Another fight weekend is in the books. This week’s slate of MMA bouts was headlined by another UFC Fight Night show on ESPN+ Saturday, which turned out to be one of the dullest nights of UFC action we’ve seen in a little while. However, the main event turned out to be a successful showcase for rising heavyweight star Ciryl Gane, who earned the biggest win of his career with a one-sided decision win over top-five contender Jairzinho Rozenstruik.
I’ll have more this week about Gane’s arrival and what it means for the UFC heavyweight landscape. For now, though, here’s a look at three fighters outside the main event who boosted their stock on Saturday.
The two big fights of the UFC’s Saturday show featured two of my favorite rising contenders in the world. For his part, Ciryl Gane delivered in the main event: although it wasn’t particularly action-packed (for that I blame Jairzinho Rozenstruik’s complete refusal to engage or put any pressure on Gane), Gane fought circles around his highly ranked opponent, controlling the distance all night long en route to an easy 50-45 decision.
Gane had little resistance as he jabbed and low-kicked Rozenstruik all the way to the end zone. In the co-main, however, terrific light heavyweight counter-striker Magomed Ankalaev didn’t have it so easy. After reeling off five straight wins mostly against strikers who played into his hands, Ankalaev was given a very meaningful test: veteran grappler Nikita Krylov, who would challenge Ankalaev’s ability to defend against a high-level fighter who had no intentions of staying on the feet.
Ankalaev was going to be dragged into deep waters he hadn’t yet swam in so far in his UFC career, and he was going to have to display the mental toughness required to be a true contender. And while I’ve seen Magomed Ankalaev put on some great performances and highlights so far in his UFC career, I came away from his fight with Krylov more impressed with him than I was before.
Krylov came in with exactly the gameplan almost everyone expected: take Ankalaev down, frustrate him, and either find a submission or bully his way to a decision. And he was initially successful: Krylov unanimously took the first round after throwing Ankalaev out of rhythm on the feet, taking him down and controlling him for much of the frame.
Ankalaev’s back was up against the wall, and he knew that Krylov would be coming right after him again in the second and third. So Ankalaev dug in his heels and relied on his own wrestling – a skill he hasn’t had to employ much in the Octagon – to take the fight over. Ankalaev scored several big shots with his right hand in the final two rounds but won both frames with takedowns and top pressure, bringing down steady ground-and-pound and turning the whole fight around to win a unanimous decision.
Ankalaev was facing a tough-as-nails grappler who was going to try to ruthlessly exploit what was perceived to be his weakness. Instead, Ankalaev flipped all that right on its head, and found a way to win. This is mixed martial arts at the highest level: you can’t just be good at one thing and survive. Ankalaev showed that he’s more than a heavy-handed knockout artist – he can dig deep, go out of his comfort zone, and grit out a W against top competition.
In showing that he has that in his bag, Ankalaev graduated from being a top prospect or an interesting young challenger. He’s now a legit top-10 contender. He’s coming for some of the very best in the world. I think that’s worth a lot more than a big highlight.
UFC Vegas 20 had a few pretty interesting fights on it, but action-wise, it was one of the weaker UFC shows we’ve seen in a while. Out of the nine fights that ended up taking place – the show had upwards of nine bouts scheduled for the show at one time or another that ended up having to be canceled or rescheduled – only one ended up with a finish, and even that came midway through the third round of a pretty one-sided affair.
There were a lot of complaints about the lack of action in the main event, and quite a few of the other fights on the card were relatively dull. But one of the show’s big fights really came through: fourth from the top, a battle between top-10 bantamweights Pedro Munhoz and Jimmie Rivera absolutely ruled.
Munhoz is legitimately one of the top bantamweights in the world, an explosive finishing threat both standing and on the ground, but he’s fallen on some misfortune lately: after knocking out former champ Cody Garbrandt for the biggest win of his career, Munhoz had lost a decision against top contender Aljamain Sterling, took over a year off, and then ended up on the wrong side of a very controversial split decision against Frankie Edgar last August.
Then, you have Rivera, a double-tough veteran who had also lost a few against some of the elite of the elite. Both came in fighting to maintain their contender status, and they battled like it: the pair went toe-to-toe for 15 minutes in a striking battle that easily pulled away with Fight of the Night honors.
In the end, it was Munhoz who avenged a 2015 split decision loss to Rivera, battering his opponent with calf kicks and taking the fight over in the last two rounds to win a unanimous nod. The calf kick has taken over MMA striking to a crazy degree over the last few years, and Munhoz employed it viciously from the opening bell, swelling Rivera’s lead leg up and slowing him down drastically.
We’ve seen time and again a fighter eat a ton of calf kicks and then turn into a sitting duck. Rivera is too bad of a dude to let that happen: the karate black belt doubled down, battled through the pain and kept throwing leather, and Munhoz was more than happy to trade with him, blow for blow. From the first minute of the fight it was energizing to witness the absolute heat both of these fighters were throwing, and that never stopped, even after Rivera’s left leg swelled up.
Munhoz-Rivera was an oasis of super-entertaining MMA on a show that was usually much less than that. In the end, it was Munhoz who took home a very important win, setting the pace of the fight first and using a more effective gameplan on the feet to win the battle. 135 is a shark tank, and Munhoz needed that win badly. That it came in such a fun fight to watch, and earned him a bonus for his troubles, is only icing on the cake.
So, like I said, only one finish out of nine fights on Saturday. UFC fighters combined to hit .111 – that’ll get you sent to the minor leagues. As Urijah Faber once said to Dominick Cruz, “it’s a simulated death match, and you haven’t simulated anyone’s death yet.” But at the very least, the one simulated death we did get on Saturday was pretty dang impressive.
28-year-old Tennessean bantamweight Ronnie Lawrence made his UFC debut on Saturday, after earning a spot through Dana White’s Contender Series last September. He came into the night with a reputation as a dogged, if unproven, wrestler with a strong gas tank. His matchup with Vince Cachero, a solid regional fighter who had dropped his UFC debut last August, was an appropriate test for his standing.
Lawrence was a pretty well regarded young fighter going into the night, and he looked impressive on the Contender Series, but I try not to extrapolate much from Contender Series fights. There’s just such a difference between that and fighting on a real UFC show, against opponents with higher caliber of skills and experience, with the world watching. But in this case, Ronnie Lawrence just showed up and beat some ass.
Lawrence took Cachero down, beat up his lead leg, and generally kept making Cachero’s life miserable the whole fight. The biggest highlight, even more so than the finish, was the very beginning of the third round: Lawrence sent Cachero flying with a leg kick, jumped on him with an instant flurry of punches, then, for shits and giggles, decided to just plant him with a German suplex.
You better have a ton of energy if you’re fighting at 135, but to do that in the third round was impressive even for a UFC bantamweight. Lawrence didn’t slow down either: he kept peppering Cachero with punches until referee Jerin Valel finally stepped in a couple minutes later, in what was probably a pretty late stoppage. It was an unanswered fifty-punch combo to the head that finally did the deed. It seemed like Lawrence could have gone another hundred before his arms got tired.
So yeah, not a ton to write home about on Saturday. Ronnie Lawrence, though, maybe worth at least a text message home. I’d keep an eye on this one.
The Big Fight 