Stand and Deliver: UFC Vegas 100

Every fight matters, but some matter just a little more.

A win is a win, and a loss is a loss, of course, but some of them feel bigger than others for various reasons. In some cases, the elevated stakes are easy to define. Picture the fighter on a losing streak who knows he or she is likely fighting for their job, or conversely, any title fight in a top regional organization, where the combatants know the big leagues are probably scouting them. At other times, a fight feels especially important for reasons that are harder to quantify but no less real. Whether it’s the unspoken weight of being a pioneer in MMA from one’s native country or the simple added spice of two fighters who genuinely hate each other’s guts, that fight means just a little more.

This Saturday the Ultimate Fighting Championship is back at its de facto home stadium, the Apex in Las Vegas, for UFC Fight Night 247. The headliner is a classic old vs. new matchup, with Brazilian KO merchant Carlos Prates, who has taken the welterweight division by storm this year, attempting to go 4-0 in the UFC at the expense of perennial fringe contender Neil Magny. The rest of the 13-fight card features plenty of veterans, relative newcomers, and former hot prospects looking to separate themselves from the pack.

Amid the 26 fighters scheduled to make the walk in Las Vegas this weekend, here are three who should be feeling just a little extra pressure to stand and deliver at UFC Vegas 100:

Nine Lives for “No Love”

It turns out that the rumors of Cody Garbrandt’s professional and competitive demise may have been exaggerated. Three years ago, the former bantamweight champion was mired in a 1-5 skid that had seen him stopped with strikes in four of the five losses, including a couple of chilling knockouts. While his fall from grace was not as lurid as that of his disgraced nemesis, T.J. Dillashaw, it seemed less recoverable. While Dillashaw could presumably quit using banned substances, come back and make another run—or so we thought at the time—Garbrandt’s chin appeared to have abandoned him, which almost always spells the end of championship-level aspirations.

However, a strange thing happened on the way to retirement, bare-knuckle boxing, slap fighting or whatever other minor circle of hell awaits washed-up MMA fighters these days. Garbrandt took all of 2022 off, returned to action early last year and has been… pretty good. No, he hasn’t been the smooth, powerful technician who seemed well-positioned to become the greatest bantamweight of all time, but neither has he been the guy who abandoned that smooth technique to his own detriment, getting himself chinned in unnecessary brawls. Garbrandt has gone 2-1 since his return, defeating solid 135-pounders Trevin Jones and Brian Kelleher, and more than holding his own against former flyweight champ Deiveson Figueiredo for most of two rounds before succumbing to a slick back take and choke from the Brazilian.

Heading into this week’s assignment against Miles Johns, Garbrandt is in a good place: fighting on a main card with his job likely secure even if he loses. However, if the former champ aspires to anything more than sticking around in the division he once ruled, Johns is exactly the kind of opponent he needs to get past without breaking too much of a sweat. Still just 33 years old, Garbrandt has time to make this second act more than just a feel-good story, but he cannot afford a setback on Saturday.

It Isn’t Fair but It’s Life, Reinier de Ridder

It is a tale nearly as old as the UFC itself: When a high-profile fighter debuts in the Octagon after having experienced significant success elsewhere, they generally have two fights to prove that they aren’t a bust or “fraud.” It’s outrageously unfair, and sells short the quality of other top-level promotions even in the current sport, but from Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic nearly two decades ago to Michael Chandler and Ariane Lipski in more recent years, there is a certain segment of the fanbase that is quick to label a fighter “exposed” when they may just be acclimating themselves to competing in a different part of the world, in a different fight enclosure, under a different set of rules.

Enter de Ridder, who will make his UFC debut on Saturday’s main card against perennial overachiever and walking trap fight Gerald Meerschaert. Two years ago, “The Dutch Knight” had achieved one of the hardest feats in mixed martial arts by becoming a consensus Top 15 fighter without having set foot in the UFC Octagon. The ground wiz had wrecked shop in One Championship, picking up the middleweight (205 pound) and light heavyweight (225 pound) titles while twisting solid fighters such as Aung La Nsang and Vitaly Bigdash into pretzels.

De Ridder lost some of that shine, not to mention both of those belts, in back-to-back drubbings at the hands of Anatoly Malykhin. However, watching those fights, it is possible to see the Dutchman as a victim of ONE’s weight and hydration system rather than simply a guy who ran into a superior fighter, as Malykhin looked 20 or 30 pounds heavier in the cage. The interpretation of those losses, like everything else, will depend in part on how de Ridder performs against Meerschaert. It’s simple: Beat Meerschaert and, like “Cro Cop” or Justin Gaethje, you’ll get some leeway even if you lose your next fight or two. Lose your debut, like Lipski or Eddie Alvarez, and you will have a razor-thin margin of error… forever.

Be a Little More Boring, Ricky Turcios

My son Adam, who sometimes joins me on the Sherdog Radio UFC recap show, once said to me, “Ricky Turcios fights like a stuntman.” It was a hilariously perfect assessment that has stuck with me ever since. As a fellow Houstonian who saw virtually all of Turcios’ regional fights on his way to the UFC and has even been known to train at his home gym, I have long been witness to his free-wheeling, wildly entertaining approach to combat, which is just the logical, physical extension of his effusive personality. The guy is frankly a joy to deal with.



Which makes it very difficult to say what I have to say here: Ricky probably needs to tone it down a bit if he wants his UFC run to be a long and successful one. It isn’t as though he is washing out of the promotion; Turcios is currently 2-2 since joining the UFC as the bantamweight winner of “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 29, and he was competitive in losses to red-hot rising fighters Raul Rosas Jr. and Aiemann Zahabi. However, Turcios may have hit his ceiling, at least with his current approach, as we have now seen him come up short on the ground against Rosas and on the feet against Zahabi, in matchups where he was comparably skilled but less disciplined.

Far be it from me to tell a fun fighter to try and be boring—the sport needs more entertaining athletes, not fewer—but it should be possible to find a happy medium. Consider the example of Michel Pereira, who entered the UFC as a hilarious tornado of top-shelf skills and bottom-shelf fight IQ, only to become a legitimate middleweight contender while remaining hugely entertaining to watch. Turcios, who at his best is an athletic, well-conditioned and well-rounded fighter, could stand to take a page from Pereira’s book if his aspirations include more than just the occasional bonus check.