Another fight weekend is here, baby, and we love to see it. This weekend’s slate of fights is headlined by a UFC show on Saturday night along with PFL semifinals in featherweight and light heavyweight – Invicta and ONE also have offerings on Friday as well. Ton of action to come! So, as usual, here’s a look at the three fights I’ll be watching closest this weekend:
Edson Barboza vs. Giga Chikadze, UFC Vegas 35
Holy shit, this fight. More kicks than a Walker, Texas Ranger episode. At this point of Edson Barboza’s incredibly entertaining career, we know exactly what we have with him. His weaknesses are well-defined, his strengths exhilarating. So now, the UFC is just putting him in matchups that are going to be fun as hell. And there seems to be no way this matchup isn’t fun as hell.
It’s MMA’s pre-eminent Muay Thai woodchipper, Barboza, against one of the rising stars of the UFC featherweight division and owner of one of 2020-21’s biggest breakouts, former Glory kickboxing pro Giga Chikadze. Their skillsets, and approaches to fighting, seem to be perfectly aligned to create fireworks. And one of these two guys is going to get a big fight off of this main event.
I’ve talked a ton over the last year about Chikadze, a standout in the post-COVID UFC era who keeps looking better and better as he’s given stronger competition. But Barboza is the type of test he’s never faced before: and three fights after making the move to featherweight for the first time, we may be seeing a whole new version of one of the sport’s premier kickers.
Barboza’s kicks have made him famous and have made him a fan favorite. And make no mistake, we’ll see plenty of his legendary leg kicks on Saturday night. But against top-10 ranked Shane Burgos back in May, Barboza has shown just how far along his hands have come over the last few years. In one of the best boxing performances of his career, doing an exceptional job reading and countering Burgos’ relentless jab, all the while annihilating Burgos’ lead leg with such ferocity that he split his own right shin open.
It was one of the best and most violent fights of 2021. And it had one of the year’s most memorable finishes, as Barboza slowly shut down Burgos’ nervous system for a stunning delayed-reaction KO.
But Chikadze goes about his business in a different way from Burgos. He doesn’t charge into his opponent’s range and fire off combinations. Giga is cold, and he is calculating. He’s also fucking precise. And since debuting in the UFC in Sep. 2019, he’s run his Octagon record to a perfect 6-0 – and has looked more and more comfortable every time he’s in the cage.
Even so, this is a massive step-up in competition. Chikadze was eased into his UFC career with relatively little-known fighters early on, and while he kept winning, he didn’t always look extremely convincing, struggling at times with the gritty physicality of fighters like Brandon Davis and Jamall Emmers. But with more reps, comes more confidence. He finally got his first finish with a head kick of Jamey Simmons in November, earning him a matchup with highly respected veteran Cub Swanson in May.
Swanson is one of the toughest sons of bitches to ever fight in the featherweight division, and hadn’t been knocked out in almost 12 years. Chikadze – not a guy with major power in his hands anyway – assessed the situation, and came to a solution. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you to the G I G A K I C K.
Giga Chikadze is still building his name among most UFC fans, but it helps that he already has a finishing move, with a name and everything: that murderous left body kick that made Cub’s liver quiver. We had heard talk of it, seen old kickboxing highlights of it, but that was our first proper introduction. That thing is mean.
So it’ll be two of the UFC’s best and most dangerous kickers, both of whom with similar body types, similar length, and a similar goal in mind: stand at their range and do some cool shit. This is a fight that promises to be a clean, old-fashioned bloodbath between two fighters who have built some real momentum. I absolutely cannot wait.
Kevin Lee vs. Daniel Rodriguez, UFC Vegas 35
A lot of the rest of this UFC card is built around the finals of this season of The Ultimate Fighter, which has come and gone with basically no attention from anyone: Bryan Battle faces injury replacement Gilbert Urbina in the middleweight finals, while Ricky Turcios – in my mind this season’s most fun and interesting talent – faces 22-year-old Brady Hiestand on the bantamweight side.
Those tournament championships will occupy co-main billing for the show, but the real shit will happen beforehand. I was super excited for Kevin Lee’s return to the UFC after 17 months away, and even more juiced when it was announced that he’d be fighting uber-prospect Sean Brady. I was bummed when Brady had to pull out with an injury a couple weeks ago. But then the UFC went and saved the whole thing, by slotting in one of my favorite talents at welterweight: boxing badass Daniel Rodriguez. This fight could rule.
It seems like forever ago that Lee made himself the most in-demand young talent at lightweight – in 2017, Lee challenged Tony Ferguson for an interim world title just a month past his 25th birthday. Although he had some obvious shortcomings, he had his whole career ahead of him, and it seemed like he’d be at the top of the lightweight rankings for a very long time.
That hasn’t happened. He’s lost three of five since the defeat to Ferguson, battling injuries and trouble making weight along the way. He hasn’t fought since March of last year after having to get double ACL surgery on his knees. Now, still just 28 years old, Kevin Lee is in serious danger of becoming a forgotten man.
After missing weight twice in his last four fights at lightweight, Lee is hoping for a new start at welterweight, where he’s committing himself full-time for the future. Lee’s given us glimpses of what he can be in the past – a very good, aggressive wrestler with a strong top and submission game and an occasional flair on the feet, like when he nearly derailed Gregor Gillespie‘s entire career with one of the greatest head kicks in UFC history.
You’d hope that Lee’s cardio, always an issue, will be improved now that he’s only cutting to 170 instead of 155, but ring rust is a real thing – and Lee is recovering from some very serious injuries. That means that Rodriguez could be a great sleeper pick: there are few fighters at 170 who are more game right now than D-Rod.
A jacked southpaw boxer from SoCal, Rodriguez has been consistently fun to watch since debuting in the UFC last February. He killed poor Preston Parsons just last month, and is already back in the game. Rodriguez is as pure a hand-thrower as exists in the UFC right now, a man who walks in with one purpose: to punch his opponent in the face as many times as he can.
Rodriguez’s boxing style absolutely brims with confidence, using a piston jab and a very accurate and powerful left hand to put his opponents in the danger zone. He’s won five of six since signing with the UFC, and is now getting the big platform that I was really, really hoping he would get: despite the fact that Lee has been out for 17 months and hasn’t won a fight at welterweight, he still has a name, and is still well-regarded as a talent. There will be eyes on this fight.
And if D-Rod can keep it standing, Lee may be in huge trouble. His takedown defense has held up well in the UFC – 83 percent, good for top five among active UFC welterweights – but never has he faced a fighter with the chops Lee has. This should be a very meaningful test between two fighters I really enjoy, and a fight it feels like both guys need. This is a good one.
Brendan Loughnane vs. Movlid Khaybulaev, PFL 9
Meanwhile, the main event of the PFL show on Friday night gives us about as good of a fight the PFL can possibly give us this year. With multiple time champion Lance Palmer having shockingly crashed out of the PFL season, the doors are wide open for one of these two men to win the whole thing. And the way things are looking, either Brendan Loughnane or Movlid Khaybulaev seems to be the safe bet.
Loughnane looks like he’s going to go down as one of those fighters the UFC really missed big on. The UFC had the Manchester, England native inside their Apex in 2019, and watched him beat Bill Algeo – currently signed to the UFC – on Dana White’s Contender Series. But because it wasn’t a flashy finish, Loughnane didn’t get signed. He resurfaced in the PFL shortly afterward, and hasn’t lost since.
And this time around, he’s been looking fucking dangerous. Loughnane has showcased fast hands and some dangerous pop, tearing through UFC vet Sheymon Moraes and battering the crazy tough Tyler Diamond in one of the best fights this PFL season.
Loughnane has been pure action, and it still remains hard to fathom why the UFC didn’t want the 21-3 31-year-old under their wing. But he’ll be in there with one of the PFL’s most dominant fighters this year, the undefeated Dagestani wrestler Movlid Khaybulaev, who will have Khabib Nurmagomedov in his corner and will be looking to shut the Englishman down.
It was Khaybulaev who dispelled any hope that Palmer would get back into the featherweight tournament, controlling an elite wrestler for 15 minutes to punch his own ticket to the dance. Khaybulaev fights just like you might expect a guy named “Movlid Khaybulaev” to fight, but with a talent for flying knees and a real mean streak. Khabib-coached fighters have been winning consistently over the last year, but often against specious competition. Khaybulaev will need all his wrestling skill to fend off Loughnane, and this should be a really interesting clash of styles.
The Big Fight 