Ok, I know these are late, but I still want to talk about so many fights from this card. I didn't want to rush them and short change the fighters I'm talking about, but I didn't want to disregard this past weeks card and not do previews for Belal vs Wonderboy and Lewis vs Daukaus, so it pushed some of these reactions farther out. However, I was willing to do so because we now have a month off without any fresh events, so we're going to need some things to talk about for the next few weeks. The UFC 269 main card opened with Sean O'Malley vs Raulian Paiva and was then followed with the flyweight debut of Cody Garbrandt against Kai Kara France. This fight was highly anticipated due to Garbrandt being a relatively popular fighter and former champion who is down on his luck switching to a smaller weight class. More knowledgeable fans knew Kai Kara France was going to be a legitimately tough fight for him, even though I don't think his name carries much weight with a more casual viewer. With that said, what we saw play out was probably a surprise to many people given that Garbrandt was the much more recognizable fighter, but I don't think that should have been the case. I'm not here to say I'm some kind of MMA die hard or super fan because I picked Kara France to win, but just rather that this fight posed some serious risks for Cody that weren't really perceived or talked about by the type of fan who only watches the pay per views or maybe only sees a handful of events a year at parties with their friends. Before I really get off the rails, let's talk about what we saw from each fighter and talk a little bit about where they can go from here.
When it comes to Kai Kara France, I'm really glad he got to have this moment. Kara France has always had potential, but he's been inconsistent at times. One thing that works against him is that the flyweight division has been in a constant state of flux until much more recently. Men's flyweight bouts were sort of few and far between because there just wasn't that many people even in the division and with DJ dominating almost all of his fights, the division just wasn't taken that seriously by the casual audience. Luckily, Henry Cejudo saved the division by defeating Demetrious Johnson and then Deiveson Figueiredo revived it, so we're all good on that front. The problem is, a lot of the flyweights who were around at that time get overlooked because no one was paying attention to those fights before Figueiredo won the title against Joe Benavidez. While the popularity of the division overall probably led to perception from the general public being much more in favor of Cody, it's not like the really hardcore fans were all thinking Kara France would win easily. This comes from the inconsistent performances I referenced earlier. For someone called "don't blink", he had a hard time finding finishes early in his career. He's lost to Brandon Moreno and Brandon Royval in his UFC career, who are the current champion and the number 5 ranked fighter respectively, so there's no real shame in those losses. After knocking out Rogerio Bontorin and Garbrandt in back to back fights, it seems like Kai has maybe found his groove. His performance in this fight was particularly impressive because he showed a lot of control, while also going in for the finish. The first right hand that he landed right on Cody's chin was a beautiful shot that would have dropped almost anybody at 125 and probably a significant number of fighters at 135, but it was his follow up that really impressed me. When you drop someone with the name value of Cody Garbrandt in the first round of the biggest fight of your career, I imagine it would be really easy to just go crazy trying to finish him and potentially gas yourself out. Kara France didn't do that and instead was much more calm and collected as he moved in and cut off the cage as Cody tried to evade him. He would tag him with more good shots before Cody shot and partially landed a takedown. Kara France did not accept the takedown though and was able to create a scramble and find his way back to his feet. Kara France would keep finding the mark with his right hand as Garbrandt waved him on before he eventually put him down for good. It was a tremendous display of power, speed, and precision that would make him dangerous for anyone in the division. Kara France called for the title shot next and when he did it in the cage, my initial reaction is that he's moving a little too fast. However, looking at the current state of the division, I don't think he's actually that far off. Figueiredo and Moreno will be settling their trilogy next month and from there, the field is sort of wide open. For Kara France, it's probably better if Figeuiredo wins that fight. If it's Moreno, matching him up with Alexandre Pantoja likely gets more hype since Pantoja has wins over Moreno earlier in their careers. Alex Perez is ranked higher than Kara France and Pantoja, but he hasn't fought since he lost to Figueiredo as a somewhat short notice replacement in what was supposed to be Cody Garbrandt's flyweight debut before injury forced him to pull out of the fight. There is also the undefeated Askar Askarov, but he missed weight in his last appearance, so I don't think the UFC is chomping at the bit to immediately throw him into a title fight. Kara France has as legitimate a resume as anyone else who's pushing for that title shot, so don't be surprised if he does get it. In my estimation, if he doesn't get it, Pantoja is probably the guy who does. That leaves Kai to fight Alex Perez, Askarov, or the loser of the title fight. If Moreno wins, I don't see Figueiredo staying at 125 as the weight cut has been brutal for him. If it was up to me, I would match Kara France with Askarov as a true number one contender's fight and as reassurance that Askarov can make weight before he gets his own title shot. There's really not a ton of options for Kara France as he needs to fight either the champion or one of the top 4 next time out.
When it comes to Cody Garbrandt, he has a lot more options, but he also has a lot more questions to answer. To start with the positives, Garbrandt largely looked like himself for the duration of the fight. At least in the way his body looked, it doesn't seem like the weight cut really effected his physique too drastically. We've seen guys try to go down in weight before, namely TJ Dillashaw, and look like they were going to die. Cody still looked good on the scale and he looked filled out on fight night. He also looked like he maintained his speed and power when we saw him throw punches and looked explosive on the takedown attempt. Unfortunately, the list of positives on fight night aren't very long for Cody, partially due to the fact that it didn't last all that long. On the negative side, Cody still couldn't get ahold of his emotions and he wound up in a fire fight yet again. The night that Cody defeated Dominick Cruz for the bantamweight title is one of the best individual performances I've ever seen, but Cody has never been able to recapture what he had going for him that night. Cody has repeatedly found himself standing in the pocket and trading shots, which just hasn't gone his way. He was knocked out twice by Dillashaw, once by Pedro Munhoz, lost a decision to Rob Font, and now this loss to Kai Kara France, with only his highlight knockout of Raphael Assuncao to break up the losing streak. Trading shots back and forth at a close distance seems just too tempting for Cody to resist. Justin Gaethje has battled the same issue at times, but it has led to much more success for him than it has for Garbrandt. The second negative for Cody is that his chin didn't hold up. A lot of people have been quick to say that the weight cut just took too much off of Cody's chin and while that may be the case, it wasn't obvious to me. We've seen Kara France finish people before, so we know his power and so many of the shots that landed on Cody, especially the first one that started the whole sequence, was right on the chin with perfect placement. I don't think that perfect shot with good power dropping him is enough evidence to say the weight cut zapped him. Obviously, Cody knows his body and he knows how he felt going into the cage, but from everything we could see, I don't think the weight was an issue. Regardless of what the cause was, we have seen Cody knocked out quite a few times now and that's definitely less than ideal for his health moving forward. When I said there are a lot of questions to answer for Garbrandt, the first is: Does he actually want to fight again? I don't know that this is an obvious answer. Cody is a young man, only 30, with a lot of life left to live. He's already captured the championship and fought on the biggest stage in the world. He has nothing left to prove to any of us. Hopefully, Cody is financially secure enough to walk away whenever he wants to because there's nothing more uncomfortable to watch than a fighter who is fighting because he has to, not because he wants to. This is why the Nick Diaz fight was so uncomfortable to watch for me personally. Cody is so young that he has plenty of options. He could take a year or two off and just recover and focus on himself. Take 6 months without ever going to an MMA gym and then if he wants to come back, he still has that option. Assuming he does still want to compete, Cody then has to decide what weight class he wants to be at. It seemed to me that he was perfectly fine at 125, but we don't know how much discipline that took and how far out he had to start operating at a calorie deficit. It could just be too much work for him to get all the way down there 3 or 4 times a year and he could decide that bantamweight provides him a much better quality of life. We've seen Cody reach the pinnacle of the bantamweight division, so it's not like he's too small or not powerful enough to do it again. I can't say that there's really a preference on that one for me, just whatever he feels is the best move for him long term. Obviously, that's a lot that has to be decided before we can get to matching him with an opponent. Regardless of what he decides, I would like to see some time off before we see him again. I think the last quarter of 2022 is the earliest I would want to see him back. If I was forced to pick someone, I think Dominick Cruz would be interesting, but they might be on different trajectories at this point, but in a year? Who knows what the divisions will look like. If he stays at flyweight, Manel Kape and Tim Elliot could provide interesting challenges, but I honestly have no idea. I think the most important thing for Cody right now is to rest and just take stock of everything. He doesn't need to rush himself into a decision and I think it would be a mistake to do so. I only want to see Cody do what he wants and what is best for him if and when we see him return.
What do you guys think? Should Kai Kara France get the title shot? If not, who should he fight next? What do you want to see next from Cody Garbrandt? Should he go back to bantamweight or stay at flyweight? Who should his opponent be at either? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and as always, have a good one.
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