If you match just about anyone up with Donald Cerrone, you’re likely to have an exciting fight.
Same goes with Justin Gaethje.
So if you match Cerrone (38-12 MMA, 23-9 UFC) and Gaethje (20-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) against one another, well, you just might have your most natural mix since someone over at Reese’s first put peanut butter and chocolate together.
Some weeks, the UFC puts on shows simply to fill out the contractual obligations that come with its mammoth ESPN deal, which turns the proceedings into a slog for even the most hardcore of fans.
Then there are events like UFC on ESPN+ 16 on Saturday which stand out from the pack. The lightweight showdown between Gaethje and Cerrone is a must-watch, and there are other interesting competitors sprinkled in for good measure.
UFC on ESPN+ 16 takes place Saturday at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The card streams on ESPN+.
With that, on to five burning questions going into UFC on ESPN+ 16.
Is Justin Gaethje a real contender in the lightweight division?
However, he also lost the last two of those three, against Eddie Alvarez and Dustin Poirier, a caliber of competition which suggested that perhaps Gaethje’s UFC tenure was going to be the sort in which he’s always in the running for a post-fight bonus, but never a title.
But it urns out he could possibly be both. It’s not like the losses were blowouts, as both were highly competitive affairs. Since, he’s gone out and earned back-to-back knockout victories over James Vick and Edson Barboza (and, almost needless to say, earned performance bonuses for each).
Now he faces one of the sport’s all-time great competitors and the holder of the UFC wins mark (23) in Cerrone. A victory here would make three in a row, and a chance to step up one more time against one of the division’s top dogs to prove himself a contender once and for all.
How long can Donald Cerrone keep doing his thing?
Remember when Alexander Hernandez called Donald Cerrone old leading up to UFC on ESPN+ 1? The comment seemed to strike a nerve with Cerrone, who at 36 isn’t exactly decrepit, but has 78 professional fights between MMA and kickboxing, which suggests a good bit of tread on the tires.
Cerrone went out and placed an old-school beatdown on Hernandez that dared anyone else to imply that the “Cowboy” is washed up. Then he put a five-round whoopin’ on Al Iaquinta. Then he lost to Tony Ferguson at UFC 238, but one “Fight of the Night” in the process.
In the victories over Hernandez and Iaquinta, Cerrone appeared to be in that rare zone we see from the cagiest veteran fighters, the period of their career in which they’ve maybe lost a half-step, but they make up for it by picking their spots with veteran guile. Against Ferguson, it appeared maybe that approach won’t work against the very best.
Which one is it? Cerrone’s performance against Gaethje should provide some answers.
Can Todd Duffee return to the Duff-man of old?
Heavyweight Todd Duffee electrified the MMA world with his seven-second knockout of Tim Hague in his UFC debut at UFC 102.
Duffee (9-3 MMA, 3-2 UFC) also turned out to be a popular fighter with an engaging personality, the sort of person fans can easily identify with.
But then things went south on his road to stardom. A variety of issues from knee surgeries to a horrible staph infection to a rare condition called Parsonage–Turner syndrome caused Duffee to miss large amounts of his fighting prime.
Guess what? The Duff-man is still only 33, which means he could still go a long time in the heavyweight division if he caught a few breaks with his health. He returns to action for the first time since 2015 with a fight against unheralded Jeff Hughes. Duffee won three straight UFC bouts before getting knocked out by Frank Mir in his last fight. Four years later, we’ll finally get to see how much he has left in the tank when he meets Hughes (10-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC).
Can Glover Teixeira make another run toward a title shot?
Hey, stranger things have happened. Five years have passed since the likable Glover Teixeira absorbed a one-sided beating from a prime Jon Jones at UFC 172, and he was all but written off in the aftermath.
But the light heavyweight division is far from the UFC’s deepest. Jones has been busy as champion, but his recent title defenses have been against a recycled Alexander Gustafsson, Thiago Santos. Jan Blachowicz seemed to be the next in line, right until a surprise fight with Ronaldo Souza was announced.
When that’s your spectrum of challengers, how can you not consider Glover Teixeira, even though he turns 40 next month? Teixeira (29-7 MMA, 12-5 UFC) has won two in a row and three of his past four, with all three wins coming via finish. In the most recent one, he taught a disrespectful Ion Cutelaba a lesson in heart by rallying from a bad first round, submitting him in the second, and earning “Performance of the Night” at UFC on ESPN+ 8.
Now he takes on Nikita Krylov (26-6 MMA, 7-4 UFC) in Saturday’s co-feature bout, and if he scores yet another finish, well, who else are you going to go to for a title shot at 205?
What to expect from Uriah Hall?
We’ve never known which Uriah Hall is going to show up to fight, going all the way back to The Ultimate Fighter 17. For those who need a refresher course, there was huge hype TUF 17 was going to produce a star. And that ended up being the case, but the star was Kelvin Gastelum, who beat Hall in what was then considered an upset in the Finale.
Since then, we’ve seen Hall (14-9 MMA, 7-7 UFC) look like an absolute killer. We’ve seen Hall look like he wants to be anywhere except inside the Octagon. We’ve seen fights in which he was winning right up until he lost. Last time, at UFC 232, he was losing handily to unheralded Bevon Lewis, until Hall absolutely starched him with a knockout in the third round.
We’ve kind of given up on the idea of Hall as a title contender, considering that even with the flash KO of Lewis, he’s dropped four of his past six. But the element of mystery stays with him. Which Hall will show up against Antonio Carlos Junior (10-3 MMA, 7-3 UFC) ? We’re not even going to venture a guess at this stage of the game, so tune in and find out.
