The main event of UFC 274 lived up to the hype that many expected from it. Despite the post fight stuff being a little anticlimactic because of the weight and scale stuff, it really was a great end to the night. Everyone expected Charles Oliveira and Justin Gaethje to come out and put on a show, which they most certainly did. Both men were prepared to walk through the fire to come out on the other side and Oliveira prevailed. He is currently the number one contender for the title that he was forced to vacate and I think that is ok. The weight to make is the weight to make and there has to be some punishment for missing, even if it is only by a little bit. What makes things weird, at least for me, is the story about the disagreement between the commission's scale and the UFC's scale, but I'll wait for more details on that before I get too upset. I think they should use a digital scale and have no idea why they don't to be honest. I think the UFC actually handled the situation in the best way they could have considering the circumstances. Oliveira has no history of missing weight at 155 (he does have that history at 145), so there was no need for a major punishment. They held the fight, still gave Oliveira his PPV points, and he'll be fighting for the title again in his next fight. I don't really know what else they could have done that is better than that. If the champion misses weight, I think stripping him and putting the title on the line for the challenger is the right call. Maybe if the champion had a longer history of weight misses then things would be different, but we'll cross that bridge if and when we come across that situation. Overall, I don't think that overshadowed the fight and that is ultimately a good thing given the weird circumstances around the scale.
Now that we can leave his weight in the past (until he weighs in next, at least) we can talk about what we actually saw from Oliveira on Saturday. The fight only lasted a few minutes, so there aren't a ton of exchanges and things to discuss, but we saw kind of the typical Oliveira fight. Since Charles fought for the belt first, his fights have had a similar pattern and we saw that play out again. Oliveira comes out in the early going being the one who is advancing and throws a lot of strikes to the body, specifically front kicks and knees in the clinch. Oliveira isn't afraid to get in his opponent's face and take some shots in order to get to his offense. This typically has resulted in Oliveira being hurt and dropped as well and we saw that here as well. Oliveira ended up going down a couple of times, but because he is so advanced on the ground, he can lay there for a moment to recover and no one will enter his guard. Gaethje forced the stand up both times, but Charles had already recovered a bit both times. After the second get up, Oliveira landed his own straight right hand that sat Gaethje down and Oliveira followed him to the floor. Gaethje actually defended pretty well at first and it looked like he might scramble back to his feet, but Oliveira beat him to the position and then was able to lock in the choke. Gaethje fought it as long as he could, but ultimately fell to the submission game of Oliveira like so many have before him. Charles kind of did his thing in this fight and it really never gets old. He showed good fight again and was able to both physically and mentally overcome all of the things surrounding the weight cut and miss. Of course he also overcame getting dropped twice by a huge power striker in Justin Gaethje. It was a lot of what we have come to expect from Oliveira, but that doesn't make it any less spectacular. Oliveira should probably be the favorite against whoever challenges him for the title whenever that fight happens.
We know Oliveira's next fight will be for the lightweight title, assuming he does in fact make weight, but it isn't extremely clear who will be the other half of the fight. The favorite for that spot is Islam Makhachev and he may not even need to fight again for that right. The last we heard Dana talking about it, he seemed annoyed that Islam said that he wanted to take RDA on short notice publicly, then turned down the fight behind the scenes. Islam seemed to have the number one contender spot locked up after beating Bobby Green, but that situation with RDA didn't sit well with Dana, which is obviously an important factor in how these things play out. It is possible that those things get smoothed over and Islam fights Oliveira for the title next. However, if Dana holds true to what he said, Islam will be fighting Beneil Dariush next in what would certainly represent the number one contender bout. Whoever came out of that fight with the win would clearly represent the next challenger for the title. I think that is honestly the only way that this can play out. I assume there is an outside chance that Dariush could just be given the shot over Islam as well, although I think that is the least likely option. It is either Makhachev or Dariush, it is just a matter of if they have to fight for it or if one is just given the fight at this point in my mind.
When it comes to Justin Gaethje, I think he just has to live and die by the sword. After a fight like that, it is easy to say that Justin Gaethje needs to reel it in and fight more conservatively and safely. That may very well be true, but who is to say that Justin Gaethje makes it as far as he did if he fights calmly. It is very possible that the wildness that has cost him at times in his career is also part of the reason he's gotten as far as he has. I believe Gaethje is powerful enough and has enough weapons that he could probably win technical, range kick boxing matches if he were to develop that restraint, but would he be a championship level fighter as just a technical striker? It's hard to say. Did swinging wildly and starting to tire out create the opening for the right hand that ultimately led to Gaethje losing? Yes, but the wildness also led him to dropping Oliveira twice. I just think you have to live with the bad because of all of the good that style can create. This time, it didn't work out, but I think it just sort of comes with the territory and Gaethje is probably in too deep to completely reinvent himself. Maybe as he ages and continues to mature, he'll start to refine some things and take less damage, but I don't think we'll ever see Justin Gaethje fighting like Israel Adesanya. All of that is to say, I don't think Justin Gaethje fought poorly at all. He did what he needed to do in order to win and it largely worked. He had Oliveira down twice and cut him open near his eye all in about 3 minutes. Oliveira was just able to take it and keep coming at him. Gaethje was really starting to gas even after only a few minutes, so I don't think it would have gone well for him had that fight become extended. I don't really think there's much that Justin should have done differently. Both men are finishers and it was a race to see who could get there first. Gaethje had to get to the knockout before Oliveira got to his back and it just didn't work out that way. Just Gaethje is a fan favorite and will have a place in the UFC cage for basically as long as he chooses to. Whenever he makes a return to the cage, we'll all be lined up ready to watch.
Justin Gaethje is in a bit of an interesting situation. He needs to climb the mountain again in order to get to a third title shot, so that is a little farther off in the distance. In order to get there, he's going to have go through some tough matchups that don't necessarily mesh well with what he likes to do. A lot of the more fun names that Gaethje could fight are matchups that we've already seen. He's already fought Tony Ferguson, Dustin Poirier, and Michael Chandler in the past, so I'm not sure how likely any of those rematches would be. If they were to do one, I think Chandler is the most likely, but I don't think any of them are super high on the list, at least right now. I think Gaethje checks some of the boxes for a potential Conor McGregor matchup, but it seems like Michael Chandler is really the perfect guy for that job at the moment. If Islam is given the title shot, then Beneil Dariush would need an opponent and Gaethje would slot in nicely there. However, Dariush may be fighting Islam for the right to fight Oliveira next, so I'm not sure how those timelines work out. I think Gaethje fighing the loser of the Islam vs Dariush fight makes as much sense as anything right now, but that isn't really the high profile type of fight that Gaethje has gotten used to, so I'm not sure how much interest he would have in something like that. Beyond that, he's looking at maybe the winner of Rafael Dos Anjos vs Rafael Fiziev that is scheduled for July, I believe. I think that would be a really solid fight for Gaethje as well. I think he's probably just ranked too high to get the Dan Hooker fight, even though that is probably the one that suits him the most. Fighting Hooker would allow them both to just stand and bang, which is what they want. We kind of threw the rankings out and dealt with the consequences to make Tai Tuivasa vs Derrick Lewis, so the UFC could do it again to make Hooker vs Gaethje, but who knows. Gaethje is in a decent spot because he has a lot of options, it's just that none of them really stand out as the obvious way to go to me right now. I think the winner of the Fiziev vs RDA fight may be the move, but I'm not 100% committed to the idea of anything right now. I think once the time comes to get Gaethje back out there, we will have a better idea of where things sit.
I think that is all I have on this fight. What did you guys think? What was your opinion on Oliveira's performance? Who should be the other half of the next title fight? What about Justin Gaethje's night? Who do you want to see him fight next? Leave all of your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
Comments
Post a Comment