UFC Vegas 115 is prove-it time for some of the Octagon’s most
intriguing up-and-comers.
While this weekend’s eight-bout undercard is a grab bag of veterans
on losing streaks and former prospects who have failed to pan out
at the UFC level, the main card has a definite theme to it. From
the Renato
Carneiro–Chris
Duncan main event on down, all five matchups feature a rising
youngster against a more established prospect or contender. In
every case, the newer fighter is the betting favorite, including a
couple of the widest lines you’re likely to see all year in the
UFC. Fair or not, those expectations will weigh on these rising
talents as they make the walk on Saturday at the Meta Apex.
Here is the preview for the main card of UFC Fight Night 272, also
known as UFC Vegas 115:
Lightweights
Renato
Carneiro vs. Chris
Duncan
BETTING ODDS: Duncan (-190); Carneiro (+160)
Carneiro (20-7-1; 12-7 UFC) looks to snap his first losing streak
this decade, and preserve any last vestiges of contender status,
against the red-hot Duncan in the UFC Vegas 115 main event. The
surprising thing is that he made it into the title picture in the
first place; “Moicano” seemed to have settled into a groove as a
reliably entertaining and dangerous fringe contender up until a
year or two ago, when he rattled off four straight wins to earn a
short-notice shot at the lightweight belt. That matchup, against
Islam
Makhachev at UFC 311 last January, did not go Moicano’s way, to
say the least, and when he followed it up with another setback
against Beneil
Dariush, that contender run began to look more and more like a
flash in the pan.
While some of Moicano’s title shot was down to being the right guy
at the right time when the UFC needed a title challenger, the win
streak that got him there did represent the best run of his career.
He beat four solid lightweights in a row, three of them by
authoritative finish, including his first two TKOs from strikes. In
many ways, Carneiro has always been, and continues to be, a poor
man’s Charles
Oliveira. Both are long-limbed, deceptively strong lightweights
who probably wasted too much time early in their careers killing
themselves to make featherweight. Both men are much better strikers
than their records indicate and more effective offensive wrestlers
than their lanky frames might lead you to expect.
And, of course, “Moicano,” like “do Bronxs,” is a terrifying
opponent on the mat, where he combines underratedly nasty
ground-and-pound with diverse, opportunistic jiu-jitsu. He can be
effective from guard, but like 99% of fighters in the modern era,
he does his best work from top position. That has proved to be
Moicano’s undoing at the top level, as his last three losses have
been to fighters in Makhachev, Dariush and Rafael dos
Anjos, all of whom used superior wrestling and brute strength
to dictate when, where and how the fight would go to the
ground.
On the topic of coming out of nowhere to become a title contender,
Duncan could compare notes with his opponent this weekend. The
32-year-old Scot (15-2; 6-1 UFC) came to the promotion through
Dana White’s Contender Series three years ago with little
fanfare—thanks to Christian
Leroy Duncan, he wasn’t even the most promising prospect with
his own name to join the UFC that year. Since then, “The Problem”
has quietly climbed the ladder in one of the UFC’s deepest
divisions, bouncing back from his lone loss at the hands of
Manuel
Torres to win four straight fights heading into UFC Vegas 115.
That he was the betting underdog in three of those fights
underscores what a pleasant surprise Duncan has been.
Somewhat like Carneiro, Duncan has achieved his success not through
any revolutionary change in his game, but by being just a little
better than expected everywhere. In his pre-UFC career, he looked
like a good-sized, not very athletic lightweight who tended to get
into wild brawls that were great for the fans, not so good for his
own prospects. At the UFC level, he has proven to be quicker and
more dynamic than advertised, and while he still has a scrapper’s
mindset, it has only truly cost him twice. His front headlock
series, which has always been a solid weapon, has become his go-to;
three of his last four wins have been by guillotine or anaconda
choke.
The odds in this fight seem to predict a passing of the torch, as
the younger man is a 2-to-1 favorite on several books. That feels a
bit rich to me. Duncan’s two career losses have seen him be either
clubbed and subbed, as Torres did, or clubbed and…clubbed some
more, like we saw against Viacheslav
Borshchev in Duncan’s first shot on the Contender Series. That
kind of opportunistic, quick-strike finish is very much in the
“Moicano” playbook, and it isn’t hard to picture the Brazilian
pulling off the upset. However, it feels to me as though these two
lightweight are headed in opposite directions, with Duncan still
finding his ceiling and Carneiro, at 36 and with a long career’s
worth of wear and tear, regressing back to the fun action fighter
he has always been. The pick here is that Duncan avoids early
danger, leverages his size and power advantages, and piles up the
damage on the veteran en route to a fourth-round TKO.
Jump To »
Carneiro vs. Duncan
Jandiroba vs. Ricci
Yakhyaev vs. Ribeiro
Ewing vs. Estevam
McMillen vs. Zecchini
The Prelims
Strawweights
Virna
Jandiroba vs. Tabatha
Ricci
BETTING ODDS: Ricci (-120); Jandiroba (+100)
Jandiroba (22-4; 8-4 UFC), a bit like “Moicano” in the main event,
is tasked with turning back a rising contender while proving that
her own recent title shot was not a fluke. “Carcara” might be
strawweight’s ultimate overachiever; her brand of merciless
top-position grind simply shouldn’t be possible from someone who
appears smaller than all of her foes. Jandiroba’s striking has
improved gradually but noticeably since her arrival from
Invicta Fighting Championships seven years ago. At this point,
she is a solid boxer who prefers to move forward and go first,
using basic combinations and maximizing her modest reach by
throwing straight punches.
That approach to striking dovetails nicely with the rest of her
game, as she is still at her best on the ground. Jandiroba is a
very good offensive wrestler, with decent entries from outside as
well as the expected trips and throws from the clinch. Once on the
ground, she is extremely deliberate and methodical, looking to
secure position, land strikes, pass her opponent’s guard and hunt
for the submission, in that order. Even with her 38th birthday
looming next month, she remains capable of dominating a fight
against fighters who cannot handle her pressure on the feet and on
the mat.
Ricci (12-3; 7-3 UFC), like Jandiroba, is one of the shorter women
in the division, but the similarities stop there. The 31-year-old
“Baby Shark” is an excellent athlete, quick, dynamic and explosive.
Her game runs off that athleticism; she does well as a muay thai
striker, depending on her quickness and natural power, and she has
sneakily effective wrestling as well. At her best, he has proven
capable of pushing around bigger women effortlessly, as she did
against Amanda
Ribas in her last outing. At her worst, Ricci can sometimes
seem content to let fights happen, rather than take over. Her
losses at strawweight, against Lupita
Godinez and Xiaonan Yan,
were both very winnable fights, and even in victory, she often
tends to let rounds be closer than they need to be.
This is one of the closest betting lines at UFC Vegas 115 and for
good reason. Jandiroba has been too much for all but the very best,
but she’s well on her way to 40 in a speedy division. Ricci has
obvious potential, yet she sometimes underperforms against fighters
who are no more skilled or talented than she is, but more
tactically sound. That describes Jandiroba to a tee, and the pick
here is that “Carcara” pulls off the slight upset, out-grinding the
younger woman in at least two of three rounds.
Jump To »
Carneiro vs. Duncan
Jandiroba vs. Ricci
Yakhyaev vs. Ribeiro
Ewing vs. Estevam
McMillen vs. Zecchini
The Prelims
Light Heavyweights
Abdul-Rakhman
Yakhyaev vs. Brendson
Ribeiro
BETTING ODDS: Yakhyaev (-2000); Ribeiro (+1000)
Blue-chip prospect Yakhyaev (8-0; 1-0 UFC) gets a showcase
matchup—on paper, at least—against fellow Contender Series alum
Ribeiro (17-9, 1 NC; 2-4 UFC) in the feature fight. The 25-year-old
“Hunter” is a dazzling talent, but he’s still very, very early in
his career. He has outstanding physical tools, as a big, very
explosive light heavyweight who delivers hard shots in bunches, and
can shoot a lightning-quick takedown from distance.
Ahead of his UFC debut against Raffael
Cerqueira last November, I suggested that Yakhyaev might be the
next Khamzat
Chimaev—that is, an obvious future contender from the start—or
the next Edmen
Shahbazyan; i.e. a very young prospect who annihilated foes on
sheer speed and talent before running into stiffer competition,
suffering a couple of bad losses and having to retool his game.
Yakhyaev wrecked Cerqueira in 33 seconds, and I’m still not
entirely sure which way he’s headed, but it’s looking more and more
as if he’s a future contender. Some of it is down to fight IQ.
Yakhyaev has rare talent, but even rarer is a young prospect with
fewer than 10 career fights who already has a good understanding of
when to switch between striking and grappling, going at his
opponents’ weaknesses rather than relying on his own strengths to
overwhelm them.
Ribeiro is probably better than Cerqueira, and he’s probably better
than his 2-4 mark in the UFC, but his known weaknesses line up
really, really poorly with Yakhyaev’s strengths. “The Gorilla,” as
his nickname suggests, is a very powerful light heavyweight, and
most of his offense springs from there. He is a very hard hitter
who throws a few basic combinations and loads up heavily on his
punches. His defensive wrestling is poor, but he has a quick and
vicious guillotine choke, and he is surprisingly fluid and quick on
the ground for someone who can be a bit herky-jerky on the
feet.
However, Ribeiro’s most glaring issues are his striking defense and
durability. He gets hit a lot in order to land his own offense, and
while that worked in Brazilian regional shows, against UFC-level
opposition, he has gotten himself knocked out in the first round
over and over. That does not spell good things against Yakhyaev.
The 20-to-1 odds are eye-watering (seriously, why bother?) but
outside of Ribeiro landing the best haymaker of his career, or
Yakhyaev making the worst blunder of his career and sticking
his neck directly into a front headlock, it’s impossible to plot a
course to victory for the underdog. The pick is Yakhyaev by Round 1
knockout.
Jump To »
Carneiro vs. Duncan
Jandiroba vs. Ricci
Yakhyaev vs. Ribeiro
Ewing vs. Estevam
McMillen vs. Zecchini
The Prelims
Bantamweights
Ethyn Ewing
vs. Rafael
Estevam
BETTING ODDS: Ewing (-160); Estevam (+135)
Ewing (9-2; 1-0 UFC) looks build on the momentum of his stunning
UFC debut and topple a second undefeated prospect in a row when he
toes the line against Estevam (14-0; 3-0 UFC). “The Professor
Finesser” made waves when he stepped up on days’ notice and handed
then 10-0 bantamweight phenom Malcolm
Wellmaker his first career loss. Everything about the
performance was impressive, most of all the fact that once they got
going, it didn’t feel like an upset; Ewing was simply the better
fighter. He showed fast hands, a diverse striking arsenal,
excellent offensive wrestling, and a level of sharpness, cardio and
durability that made it difficult to believe he had fought in a
California regional show the week before.
Now comes Estevam, who is a whole different problem to solve.
“Macapa” is more experienced and more proven against a higher level
of competition than Wellmaker, or Ewing for that matter. However,
this bout represents a more or less forced move up to 135 pounds
after missing weight repeatedly at flyweight. It should be a good
move for him: Estevam was a huge flyweight (obviously) and will
probably have the advantage in height as well as reach on Saturday.
The 29-year-old Brazilian is athletic and well-rounded, and thrives
when he is the aggressor.
At his best, Estevam comes forward with strikes, keeping his
opponent on his heels until he can either back them into the fence,
where he tees off, or sees an opportunity to bring the fight to the
ground. Once there, he threatens with big ground-and-pound as well
as excellent topside submissions and back takes.
This fight is very evenly matched, and the betting line in Ewing’s
favor does a disservice to Estevam’s impressive skill set and
superior body of work thus far. There is a distinct possibility
that we learn on Saturday that Estevam is even more of a
blue-chipper than we thought, and the cut to flyweight was actually
holding him back from realizing his full potential. However, I’m
leaning towards Ewing here, with a lot of intangibles going for
him. He just seems like a gamer, the kind of fighter who either
already knows where he matches up best with Estevam, or will figure
it out quickly in the cage, and will give himself the best chance
to win. The pick is Ewing by decision.
Jump To »
Carneiro vs. Duncan
Jandiroba vs. Ricci
Yakhyaev vs. Ribeiro
Ewing vs. Estevam
McMillen vs. Zecchini
The Prelims
Featherweights
Tommy
McMillen vs. Manolo
Zecchini
BETTING ODDS: McMillen (-1200); Zecchini (+750)
In the main card opener, McMillen (9-0; 0-0 UFC) will endeavor to
live up to the considerable promise of his
Dana White’s Contender Series appearance, as he welcomes back
Italy’s Zecchini (11-4; 0-1 UFC) from a two-and-a-half-year layoff.
“Tommy Gun” is the latest version of the “DWCS 135-145er with big
curly hair” prototype that has brought Sean
O’Malley, Malcolm
Wellmaker, Payton
Talbott and Austin
Bashi to the UFC, just to name a few.
McMillen is a fantastic athlete: big, fast and powerful, and a
glance at his pre-UFC tape—inlcuding his Contender Series scrap
with David
Mgoyan—shows that his game is still very much dependent on
that. He throws long streams of powerful strikes, but with the
sometimes careless defense of someone who is used to overwhelming
his foes early. Heading into the Mgoyan fight last September,
McMillen had been on a streak of four straight first-round
submissions, three of them guillotine chokes. His wrestling and
grappling, like his striking, are calculated to finish the fight
quickly, and while it worked like a charm in regional shows in
Montana, it’s likely to hit a wall against higher-level opposition.
(Think of Dustin
Poirier’s long, sometimes tragic love affair with the
guillotine.)
Zecchini has been on the shelf so long that it was mildly
surprising to be reminded he was even still in the UFC, and more
surprising still to realize he is only 29 years old. The “Venetian
Angel” is a burly, fairly athletic brawler who throws everything
with mean intentions. On the feet, he is porous defensively, and
while we didn’t see much of his ground game in brawl-happy Italian
promotions, it looks to be a liability at this level.
Even in mid-level European promotions, he was never an
off-the-charts prospect, but he is better than he looked in his
short-notice sacrifical lamb turn against Morgan
Charriere in Paris in 2023. If Zecchini can stay healthy and
win enough to stay on roster for a while, he will be a fun addition
to the division and probably pick up a few bonus checks along the
way.
This is a more intriguing fight, and a harder one to predict, than
the ridiculous betting odds imply. Lost in McMillen’s memorable
scrap on DWCS is the fact that he got absolutely shellacked in
Round 1. Consider this: If all three judges had given Mgoyan the
10-8 round he deserved, that fight would have been a draw and the
odds in this fight would not be even close to 12-to-1, even though
McMillen would be the same fighter.
It’s encouraging that McMillen, who had not been seriously pushed
in any of his previous fights, bounced back from that round to win
the second and third. That says good things about his long-term
upside as a potential contender, but the way he got caught also
means he probably shouldn’t be -1200 to anyone in the UFC right
now. Having said that, McMillen’s superior size and athleticism,
his far greater activity (he has fought six times since the last
time we saw Zecchini in the cage) and his propensity for
quick-strike offense on the feet as well as on the ground all make
this a bad mismatch. The pick is McMillen by Round 2
submission.
Jump To »
Carneiro vs. Duncan
Jandiroba vs. Ricci
Yakhyaev vs. Ribeiro
Ewing vs. Estevam
McMillen vs. Zecchini
The Prelims
