The UFC train keeps rolling, and Tampa is the next stop.
Amalie Arena is the host for Saturday night’s UFC on ESPN+ 19, which is headlined with an intriguing matchup of top strawweight contenders in former champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk and aspiring titleholder Michelle Waterson.
After the truly intriguing headliner, it’s the usual fight-night-level fare: A bout that isn’t incredibly deep at first glance, but with a handful of interesting plot lines when you looked beneath the surface.
UFC on ESPN+ 19 takes place Saturday at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla. The card streams on ESPN+.
With that, here are five burning questions as the UFC heads to the Sunshine State:
What’s going on with Joanna Jedrzejczyk?
Fight week in Tampa took quite an eventful turn when reports surfaced that former strawweight champion Jedzejczyk (15-3 MMA, 9-3 UFC) — who has never missed weight over the course of her career, but has also had some unhealthy-looking weigh-ins along the way — wasn’t going to be able to make 116 pounds.
When Waterson’s camp refused to accommodate her opponent on a catchweight, JJ decided she could make weight after all, and then got snippy with reporters who at Wednesday’s media day when they tried to ask what happened.
So, what was going on, here? Was this all simply a big miscommunication? Was it a whole lot of noise about nothing? Or, is a fighter who not all that long ago was an undefeated and seemingly untouchable champion now getting a little desperate, having lost three out of her past four fights? And if so, was this a failed attempted a gaming the system, as Jedrezjczyk, who fought for the flyweight belt last time out, takes on one of the smaller strawweights in former Invicta atomweight champ Waterson?
Saturday should give us an indication as to which is which.
Are we witnessing the very best Michelle Waterson?
Perhaps Waterson — whose agent just so happens to be Endeavor, which runs the UFC — was given opportunities for reasons less having to do with fighting and more having to do with why the likes of Paige VanZant and Sage Northcutt also got big promotional pushes.
But then, Waterson (17-6 MMA, 5-2 UFC) has done what the rest haven’t. She’s capitalized on those opportunities, and it’s hard to fault someone who runs with the ball when she’s given the opportunity.
Waterson has always shown great heart as an undersized 115-pounder, and as her UFC run goes into her fifth year, she’s also shown an ability to adapt and grow as a fighter. She’s one three straight fights in a row, including the most impressive victory of her career last time out, a 30-27, across-the-board spanking of former title challenger Karolina Kowalkiewicz.
Now, Waterson faces her biggest challenge in former champion Jedrzejczyk. A victory here would set up a bankable title fight with new champion Weili Zhang. Waterson is the underdog here, but she’s certainly proven more than once that she’s more than just a pretty face.
How will Kron Gracie handle his big step up in competition?
Make no mistake about it: A whole lot of you are interested in Kron Gracie. While the drama related to the main event clicked well for us this week, stories about Rickon Gracie’s kid have blown everything else out, traffic-wise.
Make no mistake about another thing: Gracie (5-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) can submit the (expletive) out of you. The former ADCC gold and bronze medalist has won all five of his career pro mixed martial arts fights via tapout, and has only been pushed out of the opening round once. For those who missed his first four fights in Rizin, a Performance of the Night-winning effort in a first-round rear-naked choke of the always-game Alex Caceres was an eye-opener.
Plenty of fighters bearing the Gracie name have dotted the MMA landscape since Royce Gracie ushered in the UFC. But will Kron be the fighter who becomes the elusive, breakthrough, next-generation MMA star that the Gracies have never quite acheived since Royce’s heyday? A matchup with the battle-tested Cub Swanson (25-11 MMA, 10-7 UFC), a guy who may have lost a step but is still skilled in every conceivable aspect of the sport, will help determine whether Kron is The One.
How will Mackenzie Dern look in her return?
There were two trains of thought about Mackenzie Dern in the early days of her career:
- With her world-class jiu-jitsu pedigree and her charisma, she had the potential to become a breakthrough star.
- She sure missed weight a lot for someone who was insistent on cutting all the way down to strawweight.
Dern’s missed weight three times in her past six fights, including by a whopping seven pounds before her last bout, a first-round submission of Amanda Cooper at UFC 224, which was her third victory via tapout in her past four fights.
That fight was 16 months ago, and the reason we haven’t seen her since is that the 28-year-old out of Phoenix had her first child, daughter Moa, in June.
So how will motherhood affect Dern? Well, for one thing, Dern (7-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) said that whatever the reason, the weight cut was easier than it’s ever been this week, as she was two pounds off two days out, then (will add results here).
If that’s a sign of thing to come, that’s one big problem out of the way. Now we’ll see if she has any cage rust when she meets Amanda Ribas, another rising strawweight, who put a USADA-induced fiasco behind her in her last fight at UFC on ESPN 3, where she earned a third-round submission of Emily Whitmire.
Ribas (7-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) is a finisher, too, with her last four wins coming inside the distance, which should provide Dern with a solid test.
End of the road for James Vick, or start of a new chapter?
It wasn’t that long ago when James Vick seemed destined to break out into the top tier in the UFC’s lightweight division. He won four straight fights, three via finish, and nine of his first 10 overall to start his run in the company.
Then came a headline fight with Justin Gaethje, a buildup in which he repeatedly mocked “The Highlight’s intelligence, something for which Gaethje waited to answer on fight night with a one-punch, first-round knockout.
Things haven’t exactly gotten better since, as Vick (13-4 MMA, 9-4 UFC) dropped a decison to Paul Felder and was knocked out in the first round again, this time by Dan Hooker.
All of a suden, Vick’s UFC tenure looks in danger. He’s going for a fresh start against Niko Price (13-3 MMA, 5-3 UFC) at welterweight on Saturday night. Wednesday, he told MMA Junkie that welterweight was messing with his head, which doesn’t sound like his confidence is at a high point. Or is that a bluff? We’ll find out Saturday whether its the start of a new chapter or the beginning of the end.
