Ben
Duffy/Sherdog.com illustration
Sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then stream UFC 270 live on
your smart TV, computer, phone, tablet or streaming device via the
ESPN app.
Every fight matters, but some matter just a little more.
In some ways, a win is a win and a loss is a loss. The difference
between one fight and the next lies in what’s at stake. Picture the
fighter on a losing streak who knows he or she is likely fighting
for their job; or conversely, any title fight in a top regional
organization, where the combatants know they are almost certainly
being scouted by the big boys. At other times, a fight feels
especially important for reasons that are harder to quantify, but
no less real. Whether it’s the symbolic heft of being a pioneer in
MMA from one’s country, or the simple added spice of two fighters
who really hate each other’s guts, that fight means just a little
more.
This Saturday, the Ultimate Fighting Championship serves up its
first pay-per-view offering of 2022, as UFC
270 takes place at Honda Center in Anaheim, California. In some
ways, the promotion itself is under the gun to stand and deliver as
much as any individual fighter on the card, as UFC 270 is also the
first event since the UFC’s broadcast partner in the U.S., ESPN,
hiked the price of pay-per-views from $69.99 to $74.99, after a
similar $5 increase just a year ago. Considering that ESPN has
levied these price increases during a global pandemic, when
catching a UFC at your local wings n’ boobs — or hosting a watch
party at home and splitting the bill with a couple of friends — may
not be advisable or even possible, fans might be forgiven for
asking, “Is this card worth it?”
However, that’s between the UFC, ESPN and the fans. The 24 men and
women who make up the lineup of UFC 270 have the same brief as
ever: Win the fight, entertain the fans — preferably both. From the
grip of debuting Dana White’s Contender Series graduates on the
early prelims all the way to the monstrous title doubleheader at
the top of the card, some of those fighters need a win more
urgently than others, for a variety of reasons. Here are three
fighters under just a little extra pressure to stand and deliver at
UFC 270.
If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably noticed that this
column almost never features title fight participants. That is
because the stakes are usually so obvious as to not be worth going
over; everyone’s ultimate goal is to win — or keep — a belt.
However, sometimes the stakes are high, but not equally so for both
participants. Such is the case in Saturday’s co-main event, as
Brandon
Moreno, Figueiredo’s opponent at UFC 270, is risking far less,
even though he is the one putting the belt on the line. If Moreno
loses, their series will stand at 1-1-1. It is a near-certainty
that we would get the first quadrilogy in UFC history, and we would
probably get it immediately. Add in the fact that the Mexican is
six years younger, and no matter what happens in Anaheim, you get
the feeling that he will have many more chances to win and defend
titles.
The same is not true of Figueiredo. If he loses, the series will
stand at 0-2-1. Never say never, considering that we were about to
see Alexander
Volkanovski vs. Max
Holloway 3, but he will have a hard road back to a title shot
for as long as Moreno is around. At 34, with a history of
difficult, draining weight cuts, “Deus da Guerra” will have a tough
choice: hang around as an ultra-elite gatekeeper and hope that
Moreno loses or the stars somehow align to necessitate a late
replacement or interim title, or move up and try his luck at
bantamweight. That’s some kind of pressure.
Trevin
Giles: Smaller “Problem,” Bigger Gamble
Speaking of forced and unforced weight shifts, if anyone had been
screaming that Giles needed to drop to welterweight in order
to salvage his career, I sure missed the outcry. He was not a
particularly small middleweight, and in fact made his UFC debut at
light heavyweight — and won. His undefeated pre-UFC run included
wins over big n’ tall future co-workers Brendan
Allen, Ike Villanueva and Ryan Spann.
While he had a rough night at the office in his last outing,
getting knocked out by Dricus Du
Plessis at UFC 264 last July, he rode into that fight on a
three-bout win streak that saw the Houston cop reach the fringes of
the Top 10. Ironically, the last of those three wins was against
Roman
Dolidze, whose own drop from light heavyweight to middleweight
had similarly come out of the blue.
Yet here we are, with “The Problem” set to make his 170-pound
debut, and the risk that if he loses, the move will look
unnecessary at best, actively harmful at worst — especially if he
misses weight or seems obviously compromised by the cut. The margin
of error is made even narrower by the matchup: undefeated Contender
Series alumnus Michael
Morales, who has every appearance of being the real deal and is
actually the slight betting favorite as of the beginning of fight
week.
There is upside to Giles’ decision. Whereas some fighters try
dropping in weight as desperation move to turn around a career in
its final chapter, in competitive free-fall or both, Giles is just
29 and as noted, is 3-1 over the last two years. If he wins on
Saturday, as a fringe contender in his previous division, he will
get to jump the line just a bit at welterweight, which is otherwise
probably the hardest division in the UFC for a fighter to work his
way up from the bottom. Think of Gilbert
Burns or Michael
Chiesa, who received similar benefit of the doubt after coming
to 170 from the opposite direction. The risk and reward are both
crystal clear — and prodigious.
Ilia
Topuria: Short Notice + Long Odds = Zero Margin for Error
It seems as though just about every week, this column ends up
highlighting a fighter who is a massive betting favorite, or a
fighter facing an opponent who accepted the booking on short
notice. Topuria is both, and now shoulders a double load of unfair
expectations, as he takes on late replacement Charles
Jourdain. Even though both fighters in a short-notice matchup
are cramming for the same pop quiz, the already-booked fighter has
been training for the date in question, and is expected to be at
their best, at least physically. Meanwhile, stepping up on short
notice is in as close to a no-lose scenario as there is in the UFC.
The short-notice fighter is perceived to be doing a favor for the
promotion as well as their opponent, picking up a surprise paycheck
for themselves, and is at no real risk of losing their job, win or
lose, even if they miss weight.
Similarly, fair or not — it’s usually not — when a fighter is a
huge favorite, there is an expectation of lopsidedness. The
difference between a -150 money line and -1500 is in how likely the
bookmakers think one fighter is to win, not how badly they think
the fighter is going to beat the other up. Yet when Jennifer
Maia made it to the final horn against Valentina
Shevchenko, just to name one example, there were plenty of
observers declaring the mostly one-sided drubbing a moral victory
for the challenger or, worse yet, a sign that “Bullet” was
slipping.
In light of those two narratives, consider the situation in which
Topuria now finds himself. Previously set to face Movsar
Evloev in a matchup of undefeated featherweight blue-chippers,
Topuria must now reckon with “Air” Jourdain. After a camp spent
preparing for a relentless wrestler and grappler, he now gets to
turn on a dime and get ready for a high-flying, quick-strike
knockout artist. It’s also worth noting that if Jourdain follows
the short-notice fighter gameplan of, “throw the kitchen sink at
him until one of you goes down,” he is far, far more dangerous in
that setting than Evloev would have been if the roles were
reversed. Oh, and with the opponent change Topuria goes from being
the slightest of underdogs in a near pick ‘em fight, to being the
biggest favorite on the card at a ludicrous -600. He gets to choose
his poison: Try to put on a highlight-reel performance, running the
risk that he ends up the object rather than the subject of the
highlights, or go out to survive, advance — and weather the
inevitable cries that he underperformed.
