SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7 FROM THE HASTILY REARRANGED APEX
PRELIMS 2 PM PST / 5 PM EST | MAIN CARD 5 PM / 8 PM
November is always a rough month for MMA. The UFC traditionally puts on a huge card in October, RIZIN always brings the heat for New Year’s Eve, but November is the exhausted end of the year where things get dumped and the best we can do is a Josh Hokit title fight. This event was supposed to have a relevant Welterweight matchup with newly-minted contender Gabriel Bonfim facing fallen contender Sean Brady, but Brady managed to get an infection in his knee and the UFC failed to get Jacobe Smith to take his place--yes, they were offering Jacobe Smith a top-ranked fight after his victory over Randy Brown last week--and heaven forfend we elevate the top two contenders at Women’s Strawweight into the main event, so instead, we get short-notice Heavyweights. Fuck You, It’s November.
MAIN EVENT: FUCK YOU, EVERYBODY/EVERYTHING
HEAVYWEIGHT: Waldo Cortes-Acosta (17-4, #6) vs Johnny Walker (23-10 (1), NR)
It’s all just so meaningless now, man.
We’ve spent this entire year talking about the dissolution of the Heavyweight division as any kind of organized body of worth, but over the course of just a few events we’re really hammering the stake down into its heart. First Alexander Volkov, the man who should have fought for the title a year ago, was forced to defend his top contendership against a lower-ranked opponent for the third consecutive time. Next week’s main event will be the end of the road on a year of disgust, as Ciryl Gane, promoted to undisputed champion because he gouged the real champion’s eyes so badly he may never fight again, defends a title he never won against Josh Hokit, who got his shot at the belt by beating Derrick Lewis.
But thanks to the magic of injuries, we get a preview with this week’s bout, which is just a special achievement in meaninglessness.
Waldo Cortes-Acosta has been a UFC project for four straight years, now. Salsa Boy is everything they want: A striker who almost never wrestles, a company man who fights constantly and accepts virtually all matchups they send his way, an affordable Contender Series mook, a theoretically marketable Latin American fighter. They could not ask for more except, maybe, being able to ever actually win the big one.
Which is why he keeps getting chances. In 2025 they jumped him from beating Serghei Spivac to a top contendership bout with Sergei Pavlovich, which, unsurprisingly, he lost. This past May, on the back of a victory over a Derrick Lewis who was visibly melting into the floor out of sheer exhaustion with fighting and/or existence as a whole, they had the aforementioned Volkov defending his own top contendership against Waldo. When he lost again, they tried to keep Waldo vital in the top five by having him fight the aging ghost of Curtis Blaydes.
He failed. Again. There’s a world where Waldo is fighting for the title this month instead of Josh Hokit, but a) Hokit says more awful shit to desperately get attention and b) Hokit beat Blaydes, so Waldo has to pay the piper. But, hey: There are plenty of people beneath him in the rankings. Vitor Petrino is available for a top-ten matchup. Tyrell Fortune needs a fight. Aleksandar Rakić and Mario Pinto just got ranked in the top fifteen. Hell, Valter Walker’s on one of the greatest submission streaks in Heavyweight history and he hasn’t been booked since July!
And, well, they booked a Walker. Just not the right one.
Johnny Walker got pushed out of Light Heavyweight after going 1 for 5. He could not beat Volkan Oezdemir, he could not beat Dominick Reyes. His only victories in six years were the near-retirement Anthony Smith, the future Middleweight Paul Craig, the more-losses-than-wins Ion Cutelaba, and failed marketing prospect Zhang Mingyang, whose own best win was Anthony Smith’s actual retirement bout. Once upon a time Johnny had looked like a genuine title threat: By the Summer of 2026 he was 8-7 (1) and looked done.
But that was Summer. Now it’s Fall and he’s fighting for a top ten spot at Heavyweight, because that’s how fucking bad Heavyweight is now.
One month ago, on October 3, Walker made his Heavyweight debut against Mick Parkin. Mick Parkin, who had just lost his own undefeated streak against Marcin Tybura one fight prior. Walker knocked him out in one round and now he’s a potential top ten contender.
It’d be great if that apathy towards quality was an aberration instead of the norm. Waldo Cortes-Acosta, for example, is one of the UFC’s six best Heavyweights. Here, unabridged, is a list of everyone Waldo beat to get there:
Jared Vanderaa, who was on a four-fight losing streak, had been knocked out just three and a half months beforehand, and was released afterward on a 1-6 record
Chase Sherman, my lost son, who was 1 for his last 5--and that 1 was, hilariously, Jared Vanderaa--and was released one fight later, having gone 4-11
Łukasz Brzeski, who was 0-2, even had his Contender Series win overturned after failing a steroid test, and was released at 1-6
Andrei Arlovski, a legend of the sport and a former UFC Heavyweight champion! ...in 2006. In 2024 when Waldo beat him Andrei was on a two-fight losing streak, had been knocked out both times, and was days away from his 45th birthday
Robelis Despaigne, an undefeated prospect with one UFC fight which was also his one and only fight against an opponent with more than one professional fight, ever, who was just welcomed back to the UFC this past September where he only barely managed to scrape a skin-of-his-teeth decision over Tai Tuivasa, who is now tied for the longest losing streak in UFC history
Ryan Spann, who was 1 for his last 4, 8-6 overall, and had never fought at Heavyweight before in his professional career
Serghei Spivac, who had just taken a TKO loss in a fight four months prior, was also 8-6, and whose best win was against a sadly depleted Derrick Lewis
Ante Delija, a standout in the Professional Fighters League who’d just jumped to the UFC two months prior, in what wound up being a deeply bizarre fight that saw Waldo win a comeback TKO after Ante blew himself out chasing a finish that was halted when he unintentionally poked Waldo in the eye
Shamil Gaziev, the 3-1 Heavyweight whose best victory was either a knockout over Martin Buday or Thomas Petersen, neither of whom were great, and who had been stopped by Jairzinho Rozenstruik a year and a half prior only for Rozenstruik to get fired because he cost more to book
Derrick Lewis, the once-great knockout machine who was a month away from 41 and hadn’t beaten a genuine contender since 2021
That’s where Heavyweight’s at now. Waldo’s a top ten fighter because he beat Derrick Lewis. Josh Hokit’s getting a title shot because he beat Derrick Lewis after Waldo beat him up. Johnny Walker has one Heavyweight fight, and he beat a man who wasn’t even close to the top fifteen in a division that barely even has enough fighters to make a top thirty, and that’s enough to get him a ranked fight to determine who’s one heartbeat away from a title shot because after years spent trying to convince people nothing matters and they can book whatever they want, they have to book whatever they have left.
Because god fucking forbid you let Tatiana Suarez and Virna Jandiroba main event the Apex.
Dumb fight. Dumb division. On paper, it’s a bad fight for Walker, too. He’s got size, reach and power over damn near everyone in the sport let alone the division and Waldo’s no different, but he’s always struggled with fighters who can put simple, direct striking pressure on him. Corey Anderson, Jamahal Hill, Volkan Oezdemir, even Magomed Ankalaev beat Walker by simply walking him down with leg kicks and right hooks. Bread-and-butter striking is Waldo’s entire purpose as a fighter. It’s the only thing he does. He’s pretty fuckin’ good at it, and big and dangerous enough to make Johnny pay if he catches him.
Instinctually, I want to also cite that as a danger, here. Waldo is willing to 1-2 his way to victory in large part because he has immense faith in his chin. No one’s managed to drop him yet, and when you’ve shared the cage with guys like Delija and Pavlovich, that’s both a badge of pride and a big, flashing weak point, because learning to fight with insufficient caution only works until it doesn’t. Johnny Walker can knock you out. Johnny Walker can knock anyone out.
Will he? I’m kinda hoping for it, because I want nice things to happen to Johnny, I resent Waldo’s corporate prospect protection, and now that the UFC sees a crack in the facade I’d like it to open up more. Waldo walking him down and knocking him out makes a lot more sense and seems a lot likelier, but if I don’t have hope, I am nothing. JOHNNY WALKER BY TKO.
CO-MAIN EVENT: WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN
WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT: Tatiana Suarez (12-1, #2) vs Virna Jandiroba (23-4, #3)
When Bonfim/Brady got cancelled I allowed myself to think, for one, single moment, that maybe, just maybe, we’d (technically) get two women’s main events this year. Suarez vs Jandiroba is a top contendership fight! Both women have had world title shots before! Surely, you can spare a spot in the main event for them, right? It’s the fucking Apex!
But that’s not where we’re at with women’s MMA right now. Right now Lucia Szabová, the best Bantamweight outside the UFC, is getting signed so she can fight at Flyweight. Right now Valentina Shevchenko is getting stripped in an eyeblink when other champions park their belts for entire years. Right now Mackenzie Dern, a woman the UFC spent a decade investing in, has finally reached title contention, and instead of letting any of her top contenders fight her we’re having them eat each other alive.
Amanda Lemos beat Mackenzie: Instead of a title shot, she gets to crown new challengers. Jéssica Andrade not only beat but knocked Mackenzie out: She’s been booked at Strawweight once in the last two and a half years.
Tatiana Suarez beat Amanda Lemos. Tatiana Suarez beat Jéssica Andrade. Tatiana Suarez has victories--finishes--over champions at two weight classes, thanks to her 2018 choke over Alexa Grasso. The only woman Tatiana ever lost to was Zhang Weili, the world’s actual best Strawweight, whose chair Mackenzie is currently sitting in. When Weili vacated the title, Tatiana was right there, fresh off a victory over the last woman to beat Mackenzie, waiting for her shot.
She didn’t get it. Virna Jandiroba did. I don’t want to talk shit about Virna. Virna’s great. She’s a fun grappler and an impossibly tough fighter and a very deserving contender and in any other circumstance I would have been immeasurably pleased to see the UFC give Virna her flowers and anoint her as a worthy contender.
But they didn’t give her the Mackenzie fight because she was a worthy contender. They gave her the fight because she was the only contender Mackenzie had already beaten before.
It makes sense, if you view the concept of sport as an impediment to marketing. With Zhang abdicating the throne the top five in the division included Yan, Lemos and Andrade, all of whom had already beaten Mackenzie, and Tatiana, who had beaten most of them. But Virna was there, a shining gateway to the title. So Virna did the job, and everyone else was scattered to the wind in varying contendership matches, and at the end of it all, Tatiana was the only challenger left standing and untarnished.
Does that actually get her a title shot? Heavens, no. Mackenzie already fought this year, give her a break! Have Tatiana fight Virna, because human beings need money to live, and if Virna wins, well, hey: Sure sounds like she’s earned a title rematch to me!
I’m joking. I hope I’m joking. I don’t actually know if I’m joking anymore. They openly discuss how little the rankings matter all the time. They gave Josh Hokit a title shot. They gave Wang Cong a title shot. They spent ten years positioning Mackenzie for a belt cleaved the easiest path possible through the division for her and once she got it they started booking her more sparingly than ever before.
Why wouldn’t they protect their investment and put their thumb on the scale to prolong her reign?
After all, we’re here. Tatiana’s the best Strawweight in the world until Zhang decides to come back, but she’s looked real shaky lately. Zhang wiped the floor with her after the first round. Lemos almost beat her. One fight ago they tried to pawn Tatiana’s ranking off on Loopy Godinez--coincidentally, another woman Mackenzie already beat before--and Loopy damn near knocked her out in the first round before Tatiana found the choke in the second.
She’s one of the best to ever do it, but she’s been doing it a deceptively long time. Tatiana was only 3-0 when she won The Ultimate Fighter 23 (jesus christ) more than a decade ago (jesus christ), and she was, at one point, one of the scariest athletes in the division, but then she became the division’s most injury-plagued fighter instead. She was out from 2019-2021 with a neck injury, scheduled her comeback late in the year, had to cancel that comeback thanks to a knee injury and didn’t make it back to the cage until 2023, and then her 2024 was spent right back on the shelf because her knees wouldn’t bend.
If you booked this fight In 2019 I would pick Tatiana in a heartbeat. If you booked it in 2023 I would pick Tatiana with some notable concerns.
In 2026? Fuck, man, I don’t know.
Virna’s wrestling defense has never been the best. On a skill-for-skill basis, Tatiana shouldn’t have any trouble getting her down and keeping her there. But the Tatiana we’ve seen in her last couple outings looks a lot worse than the Tatiana of old. Her knees are creaky, her back is stiff, her gas tank isn’t great, and her striking has never looked shakier. Jandiroba’s a career grappler without a single knockout victory, standing or grounded, in 27 fights. Even speaking as a big fan of hers, in a stand-up affair, I can count the people I’d favor her against on one hand.
2026 Tatiana Suarez is on that hand.
I am, still, picking TATIANA SUAREZ BY DECISION, because I want to believe she’s healthy enough to grind Virna out for fifteen minutes. But where once I wouldn’t even question it, now I am deeply, deeply uncertain about it--and, moreover, if the Tatiana of 2026 could last five rounds with Dern like she did with Zhang. Please make me feel stupid for doubting you.
MAIN CARD: DEAREST DAVEY
BANTAMWEIGHT: Davey Grant (16-8) vs Elijah Smith (10-1)
Davey Grant wants the rare late-career renaissance. For an entire decade, now, Davey’s been a journeyman on the edge of breaking through as a real prospect, which is one of those damning-with-faint-praise ways of admitting he never quite made it. He’s always been incredibly tough, he’s always been underratedly tricky, he’s always been extremely well-rounded, but he’s never, ever been among the best. At 39 he decided this was his now-or-never period, so he packed up his family, moved from England to Las Vegas and rededicated himself completely and wholly to his training, and it resulted in...getting choked out by Charles Jourdain in one round. Charles is good! No shame in losing to him! But he, himself, just got boxed out of the top ten, and when you’re on a make-or-break run for the top, losing to him influences how the UFC uses you.
Which is how Grant, a 16-fight UFC veteran on the other end of 40, wound up pulling young prospect duty. They wanted him to lend his credibility to promotional debutant Adrian Luna Martinetti last time out, but, in a lesson companies keep failing to learn, ‘have the hyped new guy who isn’t experienced with this level of competition fight your canny, experienced veterans’ doesn’t always work out. Grant won, so now: Elijah Smith. They may have hopes for Adrian, but they’ve got plans for Elijah. Powerful, crushing wrestle-boxer who’s only ever lost once? Two UFC finishes in three fights and one of them was a Rampage Jackson triangle-powerbomb? Just turned 24 a month and a half ago and still on a Contender Series contract? They’d absolutely love to get him up the card, and they have reason to believe he can handle Grant.
Also: It sure is a sign of how bad the sport is at selling itself right now that I can say the phrase “Rampage Jackson triangle-powerbomb” and a lot of folks will know exactly what I’m talking about even though that knockout happened in 2004, but Smith did it last fucking year and I guarantee 3/4 of us forgot about it already. Smith’s the favorite; Smith absolutely should be the favorite, DAVEY GRANT BY DECISION. I could tell you I’m still shaky on Smith per his performance against Vince Morales and I’m not yet sold on how he deals with really well-rounded, experienced threats, and that is technically true, but in my heart I’m pretty sure I just want Davey to win.
WELTERWEIGHT: Seokhyeon Ko (13-3) vs Wellington Turman (18-8)
Welcome to your primarily sacrificial fight of the night. The UFC still really wants an attraction for each region, but South Korea has proven difficult for them. Dooho Choi has never been able to cut his way into the top fifteen. Suyoung You won the Road to UFC and flamed out right afterward. The Iron goddamn Turtle just has not been able to make it out to sea. Seokhyeon Ko was another of their big hopefuls--champion in South Korea’s Angel’s Fighting Championship, rarely ever defeated, rolled off DWCS into two straight UFC wins--and his streak came to an end this past July when Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani outfought him. Now he needs rehabilitation.
This is why the company has put him on the Road to Wellingtonville. Wellington looked like a prospect once upon a time! But that time was 2019. Since joining the UFC he’s 3 for 9, and the best of those wins was either Misha Cirkunov, who was one fight away from retirement, or Sam Alvey, one of the losingest men in UFC history. Not only has it been nearly five years since Turman won a fight, it’s been just a month shy of three years since Turman fought at all. He went on a three-fight skid, he got choked out by Jared Gooden, and he vanished until the day the UFC called him back from the mists of Avalon to make someone they actually care about look good.
The day has come, Wellington. SEOKHYEON KO BY DECISION.
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT: Billy Elekana (10-2) vs Lucas Fernando (14-3)
Billy Elekana is the man at the center of the swirling vortex that is Light Heavyweight. He beat Ibo Aslan, who lost to Iwo Baraniewski, who beat Junior Tafa, who lost to Kevin Christian, who lost to Billy Elekana, who beat Junior Tafa. I promise you I wrote all of those words intentionally and in the right order. These are not pointless fights happening at the periphery of the division where nothing matters, these are borderline ranked fights featuring men who are all jockeying to be legitimately ranked by the UFC, and the fact that they still don’t matter is a terrifying peek into the future of the entire sport.
To emphasize that point: Lucas Fernando. Three years ago he was the Middleweight champion in the LFA, then he lost 185-pound bouts against Azamat Bekoev, which is unfortunate, and César Almeida, which is arguably worse. Then he moved up to 205, won that belt in the LFA, too--thanks to victories over Philip Latu, who is 7-6, and Leon Soares, who has never beaten a fighter with a good record in his entire goddamn life--and this year he was called up to the UFC to fight Rafael “Bipolar” Tobias, a man most notable for losing a fight to Diyar Nurghozhay, the man who made his UFC debut by weighing in for a 205-pound fight at 210.5 and getting tapped out in seconds by Brendson Ribeiro, who is currently sitting pretty on a 3-6 record with the company.
Once again: With one more good win after this fight, either of these men could be ranked. It’s bad out there at Light Heavyweight right now. Lucas is large and angry and his offense did look pretty good in his debut, but he was also essentially fighting a punching bag. BILLY ELEKANA BY DECISION.
MIDDLEWEIGHT: Mantas Kondratavičius (9-1) vs Andre Petroski (13-6)
Welcome to your secondarily sacrificial fight of the night. “Mantas Kondratavičius” is a really fun name and he’s a legitimately successful international fighter and, as we wrote for his debut back in March, in 2026 that translates to ‘he beat a guy with a winning record once.’ It’s rough out there, man. They clearly have their own doubts, too, as they booked his UFC debut against Antonio Trócoli, who was 0-3 and had been finished in every single one of those fights. Unsurprisingly, Mantas won. But he became the only man in the UFC to not finish Trócoli, and I think that spooked them.
So they’re giving him another bite at the apple. Andre Petroski has a slightly better UFC record, but that’s because he’s gorged on the Dylan Budkas and Josh Fremds and Wellingtons Turman of the world. He’s on a three-fight losing streak, he’s been knocked out in his last two bouts, and the last man to beat him was Cody Brundage, who, himself, loses more UFC fights than he wins. Petroski’s big and muscular and has a tendency to swing wild and gas himself out, and he’s a big ol’ underdog here and he really should be, as this is 100% intended as a gimme fight for Mantas.
And you know what that makes me do. ANDRE PETROSKI BY DECISION. Mantas doesn’t do great with distance. He even lost the third round against Antonio. The oddsmakers are certain he’ll kill Petroski in the first five minutes and that won’t matter, but if he doesn’t, I can see him getting drowned by experience.
PRELIMS: RANKED WOMEN, OF COURSE
HEAVYWEIGHT: Gabriel Lorenço (8-1) VS Thomas Petersen (11-5)
I don’t even wanna talk about Heavyweight anymore. I don’t know what words are left. Thomas Petersen is a seven-fight UFC veteran and his best victory was a decision over Don’Tale Mayes, who no longer works here. We just watched Valter Walker beat him with a calf slicer in 90 seconds and Valter remains unbooked. Gabriel Lorenço, your new guy, earned his spot on the Contender Series by beating the 1-4 William Magalhães (who is nicknamed “Gigante” when he’s only 6’3” which feels like false advertising) and the 3-2 Bruno de Jesus back in Brazil. He won his DWCS contract by knocking out Charlie Cleveland, who--like, do you remember a couple months ago when I explained the state of the Heavyweight division by posting the way Lucas Armand got into the UFC by beating the Big Mac guy?
Right. That guy.
I could have done this two more times since then. Gabriel Lorenço? He beat Cleveland, who got on the radar by beating the Big Mac guy by decision. Joel Faglier, the Canadian Heavyweight who beat up Javad Mahjoub last month? He beat the Big Mac guy twice in one year. This is where your Heavyweight prospects are coming from. There is no Strikeforce to poach from. It’s not internationally-renowned standouts, it’s not people who’ve honed their craft on the B-leagues.
It’s guys who beat the Big Mac guy. THOMAS PETERSEN BY DECISION.
WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT: Karine Silva (19-7, #11) vs Gabriella Fernandes (11-4, #14)
This has the biggest delta between how invested I am in it and how little momentum its competitors have. Karine Silva, at one point, looked like a sure-thing contender. She was right up there with the other members of the then-unstoppable Fighting Nerds on a four-fight UFC winning streak that included a bunch of gnarly submissions and the company saw enough in her that they put her on the main card of a numbered event--a women’s top ten fight! on a numbered event!--under Jon Jones/Stipe Miocic. And she lost. And has mostly lost since. She’s 1 for 4 in the last two years, she’s been beaten by Viviane Araujo (who was fired one fight later, because who needs the best fighters in the world), Maycee Barber (who may or may not still exist) and Jasmine Jasudavicius (who is now one breath away from a title shot), so she’s firmly boxed out of the contendership circle. Gabi Fernandes isn’t doing much better, which is now exceptionally frustrating, because, at risk of belaboring a point I frequently orbit, she dropped and tapped out Wang Cong, and that Wasn’t Supposed To Happen, and marketing just moved on and pretended it didn’t and two years later Cong was fighting for the title because she beat a woman coming off a loss and Gabi was getting knocked out by Casey O’Neill on the prelims of a Joe Pyfer Fight Night. They’re both good, and well-rounded, and have solid kicking games, but they’ve been repeatedly bowled over by women who are bigger, stronger, and more aggressive with their wrestle-boxing assaults. Casey O’Neill dropped Gabi on her feet, but she did it by making her fear the takedown.
That leaves this fight in an interesting spot: Both women have very similar stylistic strengths and neither are good at playing to their weaknesses. It’s entirely plausible they neutralize each other and, unable to get either of their respective games going, this is just fifteen minutes of pecking attacks and failed clinching and a real close decision that leaves no one happy. But between them Gabi’s the one I have more faith in when it comes to hitting second gear and I think she’ll be able to outwork Karine as the fight goes on. GABRIELLA FERNANDES BY DECISION.
FLYWEIGHT: Mitch Raposo (11-3) vs Marcos Degli (15-3)
Life’s gotta be really uncomfortably weird for Mitch Raposo right about now. He spent his first year in the UFC losing repeatedly. He got shipped to Abu Dhabi to rehabilitate Azat Maksum, only to find himself presiding over the end of Maksum’s mainstream career. He spent the first half of 2026 getting rescheduled for a fight with Allan Nascimento that he was supposed to lose, and then he won, and then a couple months later Nascimento fucking died. On one hand: The best winning streak of Raposo’s life. On the other: Jesus christ, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It’s maybe fitting that instead of trying to build on it at all, the UFC is keeping him on the welcoming committee. Marcos Degli is the Flyweight the UFC wants. Virtually always wins, virtually always wins by finish, has legitimate credibility as the champion out in the LFA, would rather heave himself bodily into punches as often as possible than shoot a takedown.
He also makes me incredibly nervous. Really cool knockouts, but they tend to come from launching himself at people like a human missile, and one day, someone’s gonna catch his timing and drop him harder than a human being has ever been dropped before. Until then: Whee! MARCOS DEGLI BY SUBMISSION.
FEATHERWEIGHT: José Delano (17-3) vs Murtazali Magomedov (11-0)
This has high Really Fucking Cool potential. This past April I sang José Delano’s praises as one of the few DWCS talents I felt really, truly deserved his spot in the UFC as a battle-tested road warrior and a legitimate champion, and cited his match-up with KSW champ Robert Ruchała as one of the better international talent bouts the UFC could put together at all. Delano won, and, y’know, we’re here on the Apex prelims, so what can you do. Murtazali Magomedov popped up two months later in June against former rankings hopeful Melsik Baghdasaryan, and I ultimately threw my faith into the grappling expertise known only to competitors in the Steppe, and Murtazali compacted Melsik’s spine with a twister in barely over a minute. Putting these two together makes sense, in that they value neither of them and see their primary use as space-filling, but it at least has the potential to be a really fucking cool fight.
Still sticking with the Steppe, though. MURTAZALI MAGOMEDOV BY TKO.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Keiichiro Nakamura (8-1) vs Ollie Schmid (4-3)
It’s very, very rare that I am outright dismissive of a fighter, but sometimes the truth is the truth.
I have seen people react to Ollie Schmid’s signing with excitement. With respect: Ollie Schmid has been fighting professionally for three years, he is 4-2, three of those victories were against men with zero wins, two of them were men with zero fights, and his most recent win, the only exception, was a fifteen-second knockout over the 5-6-3 Jeffrey “JRock” Mesa. Ollie isn’t here because he’s amazing, he’s here because he’s part of the Adesanya/Ulberg/Hooker City Kickboxing team and he’s conveniently Australian and he never takes anyone down. This isn’t a feelgood story about a good prospect getting his chance--it barely has anything to do with Ollie. It’s the progressively lowering bar of admission meeting the needs of regional marketing.
I was still a dumbass, because after being so dismissive of Ollie I still picked him to beat Marwan Rahiki, in whom I had absolutely no faith. Rahiki completely dismantled him and knocked him out in under three minutes. This was the worst-case scenario for Ollie, as this put him on their radar as a utility player for fighters they would really like to look good. Keiichiro Nakamura won the Road to UFC at Featherweight last year, but he didn’t win it easily. Sebastian Szalay was shutting Nakamura out and cruising to a decision victory when Nakamura turned it up and smashed Szalay with a great comeback knockout with barely over a minute left in the fight.
So, hey: You put on a tournament, and your big tournament champion won by the skin of his teeth. Why NOT give him a fighter with half as much experience and far, far less success next? You know, for fun. KEIICHIRO NAKAMURA BY TKO.
FEATHERWEIGHT: Austin Bashi (14-2) vs Carlos Calderon (11-4)
This is your reminder that we’re living through the nothing-matters-but-filling-space era of the sport. Austin Bashi was a hyped undefeated DWCS guy who immediately lost his streak in his UFC debut and that bummed them out but good. He was supposed to fight Lucas Brennan here, but Brennan tore his ACL in training, and as of Tuesday night the fight was fully off and I put this text file away for editing and publication. Wednesday morning I woke up with a slightly better country and the news that the UFC signed Carlos Calderon, Fury FC’s Featherweight champion, to fight Bashi this weekend with three whole days to prepare. Calderon had a shot at the Contender Series in 2024, but he got choked out by Alberto Montes, who you may remember as the 5’7” dude they marched out to get mulched by Tommy McMillen this past July. He’s solid, he’s had a pretty decent run for himself since and won his belt by tapping former UFC standout Damon Jackson, so he’s no slouch.
But it’s 72 hours and Bashi’s a real tenacious, run-you-down kind of fighter. AUSTIN BASHI BY SUBMISSION.
WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT: Priscila Cachoeira (13-9) vs Nina Milošević (9-1)
Welcome to your tertiarily sacrificial fight of the night. Priscila Cachoeira loses so frequently that she is only still here because of how frequently she loses. 1 for 6 with a three-fight losing streak is more than enough for the UFC to cut almost anyone on Earth, but as we just pointed out with Ollie Schmid, once they realize they can rely on you to lose to people they would really prefer to win, you become valuable in a completely different way. Nina Milošević joined the roster during this past August’s trip to Serbia as a beloved local, they gave her the 0-3 Hailey Cowan, I picked her for funsies, and Nina destroyed her in one round. You could give Nina a stiff test, coming off of that fight!
Or you could give her Priscila. She’s not a pushover, she’s lost to a lot of real good fighters, but she’s still mostly just losing, and if Nina can’t beat her, that’s going to say a lot about her place in the division. NINA MILOŠEVIĆ BY TKO.
WELTERWEIGHT: Jonny Parsons (9-3) vs José Souza (9-1)
They want to start the night with a donnybrook, and that is why they booked the opening fight around a guy named Sluggernaut. If you don’t remember Jonny Parsons, I do not blame you. He made a really solid UFC debut! He knocked out Danny Roberts, which is a thing only really good fighters tend to do! That was almost three and a half years ago, and even that was almost two years after his DWCS win in 2021. He says bad training habits meant he just kept getting injured and now he’s fixed them, but unfortunately, all the momentum he got from that cool knockout has long since been buried under years of the sport’s lack of short-term memory. He gets to make his big comeback against José Souza, who was previously billed as José Henrique and now they’re using his last name again just to personally fuck with me. José was supposed to debut against Eric Nolan in February, and Nolan got hurt, and then it was Nikolay Veretennikov, and José got hurt, and then it was Charlie Radtke in April, and the UFC couldn’t get José a visa. So now Eric Nolan is retiring Court McGee, Nikolay Veretennikov is rehabilitating Khaos Williams, Chuck Buffalo is fighting Stephen fucking Thompson, and José gets Parsons after three years spent sharing one giant block of ancient arctic ice with the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.
I do not foresee good things from that rest or from jumping back into the sport in your mid-thirties after only barely squeaking by Solomon Renfro. JOSÉ SOUZA BY TKO.