Another fight weekend is here, baby, and we love to see it. This weekend’s action is relatively full, with the UFC and Bellator running head-to-head on Saturday night, and a ONE show to come as well on Friday. Although UFC usually gets top billing, they’ve delivered one of the worst cards in its history, while Bellator has built around its biggest fight it can possibly offer.
So it’s Bellator, then, that takes center stage. And, as usual, here’s a look at the three fights that I’ll be watching closest on Saturday.
Patricio Pitbull vs. A.J. McKee, Bellator 263
When Bellator announced the bracket for its Featherweight Grand Prix, almost two years ago now, the writing was on the wall. This tournament was set up to produce one outcome. It’s finally here. Patricio Pitbull and A.J. McKee, Bellator’s two best fighters, a world title and a million dollars on the line. Quite simply, it is the biggest fight in the 13-year history of Bellator MMA.
Both Pitbull and McKee have stormed their way through the opposition in customary fashion. The two-division champion and the greatest and most accomplished fighter in Bellator’s history, Pitbull has dominated with his trademark violent strength. Pitbull knocked Pedro Carvalho cold with a lead left hook in the quarterfinals, and in the semis, he jumped a guillotine and put tricky volume striker Emmanuel Sanchez – who gave him a tough fight in their initial 2018 encounter – completely to sleep.
The 26-year-old McKee, whose unbelievable talent has captured the imagination at every turn of his undefeated pro career, has done it with style and jaw-dropping inventiveness. He knocked out respected veteran Georgi Karakhanyan in just eight seconds in the first round. He finished Derek Campos with an armbar in the quarters. And in the semifinals, McKee pulled off the submission of the year, stopping former champ Darrion Caldwell with a ludicrously creative neck crank from guard:
But this fight goes beyond just two top fighters battling it out under the bright lights. This is a clash of two different eras of Bellator’s history. Pitbull rose to prominence during the Bjorn Rebney period, jumping in as an undefeated talent from Brazil and cutting his teeth right away in Bellator’s old tournament system. He’s been fighting, and beating, Bellator’s best since the day he arrived.
Considered a strong grappler – he actually has more submission wins than KOs on his record, many of them coming from his insane guillotine squeeze – Pitbull has made his money as one of the most powerful featherweights to ever walk the Earth. He’s a patient, merciless power-puncher on the feet, waiting for his opening and unleashing murderous one-twos when he gets it. He has killshot power in both hands, and as a fighter with an orthodox stance, has one of the most lethal lead lefts you’ll ever see.
Meanwhile, McKee is a complete product of Scott Coker’s Bellator, having never fought outside of its circular cage. Bellator has often gone into the prospect development business under Coker. Watch its undercards and you’ll usually find a couple promising talents that Bellator is gently ushering along in their early careers: All-American wrestlers, youngsters from big camps or children of former MMA fighters that Bellator is hoping to turn into something big.
McKee is the first, and so far only, man to emerge from this pipeline as an elite mixed martial artist. (I specify “man” because of Ilima-Lei Macfarlane.) The son of longtime MMA veteran Antonio McKee, A.J. has been born and bred to be a pro MMA fighter, training since he was a kid and debuting as an amateur when he was still in high school. He debuted as a pro in 2015 and was guided along slowly, with 10 Bellator fights under his belt before facing anyone real. Now, at 17-0, he’s proving that he was more than worth the effort all along.
McKee’s lifetime in the sport has given him a preternatural comfort inside the cage. His striking style is wild, but dangerous – when he hits people clean, they tend to go down. But where McKee shines is on the ground, where he mixes a strong wrestling skill with some really fun-to-watch jiu-jitsu. Jack Slack had a great breakdown this week on the unique way McKee uses the grapevine guard to either threaten sweeps or stretch opponents out for submissions, and he’s shown a high-level aptitude for suddenly snatching finishing holds.
But Pitbull is freakishly strong and can more than hang around on the ground with McKee, and the fight will likely be decided in the stand-up, where we’ll have an extremely interesting dynamic at play. Pitbull is built like a fire hydrant at 5-foot-6, and his power plays huge – he famously moved up to 155 and knocked Michael Chandler out quick to win the lightweight title a couple of years ago. Even at his home weight class, however, he’s short and squat. McKee is 5-foot-10 and will have an eight-inch reach advantage, and he’ll need to both use that well and show a higher level of discipline on the feet than we’ve seen so far in his career. I fear that if he wildly ducks in for hooks and overhands like he does so often, he’ll be on the receiving end of a Pitbull snipe.
No matter what happens, this is the fight that should have the MMA world glued to the television on Saturday night. Bellator stepped up to the plate by running this show up against the UFC, and just via the merits of this fight alone, they’ve succeeded in putting together the better product. Bellator isn’t usually this good. But in this tournament, it’s all come together perfectly. The best possible fight this organization can present. I love it when a plan comes together.
Islam Mamedov vs. Brent Primus, Bellator 263
My second-favorite fight on the Bellator 263 lineup ultimately fell through in recent weeks: what should have been an incredible wrestling match between super talented Russian Magomed Magomedov and two-time NCAA champion Raufeon Stots. There are a few interesting bouts to choose from, but I’m choosing to highlight another cool grappling match that could be a low-key banger on the early main card.
You can criticize Scott Coker left and right, but by hoovering up as many Russians as he can, he’s strengthening Bellator’s depth in a huge way. Even though Magomedov is off the show, we’ll get appearances from promising fighters Usman Nurmagomedov – Khabib‘s cousin, who likes throwing spinning kicks instead of wrestling – and Khasan Magomedsharipov, Zabit‘s undefeated younger brother.
We’ll also get the Bellator debut of another really good talent from Russia, 19-1 lightweight *hits Dagestani name generator* Islam Mamedov. I know, I know, there are so many of these guys that they’re hard to keep straight. Here’s what you need to know about Mamedov. He’s a big lightweight. He’s been undefeated since 2009. He had a very successful stint in the WSOF/PFL, including an armbar submission of multiple-time PFL tournament champion Natan Schulte in 2017. He’s a longtime training partner of Khabib. And yeah, his name is “Islam Mamedov.” Of course this guy can fucking grapple.
Having a chinstrap beard is the best base for MMA. Mamedov is a really well-rounded grappler who can clinch you, take you down and punish you, but is slicker than you might think on the move – I’ve seen him snatch some really awesome submissions out of transitions and scrambles with lightning quickness. He’s a really solid addition to Bellator’s lightweight division, and I’m excited to see what kind of run he can put together.
But let’s not bury the lede here: Brent Primus is back! The former Bellator lightweight champion – he beat Michael Chandler in 2017 in one of the biggest upsets in Bellator’s history, causing Chandler’s leg to stop working with a calf kick years before Anthony Smith or Marlon Vera ever did it to anyone – hasn’t fought since the outset of the pandemic, and his return is another boost to the lightweight division.
Primus is 10-1, with his only career loss coming in the rematch to Chandler, and he’s a black belt in jiu-jitsu who himself has shown a really inventive submission acumen. Primus has mostly competed in grappling bouts over the last year and a half – he had a notable win over Jake Shields last May – but he’s just a couple of fights removed from hitting one of the rarest of submissions, a gogoplata, for a win in 2019:
You don’t see too many guys use the Eddie Bravo rubber guard like that anymore! It’s nice to have him back after a ton of inactivity – the last time he fought more than once in a year was…. holy shit, 2013?!? No wonder why you’re getting a Dagestani who hasn’t lost in 12 years! But the equation in this one looks like it should be Mamedov on top, Primus on bottom, and a whole lot of possibilities coming out of that combination. It could be fun! I’m looking forward to this one.
Uriah Hall vs. Sean Strickland, UFC Vegas 32
Like I mentioned at top, the UFC show on Saturday is actually ridiculously bad, and seems to lose another fight every day. Cheyanne Buys on the main card after getting head-and-arm thrown 100 times in her last fight! Zarrukh Adashev on the main card with a 3-3 pro record! Chris Gruetzemacher!
BUT: I like this main event. And I do love me some Sean Strickland. Saturday’s middleweight main event will be what could be a fun showdown between volume and process against pure power, as Strickland attempts to keep the run of his career going against a guy who hits like a Mack truck in the event that he actually lets his hands go.
Strickland lost two years of his career after a motorcycle accident in 2018, but has returned with an absolute vengeance. Over the last year he’s fought three times and looked spectacular each time, befuddling and battering opponents with his unique flat-footed boxing style. There’s no one on Earth who fights quite like Strickland. He’s a methodical striker who plods forward endlessly, working his way to his spot, and only letting his hands go when he gets there. When he does get there, his punches are straight and true with a sniper’s accuracy. He does this repeatedly until the 15 minutes are up or you die. And sometimes, like poor Brendan Allen here, you just can’t take it anymore after a certain point:
Fighting Strickland has to be a miserable experience, because he just never stops coming, usually never shuts the fuck up the entire time, and it seems like every single one of his punches land directly in the center of your forehead. That’s the problem Uriah Hall faces in the main event, and while you never quite know what you’re going to get with him, he can always change the calculus with one big shot.
Hall has been an enigma for the better part of a decade. The hyped “killer in the house” on the 17th season of The Ultimate Fighter, Hall carved a bloody swath through the opposition on the show, including a spinning hook kick KO of Adam Cella that by all accounts scared the shit out of everyone there, because people legitimately thought Cella had died. Hall is a chiseled killer with huge knockout power, but he’s a very intelligent, sensitive and soft-spoken man. As the story goes, his own strength kind of frightened him – the memorable quote, “I’m sorry, Adam,” muttered under his breath – and mentally he was never quite the same since.
I don’t know if that’s really true, but it’s been the narrative around Hall since Kelvin Gastelum, the underdog of the season, completed his Cinderella run to beat Hall in the finals. Hall has been up-and-down throughout his UFC run, and frustrating at many turns. Even in his wins, Hall is usually outworked for the balance of the fight, as you wait for him to pull the trigger. But when he does, trouble’s brewing.
He was having big trouble with Krzysztof Jotko in 2017, before he sniped him with a straight right and knocked him out. Bevon Lewis was beating his ass in 2018 before Hall got him with a shovel hook that put his lights out. An aged Anderson Silva was outclassing him on the feet last Halloween before Hall finally let it go and his power proved too spooky. It’s kind of become what you expect with Uriah Hall.
He’s also coming off the easiest win of his career, when he became the first UFC fighter ever to win without attempting a single strike: his was the shin upon which Chris Weidman cracked his leg in two in just 17 seconds in April. Even when he’s not trying, Uriah Hall can hurt a man. But against Strickland’s onslaught of thumping pressure, will Hall feel the heat enough to turn it up?
A Uriah Hall who’s really willing to turn it up is a mythical fighter. At 36 years old, we’re running out of time to see that fighter make a full appearance. But what better time than now, against one of the most unique strikers in the game? This could get good.
The Big Fight 