It's a Friday with no full preview, but I wanted to get through the rest of this card. Since I do the picks and betting on Saturdays before the event, I know I'll be able to say everything I need to there for Calvin Kattar vs Arnold Allen. UFC 280 got off to a bit of a slow start as the prelims lacked a bit of excitement, but it really picked up heading into the main card. There were a few fights that were pretty important for their weight classes, so there's a lot to say as some of these fights need to cover both the winner and the loser. Let's not waste any more time.
The first winner of the night was Karol Rosa in a bit of a strange fight. Rosa came in as a heavy favorite against an aging Lina Lansberg and didn't always look as good as we expected. The first round was pretty close as Rosa got dropped with a right hand early, but she bounced right back up and controlled the rest of the round. She was winning the second round until she got a point deducted due to an illegal knee. Then the third round was much like the second, just without the point being taken away. A lot of people thought we would see a draw as Lansberg should win the first round because of the knock down, but two judges ended up scoring both the first and third in favor of Rosa, giving her the win. I'm ultimately ok with that decision because Lansberg really only landed that one punch and while it did damage Rosa enough to knock her down, she immediately got back up. Lansberg couldn't even jump on her as she was already back to her feet by the time Lansberg closed the distance. I think the damage from that shot was a bit limited and because Lansberg really didn't have any offense beyond that, I'm ok with Rosa getting the round. Rosa will be looking to move up the division again and the opponent that makes the most sense to me next would be Pannie Kianzad. Raquel Pennington could also make some sense depending on when she is ready to return from her hand injury.
The second winner of the night was Muhammad Mokaev. This is the fight where we have to go through our favorite MMA past time of saying a fighter was exposed the first time they don't just run over an opponent in their career. Mokaev went from the guy who was going to break Jon Jones's record for youngest champion, but because he didn't just bulldoze Malcolm Gordon, he's now a complete fraud and will never win another fight in his career. Obviously, if you're looking for sensationalist overreactions, you're not in the right place. We finally got to see Mokaev face some push back and he came out a winner. I don't know how that could possibly be a bad thing. There are things that Mokaev needs to improve on, but he's still 22 years old, of course he needs to get better. He's a tremendous wrestler already and he has the cardio to do it. He has power and his striking has shown itself to be competent in the brief moments we've gotten to see it. He needs to be more aggressive in throwing strikes when he's on top, but that isn't like a crazy progression to make. He's still young and he'll continue to improve. After all, he won the first round and then got the submission in the third round, he's just fine. He's in the rankings now, so he should be getting a ranked opponent now. At least I would assume so. Jeff Molina, Manel Kape, and Tim Elliot are probably the top 3 options and I would be very interested in seeing how all of those fights would play out.
Next up is Armen Petrosyan and he pretty much did what we've come to expect. He's a fairly technical kick boxer and he's going to put out solid volume. AJ Dobson was doing fine when he was throwing, but he fell so far behind on the numbers that he would've needed knockdowns or a finish. He really wasn't able to land too many flush shots either, which I thought he may have a bit more success doing. Petrosyan isn't the flashiest fighter in the world, but he's a lot to handle on the feet. His grappling will need to catch up if he's going to make a real run, but we'll see what the future has in store for him. I think fighters like Jacob Malkoun, Puna Soriano, and Gerald Meerschaert are the type of opponent that makes sense for him going forward. They're all grapplers though, so maybe they wait for some matchups to play out to get him another striker.
Abubakar Nurmagomedov was able to grind out a pretty solid, but competitive decision win. I think this was the case of two fighters who were largely trying to do the same thing, but Nurmagomedov was just a little bit better in each facet. I'm not so sure what his ceiling is within the welterweight division, but his style will allow him to grind out a lot of wins against someone who isn't prepared to grapple at a high level. I think someone like Orion Cosce, Ange Loosa, Yohan Lainesse, or Ramiz Brahimaj would be the tier of opponent that I deem appropriate for his next fight.
Nikita Krylov picked up yet another win and he is really becoming a dark horse at light heavyweight. Krylov has a lot of the qualities that you look for in a potential contender and now it seems like he's really coming into his own and getting the most out of them. In a division that is still in the midst of transitioning away from Jon Jones, Krylov may only be a couple of fights away from a title shot. He's set himself up for a great opportunity in his next fight and is looking at a top 6 guy. Jamahal Hill is the one guy who is available now, but over the next few months some others will open up. The Dominick Reyes vs Ryan Spann winner will have some momentum. The Blachowicz vs Ankalaev winner is probably getting the next title shot, but the loser will be the biggest name available in all likelihood. Anthony Smith and Aleksandar Rakic are recovering from injury, but they should be returning sometime next year, depending on the exact timeline Krylov is looking for. I think the Jamahal Hill fight is the easiest one to make since it is just sitting right there to make and that's the one that interests me the most right now for both of them.
Caio Borralho just keeps on winning. I know his resume of wins may not be the most impressive list of guys in the world, but I'm ready to place him in the top 20-25 of the division right now. His grappling has allowed him to win a lot of fights and minimize risk, but I think his striking is also pretty solid. Sometimes he has a tendency to try and rush things and he'll end up losing position because he tried to get to someone's back too quickly or he'll force an exchange on the feet when he didn't need to, but those are things that he can refine as he becomes more and more comfortable in the cage. I think all of the skills are there to make some noise in this division and he should get a pretty interesting opponent next time out. I think someone like Krzysztof Jotko or Brendan Allen is where I would look next for him. Maybe he even jumps up and gets the winner of Brad Tavares vs Gregory Rodrigues or Chris Curtis vs Joaquin Buckley. I wouldn't hate any of those matchups.
Next up is Belal Muhammad coming off of the best win of his career. Belal is just making it happen and he's really demanding that people reconsider what they thought they knew about him. His all around skill set and ability to force his opponent into the spot they don't want to be in is consistently winning him fights where the other guy seemingly has a clear advantage. I can't help but be happy for the guy. His defensive wrestling held up just fine and he took it to Sean Brady on the feet. Brady clearly had power, but Belal was touching him up and once he had Brady hurt, he poured it on and forced the stoppage. Belal is now top 4 in at welterweight and he needs a big fight in some capacity. A potential Masvidal fight doesn't help him in the rankings, but it is the name value that the UFC would probably like to give him before a title shot. The other two are Gilbert Burns and Khamzat Chimaev. He's already fought Geoff Neal, so I don't really think that will happen again, at least not right now. I'm ready for any of these 3 fights, but I kind of want to see what Belal has for Khamzat. He's earned that opportunity, but it does kind of sound like the UFC wants Khamzat vs Colby. In that case, I want Belal vs Burns.
I don't normally cover the losers in these, but these fights probably should've been main events where I would've done a normal fall out post for it so, I'm going to do a few here. Sean Brady suffered his first career loss, but lets just take a step back. Sean Brady is still a young and developing fighter and I think we see that his striking still needs to improve. Brady has all of the other tools, so I imagine that he has the potential to do so with more time in the gym. We heard a million times that he knows Paul Felder, so I assume Paul could show him a thing or two. Sean Brady vs Vicente Luque seems like the most logical way to go right now. Maybe Brady vs Neil Magny (if he wins his next fight) would also be a possibility.
Manon Fiorot also picked up the biggest win of her career and is now in the driver's seat for a title shot. Her striking, especially from range, is obviously tremendous and that is going to be what carries her however far she goes. What separated her from Chookagian is the power and grappling and she's going to need to be well rounded to unseat Valentina Shevchenko. As for that potential title shot, things have been pretty quiet on the Valentina side for awhile now after she probably should've lost her title to Taila Santos. I have a suspicion that they want her to fight Amanda Nunes on the Brazil card in January, but there's no momentum for that right now. Santos had the orbital problem that sidelined her, but she seems to be close to ready based on her social media. Then there's Alexa Grasso coming off of a big win. If Valentina is going to be fighting Amanda, we're going to start hearing about that pretty soon. If not, they can essentially just pair up the remaining four (without Amanda) and have a title fight and a number one contender spot. If they're running back the Santos fight, then they'll do Grasso vs Fiorot. If they don't want to run back Valentina vs Taila Santos, I think Fiorot is more likely to get a title shot outright than Grasso. That would mean Fiorot vs Valentina and Grasso vs Santos and I really don't care too much what they do as all of those are great. My preference would be to see Valentina vs Amanda while we can and then have Santos be the backup for that fight while doing Grasso vs Fiorot for the number one contender spot. The UFC is in a pretty solid spot with this one as it would be kind of hard to mess up.
Katlyn Chookagian is just perpetually in a bad spot these days and coming off of a loss doesn't help. The problem for her is that she generally beats everyone in the division, but her title fight wasn't competitive at all, so no one is calling for her to get a second chance. Now that she lost, she is really between a rock and a hard place. There are very few fresh matchups for her and the UFC isn't going to want to kill off another potential contender. Could she wait for the loser of Lauren Murphy vs Jessica Andrade? I suppose so. They could make Grasso or Santos fight her, but then that potentially eliminates a title challenger, so I don't know how likely that is. Fights with Andrea Lee and Maycee Barber don't seem likely, but we've seen the UFC be more and more likely to have fighters make big jumps in the rankings recently. Sean O'Malley just did it with Petr Yan and Tai Tuivasa did it with Derrick Lewis. Maybe that is the route they go with her. I'm not really sure what they'll do or what I would do, but it is an interesting situation to monitor.
I feel like I live in a groundhog day universe, but here I am again talking about Beneil Dariush having a fantastic performance and not getting a title shot. I picked against Dariush this time, but he was sensational again. He was able to stop all of the takedown attempts and was punishing Gamrot on the feet. I feel like we all know it at this point, but Dariush is simply one of the best in the world at 155 lbs right now. He just needs one of those top guys to give him an opportunity and he is going to get it in his next fight one way or another. My best guess is Dariush fights Charles Oliveira in Brazil in January. To not give him the opportunity with be a crime at this point. If they bypass all of this and set up Dustin Poirier or Michael Chandler for another title shot I may actually go insane. We need justice for Beneil Dariush, even though his post fight interview wasn't very good. Make Dariush vs Oliveira and don't complicate the situation any further.
Mateusz Gamrot lost to Beneil and he did look a bit limited, but that really wasn't too much of a surprise. If Gamrot can't get to his takedowns, then he is going to have a hard time, but I don't think there are too many guys out there who can actually stop him. His relentless pace is going to overwhelm a lot of other guys. He needs his striking to catch up with his grappling and as long as he is working at ATT, I imagine that he'll continue to progress. He's nowhere near done and I suspect he has at least one more really good run at the title in him. What hurts Gamrot is that the top of the division really doesn't like to fight down. Can he get a fight against the Poirier vs Chandler loser? Kind of seems doubtful. Can he get a Dariush vs Oliveira loser? That seems more likely. He's probably going to have to fight down against guys like Jalin Turner and Damir Ismagulov though. Maybe a Rafael Fiziev matchup works itself out because that would be pretty good. I hope this division finally starts to open up after Poirier and Chandler settle their issues.
Finally, we can get to Sean O'Malley. I thought Yan was going to get the decision in real time, but the only ones who are calling it a robbery are the people who bet Yan at -300 and all of his fans. It was a close fight, but it all came down to the first round, which Yan consistently gives away. He has done in a lot lately and it came back to hurt him again here. Regardless of all of that, O'Malley showed quite a bit. He took shots right on the chin and kept fighting in impressive fashion. His cardio held up really well. His defensive wrestling showed some holes, but his overall ground game was at least existent. He was able to work his way up more than a few times and then do damage on the feet. Regardless of how you scored the fight, Sean O'Malley proved he belonged and was very, very impressive. O'Malley is now right there in the mix for a title shot after defeating the number one ranked guy. It sounds like the UFC wants to make Aljo vs Henry Cejudo, but if that doesn't happen, Sean is going to be next. We know he's a huge draw and the UFC isn't going to miss out on the opportunity to have him fight for a belt if they can help it. If they make him fight again, the rematch with Chito seems like it has to be the fight to make, even though a matchup with Cory Sandhagen would be a lot of fun.
The last stop to make is Petr Yan and I almost feel bad for the guy. I don't hate Yan as much as some probably think I do, it's really just his fans. Their insistence that he is easily the best bantamweight and a contender for P4P number one was ridiculous before this fight and is even dumber now. He is consistently lined as a massive favorite and consistently fights to split decisions even though he's apparently so much better than everyone else. He gives away the first round of fights and now that he's fighting real competition and not aging fighters past their prime, he can't consistently get late finishes and it is hurting him time after time. He's going to have to address his slow starts or we'll keep seeing this. Now that Yan is losing close fights, he wants to take his ball and go home. If Yan wants to go fight in ONE championship then I guess so be it. Once he cools off and the loss doesn't sting as bad, I'm sure we'll see him return. I think giving Yan a step back and not having him fight the next best contender would be beneficial. I think maybe a matchup with Rob Font would make sense for him. However, Merab and Chito both need fights, so he may end up having to get one of those guys. The Merab fight would be really fun and I would love to see it if it's there. This was my complaint about Yan from the beginning though. He got such an easy route to the title and now he's being tested against competition he's never seen before. He got an old version of Uriah Faber and an old version of Jose Aldo coming off of a loss for the title. He's now struggling with the true top contenders. He's really just one of the guys up there and isn't the super hero that so many people are still claiming he is. I want the Merab fight for Yan next, but I think he could end up getting someone lower like Font or even Dominick Cruz.
What do you guys think? What was your favorite fight? Who do you want to see some of these fighters matched up with next? Leave any and all thoughts below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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