Another fight weekend is in the books. Saturday night’s UFC card was – true to form – lower on names but higher on action, with a number of very entertaining fights throughout the show. And the main event, a highly anticipated bantamweight bout between Cory Sandhagen and returning former champ T.J. Dillashaw, didn’t disappoint in the slightest. Sandhagen and Dillashaw went toe-to-toe for five thrilling, back-and-forth rounds, with a bloodied and injured Dillashaw somehow gritting out a hotly contested split decision.
It was one of the Fights of the Year, and I’ll have more about it this week. But for now, as usual, here’s a look at three fighters outside the main event who boosted their stock this weekend:
Adrian Yanez entered Saturday night as one of the most intriguing young talents on the show, a 27-year-old bantamweight who had flashed power, quickness and striking accuracy in finishing each of his first two UFC fights. Against Gustavo Lopez in March, we saw where Yanez really thrives the most: as a incisive, thumping counter-puncher who takes advantage of every opening.
But even so, there were plenty of unanswered questions. Can Yanez look quite as impressive against a guy who’s actually UFC caliber? Can he stay cool and effective against an opponent with the talent and athleticism to cause some real chaos? How does he handle adversity? Can he make adjustments mid-fight?
We learned the answers to some of these questions on Saturday night. And as Randy Costa found out, yeah, this Yanez kid’s got the stuff.
Yanez’s finishing combo on Costa was one of the most beautiful and deadly you’ll see all year: the rapid-fire body work to open up the middle just enough, and then a lightning-fast piston of an uppercut to drop Costa to his knees. What made it more impressive was that it came after a surging first round from Costa, a tall, long, aggressive striker who put it on Yanez heavily early.
Costa didn’t fight quite as wildly as he does sometimes, but still brought a frenetic pace as he pressured Yanez around the cage and jabbed him up throughout the first frame. Yanez tried to fight his fight. He tried to wait, be patient, sit on his moments to counter. But Costa’s movement and volume was just too constant, his length a little too much, his head just a little too far away. It looked, for a little while, like Adrian Yanez was going to be overwhelmed.
By the end of the first, Yanez’s face was bloodied and his gameplan in tatters. So, Yanez said, screw this. Screw waiting for my opening. If I keep waiting, the opening is never going to come. It’s time to create the opening. Yanez came out in the second determined to be the fighter to throw first, and turned Costa into the man on the back foot. It helped that Costa, after a very high-volume first round, looked noticeably slower. But it was exactly what Yanez needed to do – he sensed the need for urgency after that first round. And once his jab and his pressure had corralled Costa where he wanted him, he was merciless.
Yanez-Costa was a fantastic banger on a card with a few great fights. And it was an even better showcase of a quality that will make one of the best young bantamweights in the world even more special: the ability to overcome adversity and find a way to get it done. You can’t ask for much more.
Heading into Saturday night, I thought the fight between 25-year-old Frenchman Nassourdine Imavov and Ian Heinisch was one of the weirder pieces of matchmaking I’ve seen in a while in the UFC. Heinisch had been flirting with the top 15 for a while now, with his most recent bout being a hard-fought decision loss to longtime contender Kelvin Gastelum. The only other fighters to beat Heinisch in the Octagon: Derek Brunson and Omari Akhmedov.
He’s been fighting guys of a certain standard. Meanwhile, Imavov was mostly unknown, with a 1-1 UFC record highlighted most recently by a complete bore of a majority decision loss to Phil Hawes in February. Why was Ian Heinisch, who’s been fighting and competing against real contenders, now all of a sudden being paired up with – at least so far in his UFC career – a nobody?
Well, maybe Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard knew something we don’t, because Nassourdine Imavov… showed up and just beat Ian Heinisch’s fucking ass?
I’m not sure what I expected out of the Imavov-Heinisch fight, but it sure as shit wasn’t that. After Hawes laid on him for most of their three round fight in February – and just barely escaped a late scare Imavov put into him on the feet – it was like Imavov wanted to make up for lost time. When he had space to work in the stand-up game, he busted Heinisch up, showing his high-caliber potential for the first time in the UFC.
Imavov has some karate flair in his striking, and Heinisch didn’t have answers when Imavov started to get on the front foot. Imavov had a ton of success bouncing in and flicking an accurate left jab, throwing front kicks to the body, and letting go with combinations when Heinisch’s head was within easy reach – exactly the kind of things you want to see from a striker with his style.
Heinisch was bloodied midway through the first, and down for the count midway through the second after a terrific Imavov flurry that mixed hard hooks with a perfectly timed knee up the middle. All this from a guy who entered as a sizable underdog, facing the biggest challenge of his career. Again, Heinisch has been tested against some of the best in the world at 185, and has largely held his own. Either the gap between the bottom and the top of the middleweight division is smaller than we realized, or Nassourdine Imavov is actually way better than we knew.
Both might be true! Either way, I’m looking forward to see what Imavov puts together next.
36-year-old Sijara Eubanks has always been an interesting case. On the one hand, she’s been a shorthand example for the weak depth of most of the UFC’s women’s divisions: the fact that Eubanks, who entered Saturday night with a piddly pro record of just 6-6, was ranked in the top 15 at bantamweight was not a particularly great look.
But, at the same time, there are in fact levels to this shit. On Saturday night, we saw just how much better a fighter like Eubanks – with an unimpressive record, perhaps, but still established at the UFC level with some decent wins – is over an undefeated regional-level fighter. 4-0 Elise Reed probably wasn’t ready to be thrown to the UFC wolves, but she ended up being the one tapped to replace Priscila Cachoeira on short notice.
And when they were finally in the cage, Eubanks reminded us that there’s a still a big gap between a real UFC fighter and the average ham-and-egger.
Eubanks’ dominant wrestling and ground-and-pound performance – in which she did not allow Reed to threaten her in literally any way, shape or form – was her first at flyweight since 2018. And while her run at 135 was marked by a few more downs than ups, her win on Saturday did remind one that she’s never actually lost in the UFC Octagon in a 125-pound fight.
Eubanks first made her way into the UFC fold as a competitor on The Ultimate Fighter 26, which originated the flyweight division and crowned its first champion. Considered an outsider choice to make a run – she was just 2-2 in her pro career at the time, although her two losses were to current-day contenders Katlyn Chookagian and Aspen Ladd – she looked extremely impressive on the TUF house, winning three fights in a row and reaching the finals.
There was a very strong chance that we could be talking about Sijara Eubanks today as a former world champion. But Eubanks suffered kidney issues while trying to make weight for her big title fight against Nicco Montano and had to be pulled out. She returned as a flyweight not long after, and subsequent wins over Lauren Murphy and Roxanne Modafferi have aged well, but continued trouble making the weight pushed her up to 135.
But at 36 years old, she may only have one more chance to make an actual run. Her physicality is impressive, and she’s always looked like a different level of threat at 125. So if this she’s back at flyweight to stay – and has found a way to actually make the weight without killing herself – who can say what might happen? Will she beat Valentina Shevchenko? Probably not! Can she make things a little more interesting at 125? Well, who am I to say she can’t?
The Big Fight 