Remember last week, when I advised you to sacrifice precious time with your loved ones and further alienate yourself from society in order to give UFC Auckland a shot?
That was obviously very unhealthy advice, and generally, I’d avoid taking suggestions from a 30-year-old who still wears novelty T-shirts and can’t do her own taxes. In this particular matter, however, I did highlight a few matchups that had the potential to be very fun, or very violent, or such a good combination of both that you’d start questioning your own morally corrupt viewing habits.
And, well…
Saturday’s card was worth the watch. And it taught us some valuable lessons, too.
By adding a last-minute win to her insanely active streak, Angela Hill reminded us of the power of persistence. If you’ve ever wondered how a person would do against a human-sized paper shredder, Xianoan Yan’s display over Karolina Kowalkiewicz was probably quite the education. And, hey, if you wanted a glimpse into a dystopian future in which robots have taken over and rendered our feeble bodies useless, look no further than Dan Hooker vs. Paul Felder.
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Why am I going on and on about ancient history when we have Saturday’s UFC on ESPN+ 27 card in Chartway Arena, Norfolk to discuss?
Because again, we are confronted with a card that doesn’t look great on paper. In fact, I haven’t seen this many faces I don’t recognize since my high school colleagues discovered lip injections. But if we’ve learned anything from both the Auckland card and Zac Efron’s acting career, it’s that people can surprise you when given a chance.
Also, who are we kidding? We’re going to watch it anyway, aren’t we? Might as well make ourselves feel better about our poor decision-making skills and focus on the positives.
From a fun, feel-good main event, which will pit Joseph Benavidez against Deiveson Figueiredo in a bid for the vacant flyweight title, to matchups that might just breathe a little life into the women’s featherweight division, here are some ways for you to justify spending another Saturday night in front of a screen with nothing but a bottle of cheap wine and the stale crumbs of your shattered hopes and dreams.
You’re a champ in our hearts, Joe B.
Impeccable fashion sense? Check. Movie knowledge? Check. Coolest wife in the game? Check. Cutest dog in the game? Trick question, all dogs are the cutest but check. A touching story of personal turmoil and ultimate triumph? Check. Fulfilled a collective fantasy and choked the crap out of Ryan Seacrest?
Joseph Benavidez didn’t even need to be good at cage fighting to be a humiliation to us all, but he has that going for him, too. In the nine (!) years he’s been in the UFC, Benavidez has only lost three times — two in title fights against former champion Demetrious Johnson, one against Sergio Pettis, all but one via split decision. Outside of the UFC, he’s only lost to former 135-pound champ Dominick Cruz.
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Not only has Benavidez fought a lot and for a long time, but he’s done it against the best. And whether this is the MMA gods’ wicked sense of humor, or just the fact the life is nothing but a series of random absurdities that sometimes coincide into fortuitous events, the one thing he never got to show for his efforts is a title.
You know that, I know that, that acquaintance who texts once a year to ask “Who you got in the Connor fight?” knows that. How could we not, when basically every “Best fighters to never hold a belt” list has Benavidez on the cover?
If it were up to me, we’d just cut through the red tape and give him a belt already. You know, something that’s less about a specific achievement and more about services rendered, like when they gave Scorsese that Oscar for The Departed.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way, and if Joe B. wants the belt he needs to get past this pesky little 125-pound obstacle.
At 32, first-time title challenger Deiveson Figueiredo has as many fights in his career as Benavidez has in the UFC. He’s no newcomer to fighting, though: At nine, he started dipping his toes in “luta marajoara” — a wrestling-type modality practiced in his native Island of Marajo, where former UFC fighter brothers Iuri and Ildemar Alcantara also came from. Figueiredo got into capoeira at 15 and, thanks to the encouragement of Iuri, started incorporating other styles until finally getting to MMA.
Eventually, he started pulling stunts like this.
UFC signed Deiveson Alcântara, the JF pimp-slap KO guy. Faces Marco Beltrán on June 3rd. pic.twitter.com/iIh4pG2fNn
— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) March 7, 2017
Figueiredo was unbeaten when he made it to the UFC in 2017 and stayed that way until Jussier Formiga handed him his sole pro loss in early 2019, but professional face-puncher wasn’t always his job description. In fact, he’s got quite a colorful resume. Before driving motorcycle taxis, styling hair, doing security and making sushi, Figueiredo even dabbled in the totally casual and not-at-all scary craft of taming buffalos as a kid.
Which is my way of saying that, yeah, it would be pretty cool to see Benavidez finally get a physical token to show for his remarkable career. But, as far as alternatives go, we could do worse than a buffalo-tamer-turned-UFC-flyweight who can backhand-slap human heads but also balayage and blow-dry the heck out of them.
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A tale of two Hulks
I could pretend that this really is about Ion Cutelaba.
I could pretend that this is about how Cutelaba has three knockout wins among his four most recent bouts, and how he’s is coming off a key win over Khalil Rountree, and how we shouldn’t take his 26-year-old presence for granted in a division that can’t afford to dismiss young and still improving talent because of a few losses.
And that’s all fine and true, but it’s still not why I’m here.
The truth is that this is really about Cutelaba’s “Hulk” gimmickand its tie-in to the most culturally relevant of all Brazilian Hulks.
Meet Paulo Henrique dos Santos, a.k.a DJ Marronzinho, a.k.a guy who eight years ago became The Hulk for a running event and found himself unable to return to human form after the green paint simply refused to come off despite multiple showers.
há oito anos o hulk da vila cruzeiro tomava 25 banhos pra tirar a tinta verde do corpo (foto: urbano erbiste/extra) pic.twitter.com/Jswp8oL92E
— débora lopes (@deboralopes) February 25, 2020
If I had it my way, I’d use the rest of this column to dissect the artistry of the pictures in this article. The understated beauty of the plastic bags against the leopard-print comforter. The befuddled expressions of a crowd that may or may not have been there only for the photo-op. The helplessness in the Hulk’s eyes as he holds a loofah to his permanently green head.
However, this is still about sports, and we are not about to see a clash between the Moldovan and Brazilian Hulks. Which is a little unfortunate for us and possibly for Cutelaba, who instead has to face a real threat in Magomed Ankalaev.
Speaking of which…
You know how MMA fighters sometimes do this thing in which they’re clearly winning a fight up until, against all odds, they very much aren’t? In Brazil we call it “entregar a paçoca,*” but American MMA fans might know it as pulling a Michael Johnson.
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You might remember Ankalaev from a situation like that.
In March 2018, Ankalaev was en route to beating Paul Craig in a decision so dominant that even judge Joe Soliz couldn’t screw it up. The win would have meant a successful start to unbeaten Ankalaev’s run in the promotion, while most likely stamping Craig’s ticket out of it. MMA, however, just wouldn’t have such a logical outcome unfold under its watch, and instead, Ankalaev got caught in a last-second submission.
When I say last-second, I mean it: 4:59 of Round 3 was the official time of the triangle choke finish, which predictably earned “Performance of the Night” honors. After dodging a three-fight skid, Craig is still in the UFC, where he’s since gone 2-2-1.
I’m pretty sure that’s not what the 27-year-old had in mind that night, but this is my column, so I get to make up my own realities. And, in this one, Ankalaev simply felt bad for Craig and wanted to extend his UFC stay. After observing such an act of kindness, the universe awarded Ankalaev with two post-fight bonuses of his own and three straight wins, serving as definitive proof that the world is a good place and good things happen to people who do good things.
Or maybe Ankalaev is good at fighting and earned those wins and bonuses with no help whatsoever from cosmic forces. I guess we’ll never know. The bottom line is we get to watch two knockout-happy 205-pounders go up against each other.
*Paçoca is a Brazilian candy made out of peanuts, so the saying would loosely translate to “hand over the peanut candy.” I could tell you the history behind it, but I don’t want to ruin it. Also, I don’t know the history behind it and I don’t think there is one.
So … women’s featherweight, huh?
I know it’s hard to truly get behind the women’s featherweight division considering that, well, there isn’t much of a division to speak of.
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From that weird first title fight to an even weirder first title reign, trailed by the upset loss and subsequent departure of the woman who the entire weight class was built around, there’s always been this question-mark-shaped cloud hovering over the UFC’s 145-pound women’s division. The fact that their current ruler hasn’t done many moves to try to do any effective ruling isn’t really helping matters much.
For the sake of my entirely unfounded fantasies of one day discovering my secret talents as a cage fighter, though, I’d like to think there’s still hope. And the events of the Norfolk card might help add a little pizzazz to a division that so badly needs it.
In the co-main event, Felicia Spencer meets Zarah Fairn Dos Santos in her first fight since a UFC 240 meeting with Cris Cyborg. Like most people do against Cyborg, Spencer lost, but she still managed something extraordinary: Surviving all rounds and making the ex-champ bleed. Spencer was unbeaten going into the match, which followed a first-round submission of fellow former Invicta FC champ Megan Anderson, and has five finishes among her wins. Add to it that “Feenom” is a rarity among featherweights, in that she actually is a featherweight, and she isn’t crazy to think a win might get her a shot at Amanda Nunes.
The operative word, though, is “win.” If that doesn’t happen for Spencer, it’s much harder to see France’s Dos Santos, who’s currently 0-1 in the UFC after losing to Anderson in her debut, being given the shot. And there goes our hope for some 145-pound clarity.
Or does it?
Also in the main card, Anderson is set to welcome Brazil’s Norma Dumont into the UFC. A win there would mean a second straight for the six-foot-tall Aussie, who at one point was widely regarded as the future of the division and is probably one of the few names that fans who have a life can recognize from this card. Two wins don’t make for the most eye-popping of streaks, especially over two newcomers, but it’s something given the state of affairs at 145. Especially if Anderson is able to get there emphatically.
And if both Spencer and Anderson lose?
Back to the blessings
I know it’s easy to get caught up in the bad stuff, what with millennial debt and the literal melting of the planet and the music of Imagine Dragons. But, you know, sometimes we’ve just got to stop, breathe and appreciate the small blessings.
Like the fact that we get to be involved in the same sport as one “Violent Bob Ross.”
Just this week, by the way, we got a reminder of how important it is not to take that for granted. For a few minutes there, Luis Pena was left without an opponent, and if it wasn’t for Steve Garcia Jr. stepping in on short notice we would have gone from a Violent Bob Ross card to an objectively sadder Violent Bob Ross-less card.
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Not only that: We’d also have missed out on an opportunity to have a Violent Bob Ross competing in the same card as “The Alpha Ginger.”
I don’t really see the reason for a nickname when your original name is already as cool as Spike Carlyle but, hey, at least he’s easy to spot.
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Remember him?
For a long time, Ian McCall was synonymous with bad fighter luck. Recently, Ray Borg came in to give him a run for his money. When it comes to the unofficial “Can’t this guy catch a freaking break?” title, however, we’ve got a dark horse in England’s Tom Breese.
Breese is expected to meet Brendan Allen in a middleweight bout on Saturday, but the emphasis here is on “expected.” After all, Breese has a bit of a history when it comes to last-minute cancellations. Most recently, at UFC on ESPN+ 5 this past March, where Breese got through two opponent changes, made the middleweight limit and even faced off with Ian Heinisch, only to pull out due to health concerns just hours before the match.
To make matters more depressing, Breese had gone through a similar ordeal almost exactly two years before, when he was declared medically unfit to compete hours prior to a UFC Fight Night 107 appearance. The withdrawal, which was attributed to heart rate issues, was followed by a knee injury. Breese came back from that with a first-round knockout win over Dan Kelly, only to be forced out of yet another bout months later, this time with about a week to spare.
Long story short, this will be Breese’s second MMA fight in three-and-a-half-years. If it makes you feel any better, though, the Brit is only 28. His sole professional loss was a split decision, and he’s capable of doing stuff like this.
Let's not forgot the power that Tom Breese 🏴 has! 😳
He faces Brendan Allen at #UFCNorfolk this Saturday! pic.twitter.com/djprrBXskI
— UFC Europe (@UFCEurope) February 26, 2020
(Top photo: Jeff Bottari / Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
