If you read the headlines, the world might seem to be burning down around us, but the UFC’s relentless machine marches on.
Just one week after a memorable UFC 248, the company returns to one of its favorite destinations, Brazil, for UFC on ESPN+ 28.
In the interim, life as we know it got turned upside down, as the world woke up to the fact that coronavirus is everywhere. That includes Brasilia, which issued a ban on large public gatherings, putting UFC on ESPN+ 28 behind closed doors.
You have to feel for those who bought tickets for the card but can’t go. For a Fight Night-level card just one week after a blockbuster pay-per-view, this event is a pretty solid offering.
That starts right at the top, with the main event. Kevin Lee, a former interim lightweight title challenger who seemed right on the brink of big things, is looking to get back to that status. Opponent Charles Oliveira, himself, is knocking on that door. Put these two all-action competitors in the same cage and lock the door, and you’ve got the recipe for one hell of a fight.
UFC on ESPN+ 28 takes place Saturday at Ginasio Nilson Nelson in Brasilia, Brazil. The card streams on ESPN+.
Without further ado, then, here are six burning questions leading into UFC on ESPN+ 28.
Is Kevin Lee back on track?
Lee’s career is the case study in why the UFC should consider a 165-pound weight class.
A superbly talented competitor, Lee (18-5 MMA, 11-5 UFC) is just a little too big for the lightweight class – as has been evidenced by his troubles making 155 pounds – and just a little bit too small for the elite welterweights – as evidenced by his loss to Rafael dos Anjos, the Brazilian’s only win in his past five fights, in Lee’s attempt to go 170.
If there’s ever change in the divisional structure, though, it’s not likely to happen during Lee’s prime. So he went back to 155 pounds, where he made an emphatic statement with a first-round knockout of Gregor Gillespie at UFC 244.
Now he’s back in the main event spotlight, with an interesting challenge in Oliveira (28-8 MMA, 16-8 UFC). Lee needs to prove two things this time out: First, fair or not, we still need to see him get through a string of weigh-ins without looking like death warmed over before we’re going to declare his issues with 155 over. Next, Lee has been submitted twice in his three losses over his past three fights, and this time out, he faces the guy who blew right past Royce Gracie’s UFC submission record and never looked back in Oliveira.
If Lee can ace this both of this week’s tests, then he might just be back in the elite mix after all.
Is this Oliveira’s long sought elite breakthrough fight?
What an interesting run Oliveira has had in the UFC.
Oliveira is just 30, but he’s been with the UFC since 2010, debuting on a VERSUS event in San Diego headlined by some guy on the rise named Jon Jones. He earned what at the time was considered a stunning 41-second submission of Darren Elkins, which should have been a sign.
Since then, he’s gone from a featherweight who wanted to stay there despite missing weight 5,428 times (don’t quote us on that number) to a record-setting submission machine to a spoiler in the lightweight division who has six straight finishes and a plethora of bonus money.
The one thing that’s eluded him? Legit contender status in the sport’s deepest division. It’s getting to be now-or-never time for “Do Bronx” in that regard, and he’ll never have a better chance at cracking that elite echelon than now.
How much longer can Demian Maia’s run last?
There’s so much bad news swirling around these days. So let’s now pause for a breath of fresh air and talk about Demian Maia.
Maia (28-9 MMA, 22-9 UFC) is one of the sport’s true class acts. He’s been with the UFC since UFC 77, way back in 2007. He’s challenged for championships at welterweight and middleweight.
Maia’s 42. He seemed on his way out when he dropped three straight fights in 2017-18 to competitors who have held full or interim welterweight belts.
Since then? He’s won three in a row, two of them via finish, most recently a first-round submission of Ben Askren that sent the latter into retirement.
Now Maia returns to face Gilbert Burns. No disrespect intended to Burns (17-3 MMA, 10-3 UFC), a fine fighter, but it’s hard not to root for Maia. A win here would tie Maia with Donald Cerrone with 23 UFC wins, the most in company history. For a guy who has lasted this long and got right to the brink without winning a belt, that would be one fine consolation prize.
Can Renato Moicano turn things around at lightweight?
For a minute there, it looked like Renato Moicano was going to be the next big thing at featherweight. The Brazilian competitor won five of his first six UFC fights, with wins over the likes of Jeremy Stephens, Calvin Kattar, and most impressively, a finish of Cub Swanson.
His only setback in that span was to Brian Ortega, but then he followed the 5-1 run with losses via finish to Jose Aldo and Chan Sung Jung, and that seemed to indicate Moicano hit the wall when he met elite talent.
Now Moicano (13-3-1 MMA, 5-3 UFC) hits the reset button against Bosnian Damir Hadzovic 13-5 MMA, 3-3 UFC) in his lightweight debut. Will Moicano join the ranks of fighters who thrived once they no longer drove their bodies down to the absolute lowest weight it could possibly hit and instead went up to a healthier weight class? A matchup with a fighter who has been perfectly mediocre in the UFC should be a good first step in determining this.
What’s in store for Johnny Walker?
Say this for Johnny Walker: Things are rarely dull when he’s around.
The charismatic Brazilian light heavyweight burst onto the scene in late 2018 after a stint on Dana White’s Contender Series and electrified the division with three consecutive sub-two-minute knockouts and three “Performance of the Night” awards.
But then, after the third one, a 36-second walloping of Misha Cirkunov at UFC 235, Walker (17-4 MMA, 3-1 UFC) injured his shoulder breakdancing in the cage, which put him out for nine months. Then he returned and suffered a brutal knockout loss to Corey Anderson at UFC 244.
Clearly, adjustments needed to be made. Walker relocated from Brazil to Montreal’s famed Tristar gym. That indicates his head is in the right place if he wants to be more than just a flash in the pan. Walker 2.0 debuts against Nikita Krylov (26-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC), who’s lost three of five but is coming off a “Performance of the Night” win over Jimmy Crute, which should give us a good gauge where exactly Walker stands.
