Another fight weekend is in the books. Saturday’s fight action was headlined by UFC 264 in Las Vegas, featuring the third (and hopefully final) chapter of the Dustin Poirier–Conor McGregor rivalry. And in perhaps one of the saddest sights in UFC history, the biggest star in UFC history was reduced to screaming unintelligibly while slumped against the cage with a broken leg, after McGregor was rendered unable to continue after the first round.
I’ll have more on McGregor’s fall this week. But for now, as usual, here’s a look at three fights outside the main event who boosted their stock on Saturday:
After McGregor was stretchered off from the Octagon ignominiously on Saturday night, legendary retired lightweight king – and one of McGregor’s most famous rivals – Khabib Nurmagomedov took to Twitter to congratulate the victorious Poirier, saying “Good always defeats evil.“
Nowhere was that truer than in the third fight on UFC 264’s main card, a heavyweight clash between two hard-hitting big boys: Tai Tuivasa and Greg Hardy. To borrow a term from wrestling parlance, very rarely in the history of combat sports has there ever been such a clear face-heel dynamic than the one in this fight.
Hardy’s presence in the UFC has always been a black stain on an organization that’s already stained pretty black. A star defensive end for the Carolina Panthers in the early 2010s, Hardy was thrown out of the NFL in his prime due to truly horrific domestic violence allegations, and instead of doing us all a favor and fading away into obscurity, he decided to pursue a career path committing violence against people who can actually hit back for a change.
And rather than be humble and thankful that he’s even somehow allowed to maintain a career in the public eye after what he was accused of doing, Hardy has gleefully played the bad guy ever since. It’s almost like he’s a shit human being, or something. He’s also not a particularly good fighter – while he’s a great athlete and has good punching power, if he can’t get his opponent out of there very quickly, his absolutely horrendous endurance and poor technique usually ensures a loss.
Every time, Hardy steps into the cage, it’s like a heavy raincloud settling over the heads of every UFC fan with a conscience. Tai Tuivasa, on the other hand, is a ray of sunshine. Tuivasa is a big, jovial guy from Australia who loves to drink, dance, have fun, and knock dudes senseless. He seems like an absolute blast to hang out with. As far as I know, he’s never assaulted his girlfriend. And when he bounced out to the cage to “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls, it was clear who every single person in the entire world wanted to win.
I’ve become accustomed to disappointment while watching sports, but as Khabib said, “Good always defeats evil.” And you better believe Tai Tuivasa knocked Greg Hardy the fuck out.
Tuivasa beating Hardy was perhaps the single most electric moment of one of the UFC’s biggest shows of the year. Hardy always starts with his hair on fire, and he’s really dangerous in those early moments. And for a second, a Hardy right hand put Tuivasa on wobbly legs. So Hardy charged in, missed a wild left hook so badly that his body ended up almost completely turned around, and tasted a Tuivasa left that knocked him silly.
The celebration that ensued was unbridled. Tuivasa danced in the ring, climbed the cage, grabbed a shoe, grabbed a beer, and then chugged the beer out of the shoe – apparently it’s an Australian thing, and yeah it seems pretty gross, but I’m told they love it over there. The crowd went wild for him during his postfight interview. Then, the camera followed him backstage as he did two more “shoeys” given to him by random fans, and then gulped down another beer poured into his mouth by a fan seated atop the entrance tunnel.
All of this was so much fun that it was almost obscene. Not a single fighter gained more fans on Saturday night than Tuivasa. His career is looking up, too: his win over Hardy was his third in a row, all three by first round KO. Tuivasa has always been limited by his poor grappling defense and specious striking technique, but he’s tough and hits especially hard among heavyweights. Those flaws were exposed in a losing streak over 2018-19, but he’s gotten in better shape and settled back in nicely.
Pretty soon, Tai Tuivasa is going to be knocking on the door of the top 15 once again. Do a shoey in his honor, and for the triumph of good over evil.
Tuivasa doing three consecutive shoeys on camera was pretty crazy, but it probably didn’t crack the top five of most insane things to happen at UFC 264. You had what happened to McGregor in the main event. You had Michel Pereira revealing that stomps are apparently legal if you do a backflip first. You had Jessica Eye‘s forehead exploding. You had Kris Moutinho eating a truly horrifying number of Sean O’Malley punches without going down.
And oh yes, we had a Ryan Hall fight. There’s no experience on Earth quite like it. Hall has somehow managed to build a successful MMA fighting style in the 21st century based entirely on being a BJJ guy with no striking and no takedowns – he does it by spamming Imanari rolls and hoping one lands. I’m telling you, this actually has worked! Hall entered Saturday night a perfect 4-0 in the UFC, although he hadn’t fought in the last two years.
And while undefeated 24-year-old Ilia Topuria entered Saturday night as one of the most interesting young prospects at 145, Hall was a really difficult ask. There’s never been a single fighter in UFC history who fights quite like him, and he has to be immensely strange to prepare for.
Hall’s fighting style seems like it shouldn’t work in a million years. And Topuria managed to pull off a trick that no one else in the UFC has done – he actually made it look that way.
Topuria is actually a really good grappler in his own right – he’s a BJJ black belt himself – while being much more athletic and a much better striker than Hall. Hall tried his Imanari roll shit, and Topuria didn’t have much problem evading it. It was very early on in the fight when it became apparent that this just wasn’t going to work against Ilia Topuria.
But, to his credit, Ryan Hall is a gamer. He knows what he does well, and he’s gonna keep trying. He didn’t waver. He kept somersaulting around the ring like a Dark Souls character. It was midway through the round that I realized that most of the fans watching had likely never seen Ryan Hall fight before, and they were completely unfamiliar with what the fuck they were watching. I started laughing my ass off.
The one thing that Hall does when he’s not rolling for legs is he throws a lot of side kicks. Eventually, Topuria tired of all this weird shit, slipped a kick, waited for Hall to fall down, and just punched him in the face repeatedly. It seemed remarkably easy for him to deal with a fighter who just until recently was in the featherweight top 15, and hadn’t lost in the UFC to that point.
Of course, it couldn’t have been easy. Hall is a real original, and it’s often the people with the most idiosyncratic styles who are the toughest to deal with. It was immensely impressive how Topuria kept his head and just… dealt with it. This young man is going places.
In October, a name popped up on the undercard of a UFC Fight Night show that really caught my eye: Dricus du Plessis. If you follow European MMA at all, you might be familiar with the 27-year-old middleweight. After starting his career 11-1 in his native South Africa, du Plessis signed with KSW in 2018 and won the promotion’s welterweight title as part of a very entertaining duology with Roberto Soldic, one of the best 170-pounders in the world who hasn’t yet landed with a major American promotion.
KSW always has a few really good looking talents coming through at any given time, and du Plessis debuted in the UFC around the same time as Mateusz Gamrot, a two-division KSW champ regarded as the best MMA prospect in Europe. But while the more-hyped Gamrot has had some early ups and downs in the Octagon, du Plessis has been right on schedule: two fights, two performances where he looks awkward as shit on the feet, two out-of-nowhere one-punch KOs.
Fans being introduced to du Plessis in October likely were very underwhelmed for the first three and a half minutes or so, where the South African had his hands completely full with opponent Markus Perez – at least, until du Plessis suddenly slept him with a left hook. And on Saturday, du Plessis had his hands full again with Trevin Giles, a middleweight who’s flashed the ability to change fights with his punching power.
That is, until du Plessis – who was kind of getting tooled up early in the second round – just cleaned Giles’ clock with a straight right and left his opponent flat on his back. It would appear sudden momentum swings are Dricus du Plessis’ thing. So are finishes: in his 18 pro fights, not a one has gone the distance. And despite not having a real grappling background, he looks very apt on the ground as well, showing off some impressive skills in the first round against Giles.
One-punch knockout power is always going to be the greatest and most important equalizer in combat sports, and Dricus du Plessis appears to have it in spades. So far, it’s turned around two fights for him that weren’t necessarily going his way. Is that sustainable long-term? Probably not. But the world can always use more highlight producers. Next time du Plessis is in the cage, try not to miss it.
The Big Fight 