What mattered most at UFC on ESPN+ 14 in Montevideo, Uruguay? Here are a few post-fight musings …
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1. This Valentina Shevchenko title fight won’t be an outlier
The reaction to Valentina Shevchenko’s (18-3 MMA, 7-2 UFC) title defense against Liz Carmouche (13-7 MMA, 5-5 UFC) has been largely negative. Was it the worst title fight in UFC history, as some are calling it? Absolutely not, but it certainly lacked in the drama and entertainment department as “The Bullet” kept her title in a lopsided unanimous decision.
The hard truth is this probably isn’t the last title fight involving Shevchenko that looks like this. It’s really going to come down to how challengers choose to approach their attempts to dethrone her, a task that appears to be increasingly difficult.
Try to be aggressive and take space from Shevchenko? That’s giving her just what she wants. It creates openings and opportunities for the champ, and the result is what happened to Jessica Eye a few months ago. Try to keep distance and stay outside of Shevchenko’s range? She’ll be perfectly content to pick her shots for 25 minutes and rack up points on the scorecards.
The latter certainly isn’t very captivating, but Shevchenko is the one with the belt. If she can keep it around her waist by cruising her way to winning every round on the scorecards, then it’s hard to blame her for doing so. There’s a good chance it happens again during her reign, and sometimes that’s one of the byproducts of being so good.
2. Liz Carmouche’s last chance?
Carmouche said all the right things in the wake of her loss to Shevchenko. She credited the champion for having a superior game plan, defended the underwhelming nature of the fight and just generally carried herself well. Behind the scenes, though, this has to be eating her up.
This title fight came around essentially from Carmouche being at the right place at the right time. The UFC needed a challenger for Shevchenko on this card, and Carmouche’s 2010 win over the champion paired with a two-fight winning streak made her an easy sell.
Her performance was puzzling, though. It was just noted how dangerous rushing in on a striker like Shevchenko can be, but Carmouche was essentially averse to any type of risk in this contest. She infrequently shot for takedowns, rarely committed to her strikes and before she knew it 25 minutes had passed with next to nothing happening.
Once she watched the tape back, Carmouche will likely be upset she didn’t put herself out there more. Especially because this is almost certainly her last time challenging for UFC gold.
3. Pour one out for Mike Perry’s nose
Love him or hate him, Mike Perry (13-5 MMA, 6-5 UFC) gives everything he can every time he steps in that octagon. This time he gave a lot of blood, and perhaps the structural integrity of his nose for the rest of his life, as well.
Perry’s broken nose was among the worst we’ve seen, and he somehow came damn close to beating Vicente Luque (17-6-1 MMA, 10-2 UFC) despite a mutated face. The split decision didn’t go his way, but Perry gained plenty of fanfare (and a $50,000 “Fight of the Night” bonus) in defeat.
Hopefully Perry’s nose doesn’t cause him problems in the long term, but it will be hard to forget the sight of it twisted sideways every time he gets popped to the face in future bouts.
4. Volkan Oezdemir is (technically) back
It was hugely important for Volkan Oezdemir (16-4 MMA, 4-3 UFC) to not only beat Ilir Latifi (14-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC), but also look good in doing so given the bad optics of his record coming into the fight.
Three-fight losing skids are not good no matter who the fighter is, but the questionably nature of Oezdemir’s defeat to Dominick Reyes in March didn’t give the feel we were seeing a slumping fighter in desperate need to keep relevant.
Oezdemir needed to get an official win on his record, though, and that’s exactly what happened when he knocked out Latifi in the second round. The tide is turning for “No Time,” but it’s hard not to imagine where he’d be right now in the light heavyweight pecking order if the decision against Reyes went his way and he was on a two-fight winning streak instead of 1-3 in his past four.
5. Tecia Torres’ next step
Tecia Torres (10-5 MMA, 6-5 UFC) is exactly one week from her 30th birthday, and you’d have to imagine when that day comes it’s going to bring a lot of reflective moments from the longtime UFC strawweight contender, especially when it comes to her fighting career.
After losing a decision to Marina Rodriguez (13-0-1 MMA, 2-0-1 UFC), Torres now finds herself on a four-fight losing skid, which is tied for the longest run of defeats in the history of the 115-pound weight class. That’s a pretty stunning development for a fighter many viewed as having championship promise after a 6-1 start to her UFC tenure.
Further examination of Torres skid shows losses to a promising rising contender in Rodriguez, the next title challenger Weili Zhang, former longtime champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk and current champion Jessica Andrade. There’s absolutely no shame in any of those losses – especially when Torres went the distance in all of them – but at some point a win is needed.
Torres just signed a new UFC contract in April, and while we know athletes can be cut at any time, that seems like an indicator the UFC still wants her around. She’s young enough that Torres could easily recover from this, but as an undersized fighter for the weight class with a style that appears to be solved more with each loss, she’s in a difficult position.
We’ll see how “The Tiny Tornado” responds.
