Another fight weekend is in the books. This past weekend was headlined by a UFC Fight Night card from the Apex in Las Vegas, where bantamweight Rob Font put on a masterful striking exhibition in a five-round domination of former world champion Cody Garbrandt, putting him firmly in the championship mix. Meanwhile, in Bellator, featherweight champion Cris Cyborg added another trophy to her case, knocking out Leslie Smith in the fifth round to retain her title.
I’ll have more this week on Font and how he’s become one of the most in-demand bantamweights in the world over the past couple years. But, as usual, here’s a look at three fighters outside the main event who boosted their stock this past week.
What’s harder than winning a world title in the UFC? Winning a world title, losing it, falling down the rankings, and rebuilding yourself back to a championship level. For every Randy Couture or Dominick Cruz, who overcame doubt and adversity to take back the belts they once held, there are a dozen Johny Hendricks, who lost their spots on top of the mountain and soon faded away.
It’s very, very difficult to come back from having your faults as a fighter so visibly exposed on the highest conceivable level of the sport. It’s hard to win a title; even harder to defend it, and much, much harder to regain it. But in the UFC strawweight division, we might be seeing one of these rare comeback stories unfold before our eyes.
In 2014, Carla Esparza won the 20th season of The Ultimate Fighter, dominating the field and choking out future two-time world champion Rose Namajunas in the finals to become the first-ever UFC strawweight champion. Her game was simple, but effective: she was a tough, strong, experienced wrestler who took opponents down, grinded them, beat them up or submitted them. She looked like she was going to be the backbone of the UFC’s newest division.
Her inaugural title reign lasted all of four months. In March 2015, she ran into Joanna Jedrzejczyk, a fighter she could not bully. Joanna stuffed her takedowns, dominated her on the feet, and knocked Esparza out in the second round. And it was Joanna, not Esparza, who then went on to an epic, record-setting title run.
Over the next few years, Esparza faded into the background of the UFC’s deepest women’s division. Her stock reached a low at the end of 2018, when world-class wrestler Tatiana Suarez dominated her at her own game, controlling her for almost three full rounds before stopping her with ground-and-pound late in the third. It was her fourth loss in seven fights. She’d always be the first champion, but it seemed like the division had left her behind.
She hasn’t lost since. Esparza has dug in her heels and gone on her longest winning streak since she won the title, taking five straight – all against very high-level competition – to put herself in the thick of the title hunt for the first time in years.
She’s beaten a very impressive list of fighters in the last two years: ace grappler Virna Jandiroba, slick striker Alexa Grasso, tricky veteran karate stylist Michelle Waterson, and rising star Marina Rodriguez, whom Esparza edged out in a close decision last July in the only defeat of Rodriguez’s career. She saved her best performance for Saturday, when she bashed to pieces the face of Yan Xiaonan, who had gone 6-0 since signing with the UFC in 2017.
Esparza’s done it by leaning fully into her identity and what she does well. Against Yan – who was coming off an exceptional performance against a physically strong grappler in Claudia Gadelha – she wasted zero time. Esparza took Yan down less than 10 seconds into the fight, the instant the Chinese striker entered into range. She controlled Yan for the entire first round, opening up a cut on her forehead with some particularly sharp elbows.
Esparza had her on her back again less than a minute into the second, and after maneuvering herself into a crucifix position, brought down a rain of punishment that turned Yan into a bloody mess and forced the stoppage. It was just a brutal domination of a fighter who had looked like a dark horse in a very strong division, and it left little doubt that Esparza once again belongs at the top of the heap.
There should be no question who deserves the first crack at the world title, just a month after Namajunas took it off of Zhang Weili. While Dana White expressed admiration for Esparza’s performance on Saturday, he equivocated on whether they’d give her the title match or do a rematch between Namajunas and Zhang. But Carla Esparza is on one of the runs of her life, and whether she can implement her game against a much older, more experienced Namajunas would be a fascinating question to see answered.
Let’s not forget, she’s got an unavenged stoppage win over the current champ. I think that sounds like a money fight.
Since Brazilian hero Deiveson Figueiredo seemingly singlehandedly revived the UFC flyweight division over the summer and fall, I’ve written a few times on this site about how awesome, young and deep the 125-pound division is, even after cuts shed some of the organization’s better flyweights. I’ve written extensively about my love for fighters like Brandon Moreno, Askar Askarov and Brandon Royval. But there’s one talented fighter who’s a dark horse even in this dark horse of divisions: Czech standout David Dvorak.
Skilled, technical and with a keen eye for the finish, Dvorak debuted in the UFC in March after reeling off an epic streak of 13 consecutive stoppage wins on the Eastern European circuit. He looked quite impressive in a 2-0 start to his UFC career, winning a pair of unanimous decisions over Bruno Silva and Jordan Espinosa – however, he hadn’t gotten that signature highlight that can be so valuable to the early career of a rising UFC fighter.
That’s what Dvorak was searching for on Saturday, when he was set to fight another promising young contender in Raulian Paiva. But when Paiva had serious issues with his weight cut, he was swapped out with the debuting Juancamilo Ronderos the day before the event. Ronderos had just four pro fights, and the whole thing seemed like a bit of a mismatch.
But sometimes, when you have to crush a can, you gotta just crush the hell out of that can. This is how you do it.
If you’re a top 15 contender in the UFC and you’re fighting a guy with a 4-0 record, you should win with ease. So, why not do it in a unique way? Unique, like, choking the guy out with one arm? We saw Randy Brown pull off the same one-armed rear naked choke against Alex “Cowboy” Oliveira last month in Jacksonville, and it was just as impressive the second time around.
It took Dvorak just two minutes to get rid of Ronderos, and he just looked on a different level throughout. Ronderos, perhaps over-amped by the moment and the opportunity, charged in wildly, trying to overwhelm Dvorak with rushes of punches. Dvorak didn’t mind. His footwork looked superior, his counter-striking was incisive, and he clubbed Ronderos with an thumping right hook that put him on wobbly legs before hitting the submission.
We’ve seen ranked fighters in this exact situation struggle with an unheralded but lively underdog late replacement: think Tony Ferguson getting the scare of his life from Lando Vannata. Dvorak has looked nothing but relaxed, sharp and at home since stepping into the Octagon, and he took care of business with ease and style. Let’s hope that next time, he gets a shot against a real contender.
What Bellator 259 lacked in cool finishes or compelling action, it certainly made up for in guys wrestling their way to decisions. Sometimes it worked for them. (See: Jaleel Willis edging out Maycon Mendonca.) Sometimes, it bit them in the ass. (See: Darrion Caldwell getting outworked by Leandro Higo and finding a way to lose a fight where he was on top most of the way.) And in the case of Austin Vanderford, it might have earned him a world title shot.
Better known as the husband of UFC washout and former Dancing With the Stars runner-up Paige VanZant, Vanderford is actually the more successful mixed martial artist in the family. A very good college wrestler, Vanderford has adapted that skillset very well to MMA, entering Saturday night with a perfect 10-0 record that has come largely as a result of his wrestling skill.
In recent fights, as the competition has grown, he’s seemed increasingly one-note. Still, it’s working for him. And it worked for him on Saturday, when he took on Fabian Edwards – younger brother of UFC welterweight contender Leon Edwards – in a battle of top-five ranked middleweights.
Edwards is an athletic and stylish striker who has a tendency to take a little too long to get into a groove, and Vanderford exploited that on Saturday. While I thought Edwards edged the second round – Vanderford doesn’t do much with his takedowns, and that was the frame where Edwards showed off his striking the most – Vanderford spent almost the entire fight on top, doing just enough to stay ahead on the scorecards.
In the third, needing something decisive to really wrap things up, Vanderford took control. He didn’t give Edwards the opportunity to put forward any sort of offense, scoring an immediate takedown, riding out the round in half-guard, and bringing down steady ground-and-pound that closed out the fight in a decisive fashion. It may not be fun to watch, but it’s what Vanderford’s working with. It was enough to score a win over the Bellator middleweight division’s stronger contenders.
It also puts Vanderford in an interesting spot. Vanderford was already Bellator’s No. 3-ranked middleweight before seeing off the No. 4-ranked Edwards. None of the fighters ahead of him – champion Gegard Mousasi, John Salter and Anatoly Tokov – have fights scheduled, and Tokov hasn’t fought since Oct. 2019. Bellator promoter Scott Coker hinted this past weekend that he’ll have something to announce soon regarding Mousasi’s next defense, and it may be a little early for Vanderford.
Still, you’d have to imagine that Vanderford’s next fight could very well come against one of those three names. He may not be in many barn-burners, but he’s earned that much.
The Big Fight 