Welterweights
#6 WW | Vicente Luque (21-8-1, 14-4 UFC) vs. #13 WW | Geoff Neal (14-4, 6-2 UFC)This is a solid opportunity for Luque to regain some momentum, thanks to his chances for a win and the near-guaranteed potential for some violence. Luque was somewhat of an afterthought coming off his 2015 season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” owing mostly to a mediocre regional record. However, it turned out that “The Silent Assassin” was getting his lumps out of the way, as he quickly marched through the division in impressive fashion; not only was Luque racking up win over win, but he was constantly stringing together finishes and making a name for himself as one of the sport’s most reliably action fighters. There has been the occasional loss—a 2017 defeat to Leon Edwards aged quite well, and 2019 saw Luque run into one of Stephen Thompson’s last great performances—but he continues to rebound with impressive finishes and “Fight of the Year” contenders thanks to his all-offense approach. Luque is content to just march straight ahead and win a war of attrition, requiring opponents to outmaneuver him or suddenly go toe-to-toe with a woodchipper. Victories over Niko Price and Mike Perry in recent years have established Luque as basically indestructible, and a first-round submission of Michael Chiesa was another reminder of his considerable grappling skill, which made it all the more impressive when Belal Muhammad was able to beat him in a headlining rematch in April. Luque had actually scored a knockout of the former Titan Fighting Championship titleholder in 2016, but their second encounter saw Muhammad masterfully mix an evasive striking game with some control-heavy wrestling, threading a needle of constant danger to put together a 25-minute win. It is a loss that closes Luque’s championship window for now, but it will be interesting to see if he can find his way back in the mix. Luque is still somehow only 30 years old, but there is some new blood rising at welterweight and years of difficult wars should theoretically catch up to him at some point, even if he has looked no worse for wear thus far. The bounce-back campaign starts with this fight against Neal.
Neal’s path through the welterweight ranks has been surprisingly similar, even if “Handz of Steel” has not kept up Luque’s torrid pace. After an impressive start to his UFC career in 2018, it was a 2019 win over Muhammad that set Neal up for a breakout year. While that was more of a tactical battle over three rounds, Neal wrapped up the year with knockout wins over Price and Perry that established his credentials more as a bringer of all-out violence. However, for as fruitful as 2019 was, 2020 was essentially a lost year for Neal, first due to his inability to find a ranked opponent and then due to a life-threatening infection suffered over the summer. Amazingly, Neal made it back to the cage by the end of the year but found himself—much like Luque—looking one-dimensional in a clear loss against Thompson. Things did not get much better in Neal’s subsequent loss to Neil Magny, a clinch-heavy affair that was also marked by his low output. However, Neal did finally look a bit better against Santiago Ponzinibbio, even if the worry is that those medical issues have taken away what seemed like his truly elite upside. Neal might have more options as far as strategizing around Luque goes, but at its core, this seems to be a fight where these two are just going to crash into each other violently and things will sort themselves out. At the moment, Luque looks like the much more effective and dangerous fighter if this winds up where he is most comfortable. This should be fun. The pick is Luque via decision.
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Santos vs. Hill
Luque vs. Neal
Pauga vs. Usman
Miller vs. Walker
Spivak vs. Sakai
Lipski vs. Cachoeira
The Prelims