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<\/a><\/p>\nHey Jed. Just wondering… if you could be UFC match maker for the day, what 3 fights would you book?<\/p>\n
This is a great question, because two of the three of them only recently became clear.<\/p>\n
The first one, and my most-wanted fight in all of MMA right now, is Islam Makhachev vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov. I won\u2019t go into whether that will happen or not here (read below), but if I were in charge of the UFC, it absolutely would.<\/p>\n
Makhachev is the top pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, and possibly (probably?) the best fighter of his generation. He\u2019s basically this generation\u2019s Georges St-Pierre, only slightly less effective on the feet (still even better than most give him credit for) but even better defensively. Makhachev simply does not make mistakes, but if there\u2019s a guy who can capitalize on the few he does, it\u2019s Shavkat. Rakhmonov is possibly the greatest finisher in MMA today, and brings an ideal set of skills to counter Makhachev\u2019s best game and offer serious threats in response. That fight is perfect.<\/p>\n
Second is Ilia Topuria vs. Arman Tsarukyan.<\/p>\n
Following Tsarukyan\u2019s win over Dan Hooker, the momentum seems to be for that fight to take place next, but I\u2019m not sure. The UFC still may book Topuria vs. Paddy Pimblett first, and then have Tsarukyan on deck, which would be fine, just so long as these two fight. Topuria has captured the imagination of the MMA world, and while his lightweight title win was spectacular, there\u2019s also an asterisk to that belt. Topuria didn\u2019t beat the No. 1 lightweight in the world to win it.<\/p>\n
On top of the merit argument, the fight is also sensational. Tsarukyan looked the best he ever has on Saturday, and it\u2019s been a long time since Topuria faced a top-level dangerous guy who wasn\u2019t 10+ years into an MMA career. Plus, this fight would tell us a lot about a possible Topuria vs. Makhachev fight, because if Ilia can\u2019t beat Arman, he can\u2019t beat Islam, and we can stop obsessing about that one.<\/p>\n
Lastly, I\u2019m doing one for me. A part of me wants to pick Alexander Volkanovski vs. Movsar Evloev because Evloev deserves it, and it seems like this might be the only way to get him a title shot, but if I\u2019m in charge, there\u2019s one fight that must occur: Dricus du Plessis vs. Reinier de Ridder.<\/p>\n
Is this as exciting a matchup as it would have been had it happened for the middleweight title? No. Do I care? Not really. DDP and RDR are the sport\u2019s premier technical goofballs, and I desperately want to see them fight each other. Really, I want to see them do a round robin with Jiri Prochazka, but I figured picking that for my Top Three wouldn\u2019t be received well, so give me this matchup of my favorite violence bozos.<\/p>\n
Honorable mentions go to Volkanovski vs. Evloev, Alexandre Pantoja vs. Kyoji Horiguchi, RDR vs. Dominick Reyes (a fight I think the UFC should absolutely book), and Valentina Shevchenko vs. the winner of Amanda Nunes vs. Kayla Harrison.<\/p>\n
The welterweight title picture<\/p>\n
Who should be – and who will be – Islam\u2019s first WW title defense?<\/p>\n I already answered who should be Islam Makhachev\u2019s first title defense in a Roundtable this week, so I won\u2019t give the full spiel here. The short version is this: Shakvkat Rakhmonov is, to me, undeniably the most deserving person. In the UFC rankings, Ian Machado Garry beat Belal Muhammad, so he\u2019ll move up to No. 1, but Shavkat beat Garry less than 12 months ago. He should clearly be No. 1 and should clearly be in line for the title shot, given he already had one, and the champion is the guy who pulled out. But for Belal getting injured last December, Shavkat would already have the belt, and Makhachev would\u2019ve had to fight for the interim title. Shavkat is the only correct choice.<\/p>\n But what should and what will happen are two very different things. Heading into UFC 322, it looked like the plan was for Kamaru Usman to get the first crack at Islam Makhachev, what with everyone associated with Makhachev calling for it, and the full press to, erroneously, crown Usman the GOAT welterweight. But then they didn\u2019t do an in-cage faceoff at UFC 322, and there\u2019s been a decent amount of fan pushback on the idea of that fight. Sure, Makhachev<\/a> and Usman<\/a> (and friends<\/a>) are still trying to make fetch happen, but I\u2019m not confident it will at this point.<\/p>\n The inverse seems to be happening with Shavkat, where I have started to notice some pushback on the complete memory-holing of the true No. 1 contender, but Makhachev is vocally opposed (as he should be, that\u2019s a hard fight), and I\u2019m uncertain if the UFC wants to pay him back for doing them a solid last December.<\/p>\n On the complete other side of things is Ian Machado Garry, who just scored the biggest win of his career, had a good post-fight speech, and I would be completely shocked if he got the title fight. Garry is broadly disliked by the fan base, has not put on exciting fights recently, just lost to a more deserving challenger, and, aside from Jon Anik<\/a>, doesn\u2019t seem to have a huge fan base pushing for him.<\/p>\n Which leaves Michael Morales (Carlos Prates isn\u2019t real, stop lying to yourselves, he just lost to Garry). Morales feels like the guy with the most obvious case to sell \u2014 he\u2019s undefeated and has huge finishes over ranked guys in his last three fights \u2014 but I\u2019m not sure. Morales rose so quickly that it\u2019s hard to see the UFC fully committing to him, when no one will be upset if they don\u2019t, and he might be better off not getting rushed.<\/p>\n If I had to guess, I\u2019d say Usman is still the slight favorite to get the title shot, with Shavkat close behind, and Garry and Morales after that. Let\u2019s hope the UFC does the right thing.<\/p>\n Standing guillotine chokes<\/p>\n Should Oliveira\u2019s finish of Poirier at UFC 269 be reclassified as a \u201cflying\u201d RNC?<\/p>\n I\u2019m pretty sure this was asked entirely to get a rise out of me, and it worked!<\/p>\n The sheer volume of people calling Asu Almabayev\u2019s comeback guillotine choke win over Alex Perez a \u201cstanding guillotine\u201d nearly drove me to madness. It wasn\u2019t a standing guillotine, because Almabayev wasn\u2019t standing! Almabayev jumped guard, and Perez stayed standing. Move names aren\u2019t based on the defender in combat sports. We don\u2019t call it a kicked head knockout. That\u2019s either just a guillotine, or a flying\/jumping guillotine choke!<\/p>\n Why does this matter? It doesn\u2019t! It\u2019s purely semantics, and entirely stupid. But flying submissions are cooler than standing ones anyway, and this is maybe the most appropriate time in history to call something a flying submission. Flying armbars and flying triangles are just jumping attacks, and in 99.9 percent of cases, they finish on the ground. Almabayev jumped the gilly and finished it while still in the air! Call it the correct, and fun name!<\/p>\n (Also, you could, I suppose, call Oliveira\u2019s submission over Dustin Poirier a flying rear-naked choke, and perhaps should. I\u2019d certainly have no issue with it, and it would accurately describe what happened.)<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n