International Fight Week is back, and the week’s featured event has a lineup which lives up to its billing as one of the biggest on the calendar every year.
UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones, who has been been busier than seemingly the entire roster of men’s champions recently, competes for the third time in just over six months in the main event of UFC 239. Jones (24-1 MMA, 18-1 UFC) defends his belt against red-hot Thiago Santos (21-6 MMA, 13-5 UFC)
In the co-feature bout, champ-champ Amanda Nunes puts her bantamweight belt on the line against former titleholder Holly Holm, who will attempt to become the first woman in UFC history ever to regain a belt she once held.
And this isn’t one of those cards where there’s the top fights and little else. There’s something interesting for everyone on Saturday night, so let’s take a look at some key storylines going into the show.
UFC 239 takes place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.
How long can Jon Jones stay motivated at light heavyweight?
The UFC light heavyweight champion has made good on the promise he made to hit the ground running when he was reinstated by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency late last year. Jones’ title defense against Thiago Santos in Saturday night’s main event marks his third fight in just over six months.
That’s admirable. We tried to come up with the best way to quantify what Jones has done in that time span compared to other champs, but the parade of interim belts, champ-champs, incidents like Robert Whittaker withdrawing the day of the fight, etc., make this hard to pin down.
So let’s just say for now that Jones is lapping the pack. But he’s also doing so in one of the sport’s thinnest divisions for credible challengers. How long can he stay motivated in what’s starting to come off like the old school, Saturday morning pro wrestling matches where the star faces the jobber?
Beyond that, though, what’s next? If Jones simply dispatches the latest challenger of the month in Santos, it might take some outside-the-box thinking, like, say, a fight at heavyweight, to keep the masses interested.
Does Thiago Santos have more than just a puncher’s chance?
Santos picked wisely when he decided to tattoo a sledgehammer across his chest. “Marreta” is, in fact, one of the pound-for-pound hardest punchers in the sport. In case the eight KOs and TKOs he recorded in the UFC middleweight division didn’t convince you, the fact he hasn’t lost a step going up to 205 pounds – taking out one tough dude after another in Eryk Anders, Jimi Manuwa, and Jan Blachowicz – should do the trick.
Santos has also shown real toughness at 205 in going back and forth with Anders and Manuwa, the latter of which placed high on most reputable 2018 “Fight of the Year” lists, before scoring those victories.
But Jones has faced a whole lot of tough guys in his UFC career, and he has far more tools in his toolbox than Santos has ever displayed. Try as we might to come up with a reason why Santos might have more than a puncher’s chance, we keep coming back to this: He’s going to have to bite down on his mouthpiece, give it everything he’s got, and see if he can goad Jones into a firefight like he hasn’t had since the first Alexander Gustafsson fight.
Would a win over Holly Holm cement Amanda Nunes’ status as the women’s GOAT?
We’re tempted to just say “yes” and leave it at that.
After all, Nunes (17-4 MMA, 10-1 UFC) has an eye-popping eight wins over fighters who held, or would go on to win, 11 world titles across three weight classes: Vanessa Porto (Invicta FC flyweight), Julia Budd (Bellator featherweight), Germaine de Randamie (UFC featherweight), Valentina Shevchenko (UFC flyweight, two wins), Miesha Tate UFC, Strikeforce bantamweight), Ronda Rousey (UFC, Strikeforce bantamweight), and Cris Cyborg (UFC, Strikeforce, Invicta featherweight).
If that’s not enough for you, you’re pretty hard to impress. But, fine. Holm (12-4 MMA, 5-4 UFC) is the last marquee name Nunes has yet to beat. If she adds a win over the former UFC bantamweight champ and three weigh-class world boxing titleholder, and you’re still not impressed, then your name must be Darren Rovell.
Can Holly Holm become the first two-time UFC women’s champ in one division?
Nunes is the UFC’s first women’s champ-champ. But, six years into the UFC’s women’s bantamweight division, Holm has the opportunity to become the first female to regain a championship she lost in the octagon. It’s true Holm is 2-4 since she scored her career-making knockout of Rousey in 2015. It’s also true she was winning the bout where she lost to Tate before Tate caught her in the fifth, that Todd Anderson’s garbage officiating was the difference in her decision loss to Germaine de Randamie, and that there’s no shame in going the distance with Cyborg.
Holm has always seemed to do her best when expectations are lowest. She’s rested, and she looked on point last time out against Megan Anderson. That’s something to consider before, you know, counting her out.
Will the Ben Askren-Jorge Masvidal winner get a title shot?
It’s hard to figure out what exactly is going on in the UFC welterweight division. Kamaru Usman’s on the shelf after surgery. Colby Covington appeared to be next in line for a title shot, being on a six-fight winning streak and at one time recognized as interim champion, but he’s fighting Robbie Lawler next month.
So that brings us to the highly anticipated bout between undefeated former Bellator and ONE titleholder Ben Askren and Jorge Masvidal. Masvidal (33-13 MMA, 10-6 UFC) is a pro’s pro who has been everywhere from BodogFight to Bellator to Strikeforce before going to the UFC.
A win here would be his biggest to date, but also would only put him at 2-2 in his past four fights. He’d need factors out of his control to break right in order to end up with the next shot at Usman.
As for Askren (19-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC), as we said, he’s never been defeated, held two previous world titles, and made a splash by rallying to defeat Lawler after being dumped him on his head just a few months ago. With that, a win over a tough opponent in Masvidal, and the fact that Usman really, really seems to dislike him, victory here just might be enough to put “Funky Ben” in to position to get that elusive title shot.
Is light heavyweight the right fit for Luke Rockhold?
Conor McGregor. Robert Whittaker. Georges St-Pierre. Amanda Nunes. Daniel Cormier. Henry Cejudo. All of these fighters won UFC championships after going up in weight class.
Some were returning to classes at which they previously competed, sure, and Nunes and Cejudo are both continuing forward as dual champs, but all of them serve as proof that you don’t have to drain your body down to the lowest weight you can possibly hit in order to win a title.
Can Luke Rockhold join that club? The former UFC middleweight champion, who was large for the weight class, makes the jump up to 205 pounds on Saturday night, where he meets a tough out in Jan Blachowicz.
Unlike the rest on this list, though, Rockhold (16-4 MMA, 6-3 UFC) goes up in class after suffering brutal knockouts in two of his past three fights. And those fights date back three years, so he hasn’t been the most active of competitors – and Blachowicz (23-8 MMA, 6-5 UFC) is no easy fight.
Still, a potential pot of gold awaits Rockhold if he thrives in his new weight class. Jones, should he beat Santos (who is also attempting to go up in weight and win gold) is about out of opponents at light heavyweight. Rockhold, teammate and friend of Cormier, going up against Jones? Yeah, that would sell. No wonder Rockhold is giving 205 a whirl.
What would beating Diego Sanchez mean for Michael Chiesa?
We’re not sure, to be frank.
WhileDiego Sanchez has looked really good in his last two fights, Chiesa is quite a step up from Mickey Gall and Craig White. Sanchez (29-11 MMA, 18-11 UFC) is 38 and suffered first-round KOs in three of his past six fights. Oh, and he also walked out on Jackson Wink MMA four weeks ago and went on a disturbing rant about the appeal of dying in the cage at a media day last week.
Michael Chiesa, meanwhile, looked fantastic in his welterweight debut against Carlos Condit at UFC 232. He wanted a higher-ranked name but got caught in a numbers game and wanted to stay active, so he accepted the Sanchez fight. We truly don’t know what we’re going to get from Sanchez on Saturday night, but it’s hard to imagine it will be enough to beat Chiesa (14-4 MMA, 8-4 UFC), who, for his part, basically stays busy, would get a win over an established name, and holda his spot so that he hopefully gets the type of fight he wants next time out.
Does Gilbert Melendez have another run left in him?
Former Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez might have the most deceptive 1-5 UFC record in company history. He entered the company in what amounted to a unification bout with then-UFC lightweight champ Benson Henderson and lost a split decision. I was cageside that 2013 night in San Jose and scored it for Melendez.
Against then-champ Anthony Pettis, Melendez (22-7 MMA, 1-5 UFC) laid out the blueprint for the stifling game plan that so many future opponents used on Pettis. But he made one mistake and got caught in a guillotine. Then there was another questionable split against Eddie Alvarez.
He had clearly run out of gas by the time he suffered a bad loss to Jeremy Stephens at UFC 215. Now, after nearly two years away, El Nino returns, against unheralded Arnold Allen (14-1 MMA, 5-0 UFC). The 37-year-old Melendez will get to show if he’s got enough left for a run that would make that UFC record look like something closer to what it should.
For more on UFC 239, check out the UFC Schedule.
