Another fight weekend is in the books. Last weekend’s action was headlined by a UFC show that was absolutely devastated by COVID but still provided some absolutely awesome action, and a ONE show that was mostly built around some great kickboxing but also featured an impressive win for BJJ ace Garry Tonon.
In the UFC’s feature bout, Italian rising star Marvin Vettori earned the signature win of his career thus far, outboxing Jack Hermansson over five rounds to earn a unanimous decision and elevate himself to the middleweight elite. I’ll have more about the current situation at 185 later this week, but for now, here’s a look at three fighters outside the main event who boosted their stock this weekend.
It’s a story that’s been repeated over and over and over again in 2020 for the UFC. Take a weekly ESPN card that isn’t particularly deep to start with – maybe it has only one, or at most two, really relevant fights. Maybe its main event has to get rebooked. Maybe one or two fights drop off in the weeks before. Then, maybe COVID takes its toll at the last minute – UFC Vegas 16 had THREE fights canceled on the day of the show, two due to COVID, one because a guy got pink eye.
And then, after all that crap, the show absolutely overdelivers on the action. In doing so, several fighters flying under the radar get a much-needed spotlight. That was the story of Saturday’s UFC show, which was filled with excellent finishes and talented young scrappers adding to their highlight reels.
And perhaps none of the prospects featured on Saturday made a bigger impression than light heavyweight Jamahal Hill. Facing former title challenger Ovince Saint Preux in the co-main – a massive step-up in name recognition and pedigree from anyone the 29-year-old Hill had ever shared the cage with – Hill picked his opponent apart on the feet before stopping him in the second round.
It was the kind of enigmatic performance that has characterized Saint Preux’s career, one of the most frustrating in memory. OSP missed weight by a pound and a half and didn’t seem to get out of first gear. He’s has always been tremendously talented and has a ton of physical tools, but never truly put it together in the way you think he should have. But the former Tennessee football player still occupies a spot as an experienced and challenging gatekeeper to the upper ranks of the 205-pound division, and Hill kicked that gate in on Saturday.
Hill came in with a reputation for knockout power, but what I was impressed with was how he never got out of control on Saturday. Hill invested in body work throughout the first round, calculating his range and getting into the groove. Once the second round started, he was locked in, stringing together great combinations and putting OSP in the danger zone. He moved in for the kill at the right time, but he never overextended himself – his finishing flurry was never wild, just accurate, punishing and perfectly paced.
Hill is one of the talented young guns in a light heavyweight division that is starting to produce some interesting new rising contenders: guys like Jimmy Crute, Jiri Prochazka and Magomed Ankalaev. He’s just scored the biggest name win of his career, and one that will probably get him into the top 15. He’s undefeated, physically talented, powerful and sharp on the feet. There’s really not much to dislike. Buy stock now.
You ever seen a guy get a knockout win without landing a single significant strike in the entire fight? Now you have!
What’s up, Jordan Leavitt. I enjoyed Leavitt’s slam KO of Matt Wiman on Saturday night on multiple levels. First, I’ve always loved a good KO (slam). They’re quite rare, but oh so incredibly memorable every time. And it seems like Leavitt has studied the old masters – his slam of Wiman was a picture-perfect tribute to Gerald Harris, the all-time legend of the slam.
It also made the 37-year-old Wiman, one of the longest tenured fighters in the UFC, the recipient of two of my favorite knockouts 14 years apart. In 2006, Wiman’s UFC debut ended when a bloodied Spencer Fisher destroyed him with one of the best flying knees in the history of the UFC. It was one of the highlights that I saw very early in my MMA fandom that helped me fall in love with the sport. All those years later, Matt Wiman is still getting killed in unique ways, and it’s still awesome.
And most of all, it was just good, clean fun. Few things in mixed martial arts are more cool to see than a sudden finish that just comes out of nowhere. Leavitt tied him up almost immediately, picked him up and walked him across the cage to his corner (the quad strength on this guy!), and then just said “screw it, let’s go for it!” You got to love a guy who has a crazy idea pass through his mind in the cage and just decides to go for it.
I doubt Jordan Leavitt entered the Octagon for his UFC debut planning to slam Matt Wiman into unconsciousness, but he sure seized that opportunity. And in doing so, he went from a relative unknown to That Guy Who Did That Cool Thing. You want to get attention? Do some cool things! It helps that Leavitt is undefeated, just 25 years old, and has displayed a penchant for quick finishes – he earned his UFC contract with a first-round arm-triangle submission in August.
Leavitt may be one to watch. I don’t know. We haven’t gotten a chance to see his skills yet, really. But we’ve seen that he can slam a dude’s lights out, so that’s something pretty sweet on its own.
Leavitt’s slam was awesome, yes. Jamahal Hill looked great. Louis Smolka had a SWEET judo throw into a ground-and-pound win over Jose Alberto Quinonez. I haven’t even mentioned Gabriel Benitez, who hit Justin Jaynes with a knee to the liver so hard that Jaynes flew across the cage like he had gotten hit by a Ford Taurus.
There were some really great performances and moments on the UFC undercard Saturday. But maybe no one guy looked more LEGIT than Georgian featherweight Ilia Topuria. After signing up on short notice to dispatch the talented Youssef Zalal in his UFC debut in October, Topuria returned on Saturday to face a test in veteran submission machine Damon Jackson, and stayed undefeated by dispatching Jackson in less than three minutes.
Georgia might be becoming the new Dagestan for the decade of the 2020s. Fighters like Merab Dvalishvili and Giga Chikadze have had breakout 2020 campaigns – now, here comes Topuria, who looked very, very dangerous with his hands on Saturday. Topuria decimated Jackson with slick combos, tearing him apart with body blows before staggering him with a big left hook and blasting his lights out with an overhand right.
It was as clean a boxing performance as you’ll see. Topuria absolutely beat his ass. And while it’s going to take a while for Topuria to rise to the top at 145 – featherweight is INSANELY deep – he can benefit from the opportunity provided by these weaker cards. Without many big names overshadowing them, performances like Topuria’s sparkle even more.
In the end, I’d rather see big fights. But at the end of the day, I’m glad I got to see Ilia Topuria kick Damon Jackson’s ass. I hope to see him do that again.
The Big Fight 