Matches to Make After UFC on ESPN 39

It wasn’t without adversity, but Rafael Fiziev confirmed that he is now a Top 10 lightweight and, perhaps in the near future, a title contender.

In the main event of UFC on ESPN 39 on Saturday at the Apex in Las Vegas, “Ataman” faced the sternest test of his career to date in former champ Rafael dos Anjos. The main questions hanging over the 29-year-old kickboxer heading into “UFC Vegas 58” seemed well on their way to being answered. Fiziev’s takedown defense, which had been impregnable on a near-record setting level over the course of his first seven Octagon wins, held up admirably for most of the fight against one of the division’s strongest wrestlers and top-position grapplers. His lack of experience in five-round fights appeared to tell on him, however, when he came out for the fourth round looking exhausted, letting “RDA” get through with several clean strikes and a resounding slam takedown.

Going into the final round, Dos Anjos had the momentum—and the invaluable experience of 10 previous main events—while Fiziev had a clear three rounds in the bank. It was time to learn something about one or both men, and we certainly did. Nobody appears to have given Fiziev a copy of any script about simply holding on and not getting finished, because he promptly launched a flying knee that did not land, followed by a left hook that did, leveling the Brazilian. A few standing-to-ground coffin nails later, it was all over, a shocking knockout at just 18 seconds of Round 5.

The question about Fiziev as a contender is no longer whether, but when. In a lightweight division suddenly full of new faces at the top, he will need at least another win or two, but as the only true specialist striker among those new faces, his penchant for dramatic highlight-reel moments might give him a sneaky chance to jump the line. In the wake of “UFC Vegas 58,” here are some matchups that ought to be made for Fiziev and some other notable winners.

Rafael Fiziev vs. Justin Gaethje

Like a Polaroid photo or a recently shaken snow globe—are any of you reading this even old enough to have seen either of those things?—the UFC lightweight ladder is finally beginning to clear up somewhat. Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev should fight for Oliveira’s vacated belt sometime this year. Beneil Dariush should probably be the next up for the winner. Then there are two pools of contenders milling around: those who have already had one or more title shots; and the previously mentioned new faces. The first group includes Gaethje, Michael Chandler and Dustin Poirier, while the second contains the likes of Fiziev, Mateusz Gamrot, Damir Ismagulov, Arman Tsarukyan and Jalin Turner. Gaethje, Chandler and Poirier all face an especially hard road back to the top if “Do Bronx” regains his belt, but even if the “Makhachev era” starts in 2022, the best move is to make pairings across the two groups, rather than keep smashing the new guys into each other. If Fiziev’s defensive wrestling had not been so stout on Saturday, Chandler would be the pick here, and if we’re being realistic, Poirier’s next fight will probably be about cash as much as contendership. Fiziev vs. Gaethje it is, make it a Fight Night main event so that we get five rounds, and pencil that sucker in for all of the awards.

Caio Borralho vs. Dricus Du Plessis

Borralho manhandled Armen Petrosyan in Saturday’s co-main event, repeatedly grounding and controlling the dynamic striker for most of a dull, but dominant 15 minutes. After a couple of years of stagnation in the post-Anderson Silva, Chris Weidman, Luke Rockhold era, there is finally a crop of new rising contenders in the UFC middleweight division: Borralho, Andre Muniz, Gregory Rodrigues and Chris Curtis, just to name a few. They aren’t ready yet, which is why divisional kingpin Israel Adesanya has spent the last two years keeping busy with rematches, excursions to light heavyweight and now, a gimmick fight against a former kickboxing nemesis that I support unabashedly. Normally, in a situation like this, I would advocate for keeping those up-and-comers away from each other whenever possible, while using existing contenders to test them; Curtis’ short-notice matchup against Jack Hermansson later this month is a perfect example. However, if one of my rules of thumb is “Don’t bust up your prospects against each other until you have to,” an even stronger one is “When a fighter makes a callout that’s reasonable and sounds like a good scrap, book it.” Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard usually favor that rule as well—hence the UFC’s sometimes embarrassingly desperate requests for winning fighters to have a name in mind. Even though Borralho and Du Plessis are both unbeaten in the Octagon so far, don’t be surprised if they square off in a few months, with a spot in the middleweight Top 10 on the line. Should be a good one.

Said Nurmagomedov vs. Rob Font

In a high-stakes bantamweight tilt, Nurmagomedov got past Douglas Silva de Andrade, keeping the bricked-up Brazilian at range, and himself upright, often enough to take at least two rounds on all three judges’ scorecards. It’s possible to nitpick the details of his win—Nurmagomedov spent considerable time looking to line up highlight-reel strikes in a way that would have cost him dearly against most of the fighters above him in the rankings—but it was a clear-cut win over a very tough veteran in “D’Silva” who had been on a nice run. It isn’t a great time to be a bantamweight on the rise in the UFC; the top of the division is absolutely jammed with great fighters, and most of them are currently booked against one another. I’m normally not big on seeing winners booked against losers, much less fighters on winning streaks against ones coming off multiple losses, but Nurmagomedov vs. Font makes sense. Font sniped his way agonizingly close to a title shot, but has come up short in consecutive bouts against the best of the best and needs a step back. Snapping Nurmagomedov’s three-fight tear would be a worthwhile feather in his cap, while he represents the kind of undeniable Top 10 matchup that Nurmagomedov has earned. It would also test whether Nurmagomedov’s “Dagestani who can wrestle, but prefers to strike” ethic can hold up against one of the best boxers in the division.

Chase Sherman vs. Josh Parisian

The UFC’s enthusiasm for booking unranked heavyweights on its main cards is a well-established phenomenon, and whether it stems from the hope that a knockout ensues, or a weird early-2000s belief that fight fans love heavyweight action regardless of quality, it leads to the most difficult part of writing this column: What’s next for this week's version of the "fighter who is 2-2 since coming out of Dana White's Contender Series, mostly against other Contender Series alums?"

Sherman is a whole other question, as he entered his fight against Jared Vanderaa an unthinkable 3-9 across two stints with the promotion, which meant that not only was he on the bottom shelf of UFC heavyweights, but also had already fought many of the other men on that shelf. Nonetheless, he did win on Saturday, surviving some early adversity against Vanderaa before pulling ahead in the second round and pelting him into oblivion in the third. The massive Californian wilting against the fence under that onslaught is a moment for the highlight reel, and Sherman has earned the right to author another. Parisian plunked Alan Baudot two weeks ago in the same building, same cage and an eerily similar performance. Let these two duke it out—yes, probably on a Fight Night main card—and let the winner continue quietly to rise up the ranks.