This will be coming out late as I didn't have Sunday to get ahead like I normally do this week, but it is coming out nonetheless. This past Saturday ended up being a pretty fun event and provided a good mix of styles from start to finish. There weren't a ton of amazing fights that were really back and forth, but there were some impressive individual performances. The main event though was about as close of a fight as we've seen in a minute. Almost every round was really close and could have gone to either Mateusz Gamrot or Arman Tsarukyan. That ended with a unanimous 48-47 in Gamrot's favor with the scorecards online sort of being all over the place. I saw anywhere from 48-47 Gamrot to 49-46 Tsarukyan. I personally had 48-47 Gamrot after watching in real time, but I definitely wasn't convinced that was the undoubtedly correct score. It was an incredible fight and I'm so glad the UFC went in this direction. Their decision making for main events has been disappointing at times because they so often opt for someone with more name value that ends with a lackluster fight instead of just making great fights and letting them stand as the main event. They took two lesser known fighters and gave them the spot that they honestly deserved and the fight delivered tremendously. I really hope this pushes the UFC in this direction more often and we see these great fights instead of being penciled in for 4 Alexander Volkov main events and 3 Thiago Santos main events every year. Anyways, we're going to talk a bit about each fighter's performance and then try to figure out who they should or could be fighting next.
Mateusz Gamrot was given the narrow decision win and I thought he largely fought the fight that he needed to in order to win. He was able to push an incredible pace and I think that is what was largely the difference in this one. I estimated before the fight that Gamrot would be the more technical boxer, but that didn't really prove to be correct. At best, they were even on the feet, but a lot of the early exchanges seemed to favor Tsarukyan. The moments where Gamrot had the most success striking seemed to be when the fight left it's structure. When Gamrot could create chaos and get Tsarukyan to start swinging in the pocket, that is when he could land his best shots. When the fight was cleaner on the feet, Tsarukyan's speed was on full display and Gamrot did appear to be slightly behind in that regard. Gamrot did a good job of mixing in the wrestling, even when it wasn't working in the early rounds. He was able to keep Tsarukyan honest and forced him to defend time and time again. Starting in the third and especially in the championship rounds, it was clear that the pace Gamrot had said was starting to slow Tsarukyan down. Even just a little bit of the speed and power coming off of Arman's strikes evened things on the feet and saw Gamrot able to have more success. His takedown attempts started to become more successful. Even though Gamrot wasn't doing tons of damage or getting a lot of control time, the rounds saw him being on the offensive for a majority of the round with Tsarukyan doing more and more defending than leading and getting his own offense off like he was earlier in the fight. Gamrot pushed one of the highest 5 round paces in recent memory and if he can continue to fight the way he did Saturday, he's going to be a problem for anyone.
Coming off of a win in a fight that was so evenly matched and fun to watch, Gamrot is set up for a big opportunity in his next fight. He'll be getting a top 10 opponent for the first time in his career and could put himself in position to maybe be another win or two away from a title shot. He was 12th coming into the fight and he'll at least be in the 11 spot when the rankings are updated tomorrow, so his options are starting to narrow a bit, assuming they will have him fighting up. I suppose the easiest thing to do would be to rule out the fighters that aren't going to be options for him. I feel pretty confident in saying that he won't be fighting Tony Ferguson, Conor McGregor, Michael Chandler, Islam Makhachev, Dustin Poirier, or Charles Oliveira in his next fight. That leaves Rafael Fiziev, Rafael Dos Anjos, Beneil Dariush, and Justin Gaethje. I suppose Gregor Gillespie is also an option if he ever decides to stop turning fights down. I'm not even really going to waste time on Gillespie because he only wants to fight up in the rankings (even though he's not even in the rankings anymore) and also only wants fight the matchups that suit his needs the best. I assume a fight as tough as Gamrot do not fit those needs at this point in time. I'm not quite sure why, but the Dariush fight doesn't seem likely to me. Dariush was just booked to be in a very clear number one contender fight before he suffered a pretty serious ankle injury that caused him to pull out of that fight. I'm not really sure on the exact status of that injury as it pertains to a timeline for his return, which would be the first hurdle, but even if he was ready, I don't think this is the direction the UFC would be looking to go in. They clearly viewed Dariush as one win away from a title shot and he hasn't lost since, so I don't think all of the sudden they would have him fighting down against Gamrot. That may be weird logic for me to then say there's a chance he gets Justin Gaethje, but Gaethje's situation is much different, despite being much higher in the rankings than even Dariush. Justin Gaethje is probably looking at a bit of a reset in his career after losing a title fight for the second time in his career. He is certainly capable of getting another opportunity, but he is going to have to put together a nice winning streak in order to do so and is going to have to go through some really tough, young fighters to get to that point. Gamrot could be the first step in that process for him. I don't think it is particularly likely, but for some reason it does feel a very small bit more likely than the Dariush fight for me. The most likely fight for me is probably the loser of the Rafael Fiziev vs RDA fight coming up in a couple of weeks. The timelines fit together because both of the fights are taking place within a few weeks of each other, which makes this that much easier to put together. The winner of that fight could be on the verge of a title shot as RDA is currently ranked 7th and if the reports are true that Islam will be fighting Charles Oliveira for the vacant title sometime before the end of the year, the winner would probably be the highest ranked fighter who hasn't fought for the title in the recent past (depending on Dariush's health). The winner may walk into a title shot or at worst be a win away from it, but the loser will need somewhere to go and I think that is the perfect spot for Gamrot to slide in. If it's Fiziev, then he's right next to Gamrot in the rankings and the fight probably comes together pretty easily. If RDA loses, then things may be a little tougher given that RDA is probably somewhat close to the end of his career and could just retire from the sport instead of having to restart his push towards the title. However, I don't think RDA is washed or really even that close to it. Unless he just looks awful against Fiziev, I think he has plenty to offer and is more than good enough to continue fighting if he wants to do so. For me, those are the fights I would want to see for Gamrot. I think he needs someone who is at least as close as possible to being as well rounded as he is for the fight to play out in the best way possible.
For Arman Tsarukyan, I have to imagine this is a frustrating loss. He fought so well for a majority of the fight and then goes on social media to see that so many people, including a lot of really respected people, thinking he won. I personally don't think he won 4 rounds, but I can definitely see how someone would think that. It isn't too much of a stretch that someone could score it that way in my opinion. All things considered, I think Tsarukyan did a lot more good than bad. His striking look really good, especially early on. He looked fast, powerful, and explosive when the fight was at range and his kicking game won him those early rounds. The kicks he was landing to the body in those first two rounds would have crippled a lesser fighter and I'm not sure how Gamrot just took them seemingly without issue. Tsarukyan is probably more known for his grappling and it looked very good as we've come to expect. He and Gamrot were basically even in the wrestling and all of those early exchanges were either stalemates or resulted in quick scrambles where both fighters ended up back on their feet at range. The only thing that really ended up causing Arman the fight is that he couldn't keep up with Gamrot's pace. He ended up starting to slow down towards the midpoint of the fight and then lost a little bit in each round after that. I can't even say that he gassed out because he was still fighting well and holding his own, but Gamrot came out with his cardio in a place that was almost unmatched. It would have been next to impossible for someone to actually surpass the cardio and pace he brought and even then, Tsarukyan had a lot of people scoring the fight in his favor. As he began to fade, he had a harder and harder time stopping Gamrot's takedowns and found himself being controlled a little more each time. He started losing some of the speed and power on his strikes and the exchanges became more and more even or in Gamrot's favor. If there's really anything I could point towards that he should have done differently, it seemed like he went away from those body kicks that were probably the most impactful strikes in the early rounds. I don't know if they were just taking too much energy to throw or if he was afraid of being taken down off of them, but those were huge moments early and I felt like he sort of went away from them late. Even that is sort of knit picking though and it's hard to really say that Tsarukyan really did anything wrong to lose. Gamrot just went out and took it and I don't think Tsarukyan loses any stock, at least in my opinion. He's still a tremendous fighter and someone who I think has very really championship asperations and potential.
Matching up Arman Tsarukyan is actually a bit tougher than I would have imagined. At 155 lbs, it seems like we are either looking at aging legends who are really only fits for certain types of fights or fighters on the rise who are pushing for a title shot. Young fighters coming off of a loss are sort of few and far between, at least within the rankings. I can't imagine Tsarukyan fighting someone unraked next, but at the same time, his options within the rankings are very limited. For me, the options seem to be the winner of Dan Hooker vs Clay Guida, either Brad Riddell or Jalin Turner, or the winner of Carlos Diego Ferreira vs Drakkar Klose. Some of these fights seem so random but, I guess I'll start with the easy one. Brad Riddell is fighting Jalin Turner this coming weekend and I think either of those two will make sense, regardless of the outcome. If Turner loses, then he probably isn't an option as I don't think Tsarukyan fights someone who is both unranked and coming off of a loss. If Turner wins, then both he and Riddell are options as I don't think Riddell falls out of the rankings even if he loses. These fighters not only seem like the clearest options rankings wise, but they are also fighting this coming weekend, so the timelines match up about as well as possible. Both of Turner and Riddell are extremely fun fighters to watch, so there's really no going wrong with either of them. I really don't understand how Dan Hooker vs Clay Guida came to be. I get that Hooker needed a step back and a tune up fight of sorts, but they give him unranked and, quite honestly, not even that close to the rankings Clay Guida, who isn't even a good style matchup for Hooker. If Hooker doesn't win this fight, then I have no idea where his career goes from here. If Guida wins, does that mean he gets Hooker's spot in the rankings with a win? I have no idea. There were better options for Hooker in my opinion. A win for Hooker would get him back on track to some degree and would qualify him for the Tsarukyan fight. The final option is the winner of Carlos Diego Ferreira vs Drakkar Klose, which is another fight which seems a little odd to me. I wouldn't have pegged Klose as a guy who was on the verge of fighting for a ranked spot before this fight was made, but I don't necessarily have a problem with it either. Whoever wins that fight will have that ranking and I think would make some degree of sense for Tsarukyan. The Riddell or Turner fights are really the only ones that strike me as being exciting fights. I like Dan Hooker, but seeing him have to fight another grappler isn't really high on my list of fights I want to see.
What did you guys think of the fight? How did you score it? Who do you want next for both Mateusz Gamrot and Arman Tsarukyan? Leave any and all thoughts and comments below and thanks for reading. Have a good one.
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