Another fight weekend is in the books, and it was a great one. Bellator led off on Thursday with a title change, as Juliana Velasquez outpointed Ilima-Lei Macfarlane to take the flyweight championship.
Then, on Saturday, Deiveson Figueiredo and Brandon Moreno went to war for five unforgettable rounds in a Fight of the Year main event, with Figueiredo retaining the title by way of a majority draw. Meanwhile, Charles “Do Bronx” Oliveira continued the run of his life with the win of his life, big-brothering Tony Ferguson for three rounds and possibly putting himself directly in line for a lightweight title shot.
I’ll have more about both fights this week. But for now, as always, here’s a look at three fighters outside the main event who boosted their stock this weekend.
For almost everyone on this planet, 2020 has been just about the worst year any of us have ever experienced. But for Kevin Holland? 2020’s treated him pretty goddamn well. The brash, trash-talking middleweight sniper from Southern California has run away with the title of Breakthrough Fighter of the Year, and continued his astonishing rise to stardom with the biggest win of his career on Saturday.
At UFC 256, Holland faced the universally respected veteran Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, the former Strikeforce world champion and one of the most celebrated grapplers in mixed martial arts history. It was the single biggest opportunity of Holland’s career. And when Jacare got Holland to the ground almost right away, you could see danger incoming for the talented 28-year-old. He was obviously expecting it: the ringside mics caught Holland telling Jacare with the Brazilian in his guard, “I had a dream about this.”
I wonder if that dream included Holland knocking Souza unconscious while sitting on his ass. Because what he proceeded to do was absolutely outrageous:
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a knockout quite like that in my entire life, but every time Holland steps in the cage, you know you’re going to get something special. 2020 has been the Year of Kevin Holland – he’s the fighter most made for the empty arenas of the COVID age, as it’s allowed TV viewers to hear Holland talk his way through every fight. Although sports in general have suffered from the lack of atmosphere caused by having no fans in the crowd, Holland’s fights are actually enhanced. A Kevin Holland fight has become a can’t-miss event.
The Souza fight was the moment where Kevin Holland went from being an entertaining prospect to a real UFC star. And one could see Holland making the leap to being a true, big-time pay-per-view draw. He’s young. He’s talented. He’s exciting. He’s bold, charismatic and talks a lot of shit. He’s been almost omnipresent throughout 2020, putting up highlights left and right. And something memorable seems to happen every single time he’s out there.
2020 was the year where Kevin Holland turned into one of the UFC’s must-watch fighters. And after what he just did against a fighter with the resume of Jacare Souza, 2021 and beyond may hold much, much more.
In a sense, Ciryl Gane’s 2020 was the inverse of Kevin Holland’s. Both entered the year among the most talented prospects in their weight classes. But while Holland fought almost nonstop throughout 2020, the French heavyweight was absolutely snakebit. Gane had four scheduled fights fizzle out throughout the year, and entered Saturday’s card off a year-long layoff that was a creation of nothing more than bad luck.
But both are finishing 2020 on the same note. Holland capped off his career year by knocking out the biggest-name opponent of his career. And Gane capped off a year that was almost entirely lost by, you guessed it, knocking out the biggest-name opponent of his career.
That’s former UFC heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos, older and slower but still a dangerous striker in the cage, getting drilled off his feet by a vicious Gane elbow. Now, the elbow certainly appeared to hit the back of JDS’s head, and there was a debate raging after the fight ended over whether the blow should have been deemed illegal or whether JDS turned into it.
Let’s take that out of account. Watching that fight, I had little doubt that even if Gane never landed that elbow, he would have wound up knocking JDS regardless. The former French national Muay Thai champion showed just how cultured his striking game is on Saturday, and against a veteran knockout artist who still packs a punch, he was in control for every second of the stand-up.
JDS entered the fight off a three-fight losing streak, but those defeats came against three of the elite of the elite at heavyweight: Francis Ngannou, Curtis Blaydes and Jairzinho Rozenstruik. Now, Ciryl Gane is in that pretty star-studded company. Gane dominated the range with his sharp and varied kicks, while dos Santos – one of the best pure boxers in MMA history, but lacking the same explosion that helped carry him to a world title nine years ago – simply couldn’t get inside Gane’s reach.
Gane whacked him with kicks to the legs, kicks to the body, and the occasional kick to the head. Then, when he sensed his opportunity, he really let those hands go, and JDS was done in a flash. In a heavyweight division that is historically one of the UFC’s shallowest, a win like that will go a long way.
There may not be a single more promising rising heavyweight in the world than Gane, who’s knocking out former world champions just over two years after making his pro debut. He’s hell on the feet, and he’s shown a willingness to grapple and an adept submission game already in his UFC career. In a division that’s often dominated by older fighters, he’s relatively young and fresh, and it feels like his ceiling isn’t yet in sight.
Let’s just hope we don’t have to wait another year to see Gane back in the cage.
UFC 256 was a card full of what I call sleeper fights: bouts that may not have tremendous name value to a casual fan, but that looked extremely interesting to the hardcore. But one fight felt like was slept on even by the UFC: a lightweight clash between Kazakh bomber Rafael Fiziev and talented Brazilian Renato Moicano, which seemed poised to deliver action but was bumped from its spot on the main card in the week before the show.
It wasn’t a travesty of justice or anything – its replacement, a strawweight fight between ranked contenders Mackenzie Dern and Virna Jandiroba, featured two of the best grapplers in mixed martial arts and ultimately turned into a wild, fun kickboxing match. But I was anticipating Fiziev-Moicano as much as any fight on the show.
I just had a feeling that it portended violence. And boy, did it!
That’s Fiziev knocking Moicano out cold with maybe the crispest combination of 2020: a left hook to the body, a right hook to the jaw that stunned Moicano, and finally a left hook up top that sent the Brazilian crashing to the canvas. There were plenty of great moments of pure violence on UFC 256 – Cub Swanson‘s KO of Daniel Pineda, Gane’s elbow on JDS, Kevin Holland, the entire main event – but none was cleaner, none more picturesque.
It looks like something out of a boxing instructional DVD. And that knockout was the logical conclusion of everything that took place over the first round of that fight. Fiziev throws everything so hard, with such malice, while also staying composed and technical on the feet. Moicano is no joke – he beat guys like Calvin Kattar, Jeremy Stephens and Swanson before moving up from 145 – but it felt like only a matter of time before Fiziev put his lights out.
Fiziev is rapidly becoming one of the most must-see rising stars in what’s traditionally the UFC’s deepest division, lightweight. Now, he’s got his signature highlight. Keep a keen eye on this guy.
The Big Fight 