What mattered most at UFC 251 on “Fight Island” in Abu Dhabi? Here are a few post-fight musings …
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1. Kamaru Usman displays his dominance
It’s not the most exciting style to watch, but Kamaru Usman continues to prove time and time again that he has one of most effective styles of anyone on the UFC roster. Jorge Masvidal got to experience that first hand in his unanimous decision loss to Usman in their welterweight title bout.
No matter what the opponent’s approach is or how they try to fight him, Usman finds a way to sap the life of his foes with a rare mix of clinch and grappling pressure. “The Nigerian Nightmare” is now 12-0 in the UFC, and the only two fighters in history to get off to that same start in the promotion are Khabib Nurmagomedov and Anderson Silva.
Wins are most important at the end fo the day, but Usman was the recipient of a solid amount of negative feedback. Let’s tone down on that a bit and remind ourselves Usman spent an entire camp preparing for Gilbert Burns only to have a complete change in styles on six days’ notice.
His win over Colby Covington at UFC 245 in December was a completely different and far more exciting fight from this one, and although the effort against Masvidal was more in tone with what Usman has delivered historically, let’s give him another title defense or two before labeling him a “boring” champion and expecting this to be the norm.
2. Max Holloway gets his heart broken again
Max Holloway once again allowed his fate to be decided by the judges, and once again they broke his heart. I thought it was a pretty straightforward 3-2 victory for Holloway, with him taking the first, second and third round against Alexander Volkanovski. Two of three judges thought otherwise, though, and they gave the split decision to the champion.
Holloway now finds himself in a precarious spot. He’s in that historically difficult position of having two losses to the current champion, and regardless of whether he thought he won both or not, the results stand on his record.
It’s clear Holloway is still arguably the best 145-pound fighter in the world. He could take a fight or two and wait and see how Volkanovski’s title reign plays out, or perhaps he makes a fully committed move to lightweight.
Holloway fell short in a one-shot attempt to move up against Dustin Poirier in 2019, but he only has six weeks to prepare for the fight and seemed to struggle with the size and power of his opponent. If he took six months or so to properly adjust his frame to the 155-pound division, then it would be interesting to see how he fairs there.
Either way, Holloway has some big decisions to make coming out of this fight.
3. Petr Yan’s title reign has big potential
Petr Yan accomplished one of the more impressive rises to UFC championship glory when he stopped Jose Aldo by fifth-round TKO to claim the vacant bantamweight belt.
Although some in the sport have known of Yan’s potential even prior to joining the UFC, his path the title is still worthy of massive praise. He did it purely through hard work. Sure, Yan has a solid social media game in chirping other fighters, but the real key has been his pace.
After making his debut in June 2018, Yan has fought seven times in less than 25 months to get to his position, and it seems he has no intention of slowing down. That’s massively exciting, because ether bantamweight division is as compelling as any in the UFC right now. It seems Aljamain Sterling is next, but after that the likes of Marlon Moraes, Cody Garbrandt, Dominick Cruz and perhaps even someone like Sean O’Malley down the line, gives opportunity for some big fights.
It’s going to be a difficult task for Yan to hold on to that 135-pound title for an extended period. If he’s able to rack up a solid run of title defenses against the challengers on the horizon, though, Yan could wind up the best bantamweight in MMA history.
4. ‘Thug Rose’ rebounds
Rose Namajunas proved that she is the superior fighter to Jessica Andrade in the rematch. Yes, the fight was scored a split decision and she left with a brutal shiner that required immediate transportation to a local hospital, but she got her hand raised.
The fight was largely what we saw between Namajunas and Andrade the first time around but with a different ending. Before Namajunas suffered a horrifying slam knockout loss to Andrade at UFC 237 in May 2019 that cost her the UFC strawweight title, she was picking her Brazilian foe apart.
Andrade definitely made improvement in her striking and busted up Namajunas’ face, but if we were to see a trilogy, it’s likely Namajunas would be a considerable favorite. It’s quite clear she’s at worse the second best 115-pound fighter in the world, and a showdown with champ Zhang Weili is now inevitable.
5. Welcome to the UFC, Jiri Prochazka
Rizin FF champ Jiri Prochazka announced his octagon arrival in a spectacular manner when he knocked out former UFC title challenge Volkan Oezdemir in utterly devastating fashion. With that, there’s a new player on the scene at light heavyweight.
Although Prochazka showed some vulnerability and sloppiness in the bout that could cost him against higher ranked opponents, it worked to his benefit against Oezdemir. He managed to draw Oezdemir into the type of fight he wanted, then finished it with a highlight-reel strike early in the second round.
Prochazka is now 20-1-1 in his past 22 fights. He took out a top-10 name in his octagon debut, and now he can only go up from here. There’s nothing but killers occupying the upper echelon of 205 pounds, and it would be fun to see Prochazka fight anyone from Jon Jones to Dominick Reyes to Thiago Santos to Anthony Smith and anyone in between.
As far as UFC debuts go, Prochazka ranks up there with the best in recent memory.
