Brandon Royval just won an incredible five-round fight against Tatsuro Taira, handing the Japanese blue-chipper his first loss. Is that enough to vault him to another title fight and possibly a third matchup with Alexandre Pantoja, who defends his title at UFC 310 in December? Or does “Raw Dawg” need to prove his No. 1 contender credentials one more time?
On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss what’s next for Royval after coming out on top of one of the best fights of 2024. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for cult hero “The Iron Turtle” Jun Yong Park, welterweight winners Chidi Njokuani and Daniel Rodriguez, and intriguing lightweight contender and wife appreciator Grant Dawson. We also try to figure out what lies ahead for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s favorite fighter Themba Gorimbo after he recorded his fourth consecutive victory.
Audio-only versions of the podcast can be found below, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
Discuss your favorite fighters, the upcoming card or whatever's on your mind.
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MMA Fighting has DWCS results for all the action from season 8, week 10 of UFC’s Contender Series on Tuesday night at the UFC APEX in Las Vegas, Nev.
In the main event, Nick Klein and Heraldo Souza will clash in a middleweight contest. Klein, who is 5-1 in his career, has picked up two straight wins. Souza, who is 9-1-1, has won has past three fights via finishes.
Undefeated flyweights Luis Gurule and Nick Piccininni will clash in the co-main event.
Check out the DWCS results for season 8, week 10 below.
Khalil Rountree may not have picked up the win to win his first-ever ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) world title against Alex Pereira at UFC 307 a few weeks ago, but “War Horse’s” stock way up in defeat.
Rountree went toe-to-toe against “Poatan” in Salt Lake City, Utah in one of the most entertaining title fights of 2024. While he did enough to hand around for the first three rounds, Pereira eventually started to find his groove, ultimately putting away the tough-as-nails contender in the fourth frame (see it again here).
Despite coming up short and looking worse for the wear, Rountree says he feels good about his performance, especially knowing that fight fans around the world, and the UFC higher-ups, were please with his performance.
“I’ve spoken personally with Dana (White) and Hunter (Campbell) and I feel like I got the steak dinner already because they were entertained,” Rountree told MMA Junkie Radio (via MMA Junkie). “I think for me as a partner with the UFC it’s one of my biggest goals to make sure the guys at the top are pleased with what they see. After speaking with them and them being excited about the performance, they’re definitely pleased,” he added before saying he isn’t too sure what’s next for him inside the cage.
“That felt like a treat in itself. As far as what’s next on the fight end, I think there would be a little bit more room for me to say what I want. But that vision right now is not so clear, he added before confirming that he want’s a Top 5 opponent.
“I think right now any name in the top five or within title contention to me, makes sense,” There’s not one name specifically. There’s not one person who I’m emotionally attached to or a fight I think I deserve next. But I would like to continue to fight people within the top five so I can get another shot at the title. It seems like the majority of the guys are booked or injured, but while I’m healing up there will be a good number of matchups to happen and I would love anybody that sets me up for another title fight.”
A fight between he and Jamahal Hill — who was also last seen on the wrong end of Pereira’s ungodly punches — was floating around in “War Horse’s” mind as a potential comeback fight. And it’s not a bad idea seeing as how both men would love nothing more than to get one back on “Poatan.”
For now, Rountree is sitting back and letting his face heal from all of the damage he took from the Light Heavyweight champion of the world. If a fight against Hill doesn’t come to pass, perhaps this man would be willing to step in.
Charles Oliveira and Tony Ferguson | Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Charles Oliveira hopes that UFC matchmakers change their approach when it comes to booking Tony Ferguson fights if the veteran decides to enter the octagon in the future.
Oliveira, who handled Ferguson the second loss of his current eight-fight skid back in 2020, and has a good relationship with “El Cucuy”, said in an interview with MMA Fighting that it was hard to watch Ferguson suffer another setback this past August in Abu Dhabi, a first-round submission defeat to Michael Chiesa.
Ferguson, a former interim lightweight champion, appeared to indicate his retirement immediately after the bout, but changed the tone at the post-fight press conference, saying “no, I still wanna fight.”
“He deserves all the respect in the world just to be fighting still, he deserves a standing ovation for everything he’s done in the UFC,” Oliveira said. “But I think the UFC should also give him some help and put him against someone [around his age] so they can put on a show and we applaud them.”
Ferguson was stopped in five of those eight losses, also finished by Justin Gaethje, Michael Chandler, Nate Diaz, Bobby Green, with additional decision defeats to “do Bronx”, Beneil Dariush and Paddy Pimblett.
The last time Ferguson fought someone who was older than him was June of 2019, when he scored a win over Donald Cerrone. For Oliveira, who earned a shot at the UFC belt with his victory over Ferguson, the UFC should book “El Cucuy” against veterans on the tail end of their career instead of up and comers like Pimblett.
“The guy doesn’t want to retire, he’s there, so why not get someone with the same vibe to put on a big fight? That would be great,” Oliveira said. “But to put these young kids, kids coming in hungry for attention over a big name like him, that’s a bit complicated. It sucks. The guy has a certain age, and you put him against young kids to fight him? That hurts him a little bit.”
Francis Ngannou | Photo by Richard Pelham/Getty Images
We don’t have to tell lies, it was an underwhelming week of MMA as UFC Vegas 98 was not exactly a banner event. Nevertheless, the main event between Brandon Royval and Tatsuro Taira delivered, and we got some pretty big news about UFC 310. On top of that, we’re now on the road to PFL: Ngannou vs. Ferreira a.k.a “Battle of the Giants” in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
So, with a smattering of topics to discuss this week, let’s touch on them all.
Tatsuro Taira
How do you think a fight between Taira and Mokaev would have played out?
— Dylan Barth (@dylaneb11) October 13, 2024
“How do you think a fight between Taira and Mokaev would have played out?”
If you missed it, Brandon Royval took a hard-fought decision over Tatsuro Taira in the main event of UFC Vegas 98 this past Saturday. The fight was one of the best of the year but now that Taira has suffered his first career loss, there’s already been some questioning of how good he is. But that’s a bit crazy.
Taira is only 24 years old and he just went hammer and tongs with the No. 1-ranked guy in the world. In just about any other scenario, people would be praising the pants off him. But because he was a sizable betting favorite heading into the fight, instead there are now questions about how good he is. That’s a bit silly. Is he as good as Brandon Royval? Not quite. But basically no one else is either.
That’s not to say that Taira’s performance was above reproach. He certainly showed a number of enormous holes. Royval pieced Taira up on the feet and the Japanese fighter also maybe showed a lack of cardio for five round fights. But those are things we’d expect from a young fighter who has basically never had to develop a B game. I fully expect this to be one of those losses that is hugely beneficial for Taira.
Now on to the question: I think Taira beats Mokaev but I’m in no way certain of that. That is a matchup of two very similar fighters. Both are exceptional grapplers, Mokaev is the better wrestler but Taira is the more dangerous finisher with a few more tricks. Ultimately, I think it comes down to the striking and while Taira is not very good on the feet, he’s shown more than Mokaev has at this point so I’ll favor him.
PFL’s big night
I think we can all agree in saying Ngannou vs Ferreira doesn’t go the distance, but what’s the most preferrable outcome for the PFL? Is it Ngannou knocking out Ferreira or would it be their homegrown guy knocking out the lineal UFC champion, who never lost his belt in the cage?
— Bryan Muwanguzi (@BryanMuwanguzi) October 13, 2024
“I think we can all agree in saying Ngannou vs Ferreira doesn’t go the distance, but what’s the most preferable outcome for the PFL? Is it Ngannou knocking out Ferreira or would it be their homegrown guy knocking out the lineal UFC champion, who never lost his belt in the cage?”
Francis Ngannou takes on Renan Ferreira in the main event of PFL’s latest PPV offering this Saturday and I think it’s safe to say this is the most important event of PFL’s existence.
Almost two years ago the PFL backed up the Brinks truck for Ngannou and now he is finally going to compete for them. Is that going to matter? Are people going to tune in because Francis Ngannou is fighting, because that was basically the calculus when PFL signed him: that Ngannou brings both cache and eyeballs. A year ago when Ngannou arguably should have beaten Tyson Fury, that might have been true. Now that Anthony Joshua put him on a stretcher? Unsure.
Aside from needing Ngannou to be a star, the PFL also really needs him to win. I’m not sure if Ngannou is a PPV draw in general, but I am certain he’s not the kind of star that can springboard others to stardom off of beating him. If Ferreira comes out and sleeps Ngannou, the only thing that happens is that the MMA world collectively says, “Well, Francis was gone for almost three years and just got savagely KOed. Guess Tom Aspinall really is the top guy right now.” Sure, Renan Ferreira would be the lineal champion, but that will be all but meaningless at that point in time. No one will care.
So yeah, the PFL needs Francis to come through and uppercut Ferreira out of the cage, remind people why they were so excited to get him in the first place and, hopefully, generate enough interest to have a successful PPV outing.
Big pressure on Big Francis this weekend.
Cris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco
What does the future hold for cyborg and Pacheco after this weekend? Kayla will have no real threats for a long time once she takes the belt from Pena.
— Daniel Pompilio (@elpompilio) October 13, 2024
“What does the future hold for cyborg and Pacheco after this weekend? Kayla will have no real threats for a long time once she takes the belt from Pena.”
Genuinely I have no idea. Pacheco vs. Cyborg is a quality fight that has two enormous issues with it. First is that Cyborg is ancient in fight years. Cyborg has had a wonderful career but frankly the only reason it’s continued this long is because women’s featherweight isn’t a real division, so she’s feasted on overmatched and/or underweight opposition. Pacheco is the first woman Cyborg will have fought since Julia Budd who is actually capable and physically comparable. She’s probably going to get her ass kicked.
Which is all well and good for Pacheco, who is a great fighter, but that leads to problem two: there is nothing else for Pacheco to do after this. I’m honestly a bit surprised that Cyborg didn’t just retire from MMA instead of take this fight but it’s great for Pacheco she didn’t. At least Pacheco gets this one fight for the resume, but after this Pacheco then just moves into the same place Cyborg spent most of her career: having no one to fight.
My best guess is that if/when Pacheco wins, they just run back another tournament next year and she competes in it because she makes a bundle of money and it’s not like the promotion has real “superfights” to offer her. And as for Cyborg, I suspect this is it for her MMA career and she can move back on to pursuing boxing.
UFC 310
Now that they announced shavkat vs belal I can think of several exciting matchups at the top of the 170 lb division. Is this the best the division has looked in the last decade? Can you rate the divisions by talent?
— Daniel Pompilio (@elpompilio) October 13, 2024
“Now that they announced Shavkat vs. Belal I can think of several exciting matchups at the top of the 170 lb division. Is this the best the division has looked in the last decade? Can you rate the divisions by talent?”
If you missed it, the big fights for UFC 310 got announced this week and the event will be headlined by a welterweight title fight between Belal Muhammad and Shavkat Rakhmonov. Reason won out and it’s going to rule. Either Belal pulls off the upset and truly proves himself to be one of the best fighters in the world right now, or Shavkat finally receives his crown and welterweight has a no-doubt-about-it exciting champion for the first time since Robbie Lawler. Win-win.
As for the state of the welterweight division, maybe? It’s true that for the past couple of years the welterweight division has fallen off some, particularly in comparison with weight classes like 155 of 135; and now we do have this crop of new names coming through and making things interesting, which is exciting, but a decade is a long time.
The golden age of welterweight (thus far) was probably Georges St-Pierre’s initial years as champion when the entire top-10 were some of the best fighters alive. But if you look back to 2016, that’s a pretty good crop of fighters as well. Tyron Woodley is champion, Stephen Thompson is at the peak of his powers, Demian Maia is still hanging around, Usman and Colby Covington are on the come-up, along with Leon Edwards and Gilbert Burns. It’s only the past few years where things have felt stagnant because the old guard keeps hanging around. So no, I don’t think it’s the best of the past decade but it’s trending in an excellent direction.
And for rankings:
Lightweight
Bantamweight
Featherweight
Flyweight
Middleweight
Welterweight
Womens’ Flyweight
Women’s Strawweight
Light Heavyweight
Heavyweight
Women’s bantamweight
And truly the bottom three are interchangeably terrible.
Nick Diaz returns
What should we expect out of Nick Diaz? Another sad performance? Or do you think he’s going to take this one serious?
— Shankapotomus (@gottheshanks) October 13, 2024
“What should we expect out of Nick Diaz? Another sad performance? Or do you think he’s going to take this one serious?”
Also lined up for UFC 310 is the return of Nick Diaz, who will take on Vicente Luque. It’s a fight that was originally scheduled for UFC Abu Dhabi this year until “travel issues” popped up for Diaz (a.k.a. somebody finally remembered the very strict rules the UAE has surrounding marijuana). And I gotta tell you, it’s going to be terrible.
The issue is not “whether Nick takes this fight seriously,” it’s that Nick Diaz doesn’t have it anymore. To paraphrase the poet and scholar Cutty Wise, the game ain’t in him no more.
Nick is 41 years old. That alone is nearly disqualifying. On top of that, he’s only fought twice this decade: once in a farce of a bout with Anderson Silva and the other in a hard to watch beatdown against Robbie Lawler. The last time Nick Diaz won a fight, Barack Obama was barely into his first term as president. This isn’t a matter of want, it’s a matter of capability.
I do not know why Nick Diaz is coming back. I hope it’s not because he has to but mostly I hope he gets out of this fight as unscathed as possible. The fact that Luque also looks to be on the well-done side of cooked makes this at least more tolerable than the Lawler matchup, but barely.
Maybe I’m wrong and Nick comes back and looks incredible, but I’m anticipating this to be one of the worst parts of MMA this year. I guess we’ll see.
Thanks for reading, and thank you for everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! Doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.
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