One of the most fun parts of mixed martial arts is watching athletes fight their way up from the undercard to the main event. Seeing a young prospect coming in on the ground floor then grow over the years into a legitimate superstar – there’s nothing like it. And in 2021, the UFC has plenty of candidates to rise up the ladder in a big way.
Near the top of my list of potential UFC breakout stars this year is featherweight Giga Chikadze, but I already wrote about my high hopes for him earlier this week. Today, I’m going to focus on five other rising fighters who you could see hit the big-time by the end of this year.
After a few years in the wilderness, the UFC flyweight division enters 2021 absolutely spoiling with young talent. As I’ve already written about several times, almost the entirety of the 125-pound top 10 is 30 years old or younger, and exciting to boot. But it’s possible that the UFC’s best prospect at 125 isn’t in the top 10 – hell, he hasn’t even officially made his UFC debut yet. His name is Manel Kape, and the guy is a killer.
Kape is the second former RIZIN champion stolen away by the UFC in the last couple years. Light heavyweight Jiri Prochazka has wasted little time inserting himself into the title conversation at 205 pounds, and Kape will have the same chance at 125. The Angolan enters the UFC having already been tested against some of the world’s very best – his record includes names like Kyoji Horiguchi, Kai Asakura, Ian McCall and Takeya Mizugaki – and at 27 years old, he has so much time left to grow.
Kape fought in RIZIN’s 130-pound bantamweight division, but is expected to have little issue making 125. He’s got experience on the big stage, as well – his last fight came in the main event of RIZIN’s biggest show ever to that point, the 2019 New Year’s Eve show, where he stunned the Japanese crowd by knocking Asakura out and taking the title.
They’re not gonna let him fight in shoes in the Octagon, but his outlook is still very strong. Kape’s fighting style was made for the big time. Athletic and a little bit cocky, Kape has developed his striking a great deal over the last couple years, tapping into his natural speed and power and becoming much more polished and dangerous. It’s not often that someone can stand in with Kai Asakura and match his hand speed, but Kape did that and more in their 2019 fight, staying cool under fire and countering Asakura’s rushes with laser punches. Kape has only looked sharper, more accurate and more difficult to predict in his recent fights, and with his youth, you have to expect the positive trend to continue.
Kape is getting the same treatment Prochazka got – the Czech savage got a chance at an established top contender in his first UFC fight, and knocked out Volkan Oezdemir to put himself right on the map. Kape will get that kind of opportunity in a few weeks against Alexandre Pantoja, a veteran universally regarded as one of the top five or six flyweights in the world.
It shows you the level of respect the UFC has for the competition Kape has been fighting in Japan. Kape’s being put in position to be a big factor right away – with a couple wins, he’ll be right at the top of the heap by the end of the year. Not many debuting fighters get that kind of opportunity. Don’t be surprised if by 2022, we’re previewing Manel Kape and Deiveson Figueiredo.
Heavyweights worth their salt don’t come around super often. You might see only one or two good-looking heavies elevate themselves a year – last year it was Ciryl Gane, two years ago it was Jairzinho Rozenstruik – and that’s if you’re lucky.
So who’s on the radar in 2021? I’d like to submit the name of Tom Aspinall, a big brute from Manchester with a passing resemblance to Frank Mir and a penchant for quick KOs. None of Aspinall’s nine career MMA wins have taken him longer than 1:35 – five of them came inside of a minute. When you watch him fight, you can see why he’s stood out so well in the shallow heavyweight pool.
Maybe it’s shallow of me, but when I look at a heavyweight, one of the first things I look at is their body. Are they a heavyweight because they’re just that size, or are they fat? Too many heavyweights fall into the latter category. That’s not to say that a fat heavyweight can’t thrive – Roy Nelson would have been fighting at 185 if he had ever lost his enormous gut, but had a long and successful career regardless – but it should be noted that a fat guy has never held a UFC heavyweight title.
Tom Aspinall passes the “fat test,” despite weighing in around 250 pounds. He stands 6-foot-5 and looks to be in pretty good shape – not that his gas tank has been tested much so far in his pro career. At the very least, he looks the part. And Aspinall was completely dominant in his two UFC outings in 2020, scoring quick knockouts against Jake Collier and Alan Baudot.
Aspinall’s work has been extremely tidy: he’s very under control, his striking is tight and crisp, and he’s got a nose for the finish. Aspinall knocked Collier out inside a minute with a knee and a sharp one-two, then responded to Baudot’s wild striking by simply taking him down and beating him senseless. There’s no nonsense in Aspinall’s game. No useless noise. Those are the kind of heavyweights that succeed.
It’s obvious the UFC sees that too. Next month, Aspinall is going to get the chance to pass the first gate on the way to stardom: Andrei Arlovski, the former world champion, a fighter of 41 years and 19 losses who’s still tough enough to ruin the ascents of good-looking prospects. A win would be our first real indication that Aspinall is ticketed for big things. If 2021 has a Gane or a Rozenstruik, I think he could be right here.
Only at bantamweight – quite possibly the single deepest division in mixed martial arts – can someone like Raoni Barcelos not be ranked. Barcelos is 5-0 since signing with the UFC in 2018 and has only looked better and better every time he’s been in the Octagon, but still, nothing yet. That’s going to change in 2021.
Barcelos heralded what could be a huge 2021 with a blow-away performance in November against Khalid Taha, brilliantly flowing through diverse and high-level striking, takedowns and submission attempts for 15 minutes en route to a unanimous decision. He looked exceptionally dangerous in every phase and didn’t tire. It was eye-opening – the kind of outing that you’d expect from one of the world’s elite.
Barcelos may be there very soon. At 33 years old, his time is now. A Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt from a lineage of high-level BJJ competitors, Barcelos has competed at an elite level in the grappling art, as well as earning accolades as a wrestler. Since joining the UFC, however, it’s been his technical striking that has been the biggest revelation. In the cage, he looks like a complete package.
There’s much standing in the way between Raoni Barcelos and a world title at bantamweight – like I said, it’s maybe the deepest division in mixed martial arts – and there’s plenty of chances for him to stumble in the coming years. But Barcelos appears to have the total skillset needed to run with the big dogs, and the stage will be set for him to prove it in 2021.
Barcelos will get the chance at his first ranked opponent at the end of February, when he faces No. 10 Raphael Assuncao. It’s the perfect test: Assuncao is an accomplished veteran who has faced almost every elite bantamweight there is, but has lost a few in a row to elite competition and needs to get right. He’ll be the perfect springboard for Barcelos to prove he can hang with a top name. If he gets it done, the rest of the world needs to watch out.
Standing just 5-foot-8, Joaquin Buckley may simply be a bit too small, a bit too compact, to ever be a champion at middleweight. But not everyone can be the top dog. Most fighters would be perfectly happy having a nice, long career, having some sweet highlights, and making some cash. And on that front, Joaquin Buckley looks like a sure thing.
Buckley may have already guaranteed himself a UFC contract for life with his October knockout of Impa Kasanganay that put him on every highlight reel from here until the heat death of the universe. But Buckley has proven that he’s more than just one cool kick. Buckley is a menacing bomb-thrower who brings the violence with every punch, and that’s going to play regardless of what weight class he’s in.
Buckley has fought just three times in the Octagon, and he’s already become a must-see fighter. His spinning kick against Kasanganay was a moment of incredible magic that we may never see again, but we’ll probably see plenty like his ensuing knockout of Jordan Wright – one where Buckley walked his prey down and crushed him with his heavy hands.
Like I said, Buckley may not become a big-time contender in the year 2021. But what he can do is cement his status as the kind of action star that’s always worth tuning in for. Fighters like Clay Guida and Nate Diaz might have only ever had brief windows where they were in the title conversation, if that. But they hung around forever and had lucrative careers and big followings because they were goddamn scrappers who brought the fun every time they were in the cage.
If nothing else, Joaquin Buckley promises to be that kind of fighter, and we could always use more of them. At its core, this is what fighting is all about. In 2021, I think we’ll see Buckley fights become even more of an attraction.
We’ll close this one out with one of my favorite bubbling-under prospects at welterweight, a guy who’s going to start 2021 fighting on the undercard and who by the end of the year we could see get some billing. A 28-year-old BJJ black belt from Philadelphia, Sean Brady has run out a record of 13-0 behind some excellent grappling skills and a ton of physical tools.
Brady is a friend and training partner of UFC mainstay Paul Felder, and in his last outing against Christian Aguilera in August, Felder was on commentary and almost ran out of breath talking about how excellent Brady is. He looked the part, putting Aguilera completely unconscious in the second round with a mounted guillotine choke.
Brady has all the physical qualities you could want – athleticism, strength and quickness – and his choke squeeze is really remarkable. And his striking, which has been considered the weaker part of his game, has so far looked up to snuff against the lower levels of the UFC welterweight division. The time is coming for him to prove himself against real competition.
He’ll get that chance this year. Brady had a fight scheduled with another excellent rising welterweight, Belal Muhammed, in October, but had to pull out with an injury. He’ll be back in March with a new opponent: Jake Matthews, a 26-year-old Australian who’s won six out of his last seven. The bout will be a nice showcase for both fighters, but I think Brady has the better overall potential. 170 is a deep pool, but 2021 is the year where Brady could make some real inroads.
The Big Fight 