Friday and Saturday, fight fans will get their fill of MMA as the sport’s three biggest promotions are in action.
The PFL kicks off Friday (4:30 p.m. ET on ESPN/ESPN+) in Salt Lake City, Utah, with the lightweight and light heavyweights continuing their regular season. Saturday afternoon, UFC Fight Night begins in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (noon ET on ESPN/ABC), with a main event between former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker and Ikram Aliskerov. Also in the afternoon, Bellator’s Champions Series (noon on HBO Max) lands in Dublin, Ireland, as Jason Jackson prepares to defend his welterweight title against Ramazan Kuramagomedov.
With 35 fights spread across three maps, there’s intrigue and curiosity everywhere. Andreas Hale, Brett Okamoto and Jeff Wagenheim focused on which storylines to focus on during a busy fight weekend.
How good is Ikram Aliskerov?
Vigorous: Aliskerov will have the opportunity to move up the middleweight rankings as he steps up to face Robert Whittaker on short notice after the only man he has ever lost to, Khamzat Chimaev, was forced out of the fight due to being “violently ill” according to the UFC. President Dana White. There’s not much to know about the Russian aside from his two UFC victories via first-round stoppage over Phil Hawes and Warlley Alves. Whittaker is on top of Hawes and Alves, and it could be that Aliskerov is simply biting off more than he can chew with little time to prepare.
But what if he wasn’t? What if Aliskerov beats the former middleweight champion in Saudi Arabia? It would be one of the biggest advancements in UFC history when a fighter on the rise beat the UFC’s third-ranked middleweight. He would likely immediately find himself in pole position for a title opportunity after only his third UFC fight. At worst, he would face Sean Strickland in a title eliminator match.
If Aliskerov fails, he could still climb the rankings if it is a competitive fight. Aliskerov really has nothing to lose and everything to gain on Saturday night. And in a division that could definitely use some new blood for the title, the Dagestani sambo fighter could shake up the 185-pound division in a major way.
Jason Jackson seeking recognition for Bellator title defense
Wagenheim: If you’re a mixed martial artist competing in a cage that doesn’t have eight sides, you’re fighting an uphill battle. The UFC is the big show, giving its athletes a head start in their quest for stardom. Fighters in Bellator, PFL and other second-tier promotions often play only small roles until they put on performances that make them impossible to ignore.
Jackson did some of that. The Bellator welterweight champion will enter Saturday’s main event in Dublin on an eight-fight winning streak, including wins over Benson Henderson and Douglas Lima, both former champions. But Jackson’s most impressive outing during this run of success was the dethroning of Yaroslav Amosov in November, who entered the title fight at 27-0.
Jackson’s opponent this weekend is also undefeated. However, Ramazan Kuramagomedov (12-0) does not have the public profile or fight experience of Amosov and has never faced an opponent of Jackson’s caliber. This fight therefore represents a necessary testing ground for the Dagestani challenger, while simultaneously putting Jackson in position to claim another perfect record in his second title defense. Who will put sport on notice?
Is Sergei Pavlovich the 2024 version of Shane Carwin?
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Sergei Pavlovich makes quick work of Tai Tuivasa
Sergei Pavlovich needs less than 60 seconds to finish Tai Tuivasa in front of a disappointed Orlando crowd.
Vigorous: Do you remember Carwin? The heavyweight with lunch boxes for hands who obliterated everyone in front of him in a single round before losing to Brock Lesnar for the UFC heavyweight championship in 2010? And when Carwin finally lost for the first time in 13 MMA fights, we would only see him again once, in a losing effort against Junior dos Santos, before injuries derailed his career and sent him to the retirement.
Pavlovich’s career story bears an uncanny resemblance to Carwin’s. Besides his knockout loss to Alistair Overeem, Pavlovich had crushed opposition and scored six straight first-round knockouts in the UFC before being toppled by Tom Aspinall for the interim heavyweight title in November. He faces the rugged Alexander Volkov in the UFC’s co-main event in Saudi Arabia and will need to win in impressive fashion if he wants to stay in the title race. This isn’t a given, given that Volkov combines efficient striking with an underrated ground game.
If Pavlovich wins, he will find himself back in the thick of things, and Aspinall’s defeat could be just a blip on the radar. But what if he loses? One can’t help but wonder if he’ll end up like Carwin, who is remembered as a breathtakingly wild artist who saw the wheels come off his once-promising career in a surprisingly rapid manner.
How much will a first-round knockout affect PFL light heavyweight matchups?
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Impa Kasanganay dominates with TKO in the 1st round
Impa Kasnganay gains six points in the PFL Light Heavyweight standings with a quick victory over Alex Polizzi.
Okamoto: If there were to be a case study in the impact of the PFL’s regular season format on fighters’ strategy, it would be this week.
The 205-pound rankings couldn’t be more lopsided. Five athletes (Rob Wilkinson, Josh Silveira, Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov, Impa Kasanganay and Antonio Carlos Jr.) all finished the opening round two months ago with the maximum six points. The other five, of course, walked away with zero. If any of these final five hope to make the playoffs, they need to finish in the first round to have a chance. And at least one of the fighters who already have six points will be on the outside looking in.
How aggressive will these first rounds be? Will any of the five who already have six points choose to play relatively cautiously? This scenario is only viewable in PFL format, and honestly I can’t say for sure exactly how it will play out. Of course, every fighter in every fight is looking to finish at all times, but knowing that it has to happen in the first round is unique.
Khamzat Chimaev is the absentee we will miss the most
Wagenheim: Much attention has been paid to Conor McGregor’s withdrawal from UFC 303, and for good reason.
He is by far the biggest star MMA has ever seen. However, another absence announced around the same time will constitute a greater loss to the sport in a competitive sense. Chimaev’s withdrawal from Saturday’s main event is just the latest in a series of setbacks for the 30-year-old Chechen, blocking what once seemed destined to be an unhindered rise to the top. Chimaev came into the UFC in 2020 like a tornado, destroying everything in his path. In his first two fights, both completed, he built an 83-1 lead on significant strikes. He didn’t add much to that total in his third outing, as he scored a knockout in 17 seconds.
But Chimaev has only competed four times since 2020, with injuries, illness and visa issues slowing his journey. When facing increasingly tough opposition, Chimaev was no longer as dominant as he had once been. But he nonetheless won every fight, raising his record to 13-0 with October’s majority decision in a middleweight bout with former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman. This scheduled meeting with Whittaker, a former middleweight titlist, could have prepared Chimaev for a long-awaited title shot. But now his future is back where it has been in recent years: uncertain.
Keeping tabs on the UFC’s relationship with Saudi Arabia
Okamoto: Anyone who follows combat sports – and entertainment in general – knows what a disruptor and influencer Saudi Arabia has become in recent years. The UFC has arrived relatively late to the party, as the region has already taken a stranglehold on top-tier heavyweight boxing, with rumors that it plans to widely expand its reach in the near future. The PFL signed deals with Saudi Arabia and held its flagship PFL vs. Bellator MMA Champs event at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh in February. There is already a PFL MENA league that focuses on talent from the Middle East. This division debuted in Riyadh in May. It was only a matter of time before the UFC got involved in the Saudi investment.
This will be the UFC’s first event in the country, and Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Season has already agreed to sponsor the historic UFC event at the Sphere in Las Vegas in September. Saudi Arabia is currently a potential partner for any fight promoter, and the scale of any future deal between it and the UFC could have drastic effects on the combat sports calendar and certain fight placements.