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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

Short-notice fights have always been a pathway to gain entrance into the UFC, but not all of these matchups are measured the same.

For Diego Lopes, he accepted an opportunity to make his octagon debut on just five days’ notice and he had to go up against undefeated Russian Movsar Evloev, who has often been touted as a future title contender and already sports a top-10 featherweight ranking. Meanwhile, Lopes limped into the UFC with a 1-2 record in his past three fights, which included a decision loss to Joanderson Brito in a Contender Series appearance.

When he was announced as Evloev’s opponent, Lopes was still relatively unknown, still without a Wikipedia page, and there were far more comments about his windswept hair — which will make you believe tonight is the night that he’ll fall for you (over again) — rather than anybody talking much about his chances to actually win. He was akin to Camper No. 3 going up against Jason Voorhees in any of the Friday the 13th movies.

But then a strange thing happened: Lopes made it a dog fight.

He brought the battle to Evloev and the featherweights ultimately engaged in a three-round war that saw Lopes launch into submission after submission in an attempt to pull off the upset. While Evloev ultimately got the nod on the scorecards, Lopes walked away with a newfound respect amongst fans, as well as UFC CEO Dana White’s admiration which ended with him earning his full fight purse and Fight of the Night honors as a bonus.

That’s a feel-good story, but Lopes wasn’t satisfied with just being remembered as the short-notice fighter who ALMOST won in the UFC.

In his next two performances, Lopes proved he belonged, demolishing Gavin Tucker and Pat Sabatini in back-to-back fights with neither making it past the two-minute mark of the opening round. Lopes threw caution to the wind, seeking out highlight-reel submissions that would made Demian Maia proud, showing that taking Evloev to a hard-fought decision was no fluke.

Even with a loss on his record in 2023, Lopes still managed to make an indelible first impression, sending notice to every ranked featherweight that he’s coming for their spot in the new year. He may look like an extra from a Fall Out Boy video circa 2005, but make no mistake, this emo kid will definitely kick your ass if you try to steal his lunch money.

Getty Images, MMA Fighting

2. BO NICKAL

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

If there was a separate award for the most hyped prospect of the year, Bo Nickal would win in a landslide.

The 27-year-old wrestler-turned-fighter already had the weight of the world on his shoulders when he declared his intentions to compete in MMA after becoming a three-time NCAA champion at Penn State and having his Olympic dreams dashed by teammate David Taylor.

Rather than wait for another shot at the 2024 Games, Nickal made the transition into MMA while training alongside a room full of killers at American Top Team in Florida. The athletic pedigree was there, but he still had to evolve and learn enough about the sport to show that he was more than just a wrestler with nearly unstoppable takedowns.

There was so much anticipation built around Nickal that his two amateur fights earned a ton of attention, but nothing quite like what happened after he scored a 33-second knockout in his professional debut and immediately earned a shot at the UFC’s Contender Series. Nickal ultimately spent two fights there — with less than two minutes of total fight time — before finally making his UFC debut in March.

Nickal even earned a spot on the UFC 285 main card on pay-per-view in his debut, which never really happens, at least not for a fighter with a 3-0 record in his career. He needed a little more time to get his first UFC win — Jamie Pickett nearly survived for a whole three minutes — but the result was still the same, with Nickal getting another dominant finish. His second fight ended up against a short-notice opponent, and Nickal made it look that way, scoring a 38-second knockout to welcome Val Woodburn to the UFC.

Nickal opted not to build on those wins with a quick turnaround for a potential third fight in 2023 or he may have taken the top spot for Rookie of the Year. Either way, Nickal might just be the person on the list best suited to become a UFC champion one day — including at least one ludicrous believer who says he’s already primed to win the title — and given his fast rise to success, he probably won’t have to wait very long to get there.

3. CEDRIC DOUMBE

PFL

UFC’s loss was PFL’s gain with dynamic striker Cedric Doumbe, who ended up with the MMA “co-leader” following a failed attempt at making his octagon debut, which was cancelled in part due to rules with the French MMA Federation and also thanks to pre-fight medicals that revealed a bleed in his brain.

Thankfully, Doumbe was eventually given a clean bill of health and PFL snatched him up with a quickness. As the promotion continues to expand into new markets with a particular focus on Europe, Doumbe was the perfect product to roll out when the PFL landed in France.

It’s safe to say Doumbe did not disappoint.

As a kickboxer with an astonishing 45 knockouts on his résumé, Doumbe delivering anything less than a jaw-dropping finish would have almost been viewed as a failure. Thankfully, the 31-year-old Cameroon native, who now calls France his home, made good on the attention being paid to him with a blistering nine-second knockout.

There’s a reason why his nickname is “The Best,” because that’s what Doumbe has been for much of his career, but now he’ll attempt to follow in the footsteps of fighters like Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya as kickboxers who made a huge impact after transitioning into MMA.

It’s difficult to gauge Doumbe’s ceiling in MMA with only five fights on his record thus far, but there’s little doubt that the world will be watching to see how he does.

4. IKRAM ALISKEROV

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

It’s not clear if Ikram Aliskerov is Russian slang for “terrifying human being,” but that should be the translation for this middleweight wrecking ball.

Prior to joining the UFC roster, Aliskerov put together a 13-1 record with only four decisions along the way. His only loss came via knockout to fellow terrifying human Khamzat Chimaev back in 2019.

Since then, Aliskerov rattled off seven straight wins, including six by way of knockout or submission. He earned his UFC contract after dispatching Mario Souza with a first-round kimura on the promotion’s Contender Series, and then needed just one second more to flat-line noted Dillon Danis hype man Phil Hawes in his octagon debut.

He followed up that performance with a devastating flying knee knockout over Warlley Alves that earned him a Performance of the Night bonus.

If Nickal isn’t the surest thing on this list, Aliskerov is a razor-close second. It’s not impossible to imagine there’s a world where these two monsters square off one day with a UFC title on the line.

Fight of the Year in 2025 anybody? Let’s at least mark that down as a possibility right now.

5. JESUS PINEDO

Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images

Much like Diego Lopes, the year didn’t start off with a win for Jesus Pinedo, but he’s the only fighter on this list closing out 2023 with a $ 1 million paycheck in his bank account.

After falling by split decision to Gabriel Braga to start the PFL season, the 27-year-old featherweight was basically in do-or-die mode heading into his next fight against 2022 champion Brendan Loughnane. On paper it looked like the PFL was feeding Pinedo to the wolves while giving Loughnane a chance to secure his spot back in the playoffs, where Loughnane would undoubtedly seek out a second straight championship run.

That didn’t work out so well for Loughnane, however, after Pinedo blasted him with a huge knee to the head followed by some damaging hammerfists that ended their fight in just 94 seconds. The win punched Pinedo’s ticket to the playoffs, where he showcased his finishing power with a second-round knockout over perennial PFL contender Bubba Jenkins.

Then, in the finals, Pinedo had his chance at revenge when he took out Braga in their rematch, but the judges had the night off this time around. Pinedo put on a stellar performance before a blistering combination of strikes put Braga out on his feet, with the referee ultimately saving him from further harm.

Pinedo was awarded with the 2023 PFL featherweight title and a seven-figure paycheck, which capped off a remarkable year for one of MMA’s newest millionaires.

Here is how voting for MMA Fighting’s 2023 Rookie of the Year played out.

MMA Fighting

HONORABLE MENTIONS

• Elves Brener
• Vitor Petrino
• Mateusz Rebecki
• Nazim Sadykhov
• Muhammad Naimov

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

It’s time for the fifth-annual Fistys, the awards show that hands out hypothetical hardware to the best combat sports highlights of the year from the international and regional scene. Much has been said about how 2023 was the strangest 12-month stretch that fight fans have ever seen at the higher levels of the business, which makes what happened on the fringes seem almost tame by comparison.

Still, the outer limits of the fighting world never fail to deliver, and there were plenty of memorable scenes that might have escaped the eye of the average viewer. So consider this post to be one big ICYMI for anyone that needs to catch up before the calendar turns to 2024.

Without further ado, it’s Fisty time!

(Don’t forget to tip your cap to MMA Twitter overlords @Barrelelapierna for their weekly lists of the best KOs and submissions, and to the inimitable @Grabaka_Hitman, our greatest living MMA historian, plus everyone else on social media who scrutinizes the combat sports landscape with a fine-tooth comb. Give everyone a follow and chip in on caposa’s Patreon if you can.)

Best Visual Effects

Raymison Bruno vs. Roger Dalet

Literally billed as “David vs. Goliath,” 130-pound fighter Raymison Bruno went up against heavyweight Roger Dalet to prove once and for all that size doesn’t matter. I don’t recall the Book of Samuel saying anything about Superman punches, blast doubles, or armbars, but I suppose stories are meant to evolve over time.

Our untrained Goliath was easily felled by Bruno in a matchup that, while farcical, certainly helped to reinforce the conventional notion that no matter how big you are, you’re not going to last two minutes in a real fight if you don’t know your full guard from your Right Guard. I’m looking at you, Bradley Martyn.

Best Vomiting

Praewpraw vs. Dokmaipa

I’m not one to encourage a person to accidentally see something they never wanted to see, so if the title of this Fisty category didn’t prompt you to skip to the next section, here’s a more formal warning: The clip below features someone puking.

Here we go.

Considering what fighters put each other’s bodies through, it’s honestly kind of amazing that we don’t see disgusting incidents like this more often. Not that I’m requesting it. In fact, if we could go 365 days without an in-ring chunk-blowing, that would just be great. Thanks.

Best Base For MMA

Akamz as ‘Michael Justice’

Comedian Akamz has gotten plenty of mileage out of his thinly veiled Michael Jackson riff “Michael Justice,” adapting the King of Pop’s signature moves to a variety of sports and activities, so it was only a matter of time until he brought his act to MMA and the results were spectacular.

Roll your eyes all you want, but the bit takes serious skill and commitment. And frankly, if mimicking M.J. is good enough for the great Anderson Silva, then I can rock with Akamz.

Best KO (accidental)

Billy Brand and Carol the Cutwoman

According to Sherdog, bantamweight Billy Brand went 3-0 in 2023, but you can tack another W on there for this hilarious post-fight collision with “Carol the Cutwoman” a.k.a. Carol Siracusa.

Brand was obviously jazzed up after scoring a third-round finish and you can see that he’s completely unaware of his surroundings as he barrels into Siracusa. She looked to be fine from the fall, so I think it’s fair for to have a chuckle over Brand’s gaffe.

Best KO

Patryk Glowacki vs. Patryk Tolkaczewski

Regular readers of Missed Fists knows that international and regional promotions always provide a healthy diet of one-shot knockouts, blindingly fast finishes, plus knees and head kicks galore, and any one of those kinds of finishes would have made for a fine choice to win the KO Fisty. But sticking with the theme of weirdness, how could we pick anything else besides Krzysztof Glowacki’s furious punch-out from mount.

From the bottom of mount, that is.

There’s levels to this s***, as the kids say, and Glowacki vs. Patryk Tolkaczewski isn’t exactly a clash of heavyweight titans (both were making their pro MMA debut). So it’s understandable that this finish might not top a conventional list of the best KOs of the year.

Around these parts though, we reward ingenuity, creativity, and yes, silliness, not to mention sheer brutality. Glowacki’s once-in-a-lifetime KO checks all of those boxes and deserves to be recognized. It’s no secret that KSW rules and wacky wins like this are one of the reasons why.

Best of the rest

Manolis Kallistis vs. Juan Gonzalez

Yuito Yanagawa vs. Kazuki Morii

Jessika Silva vs. Jocilene Santana

Reynaldo Acevedo vs. Andre Bermudez

Devin Smyth vs. Jonathan Piersma

Xavier Horton vs. Richard Guererro

Milosz Wodecki vs. Mikolaj Homa

Xiko Loko vs. Iury Silva

Ivan Kulak vs. Bogdan Plutakhin

Shuya Kimura vs. Shota Taguchi

Best Submission

Aktore Batyrbek def. Shakhzod Dzhurakulov

Despite my best attempts to educate the philistines that make up the MMA Fighting staff, I failed to convince them to include one of the more unique finishes from the Missed Fists library on our Submission of the Year list (Louis Glismann vs. Melvin Van Suijdam made it, thankfully).

No matter, Aktore Batyrbek’s spectacular combination sub of Shakhzod Dzhurakulov will get its shine here, if nowhere else.

The Kazakh flyweight had an exemplary 2023 campaign, going 3-0 with three finishes. The competition he’s facing over in Octagon League leaves something to be desired, but if we keep getting highlights like this, I encourage the matchmakers to keep bringing out whatever poor saps they can find for Batyrbek to style on.

Best of the rest

Taylor Mauldin vs. Laura Gallardo

Azat Maksum vs. Fabricio Nunes

Pablo Eduardo vs. Azizbek Norov

Olga Rubin vs. Claire Guthrie

That’s it for this year, folks, thanks as always for checking in on our often neglected corner of the MMA world. I had to leave out a bushel of unbelievable finishes or we’d be going on for another 3,000 words, so if you want the whole picture, make sure to go back through the Missed Fists archives.

And don’t worry, I didn’t forget the most devastating strike of the year.

Boink.

Take care of yourselves in 2024!

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Superfight
| BJPenn.com

Colby Covington has received a lot of backlash for his pre-fight antics and in-fight performance against Leon Edwards at UFC 296 earlier this month, but “Chaos” isn’t going to just lay down and take criticism from his peers.

Instead, Covington is defending his UFC 296 performance and talking once again as if he’s still going to be fighting for a world title. In reality, “Chaos” is now far removed from welterweight title contention after looking like a complete shell of his former self opposite Edwards, who handily defeated Covington via unanimous decision to retain his 170-pound crown.

Covington, who is an easy target because of the things he says and does outside of the cage, doesn’t seem to care all that much of what fellow UFC fighters think of him. This includes rising UFC lightweight star, Paddy Pimblett, who destroyed Covington for his pre-fight trash talk before hating on his overall performance at UFC 296.

“I don’t really think about it, but obviously my first reaction to it now is just laughing because all those people, there’s no substance,” Covington said during a recent appearance on the PBD Podcast (via MMA Fighting). “They’re talking the talk, they’re not going to walk the walk.

“Paddy … if he didn’t have a bowl cut and an accent, nobody would care about Paddy. That’s the only reason they like him, is a bowl cut and an accent. He’s not even a good fighter. He’ll never be a top-30 fighter. The closest he’ll ever get to fighting for a world title is if he got on his knees and came and sniffed my jockstrap.”

Pimblett wasn’t the only UFC star to publicly bash Covington. Even UFC lightweight contender, Michael Chandler, joined in on the post-fight action to let “Chaos” know he looked downright awful at UFC 296. Check it out below:

“If Colby’s offense was an accurate depiction of the US military, we would’ve never gotten our independence. Lost World War 1 & lost World War 2,” joked Chandler.

As you may have guessed, Covington didn’t enjoy hearing Chandler’s comments. He laid into the former Bellator champion as well while reminding fans of his much-talked-about visit to the White House.

“Michael Chandler?” Covington said. “Who? The guy was getting knocked out in Bellator, the guy’s a complete scrub. What’s his UFC record? Like, 1-4? We’re talking about that. My win percentage in the UFC is over, like, 90 percent, I’m an all-time great in this division. I’ve done things in this division that people aren’t ever going to do.

“I’m the only fighter to ever go to The White House and hang out with a sitting president. I’m the only one to ever get the first family front row. I’m the only one to ever have a president out there supporting me and dapping me up before I walk in the octagon, so he can keep talking all he wants but there’s no substance. Another guy that’s just all talk and no walk.”

Thoughts?

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MMA: Mixed Martial Arts

The first UFC card in 2024 has suffered some major changes ahead of the event on Jan. 13.

UFC Vegas 84, which takes place at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, will be headlined by a light heavyweight rematch when Magomed Ankalaev takes on Johnny Walker in a five-round fight. While that matchup is still a go, several other fights have been changed or scrapped ahead of the event.

Bantamweight contender Ketlen Vieira was removed for her bout against Macy Chiasson due to undisclosed reasons and that fight has now been cancelled.

The same goes for another bantamweight fight with Yana Santos dropping out of her fight against Norma Dumont with that bout now also scrapped from the card.

Meanwhile, Bassil Hafez will have to wait to make his sophomore appearance in the UFC after he was forced out of his upcoming fight in January. Matthew Semelsberger will step in as a replacement for Hafez and he now faces Preston Parsons on the card.

Contender Series veteran Jean Silva will now face Westin Wilson on the card after Gabriel Santos was removed from the lineup.

Finally, Joshua Van will make his return to action against Felipe Bunes after visa issues prevented Denys Bondar from traveling into the United States.

There are still 11 bouts scheduled to take place on Jan. 13 with the event airing live on ESPN+ with the prelims starting at 4 p.m. ET and the main card set to kick off at 7 p.m. ET with the full bout order still to be determined.

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A much discussed welterweight title fight between Octagon champions, Leon Edwards and his lightweight counterpart, Islam Makhachev has been firmly axed by former lightweight contender turned color-commentator, who urged fighters to stay in their weight classes and defend their respective titles.

Edwards, the current undisputed welterweight champion, most recently headlined UFC 296 earlier this month, successfully defending his divisional crown for the second time in a one-sided unanimous decision win over arch-rival and former interim titleholder, Colby Covington.

As for Makhachev, the Russian favorite lodged his own successful defense of the lightweight title for the second time back in October, stopping two-time challenger, Alexander Volkanovski with a hellacious opening round high-kick KO win.

And in the aftermath of Birmingham native, Edwards’ one-sided shutout win over Covington, the above-mentioned, Makhachev weighed up a welterweight move, claiming a fight against Edwards must be next for him.

Leon Edwards urged to avoid Islam Makhachev fight

However, as far as Felder – who has been linked with his own return potentially at UFC 300, is concerned, talk of two-weight champions should be put on the back burner indefinitely.

“We established that [Belal Muhammad] is the number one contender, you’re [Leon Edwards] also saying that you want to break Georges St-Pierre [title defense] record, but then we got Islam Makhachev out there saying he should be next for the welterweight belt,” Paul Felder said on the UFC ‘Round-Up’ show. “Guys, stay in your freaking divisions, reign over your dvisions. Can we get dominant champions before you all star wanting to fight for other belts?”

“It didn’t used to be like that this,” Felder explained. “The guys that did this in the beginning – obviously Conor (McGregor) is an exception. He did it, it was craziness. He was a superstar. (Daniel Cormier) did it because he earned it and was a 205’er. Amanda Nunes earned it. Now it’s just like everyone and their mother wants to be able to be a double champ. And it’s like, ‘Well, how about you get a whole lot of title defenses first, then you go and stpe up?’”

Who wins in a future fight: Leon Edwards or Islam Makhachev?

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