Adesanya won a hard-fought unanimous decision over Whittaker in the main event of UFC 271, reaffirming his dominance over the middleweight division and his place as one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world. The 32-year-old champ already knows his presumptive next title challenger, as the UFC booked a high-level contenders’ match two fights earlier. However, there were three other winners on Saturday’s main card, and all of them need a next opponent. In the wake of UFC 271, here are some matches that ought to be made:
Israel Adesanya vs. Jared Cannonier
Adesanya’s second go-round with Robert Whittaker was a much closer affair than the first, but in the end “The Last Stylebender” did more than enough to have his hand raised and hear “and still” for the fourth time. Where their first meeting had been a one-sided shellacking that ended in a second-round knockout, this time Whittaker not only made it through all five rounds, but also won at least one of them on all three judges’ scorecards. Whittaker struck for numerous takedowns and took Adesanya’s back on more than one occasion, but the champ was able to return to his feet in fairly short order each time. Coming into Saturday’s main event, the second in a row that was a rematch, Adesanya faced the possibility that his next would be yet another do-over, until Cannonier took care of that problem for him halfway through the main card.
Both Cannonier and his foe on Saturday, Derek Brunson, downplayed the notion that theirs was a striker-versus-grappler matchup, but once the cage door closed, that is pretty much how it played out. The story of the first round was Brunson’s ground game, as he secured the takedown with relative ease, advanced position, landed some decent ground strikes and had a tight rear-naked choke locked up when the horn sounded. The second round appeared to pick right back up where the first left off, as Brunson elevated Cannonier for an early slam, but a pair of standing elbow strikes from Cannonier turned everything around in an instant. Cannonier swarmed all over his dazed foe, following him to the ground and launching a series of vicious elbows that had Brunson’s corner throwing the towel in even as referee Kerry Hatley dove in for the stoppage. With the win, Cannonier is 5-1 since dropping to middleweight, with the lone loss coming against Whittaker.
Tai Tuivasa vs. Alexander Volkov-Tom Aspinall winner
“Bam Bam” notched by far the biggest win of his career, face-planting Derrick Lewis in the second round of Saturday’s co-main event. For as long as it lasted, Tuivasa and Lewis gave exactly the kind of wild slugfest most of us expected, with the sole surprise being Lewis scoring a rare takedown. Momentum seemed to be very much in favor of “The Black Beast,” who had Tuivasa in all kinds of trouble in both the first and the second round, but in his zeal for the finish, Lewis left the door open. Tuivasa hurt Lewis with punches, then put his lights out with a short, level elbow strike that left the hometown favorite prone and motionless on the canvas for several seconds. Between scoring the huge win and flexing his effortless star power by winning over the hostile Houston crowd, Tuivasa on Saturday graduated from fun action fighter to true heavyweight contender.
The question of what’s next for the affable Aussie is an interesting one. With five straight knockout wins, culminating in a Top 5 fighter in Lewis, it’s unreasonable to ask him to take much of a step back, and frankly a matchup with recently dethroned interim champ Ciryl Gane would not be too much of a reach. However, there’s no need to rush. Aspinall, a fellow young gun, takes on perennial Top 10 contender Volkov at the UFC’s London card on March 19. The winner would be an ideal next foil for Tuivasa.
Renato Carneiro vs. Bobby Green
For the second fight in a row, “King” showed the best of what he has to offer in the Octagon, soundly outboxing Nasrat Haqparast for three rounds in the main card opener. Haqparast never got comfortable on the feet and was reduced to lunging with big single punches — some of which did land, to be fair — while Green calmly slipped and countered. By the end, Haqparast was bloodied and visibly frustrated, and a minute later, Green was the owner of a nice matching set of 30-27 scorecards. Now 35, Green remains as simultaneously impressive and occasionally frustrating as ever, but he is nonetheless 5-2 in the last two years, with the only losses coming in competitive decisions against Top 10 fighters Thiago Moises and Rafael Fiziev. The rest, including borderline contenders Al Iaquinta and now Haqparast, he has handled in style. Next up for Green should be a ranked fighter coming off a win, and as it happens, there was one in action about 10 minutes after he left the arena.
Carneiro was promoted to the main card after his opponent, Alexander Hernandez, raised a fuss about the placement of their fight, and made the best of the spotlight. “Moicano” held his own in a back-and-forth first round before clipping Hernandez with punches in the second, then shoving him to the floor. From there, the outcome was all but assured, as the decorated grappler quickly moved to the back, secured a body triangle, slapped on a rear-naked choke and squeezed for the tap. The finish makes the 32-year-old Brazilian 3-1 since moving up to lightweight in 2019, with the only setback coming against Fiziev. That record would normally not be anything to write home about in the ridiculously deep lightweight division, but as a former contender at featherweight, “Moicano” has a bit of an inside track. Let these two surging veterans duke it out — and one of them earn a crucial win.