International Fight Week in Las Vegas got more hype in July, but Saturday night’s UFC 241 simply feels like the biggest event of the summer.
The card is chock full of interesting storylines, from the UFC heavyweight title rematch between champion Daniel Cormier and former titleholder Stipe Miocic, to the much-awaited return of Nate Diaz, who meets Anthony Pettis in the welterweight co-feature bout.
UFC 241 takes place at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.
Without further ado, then, let’s get right into nine key storylines leading into Saturday night’s card:
Can ‘DC’ cement his status as the heavyweight GOAT?
The fact Cormier’s highest-profile fights were a loss to Jon Jones and a second loss to Jones which later became a no-contest tends to obscure what should be a celebrated storyline to DC’s career: His phenomenal record at 265 pounds.
Cormier (22-1 MMA, 11-1 UFC) is 15-0 over the course of his career at heavyweight, a run which included the Strikeforce grand prix tourney win which put him on the map and three victories over men who held the UFC heavyweight title.
He won the title, of course, over Miocic (18-3 MMA, 12-3 UFC) at UFC 226, toppling the only man ever to successfully defend three times a belt with a lineage that dates back more than two decades.
Fedor Emelianenko’s long reign atop the heavyweight list is warmly remembered for good reason, but the caliber of competition is vastly improved since his time. Cain Velasquez’s injuries got in the way of what could have been HW GOAT status. If Cormier can, at age 40, once again stop Miocic, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to make the case for anyone else as the HW GOAT.
Will Miocic’s layoff pay off or backfire?
After Miocic lost the UFC heavyweight title to Cormier last summer, the UFC did everything it could to induce Miocic to take a fight other than a “DC” rematch. This was especially true when UFC president Dana White was dazzled by the dollar signs he saw in a potential Cormier vs. Brock Lesnar fight.
But Miocic — who never quit his full-time job as a firefighter in Ohio, and as such, has more leverage to stick to his guns than most fighters — never took the bait. And when Lesnar inevitably used his UFC offer to get a better deal to stay in the world of pretend fighting, all of a sudden Miocic found himself sitting in the catbird seat.
So Stipe’s persistence paid off, as he gets the title rematch opportunity he wanted, and quite frankly, deserves. But will sitting turn out to be a mistakes? Thirteen months out of the cage is the longest Miocic has gone without a fight in a career which dates back to 2010. And in the heavyweight division, where the lights can go out in the blink of an eye, a split second’s worth of dulled reflexes can be the margin between victory and defeat.
Where does Jon Jones fit into all of this?
We don’t normally include fighters who aren’t on a card in an event’s “Burning Questions” feature, but this time around, we can’t ignore the elephant in the room.
Wherever Cormier goes, UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones is sure to follow. And lest you run to the comment section to blame the media for this state of affairs, it was Jones himself who decided to insert himself into the narrative this week. Like a teenager jealous someone else in the cafeteria is getting the cool kids’ attention, Jones lambasted Cormier on social media Monday, which caused DC to inevitably respond.
Either way, Jones figures in the “what’s next?” portion of UFC 241. Jones has cleaned out the light heavyweight division to the degree his title defenses are no longer blockbusters. A trilogy fight with DC (it’s this author’s opinion the bout, should it happen, should go down at heavyweight, no matter how much both fighters seem to want otherwise) will do big business, and might be the only fight that keeps Cormier from retiring. If Miocic wins? We get the gut feeling Jones will suddenly drop his aversion to fighting at 265.
Either way, “Bones” looms over the proceedings, whether you like it or not.
Does Nate Diaz still have it?
We’ve been Diaz-free for three full years, and quite frankly, the sport of mixed martial arts hasn’t been the same without the Stockton’s favorite sons.
That became apparent the minute Nate Diaz won over the crowd by lighting up a blunt at Wednesday’s open workouts.
While it seems a pretty safe bet at this point that Nick Diaz is done with fighting, the other half of Stockton’s most famous brother combo returns to action Saturday.
After making gigantic money with his pair of 2016 bouts with Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz (19-11 MMA, 14-9 UFC) decided he was a-ok with going home and living off his newfound wealth. He didn’t have to stay on the UFC’s treadmill to pay the bills, so he was going to wait for the right fight.
That right fight was presumably a rubber match with McGregor after they split the first two fights, but that never quite materialized. A Dustin Poirier match was signed for last year and fell apart.
So now, for whatever reason, Diaz is back, with an exciting-on-paper fight with Pettis (22-8 MMA, 9-7 UFC). He’s clearly the event’s needle-mover, but will he lose a step after three years away from the cage sitting on a big pile of money? We’ll find out soon enough.
Can Anthony Pettis make a real run at welterweight?
For awhile, there, Anthony Pettis was on the cusp of No. 1 pound-for-pound talk. Then the former UFC and WEC lightweight champion went from Wheaties box to milk carton as his career went into a tailspin.
Just as it appeared he was through, Pettis found a groove in which he won some (Michael Chiesa) and lost some (Tony Ferguson), but always put on a show, which seemed to slide him into the Donald Cerrone/Joe Lauzon postfight bonus slot.
But then Pettis went out and knocked out Stephen Thompson in his welterweight debut last time out. And now you wonder if “Showtime” has one more title run left in him. How he handles Diaz should give an indication how this will go.
Is Yoel Romero still an elite middleweight?
At first glance, all signs point to yes. After all, Yoel Romero (13-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) is still undefeated in UFC competition against anyone who isn’t named Robert Whittaker. And his pair of losses to the current middleweight champion were both by narrow margins.
However, Romero turned 42 in April. And he hasn’t fought in over a year. Somewhere along the way, age starts to catch up to even the best-conditioned, world-class athletes.
The former Olympic wrestling silver medalist will face an undefeated fighter 14 years his junior in Paulo Costa in what is the biggest test of the latter competitor’s career. A victory for Romero here would be a major statement that he’s still a factor at 185 pounds.
How legit is Paulo Costa?
Any decent prospect who makes headway in the fight game can go on a tear as a front-runner, but it’s not until they face someone who can drag him or her into deep waters that we learn whether they can make the jump from prospect to legitimate contender.
That’s what Paulo Costa (12-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) faces on Saturday night as he faces a cardio freak in Romero. Sure, Romero is 42, but he’s still got that Olympic medalist wrestling pedigree instilled in him, and anyway, all of his past five fights have reached at least the third round. His last three wins were a decision over Jacare Souza and third-round finishes of former champs Luke Rockhold and Chris Weidman, and his losses were both tight five-rounders to current champ Robert Whittaker.
Against that backdrop Costa steps into the cage. No one’s ever pushed him to the third round in a career with 12 finishes in as many fights. But he’s never faced a competitor of Romero’s caliber. So where do we go from here?
What’s Ian Heinisch’s ceiling?
It’s been quite a run for Factory X’s Ian Heinisch. The man who has already lived an incredible life story wants to cap his life’s turnaround from learning how to fight at a prison fight club in the Canary Islands to UFC middleweight champion.
He’s got a ways to go to get to that final goal, but he’s already progressed further towards it than he possibly could have imagined when he was serving time for drug running.
And now, after a pair of decision wins over Cezar Ferreira and Antonio Carlos Junior, Heinisch (13-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) takes his next step. He’s making his first UFC pay-per-view main card appearance, and he’ll take on by far his biggest-name challenge in well-traveled veteran Derek Brunson (19-7 MMA, 10-5 UFC).
After neutralizing a pair of grapplers, how will the now-ranked Heinisch fare against a knockout artist? Considering how many one-punch killers are at the top of the middleweight class, this fight should tell us quite a bit about just how far Heinisch can carry his redemption tale.
Can Sabina Mazo shake off her disappointing debut?
Kings MMA standout Sabina Mazo has been turning heads in this game ever since she gained viral fame as a knockout artist in LFA.
It was the sort of hype that can almost set one up for failure, which seemed the case when the 22-year-old Colombian flyweight lost her UFC debut to Maryna Moroz via unanimous decision at UFC on ESPN 2.
But Mazo (6-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC) has the chance to hit the reset button, and a chance to get the show off with a bang just down the road from her adopted hometown of Huntington Beach, when she and Shana Dobson (3-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) kick things off with a flyweight encounter in one of the better on-paper show openers UFC has put together in awhile.
