Another fight weekend is here, baby, and we love to see it. The UFC is back on Saturday night with another ESPN+ card from the Apex in Las Vegas, as our last stop before the insanely stacked UFC 259 pay-per-view next week that looks to be the most loaded card of the year. This one doesn’t look too bad itself: a main event featuring two top heavyweights and a few more interesting bouts.
So, as usual, here’s a look at the three fights I’ll be watching closest on Saturday night.
Jairzinho Rozenstruik vs. Ciryl Gane
At long last, we’re getting some real movement in the heavyweight division. It started earlier this month with Alexander Volkov‘s cruel detonation of the legendary Alistair Overeem, elevating the Russian to a lofty place in the UFC’s heavyweight heirarchy. Last week featured three important big boy bouts: Derrick Lewis‘ massive knockout win over Curtis Blaydes and crucial wins for rising prospects Chris Daukaus and Tom Aspinall, who look to be major factors sooner rather than later.
This week’s main event is yet another, as we lead up to the Stipe Miocic–Francis Ngannou title rematch later this spring. It features two more of the most important heavyweights the division has to offer, potential future title challengers who have reached an elite level in a relatively short time fighting in the UFC.
And it has the potential to be a massive springboard for a young man who could be the future of the division. A professional mixed martial artist for less than three years, 30-year-old Frenchman Ciryl Gane has rapidly become one of the division’s golden boys, having gone from MMA neophyte to top 10 in the world faster than almost anyone I can remember: he has just seven pro fights to his belt, and he’s looked exceptional in all of them.
Saturday’s fight will be the first main event of Gane’s UFC career, and his opportunity to put himself right in the thick of the title hunt. The former French Muay Thai champion had no less than four scheduled bouts canceled for various reasons throughout 2020, but when he finally got into the cage in December, he scored a knockout of former world champion Junior dos Santos that made a lot of people believers.
It was a revelatory performance from Gane, proving that he was already ready for the big time. Facing one of the best pure boxers in MMA history – and still a dangerous man at 36 years old – Gane barely allowed dos Santos to touch him, effortlessly controlling the range with a variety of kicks that kept his opponent right where he wanted him. Then, when he sensed his moment arriving, he let his hands go and finished him with no mercy.
Gane is athletic and cut at 248 pounds, has terrific technical and powerful striking, and has shown that he’s a willing grappler with a surprisingly slick submission game. Time will tell whether he has the kind of next-level strength and intangibles one needs to overcome Stipe Miocic, but skill-wise, he looks like a superstar in the making at heavyweight.
That’s what makes this matchup with Jairzinho Rozenstruik so interesting. Gane’s four UFC wins have, admittedly, come against fighters outside of the rankings, or stars past their peak. This is the first time Gane is coming up against someone this hungry, this talented, in their prime. Rozenstruik is a different level of challenge from what Gane’s faced so far, and on a bigger stage – and, by the way, he also knocked out Junior dos Santos the last time he was in the cage.
Rozenstruik is himself a former professional kickboxer who competed in that sport at a relatively high level before switching to MMA full-time in 2017. He was in the UFC two years later, and started his career in the cage on a four-fight knockout streak that elevated himself to the heavyweight elite relatively quickly. The ludicrously powerful Ngannou bum-rushed him in a 20-second knockout last May, but he’s still just a win or two away from being right around the title picture again.
Rozenstruik has shown thumping power in his fists throughout his MMA career, the kind of true one-punch pop that it seems like you need to thrive at the top level at heavyweight. When he really comes at you and lets the hands go, it’s a frightening prospect to deal with – his kickboxing background has given him good striking technique and a good eye for angles. But Rozenstruik often functions for long periods as a relatively static counter-striker, as we saw throughout most of his fights with dos Santos and Overeem, where he was heading to a unanimous decision loss before landing a Hail Mary right hand with less than 10 seconds to go.
What Ngannou did to Rozenstruik may not be replicable by anybody except for Ngannou, but Rozenstruik seems like the kind of fighter you can outwork for the balance of a fight if you can avoid being touched on the chin. It feels like Gane, who’s longer and has shown a lot of ability to control the range, could do just that on Saturday. If he does, we’ll be witness to the making of a new heavyweight star.
Nikita Krylov vs. Magomed Ankalaev
Saturday could also see the making of a new star at light heavyweight as well. Magomed Ankalaev really should be a perfect 6-0 in the UFC: the 28-year-old Russian was winning his fight against Scottish triangle choke specialist Paul Craig in his Octagon debut in March 2018 when he got caught in Craig’s trademark triangle in the closing seconds of the fight, and seemingly losing track of how much time was left in the bout, he tapped with just one second remaining.
Had he held on for just that one more second, he’d be 15-0 in his pro career and undoubtedly one of the hottest names at 205 – Craig was a very tough draw for a UFC debut, and is now in the top 15 himself. Still, Ankalaev is getting there anyway. He’s reeled off five straight wins since the Craig fight, with four KOs, and he’s establishing himself as one of the UFC’s premier counter-strikers.
Ankalaev’s 2020 was dominated by a weirdo rivalry with another talented young light heavyweight, the powerful and aggressive Ion Cutelaba. Ankalaev and Cutelaba first faced off in Norfolk, Va. in February, which ended when referee Kevin MacDonald waved the fight off in one of the most head-scratching stoppages in UFC history, after Ankalaev wobbled – but didn’t drop – Cutelaba just 38 seconds in.
A rematch was obvious, but the second meeting between the two fighters was scheduled and postponed three separate times in 2020 due to COVID. When they finally got in the cage on October, however, Ankalaev finished the job he started in February: Ion Cutelaba, unconscious on the floor.
Cutelaba was the exact kind of fighter that plays into Ankalaev’s hands: the Russian is exceptional at reading his opponent’s entries and bashing them without getting hit, and he’s got big power in both his hands and his feet. Cutelaba wants to go right after his opponents, and Ankalaev was glad to let him take the lead. It jived with everything we’ve seen from Ankalaev in the UFC. You don’t want to get in his range, because while you may start the exchange, he’s going to finish it.
I get the feeling Nikita Krylov won’t be nearly as willing to do exactly what Ankalaev wants. Krylov has seemingly been around forever but he’s still just 28 years old – he made his UFC debut at heavyweight in 2013, when he was just 21, after he had fought SIXTEEN times in the preceding year. Krylov has since rounded into a strong, top-10 light heavyweight, not quite title material but a difficult out for anyone in the world.
Krylov comes from a karate background but has made his name as an excellent submission specialist – if he can tie you up, you better watch your neck. Krylov has knockout power but he’s shown that his first option is aggressive top-control grappling, and when all else fails, he’s shown in recent years that he has no issue just taking you down and holding you there until the time is up. That’s what he did his last time out against the once-hyped Johnny Walker, controlling him completely en route to the first decision win of his career.
Krylov, whose only losses in his most recent UFC run are against current champ Jan Blachowicz and top contender Glover Teixeira, is the organization’s most underrated man at light heavyweight, and he’s equipped to attack Ankalaev in a way he hasn’t been attacked before. If the talented young Russian can find his way past this challenge, we’ll know he’s absolutely for real.
Pedro Munhoz vs. Jimmie Rivera
UFC 258, held at the UFC Apex two weeks ago, turned out to be one of the weakest pay-per-view cards the organization has put on in years. While the welterweight world title main event between Kamaru Usman and Gilbert Burns thankfully survived, almost every interesting undercard bout was canceled, and most were postponed to future shows. One of those was a bantamweight fight between veteran contenders Pedro Munhoz and Jimmie Rivera, two fighters who are trying to prove that they haven’t hit their ceiling.
Munhoz enters the fight at No. 8, having had his rise halted by consecutive decision losses to Aljamain Sterling and Frankie Edgar. Rivera, No. 9 at bantamweight, started 5-0 in his UFC career but has lost three of his last four at 135, with defeats to Marlon Moraes, Sterling and now-champion Petr Yan. Those are all losses to the elite of the elite, but they’re losses all the same. Something drastic needs to change for either of these men if they want to dispel the narrative that they aren’t quite good enough to beat the best.
And if someone has the potential to do something drastic, you figure it’s probably Munhoz. The Brazilian’s split decision defeat against Edgar last August was relatively controversial: although Edgar largely outlanded him, Munhoz hit the bigger power shots and many, including myself, felt like he deserved the nod. A Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, Munhoz has shown that he has heavy hands and he can crack with the best of them. In March 2019, he put himself on the brink of a bantamweight title shot with a knockout of Cody Garbrandt, exploiting the former world champion’s shambolic boxing defense in one of the wildest brawls you’ll ever see.
Munhoz has displayed the explosive ability to end a fight, a strong chin and good endurance, and it feels like he’s gotten something of a bad rap in falling out of the limelight the way he has. I still believe in him. But Rivera has historically proven to be extremely good at neutralizing talented fighters and winning decisions, having made what often isn’t the most action-packed style work for him.
Rivera is a smart counter-puncher with some of the best takedown defense you’ll find anywhere in MMA. No one in the history of the UFC bantamweight division has been harder to put on the ground than Rivera: his 95.5% takedown defense is No. 1 all-time, and he’s spent a total of 21 seconds in bottom position in his UFC career. Rivera has thrived in relatively low-output fights, controlling the pace and solving his opponent – he even doing it to Yan in their meeting in June 2019, but the Russian landed a pair of knockdowns that ended up winning him the decision.
Munhoz has the greater potential to catch fire with some big highlights, but Rivera has shown that he’s cerebral and strong enough to compete with the very best. Neither of these guys deserve to be in danger of falling out of the top 10, but that’s the way it goes at one of the world’s deepest divisions. As it turns out, both of these guys are kind of up against it. I’m looking forward to seeing wherever this one goes.
The Big Fight 