Another fight weekend is in the books. The last few days in MMA had some great action across multiple organizations: Jared Cannonier headlined Saturday’s UFC show by further establishing himself as one of the world’s top middleweights, while old man fireworks closed out Bellator as an exhausted Cheick Kongo submitted Sergei Kharitonov as the second-round bell sounded.
I’ll have more on Cannonier’s coming-out party this week. But, as usual, here’s a look at three fighters outside the main event who boosted their stock this weekend:
The next challenger for the UFC flyweight champion has been decided, beyond a shadow of a doubt. After nearly 15 years as a professional mixed martial artist, Alexandre Pantoja will at last fight for a world championship.
I mean, it’s not official yet or anything, but it seems undeniable at this point. One of the best and most experienced contenders in the UFC flyweight division, Pantoja was on point again on Saturday night, submitting Brandon Royval by second round rear-naked choke in the hardcore fan feature bout of the evening.
Now, Pantoja is far from the only deserving contender. Former champ Deiveson Figueiredo wants another crack, I hear, and so does undefeated Askar Askarov, who beat Pantoja by unanimous decision last June. But Pantoja has something on his record that those other two guys don’t have: he’s beaten the world champion, Brandon Moreno, and he’s done it twice.
Moreno was cageside at the UFC Apex for the fight on Saturday night, and it was obvious that this was the ready-made story were Pantoja to win – not a fait accompli by any means, considering how energetic and talented Royval is. Pantoja was involved in two crucial moments of Moreno’s Cinderella run to UFC gold. He first faced off with the champ in the opening round of the Ultimate Fighter 24 – Pantoja finished Moreno, then the No. 16 and lowest seed in the tournament, with a rear-naked choke.
They met again in Santiago, Chile in May 2018, a lopsided decision win for Pantoja. That was the defeat, his second in a row at the time, that led to Moreno being released from the UFC before finding his way back the next fall and never losing again. Moreno’s journey to the top has been amazingly inspiring, but at every turn, Pantoja has been the villain of his story. He’s been the guy Moreno just can’t get past.
So you knew, with Moreno on hand for the Royval fight, that this was the fight that was going to get made. Pantoja did his part. A heavy-handed boxer who’s at home in a firefight, Pantoja also has the confidence in his grappling technique to lean on it against a dangerous opponent, as he did against Royval. Royval is a rangy perpetual motion machine who poses a real threat everywhere – get him to the ground, and he’s constantly going to be rolling, scrambling, doing anything he can.
But perhaps a bit aided by an uncalled eye-poke in the second round, Pantoja settled down one of 125’s most exciting fighters. He got his back, dragged him to the ground, sunk in the choke. It was a surprisingly straight-line ending to a fight that had, to that point, been exactly as chaotic as expected. It felt like Pantoja had decided “Enough of this shit, it’s time to win.”
Pantoja did his part after the fight too, calling out Moreno for the world title – a very tame and respectful callout, but a callout all the same. It’s hard to think that anything other than Moreno-Pantoja III will be next at flyweight. And if history tracks, Alexandre Pantoja may be a world champion before the year is out.
Hey, you guys want to see some really good shit?
Say hello to 23-year-old Chilean lightweight Ignacio Bahamondes, who put himself on the map with one of the cleanest wheel kicks of all time, and one of the frontrunners of the 2021 Knockout of the Year competition. The thing is, Bahamondes didn’t need to do this. He was already well on his way to dominating the scorecards against Roosevelt Roberts to claim his first UFC win. There were less than 10 seconds to go. Victory was basically assured. But what’s cooler than winning? Winning and getting a Knockout of the Night check also.
That knockout will probably be the highlight shown on every single Ignacio Bahamondes pre-fight video package for the rest of his career, but it shouldn’t short-sell how good the youngster looked for the 14 minutes and 55 seconds up until his right foot contacted Roberts’ face. Bahamondes put together a great offensive display on Saturday night, dominating a guy in Roberts who was up until relatively recently considered a top rising talent.
Bahamondes-Roberts was kind of stunt booking for the UFC. Take Roosevelt Roberts, who at 6-foot-2 is one of the tallest lightweights in MMA, and stick him in there with one of the only lightweights on Earth taller and longer than he is: Bahamondes is listed at 6-foot-3, with a 75.5 inch reach that’s way up there for 155 pounds. What happens?
Well, Bahamondes styled on him, mostly. Roberts worked a good jab throughout the first two rounds especially, marking up Bahamondes’ face, but the combination of not being the longer guy and the amount of different looks Bahamondes gave him throughout the fight wound up paralyzing him: Roberts could land the jab, but could never figure out what to throw next. Most of the time, he just didn’t throw anything next, and got his ass whooped.
Meanwhile, Bahamondes found a groove early in the fight and just got to work. Leg kicks, body kicks, body punches, head kicks, combinations, he was attacking Roberts with a ton of different approaches and different entrances. Bahamondes nearly stopped him earlier than he did, dropping him with a particularly nasty body shot in the third round. The final stats reflect the diversity of his striking gameplan: out of 105 landed significant strikes, 41 were to the head, 31 to the body, 33 to the legs.
And while the 23-year-old still has major strides to make defensively, it was a great display of just how dangerous he is already when he gets into a flow. Also, he throws a mean wheel kick. You should probably keep an eye out for that.
On Friday night, Jornel Lugo and Keith Lee (not the wrestler, this is actually Kevin Lee‘s brother) combined to take me on an emotional journey. It was the end of the first round when Lugo took Lee’s back and locked in a rear-naked choke that looked real deep. Time was running out, but Lugo was squeezing away, selling out desperately for the stoppage.
The horn sounds. Lugo lets the hold go and gets up to go back to his corner. Lee, for a moment, lays there motionless – he’s out, the fight’s over! Then, Lee springs back up to his feet – oh shit, he’s actually alright, fight’s back on! Then, he stumbles directly into the cage wall – nope, that’s it! Fight’s over!
Yes, the fight was in fact over.
It’s weird enough that two of the four main card fights on Friday night had weird shit going on with submissions happening right at the bell, but since Lugo and Lee are only a combined like three years older than Cheick Kongo, I’d rather think about this one. A 25-year-old from Florida, Lugo has been bubbling under as one of the promotion’s more intriguing young talents at 135. Friday was the best I’ve seen him look.
For a guy who’s so young and has such little experience in the cage – just seven pro fights, all of which he’s won – Jornel Lugo does the little things so, so well. He keeps fights at his distance. He uses the jab and the low kick to set the rest of his offense up and take what his opponent is giving him. He doesn’t retreat in a straight line, positions himself well, and is defensively responsible. Causing a guy to take a header into the fence gets you on the highlight reel, but this is the unsexy stuff that wins you fights. Lugo’s already got those parts of his game.
And with those already in his arsenal, everything else is following. Lugo looks more and more confident in every aspect of his game every time I see him in the cage, and he looked clearly on a different level from Lee, who himself has been well-regarded as a pure talent. And now, Lugo’s starting the next chapter of his fighting career: he’s progressing from prospect to factor.
Bellator has been rumored to be angling for a bantamweight grand prix after the conclusion of this year’s light heavyweight grand prix, and there’s plenty of talent at 135 to choose from. If they do an eight-man tournament, Lugo is going to be right on the bubble of making the field. But with the performances he’s put on recently, he may just end up crashing the party.
The Big Fight 