Preview: UFC Fight Night 230 ‘Yusuff vs. Barboza’

The Ultimate Fighting Championship does business out of the UFC Apex for the second straight week on Saturday in Las Vegas, this time with UFC Fight Night 230—a card with some surprising depth. The main event is a big spot for featherweight Sodiq Yusuff, as he looks to eschew his prospect label and become a full-blown contender with a win over longtime stalwart Edson Barboza. Meanwhile, women’s flyweight veterans try to beak back into contention in the co-headliner, which sees Jennifer Maia take on Viviane Araujo at 125 pounds. Further down the lineup, there are some interesting fights with some high-upside talents. Jonathan Martinez and Adrian Yanez seek their best wins yet in a deep bantamweight division; Andre Petroski faces Michel Pereira in a clear clash of styles at middleweight; and young guns Christian Rodriguez and Cameron Saaiman push to stay ahead of schedule at 135 pounds.

Now to the UFC Fight Night “Yusuff vs. Barboza” preview:

Featherweights

#11 FW | Sodiq Yusuff (13-2, 6-1 UFC) vs. #13 FW | Edson Barboza (23-11, 17-11 UFC)

ODDS: Yusuff (-166), Barboza (+140)

Barboza’s win over Billy Quarantillo in April was a nice reminder of what the UFC stalwart can bring to the table. Signed in 2010 as a particularly raw prospect for the UFC by the standards of the time, Barboza lived up to the hype early on with his impressively violent kicking game, rattling off four straight wins and capping things off with a knockout of Terry Etim that remains among the sport’s best highlights. However, an upset loss to Jamie Varner revealed an issue that would continue to dog Barboza for the rest of his career. Varner applied enough pressure to get Barboza moving backwards, at which point his offense became much less focused and much less effective. It still takes a high standard of fighter to take Barboza out of his game—fighters like Beneil Dariush and Dan Hooker have had the right ideas but still got knocked out for their troubles—so the Brazilian chugged along right outside of the lightweight title picture until a cut down to featherweight in 2020. That at least provided Barboza with some fresh matchups, but he has wound up in much the same place at 145 pounds: dangerous enough to take out a vast swath of featherweights but too flawed to make a charge into title contention. Barboza came into the Quarantillo fight on the heels of two straight losses and a 13-month layoff that was the longest of his career, giving him possibly the least amount of profile during his UFC career. Add in that Quarantillo’s relentless pressure seemed tailor-made to make Barboza look his worst, and it was a crucial comeback fight for the Brazilian. Barboza came through with an absolutely electric knockout, timing a Quarantillo takedown with a brutal knee to end the fight in roughly two and a half minutes. With that, Barboza is back to his deserved level of appreciation and back in a main event slot, taking on Yusuff in a banger of a bout.

Yusuff’s contract-earning win over Mike Davis was one of the highlights of the 2018 edition of Dana White’s Contender Series and led to some high hopes for the Nigerian-American. He lived up to every part of that billing through his first few UFC bouts, leaning on a powerful pressure striking game that allowed him to march down opponents and win exchanges, including scoring a few impressive knockouts. However, a 2021 loss to Arnold Allen has felt like a crucial point in Yusuff’s narrative. Both prospects came into the fight looking to answer a bunch of questions, and it was Allen who addressed them in the positive, making Yusuff look one-dimensional and a step behind a fighter with a more concrete game plan. In turn, that has raised the issue that Yusuff has not evolved much since his UFC debut. It is impressive that he came into the UFC essentially as a ready-made Top 15 featherweight, but it would be nice to see some new wrinkles that could get him over the hump to true contender status. His 2022 campaign saw Yusuff put in a workmanlike win over Alex Caceres and then run through late-notice replacement Don Shainis, neither of which did much to change his stock until this long-awaited first fight of 2023 against Barboza. This essentially comes down to Yusuff’s ability to adapt and leverage his tools into a more opponent-specific strategy. He might still have the punching power to get things done, but his typical approach does not look to be enough to get Barboza moving backwards enough to take him fully out of his game. Barboza is the more trustworthy bet, though a Yusuff victory would be a nice reason for optimism going forward. The pick is Barboza via decision.

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Yusuff vs. Barboza
Maia vs. Araujo
Martinez vs. Yanez
Pereira vs. Petroski
Chairez vs. da Silva
Rodriguez vs. Saaiman
The Prelims