Another fight weekend is in the books. Saturday’s UFC 260 featured the long-awaited heavyweight title rematch between Stipe Miocic and Francis Ngannou, one which ended when Ngannou knocked the greatest UFC heavyweight of all time unconscious with a monstrous left hook. Ngannou answered every question raised by his previous loss to Miocic, and seems poised for an incredible title run of his own – I’ll have more about Ngannou’s monumental victory this week.
But, for now, here’s a look at three fighters outside the main event who boosted their stock on Saturday night:
In August, rising bantamweight star Sean O’Malley had his hype train crash gloriously into a ditch, when Marlon “Chito” Vera snapped his chicken legs with one strong kick and knocked him out in the first round. All it took was one great performance to restore every bit of that momentum.
Placed back into a feature spot on Saturday’s pay-per-view card against veteran Thomas Almeida – once in O’Malley’s place as the undefeated hotshot who was knocking everyone out – O’Malley reminded everyone why he was so regarded in the first place. O’Malley capped off an excellent stand-up performance by sending Almeida sprawling with a short left hand late in the third round, before putting Almeida completely out with a vicious right on the ground.
For O’Malley’s sake, I was glad to see him finish off the fight the way he did, since he nearly looked like the biggest asshole in UFC history. O’Malley dropped Almeida with a clean head kick-left hook combination in the first round, putting a dazed Almeida on his ass up against the fence – he then decided to go for style points by walking away, expecting referee Mark Smith to stop it and give him the highlight walk-off KO. Only problem: Almeida wasn’t knocked out, and Smith rightly didn’t stop it.
In fact, Almeida actually recovered pretty well, and stayed competitive with O’Malley throughout the second round. Although most have little doubt that O’Malley could have finished in the first had he actually followed up, Almeida went into the third round still in the fight. But O’Malley never lost control for a second, surging ahead through the third round before knocking him out with just ver a minute to go.
O’Malley displayed throughout the fight just how high-level his striking game is: taller and longer than Almeida, O’Malley kept Almeida at bay the whole fight while still consistently doing damage, smacking him over and over with straight punches through Almeida’s guard and never letting him get inside and cause havoc.
O’Malley mixes truly devastating power with a very well-developed approach: he gets you to bite on feints all night, disguising his actual attacks extremely well, mixing his targets and hurting you everywhere. He added another great highlight to his reel on Saturday night, and he seems to be right back to his spot before the Vera fight as one of the UFC’s most hyped young stars.
The leg injuries have been an issue multiple times in his young UFC career, but they didn’t rear their head on Saturday night. O’Malley is such a good striker that they may be the main thing that can hold him back. Right now, Sean O’Malley is back to looking dangerous.
Outside of a deep and talented strawweight division, the UFC’s women’s divisions seem to always be searching breathlessly for new stars and new challengers for their dominant champions. And a UFC 260 card that was damaged severely by COVID and injuries proved to be an excellent showcase for one of 125’s best young talents: 23-year-old Miranda Maverick.
A psychology grad student at Old Dominion University by day and an extremely promising developing MMA fighter by night, Maverick signed with the UFC last year and looked quite impressive in a debut win over Liana Jojua in October. Maverick was rewarded with a shot at a similarly young, but much more well-established contender: Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Gillian Robertson, who’s just 25 years old but has been in an around the top 15 for the last three years.
Robertson promised to be an interesting challenge for Maverick: Maverick is a strong, athletic grappler who generally likes to take her opponents down, but Robertson is a very high-level jiu-jitsu practitioner who has no issue fighting off her back. Indeed, Robertson was clearly on a higher level technically on the ground when the fight hit the mat, but Maverick more than made up for it with her strength, energy and striking prowess.
Maverick outstruck Robertson throughout the fight, outlanding her 131-32 overall in total strikes, flashing quick hands and a sound, direct approach on the feet. But that’s not where she locked up the decision: Maverick took down Robertson several times, including a fight-sealing double-leg towards the end of the third round, and managed to stay out of Robertson’s submissions.
In fact, Maverick pulled off some very nice transitions and by and large kept up with Robertson in the grappling exchanges, finding her way into some advantageous positions and putting down some good shots on the ground – again, she was able to make up for Robertson’s technical superiority with her excellent physical traits. Maverick appears to be in great physical shape, and her strength was a big differentiator on Saturday night.
Maverick has her whole career ahead of her, she has the physical makeup you want, and she’s flashed a very strong all-around skillset. And at just 23, she’s already beating ranked UFC fighters, and looking convincing while doing so. We might be witnessing the birth of a star.
It’s been a rough month or so for fighters out of Australia and New Zealand. First, UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, one of Auckland, New Zealand’s City Kickboxing’s crown jewels, lost his undefeated record to Jan Blachowicz. Then, UFC featherweight champion and fellow CKB star Alexander Volkanovski had his title defense against Brian Ortega, scheduled for Saturday, called off due to COVID protocols.
Same thing happened to New Zealander Brad Riddell, who was scheduled to fight Gregor Gillespie a week ago. On the undercard of UFC 260, Shane Young, another young City Kickboxing star, looked very uninspiring in a decision loss to Omar Morales. But in the first fight of the main card, Australian Jamie Mullarkey – who has spent time training at City Kickboxing himself – saved the day for all Oceania.
Khama Worthy is a pretty powerful puncher himself, and not a guy you always want to be throwing hands with. Mullarkey hit him with a left hook so hard that he made Worthy do the Flair Flop. It couldn’t have come at a better time for Mullarkey, whose reputation as a very talented young lightweight has outpaced his actual results in the Octagon.
The 26-year-old Mullarkey had lost both of his first two UFC fights, first dropping a very entertaining decision to Riddell in Oct. 2019, then returning to lose another decision to Fares Ziam last October – most media outlets scored the fight for Mullarkey, who took Ziam down five times and had a lot of ground control, but was outworked on the feet.
With a risk of becoming another fizzled prospect with another loss, Mullarkey needed a win, and he needed to make it decisive. Doesn’t get more decisive than a one-punch knockout in less than a minute. That’ll get you back on track, and with his best years ahead of him, Mullarkey’s punching power looks like it’s going to play on the big stage.
The Big Fight 