UFC Fight Night 112 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *Well, like the Auckland card the week before it, UFC's offering from Singapore was a tale of two cards, though this was the complete inverse, as a fun set of prelims gave way to an absolutely awful main card. The only real thing of note in the last four fights was Holly Holm finally knocking out Bethe Correia with a head kick, but how we got there was absolutely awful, as the previous two rounds of inactivity were so bad that the referee even stopped the fight to warn both fighters. And even in a fight where nothing happened, Correia continued her run as a human meme, as she taunted for Holm to do something right before Holm, well, did something, and knocked Correia completely loopy with the finishing blow. Coming off three losses and then a win that wasn't particularly impressive, Holm's management apparently feels she's earned a title shot, and the horrifying thing is women's bantamweight is thin enough she may actually get it. She's still the biggest name in the division, and I only see two other real contenders - Sara McMann is already booked for a fight against Ketlen Vieira this summer, and while Raquel Pennington is free, Holm did beat her for her UFC debut. If Valentina Shevchenko beats Amanda Nunes for the belt next month, I don't think UFC would run with a Shevchenko/Holm rematch from a one-sided Shevchenko win last year, but Nunes/Holm might be way closer than any of us expected. *And then there was the rest of the main card. Marcin Tybura beat Andrei Arlovski, but what should've been a career-making win over a big name just turned out kind of eh for Tybura. Tybura had been transitioning from a grappler to a striker now that he's facing better opposition, and the results have been interesting, but this fight just saw him take Arlovski down and work him over in fairly plodding fashion. In UFC wants to continue to push Tybura up the ladder, fine, and I do kind of like him as a fighter, but this wasn't the type of performance that inspired any sort of confidence in either fighter. Colby Covington's win over Dong Hyun Kim was even worse. Covington finally got his big win over a top-ten opponent, but all he did was grind Kim against the fence and take him down repeatedly. I'm impressed that Covington's one-dimensional game keeps working, but since he's stopped facing overmatched competition, his fights have been god-awful, as damage and finishes have been replaced by Covington just holding people down, not progressing, and really just making the fight feel like it's going nowhere. Covington's doing a good job outside the cage of annoying people as a cocky prick, but part of that is, again, that his fights are so awful, which makes things a double-edged sword. And the main card opened with what I suppose was its best fight, as Rafael dos Anjos beat Tarec Saffiedine rather handily as the former lightweight champ debuted at welterweight. It was an ugly fight, but an impressive enough performance, I suppose - dos Anjos should be able to become a contender, though I'm not sure he'll have either the success or the often-impressive performances he had at 155. *The prelims were mostly fun and action-packed, even if the headlining one was fairly depressing, as Jon Tuck stunned and tapped out Takanori Gomi in a little over a minute; Gomi was once the best lightweight in the world, so it's sad to see a living legend just be so completely done as a fighter. Walt Harris knocked out Cyril Asker in short order at heavyweight, as was expected, and Rolando Dy massively underperformed in his UFC debut against Alex Caceres. I actually liked Dy on film after dreading having to scout a 8-4 Filipino fighter, but this was, well, a 8-4 Filipino performance, as Dy apparently suffered an eye injury early and then just absolutely folded, getting nothing done before the fight got stopped after the second round. Justin Scoggins continues to be the most frustrating talent on the roster - Scoggins is at his best as a distance striker, but also has an excellent grappling game, so against a slick submission artist like Ulka Sasaki, of course Scoggins decided to wrestle. And he did really well for about a round and a half, until Sasaki managed to clamp on the inevitable fight-ending choke, as Scoggins has continued an amazing run of dominating fights only to get himself tapped out. Jingliang Li and newcomer Frank Camacho had the fun brawl that everyone expected, with Li winning the decision. Russell Doane stopped a four-fight skid with an impressive knockout of top Korean prospect Kwan Ho Kwak - Kwak's a ridiculous athlete, but always relies on that athleticism to get him out of trouble; Doane was able to eventually trap him in the corner, and then go to work to get the finish. Japanese prospect Naoki Inoue had an impressive debut against fellow newcomer Carls John de Tomas, relying on his shockingly slick submission game to take a clear decision - I actually like both guys as prospects, though in a division like UFC's flyweights where pretty much every fight is tough, I worry about their ability to stick on the roster as they develop. And Lucie Pudilova opened the show with a victory over Ji Yeon Kim that was fairly surprising - Kim was surprisingly patient and showed an excellent boxing game which figured to be enough to get the win, but in the end, Pudilova got the nod. *So, former UFC fighter Tim Hague died after suffering a knockout in a boxing match, and the whole thing just brings up a bunch of issues with the seedy underbelly of combat sports. Hague's UFC career was fairly brief, and his main claim to fame was being on the receiving end of a seven-second knockout by Todd Duffee, one of the quickest finishes in UFC history. But Hague, throughout his career as a whole, was pretty much known for that - a heavyweight brawler whose fights would end in a knockout in fairly short order, win or lose. But the losses kept racking up, and Hague would apparently do boxing or mixed-rules fights on the side in his native Canada to make some money. And then incompetence on every level pretty much led to Hague's death - frankly, watching the footage, the fight probably should've been stopped a few times, if only because Hague was overmatched and had already been knocked down three times in the first round. And while the booking of Hague as a tomato can wasn't egregious in a general sense, he shouldn't have been licensed in the first place - the medical suspension from Hague's last knockout had only just expired, and apparently even that was sort of iffy, as Edmonton rules state that anyone knocked out three times within a one-year period - as Hague was - shouldn't be licensed. The whole thing's a mess, and has brought the Edmonton commission, which has apparently been known for corruption and incompetence, into the spotlight. In a move reminiscent of UFC, the commission is appointing their own third-party investigator, but of course, they're the one selecting it, so don't expect justice to be served. UFC 216 is supposed to be UFC's debut in Edmonton, and it looks like that's full-speed ahead, as fighters, without a union, don't really have much of a recourse in refusing to fight on this card. And, as people have brought up, maybe having an overmatched MMA fighter die in a boxing match could make some people think again about Mayweather/McGregor, but, well, that fight just has too much money involved. *Well, UFC 208 was officially pointless, as UFC has stripped Germaine de Randamie of the women's featherweight title for her refusal to face Cris Cyborg, the only other woman in the division. Well, actually, UFC actually signed a third woman (or second I suppose, since de Randamie is probably moving back down to bantamweight), as Invicta champ Megan Anderson will make her debut to take on Cyborg for the vacant belt at UFC 214. I am rooting for nobody in this situation, except for Anderson, pretty much - while de Randamie's probably closer in the right than people like to admit in refusing to fight Cyborg because of all her drug issues, it's also unclear where de Randamie thought beating Holly Holm for the belt in this non-existent division was going to lead her. With Cyborg, I've always been baffled by the outpouring of support for her - she's a known drug cheat, and while UFC making her unnecessarily cut weight has been cruel, there's also the strangeness of her intending to cut down to 135, but rather than actually try and lean down, just continue to build muscle. And this only got more suspicious with her more recent drug test failure, which was basically waved off due to some depression issue that Cyborg, apparently, never thought to notify UFC of before filling out all her paperwork. And UFC's just made this whole situation a mess with how they've handled the division, from their bullying of Cyborg and de Randamie to, again, making UFC 208 completely useless, even in the moment. *So, Matt Hughes is still in pretty bad condition after his truck collided with a moving train last Friday, as one would expect. It could've been much worse, as he suffered no broken bones or anything, and is already out of a brief medically-induced coma, but it's unclear if he's currently awake, and there doesn't seem to be any word on if he's suffered any brain damage. I obviously hope for the best in his recovery, but I will say, Hughes is probably the first person who would call someone a dumbass for driving in front of a moving train. ------ BOOKINGS: *A whole lot of nothing for the second straight week, as the only completely new fight is the Cyborg/Anderson title fight mentioned above. Other than that, it's four injury replacements, though at least three of the four fights have actually gotten more interesting in their new forms. UFC seemingly has no idea what the hell they're doing with Sage Northcutt - his original opponent, Claudio Puelles, got injured, so it was assumed UFC would find some lower-level fighter or international TUF alum for Northcutt to gain experience against. But instead, he's facing longtime UFC vet John Makdessi, a skilled striker who's probably Northcutt's toughest opponent to date. Maybe Northcutt's size and athleticism just wins the day over the stockier Makdessi, but it's more likely that the Canadian just knocked Northcutt's head off with some spinning strikes. Northcutt's obviously a golden boy of the promotion, so this may be the biggest red flag yet in terms of UFC not having any idea what to do with prospects. Amanda Ribas got pulled from her UFC debut at next month's TUF finale, so rather than Juliana Lima grinding out a win against another overmatched newcomer, she'll take on top contender Tecia Torres in what suddenly becomes an interesting fight. A European heavyweight fight between Damian Grabowski and Christian Colombo, which had been scheduled a few times before incongruously winding up on the Long Island card, has fallen apart yet again thanks to a Colombo injury; so instead Grabowski will face Mississippi's Chase Sherman, coming off one of the best brawls of the year against Rashad Coulter. Grabowski has shown little in his two UFC fights, but he's still a tough vet and an excellent test for an athletic, but raw prospect like Sherman. And in the one fight to get a downgrade, a fun bantamweight fight between Leslie Smith and Lina Lansberg is off thanks to a Lansberg injury, so Smith will instead face Brazilian newcomer Amanda Lemos on the Glasgow card, which is a weird geographic fit. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 7/7 - TUF 25 Finale - Las Vegas, NV - Justin Gaethje vs. Michael Johnson 7/8 - UFC 213 - Las Vegas, NV - Amanda Nunes ( c ) vs. Valentina Shevchenko, Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker, Donald Cerrone vs. Robbie Lawler 7/16 - UFC Fight Night 113 - Glasgow, Scotland - Gunnar Nelson vs. Santiago Ponzinibbio, Joanne Calderwood vs. Cynthia Calvillo 7/22 - UFC on Fox 25 - Uniondale, NY - Kelvin Gastelum vs. Chris Weidman, Dennis Bermudez vs. Darren Elkins, Thomas Almeida vs. Jimmie Rivera 7/29 - UFC 214 - Anaheim, CA - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Jon Jones, Megan Anderson vs. Cris Cyborg, Jimi Manuwa vs. Volkan Oezdemir, Jason Knight vs. Ricardo Lamas 8/5 - UFC Fight Night 114 - Mexico City, Mexico - Brandon Moreno vs. Sergio Pettis, Sam Alvey vs. Rashad Evans 9/2 - UFC Fight Night 115 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Stefan Struve vs. Alexander Volkov 9/9 - UFC 216 - Edmonton, AB - Henry Cejudo vs. Wilson Reis, Rick Glenn vs. Gavin Tucker ----- UFC Fight Night 112 - June 25, 2017 - Chesapeake Energy Arena - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma A strange show, even beyond the fact it's on a Sunday and starts an hour earlier than usual. I love the main event, but it almost feels like this is the evil flip side of some of the "fun, but lacking in starpower" cards we've had over 2017; there are recognizable names, like Johny Hendricks, B.J. Penn, and even further down, a Clay Guida or a Carla Esparza, but, well, pretty much everyone is either shot as a fighter or just in an uninteresting matchup. There's some stuff here that could be neat, but nothing involving the name fighters - the two light heavyweight bouts could be fun brawls, and the prelim bout between Darrell Horcher and Devin Powell, two of the lowest guys on the UFC pecking order, should be a fun scrap, but overall a lot of this card is just sort of blah veterans. Though, in a past life, two of those blah veterans would be headlining, so good on UFC for at least giving a showcase main event spot to two interesting talents. MAIN CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 9:00 PM ET): Lightweight: (#6) Michael Chiesa vs. (#11) Kevin Lee Middleweight: Tim Boetsch vs. Johny Hendricks Women's Strawweight: (#13) Felice Herrig vs. Justine Kish Light Heavyweight: Joachim Christensen vs. Dominick Reyes Welterweight: Alex Garcia vs. Tim Means Featherweight: B.J. Penn vs. Dennis Siver PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 2 - 7:00 PM ET): Lightweight: Clay Guida vs. Erik Koch Middleweight: Vitor Miranda vs. Marvin Vettori Women's Strawweight: (#8) Carla Esparza vs. (#10) Maryna Moroz Lightweight: Darrell Horcher vs. Devin Powell PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 5:30 PM ET): Featherweight: Jared Gordon vs. Michel Quinones Lightweight: Johnny Case vs. Tony Martin Light Heavyweight: Jeremy Kimball vs. Josh Stansbury THE RUNDOWN: Michael Chiesa (14-2 overall, 7-2 UFC) vs. Kevin Lee (15-2 overall, 8-2 UFC): I love this fight. UFC is always in the business of looking for new stars, and while neither of these guys is going to be the next Conor McGregor or anything, I love that a fight between two marketable fighters rising up the ranks is getting a main event slot rather than a pat veteran hand, particularly when it's a really fascinating style matchup to boot. It's a shame Michael Chiesa didn't come around a few years earlier, when people were still watching TUF, because his arc on the show was one of the best in terms of getting you to care about a fighter. Chiesa was on the lone live season of the show - TUF even needed freshening up five years and ten seasons ago - and had left behind his ailing father, who died a few weeks after the show started. After flying out for the funeral and coming back, Chiesa then went on the underdog run of all underdog runs; Chiesa was nowhere near the top prospect on the show, as that honor probably went to Myles Jury or Al Iaquinta, but Chiesa just kept winning, often by rear naked choke, culminating in a first-round submission of Iaquinta to win the season. From there, pretty much everyone wrote off Chiesa as a fun story, but more a curio than anything else - his main skill was a knack for finding that rear naked choke, and that can only get you so far, and indeed, Chiesa lost a fairly one-sided fight and tapped out to Jorge Masvidal fairly early in his UFC career. But, somewhat amazingly, Chiesa has gone on to make his game work at a pretty high level - his striking game is purely perfunctory, but he's big for the division, so if he can't tap you out, he's more than willing to control you, and he can probably tap you out - in his last fight, when BJJ ace Beneil Dariush got a bit lazy, there was Chiesa to clamp on the rear naked choke for a shocking second-round submission. Chiesa was supposed to face Tony Ferguson shortly thereafter in what would've been an awesome fight, but instead a back injury has kept Chiesa sidelined for a little over a year, and he returns to face rising talent Kevin Lee. Lee's obviously been a bit of a pet project of UFC - the Detroit native came into the promotion as a raw 21-year old, but they immediately threw him into the deep end against Iaquinta. Lee acquitted himself fine in that loss, and even as UFC shunted him back down the ladder to start developing his game, they normally featured him in fairly prominent spots, like FS1 main card bouts against Michel Prazeres and James Moontasri. And there have been some fits and starts - his shocking knockout loss to Leonardo Santos at the tail end of 2015 being the main bump in the road - but Lee's developed a fairly interesting game; the finishes dried up a bit when he first came into UFC, but Lee's been able to make his submission game work once again to go along with his power wrestling. So it's an interesting fight between two guys most comfortable on the ground, who also might be the two most interesting talents moving up the ladder at lightweight - plus there's even a personal element, thanks to the presser that took place right before UFC 211. You see, Kevin Lee pretty much has a quantity, not quality approach to trash talk, as even moving up the ladder, he'd often go out of his way to throw whatever insult he could think of at everyone in the lightweight division, and during this presser, he obviously started talking to Chiesa. What Lee started saying wasn't even that bad - basically, that he heard Chiesa's mother had bought a ticket to watch her son lose - but it still set Chiesa off, the two charged each other, Lee even clipped Chiesa once, and then both got kicked off the stage. I'm not sure how much of it was staged, but hell, it worked and got people talking, and anything (to an extent) that gets eyeballs on this fight is fine by me. So as far as the fight goes, I'm kind of interested to see how Lee approaches this. While he's most comfortable when he gets his wrestling game going, that's obviously the last place he'd want to be against someone as slick as Chiesa, and while he's been doing more and more striking, it's still sort of a work in progress. It's solid, but Lee just seems to get caught a lot either unawares or overconfident, and frankly, he doesn't take a punch well when he gets hit; there was that Santos knockout, and there have been a few other instances where Lee is just sort of stunned and forced to recompose himself after he gets hit. But on the same end, I'm not sure Chiesa is the guy to take advantage of that - his striking is...functional at best, though while Chiesa can often get hit, he's also been tough enough to just sort of ignore it as he tries to get things to the ground. I'll laugh if this somehow becomes a weird five-round kickboxing match, since Lee will probably connect way more, but Chiesa will have more visible impact when he's actually able to get something through, and that probably is still Lee's best path to victory. And I suppose Lee could manage to control and hold Chiesa down for five rounds, too - Chiesa's crazy rear naked choke luck has to end sometime, right? - but between Chiesa's slickness and Lee's penchant for overconfidence, I just assume at some point Chiesa manages to find an opening, get Lee's back, and finish things from there. So I'll say Chiesa by submission, and I'll say it happens in the third round. Tim Boetsch (20-11 overall, 11-10 UFC) vs. Johny Hendricks (18-6 overall, 13-6 UFC, 2-0 WEC): A strange fight here, but one that makes a bit of sense - Johny Hendricks, a former star wrestler at Oklahoma State, figured to be on this card, and Boetsch is good a choice as any to see if the former welterweight champ can hang against bigger opponents at middleweight. Man, it's been a strange two years or so for Johny Hendricks. In mid-2015, he was pretty much the uncrowned welterweight champion - a lot of people felt he won his 2014 rematch with Robbie Lawler and should've retained his belt, and Hendricks rebounded with one of the better performances of his career, getting into excellent shape and showing off some of his excellent wrestling against Matt Brown. And then the wheels completely fell off. Hendricks was slated to face Tyron Woodley that October, and while there'd always been talk of how much difficulty Hendricks had cutting weight, that all came home to roost, as Hendricks suddenly developed kidney stones while trying to cut weight, and the fight was called off. Which, fine - this was probably a one-time thing, and guys have been able to come back from weird one-off weight cutting problems before. But then 2016 happened. First, Hendricks got knocked off that uncrowned champion pedestal pretty quickly, as Stephen Thompson more or less ate his lunch, dominating a short fight that ended via knockout in about three and a half minutes. And then after that, Hendricks's biggest enemy was the scale. For a fight with Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 200 - which, way to cheekily match two guys with weight problems against each other, UFC - Hendricks came in 0.3 pounds overweight, and looked horrible doing so, having to shave his facial hair and looking frail and shaken on the scale. And the performance wasn't too great either - while it wasn't a blowout by any means, Hendricks continued to look diminished from the peak form he had shown just about a year prior. And then things went off the rails with a flourish in December. During the media day for UFC 207, Hendricks looked visibly out of it while going on about how he was going to make weight, and how hard it is to make weight, and challenging the media to try and make weight - so, of course, when it came time to hit the scale, Hendricks came in two and a half pounds overweight. And while the performance was a slight improvement, as he leaned on his wrestling to take down Neil Magny, he also did little enough with those takedowns that he wound up losing the decision anyway. Despite saying he would retire if he lost the Magny fight, Hendricks decided to move up to middleweight, and while it apparently has been much better on his body, the results were...eh. It was pretty much the same diminished Johny Hendricks, facing a similarly welterweight-sized Hector Lombard, and while Hendricks clearly won the decision, it wasn't the type of runaway performance that made you think he was anywhere near recapturing his former glory. So now Hendricks faces Tim Boetsch, who's had a weird path of his own. Boetsch was quickly in and out of UFC as an undercard light heavyweight the first time around, but in stint number two, the Mainer quickly cut down to middleweight and suddenly had a bunch of success, reeling off a four-fight win streak that included a famous comeback knockout of Yushin Okami and a famously horrible split decision win against Lombard. But as questionable of a win as that Lombard fight was, that result pretty much made Boetsch, as he's kind of been the go-to for a bunch of middling, but prominent, middleweight fights. If Luke Rockhold needs to get back on track, if Dan Henderson needs to find some late-career knockout magic, and most recently, if Jacare Souza needs a fight to keep busy, Boetsch is there to lose to them, and he wins enough of his other fights to remain credible. So as far as the fight, this is weird as hell, because Hendricks is still welterweight-sized, and Boetsch is still giant enough to credibly compete at light heavyweight. And frankly, if your wrestling isn't up to snuff, Boetsch is not a guy you want to mess with; Boetsch's fight about a year ago against Josh Samman showed this, as Samman kept trying to mix in his grappling, only to eventually get turned around and eat enough fists for a ground-and-pound stoppage. Hendricks, given his status as one of the more decorated collegiate wrestlers on the roster, probably has the chops to take Boetsch down, but we didn't really see a ton of that wrestling game against Lombard, and, well, Boetsch may just be too big for Hendricks to get anything done. I suppose Hendricks may still have enough on the feet to win a boring kickboxing match, but again, Boetsch is going to have the longer reach and is just credible enough in terms of power that I'm not exactly sure what Hendricks can get done there either. Maybe I have this completely wrong, and Hendricks can just make up the size difference with his takedowns and grind out a decision, but I'm actually going to pick Boetsch to neutralize Hendricks enough to score the upset decision. Either way, though, I don't think this fight will be all that good. Just super weird. Felice Herrig (12-6 overall, 3-1 UFC, 0-1 Invicta, 3-0 Bellator) vs. Justine Kish (6-0 overall, 2-0 UFC): So...is Felice Herrig suddenly going to be kind of a thing now? Herrig's been somewhat unfairly maligned over her career, though somewhat understandably so - she's perfectly fine, but relied on her looks coming up through the ranks to, frankly, get more attention than she deserves, plus her motor-mouthed personality can sometimes be a bit exhausting. So when Paige VanZant pretty much dominated her in a 2015 fight, it was a pretty big deal for VanZant, and probably still the best win of her career, even though everyone sort of minimized it given both the personalities involved. But to her credit, Herrig took about a year off to get her mind right after the VanZant loss and came back in some of the best form of her career; first she blew through Kailin Curran, as most expected, but when UFC matched her up in a co-main against Alexa Grasso, in an obvious bid to give Grasso a showcase win, Herrig had an absolutely excellent performance, relying on her striking background to pretty much blow open the holes in Grasso's game. It kind of reminded me of Holly Holm running into Valentina Shevchenko, as Herrig just exposed Grasso as a fairly rote striker and hit a rhythm as things went on, countering everything with ease by the end of the third round. There was some thought that Herrig would get a big name opponent after this, but instead she gets a pretty fun fight against Russian-American Justine Kish. Kish was Herrig's castmate on TUF 20, UFC's tournament for an inaugural strawweight champion, but she didn't wind up making her debut for another year thanks to an ACL tear suffered on the show. Kish came in as a kickboxer, and in her wins over Nina Ansaroff and Ashley Yoder, she's been pretty much just that - solid, but not particularly awe-inspiring or anything. Though, that said, fighting a powerful grappler like Yoder did give Kish the opportunity to show off some ground chops and give notice that she can hold her own there if need be. This is a more even matchup than it appears at first blush - Herrig's wins have been in more prominent spots, but both fighters have done well since 2016 - but I do like Herrig a bit more everywhere and choose her to get the decision, even though I wouldn't be surprised if Kish gave Herrig more trouble than Grasso did and turned this into a nip-tuck, split decision type of affair. Joachim Christensen (14-5 overall, 1-2 UFC) vs. Dominick Reyes (6-0 overall): Joachim Christensen got into the UFC just a shade before his 38th birthday, but the Dane has been making up for lost time, as this'll be his fourth bout in a shade under nine months, and it comes on about a six-week turnaround from his last one. Christensen is a perfectly fine lower-level light heavyweight - he's technically solid everywhere, but not particularly athletic or physically imposing, so he can only really beat the lower-tier athletes of the division, and the matchmaking hasn't really done him a ton of favors. Christensen got a win in January over Bojan Mihajlovic, which is about as low as you can go on the UFC ladder, but UFC threw him to Gadzhimurad Antigulov, who ran through him, and now seemingly wants to use Christensen to showcase a top prospect - he was first slated to face highly regarded Russian Azamat Murzakanov here, but Murzakanov was forced out of the bout and Christensen instead faces another top prospect in Dominick Reyes. A native Californian who was on the NFL's radar after a career at Stony Brook, Reyes instead picked up MMA and has been off to the races, as all but one of his wins have come via first-round knockout. And his last win was a memorable one - Jordan Powell ate one of Reyes's shots, and nodded his head "no" to signal that it didn't hurt, so Reyes just decided to flatten him with a head kick and nod "yes" over his fallen opponent. You'd have liked for Reyes to get a bit more experience, since at this point it's an open question if he can handle adversity, but you also can't blame UFC for picking up one of the most promising prospects available to develop on their watch. Christensen's never been knocked out, so I could see a scenario where Reyes just doesn't get the early finish and it turns out he's basically a one-round fighter, but fights like the Antigulov one have shown that Christensen can just get run over if he's at a notable athletic disadvantage. So my pick is Reyes via first-round knockout, even if it's not quite a gimme. Alex Garcia (14-3 overall, 4-2 UFC) vs. Tim Means (26-8-1 [1] overall, 8-5 [1] UFC): An interesting fight here that hopefully promises some violence, though it's kind of impossible not to have any while Tim Means is around. Means has long been a favorite of mine - he was a bit of a prospect all the way back in 2005, but had his MMA career stopped for about four years after serving a prison sentence for assault, as Means had pretty much become a meth addict at that point. But Means turned his life around, channeled that aggression pretty wonderfully into MMA, and eventually made his way to the UFC. His first run was a bit short-lived, as Means was, and looking back this is fairly insane, cutting all the way down to lightweight and just absolutely draining himself in the process. But after getting cut, Means moved up to his more natural welterweight, got a few wins, and was back in the promotion in fairly short order, and eventually put together a four-fight win streak that affirmed him as one of UFC's most violent welterweights, particularly thanks to his absolutely brutal elbows. 2016 looked to be a bit of a breakthrough year for Means, but instead it turned out to be one of missed opportunity. First, Means was slated to welcome Donald Cerrone to welterweight in a FS1 main event, but instead Means was pulled thanks to a flagged drug test - though, eventually, USADA basically found Means without fault after the supply chain of the supplement in question turned out to be really sketchy. But that still burned about half a year of Means's career, and then another opportunity got pulled out from under him, as an interesting fight against Sean Strickland instead, thanks to injury, turned into Means beating newcomer Sabah Homasi in a fairly no-win situation. And then Means's last fight of the year, against Alex Oliveira, ended in short order thanks to an illegal knee, because nobody knows the rules for when fighters are grounded anymore. And this year hasn't been great either, as a rematch with Oliveira saw the Brazilian shockingly pretty much rag-doll Means en route to a submission. So Means looks to finally get some momentum back against Alex Garcia, who maybe, finally, might be turning the corner. Garcia came into UFC with a bunch of hype back in 2013 as a physical specimen who could be the next, say, Hector Lombard. But after a 43-second knockout of Ben Wall to kick off his UFC tenure, Garcia just suddenly settled into the groove of a middling fighter whose performances were fairly flat. And a lot of people began to wonder if Tristar Gym was the best fit for the Dominican, as coach Firas Zahabi prefers to mold guys into cerebral, all-terrain fighters, which seemed to just be muddling things for someone who could be an aggressive tank like Garcia. Garcia's fight last December against Mike Pyle seemed to be his last chance to impress people, so, of course, he did, remaining aggressive the whole fight before absolutely starching Pyle for a first-round knockout. Admittedly, a lot of this may have been Pyle's age finally catching up with him, since it looks like turning 41 is when Pyle finally got old, but any signals of Garcia living up to his promise are worth getting hyped about. That said, this is a bad matchup for him - Garcia's a fireplug, while Means is gigantic and knows how to use his reach, and if it comes to it, should be able to meet Garcia head on when it comes to aggressiveness. I suppose I could see Garcia just relying on his takedown game and seeing if he can get Means to the ground, but I think this fight is likely just Means piecing Garcia up on the feet before eventually putting him away. So my call is Means by second-round knockout. B.J. Penn (16-11-2 overall, 12-10-2 UFC) vs. Dennis Siver (22-11 [1] overall, 11-8 [1] UFC): Finally? A fight fifteen months in the making, that we weren't sure if we wanted to see in the first place, and is now only just depressing. So, the B.J. Penn comeback. It looked like it was a crisis averted when B.J. Penn seemed to be at peace with his retirement in 2014 - he had given it his all, he had gotten into good shape and cut down to featherweight, and he had gotten smashed by Frankie Edgar, and the last guy anyone would've expected to retire peacefully seemed to be doing just that. And then 2016 rolled around. Penn announced he was back, and wanted to fight Nik Lentz for some reason, but instead he was matched against Siver, who was aging rapidly himself, at UFC 196 that March. Which, fine. But then a sexual assault allegation from the previous summer became public, which got that fight pushed back to UFC 199 in June. And then both guys got hurt. And then UFC just seemed to lose all patience with Penn, booking him against Ricardo Lamas in a sure beating - but, of course, Penn got hurt again. So the Penn comeback finally actually happened this past January, as he faced Yair Rodriguez, and boy, did it...happen. Penn looked fine technically, a departure from the weird Edgar fight where he decided to fight as upright as possible, but physically he basically looked like a withered old man, getting rocked by every blow Rodriguez threw before getting finished essentially with the first strike of the second round. Nobody wants to see Penn again, but, welp, here he is, and I suppose Siver is as good of an opponent as any. Siver's rapidly hitting the point of diminishing returns - he's been a solid fireplug of a kickboxer for years, most notably spoiling George Sotiropoulos's run towards a lightweight title shot in 2011, but it was still weird when he was named the guy Conor McGregor had to beat to get a title shot. (Well, outside of the fact that it was an obvious setup win.) So McGregor ate Siver's lunch, and Siver turned around and looked flat in a loss to Tatsuya Kawajiri in his native Germany. That's been the last we've heard of Siver - thanks to injuries, he's coming back from a two-year layoff here, and at age 38, the same as Penn, it's hard to know how he's going to look. Still, I can't imagine him looking worse physically than Penn - like, I literally cannot picture it - even though I suppose it's possible, so I suppose I have to take Siver by decision. What are we doing here? Clay Guida (32-17 overall, 12-11 UFC, 1-0 WEC, 1-1 Strikeforce) vs. Erik Koch (15-4 overall, 4-3 UFC, 3-1 WEC): Well, this is a weird one, but sure, why the hell not? I have no idea what to think of Clay Guida anymore - about a decade ago he was possibly the biggest cult favorite on the roster, thanks to his absolutely relentless style and ability to bounce back from punishment, but as the game started to evolve, his frantic wrestling game started looking more and more like a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing, and Guida lost a ton of fans with his oddly defensive-oriented performance in a horrible main event against Gray Maynard. After that fight, Guida cut down to featherweight, and had seemingly pretty much settled in as a veteran gatekeeper - his wrestling still game some opponents fits, but Chad Mendes became the first man to crack Guida's legendary chin, and he got tapped out by Dennis Bermudez and Thiago Tavares. But then Guida moved to Team Alpha Male and had a surprisingly positive performance against Brian Ortega - admittedly, it was a weird fight where submission artist Ortega never chose to take things to the ground, but Guida looked pretty good being his usual manic self and keeping Ortega on his toes; at least until the last minute of the fight, where Ortega sensed he was losing, and was just able to chase Guida down and knock him out. So a year later, Guida is back and returning to lightweight, and he faces Erik Koch, who's in a super-weird place at the moment. The story of Koch's career has pretty much been injuries - he was actually slated to face Jose Aldo for the featherweight title a few times in 2012, but wound up getting hurt and missing the entire year, only to come back and lose to Ricardo Lamas and Dustin Poirier once other contenders had emerged. From there, Koch became one of the first guys I can think of to move up a weight class rather than down, and early returns at lightweight were fine - Koch blew through Rafaello Oliveira, but got knocked out by Daron Cruickshank in a fight that was just getting started. And from there, injuries took their toll again, as it was another two-plus years before Koch came back and ran through Shane Campbell. After dropping out of two more bookings - one in September, and one in January, Koch returns after only a thirteen-month layoff, which, progress I suppose. I really have no idea what to make of Guida fights anymore, unless he's at a clear advantage or disadvantage when it comes to being able to implement his wrestling - his stuff is more effective, if the Ortega fight is any indication, but Guida just kind of never stops moving, to the point where it's often hard to tell if he's having any success unless he's just controlling a guy from the top. And Koch, at his best, is an aggressive kickboxer, but it's also hard to tell what he has at this point with only eight minutes of fight time over the last three years. I'll go a bit outside the box and say Koch is able to pressure Guida and just run through him for a first-round knockout, but Guida could easily control things with his wrestling, or just evade Koch the entire fight and make this weird, or hell, any number of things could happen. Vitor Miranda (12-5 overall, 3-2 UFC) vs. Marvin Vettori (11-3 overall, 1-1 UFC): I like this as a pretty interesting middleweight fight, though since I do like both guys, it does make me a bit sad that the loser is going to wind up squarely on the cut line. Vitor Miranda was a fun, under-the-radar story for the bit - he came off as just the nicest guy on TUF Brazil 3, and despite being in his late thirties after a long kickboxing career, he had some surprising early success, scoring knockout wins over Jake Collier, Clint Hester, and Marcelo Guimaraes. But a one-sided loss to Chris Camozzi about a year ago put that to an end, and now Miranda gets a tough test in Italy's Marvin Vettori. Fifteen years younger than Miranda, Vettori's probably the best of this recent wave of Italian talent, although they're still mostly just raw athletes from a burgeoning fight scene. And Miranda's pretty much all horsepower with a driving grappling game at this point, which served him well in his UFC debut against Alberto Uda, but not so much against Antonio Carlos Junior, a bigger guy who also happens to be one of the best BJJ guys on the roster, although Vettori acquitted himself well. Miranda's fights, honestly, all play out the same - he looks to keep a distance to get his kickboxing game going, but inevitably his opponents succeed in pressuring him against the cage and taking him down. Against guys like Collier, Hester, and Guimaraes, Miranda knows enough and has enough strength to get out of trouble and turn things around, often being able to finish the fight close after, but against Camozzi and Carlos Junior (who Miranda debuted against himself), their athleticism and strength was enough to keep Miranda down. So this fight is probably going to look like one of those, and I lean towards the second thanks to Vettori being a physical specimen, though if he's raw enough that Miranda knows enough tricks to turn things around and keep the fight on the feet, I wouldn't be shocked. But still, my call is Vettori to wrestle enough to take a decision, though hopefully we get some fun back and forth swings in the action. Carla Esparza (11-4 overall, 2-2 UFC, 3-0 Invicta, 0-2 Bellator) vs. Maryna Moroz (8-1 overall, 3-1 UFC): A fairly interesting crossroads fight here, as former strawweight champ Carla Esparza is suddenly struggling to stay relevant. Esparza looked to reign over the division when it debuted, as she was the Invicta champ and odds-on favorite going into the inaugural championship tournament, then ran through Angela Hill, Tecia Torres, Jessica Penne, and Rose Namajunas without much trouble. But, well, Joanna Jedrzejczyk got really good, really quick, and in Esparza's first defense, Jedrzejczyk just shut down her wrestling game and beat the piss out of her on the feet. And since then, Esparza has struggled to find a foothold - after taking a year off due to shoulder surgery and getting a fairly uninteresting win over Juliana Lima, UFC basically just took their time booking her, viewing her as a boring fighter who wasn't much of a concern. And when Esparza finally did get a fight against Randa Markos this past February, Markos turned out to be surprisingly game, using a weird, hunched-over striking stance to keep Esparza's wrestling game at bay - most people think Esparza still won the fight, but Markos got the nod, which left Esparza only more rudderless. So Esparza looks to get back on track against Ukraine's Maryna Moroz, who's an interesting talent. Moroz came absolutely out of nowhere - she made her debut as an armbar hunter against weak competition, and Joanne Calderwood was expected to absolutely run through her. But Calderwood went through a messy breakup the night before with her boyfriend/coach the night before, which pretty much left Calderwood in the mental state where Moroz was able to rush her and get a shocking submission win. From there, it's been hard to kind of read how good Moroz is - she followed up the Calderwood win with a loss to Valerie Letourneau, and while she has looked better and relied on her boxing (which is actually her background, despite her early MMA career suggesting otherwise) against Cristina Stanciu and Danielle Taylor, though those two aren't exactly a murderer's row. Moroz is going to pose some problems - she's skilled, athletic, and long, but at the end of the day, Esparza's wrestling is such a plus skill, and I don't think Moroz can keep this on the feet. I expect Moroz to survive, and probably have some moments of her own both on the feet and working for submissions, but my call is Esparza via decision, in what's hopefully one of the more exciting ones of her career. Darrell Horcher (12-2 overall, 0-1 UFC, 2-1 Bellator) vs. Devin Powell (8-2 overall, 0-1 UFC): I'm surprised this isn't opening the card, since it's a bout between two guys who haven't really been able to show much at the UFC level, but it should be a fun way to kick off the televised portion of things, nonetheless. If the name Darrell Horcher rings any bells, it's because his UFC debut was notable, if not particularly successful, as he stepped in on a week's notice in April of last year to replace Tony Ferguson against Khabib Nurmagomedov. Horcher had earned his UFC shot, but, obviously, this was way too much for Horcher to handle, as Nurmagomedov pretty much just took him down and beat his brains in in the Russian's comeback fight from knee injuries. Shortly after that, Horcher was involved in a near-fatal motorcycle accident, so that's why he hasn't been heard from since, but he returns fourteen months later to take on Maine's Devin Powell. Powell's a signee from Dana White's reality show, and like pretty much all that show's alumni, disappointed in his UFC debut; it's easy to see what White liked about Powell, since he's a long, aggressive fighter with the ability to absorb a ton of damage and stage a comeback, but in his debut against Drakkar Klose, well, pretty much all he did was absorb damage from a more powerful athlete. Horcher's a fairly technical, well-rounded striker, so I like him to pick apart Powell here, though he's not so overwhelming that Powell can't win this by just turning things into a firefight, plus with Horcher coming back from such a brutal accident, it's hard to know exactly how he's going to look. But still, my pick is Horcher by decision in what should be a fun fight. Jared Gordon (12-1 overall) vs. Michel Quinones (8-1 overall, 0-1 Bellator): Well, second time's the charm for this fight, hopefully, as this was initially supposed to take place at UFC 211 before Jared Gordon came down with food poisoning - and third time's the charm for Michel Quinones's debut, as a slated debut on the Halifax card fell apart due to injuries. Anyway, Jared Gordon's another Dana White find, and appears to be one of the better ones based off the little film that's available, even if White has already proven he has no idea how to market him. Gordon has a crazy story involving multiple brushes with death thanks to drug addiction, but when White signed him, all he could do was focus on Gordon's lack of personality. Good work. Anyway, based off that film, Gordon's a powerful wrestler-grappler who could do some damage moving up the ranks, and he takes on Florida native Michel Quinones. Quinones is fine enough, and primarily a kickboxer who likes to peck at range at his opponents, but he can be scared off by power, and I figure that's what's going to happen here. Again, most of what's out there on Gordon is mostly highlights, so it's hard to know how good he looks over a full fight, but I'll take him via decision. Johnny Case (22-5 overall, 4-1 UFC) vs. Tony Martin (11-3 overall, 3-3 UFC): One of the more interesting fights on the card, though I understand why UFC has it this far low, since this could just wind up being a smothering Tony Martin win. It really feels like Martin's had more success than his 3-3 record, but a lot of that may be his losses all coming to pretty good guys in Rashid Magomedov, Beneil Dariush, and Leonardo Santos. But the Minnesota native uses a more dynamic version of the old Gleison Tibau gameplan, with some submissions mixed in - Martin cuts a ton of weight and just uses his size to grind out his opponents for two rounds, often giving up the third round (if it goes that far) due to exhaustion. So Martin's fights have been fairly binary - he's either faced easily overwhelmed lower-tier opponents, or faced guys who have either takedown defense or enough submission ability to keep Martin honest, who have taken him apart fairly easily. And I'm not sure which category Johnny Case falls into. Case had a nice under-the-radar run going - he racked up a ton of pre-UFC fights in his native Iowa, came in as a young, well-rounded veteran, and just racked up four straight wins on undercards while nobody was really paying attention. Case's biggest fight to date, against Australian prospect Jake Matthews in March of last year, was a fairly nip-tuck affair, which most people had Case winning the balance of - but Case was apparently down on the cards, and it all became moot when Matthews clamped on a fight-ending choke in the last minute of the bout. After a long injury layoff, Case returns here, and I'm not really sure what he can offer Martin - he might be the better fighter, but Case is more a well-rounded guy who's best on the feet, and I'm not sure he has either the athleticism or the submission chops to keep Martin from just laying on him. I'd like to be wrong - not that I don't like Martin, I just don't think it would be exciting - but I think Martin just takes a wrestling-heavy decision. Jeremy Kimball (14-6 overall, 0-1 UFC, 1-1 Bellator) vs. Josh Stansbury (8-3 overall, 1-1 UFC): It's a fight! Josh Stansbury is...perfectly fine. He came into UFC through TUF as pretty much a fully-formed, well-rounded vet, and he's the type of guy who can eke out a long UFC career on the margins by being a well-rounded test for newly-signed and lower-tier guys. Basically, you must be at least as good as Josh Stansbury to stick in the UFC. And to that end, Stansbury faces Jeremy Kimball, who lost his UFC debut and probably needs a win to stick in the company. Kimball, an undersized brawler out of Colorado, made his debut as a late-notice replacement in Denver this past January, and offered little to Marcos Rogerio de Lima. This is kind of like the Horcher/Powell fight above - Stansbury is the better technical fighter and has more to work with, but he's not so great that Kimball can't have some success just trying to turn this into a wild firefight. But I'll take Stansbury to earn a decision.