UFC Fight Island, Week 1: Staff Picks
Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
With the first event on the newly-branded ‘Fight Island’ complete, the UFC looks to make up for lost time as they did in Jacksonville in May; three events in one week, kicked off by a heavy pay-per-view and followed up by two Fight Nights. UFC 251 turned out to be a brilliant event for both the people watching (with two absolute classics turned out by the top of the featherweight and bantamweight divisions) and for the company itself, as Jorge Masvidal’s step-in turned the event into a historic draw. The main events following 251 look to keep the momentum from that night, establish another top-contender at 145 after Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway proved to be the cream of the crop, and hopefully fill the vacancy at the top of a burgeoning flyweight division with either a legendary veteran or an absolute destroyer.
The Fight Site MMA team is here to give our predictions for what we believe to be the four most important fights of the week — Calvin Kattar vs. Dan Ige, Jimmie Rivera vs. Cody Stamann, Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Joseph Benavidez 2 (for the flyweight championship), and Jack Hermansson vs. Kelvin Gastelum.
Calvin Kattar vs. Dan Ige
Sriram: This one feels so obvious that it almost makes me think it's a trap. Dan Ige's path has been admirable since he got absolutely battered by Julio Arce, as he's revealed himself to be a solid catch-and-pitch counterpuncher who can hit the body, which complements his pressure game fairly nicely. That said, not only is a forward-mover playing right into Calvin Kattar's game as a slick outfighter, Ige also lost the exchanges to Edson Barboza in his last fight, which is awful news in a fight against one of the best pocket boxers in MMA. Ige also struggled mightily with Arce's jab, and while the stance-matchup is different this time around, Kattar is such a proficient jabber that it's hard to see Ige being able to manufacture exchanges that favor him. The overwhelming likelihood seems to be Ige getting stuck on the end of it, or just running into an exchange that convinces him to back off aggressive-pressure the way Barboza managed to.
Ige could fight smart enough to annoy Kattar, hitting the body and kicking the legs, but those aren't reliable paths against Kattar without actually being good at kicking; Dan coming out with the win in a fight where he's even outgunned and outskilled in his best range is hard to see. Ige's tough and might make it close until Calvin warms up, but Kattar by KO2.
Mateusz: Yeah, this seems almost too simple.
Ige arguably lost against Barboza, the fight that got him this one; first of all he struggled with Barboza’s length, and Barboza is notably bad at maintaining his preferred distance. Secondly, he got visibly hurt three or four times by someone not vaunted for their power.
Kattar meanwhile, is both excellent at maintaining a long range- his jab is superb - and hitting extremely hard - KOs of Lamas, Burgos and Stephens are pretty telling.
In the few times I expect Ige to get close, Kattar has good hooks and uppercuts he can deliver to the body, and excellent elbows too; I’m not going to rationalise this too much - Kattar KO2.
Danny: Kattar better thank his lucky stars that Barboza was robbed of the decision over Ige in his last fight, because the Bostonian might be slowing down and has made no effort to cover the holes in his game. However, no amount of grit from Ige convinces me that he isn’t just completely outgunned here. Expect a more forceful version of Arce/Ige. Kattar via third round TKO.
Kyle: Kattar is ascending in my opinion, and will knock Ige out
Ben: As Sriram said, this seems to be a trap. I can’t think of anyone who’s more of a stylistic layup right now for Kattar that’s ranked. Maybe a showcase for Kattar? Give him a guy who’s getting victories that the UFC doesn’t want, knock him out, then give Kattar a bigger name. Not much to really think about here, as Ige is going to have to find his way past Kattar’s 1-2, which will be a struggle, and once he’s in range, he’s contending with a much craftier and more powerful boxer who will punish him with body punches galore. Sorry Dan, but Calvin Kattar by brutal KO round 2.
Ed: I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have a super nuanced read on Dan Ige. From what I know he prefers pressure and forward aggression, and likes to utilize level changing combinations to land his most potent offense. His top game is fairly threatening, but he really does seem to rely on getting those linear sequences going to trap his opponent on the fence before working any effective wrestling entries. Overall I’d say he’s fairly physical for the weight, gritty, durable, and committed to his approach. That’s a winning formula at any weight class. On the other hand, Calvin Kattar is a mid-range and pocket specialist. He excels in the handfight and off his opponent’s attacks, doing his best work vs. predictable, consistent attacks. As a grappler he’s surprised many with his athleticism and hips, shutting down the wrestling of Zabit Magomedsharipov in short order. Kattar’s big issues are dealing with varied, long-range attacks and struggling to get his own pressure game going if his opponent takes the backfoot. To me this feels like Ige is going to provide material for Kattar to work with, and the jabs and counters will be available relatively early on. Kattar R2 TKO
Jimmie Rivera vs. Cody Stamann
Sriram: Like the main-event, Rivera/Stamann features an incredibly deep and polished pocket-boxer who has nevertheless shown certain stylistic limits; somewhat similar to Calvin Kattar, Jimmie Rivera could feasibly be elite, but could also struggle with certain matchups even when he’s the deeper man. However, Rivera’s in a more desperate spot than the Bostonian; Aljamain Sterling played a game that simply didn’t allow “El Terror” access to his strongest range, where Petr Yan boxed with Rivera (and allowed him to show the full depth of his formidable skill) yet won anyway, and New Jersey’s tank has suddenly found himself on a two-fight skid. The undeniable eliteness of both Yan and Sterling (and of Marlon Moraes, his other loss) leaves Rivera a possible top-5 talent at his best, but without a real route to actual contention, and Stamann is a fight for nothing more than relevance.
While Stamann is a very skilled fighter in his own right - a capable operator at range who can work in volume and set his takedowns up sharply - that isn’t the kind to usually beat Rivera. Jimmie has rarely looked anything but sterling (heh) as an anti-wrestler, and while Stamann has measures of defense built into his lead hand, it doesn’t really approach the depth of Rivera’s defense in the pocket nor his combination work. Stamann getting crowded a bit at times by Brian Kelleher’s pressure seems a bad sign here, and while Rivera’s durability isn’t great, Stamann isn’t much of a hitter. The week’s notice and Rivera’s wild-swing in performance between his last two fights makes it a bit more questionable than it should, and Stamann has some real promise, but the advantage here seems clear; it’s Jimmie’s to lose, even though he might. Rivera by UD.
Ben: Rivera always doesn’t seem like he will ever crack that top 5 in any sort of consistent way. Clearly beaten by the current champ and the top 2 ranked contenders, Rivera always seems to falter when he has the chance to solidify himself as a top guy.
That being said, he is among the more skilled strikers in a division full of them, and his defensive wrestling is excellent. Stamann has improved over his time in the UFC, but I would not say he’s built to beat a guy like Rivera. Stamann is a capable outfighter, but he’s not diverse or skilled enough to overload Jimmie’s rote, yet very well schooled, defenses. He doesn’t push enough of a pace to slow Rivera down, an issue he’s had, either. This is unlikely to be a blowout, but Stamann is not going to win in a volume distance striking game with Rivera, who’s counter combinations are going to be a real issue for Stamann when he attempts to close the distance. He’s unlikely to out wrestle him either, which leaves him potentially grinding a win against the cage, not Cody’s strong suit. I see this being a relatively uninspiring, yet clear decision to get Rivera back on track. Jimmie Rivera by Unanimous Decision.
Ed: This is a really beautiful matchup in the context of the division. Cody Stamann finally seems to be developing the kind of boxing game befitting a wrestler in MMA, level changing and working behind a jab to establish a more nuanced pressure game. Jimmie Rivera is more or less the same guy, a stocky, powerful pocket boxer who lives on the counter but struggles when given too many looks and can be frozen in place. If Stamann chooses to approach this fight with a “stick-and-move” game, which is possible considering his kicking competency and the development of his jab, I could see him frustrating Rivera a bit and scoring enough to win. However, if he looks to press forward and get into exchanges with Rivera, or even try to wrestle, I feel the veteran will end up stonewalling him and eventually land something meaningful in the pocket. It’s going to be competitive, but I feel the strengths of Rivera lend to less of an uphill battle here. Rivera UD
Danny: Stamman has been cursed into occupying the single most dynamic division in MMA without an ounce of dynamism. Rivera also lacks much fight-finishing offense, but he’s a demonstrably more polished technician and has been extremely difficult to outwrestle. This one feels like a bit of a bounceback for Jimmie, and he deserves it. Jimmie Rivera via Unanimous Decision.
Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Joseph Benavidez 2
Sriram: Before the first fight, I think most people expected it to be a bit binary, not just as a function of Figueiredo’s questionable conditioning (looking at the Pantoja fight), but also who they are as fighters; Benavidez has a lot of weirdness to his mechanics and even to his tactics, but he’s the definition of a building fighter, and Figueiredo is the opposite, so it seemed like Benavidez just needed one hole to work with and he’d blow it open (given the time) as Deiveson probably wouldn’t adapt with him. That still isn’t necessarily wrong, but what decided the first fight to me was Figueiredo’s sharp initial game; Figueiredo’s pressure-counterpunching limited Benavidez’s ability to make the reads he needed, and it forced the actual mechanics of the encounter to the forefront - and those mechanics are something that Benavidez has mostly worked around, more than working with. Figueiredo’s straight-right counter cut Joe off at the pass every time he seemed to be getting something going, and the nature of Benavidez’s shifting entries meant that he wasn’t particularly poised to deal with that (same as the Sergio Pettis fight, only Figueiredo being a puncher meant that Joe couldn’t even eat it and keep the exchange going as he did late with Petitis).
There’s hope for him in this fight, with Figueiredo not necessarily being the most consistent strategic fighter and Joe having plenty of moments in the first fight where Deiveson was bailed due to his durability. But the age and the mileage is not on Joe’s side, and Fig probably doesn’t just abandon a fight that worked so well the first time around. Joe Benavidez is brilliant and an all-time great, but this seems murderous at this point. Figueiredo by KO1.
Danny: This is just mean. Benavidez is being punished for his opponent missing weight, and now he’s forced to run back the hardest loss of his career through no fault of his own. I like Fig a lot, but there are plenty of other fights I’d rather see from him right now that don’t include Joe B getting crushed again. This has to be one of the cruelest pieces of matchmaking I’ve ever seen from the UFC, and I’m saying this in a time where the UFC is overflowing with cruel matchmaking. Yuck. Figueiredo via second round KO.
Ed: I said this before Holloway-Volkanovski and was wrong as hell, but I really can’t see what Benavidez is going to do differently here. Within a round Figueiredo had gotten a read on his entries and was finding his counters with accuracy and regularity early in the second. Benavidez was landing flush from the beginning of the fight, and it seems to bother Fig very little. It just doesn’t seem like the kind of matchup that is going to get easier for Benavidez over time or with more familiarity. Figueiredo R2 TKO.
Gastelum/Hermansson:
Danny: Another strange fight, but at least the matchmaking is sensible. What on earth is wrong with Kelvin Gastelum? Here at TFS, we have a tendency to overcompensate for guys we feel are overrated by criticizing them relentlessly to the point that we sort of underrate them, and for a long time, Kelvin was that guy. However, he looked completely impotent at pressuring Till and clearly carried none of the lessons that he learned from Adesanya into his following performance. On the flip side, Jack Hermansson hates southpaws and found himself quickly exhausted, attempting to outwrestle Cannonier. Hmmm. I guess I’ll take a conservative Kelvin Gastelum via Unanimous Decision in what I anticipate will be quite a strange, ugly fight. My expectations are low, but it could be fun.
Sriram: Hermansson seems to be straddling the line between the great contender-middleweights and the action-middlingweights, even after the win over Jacare seemed to establish him as a title threat; Jack has improved a lot, but the Cannonier fight proved that he’s still extremely vulnerable - technically and mentally - without the safety net of his wrestling. That said, it’s a bit difficult for me to see Kelvin consistently holding off the takedowns when the Weidman fight happened (where Gastelum’s takedown defense looked abysmally lazy) and even the Souza win had him fighting off Jacare from the bottom at length where no one else has had to do that since Boestch. Gastelum could just walk Hermansson down, Hermansson isn’t much in exchanges, but Gastelum is also a woeful pressurer (as seen against Darren Till, who really didn’t need much craft to get Gastelum following him in circles), where Hermansson is functional on the outside even if a lot of his mechanics are just useless flash.
I wouldn’t be shocked if Hermansson collapsed in the face of a durable committed bomber, but he seems to have routes in every phase, where Gastelum’s path feels like “maybe Hermansson screws up badly”. Add the ruinous Adesanya fight in the rearview for Kelvin, plus the Till fight (which didn’t really say much on whether he’s still as durable as he used to be), and there’s reason to trust Kelvin even less than one usually should. I think Hermansson frustrates Gastelum on the outside, maybe survives a scare or two, but gets wrestling and puts his nasty top-game to work. Finish is possible but I’ll play this safe and say Hermansson via decision.