The best and worst from UFC 231: Holloway vs. Ortega

UFC 231 was a difficult card to rate in a lot of ways; the UFC’s 12th pay-per-view of 2018 was bookended by two of the year’s absolute best fights, but other than that, the show was largely forgettable. In a way, it was like being served a completely bland turkey sandwich which happened to be made with the greatest bread possible, if that makes sense.

It wasn’t that any of the fights were outright bad – that wasn’t the case at all. They just simply didn’t provide us with a lot of memorable moments or much intrigue going forward. With that said, I don’t think anyone who saw the card could complain about the main event.

Here are the best and worst moments from UFC 231: Holloway vs. Ortega

#1 Best: The main event was incredible

Holloway landed a ridiculous number of strikes in the fight

Going into Saturday’s main event between Max Holloway and Brian Ortega with Holloway’s Featherweight title on the line, I was expecting a great fight based on the past history of both men. To be quite honest though, I didn’t expect something quite as good as what we got – which was easily the best title fight of 2018, better than both McGregor/Nurmagomedov and Whittaker/Romero.

Holloway – apparently not affected at all by the ‘concussion-like symptoms’ that ruled him out of UFC 226 – came to throw down and Ortega was more than happy to oblige. For the first two rounds the fight was all ‘Blessed’. The Hawaiian found his range and hit Ortega with some massive combinations while taking few shots himself. ‘T-City’ couldn’t get Holloway down, and for all intents and purposes, looked like he was struggling.

But clearly, he can take a shot. Despite being badly busted up, he came roaring back in the third – outlanding Holloway and hurting the champ on numerous occasions, even taking him down at one stage. He couldn’t get the finish though, and somehow, all of his offense seemed to do was awaken the real animal inside the Hawaiian.

Holloway told his corner – and Joe Rogan – that he’d finish Ortega in the 4th, and sure enough, that’s what he did. The champion landed a ludicrous 134 strikes in that round – 290 overall! – and Ortega simply had no answer. ‘T-City’ showed tremendous heart to survive, but it was clear that he was done and the doctor made the correct decision after the round to stop the fight.

It was the best Featherweight title fight since Jose Aldo’s war with Chad Mendes in October 2014 and it might just have been better than that. Holloway is still the man at 145lbs, Ortega was a great challenger who will surely be back, and this was a downright classic.

#1 Worst: Is Shevchenko the new Mighty Mouse?

Valentina Shevchenko outpointed Joanna Jedrzejczyk to capture the Flyweight title

In Saturday’s co-main event, Valentina Shevchenko defeated Joanna Jedrzejczyk to finally win the Women’s Flyweight title after seeing her previous attempt to do so canceled through no fault of her own. It was nice to see ‘Bullet’ finally holding UFC gold, but to be really frank, the fight wasn’t all that inspiring.

I’m not attempting to take anything away from Shevchenko as she did an excellent job to outpoint the dangerous Jedrzejczyk – to the point where the former Strawweight champ simply couldn’t uncork the kind of combinations she used to destroy fighters like Claudia Gadelha and Carla Esparza at 115lbs – but it’s hard to deny that ‘Bullet’ didn’t come close to hurting the challenger as much as Rose Namajunas did in her two Strawweight title fights against the Pole.

The worrying thing is – squash of the overmatched Priscila Cachoeira aside – Shevchenko’s UFC career has been full of largely forgettable point-fighting exhibitions like this. It’s not that she isn’t a great fighter – I don’t think anyone beats her at Flyweight right now – but she simply isn’t the most exciting to watch, not compared to other top female fighters like Namajunas, Jessica Andrade or Cris Cyborg.

When you add in the fact that Shevchenko isn’t the loudest personality and likely won’t talk much trash, and the UFC has hardly showcased much of the division yet, it’s a situation worryingly reminiscent of the men’s Flyweight division when Demetrious Johnson was on top. I could be way off with this, but it’s something to keep an eye on going forward.

#2 Best: The war between Manuwa and Santos

Thiago Santos might be the most exciting fighter in MMA right now

On paper, the fight between Thiago Santos and Jimi Manuwa looked like a classic war between a pair of fighters who could be considered ‘glass cannons’ – both men can hit like few others in the 205lbs division, but they’ve also shown a lot of vulnerability to big shots too. Well, the fight lived up to all the hype and would’ve easily won the Fight of the Night award had it not been for the main event.

Santos came out swinging and hurt Manuwa early, and at one point it looked like ‘Poster Boy’ wouldn’t last the first minute. The Brit hung in there though and came absolutely roaring back, hurting ‘Marreta’ and having him on the verge of going out, too. When the fight went to the second round, two things were clear – firstly that it was anyone’s fight, and secondly that it’d be a miracle if it made it to the third round.

Well, it certainly didn’t – a left uppercut-right hook-left hook combination put Manuwa down early in the round and he was clearly done. It was probably the night’s most violent finish and will go down as one of 2018’s best knockouts.

Where Manuwa goes from here is anyone’s guess as he’s now pushing 40 and has been badly hurt in his last 3 fights, but for Santos, the only way is up. He destroyed #3 ranked Anthony Smith in February, albeit at 185lbs, and it’s hard to see him not being capable of doing that again.

He’s clearly a legitimate contender at 205lbs and in such a thin division, a title fight might not be so far away. If he does get that far, I don’t think anyone could complain – he’s arguably the most exciting fighter to watch in the whole sport right now.

#2 Worst: Did Dawodu vs. Bochniak belong on a pay-per-view card?

Did Hakeem Dawodu vs. Kyle Bochniak really belong on a PPV main card?

As far as I’m aware – the system works differently in the UK for now at least – a UFC pay-per-view in the USA costs somewhere around $65 to order. That isn’t a small amount of money by anyone’s standards. If the UFC expect fans to pay that kind of money, they should provide them with the best fighters on the pay-per-view portion of the card. Which begs the question, why was Hakeem Dawodu vs. Kyle Bochniak on Saturday’s main card?

It’s not that the fight was awful – it was perfectly acceptable MMA if not a barnburner – but neither man is ranked near the top ten of the 145lbs division right now and judging on Saturday they’re not likely to be any time soon. Dawodu won a unanimous decision, but it was a largely pedestrian performance and for Bochniak, it marked his 4th loss in 6 UFC fights.

On the preliminary card meanwhile we had #14 ranked Middleweight Elias Theodorou against Eryk Anders, who recently main evented a Fight Night card; and fights between the #3 and #9 ranked female Flyweights and between the #3 and #11 Strawweights. Why could one of these fights between proven, top-ranked fighters not have been placed on the main card?

Granted, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference in terms of fight quality, but for the paying customer, surely the more ranked fighters that are on a pay-per-view card, the better. Weak fights on the pay-per-view portion of shows have become too common in 2018 and this needs to stop going forward.

#3 Best: The bloody ending to the Nelson/Oliveira fight

Gunnar Nelson finished Alex Oliveira in violent fashion

Okay, so as a disclaimer, I’m not a vampire. With that said, MMA is a sport that’s largely based around violence and so it was jaw-dropping to see the finish to the Welterweight fight between Gunnar Nelson and Alex Oliveira. It was a fascinating fight on paper and in execution, it proved to be pretty great.

Early on, it looked like Oliveira’s fight. ‘Cowboy’ gave up his back to the dangerous Icelandic grappler, but managed to escape and then found a lot of success from the top position, punishing Nelson with his ground-and-pound. But that burst of confidence proved to be his undoing.

Oliveira made the error of assuming he’d always be able to succeed on the ground with Nelson, and continued to look for takedowns – forgoing his excellent striking game. In the end though, it was ‘Gunni’ who got on top – and from there he proved his superiority by taking full mount.

Nelson was already bleeding from the nose, but he decided to return the favour with one big elbow – and suddenly, Oliveira was bleeding from the forehead like a tap. Seconds later, ‘Cowboy’ gave his back and was submitted with a rear naked choke, although it looked to me like he may have tapped due to the blood loss – which would have been completely understandable.

The bloody win should put Nelson back into contention at 170lbs, and given he showed more of an ability to come back from adversity here, it suggested that this time he could really go on a title run. Hopefully he can stay healthy this time as he’s a tremendous fighter to watch given his skills.