For a man who goes by the handle of “Sweet Dreams,” Jamahal Hill sure delivers some nightmarish knockouts.
On Saturday night, in the main event of UFC Fight Night 201 at the UFC Apex, the 30-year-old Michigan native got the best of a wild back-and-forth three minutes, leveling Johnny Walker with a massive overhand right. Walker was separated from his senses instantly, his legs stiff as he fell to the canvas, hitting his head on the base of the cage on his way down. Hill tacked on a single follow-up strike before referee Jason Herzog could interpose himself, putting a stamp on one of the nastiest knockouts in the UFC so far this year.
With his second straight first-round knockout since dislocating his elbow badly in a loss to Paul Craig at UFC 263 last June, Hill is once again knocking on the door of the light heavyweight Top 10. Better yet, while his 48-second plunking of Jimmy Crute in December did not provide much fodder for MMA tapeheads, Hill’s win on Saturday required him to withstand several of Walker’s frighteningly powerful kicks, which he took on the arm he had injured in the Craig fight, without apparent ill effect. Hill continues to display impressive poise and confidence for a veteran of just 12 professional MMA bouts, and appears ready to face a real contender.
In the wake of “UFC Vegas 48,” here are some matches that ought to be made for Hill and the other main card winners.
Jamahal Hill vs. Anthony Smith
With solid wins over Ovince St. Preux and now Walker under his belt, Hill has earned a significant step up in competition for his next fight. “Lionheart,” meanwhile, is in a bit of a holding pattern. His current three-fight win streak proves that he’s far from done as a contender, and he has only lost to the best of the best at 205 pounds, but for as long as Glover Teixeira remains champ, Smith will have a hard time making it back to a title shot. That roadblock may clear up when Teixeira faces Jiri Prochazka in May, but in the meanwhile he would provide a fantastic foil for Hill: a veteran striker with finishing ability at a variety of ranges, with top-shelf toughness — just ask Teixeira — and more than enough chops on the mat to test whether Hill’s loss to Craig was a freak occurrence, or an indication of a serious hole in his game.Kyle Daukaus vs. Gregory Rodrigues-Armen Petrosyan winner
Daukaus made the most of a difficult situation on Saturday, as he took on late replacement Jamie Pickett in a 195-pound catchweight fight. Faced with a foe in Pickett who had fought just a month ago, all the pressure was on Daukaus to deliver, and he did, tapping out “The Nightwolf” with a buzzer-beating brabo choke as the first round expired. The submission, his fifth by that method, earned “The D’Arce Knight” a new nickname, but more importantly, the dominant performance got the Philadelphia native back in the win column. Considering it was Daukaus’ first win in over a year, there is no reason to rush the 28-year-old into a ranked contenders’ fight. Instead, a matchup with a fellow rising prospect would be appropriate. Rodrigues and Petrosyan square off next weekend at “UFC Vegas 49,” and the winner would make an outstanding next opponent for Daukaus.Parker Porter vs. Sergey Spivak-Greg Hardy winner
Don’t look now, but Porter is on a three-fight win streak in the UFC heavyweight division. Since losing his debut to Chris Daukaus in August of 2020 by first-round TKO, the 36-year-old Connecticut native has rattled off three straight victories over Josh Parisian, Chase Sherman and Alan Baudot, whom he defeated by unanimous decision in their main card feature bout on Saturday. Those particulars are deceptive, however; the loss has aged well as Daukaus slugged his way into the Top 10, while the wins came against fighters whose combined Octagon record is a dismal 4-12 with one no contest. Nonetheless, Porter has proven that he belongs and then some, and has earned the chance to face a foe who can say the same. Spivak, who has hung around the fringes of the Top 15 for the last several years, and Hardy, who continues to show just enough signs of improvement that the UFC has seen fit to keep him on roster despite his high price tag and reprehensible past, meet next month at UFC 272. Let the winner welcome Porter to the division’s next tier.Jim Miller vs. Matt Frevola
Miller continued his unlikely late-career resurgence on Saturday, outstriking Nikolas Motta for a round and change before burying him under a hail of punches midway through the second. With the win, the 38-year-old New Jersey native moved back into a tie with Donald Cerrone for the most wins in UFC history, and notched back-to-back knockouts for the first time in his 51-fight career. It’s one hell of a feel-good story, and “A-10” is clearly enjoying the ride even as he voices his goal of competing at UFC 100, 200 and 300.UFC 300 is on pace to happen about two years from now, which is not out of the realm of possibility, but what to do with the man in the meantime? The last time Miller faced actual ranked contenders was over three years ago, and the results against Dan Hooker and Charles Oliveira were predictably ugly. Yet Miller has now proven twice in a row that he is too tall an order for debuting prospects, no matter how good they might have looked on Dana White's Contender Series. The answer is a middle road: winnable matchups against unranked veterans coming off of wins, which is an easy order in the UFC’s largest division. Frevola, who steamrolled Genaro Valdez at UFC 270 last month, would make for a reasonable test and a fun fight.
Joaquin Buckley vs. Julian Marquez
“New Mansa” came out on top in the main card opener, prevailing over Abdul Razak Alhassan via hard-fought split decision, but while a win is a win, the fight raised more questions than it answered. The bout’s placement in the card order was due to Buckley and Alhassan’s collective 100% knockout rate in their UFC wins, but the expected fireworks fizzled into a grueling three-round contest that left both men lying on their backs at the final horn, sucking wind. Worse, Alhassan appeared to be the fresher man in the third round, and for the first time in his UFC run, he lived up to his “Judo Thunder” nickname by grounding Buckley several times.Marquez had actually been scheduled to face Daukaus in the co-main event before being forced out with an injury and replaced by Pickett, but that matchup never made much sense to begin with, considering Marquez's two-fight win streak and Daukaus' corresponding winless streak. Assuming he is ready to go in three months or so, “The Cuban Missile Crisis” would be a better next opponent for Buckley. The grit and cardio that allowed Marquez to snatch a come-from-behind submission win over Maki Pitolo last year might give Buckley a chance to prove that Saturday’s performance was a fluke. The matchup would also have an instant built-in narrative, in light of the public and mutual enmity between Buckley and Marquez’s coach, James Krause. In an era where mid-card UFC matchups often struggle to stand out from the noise, the promotion would be silly not to book this one.