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Brett Okamoto, ESPN Staff Writer
Saturday’s UFC event in Abu Dhabi on ABC was somewhat overshadowed by the two title fights that took place last weekend at UFC 304 in Manchester.
The five-round bantamweight main event between Corey Sandhagen and Umar Nurmagomedov is one of the best matchups on the current calendar, so now is the time to shine the spotlight on it.
In this edition of Five Rounds, we’ll take a look at some of the most important topics on the card, as well as a few other items from the MMA world.
1. Fight for the top spot with a reliable competitor
It’s nice to have a true No. 1 contender matchup. Ideally, this should be the norm. Take the top two non-champions in a division and have them fight, with the winner challenging for the belt. Of course, in practice, it doesn’t always work out that way. Timing is important, and sometimes name recognition and momentum are important. It’s hard to guarantee a title in a sport that’s constantly moving.
But this is real. UFC CEO Dana White made the rare move of calling it real, revealing that Nurmagomedov was explicitly told he would get a title shot if he won. The UFC probably made this the No. 1 fight a year ago when it was supposed to take place in Nashville before Nurmagomedov got injured.
The UFC has had trouble booking Nurmagomedov for three years now. It got to the point where the UFC simply promoted him to interim title challenger and five-time headliner Sandhagen, who told him he only wanted a fight to get his next title shot. The winner of that fight will face the winner of Sean O’Malley vs. Merab Dvalishvili in September, which is refreshing.
2. Win or lose, there’s a good chance we’ll see Tony Ferguson again.
Entering Saturday, Ferguson was answering as many questions about his retirement as he was about the fight itself. Unsurprisingly, he was adamant that this wouldn’t be his last fight, and White said he hoped it would be.
Ferguson admitted he had to do “some s—” to keep his roster spot. He’s lost seven in a row. If he loses again on Saturday, will the UFC cut him? Unless it’s a huge loss, I don’t think so. White will encourage a fighter to retire, but he doesn’t want to cut him otherwise. But the big question is how often he can do that in the Ferguson fight. This has been a major theme in his fights since May 2021.
As he goes into every fight, Ferguson has explained what will be different. It’s been about getting back into the routine or learning how to coach again. He even has retired Navy SEAL and endurance athlete David Goggins in his corner. This time around, things will be different, as he’s sparred 120 rounds for the first time in years ahead of his upcoming fight.
Ferguson will never run out of hope that the next one will be different, so I don’t think the UFC will make a decision on him beyond this fight, but that day will come.
3. But you probably won’t see Nick Diaz.
2:28
Why Chael Thinks the Diaz Brothers Aren’t Done with the UFC Yet
Chael Sonnen and Daniel Cormier discuss whether Nate and Nick Diaz will retire from the UFC after Nick’s fight was canceled.
It was shocking when the UFC announced earlier this year that the 40-year-old Diaz would fight Vicente Luque in his first fight in three years. It wasn’t so shocking when the UFC later announced the fight was called off due to travel issues on Diaz’s part.
Diaz’s last Instagram post was on May 29, when the fight was announced. He hasn’t been heard from publicly since. Luque said he hopes the fight will be rescheduled, but White admitted last weekend that he’s not sure Diaz will fight in 2024.
There is no real information reported on Diaz’s situation. At this point, any “real” Diaz fan would be hoping for his physical, mental and emotional health rather than a comeback. The last time he fought was in 2021, and in a candid pre-fight interview with ESPN, he basically said he was afraid of it.
“Do I feel confident? I never do,” Diaz said, sitting down. “I never do. I always feel like I’m going to break down. Every fight I’ve ever had.”
He was set to begin his training in Texas and then move to California, but never seemed to reach the level necessary to reach the top of the sport.
I don’t think Nick Diaz will be back in the UFC fight announcement. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. He’s had some unfortunate events in the latter half of his career. There’s no need to add to that by sending him to fight a ranked opponent when he’s basically a retired fighter.
4. Muhammad Mokayev’s next option
The UFC’s decision not to re-sign Mokaev, who is on a seven-fight winning streak inside the Octagon, was one of the biggest news coming out of UFC 305.
There have been instances where White has changed his mind after publicly disrespecting a player. This doesn’t seem to be one of those times. You can see that reality on Mokaev’s social media timeline, where he’s gone from apologizing to joking about the situation to posting on Thursday that he’ll move on.
Mokaev said the breakup was due to his wrestling-focused style, but White said it was “more than that.” White said the PFL would get an undefeated flyweight, but he could be wrong about that. The PFL has a lowest men’s weight class at 145 pounds, and it’s not in a position to naturally have interest in a 125-pound fighter. Mokaev will eventually find something, but I think it will be something other than the UFC or the PFL.
5. Who will headline UFC 307 in Salt Lake City?
The UFC’s fall schedule is going pretty well for the most part. After Max Holloway’s incredible BMF win over Justin Gage at UFC 300, the UFC has had multiple discussions about when and where to hold a title fight with Ilya Topuria. UFC 306 at Sphere and UFC 307 in Salt Lake City are more or less set, but after lightweight champion Islam Makhachev was dealt the first curveball with a hand injury, that fight is now likely headed to UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi.
With O’Malley and Dvalishvili headlining UFC 306, there’s a lot of real estate left on the UFC 307 card after Topuria vs. Holloway was moved to UFC 308 on Oct. 26. A women’s bantamweight title fight between Raquel Pennington and Julianna Peña is likely to be on that card, but the UFC will need to surround that title fight with more big names.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the UFC went “creative” with that event. They added a BMF fight to bolster their 2023 Salt Lake City card. Will they consider an interim title fight for Makhachev, who has no real recovery schedule? Will they look for a big-name opponent we haven’t seen in a while, like Kamaru Usman or Michael Chandler? It looks like it’ll be one of those cards without a clear main event, which makes me curious about how they’ll structure it.
