Matches to Make After UFC Fight Night 207

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Alexander Volkov needed less than half a round to serve up a reminder that he is one of the most dominant heavyweights in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

For about two minutes, not much happened in the main event between “Drago” and Jairzinho Rozenstruik, as the two big men appeared quite wary of one another’s power. Then a whole lot started to happen all at once. Both men flurried, and Volkov took a flush right hand from “Bigi Boy” of the kind that has flattened more than one UFC heavyweight. The towering Russian shrugged it off, however, and responded with a series of punches that knocked out his foe’s mouthpiece and left him reeling against the fence, spurring referee Herb Dean into action for a standing stoppage. Rozenstruik immediately protested, but the fight goes down on the record books as a first-round TKO nonetheless.

The quick win gets Volkov back on track after his lopsided loss to Tom Aspinall in March, but leaves the question of what to do with him now. Fifteen fights into his UFC run, he has still only lost to title challengers in Derrick Lewis, Curtis Blaydes and Ciryl Gane, and one in Aspinall who has all the appearance of a possible future champ. Everyone else who has stepped into the cage with Volkov, even Top 10 fighters, has been turned away, usually without breaking much of a sweat. In the wake of “UFC Vegas 56,” here are some matchups that ought to be made for Volkov and the other main card winners.

Alexander Volkov vs. Alexander Romanov

I swear, this isn’t just to find out how badly we can trip up the UFC’s announcers’ table. As mentioned previously, Volkov’s problem is that he has already fought so many of the Top 15 heavyweights in the UFC. Specifically, his problem is that he has already fought, and lost to, almost everyone ahead of him aside from the champ, so it is especially difficult to figure out how to book him off a win. Sergei Pavlovich faces Lewis next month, and if he wins, might make a suitable next opponent for Volkov. The same could be said for Tai Tuivasa, if he gets past Gane in September, but in both cases that requires waiting and hoping for a non-familiar face to emerge victorious from a future matchup. Romanov, who ran his undefeated record to 16-0 with an easy tapout of Chase Sherman in April, has won his first five UFC bouts, but has yet to face anyone remotely close to the rankings. He has earned a shot at a big name, while Volkov needs to take a couple of lateral steps if he wishes to position himself as a contender again.

Movsar Evloev vs. Arnold Allen

Evloev put on the best performance of his career to date in the co-main event, dominating Dan Ige everywhere on the way to a unanimous decision win that included one 30-26 scorecard. The 28-year-old was expected to have the wrestling advantage, which he did, but he also got the better of the striking exchanges with the hard-hitting Hawaiian. Now 6-0 in the UFC, 16-0 overall, the young man from Ingushetia has officially crossed over from prospect to contender, and has earned a contenders’ fight going forward. In his postfight interview, he called out fellow undefeated featherweight Arnold Allen, memorably referring to him as “bulls**t guy.” I’m not normally one for letting two undefeated fighters meet unless the fight has immediate title implications, but featherweight is such a deep division, with a logjam at the top right now, that we might as well. Let those two sort it out, and the winner might be ready for a Volkanovski, Holloway or Ortega-level test next.

Lucas Almeida vs. Seung Woo Choi-Joshua Culibao Winner

It was slightly odd that the UFC Fight Night 207 main card featured three debuting fighters in six fights, and Almeida’s inclusion was as puzzling as any. He made the most of the spotlight, however, knocking out Michael Trizano in the third round of a back-and-forth war and netting a “Fight of the Night” bonus. The performance wasn’t exactly flawless — Almeida was knocked down and nearly finished at the end of the first round — but was plenty exciting. In the hyper-competitive featherweight division, he should now face a fellow action fighter coming off a win. Choi vs. Culibao, which is scheduled for UFC 275 next weekend in Singapore, should yield exactly that.

Karine Silva vs. Priscila Cachoeira

There was plenty to like in Silva’s Octagon debut on Saturday: overpowering physicality, excellent finishing instincts and above all, seamless transition between the different phases of MMA. In one smooth sequence, Silva cracked Poliana Botelho with a right hand that probably would have knocked her down anyway, but followed through with a double-leg takedown that initiated the ground sequence that would end seconds later with just the second brabo choke submission in divisional history. The performance was reminiscent of the best of Maycee Barber’s early career, even if Silva pulled it off on an opponent in Botelho who has now lost four of five. In a flyweight division desperate for new challengers for Valentina Shevchenko, the temptation will be to push a prospect like Silva, but there are fortunately several young up-and-comers ahead of her including Casey O’Neill and Erin Blanchfield, who won on the UFC Vegas 56 undercard. Silva just needs a fight with a solid roster fighter coming off a win, and Cachoeira, who took a unanimous decision over Ji Yeon Kim in February, fits that description.

Ode Osbourne vs. Jeff Molina

“The Jamaican Sensation” is becoming a whole lot of fun to watch, and a person to watch, period, in the men’s flyweight division. The 30-year-old needed just 61 seconds to level Zarrukh Adashev, then knock him out cold with follow-up ground punches, good enough for a $50,000 “Performance of the Night” bonus. Osbourne is now 2-1 at flyweight in the UFC — 2-0, technically, since Manel Kape missed weight for their fight — and looks like a rising contender. He chose to call out Molina, who had defeated Zhalgas Zhumagulov by contentious split decision on the prelims earlier that evening. While the judges’ scorecards were iffy — especially that 30-27 — Molina has now won three straight since graduating from Dana White's Contender Series and is an intriguing rising prospect in much the same way as Osbourne. I’m always a fan of sensible, realistic callouts, and this was one. Give the man what he asked for.

Alonzo Menifield vs. Tafon Nchukwi-Carlos Ulberg winner

“Atomic Alonzo” is my personal MVP of UFC Fight Night 207, piling one more “L” onto the record of Askar Mozharov, a guy who had already taken six losses in the last two weeks. Menifield calmly slipped a couple of haymakers from the dangerous Mozharov, took him down repeatedly and finished things late in the first round with a stream of unblocked elbows from a near-crucifix position. The victory is Menfield’s eighth in the UFC and leaves him 3-1 since the beginning of last year, with the only loss coming in a weirdly flat performance against William Knight last December. Menifield frequently seems on the cusp of breaking through at 205 pounds, and while splattering an overmatched fraud like Mozharov didn’t teach us much, he has at least earned the right to try and keep the momentum going against another fighter in a similar situation. Dustin Jacoby and Da Un Jung meet up next month, but the winner of that fight will probably be ranked and off to bigger things. Nchukwi and Ulberg, who square off in three weeks at the Apex, are more in line with Menifield’s position in the division right now. Not to mention, if Ulberg is the winner, Menifield could become the first fighter in MMA history — probably; I haven’t exactly researched this — to have back-to-back opponents with black jaguar nicknames.