For the first time in its long history, the UFC finally set up shop in Kansas on Saturday night.
A heavyweight slugfest between former champion Junior Dos Santos and recent title challenger Derrick Lewis headlined the bill at UFC on ESPN+ 4, which took place at INTRUST Bank Arena in Wichita. The event streamed on ESPN+.
The card also featured a crucial win for welterweight Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos and some questionable scoring for veterans like Ben Rothwell and Marion Reneau and a pretty brutal knockout loss for Tim Means against Niko Price.
So what really mattered at UFC Wichita? Here’s a thing or five …
1. First comes the knockout, then comes the singalong
It takes a special kind of person to pummel a wounded and unresponsive Derrick Lewis one minute and then lead a crowd in singing “Happy Birthday” to his son a few minutes later. Junior Dos Santos is just such a man.
Now he’s sitting on a three-fight winning streak in a relatively thin heavyweight division that, for all practical purposes, seems to be on hold until Daniel Cormier and Brock Lesnar can align their schedules long enough to make the big cash register in the sky do the cha-ching noise for all parties involved.
Where does that leave our man JDS? Probably in another very dangerous fight with another very dangerous heavyweight contender. But you know it’ll be appointment viewing, just like you know he’ll be adorably positive and enthusiastic before and after.
2. The most dangerous man who nobody knows?
Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos has now won seven fights in a row, the last three of which ended in swift, decisive fashion. So why does it seem like each time he knocks off another UFC welterweight he then goes right back to that anonymous pile of humanity that exists only to fill out a Reebok outfit on another random fight night affair?
Maybe it’s the name. It is a mouthful, and something about it feels like it came from a Brazilian fighter name generator. Or maybe it’s the state of the division, or the scattered nature of the fight cards he ends up on. I don’t know. But clearly this guy can fight a little bit. If you don’t think so, just ask Curtis Millender, who just had a nine-fight winning streak snapped in a bout that he was never really competitive in.
3. Price is a lot of things, but he’s not boring
Niko Price has been in the UFC for a little over two years, has stepped into the octagon eight times, and still he has yet to see a third round. That’s just the species of good time that he is. Against Tim Means, it looked like he was headed for the wrong kind of early finish. And he was … right up until he wasn’t.
I don’t know if Price’s style is going to lead to an especially long career. I doubt he ever gets to the very top of the welterweight division. A guy who fights like that? He’s going to lose now and then. He’s also going to be a whole lot of fun to watch for as long as he can stick around. And there’s a place for that, thank goodness.
4. Not a great night to see the scorecards
Marion Reneau redecorated Yana Kunitskaya’s nose and still lost the decision once the judges had their say. Then Ben Rothwell spent three rounds stalking and battering Blagoi Ivanov, only to meet with the same fate in the end. Were these unforgivable robberies? No, nothing that egregious. I also can’t sit here and call them good decisions, and I doubt the crowd that booed the announcements of both would disagree.
5. Honestly? I could get into these ESPN+ events
Minimal breaks in the action. A six-fight main card that still wraps up before 11 p.m. ET. Yeah, that’s the kind of MMA broadcast I appreciate. I definitely prefer it to those long, painful slogs we used to get on FOX Sports, where it felt like the main event was a reward waiting at the end of the world’s longest Farmer’s Only commercial. That right there is worth five bucks a month to me. That’s an MMA event that respects my time and actually wants me to sit down and watch the whole thing. Imagine that.
For complete coverage of UFC on ESPN+ 4, check out the UFC Events section of the site.
