A week after the UFC was the only game in town, all the biggest promotions in the sport were back in action over the last several days, starting with the return of the PFL on Thursday, ONE Championship on Friday morning, Bellator MMA on Friday evening and the UFC wrapping things up in Sacramento on Saturday night.
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Weekends like this are a challenge for hardcore fight fans, but also highlight how robust and diverse the landscape is at the moment, as each event offered a little something different and the quality on the whole was quite high. Sure, there were slow moments and sloppy fights, but there were also a ton of impressive outings, tremendous stoppages and important results.
It’s easy to be cynical and lament the massive UFC schedule and the time commitment you’re “forced to make” as a serious fight fan, but as someone who grew up watching every Toronto Blue Jays game during the 162-game regular season and more than 82 regular season hockey games every year for years on end, I’d much rather watch four events over 72 hours where something memorable is more than likely to happen.
Here are the stories, performances and competitors that really stood out to me over the last few days.
Women’s MMA continues to flourish
Last weekend, Amanda Nunes solidified her standing as the greatest female fighter of all time.
This weekend, women across the four most prominent promotions in the sport stepped into the spotlight to show that while “The Lioness” is the queen of the jungle, she’s far from alone when it comes to top talent competing around the world.
Thursday night, Kayla Harrison continued her ascent, recording a first-round submission win over Morgan Frier to secure her position in the PFL’s women’s lightweight division playoffs. The two-time Olympic gold medalist enters as the No. 2 seed and will face Genah Fabian, while Canadian Sarah Kaufman, who received three points for a walkover win when Roberta Samad missed weight, finished with nine points to earn the top seed and a semifinal pairing with Larissa Pacheco.
Friday morning in Kuala Lumpur, ONE Championship strawweight titleholder Angela Lee squared off with former teammate and grappling ace Michelle Nicolini in the co-main event of the company’s Masters of Destiny event. The 23-year-old landed on the wrong side of a debated unanimous decision result, incurring a second straight loss after starting her career with nine consecutive victories, while Nicolini should return to title contention after getting the nod over one of the promotion’s biggest stars.
Friday night, Bellator women’s featherweight champion Julia Budd collected her third consecutive successful title defense and 11th straight win overall with a first-round stoppage win over unbeaten challenger Olga Rubin. “The Jewel” has developed into an absolute force in recent years and lobbied for a bout with Gabi Garcia under the RIZIN banner following her victory.
And then Saturday night in Sacramento, Germaine de Randamie blasted Aspen Ladd with a clean right hand that put her on the deck and gave “The Iron Lady” her fifth straight victory. Whether you want to argue with the stoppage or not, there is no arguing that de Randamie is a powerful, experienced striker and the shot she dropped Ladd with was beautiful.
These were far from the only fights featuring female competitors to take place this weekend, but the fact that so many matchups on the women’s side landed in prominent positions across several promotions is a huge positive and one that has to be acknowledged.
The women have been forced to play catch-up for years and while the men still command far more attention and generally receive much of the prime fight card real estate, this weekend serves as an indication that the quality of action on the female side of the sport is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds and they're closing the gap on their male counterparts.
Hopefully weekends like this continue to happen more frequently in the years to come.
Urijah Faber, Henry Cejudo and a fight that feels inevitable
Everyone shook their heads when Henry Cejudo beat Marlon Moraes to claim the vacant bantamweight title and called out a trio of felled former champions in Dominick Cruz, Urijah Faber and Cody Garbrant, despite being down 0-1 to Joseph Benavidez and holding himself out as the savior of the flyweight division.
None of the fighters he called out made any sense, as Cruz hasn’t fought in quite some time and is coming off a loss, Garbrandt has been stopped in three straight, and Faber was still six weeks away from ending his two-and-a-half-year retirement in a bout against surging upstart Ricky Simon.
But Saturday night, “The California Kid” smiled, waved, and bopped his way to the Octagon at home in Sacramento before planting a right hand on Simon’s chin that momentarily shut down the communication between his brain and his legs. As soon as the bout was halted and Michael Bisping put the microphone in front of Faber, you knew who he was going to call out.
And just like that, a fight that sounded utterly ridiculous six weeks ago now feels inevitable once Cejudo is ready to return to action.
The duo have been trading barbs on Twitter since the fight, with Cejudo maintaining his “Triple C” moniker and suggesting Faber will be the next to “bend the knee,” while the 40-year-old former WEC champ responded with a slang remark about legumes that usually is accompanied by BOFA.
Let’s be clear: the fight still doesn’t make sense because Faber has one win in three years and icing Simon shouldn’t be enough to skip you to the front of the line, but with no other immediate contenders at the ready and a potential boatload of cash to be made by pairing the tiny titan with two belts against the returning “California Middle-Aged Man,” there is a very real possibility that we see Faber fighting Cejudo before Benavidez, Petr Yan or Aljamain Sterling get their shot.
Sigh.
The PFL structure continues to impress
I’ll be honest: I wanted to think it was a just a gimmick and wouldn’t change things all that much, but the way the PFL structures its year and the intriguing that surrounds the final regular season matchups continues to grow on me.
As much as it felt inevitable that Kaufman and Harrison would meet in the women’s lightweight finals, Pacheco has quickly made herself into a potential spoiler, and watching as the action played out in the welterweight fights knowing that different results could dramatically change the playoff seeding made them that much more compelling.
After getting stopped in the first round last time out, John Howard literally punched his ticket to the playoffs by returning the favor to Ray Cooper III, who still made it through on the strength of his four-point win over his cousin, Zane Kamaka, earlier this spring.
David Michaud followed the same path as Howard, stopping Handesson Ferreira after being stopped by Sadibou Sy, while former TUF: Brazil winner Glaico Franca and last year’s champion Magomed Magomedkerimov continued piling up points to finish first and second in the standings, respectively.
The next two events, which take place on Thursday, July 25 and Thursday, Aug. 8, also in Atlantic City, New Jersey, feature the remaining regular season bouts across the four other divisions, with lightweights and featherweights up first, followed by the heavyweights and light heavyweights. In both fields, the matchups are such that there are numerous playoff possibilities, just like in the final couple weeks of the regular season in most major professional sports.
It will be interesting to see what kind of ratings and feedback these events have been generating on ESPN, but personally, I’m converted and think the PFL has found a unique way of differentiating itself from the competition that should allow the company to continue to flourish and become an even more prominent player in the sport going forward.
Fight of the Weekend: Glaico Franca vs. Sadibou Sy at PFL 4
I’m picking this one as a means of highlighting Franca, who has been on an absolute tear since being released by the UFC following consecutive losses to James Vick and Gregor Gillespie.
Now 28, Franca has won eight straight, all but one by stoppage, including a first-round victory in his PFL debut and this third-round finish of Sy, who also entered this battle with top seed implications with a full six points.
The six-foot-two Astra Fight Team member was doing himself a disservice by competing at lightweight, even though he had largely been successful. But now that he’s fighting in the 170-pound ranks where he rightfully belongs, we’re getting to see Franca at full strength and it has been tremendously impressive.
He's slated to face Andre Fialho in the quarterfinals and will get the winner of the Howard-Michaud fight should he advance. While Dana White is correct that he’s not often wrong when it comes to cutting ties with fighters, this is clearly one where he made a mistake, while parting ways with Kyoji Horiguchi remains inexcusable.
Submission of the Weekend: Ev Ting vs. Daichi Abe at ONE Championship: Masters of Destiny
Ting has been a ONE fixture since the company’s launch and over the weekend, the popular welterweight was on the wrong side of things against former Pancrase champ and UFC competitor Abe, only to reverse course and find the submission late in the second round.
Ev Ting survives early trouble from former Pancrase champ Daichi Abe to mount a spirited comeback in R2, cinching up the RNC for the win. #MastersOfDestiny pic.twitter.com/vUUoQKf59C
— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) July 12, 2019
The thing that I like the most about this finish — other than it being a big comeback win — is that Ting attacks the neck in the midst of the scramble, knowing that the opening is there and he can sink in his hooks later.
Most fighters tend to work for the position first and it’s the right approach in most situations, but attacking a rear-naked choke might be the one time putting position second makes more sense because it’s easier to fish your arm under the neck when your opponent is worrying about not getting their back taken than it is when they’re free to fight hands.
We’re seeing more and more fighters attack in these transitional phases with great success and it remains something I think we’ll continue to see even more of in the future as more finishes like this transpire.
Knockout of the Weekend: Julia Budd vs. Olga Rubin at Bellator 224
There were better one-hitter quitters and I probably should give this one to de Randamie for the beautiful right hand that bounced Ladd from the ranks of the unbeaten, but I’m a sucker for body work and the initial kick and subsequent swarming Budd used to finish this one is too good to overlook:
#AndStill! @JuliaBudd #Bellator224 pic.twitter.com/gXr8AZHzA9
— Bellator MMA (@BellatorMMA) July 13, 2019
Budd took some grief for a tepid fight with Arlene Blencowe in her first title defense, but she’s since finished Talita Nogueira and Rubin with little resistance. Her stated focus going into this fight was to showcase her striking and get back to her Muay Thai roots and it was clearly mission accomplished as she hurt the unbeaten challenger with a front kick to the body and then finally dropped her with a knee to the midsection while pushing for the finish.
The Port Moody, British Columbia resident is clearly one of the top female fighters in the sport today and it will be interesting to see if Scott Coker & Co. are able to entice Cris Cyborg to come over and become a challenger for Budd once the former Strikeforce standout finishes her UFC contract later this month.
Prospect to Watch after this Weekend: Kayla Harrison
Yes, I’ve featured her in this space before.
Yes, I’m probably biased because we had an outstanding conversation in advance of her fight last Thursday, but none of that changes the fact that the two-time Olympic gold medalist arguably has the most upside of any fighter with just five appearances under their belt than I have seen in quite some time.
Fighting at lightweight is always going to limit her competition, but from a skill standpoint, it’s going to be fun to watch Harrison continue to progress because her grappling base is very strong, her mindset and approach is rock solid and she knows what it takes to not only compete, but win at the highest level.
She gave herself a “B or B-“ for her victory over Frier on Thursday and provided that both she and Kaufman advance to the finals as expected, it will be all kinds of interesting to see how that one plays out because while the Canadian will have a distinct edge in terms of experience and polish, the standout judo player will have a significant edge in the size and strength departments.
Given the way we fawn over male prospects when they’re blasting through overmatched competition on the regional circuit and hitting cool moves in “squash matches,” it’s actually surprising to me that the buzz surrounding Harrison isn’t greater.
Is it because she’s in the PFL? Fighting at lightweight? Older than your traditional up-and-comer?
All I know is that if a hyped male prospect swept the scorecards against an 11-2 veteran with UFC experience in their fourth professional bout, there would be all kind of people falling over themselves to declare them “The Next Big Thing.”