The UFC’s debut run on “Fight Island” comes to a close on Saturday with a marathon card in Abu Dhabi.
Barring any last-minute dropouts, a whopping 15 fights will go down at UFC on ESPN 14 – the most since UFC 2 in 1994 – and several of those fights are consequential.
None more so than the evening’s main event, in which Robert Whittaker returns to the cage for the first time since losing the middleweight championship to Israel Adesanya. There, he’ll take on another fighter with something to prove, English star Darren Till. Till, a former welterweight title challenger, has successfully transitioned to 185 pounds, and he’s looking to prove he’s here to stay in his new division.
UFC on ESPN 14 takes place Saturday at Flash Forum on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. The card airs on ESPN and streams on ESPN+.
Without further ado, here are six burning questions heading into UFC on ESPN 14.
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Does Robert Whittaker still have it?
We’ll admit that, at first glance, this looks like a bit of a harsh question to ask of someone coming off only one loss, to Adesanya at that, following a nine-fight winning streak. But then you stop and consider that Whittaker has fought only once in the past two years and twice in the past three.
And that his body doesn’t seem to want to cooperate, from knee injuries to staph infections to a collapsed bowel.
And you also consider that, even though Whittaker (20-5 MMA, 11-3 UFC) hasn’t yet hit age 30, he’s been through some wars, including 10 absolutely grueling rounds with a killer in Yoel Romero.
Will this all go down as a detour along the way before Whittaker makes adjustments and returns to the top? Or might the lopsided second-round KO loss to Adesanya prove his ultimate turning point? A battle with Till (18-2-1 MMA, 6-2-1 UFC) should give us a strong indication which way this is going.
Is Darren Till a legit contender at 185 pounds?
It wasn’t that long ago questions abounded as to whether the current biggest star of British MMA was on his downside while still in his mid-20s.
Till was finished by Tyron Woodley in the second round of their UFC 228 title fight, knocked out by Jorge Masvidal in front of his own countrymen in London, and was arrested after an incident in the Canary Islands.
A year later, Till sure looks like a man who’s gotten his head back together. He’s stayed out of trouble. He’s gone up to middleweight, where he no longer has to make brutal cuts down to 170 pounds. And he looked strong in earning a split decision over Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 244 in his middleweight debut.
Then you see Gastelum go out and lose fast to Jack Hermansson last weekend and wonder how impressive that win truly was. A victory over former champion Whittaker would silence a lot of doubters fast.
Is this the end of the line for ‘Shogun’ Rua, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, or both?
You’ll have to forgive longtime fans for doing a double take when they saw that former UFC light heavyweight champion Mauricio Rua is fighting Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.
After all, it’s 2020, not 2005.
But here we are, with the Brazilian legends getting set to go at it a third time in the evening’s co-main event. Rua (26-11-1 MMA, 6-6 UFC) won both of the first two battles, one in PRIDE and one in the UFC, but they were both great fights. And that’s plenty of motivation for both men to put together a fight that could surprise with its intensity.
After that … who knows? Nogueira (23-9 MMA, 10-9-1 UFC) says this is it for him, win or lose, although we all know how the retirement thing goes in MMA. “Shogun,” for his part, turns 39 in November. He’s only won once in the past 40 months. If he can’t pull it off against the 44-year-old “Lil’ Nog,” then he’s due for a think about his future, as well.
What can we expect from Alexander Gustafsson?
When asked about fighters contemplating retirement, UFC president Dana White has been known to say, with good reason, that if you’re thinking about quitting, you should probably get out.
White’s words come to mind as Alexander Gustafsson makes his return from a year-long retirement. Had Gustafsson (18-6 MMA, 10-6 UFC) stayed retired, the former three-time light heavyweight title challenger’s legacy as one of the best UFC competitors never to hold gold was set.
But Gustafsson (23-9-1 MMA, 11-6 UFC) immediately regretted his choice, and now he’s back and competing at heavyweight, where takes on fading former champion Fabricio Werdum. “The Mauler” has made clear he’s not sold entirely on staying at heavyweight, but he plans to stick around either way.
So maybe we won’t get an answer as to how Gustafsson might fare in a newly interesting 205-pound class. But how he fares against Werdum (23-9-1 MMA, 11-6 UFC), who turns 43 next week and has not won since 2017, should tell us about his heavyweight future in a hurry.
How legit is Marina Rodriguez?
Marina Rodriguez is unbeaten in her first four UFC fights, and even in a division as talent-rich as strawweight, that’s a fast enough start to turn heads.
Except, Rodriguez (12-0-2 MMA, 2-0-2 UFC) also didn’t win two of those fights, going to majority draws against both Randa Markos and Cynthia Calvillo. That’s enough of a body of work to understand we’ve got something here with the 33-year old Brazilian, but not enough to get a real gauge on her ceiling.
Fortunately, Rodriguez is taking on far and away her toughest and biggest name opponent Saturday, when she meets inaugural UFC and former Invicta FC strawweight champ Carla Esparza in a bout that was originally scheduled for July 15 but moved back when one of Rodriguez’s corners tested for COVID.
Esparza (16-6 MMA, 7-4 UFC), who’s never quite gotten her due as one of the sport’s toughest pound-for-pound competitors, is on her hottest run in a while, with three consecutive victories, most recently over Michelle Waterson. Assuming this one doesn’t end in yet another Rodriguez draw, the winner of this fight seems destined to end up on the short list of real contenders for Zhang Weili’s belt.
Can Khamzat Chimaev make UFC history?
Just last week, Khamzat Chimaevestablished himself as the next UFC fighter out of Dagestan to take seriously. Normally a welterweight, Chimaev took a fight one weight class up on short notice and absolutely mauled veteran John Phillips. Chimaev scored one of just a handful of 10-7 scorecards in UFC history in the first round en route to winning via second-round TKO.
Chimaev (7-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) said he wanted a quick turnaround. He got it, and he won’t get a pushover as he takes on Northern Ireland’s Rhys McKee, a former Cage Warriors champ who has the opportunity to make his name just as quickly as Chimaev made his.
If Chimaev defeats McKee (10-2-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC), that will give him victories 10 days apart, which would be a record for fastest consecutive wins since the end of the one-night tournament era, adding another layer of intrigue to what’s already one of the more interesting short-notice fights in a while. The current record is 13 days by Chas Skelly, who defeated Tom Niinimaki and Sean Soriano in 2014.
