The main event from this past Saturday's UFC Vegas 58 took place inside the top 10 of the lightweight division. The winner was set up to potentially be in a number one contender type of fight. The narrative going into the fight was centered around the contrast in styles. There was the young, up and comer in Rafael Fiziev. Fiziev is an explosive striker with serious knockout power and lighting quick strikes. He is a dynamic athlete that has all of the tools to compete with the best the division has to offer. It was just a question of whether he was ready for the step up or not. Rafael Dos Anjos was the old veteran who was trying to make one last run at the championship. While he isn't as explosive as he used to be, he still had the skills and had developed the veteran savvy to consistently pick up wins. This time around, Fiziev picked up the win in impressive fashion with a late knockout. I've had some new twitter followers since I've started live tweeting the events, so if you're new around here, the format of the fallout posts are that I discuss each fighter and how I thought they performed. Then I try to hypothesize who they could be matched up with next.
We start with the winner, which is Fiziev. I thought Rafael Fiziev fought virtually as well as he could have. He was able to keep the fight standing for a vast majority of the time, which was the most important thing he needed to do defensively. When the fight was standing, Fiziev was going to have the advantage. He was the more technical of the two on the feet and had the superior athleticism. He wasn't necessarily dominating on the feet, but he was slightly getting the better of each exchange. His power was clearly a step above RDA's and that power was effecting RDA over the course of 20+ minutes. Beyond stopping the takedowns, the next most important thing for Fiziev was answering questions about his cardio. He had shown some tendencies of slowing down and even beginning to fade in the past. The Bobby Green fight was especially concerning for me specifically because I felt that RDA could push the pace the way that Green was able to. This fight being the first 5 rounder of Fiziev's career was something that he had never done before and was a question that he needed to answer at some point. He put a lot of those concerns to bed and even held up with RDA's wrestling pace and not just striking. This is kind of short, but I really think that Fiziev did everything he needed to do. He was stuffing the takedowns really without too much of an issue. RDA only got in deep on a few of the attempts and event hen, Fiziev was athletic enough to maintain balance and get his back to the cage. When the fight was at range or once he got it back to range, Fiziev was landing his combinations. I thought he did a good job of not over extending himself or trying to do too much. Sometimes when you get a striker against a grappler, the striker will rush things at range because they know the takedown attempt is coming. They try to do to much and end up exposing themselves for a much easier takedown attempt. Fiziev didn't fall into that trap and eventually landed a perfect left hook on RDA's chin. He was in bad shape when he went to the ground and then Fiziev landed the perfect follow up shot that looked like he had RDA on the brink of going out for a moment. In real time, given the normal camera angle, it looked like a bit of a quick stoppage, but after seeing the replays, it was clear that RDA didn't need to absorb any more shots and that the fight was rightfully over. I suppose the only question for Fiziev to answer is how much can he improve from here.
This will come out before the rankings are updated, so I don't know exactly where Fiziev will be, but let's just assume that he takes the 7 spot where RDA was coming into the fight. This means that the only fighters ahead of him will be Charles Oliveira, Dustin Poirier, Justin Gaethje, Islam Makhachev, Michael Chandler, and Beneil Dariush. I have to imagine that the UFC wants him to fight up in the rankings, but I obviously can't say for sure. The way I'm seeing it right now is that there are probably 3 clearer options for Fiziev. It seems like Oliveira is going to fight Islam for the vacant title and it is starting to feel like both Poirier and Chandler are looking at some higher profile fights with Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor (or each other after their confrontation). The first option is Justin Gaethje and that is kind of the fight that I would most want to see. To be fair, it is hard for any potential matchup for Gaethje to not seem exciting, but I think this one really fulfills the needs of a Gaethje opponent. Fiziev is going to stand with him and they're going to throw power shots back and forth until someone goes down. To me, this would set up to be a repeat of Gaethje vs Chandler. A win over Gaethje would also put a huge name on Fiziev's resume if they wanted him to get the following title shot. The second option is Beneil Dariush. The more I think about it, the more likely this one actually sounds. Dariush was going to be fighting for the number one contender spot against Islam before suffering the ankle injury, so maybe his return will still be the number one contender fight, just against Fiziev. Everyone ahead of them will have fought for the title somewhat recently (assuming the Oliveira vs Islam fight is actually made), so the fresh contender would be the winner of Fiziev vs Dariush. Dariush isn't as exciting of a name, but he deserves the opportunity and I would be down to see how that fight plays out. The final option is recent winner Mateusz Gamrot. This one has the benefit of only being a few weeks ago, so their timelines are already lined up. Matchup wise, this one is similar to the Dariush fight, but with a little less juice because Gamrot is probably the lesser known fighter right now. As fun as this fight would be, it feels like the least likely of the three. It would be a crazy fight though, so I would 100% be all in for it if that is the direction the UFC is looking to go. I don't think there is really a wrong option here, but I selfishly want to see the Gaethje fight. This is the first opponent that has come up that actually feels like the right fight from Gaethje's perspective as well unless he can get the Conor fight, but that seems more like Chandler's fight right now. In any case, I'm excited to see Fiziev again as he will almost certainly have a big fight on tap in his next one.
I certainly wouldn't say RDA fought poorly, but he didn't have the success that I thought he would or could. Early on, he did a good job of closing the distance and forcing the fight to happen along the cage. This was the right way to go in my opinion as he didn't allow Fiziev to strike and was also making him dig under hooks and expend energy defending. In hindsight, RDA probably could have benefited from working harder for takedowns in the clinch situations. He would pin Fiziev to the cage, but wasn't really chaining together takedown attempts. He could have forced a more frantic pace in the clinch, but he either chose not to or wouldn't have been able to keep that pace himself. As the fight went on, I do wonder if or I guess how much the body work of Fiziev was impacting RDA. I said at the beginning that I don't think RDA fought poorly because while I think the fight was probably 3-1 Fiziev going into the 5th, it wouldn't have surprised me if it was 2-2 given the state of MMA judging. Every round was competitive and that was without RDA taking the fight to the ground other than in the 4th. He was making the striking exchanges interesting and wasn't getting outclassed at all, he was just behind in the speed and athleticism. I thought RDA represented himself well against a much younger and more explosive opponent that was stylistically one of the tougher matchups for him. A high level striker who was a lot faster and has elite takedown defense is probably the perfect skillset to beat RDA and he was still competing with him until the final exchange put him down. I think RDA is still capable of fighting the best 155 lbs fighters in the world and shouldn't be relegated to the "fun fights" classification at all, unless that is specifically what he wants to do.
To determine what is next for RDA, we would need to know where his mind is at. Dos Anjos doesn't have a ton of fights left in him at his age, so it is a matter of what he wants to do with the ones that he does have left. If he just wants to get back to the grind and try to make one last push for the belt, I think he is fully capable and within his right to do so. If RDA just wants a few more "fun fights" with guys from his own era before he calls it a career, I couldn't blame him for that either. The third option would be for him to continue on as some sort of top 10 or top 15 gatekeeper, which I think would be unfortunate. I view RDA as just a better fighter than that, but if that is what he wants to do, then he should be allowed. I really don't like seeing the old guard fed to the wolves on their way out in fights that just seem unfair, but RDA isn't in that stage yet. RDA can and would compete with virtually everyone inside the top 25 of the division. Whether he would win some of those fights is a different story, but I don't think Rafael Dos Anjos is getting dog walked by anyone anytime soon. If the "fun fight" route is the way he wants to go, I think a rematch with Tony Ferguson almost makes too much sense. They're both kind of sitting right there for each other and I think that would be a fair fight. They're similar age at a similar stage of their careers. If he wants to push for the belt again, I still think the Tony fight makes some sense as it serves as an opportunity for them both to get back on track. There is also the Arman Tsarukyan fight that is there. They're both coming off of a loss with the timelines already close. I don't really want to see that fight, but that seems like something the UFC would want to do. There is always the Conor fight, but that hasn't felt especially likely in awhile. Conor feels like he has bigger fights available to him that would better suit his needs both promotionally and stylistically. If I had to guess, I honestly think the Tsarukyan fight is the way they go. When the UFC calls and offers a name, RDA isn't going to say no, so they'll probably take advantage of that. RDA is one of the true BMF's of this sport and I really don't think he'll ever be appreciated enough.
What do you guys think? Who do you want to see next for Rafael Fiziev? Where do you think Rafael Dos Anjos should go from here? Leave any and all thoughts and comments below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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