Marlon
Vera’s status as a bantamweight title contender is no longer a
question of if, but of when.
In the main event of
UFC
on ESPN 41 on Saturday, “Chito” faced former
Ultimate Fighting Championship and
World Extreme Cagefighting titleholder
Dominick
Cruz, in Cruz’s longtime adoptive hometown of San Diego. Under
the brightest lights of his professional career thus far, Vera did
not wilt, overcoming a fast start by Cruz to catch the famously
elusive “Dominator” with increasing frequency as the fight wore
on.
Even if the momentum had swung in Vera’s favor by the middle of the
fourth round, however, the end was a shock, as Vera caught Cruz
with a perfectly placed left head kick that smashed his nose and
left him face first on the canvas. A few follow-up punches were all
it took to close out Vera’s biggest win. While there is a certain
amount of traffic between the 29-year-old Ecuadorian and a shot at
the belt, he should definitely be a very interested observer of the
Aljamain
Sterling vs.
T.J.
Dillashaw title fight as well as the
Petr
Yan-
Sean
O'Malley and
Jose
Aldo-
Merab
Dvalishvili contender matches scheduled in the next couple of
months. Conversely, should any of those gentlemen be forced to
withdraw from their obligations, Vera now is probably the first
person on Sean Shelby or Mick Maynard’s speed dial.
In the wake of “UFC San Diego,” here are some matchups that ought
to be made for Vera and the other main card winners:
Yes, Yan already has a fight booked, but it’s a complex situation.
Hear me out: Vera has now won four straight fights and 10 of his
last 11 at bantamweight, a strong case for a title shot. However,
next weekend at UFC 278, Aldo and Dvalishvili square off. The
winner of that fight will either be Aldo, an ex-champ from another
division with a limited window of time in which to build on his
already legendary résumé—and a head-to-head win over Vera—or
Dvalishvili, the owner of the longest win streak in the division.
Sterling is set to defend against Dillashaw at UFC 280 on Oct. 22,
with Yan and O’Malley to meet on the main card.
If Sterling and Yan both win, the UFC could book a trilogy fight
between them, but more likely the Aldo-Dvalishvili winner gets the
next shot, even if Dvalishvili and Sterling’s status as longtime
teammates complicates things. That would leave Yan vs. Vera as a
perfect next matchup for both men. If O’Malley wins, he is likely
to get the next title shot. He claims the UFC has told him as much,
and it’s hard to picture Sterling or Dillashaw objecting to the
closest thing the post-
Conor
McGregor UFC has to “red panty night.” In that case, Yan-Vera
is still a solid matchup, either propelling Vera into undeniable
next-man-up status, or helping Yan force the UFC’s hand into
letting him get a third shot at Sterling. (If Dillashaw beats
Sterling, your guess is as good as mine.)
“The Train” was the little engine that could on Saturday,
withstanding a first-round scare from
David Onama
and coming back to thrash his heavily favored opponent in the
second round on his way to a majority decision win. It wasn’t a
perfect performance—Landwehr’s questionable decision to showboat in
the third round let a completely gassed Onama get off enough
offense to sway one judge—but it was a scrappy one, it netted him a
“Fight of the Night” bonus and it finally got him above .500 in the
Octagon. In the ultra-deep UFC featherweight division, he’s still
several wins away from being in any kind of rankings discussion,
but he’s definitely on the rise and has earned the kind of matchup
that can get him there. “JSP,” who pounded out
Makwan
Amirkhani in London three weeks ago, has now won four straight
in the UFC since his embarrassing debut loss to
Joe Lauzon.
Pearce and Landwehr are both promising grinders who have proven
vulnerable to opponents’ quick-strike offense. Book them against
one another and let one man rise another rung towards the Top
15.
In a battle between two of the youngest fighters in the UFC,
Jauregui won a unanimous decision over fellow debutante
Iasmin
Lucindo after three fairly wild rounds. Both women have plenty
of apparent upside, but Jauregui’s taller frame, longer reach and
fast hands were particularly impressive. Still just 9-0 as a
professional, what the 23-year-old Mexican needs next is any
unranked strawweight coming off a win, preferably one well-rounded
enough to test multiple elements of her game. Hill, who upset
Lupita
Godinez in the top prelim, is the call.
While at first blush it might seem odd to pit the very green
Jauregui against Hill, one of the most experienced fighters in the
division, it is worth noting that Hill came into the Godinez fight
having lost three straight fights and five of her last six, and was
almost certainly fighting for her job on Saturday. Part of the
problem during Hill’s recent run has been brutal matchmaking; every
time she wins, the UFC throws her right back in with Top 10
opponents. Rather than do so yet again, let the game and
entertaining “Overkill” test another prospect in Jauregui.
Is there a less heralded undefeated fighter in the UFC than “The
Professional?” All the 12-0 Murzakanov has done since coming to the
UFC from
Brave CF through
Dana White's Contender Series is knock out a
pair of credible light heavyweights in fellow Contender Series alum
Tafon
Nchukwi and
Devin Clark,
whom he dispatched on Saturday with one of the nastiest body
punches you’re likely to see this year.
It’s understandable why Murzakanov has flown under the radar; as a
balding 35-year old built like a middleweight journeyman, he is the
polar opposite of 2009
Jon Jones in
terms of the prospect eyeball test. However, Murzakanov’s hand
speed, accuracy and power are beyond debate, and considering his
age and the depleted state of the UFC light heavyweight division,
it’s time for a major step up. Cutelaba and Walker meet next month
at UFC 279, and the winner will be a Top 15 fighter who isn’t in
the immediate title discussion—in other words, the perfect next
matchup for Murzakanov. Both are younger and larger (much, much
larger, in the case of Walker) but with the same tendency towards
wildness and defensive lapses that Murzakanov has exploited
ruthlessly in his two UFC wins so far.
Speaking of unheralded, Cachoeira’s gradual evolution from
promotional roadkill to fringe contender has been something to
behold. Upon joining the UFC four years ago in the most daunting
circumstances imaginable—sacrificial lamb for
Valentina
Shevchenko’s flyweight debut—Cachoeira absorbed one of the
worst beatdowns of 2018, then lost her next two as well. She might
well have been cut at that point, but the UFC kept her on, and
“Zombie Girl” has rewarded the promotion’s faith by winning four of
her last five fights. That the most recent of those wins came
against
Ariane
Lipski, who was once the most highly touted flyweight to join
the UFC since Shevchenko, adds a nice touch of irony. Like Lipski,
the other women Cachoeira has beaten during this run are either out
of the UFC or on their way out, but Cachoeira has more than proven
she belongs. (Competitively, that is; I still think she should have
been fired or at the very least suspended for a year or more for
her flagrant eye gouging against
Gillian
Robertson.) Maverick and Young meet next week at UFC 278, and
the winner should be Cachoeira’s next opponent. Maverick, while
certainly not a bust on the level of Lipski, has had her share of
struggles since joining the UFC as a blue-chip prospect from
Invicta FC, while the “Shanimal” is closer to
Cachoeira herself: a woman who joined the UFC to little fanfare,
but who has shown surprising staying power.
It isn’t particularly shocking that Meerschaert defeated
Bruno Silva
in UFC San Diego’ main card opener. Anyone who had seen a few of
Meerschaert’s fights knew that he was a live underdog against the
Brazilian knockout machine, and if you were picking him to beat
Silva, you were just as well off taking the prop for “wins by
submission in Round 3,” which is exactly what happened. What was
surprising is that Meerschaert’s win was not his usual
Paul Craig
or
Darren
Elkins-style comeback win, where he snagged a late tapout
against a fighter who had been beating him. Instead, Meerschaert
appeared to be the bigger, faster and far better conditioned
fighter, and won most of the striking exchanges in a lopsided
beating. Indeed, the guillotine choke that ended things could just
as easily have been a TKO if not for Meerschaert’s choice to halt
his ground-and-pound in favor of continuing his assault on the
UFC’s all-time record for wins by submission.
After the win, Meerschaert called out Petroski, who choked out
Nick
Maximov in May to go 3-0 since joining the UFC out of Season 29
of “The Ultimate Fighter.” He would be yet another opponent with
greater apparent athleticism than “GM3,” and Petroski has a college
wrestling pedigree and the ridiculous unbeaten streak of team
Renzo
Gracie Philly on his side as well. It’s a ballsy callout, and
there’s nothing we like better than when the fighters help with the
matchmaking.