’s going for a single leg takedown, then he rolls into a heel hook and Nakahara’s done in an instant. That’s the deadliness of the Danaher way. There are plenty of examples of elite BJJ competitors having issues transitioning their skills to MMA – you don’t get punched in the face in a BJJ tournament, unless you’re doing something really wrong – but so far, Tonon has had little issue.
Friday’s fight may be Tonon’s big step from prospect to contender. ONE isn’t in the business of coddling their new faces for long – they throw you in the ring with killers, and you either sink or you swim. ONE wants to find out how Tonon does against a dangerous striker, so they’re throwing him in the ring with a killer.
Matsushima has big power in his right hand, and he’s shown the ability to take out ONE’s best, like he did when he iced former champion Marat Gafurov in a shocking ONE debut two years ago.
This will be a fascinating and very meaningful test of Tonon’s skills, and whether he can stay crispy against easily the biggest knockout threat he’s ever faced. If Tonon wins, it’ll go a long way towards proving the grappling ace is the real deal in his new sport.
Honorable mentions: Ovince St. Preux vs. Jamahal Hill, Taila Santos vs. Montana de la Rosa, Roman Dolidze vs. John Allan, Damon Jackson vs. Ilia Topuria, UFC Vegas 16; Maycon Mendonca vs. Batsumberel Dagvadorj (THE MONGOLIAN FALCON!), LFA 96
The Big Fight 