In the main event, Ronaldo Souza looks to earn a verbally agreed upon shot at the middleweight title with a win over the surging Jack Hermansson. Judging from their recent victories, don’t be surprised if this bout ends before the final horn. Souza’s past six victories have all come via stoppage, while Hermansson’s previous five wins have come before the end of the third stanza.
In the co-headlining bout, Greg Hardy and Dmitrii Smoliakov both look for their first UFC win in a heavyweight matchup.
The remainder of the card features an intriguing mix of established names and up-and-coming fighters.
UFC on ESPN+ 8 takes place Saturday at BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla., near Fort Lauderdale. The main card streams on ESPN+ following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on ESPN2.
Check out eight burning questions about the fight card:
1. Can Jack Hermansson play the role of spoiler?
It seems as if Souza has been on the precipice of a shot at the UFC middleweight title since he joined the promotion in 2013. Despite his 9-3 record and his seven fight-night bonus awards, Souza has never been able to clear that one final hurdle that would secure him a shot at UFC gold.
Now, at 39, Souza (26-6 MMA, 9-3 UFC), who is the No. 6 ranked fighter in the USA TODAY Sports/MMA Junkie MMA middleweight rankings, has what might be his best – and last –opportunity to earn that coveted title shot when he faces the No. 15 ranked Hermansson (19-4 MMA, 6-2 UFC) in Florida. Hermansson replaces Souza’s original opponent, Yoel Romero, on short notice.
On paper, a matchup against Hermansson seems like a much more winnable fight than a bout against Romero, but let’s not forget, Hermansson just steamrolled former two-division WSOF champion David Branch in late March.That’s not to compare Branch to Romero or Souza, but only to point out that Hermansson, despite his low profile, is a skilled competitor.
The worry here is that Souza, maybe subconsciously, takes this fight less seriously than the Romero matchup and finds himself in trouble against an opponent he should defeat. All the pressure is on Souza in this contest, especially since he has said that if he gets passed over for a title shot that he is ready to retire.
2. Can Alex Oliveira break his bad luck streak?
The past few months have not been kind to Alex Oliveira.
In September he knocked out Carlo Pedersoli Jr. in the first round of their UFC Fight Night 137 matchup. After that victory, Oliveira asked for the chance to face “well-ranked guys.” While he didn’t get that opportunity in his next outing, he did get the opportunity to meet a well-respected guy in Gunnar Nelson.
Nelson submitted Oliveira in the second round of their December matchup. It was one of the bloodiest bouts in recent memory.
While recovering from that setback, and the gash on his head that left him in need of 38 stitches, Oliveira was on the wrong end of a grenade attack on Christmas Eve. Yes, you read that correctly, a grenade attack. Oliveira’s leg and foot were injured in the incident, which occurred in Tres Rios outside of Rio de Janeiro.
Oliveira faces Mike Perry in a welterweight matchup in Florida. Like his opponent, Perry could use a break. He’s 1-3 in his past four fights and coming off a first-round submission loss to Donald Cerrone.
3. Are you comfortable now?
Cory Sandhagen is 3-0 in the UFC with three finishes, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t faced adversity during his brief but impressive run with the promotion. In one of the more memorable comebacks of 2018, he fought through a nasty submission attempt, which was coupled with ground strikes that left him bloody, to score a TKO win over Iuri Alcantara.
Sandhagen’s next bout went a little smoother. He scored a first-round submission over Mario Bautista in that contest.After he defeated Bautista, Sandhagen implored the UFC to take him out of his comfort zone by booking him against a ranked opponent. The promotion gave the 27-year-old his wish and matched him up against John Lineker, who is ranked No. 6 in the bantamweight division. The 28-year-old Lineker, who has been with the UFC since 2012, is on a two-fight winning streak and is 8-1 over his past nine bouts. His sole loss was a decision setback to T.J. Dillashaw in December 2016.
I applaud all the parties involved in making this fight happen.
Lineker could have easily turned down a fight against an unranked opponent and the UFC matchmakers could have nixed Sandhagen’s request for such a highly ranked opponent.
In a sport where competitors don’t often find out where they stand until they are truly tested, Sandhagen gets his wish to find out just how good he is in this matchup.
4. Can Roosevelt Roberts reward the UFC for its faith in him?
Roosevelt Roberts is not a recognizable name to most UFC fans. Despite that, he’s booked to open the main card in Florida. Judging by the odds, Roberts (7-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) is expected to cruise to a victory against former KC Fighting Alliance lightweight champion Thomas Gifford (17-7 MMA, 0-0 UFC).
The UFC must like something about the 25-year-old Roberts. It’s not all that often that an unproven fighter in the deepest and most competitive division in the UFC gets a high-profile spot like this, but here Roberts is after just one fight with the promotion. Now, let’s be real, that one UFC fight was an impressive one. Roberts took home a “Performance of the Night” bonus for his first-round submission win over the more experienced Darrell Horcher in November.
Roberts is 7-0 with seven stoppage wins. He’s a lanky 155-pounder with a lot of patience and confidence and if he is given time to develop, it looks like he could morph into something special.
5. Is the UFC asking too much from Augusto Sakai after one UFC fight?
If you’re a 27-year-old heavyweight with 10 knockout wins and the UFC matches you up against a 40-year-old former UFC champ who is on a 2-7 (with one no contest) run who has 10 knockout losses on his record, well, the message seems to be that the UFC wants to see you add another knockout win to your resume. That’s the situation Augusto Sakai finds himself in against Andrei Arlovski.
Sakai, who cuts weight to make the heavyweight limit, is very much a work in progress, but after a knockout win over Chase Sherman in his UFC debut, the promotion doesn’t seem all that interested in letting the hard-hitting Brazilian develop slowly.
That’s understandable. The heavyweight division is always in need of new blood and if Sakai (12-1-1 MMA, 1-0 UFC) does lose to Arlovski (27-18 MMA, 16-12 UFC), he’s young enough that the matchmakers can give him time to mature as a fighter. And if Saki wins impressively? Well, expect those same matchmakers to keep testing him until he either rises through the rankings or stumbles against stiffer competition.
6. What does the matchmaking tell us abut the UFC’s plan for Carla Esparza?
Carla Esparza, who was the inaugural UFC women’s strawweight champion, is in an unenviable spot. The former champ dropped a split decision to ex-title challenger Claudia Gadelha in June and followed that with a TKO setback to the undefeated Tatiana Suarez in September. Now on the first losing skid of her career, Esparza (13-6 MMA, 4-4 UFC), who is ranked No 6 in the division, is an underdog to former Invicta FC strawweight champion Virna Jandiroba. The unbeaten Jandiroba (14-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who is ranked No. 13, makes her UFC debut on this card.
The matchmaking in this fight is, let’s call it interesting. Esparza, as the former champion, is a marketable commodity and it wouldn’t have been out of the question for the UFC to give Esparza a chance to reset her career with a favorable matchup. Instead, the promotion booked her against a fighter with 11 career submission wins who looks primed to climb the strawweight rankings.
Esparza is not likely to lose her spot on the UFC roster with a third straight defeat, but she could very well find herself relegated to gatekeeper status, if the UFC hasn’t already assigned her that role, with a loss in this matchup.
7. Is this the end of the line for Jim Miller?
If you became a UFC fan after October 18, 2008, you have never lived in a world where Jim Miller was not a UFC fighter. Miller made his debut with the promotion at UFC 89. He defeated David Baron via third-round submission in that bout. Miller, all of 25 at the time, won his first fight-night bonus with the win.
Today, the 35-year-old is 1-5 since February 2017 and could be fighting for his UFC career when he faces Jason Gonzalez in a lightweight scrap in Florida. Gonzalez (11-4 MMA, 1-2 UFC), a member of the UFC roster since 2016, made his pro debut nearly three years after Miller (29-13 MMA, 18-12 UFC) first fought under the UFC banner.
No fighter has stepped into the octagon as many times as Miller has. His matchup against the 29-year-old Gonzalez marks his UFC record 32nd trip to the cage for the promotion. The New Jersey native has never fought for a UFC title, but he’s also never played it safe. Miller’s longevity with the UFC is thanks to his take no prisoners fighting style. A fight that goes the distance, even if he wins, is an incomplete fight for Miller. If for some reason, the UFC elects to let Miller go if he loses to Gonzalez, it won’t be due to his heart, will or competitive spirit.
8. Have you noticed a pattern here?
If you run your eyes down the UFC on ESPN+ 8 fight card, you’ll see that a good number of the fights booked for the event feature an established veteran against an untested and/or rising opponent. A quick count shows that at least seven of the 13 bouts on the card fight that bill, more if you get a little looser on your definition of untested and rising. What that means is this event could be a pivotal one for the careers of more than half the fighters who are booked to fight at BB&T Arena. That fact alone makes this a card worth watching.
For more on UFC on ESPN+ 8, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.
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