If you're a returning reader, then you know that I was on vacation all of last week. I made picks for UFC 275 and UFC Austin, but I didn't do any reaction to the PPV or anything in the build up to this past weekend. Normally I would have done a separate fallout post for each of the title fights as well as Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs Zhang Weili, but because we are so far removed, I just don't have the space for individual posts unless I wanted to drag them out over the next couple of weeks. That would have me posting reactions to fights that are multiple weeks old and start running into the UFC 276 build up and I don't think that is the best way to go. I guess if anything worked out, it is that besides those three main fights, there really wasn't a whole lot to say about the card. There were some nice performances from Jack Della Maddalena, Jake Matthews, and others, but not really enough to make a full "roundup" post like I normally would. This version of the round up is just going to be for the two title fights and the Joanna vs Zhang fight. We'll talk about everyone's performance and what could or should be next for them.
We'll go in the order that the fights happened on the card as usual, which means starting with Joanna vs Zhang. We'll start with Joanna and just as a spoiler, her full retirement post is coming tomorrow. I'll save all of the stuff about her career as a whole for that and keep this to just this fight. Simply put, this version of Joanna did not look like what we once knew her to be. I think we all kind of knew that she wasn't truly the "boogey woman" anymore, but she looked even more diminished than I thought. She had taken some steps back after losing the consecutive fights to Rose, but she was still putting on good performances and competing closely with some of the best fighters in the world. Many people even thought she won the first fight with Weili, but clearly, a lot of years of hard work and a lot of fights just caught up with her. Whenever she kept getting taken down early in the first, I knew that wasn't a good sign. Joanna had been stuffing takedowns from way better wrestlers for years, but all of the sudden couldn't stay off of her back against Zhang Weili. It was sad to see her be finished so dramatically and have the fight stopped because she couldn't get up even though Weili didn't immediately jump on her to land more shots. However, I'm happy that she got to have her moment and put her gloves down in the cage. She was also well enough in the moment to speak and say whatever she felt she needed to get off her chest in the moment. It is a bit sad as well that she felt like she let people down despite being one of the best and most entertaining fighters of her generation, but that is a feeling that I am personally familiar with in my own life, so I feel where she's coming from. While it was an unfortunate ending, it was a great career that we'll get into in more detail tomorrow.
As for Zhang Weili, I thought she looked pretty good. She got the fight into the positions that she needed to in order to have success. Joanna's path to victory was going to be a range kick boxing match where she allowed her volume to take over, but Zhang didn't let it happen. She was able to get the fight in close quarters and eventually use her superior physicality to get the fight to the ground. She was able to control Joanna and land some pretty nice ground and pound before she was eventually able to get back to her feet for the last little bit of the round. She was able to get Joanna to start trading with her in the second round, which put Zhang's power advantage on display before she landed the spinning back fist that ended the fight. It seems that in all likelihood that Zhang will be the first challenger for new champion Carla Esparza. The only other fighter with an argument to the fight is Marina Rodriguez, but since she has a loss to Esparza in the recent past, I think it is almost guaranteed to be Zhang vs Carla for the title next.
Moving on to the co-main, we have to talk about Valentina Shevchenko. Valentina showed real signs of vulnerability for the first time in awhile besides the one round against Jennifer Maia. I thought the one way to get to Valentina may be to have someone who can hold her down and control her and Taila Santos was doing just that. I, personally, thought Santos was going to get the 48-47 decision, but it didn't get her way. I am on the record saying that she was the most dangerous opponent that Valentina had fought in a long time, but I thought she would just be too inexperienced to be able to really use her physical advantages to maximum capability, but the moment wasn't too big for her at all. As things currently stand, I honestly believe that if she doesn't break her orbital on the clash of heads, that she wins the fight and the title. Normally I talk about the winner first and that was my intention, but I've already said so much about Santos that I'll just keep going with her. I really think that given how competitive that fight was and how uncompetitive Valentina's fights have been over the last few years, that the UFC is completely justified in booking an immediate rematch here. The problem is that Santos has the orbital fracture and will need time away to recover. If Shevchenko wants to fight before that time is ready, then Santos will probably need to pick up a win to stay as the number one contender. Fights with Katlyn Chookagian, Alexa Grasso, Viviane Araujo, and Manon Fiorot are all possibilities. It is hard to say exactly because it is unclear what exactly the timeline for a Santos return may be. If it is only a few months, the immediate rematch probably stays intact. If the layoff pushes closer to 6+ months, that is when we will probably have to see her get another win in order to regain number one contender status.
For Valentina, I'm not really sure why she wasn't performing up to her normal level. She is typically a bit of a slow starter, but she never really got it going in this one. Even in the rounds that she won, she wasn't herself. I don't know if she just got overly cautious out of fear of being taken down again or if something else was up, but it almost cost her the championship. She has never really been one to throw strikes with tremendous volume, but she felt even slower with her pace in this one. Regardless of who her next opponent is, she's going to have to get a lot of those issues ironed out or she may be in trouble. I think she also needs to refine her ground game as well. She's perfectly fine from top position, but she has some issues off of her back. She was taken down and held down for a round by Jennifer Maia, who is primarily a boxer. She either needs to become a takedown defense machine and just stuff everything or she needs to significantly improve her get ups. If she eventually loses this title, it seems like that is going to be how it happens. If Santos isn't the fight again for whatever reason, there are a few options for Valentina. A win for Alexa Grasso in her next fight would be huge and would put her in a great spot. Manon Fiorot is fighting Jessica Andrade next and picking up a win over a former champion would do wonders for her case. However, Ariel Helwani has sort of hinted at it (not sure if he has any insider info or if it just a feeling) and I sort of get the same feel from the situation that if Miesha Tate gets the win over Lauren Murphy in their fight, that she would get the next title shot. Valentina talked in the lead up to this fight about potentially moving up to 135 and I was all for it at the time, but I really don't think it is necessary anymore. The only reason I would have liked it for her is because she didn't really have great challengers for the last few defenses. However, there is a group of interesting fighters who are now close to the top and ready to fight. Grasso, Santos, and Fiorot are all close and Casey O'Neill, Maycee Barber, and Erin Blanchfield are coming up behind them. I don't think Valentina has a true bantamweight frame, so other than a one off just to solidify her status as an all time great by checking double champ off the list, I don't think her going up is necessary. The division is in way better shape now than it has been at any point over the last few years.
The final fight to talk about is the main event and what a fight it was. Jiri Prochazka answered so many questions a couple of weeks ago and looked great doing so. I honestly thought that when Glover took him down in the first round that the fight was going to be over right then. Prochazka still has work to do in the grappling department, but he clearly improved quite a bit. His takedown defense could use some more work, but his game off of his back looked competent against one of the best top game fighters in the entire sport. He was able to both defend submissions and get up multiple times across multiple rounds in impressive fashion. On the feet, Jiri did what he needed to do. He was landing hard shots and forced Glover to eat some strikes that I didn't think he was capable of eating at his age. This fight was absolutely insane. The fact that it ended with a Jiri submission like a minute and ten seconds after he was mounted was the improbable ending that this fight deserved. It is right there in the conversation for fight of the year right now. As things currently stand, there are three options for Jiri's first title defense. Those, in no particular order, are the Glover rematch, the Jan Blachowicz fight, and the winner of Magomed Ankalaev vs Anthony Smith. Going into the fight, I wasn't expecting an immediate rematch to really even be in the cards. Regardless of who won, I thought the fight would end pretty quickly and there really wouldn't be any need or interest in running that one back. However, the stars aligned and Jiri was able to escape submissions and the mount on the same night that Glover's chin was able to absorb clean shot after clean shot and we got a back and forth battle for almost 5 full rounds. As things currently stand, I think the Ankalaev/Smith winner is a distant third place unless one of them turns in a performance for the ages. Jan Blachowicz looked good in the fight with Rakic before Rakic's knee gave out on him. Of course, Glover has all of the momentum because everyone loved the fight that just happened. The UFC is in a really tough place because this is a huge decision to make, but at the same time, I don't know that there's a wrong decision. They may be able to get the best of both worlds because Glover isn't a guy who likes quick turnarounds at this stage of his career anyways. I think, realistically, they could look to do Jiri vs Jan somewhere around October-December and then just have Glover fight for the title in the following defense. As we sit here today, I think that the Blachowicz fight is the one that I personally want to see the most. Anyone coming forward and fighting Jan with their hands down is an interesting strategy that I would like to see play out.
Finally, we have to talk about Glover. For the first time in awhile, Glover started to show his age a bit. While Jiri does deserve some credit, Glover consistently allowing him to escape from submissions and dominant positions is something that Glover just doesn't do. It is something he hadn't done hardly at all over his latest run and he let a worse grappler than both Anthony Smith and Jan Blachowicz escape time after time. Everyone is talking about the failed guillotine attempt and while that was a clear mistake, I'm not going to harp on it for too long. Glover essentially had Jiri out on his feet and for whatever reason, decided to grab the neck and try to go for the submission. Jiri immediately slipped out and ended up on top and that allowed Jiri time to recover from the right hands Glover had just landed. With all that said, Glover was winning the fight in my estimation. I thought that he had won the first, third, and fourth rounds, and even if it was somehow 2-2 going into the fifth, he was probably going to win the fifth as well. He gave up the mount one last time and when he was reversed, he found himself being submitted for the first time in his entire career. I sort of have mixed feelings on Glover's fight because I thought he made a lot of mistakes that ultimately led to him losing, but at the same time, he was 28 seconds away from retaining his title. What Glover has going for him in his next fight is that he instantly committed to continuing his career in the immediate aftermath of the fight. Had Glover been unsure of what he wanted or if he wanted to fight again, Dana may have been more hesitant to give him another title shot. Because he was still ready to continue despite having just lost his title, I think that helps him in trying to get the rematch. I'm almost split on whether to run it back with Glover or to give the title shot to Jan, but I think it may be out of their hands slightly. The timeline will probably be key here. Glover isn't really all that active anymore given his age and the miles he's logged in this game. Jiri hasn't be very active either. With him, he's a younger guy and may want to start fighting more often in order to earn money while he can. If he wants a quicker turnaround, that probably favors the Jan fight as he is probably ready whenever the call comes. He did have that cut near his eye after the Rakic fight, but he looked ok when they showed him sitting cage side. I just sort of have the feeling that Glover's next fight will be for the title, but it will be after the next title fight. I think they'll do Jiri vs Jan or Ankalaev/Smith and then Glover will sit out for the following title fight. I think the UFC would be ok with that and Glover can't be taking random fights at this stage. He only has so much left in him, so he needs to be careful with the fights that he takes and the timing of when he takes them.
What did you guys think of the card? Which of these fights were your favorite? Who's performance stood out to you most? Leave any and all thoughts below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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