The UFC breaks new ground Saturday when it brings UFC on ESPN+ 3 to Prague. The fight card marks the promotion’s first visit to the Czech Republic.
In the main event, Jan Blachowicz and Thiago “Marreta” Santos meet in a light heavyweight contest that could determine the next title challenger for the winner of the upcoming UFC 235 main event between champion Jon Jones and Anthony Smith.
In the co-main event, Stefan Struve looks to get back in the win column for the first time since October 2016. Struve hopes to end his three-fight losing skid against Marcos Rogerio de Lima.
UFC on ESPN+ 3 takes place at O2 Arena. The main card streams on ESPN+ following prelims on ESPN 2.
Inside, check out nine reasons to watch the event.
1. The winner could get next
Santos has been a busy man. When he steps into the octagon to face Blachowicz (23-7 MMA, 6-4 UFC) in the main event of UFC on ESPN+ 3, it will mark his sixth fight in a little over 13 months. Santos (20-6 MMA, 12-5 UFC) has won five of those fights, with four of those victories coming by way of knockout. Santos moved to light heavyweight from middleweight in September. He’s earned fight-night bonuses for his two knockout wins in the 205-pound division. Despite his impressive run, Santos earned MMAjunkie’s “Under-the-Radar Fighter of the Year” for 2018.
Speaking of under the radar fighters, Blachowicz has quietly put together a run of four straight wins. The man who began his UFC career with a record of 2-4 has earned three fight-night bonuses during his winning streak.
Both of these fighters are honorable mentions in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA light heavyweight rankings.
It’s not out of the realm of possibilities that the winner of this bout could end up fighting for the light heavyweight title in 2019.
This is an interesting matchup in that Santos is all about power and looking for the knockout while Blachowicz likes to work counters and submissions. There’s a lot to like about the matchmaking in this pivotal light heavyweight scrap.
2. Hard times
Could this be the end for Stefan Struve? Struve made his UFC debut in 2009. At the time he was a 6-foot-11-inch 21-year-old who was on a streak of five straight submission wins. Struve lost that fight to Junior dos Santos by knockout. Today, Struve is a 31-year-old who is 3-6 in his past nine fights and currently on a three-fight losing skid.
After his most recent loss, a decision setback to Marcin Tybura in July, Struve wrote on Instagram that he was going to take some “time to clear my head for a bit and focus on other things for a while.” Struve faces Marcos Rogerio de Lima in Prague.
Struve (28-11 MMA, 12-9 UFC) is a talented fighter, but he has struggled to make that talent work with his physical attributes. He tends to take a lot of damage in his fights even when he has a significant height and reach advantage, which he will against de Lima (16-5-1 MMA, 5-3 UFC) who will give up more than 10 inches in height and nine inches in reach to Struve.
De Lima moved up to heavyweight in November after failing to hit the light heavyweight limit in two consecutive fights. De Lima defeated Adam Wieczorek by decision in that matchup. A heavy-handed striker, de Lima has 11 knockout victories to his name, so it will behoove Struve to keep his opponent at a distance in this contest.
Another thing to watch for is that all three of de Lima’s UFC losses have come via submission. Struve has 17 submission wins during his career.
3. It’s been a while
Michal Oleksiejczuk joined the UFC in late 2017 as a replacement for Gokhan Saki, who was forced from his matchup against Khalil Rountree due to an injury. At the time, Rountree’s confidence was surging thanks to back-to-back first-round knockout wins over Daniel Jolly and Paul Craig. Rountree entered his matchup against Oleksiejczuk as a 4-1 favorite. When the fight came to an end, it was Oleksiejczuk’s hand that was raised in victory. The decision win extended his unbeaten streak to 10 straight bouts.
Oleksiejczuk’s feel-good story came to an end less than a month later when he was notified of a potential anti-doping violation. In March, USADA handed the Polish fighter a one-year suspension. His failed drug test revealed clomiphene, a banned estrogen blocker. In addition to the suspension, Oleksiejczuk’s win over Rountree was overturned to a no-contest.
Oleksiejczuk, who is still only 23, makes his return at UFC on ESPN + 3 where he faces Gian Villante (17-10 MMA, 7-7 UFC) in a light heavyweight contest. Unlike his first UFC fight, Oleksiejczuk (13-1 MMA, 0-0 UFC) is the favorite in Prague.
Villante is coming off a split-decision win over Ed Herman. The 33-year-old New Yorker is on a run of four straight split decisions. Villante is 2-2 in those contests.
4. She’s the only one
It’s very likely that Lucie Pudilova is going to feel some pressure in Prague. Not only is she the only fighter from the Czech Republic on the card, but she is also moving down to flyweight to face former UFC title challenger Liz Carmouche.
Pudilova is an extremely aggressive fighter who uses her jab very effectively. However, her high output style has its shortcomings. The main drawbacks of her approach are that she throws her strikes with full force and she is not very accurate. Pudilova threw a whopping 336 strikes in her most recent bout but landed a relatively paltry 110 of those attempts. She also absorbs, on average, more than five significant strikes per minute. Pudilova is coming off a “Fight of the Night” split-decision loss to Irene Aldana at UFC 228.
The real test for Pudilova (9-3 MMA, 2-2 UFC) in this fight will be her takedown defense. She has never been taken down in the UFC, but she has also never faced someone with the grappling skills of Carmouche (12-6 MMA, 4-4 UFC), who is ranked No. 9 in the women’s 125-pound division. Carmouche has racked up 30 takedowns during her time with Strikeforce and the UFC. The only opponent she did not score a single takedown against was Ronda Rousey. Carmouche is coming off a decision win over Jennifer Maia at UFC Fight Night 133.
If Pudilova does get by Carmouche, she’ll very likely find herself right in the thick of things in the women’s flyweight division.
5. Taking the next step
Petr Yan is not currently ranked in the bantamweight division. That could change at UFC on ESPN+ 3. Yan, who is 3-0 in the UFC and on a six-fight winning streak overall, faces former flyweight title challenger John Dodson in a main card scrap.
Yan has been a welcome addition to the UFC’s 135-pound division. In the lead up to Yan’s most recent bout, I wrote that his opponent, the more experienced Douglas Silva de Andrade, would be a good test for Yan. Yan ran over Silva de Andrade, scoring a corner stoppage TKO victory after he beat up and bloodied the Brazilian over the course of two rounds. Yan outstruck Silva de Andrade 101 to 28. So much for that tough test.
After his win, Yan called for a fight against John Lineker, who is ranked No. 6 in the division. Instead, the UFC matched him up against the No. 10 ranked Dodson.
If the fight against Silva de Andrade was to determine if Yan was “for real,” the answer was a definite yes. In Dodson, he faces a wily competitor who has struggled to find purchase in the bantamweight division. Dodson has alternated wins and losses in his past six fights. Dodson is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Jimmie Rivera.
6. You don’t always get what you want
Magomed Ankalaev was one second away from winning his UFC debut and extending his perfect record to 10-0 when Paul Craig forced him to submit to a triangle choke at UFC Fight Night 127 with one second left in the third round.
Ankalaev bounced back from that disappointing loss with a knockout win over Marcin Prachnio in September. The stoppage earned Ankalaev a “Performance of the Night” bonus.
The 26-year-old, who hails from Dagestan, looks as if he could become a player in the light heavyweight division. He has solid striking skills at distance, but where he really excels is in the clinch and on the ground where his striking is at another level.
After his win over Prachnio, Ankalaev (9-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) sounded like he wanted a step up in competition for his next fight. Instead, he welcomes Klidson Farias to the UFC. Farias (14-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who is also 26, is on a six-fight winning streak. The Brazilian has a 2015 submission win over Johnny Walker on his record.
7. Don’t sleep on this one
The lightweight bout between Marco Polo Reyes (8-4 MMA, 4-1 UFC) and Damir Hadzovic (12-4 MMA, 2-2 UFC) could be your sleeper pick for “Fight of the Night.”
Reyes has three knockout wins in the UFC. The promotion rewarded him with a fight-night bonus for each of those stoppages, including his most recent win, a 60-second slugfest with Matt Frevola in January 2018. Reyes has been on the shelf since that victory due to a six-month USADA suspension as a result of a contaminated supplement.
Hadzovic is coming off a split-decision win over Nick Hein in July.
What fans will want to watch in this fight is the output and accuracy of Reyes and the defense of Hadzovic. Reyes averages 6.69 significant strikes landed per minute, which is third highest in UFC lightweight history. Meanwhile, Hadzovic avoided 79 percent of Hein’s strikes during their matchup.
8. Under the radar winning streak
Michel Prazeres might be a reluctant welterweight, but the move from the lightweight division to the 170-pound weight class has served him well. Prazeres went 8-2 as a UFC lightweight, but he came in heavy three times before he made the move back to welterweight.
Prazeres might be undersized for a welterweight, but he has adjusted well to the higher weight. That might have something to do with the combination of power, strength and skill that he brings to the octagon.
Prazeres opened his run at welterweight with a split-decision win over Zak Cummings. He admitted after that fight that he needed to make some adjustments as he settled into welterweight. He seemed to do just that when he ran over Bartosz Fabinski in November. Prazeres scored a submission 62 seconds into that contest. The victory was Prazeres’ eighth straight win.
Prazeres (26-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) welcomes Ismail Naurdiev to the UFC in Prague. Naurdiev (17-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC), who is on a two-fight winning streak, has only gone the distance twice in his career.
9. Similar goals
Rustam Khabilov has had an interesting career with the UFC. He began his time with the promotion with three straight wins, including a decision over Jorge Masvidal. That run earned him a main event fight against former lightweight champion Benson Henderson. In a case of, “well, maybe that was too much, too soon,” Henderson submitted Khabilov in the fourth round.
He followed that defeat with a split-decision setback to Adriano Martins on the main card of UFC Fight Night 61. Since then he’s gone 6-0, with all six of those victories coming on the prelims, including his most recent win, a split-decision victory over Kajan Johnson in September that took home MMAjunkie’s “Robbery of the Year” award for 2018.
Khabilov, who is an honorable mention in the rankings, has been anxious to get another fight against a ranked opponent, but visa issues, and maybe his wrestling-heavy style, have seemingly conspired against Khabilov (23-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC). He once again faces an unranked opponent in Diego Ferreira (14-2 MMA, 5-2 UFC), who enters this fight on a three-fight winning streak. Ferreira has knockout wins in his two most recent bouts.
Ferreira is also looking to face tougher competition. After losing 17 months to a USADA suspension during 2016-17, he said he wants to make up for that last time.
“I want to have those two years I lost,” Ferreira told reporters at UFC 231. “The suspension I got for a stupid reason, but right now is my time to shine. I’m going to put my time to work on the bracket, to get where I want to go. I want to get to top 10 very soon.”
For more on UFC on ESPN+ 3, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.
