Another fight weekend is here, baby, and we love to see it. This weekend has plenty of great action, featuring a UFC pay-per-view on Saturday night, the return of Bellator on CBS Sports Network on Thursday, and another ONE show that’ll go up on YouTube on Friday.
We’re right on track for some awesome fights. And as always, here’s a look at the three fights I’ll be watching closest in the next couple days:
Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno, UFC 256
Listen, man: if headlining two UFC pay-per-views in a row and saturating the sports world with violent highlights doesn’t make a guy a superstar, I don’t know what will. I didn’t expect Deiveson Figueiredo to become The Protagonist of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in 2020, but you won’t catch me complaining. Figueiredo could cement a very, very strong case for Fighter of the Year on Saturday, if he can retain his title against the consensus No. 1 flyweight contender in the UFC.
Figueiredo is making significant history with his quick turnaround. Figueiredo submitted Alex Perez just three weeks ago at the UFC’s last pay-per-view, UFC 255. On Saturday, he’ll become the first UFC fighter since Tito Ortiz in 2005 to main event consecutive pay-per-views. Except, Ortiz did it before the UFC started running monthly pay-per-views – the Huntington Beach city councilman’s wins over Patrick Cote and Vitor Belfort were about three and a half months apart. Figueiredo is doing something that has never been done before.
If he can beat Moreno, he’ll also put a bow on what might be the greatest single year for a flyweight in the history of mixed martial arts. Figueiredo has fought three times with gold on the line and won via first- or second-round finish all three times. He’s able to take this fight on such a short turnaround because he needed only two minutes to dispatch Perez. He’s threatening to open up quite a large gap between himself and the rest of the 125-pound division.
I’ve written plenty about Figueiredo over the last few weeks, obviously. He seems like the flyweight division’s best chance at the kind of great star that makes the division relevant to the average fan. He’s quite possibly the most physically powerful 125-pounder in history, and he’s death everywhere in the cage. He can knock you out cold with a single shot. He can choke you clean out in a moment. He’s a force of nature that’s something to behold.
Beating a fighter the caliber of Brandon Moreno would be one hell of a way to cap off 2020 for Figueiredo. Moreno is also coming off the same three-week layoff as Figueiredo, having TKOed the brilliantly talented Brandon Royval on the undercard of UFC 255. The fight with Figueiredo was agreed that night, only hours after Figueiredo finished off Perez. It’s so fun to see things come together like that, especially when it’s for such a deserving challenger.
The 27-year-old Mexican has had his own unique road to the main event. Moreno was the 16-seed of the Ultimate Fighter flyweight tournament in 2016 and lost in the first round. He signed a legit UFC contract afterward, did well early, but dropped a couple in a row – to Sergio Pettis and Alexandre Pantoja, hardly bums – and was released in the flyweight cutdown of 2018. He made it back to the UFC the next year and hasn’t lost since. (One may note that one of those victories came over Jussier Formiga, the only man to ever beat Figueiredo. However, Formiga also lost relatively recently to Alex Perez and Joseph Benavidez, who have both since become victims of the champion’s unrestrained bloodlust. The lesson, as always, is that MMAth isn’t real.)
Moreno isn’t the pure physical force that Figueiredo is, but he’s got some pop of his own, and fights with a fast pace and high level of aggression. Moreno, at least on paper, should give Figueiredo a test of how he handles a powerful fighter who’s going to be in his face. Moreno asserted himself with his grappling as well against Royval, timing his takedowns beautifully and ultimately blasting Royval to pieces with hammerfists from the top.
It seems like so long ago that Figueiredo was supposed to fight Cody Garbrandt. In the end, Moreno has emerged as a very worthy challenger, and we should all be happy that things ended up this way. And with Moreno’s skillset and willingness to bring the fight to his opponents, he might have the best chance of anyone at 125 of really troubling Figueiredo – outside of undefeated Russian grappler Askar Askarov, with whom Moreno fought to a draw in his return to the UFC last year.
But if Figueiredo wins, and especially if he does it in the way we’ve become accustomed to seeing, it’s time to turn the hype machine all the way up. We may see a real UFC superstar born on Saturday.
Tony Ferguson vs. Charles Oliveira, UFC 256
Any list of “Greatest UFC fighters to never hold an undisputed title” that doesn’t start with Tony Ferguson should be thrown in the trash. Ferguson has been one of the pillars of the UFC’s deepest division for nearly a decade, gifting fight fans with so many incredible moments and memories. Now, he’s fighting to prove that he’s still one of the best in the world.
From May 2012 until May of this year, Ferguson went on an eight-year, 12-fight undefeated streak that should put him in any legitimate Hall of Fame of this sport. Ultimately, however, the fates cruelly aligned against him ever reaching the mountaintop. Although Ferguson won an interim UFC lightweight title in 2017, injuries and bad luck kept him from ever fighting for the undisputed belt – the long-awaited fight with Khabib Nurmagomedov was infamously booked and then canceled five separate times, and with Khabib’s retirement, most likely will never happen.
Still, Ferguson has to be considered one of the all-time great lightweights, and he’s done it in a way completely his own. I once saw Ferguson described as “100% creative offense, 0% defense, and a ridiculous chin.” I think that sums him up pretty well. Inside the cage, Ferguson’s brain simply does not operate in the same way anyone else’s does. There really has never been anyone quite like him.
My favorite Tony fight has always been his unforgettable two-round war with former champion Anthony Pettis in Oct. 2018, a brawl that left both fighters bloodied and resembled two 12-year-olds mashing buttons in a game of Tekken. It’s Tony Ferguson at his most Tony Ferguson. Early in the second round – one of the most gripping rounds of fighting I’ve ever seen – Ferguson gets dropped by a right hand and responds by SOMERSAULTING AWAY LIKE A DARK SOULS CHARACTER. Only one man in the history of the world would respond to an instinctual, fight-or-flight scenario in that way: Tony Ferguson.
Ferguson was born for battle. He’s an absolute psycho who just loves this shit. But the crucial part of the phrase “100% offense, 0% defense, and a ridiculous chin” is “0% defense.” Watch any Tony Ferguson fight, and you’ll see Tony take a beating. That’s just how he fights. He’ll absorb a big blow to land one of his own. He’s one of the most uncommonly tough fighters ever, but one can only take so many shots before eventually feeling the effects. And in May, Tony’s celebrated streak was finally snapped against Justin Gaethje, in a bout where Ferguson sustained a ton of damage over almost five full rounds before succumbing to a late TKO.
It was the kind of beatdown that left one wondering whether Ferguson would ever really be the same. Saturday will be his chance to show he still is that guy. It’ll be no easy task. In Charles “Do Bronx” Oliveira, Ferguson will be facing one of the most dangerous submission specialists in UFC history, who will be motivated for the single biggest opportunity of his career.
Oliveira has been fighting in the UFC for over a decade, having debuted as an undefeated 20-year-old in Aug. 2010. He’s had plenty of ups and downs since, but he’s always been fun to watch. No one has scored more submission wins inside the Octagon than Oliveira – his 14 subs over the last decade are an all-time UFC record – and since moving back to 155 full-time in 2017, he’s been on the run of his life.
Oliveira has won seven straight fights, all by finish, most recently tapping out top-10 contender Kevin Lee in March in the last UFC event held before the COVID shutdown. His fight with Lee was a brilliant showcase of Oliveira’s skill on the ground, as he expertly chained submissions together – at one point, he slickly transitioned between an armbar, an omoplata and a triangle choke, all in like 30 seconds – before he finished Lee with a guillotine. He’s won with six different kinds of submissions in the UFC: guillotine, armbar, rear-naked choke, triangle choke, anaconda choke, and a sick reverse calf slicer he pulled on Eric Wisely in 2012.
But while he’s a third-degree BJJ black belt and his submission acumen will always be his calling card, over the years he’s developed better striking and learned to pace himself better, priming him for the best run of his professional career. Oliveira has developed into a fine mixed martial artist, he’s hit his prime, and this is his chance.
With a win, Oliveira could be on track for the first title opportunity of his long UFC career. Ferguson has similarly weighty stakes for his own career. This is a good one.
Ilima-Lei Macfarlane vs. Juliana Velasquez, Bellator 254
There are several other UFC fights I’m tempted to write about here: although UFC 256 has lost a few fights due to injury and COVID, there are still plenty of fights that will really arouse the interest of hardcore fans. But on Thursday night, in their first event in a few weeks, Bellator is giving us maybe the best women’s fight they can give us, and one of the best outside of the UFC. I’ll take that any week.
If you don’t know the name Ilima-Lei Macfarlane, it’s understandable. The only female fighter on Bellator’s roster who has any sort of mainstream name recognition is probably Cris Cyborg, the former UFC champion and perhaps the single most feared female mixed martial artist in history. But Macfarlane, Bellator’s undefeated flyweight champion, has built up a resume as one of the very best pound-for-pound women in the sport today, and she deserves to step into the spotlight.
The 30-year-old Hawaiian was originally a top-notch high school wrestler who joined Liz Carmouche‘s MMA gym as a way to get in shape before grad school. She swiftly turned into one of the most dominant grapplers in mixed martial arts, winning Bellator’s world title in her seventh pro fight and showcasing a fantastic submission acumen at every possible opportunity.
Along the way, we’ve seen Macfarlane continue to grow and seemingly get better and better every time she steps into the cage. But she’s never faced a challenge like Juliana Velasquez, an unbeaten Brazilian who has the skills to challenge her everywhere. Macfarlane likely won’t be able to dominate Velasquez in the grappling game – Velasquez is a judo black belt who held a spot on Brazil’s national team – and Velasquez has developed a slick southpaw striking game that could give Macfarlane all kinds of problems.
Macfarlane has often won by exploiting the sizable difference between her strength and skill in the clinch and on the ground, but such a difference won’t necessarily exist in this fight. The deciding factor may be how much Macfarlane has drilled on the feet over the course of her year-long layoff since she beat Kate Jackson last December. Even before the pandemic, we had seen Macfarlane continually make strides in her striking game – against Velasquez, those strides will become key.
Interestingly, Velasquez actually enters the fight as the betting favorite despite initially opening as an underdog. That’s more of a referendum on how high everyone is on Velasquez than it is a slight on Macfarlane, but it’s still a little surprising all the same. And it should be another indicator of the stakes: the winner will be considered one of the best pound-for-pound women on Earth. That’s worth tuning in for.
Honorable mentions: Renato Moicano vs. Rafael Fiziev, Kevin Holland vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Junior dos Santos vs. Ciryl Gane, Mackenzie Dern vs. Virna Jandiroba, Billy Quarantillo vs. Gavin Tucker, UFC 256; Magomed Magomedov vs. Matheus Mattos, Bellator 254
The Big Fight 