It’s fight week once again yet this time it appears it’s all systems go for UFC 249.
Fight fans haven’t seen a live UFC event since March 14 when the promotion held a closed-door event in Brazil. UFC 249 was supposed to happen April 18 in New York but COVID-19 forced its rebooking then ultimate cancellation after an eleventh-hour effort to salvage the card.
Saturday’s event is scheduled to take place at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., with no fans in attendance and UFC officials taking extra precautions due to health concerns.
The sports world is anything but normal at the moment, but if this event goes off without a hitch it’ll bring fans some much-needed entertainment.
There are plenty of variables with this card. For instance, due to social distancing, business closures and other factors, fighters haven’t been able to conduct training camps as they normally would preparing competition.
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So how might that impact the quality of the fights?
“I don’t know,” Dana White said in an April interview with ESPN. “It’s going to be interesting. That I’m not sure, but that’s something they need to do right now. That’s a reality of this situation. You need to figure out how to train. You can’t have a bunch of training partners. You have to have a [training partner] who has been screened and is healthy.”
One thing is certain. The UFC 249 lineup is absolutely stacked and has the potential to be one of the more memorable fight cards in recent memory – and not merely because of the unique circumstances.
Two titles fights, top contenders, multiple former champions and fan favourites. On paper, this event passes with flying colours. There’s a lot to be excited about, so here’s a look at UFC 249 from top to bottom.
MAIN CARD
Tony Ferguson vs. Justin Gaethje
Grade: A
Stylistic matchups don’t get more exciting than this one. They literally don’t. You can scroll through each division and pair up the most fan-friendly fighters you can find and you wouldn’t come up with a better matchup than this one.
The only reason it doesn’t get a no-questions-asked A+ grade is due to the unprecedented parameters leading up to the fight and the fact it’s an interim title on the line. It’s a relatively short notice matchup, too, with Khabib Nurmagomedov originally Ferguson’s opponent.
It’s scheduled for five rounds but few are predicting it goes the distance. It’s silly to guarantee anything in a sport like mixed marital arts, but there’s really no conceivable way this can be anything but enthralling.
In Ferguson’s past bouts he has eight post-fight night bonuses, while Gaethje has accumulated seven bonuses in just six UFC appearances. Guaranteed chaos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coy1JTzgMW8
Henry Cejudo vs. Dominick Cruz
Grade: A-
Even though Petr Yan, Aljamain Sterling and even Cory Sandhagen are more deserving bantamweight title contenders at this point, Cruz is back in business and this his meeting with Cejudo is quite intriguing.
Cejudo is the self-proclaimed greatest combat athlete of all-time with an Olympic gold medal for freestyle wrestling beside his UFC flyweight and bantamweight belts in his trophy case. Cruz has only fought four times since 2011 and three of them were in 2016, but he is the most accomplished bantamweight in MMA history and the king of career comebacks.
There’s significant mystery surrounding Cruz after his latest three-year layoff yet with Cruz’s footwork and unconventional movement plus Cejudo’s wrestling and athleticism their styles match up nicely. Both 135-pounders are usually able to outwrestle their opponent and both are excellent in scrambles so hopefully we get some of that and see a bit of everything so it doesn’t turn into a 25-minute kickboxing match.
Francis Ngannou vs. Jairzinho Rozenstruik
Grade: A-
Nothing keeps fight fans on the edge of their seats quite like when two heavyweights can shut out the lights with one shot and these two giants are perhaps the two hardest punchers currently on the UFC roster. The winner could be in line for a title shot.
Cameroon’s Ngannou has been a completely new fighter since he followed his humbling five-round loss to heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic with a gun-shy performance against Derrick Lewis. He has won his last three fights, finishing Curtis Blaydes and former champs Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos in a combined 2:22.
No matter how long the fight lasts or how depleted his gas tank, Suriname’s Rozenstruik always maintains his power. Take his late heroics against Alistair Overeem for example. The 10-0 fighter was down on the scorecards with 10 seconds remaining in the fifth round (his bout with Ngannou is a three-rounder) before landing a flying two-punch combination that exploded his opponent’s lip.
Calvin Kattar vs. Jeremy Stephens
Grade: B+
These two are going to throw down. No doubt about it. Fight of the Night is Ferguson’s and Gaethje’s to lose but this featherweight scrap is a dark horse contender for the bonus. Stephens hasn’t had his hand raised in more than two years but he always brings it. Kattar fights with a little more finesse but isn’t afraid of a firefight. This is the type of tilt that should be chock full of momentum shifts. It’s unfortunate there won’t be a crowd to ooh and ahh at the action because it should be a fun one.
Yorgan De Castro vs. Greg Hardy
Grade: C+
This could end up being exciting but it’s not going to be the most technically proficient MMA we see on the weekend. Hardy, a controversial former NFL star, is still relatively green in the sport and coming off a humbling defeat to Alexander Volkov. You never really know what Hardy’s going to do in the cage, be it throw an illegal knee or use an inhaler in between rounds, which is also against the rules, so he’s certainly a wild card. De Castro is 6-0 with big knockout power. They’re the two least experienced fighters on the card but Hardy’s name gets them the opening slot on the PPV.
PRELIMINARY CARD
Donald Cerrone vs. Anthony Pettis
Grade: B+
Two future Hall of Famers rematch in the event’s featured prelim. Cerrone has lost three straight and is looking to bounce back from an embarrassing 40-second loss to Conor McGregor in January. As we’ve seen several times in the past with Cerrone, his killer instinct was nowhere to be found on fight night.
“Couldn’t get going, couldn’t get excited, couldn’t get fired up,” Cerrone recently told ESPN. “Didn’t want to be there. Biggest fight, all the attention, my time to shine, I didn’t want to be there. It was crazy, man. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I don’t know how to change that but it sucks, man. Sometimes I’m ready, I’m fired up, I’m ready to go, sometimes I get there I’m like, ‘Man, I don’t want to be there,’ so don’t know, no idea.”
Pettis is too dangerous for Cerrone not to show up, otherwise we’ll see a repeat of what happened in 2013 when the pair were the two best lightweights in the UFC and Pettis had the belt. This time they meet at welterweight so neither fighter will be depleted. Win or lose, it’s always high-tempo fun when Pettis and Cerrone are in the cage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBuQLYsOAdQ
Aleksei Oleinik vs. Fabricio Werdum
Grade: B-
The real appeal to this matchup is that both men have outstanding submission skills. Oleinik has a whopping 46 wins by submission. The only problem here is Werdum is the far more versatile jiu-jitsu artist and has never been submitted in nearly two decades of MMA competition. The former heavyweight champ returns for the first time since a two-year suspension stemming from a failed drug test and has a significant advantage when it comes to striking. Neither is a threat to the title at this stage of their career but there’s a strong chance this matchup results in an exciting stoppage.
Carla Esparza vs. Michelle Waterson
Grade: C+
Although Waterson is a fan favourite and Esparza is a former champion, this matchup likely won’t be a barnburner. Both women have high fight IQ and tremendous heart so you can expect a tightly contested affair with a high probability it goes the distance. Waterson has gone to the judges’ scorecards five straight times and Esparza has heard the final horn sound in seven of her past eight. Esparza is ranked seventh in the strawweight division and Waterson is ranked eighth.
Uriah Hall vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza
Grade: B
UPDATE: Souza tested positive for COVID-19 and his bout against Hall has been pulled from Saturday’s preliminary card.
Hall is among the most talented strikers in the middleweight division and Jacare is one of the most accomplished grapplers the sport has ever seen. Jacare is 40, though, and has looked as like he has lost a step in his past two losses. Jacare is back down at 185 pounds after dropping a lacklustre split decision to top 205-pound contender Jan Błachowicz in November. You’d think Jacare would want to take all his fights to the ground but he often struggles to do so. He has completed only one of his past 17 takedown attempts in the Octagon. Hall has a dynamic skill set and can put anybody away on the feet.
Vicente Luque vs. Niko Price
Grade: B+
This is a rematch of a 2017 tilt that saw Luque hand Price his first loss, submitting him with a D’Arce choke. Both men fight with pace, rarely go the distance and have both gotten better since they first met. Luque has only two losses in the past five years – unanimous decisions to Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson and Leon Edwards – and earned Fight of the Night bonuses in three of his last four bouts. Price has recently shown an uncanny ability to earn knockout wins while on his back (just ask Randy Brown and James Vick) so Luque needs to be careful even when in a dominant position. It was fun the first time around and that shouldn’t change in the sequel.
Bryce Mitchell vs. Charles Rosa
Grade: B
This featherweight contest will tickle your fancy if you’re a fan of talented grapplers. Mitchell is 12-0 as a pro and coming off a Submission of the Year performance when he locked in a rare twister in his most recent outing. Rosa, meanwhile, is 3-3 in the UFC with all three of his losses coming with a silver lining in the form of a Fight of the Night bonus. Fingers crossed we see some wild scrambles.
Ryan Spann vs. Sam Alvey
Grade: C-
This is a mismatch, on paper at least, with the ascending Spann the card’s biggest betting favourite facing a veteran in Alvey, who looks to avoid his fourth consecutive loss. Alvey is a patient, conservative southpaw counterstriker – so patient in fact that it’s often frustrating to watch his fights. While Alvey does have several impressive stoppage wins on his record, plus a victory over former champion Rashad Evans, Spann has all the momentum. This matchup could produce a KO finish but it does have the potential to be a snoozer.
