The main event from UFC Vegas 53 on Saturday was one of the better MMA fights of the first half of 2022. For a fight that ended 49-46 on two of the judge's scorecards, it was a very competitive bout for much of the 25 minutes. Maybe it was just me, but I was much more into that fight than any fight since UFC 273 last month. Andrade vs Lemos was fun, but it ended so quickly that you can't get into it the same was as the 5 round battle we saw between Rob Font and Marlon Chito Vera. The real fight of the night was Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano, but that will be the subject of tomorrow's post. Let's talk about what we saw on the UFC side first and think about what could be on the horizon for both men.
We start with the winner around here and that goes to Chito Vera. It was an absolutely fantastic performance from him and it was vintage Chito basically from start to finish. He got off to the slow start like he often does, but then stole the momentum at the end of both the second and third rounds. He was much more in control during the fourth and I think he went into a bit of risk management in the final round. Even though he lost the first round and most of the second, Chito did a good job landing his kicks, which he usually does. Vera usually does get hit a little and that was expected with someone who throws with the volume of Rob Font, but Vera did about as good a job as he could have at blocking all of those punches. The strikes that did land, Chito absorbed them with little to no issue at all. His chin and defense looked really solid, which will be really important if he is to make a further push towards a title shot. Offensively, beyond his kicks, Chito's hands look pretty good as well. His boxing was overshadowed by Font's, but that doesn't mean Vera's wasn't good and it was about what we expected. I don't know if there's anyone who can go strike for strike with Font in terms of pure volume, but Vera was able to put a little more sting on his shots and he looked good doing it. I think Chito is really going to have to do something about those slow starts though. It is one thing to fall behind against Rob Font, but against someone like Petr Yan, Aljamain Sterling, Cory Sandhagen, Jose Aldo, Dominick Cruz, or Merab Dvalishvili, that may be much more of an issue. It has worked for him so far, but in those highest level fights, you can't afford to give rounds away. Font's pressure and boxing combinations were working really well for about the first 9 minutes and 30 seconds of the fight until Chito landed a left hook from in close that hurt Font a little. It didn't look like anything crazy, but it must have gotten Font in the right spot and he just didn't see it coming. Chito jumped on him to try and finish the fight, but there just wasn't enough time left and Font was still relatively ok. When they came out for the third, it was a lot of what we saw in the second. Font looked like he had mostly recovered and was getting back into the swing of things and his jab was working really well. At the end of that round, Chito got him with a step in knee that hurt him much worse and that looked like it may be the end of the fight. Chito wasn't quite able to finish it, but from that point on, Font seemed to be fighting in a bit of a compromised state. In the fourth, Chito would land a kick to the face that probably should have ended the fight. For some reason, Vera didn't scramble for the finish and basically just let Font recover. The final round was a bit closer and Chito was managing risk slightly in my estimation. He landed another high kick late in the round, but there wasn't enough time to really do much with it. All things considered, Chito was about as good as he could have been. He needs to fix his slow start issue in order to keep rising, but he was fantastic on Saturday.
I assume that we'll see Vera move into the number 5 spot that Font currently occupies until the rankings are updated on Tuesday morning. That gives Chito a short list of opponents for his next fight, whenever that may be. He won't be fighting Aljo for the title next as Dillashaw is ahead of him for sure. I don't think he's going to be fighting Dillashaw either as he is probably the top contender for the belt at this time. If he isn't getting the next title shot, he'll be fighting for the number one contender spot and I don't think Chito is in position for that fight just yet either. That leaves Petr Yan, Cory Sandhagen, Merab Dvalishvili, Dominick Cruz, and a rematch with Jose Aldo. I'm going to assume that Yan and Sandhagen won't be fighting each other since we just saw that fight not too long ago. Similarly, we just saw Aldo vs Chito not too long ago, so I don't think that is towards the top of the UFC's priority list either. I think the key to all of this is Cruz. Once we know what he's doing, everything will become a lot more clear. I guess it is really any of them. We sort of have 6 fighters available (assuming Dillashaw is fighting for the title) and once one fight is made, the other two will fall into place. I think everyone, at least the fans, want to see Cruz vs Aldo and I am one of those people. I saw a twitter rumor (so definitely not the most credible) that Cruz vs Merab was in the works, which was probably the next logical place to go for Cruz. The more that I look at it, I think Aldo is the one that is sort of the piece that needs to fall. Given his name value and legendary status, he is the one who everyone wants to fight. This is a really messy situation. It's a tough situation because Chito just fought, but Cruz, Aldo, Merab, and Sandhagen have all been on the sidelines for awhile. They're probably looking for fights soon, where Chito may be looking to rest for a minute. The best possible way for Chito to get to a title shot is to fight Petr Yan and that would be a great fight. Yan has already fought a lot of those top names, so maybe Chito makes the most sense for him as well. There's really no bad fight for him right now because Chito fights such a fan friendly style. He's going to engage in striking battles and be willing to absorb shots to land his own. I guess I'll go with Yan as the fight for him. If I had to make these fights, here's what I would do: Aljo defends against Dillashaw, Cruz vs Aldo, Yan vs Merab, and Chito vs Sandhagen. I think that gives us the best four fights we can see. There's really no wrong combination though, so whatever they do, it will be a lot of fun to watch play out.
I kind of went through the whole fight earlier in the first section, so I don't have to go through that here. With that said, I thought Rob Font actually fought better against Chito than he did against Aldo. Font got off to a great start, which he also did against Aldo, but then it started to go sideways for him as the fight progressed. The biggest issue for him in these higher level fights has been his ability to take damage. His offense is largely pretty good, but then he gets clipped and has a hard time flipping the momentum back. The left hook dropped him and cost him the second round, but he looked ready to go start the third. That knee dropped him in the third and the rest of the fight really went Chito's way. Font is a really crisp boxer with fast hands. His jab is the key for him and his combinations flow off of that. He was doing great early, but his chin failed him again and that sort of sent him spiraling to another defeat. I'm not sure what he could really look to do to improve that. Missing weight likely had some effect on that, but he didn't miss for Aldo and his chin failed him then too. Maybe Font could look to go up to featherweight and that would help some of his durability concerns. However, Font already doesn't have the best power, so moving up would only make that more noticeable, but if he can still win on volume and absorb shots better, then that would still be the best possible move for his career. I don't know what the answers are for Font, but I hope he finds a way to bounce back. He fights a style that is great to watch and is an extremely talented fighter who only a couple of fights ago was maybe a win away from a title shot. I thought he was better against Chito than he was against Aldo, but he is ultimately going to need to start getting some results or he's going to really start to slide down the rankings.
With two losses in a row, I'm not sure it is getting any easier for Rob Font. Typically the UFC likes to match up fighters who are trending in the same direction, but bantamweight is so tough that there's really no easy or bounce back fights to be had. If limited to only fighters coming off of losses, he'll be choosing between Pedro Munhoz and Frankie Edgar. Also, I just noticed that Marlon Moraes is still in the rankings despite having announced his retirement several weeks ago. With Edgar's slide, I think don't think he's going to be fighting up in the rankings any time soon, so that rules that one out. Munhoz does make some sense though. He's on a losing streak, but not because he's fighting poorly, he's just getting extremely tough competition. Not fighting guys like Cruz and Aldo make a lot of sense for him at this stage, so I think a matchup with Font probably fits his needs. Because bantamweight is such a shark tank, there is a greater chance than normal that Font gets someone coming off of a win. The most likely option in that case would be Song Yadong, who is looking to break into that upper tier of the division. A win over someone like Rob Font would give him a really nice win on his resume and a win for Font would represent a really nice bounce back. Other than that, there isn't any option that really stands out. Maybe he ends up fighting Merab since it seems like everyone is avoiding him and that is the only fight Merab can actually get. If Dillashaw doesn't get the title shot, then that leaves him fighting for number one contender status, so maybe Font gets one of those other guys I listed above, but that doesn't seem likely. I assume Font will drop to around the 8-9 spot in the rankings and I suppose a fight against Ricky Simon or Sean O'Malley isn't completely out the question, but neither strikes me as being particularly likely at this time, especially O'Malley given that it is setting up for him to fight on one of the two July PPV's. I would much prefer to see O'Malley fight Munhoz than Font though. I think, for my money, Font vs Yadong is actually the fight I would have the most interest in.
What do you guys think? What did you think of the fight? How close is Marlon Vera to the title? Who should he fight next? Where does Rob Font go from here? How far down does he drop for his next opponent? Leave your thoughts and comments below and thanks for reading. Have a good one.
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