The UFC returns to action Saturday night with its second pay-per-view offering of 2020, as the octagon heads to Houston for UFC 247.
On the surface, the card appears to be headlined by a pair of “showcase” title fights, with underdog upstarts gunning for gold.
Jon Jones, who is on any reasonable person’s short list of the sport’s GOAT candidates, defends his light heavyweight title against undefeated Dominick Reyes. Meanwhile, Valentina Shevchenko, who is No. 2 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie women’s pound-for-pound rankings, puts her flyweight title up for grabs against Katlyn Chookagian.
Both champions are heavy favorites. But then, faster than you can say “Matt Serra,” you remember strange things seem to happen in H-town, and the night becomes a little bit more intriguing.
UFC 247 takes place Saturday at Toyota Center with the main card on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.
Without further ado, here are six burning questions heading into UFC 247.
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How does Jon Jones respond to his last outing?
It’s a testament to just how dominant Jones (25-1 MMA, 19-1 UFC) has been as light heavyweight champion that a rare non-dominant performance causes you to wonder what’s up.
But it’s hard not to take a look back at his last fight and wonder whether it will affect him going forward.
Thiago Santos threw everything but the kitchen sink at Jones last July, wrecking both of his legs but still pressing forward for 25 minutes. It took all of Jones’ tenacity to eke out a split decision victory.
If you’ve been watching this sport long enough, you remember how Fedor Emelianenko, on his 10-year winning streak, struggled before putting away Brett Rogers, and how the intellgentsia scoffed when anyone suggested this might mean anything going forward. And then Emelianenko went out and lost his next three fights.
Maybe, as heretical as it might sound, the Santos fight indicated things are finally starting to catch up to Jones. Or maybe a competitor with the style of Reyes (12-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) is just the type of fight to remind fans what Jones — who has scored only one official finish in nearly seven years, to go with six decisions and a no-contest — is capable of doing when he unleashes the beast.
Is Dominick Reyes just naive enough to win this fight?
Yup, we’re going to continue going back in time and finding historical analogies to other major upsets to try to make the case another big one could happen. Remember UFC 162 fight week? That week, Anderson Silva was at the height of his powers. He was UFC middleweight champion for nearly seven years.
Chris Weidman? He was supposed to be just the next contender of the month. He was an unbeaten fighter, sure, he had finishing skills, sure, but he had never been really tested and never had been on a stage anywhere nearly as big as the one a fight with Silva presented.
All week long, Weidman seemed unflappable, to the point that you wondered if he even understood that he was supposed to be nervous.
You know what happened from there.
Reyes, who coincidentally pummeled Weidman to earn his shot against Jones, seems to have the same credentials Weidman brought to the Silva fight: undefeated, obvious finishing skills, and the same questions about taking such a major step up.
So far, Reyes doesn’t seem fazed by the prospect of fighting Jones, either. You can say that about many other fighters who have faced Jones, too, and things didn’t end so well with them. Will Reyes be different?
Is Valentina Shevchenko basically fighting herself?
Some stats, courtesy of my friend and esteemed MMA writer Shaheen Al-Shatti:
Re-read that last one again. Other than the fight against a high volume striker in Joanna Jedrzejczyk, opponents have landed just 22 strikes since Shevchenko (18-3 MMA, 7-2 UFC) moved to flyweight.
At this point, you might as well get used to the idea that “Bullet” will rule the women’s flyweight division as long as Demetrious Johnson did on the men’s side of 125 pounds.
Unless she gets bored and loses focus.
Granted, Shevchenko has shown no signs of doing that. But that’s all we’ve got for you in terms of trying to create intrigue for this fight, so that’s what we’ll go with.
Does Katlyn Chookagian know something the rest of us don’t?
Chookagian (13-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) appears to have gotten the nod to fight Shevchenko primarily because, well, the UFC needed to put someone in that slot. We’re not going to pretend women’s flyweight is the company’s deepest weight class, and we’re not going to pretend Chookagian brings the intrigue of Shevchenko’s fights with Amanda Nunes or Joanna Jedrzejcyzk.
However, Chookagian is 13-2 for a reason. She’s won five of her past six fights, and the only loss in the span was a debatable split decision against a fellow title challenger in Jessica Eye.
Chookagian is a point fighter, having gone the distance in all eight of her UFC fights. She’s unapologetic about her approach and she said she has no intention of changing her game plan heading Shevchenko fight.
Maybe, just maybe, that’s the answer to the riddle Shevchenko poses.
What was Ilir Latifi thinking?
Let’s get this out of the way from the top: We like Ilir Latifi. Really, anyone who follows this sport should. Remember when he stepped up on short notice and fought Gegard Mousasi in a main event for his UFC debut?
Latifi (14-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC) always has carried himself with that type of spirit, win or lose, and he rarely has a bad word to say about anyone, either. This sport could use a lot more people like the affable Swede.
Which makes this fight he’s gotten himself into all the more painful to contemplate.
Latifi wasn’t exactly one of the biggest light heavyweights out there, but he deiced it’s time to make the move up to heavyweight. An interesting move in and of itself.
But then you heard he’s making his heavyweight debut against Derrick Lewis. Yes, that Lewis 22-7 MMA, 13-5 UFC). “The Black Beast.” The guy capable of taking inhumane amounts of punishment, then unleashing his hands of stone and delivering a fight-saving knockout out of nowhere.
Oh, and this is in Lewis’ hometown, too.
We’d like to look at the upside of this fight for Latifi, but we’re just not finding one.
Can Juan Adams bounce back from an embarrassing loss?
Juan Adams is one of the most interesting characters produced by Dana White’s Contender Series. The Houston-based heavyweight was raw, sure, but he had an engaging personality and showed real flashes of potential.
Then Adams (5-2 MMA, 1-2 UFC) went out and picked a fight with Greg Hardy. And at exactly the moment the UFC and some all-too-willing media accomplices tried to completely whitewash Hardy’s past and pretend it didn’t exist, Adams decided to get right after Hardy’s woman-abusing history and turned it into the theme of the fight.
And when you get Hardy mad, well — a 45-second KO tells you all you need to know.
So Adams returns, determined not to simply be “that guy who lost bad to Greg Hardy,” and he’s taking a fight in his hometown, where he’ll meet Justin Tafa (3-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC).
