Another fight weekend is here, baby, and we love to see it. While the rest of the United States absorbs itself in March Madness, the fight game will be engaged in some real March Badness: the UFC show on Saturday has a fun pair of fights on top, but the rest of the card is about as weak as you’ll see all year. But chin up: we’ve got KSW on Saturday and RIZIN on Sunday as well, so we’ve got plenty of other fights to absorb us if this disappoints.
So, as usual, here’s a look at the three fights I’ll be watching closest this weekend:
Derek Brunson vs. Kevin Holland, UFC Vegas 22
2020 was one hell of a wild year in MMA. It will be remembered as the year of empty arenas, of COVID cancellations, and of constant flux. It will be remembered as the year the great Khabib Nurmagomedov rode off into the sunset. But I’m going to remember it as the year where, completely out of nowhere, middleweight Kevin Holland became the protagonist of the UFC.
In 2020, Holland had the type of year few fighters have ever matched. The 28-year-old tied the UFC record for wins in a calendar year (5), turning heads with his entertaining style and his habit of never, ever shutting the hell up during his fights. He was the fighter perfectly made for the empty arena era – I never want to see him fight with fans in the crowd again, because I want to hear every single thing he says.
Holland entered 2020 as an appealing young middleweight talent searching for his signature moment, and left it as the Breakthrough Fighter of the Year. His combination of skill, style and personality make him potentially one of the UFC’s signature stars. All of that came because he made himself ever-present, and never stopped talking.
Again, Holland won five UFC fights in 2020 – all of them came after the COVID shutdown that interrupted the UFC schedule for two months in the spring, so they were all in an eight-month period between May and December – and every single one was memorable. In May, he knocked out the always-entertaining Anthony Hernandez in 39 seconds; in August, he sent Joaquin Buckley‘s mouthpiece flying with a laser beam of a right hand; the next month, he edged Darren Stewart in an incredibly fun, back-and-forth brawl; on Halloween night he completely destroyed an out-of-his-depth Charlie Ontiveros; and then, in December, he somehow knocked out grappling legend Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza from his back, scoring one of the highlights of the year and the biggest win of his career.
Holland mixes great length for the division with a surprising punching power, a sniper’s accuracy, and a fantastic flair and personality. He’s turned himself into 185’s must-watch young contender. One challenge remains before he puts himself into the realm of the elite: the middleweight division’s ultimate gatekeeper, Derek Brunson.
Brunson has been very well-established in his role: he’s the last hurdle rising middleweights have to clear before they make the big time. He’s persisted in it so long because he’s just that tough to beat. Brunson is an strong wrestle-boxer with an aggressive mindset and punching power, someone who’s going to put pressure on Holland and make him defend.
Brunson has fought just about every top middleweight of the last half-decade, but lately, he looks like he’s turned a corner. In his August dismantling of Edmen Shahbazyan, a hyped, undefeated prospect who had been knocking everyone out in the first minute, Brunson kept up a great pace into the third round, looked sound on the feet, and eventually ground-and-pounded his way to a big win.
The win was Brunson’s third in a row, and while he’s right back in the gatekeeper role for the fight with Holland, it feels like he’s another big win away from getting another opportunity at the top. Brunson is going to ask some important questions of Holland – how will he fare against a physically stronger fighter who wants to get in his face, take him down and bully him?
Whatever happens, Kevin Holland is going to be talking all night. We’ll see if Brunson has what it takes to finally shut him up.
Gregor Gillespie vs. Brad Riddell, UFC Vegas 22
For reasons that should be obvious, there were a number of talented fighters who didn’t compete at all in 2020. It’s been nice to see so many of them get back into the cage in the early months of 2021, but there are few I’m more interested in than lightweight Gregor Gillespie. Gillespie was undefeated and on a five-fight finish streak when he ran into Kevin Lee in Nov. 2019, and Lee brought his hype train to a crashing halt with one of the cleanest head kicks you’ll ever see.
That was the last time we saw Gillespie in the cage, and there seemed to be very few updates on him until the fight with Riddell was announced last month. Gillespie seemed like he was on a rocket bound straight for the top five before Lee slept him – now, we’ll get to see just how well he can bounce back from his first career defeat.
Gillespie is a former Division I national champion wrestler, and he employs his wrestling game heavily, but it’s not to score points or win decisions. Gillespie’s rise was so fun to watch because he fights so aggressively: he’s a master of placing his opponents in helpless positions, where he can crush them with his ground-and-pound or finish them with a submission.
His grappling ability is going to be his ticket to the top – he’s got some punching power on the feet, but Lee exposed some technical deficiencies in his striking. He’ll have to shore those up if he wants to bounce back strong against Brad Riddell, an excellent kickboxer who has emerged as one of the top talents to come out of New Zealand’s City Kickboxing in recent years.
Riddell kickboxed professionally at a reasonably high level for a number of years – he only completely committed himself to MMA exclusively when he signed with the UFC in 2019. The 29-year-old has started off 3-0 in the big show, showcasing his sparkling technical striking and quickness in becoming one of the division’s most interesting prospects.
It’s your classic wrestler vs. striker matchup. Riddell has been taken down multiple times in all three of his UFC fights – Magomed Mustafaev managed to take him down EIGHT times in their fight last February, and somehow still managed to lose a split decision. As we’ve seen many times, getting taken down by Gregor Gillespie is often a one-way ticket to pain.
To beat Gillespie, Riddell is going to have to spark him early on the feet like Lee did, or showcase a higher level of takedown defense than he’s displayed previously. Otherwise, Gillespie has every tool available to turn Riddell into another turnstile on his way back towards the top.
Ayaka Hamasaki vs. Kanna Asakura, RIZIN 27
Hell yes, baby: RIZIN is back! It seems like the MMA world has been inundated with disqualifications, illegal knees and shady moments in the cage recently. I yearn to go back to the good old days, MMA in a ring, soccer kicks to the head, the sport the way it should be. RIZIN has returned to save my soul.
And while RIZIN 27 is lacking a few of the regular RIZIN staples – there’s no appearances from the Asakura brothers, Kyoji Horiguchi, and others – but RIZIN seems incapable of putting on a boring show. And they’ve given us a really good main event, featuring arguably the top 105-pound fighter in the world, the legendary Ayaka Hamasaki, defending the super atomweight title she won in December.
The 38-year-old Hamasaki is arguably the greatest female fighter to never compete in the UFC – she’s always been just a bit small to really compete at a high level at 115, the lowest weight class the UFC has on offer. But the flipside is we get to see her continue to dominate the atomweight division, and display her inventive grappling skills. Check out the unique leg-scissors choke she used to finish off elite wrestler Miyuu Yamamoto to regain the title on New Year’s Eve:
Hamasaki is a second-degree judo black belt who’s seemingly only gotten sharper and more dangerous on the ground as the years have gone on. One of her many submission victims during her excellent RIZIN run is Kanna Asakura, who was a fresh-faced 21-year-old when Hamasaki caught her in an armbar on New Year’s Eve 2018.
The first bout between Hamasaki and Asakura carried the feeling of a student not quite ready to challenge the master. Asakura had some nice moments, but Hamasaki looked stronger all around: always a very game scrapper on the feet to go with her grappling ability, Hamasaki landed the better strikes throughout the two rounds, she owned the clinch, and when the fight did go to the mat she moved through Asakura like a hot knife through butter.
Go back to the lab for a couple years, kid, and then come find me. It’s been over two years since Hamasaki tapped her out in the Saitama Super Arena, and Asakura has done little except continue to build her case as RIZIN’s top young female talent. Asakura has racked up quite a good bit of experience for someone so young – 22 pro fights at the age of 23 – and has won five of six since losing to Hamasaki, most recently leaning on her strong takedown defense and more accurate striking in a tight unanimous decision win over a very frisky Ai Shimizu in December.
Now, we’ll find out if she’s progressed far enough where she can threaten a star of Hamasaki’s caliber. This is one of the best fights possible at this weight class – I can’t wait to see it.
Honorable mentions: Adrian Yanez vs. Gustavo Lopez, Grant Dawson vs. Leonardo Santos, UFC Vegas 22; Roberto “Satoshi” de Souza vs. Kazuki Tokudome, RIZIN 27; Mariusz Pudzianowski vs. Serigne “Bombardier” Ousmane Dia (former World’s Strongest Man vs. a 330-pound Senegalese wrestling legend. There’s gonna be more beef in there than a goddamn cattle ranch!), Antun Racic vs. Sebastian Przybysz, KSW 59
The Big Fight 