What mattered most at UFC 285 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas? Here are a few post-fight musings …
5. Can Cody Garbrandt turn a corner for the better?
The weight of the world was on Cody Garbrandt’s shoulders coming into his bantamweight fight against Trevin Jones after losing five of his past six UFC appearances. It wasn’t his most impressive performance, but the former UFC champion ultimately did what he needed to do: win.
Garbrandt (13-5 MMA, 8-5 UFC) delivered the most methodical performance we’ve seen out of him in recent years to emerge with a unanimous decision over Jones, and perhaps this could serve as a turning point for the better in the career of “No Love.”
Jones, with all due respect, was the most low-level opponent Garbrandt has faced since making his run to UFC gold. He got the end result, but if he wants to be considered any sort of contender again, he needs to take confidence from this and parlay it in to his next one.
The durability of Garbrandt is going to remain a key question as he builds his way back through better competition. He’s taken some bad knockouts in his career, and we know it’s almost impossible to regenerate the ability to take a hard shot. The version of Garbrandt we saw against Jones is likely going to be how he has to fight if he wants to maintain success, but the biggest question will be if he can consistently avoid being the brawler we know if deep inside him.
4. Bo Nickal delivers on his promise
Bo Nickal assured everyone who asked that he would put Jamie Pickett away in the first round of his highly anticipated octagon debut. That’s exactly what arguably the most touted prospect in MMA did when he stepped into the cage for the first time as a UFC fighter.
Pickett lasted longer than all three of Nickal’s (4-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) previous three MMA opponents combined, but his fate proved to the be the same when he got tapped out with an arm-triangle choke in the opening round of the middleweight bout – controversy about his potential fight-changing low blow not withstanding.
It was exactly the first step Nickal needed to show if he wants to eventually reach the heights he’s set out for himself, and that’s being an all-time great in the sport. He did what he needed to do against this level of opponent, and it’s going to be extremely compelling to see how much he evolved fight-over-fight in his young career.
If Nickal could get a title fight tomorrow, he would surely jump all over the opportunity. The onus is going to fall on his team to make sure his career is handled the right way, though, because Nickal appears to have all the mental and physical tools to live up to all the potential we see in him.
3. Shavkat Rakhmonov is a certified badass
If there were any lingering questions about Shavkat Rakhmonov’s legitimacy as a welterweight contender on the rise, he put them all to rest with his third-round submission of Geoff Neal in the featured bout of the evening.
It’s one thing to defeat Neil Magny in the way he did in his previous fight. It’s another to engage in a blood and guts war with a killer like Neal, and come out on the winning end with one of the more unique submissions we’ve seen of late. Rakhmonov (17-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC) showed he was more than ready for the step up in competition when he emerged from the Fight of the Night with not only his perfect record intact, but his 100 percent finishing rate, too.
It truly feels like the sky is the limit for this man. His striking and grappling are both sublime, and the only thing that’s standing between him and fighting for the UFC gold is finding an opponent who will bridge the gap from where he is now to challenging for the belt.
The UFC is not going to have an easy time getting the likes of Colby Covington, Belal Muhammad, Gilbert Burns or Stephen Thompson (who are the names now ranked above him at 170 pounds) to agree to fight Rakhmonov, and honestly, I don’t blame them. It’s a scary task.
Based off what we saw in the performance against Neal, though, it feels like a championship fight for Rakhmonov is inevitable. It’s just a matter of how tricky the road to getting there will be for him.
2. Alexa Grasso seizes the moment to become champ
Going into the co-main event, the majority of fans and pundits, myself included, were looking at Alexa Grasso’s shot at women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko as a mere formality. She was going to be the next in a long line of challengers who have tried and failed to take the belt from one of the greatest female fighters in MMA history.
Grasso (16-3 MMA, 8-3 UFC) didn’t listen to any of that noise, though, and pulled off one of the most spectacular upsets in recent memory that came as the result of taking advantage of a singular moment and mistake by Shevchenko.
When the opportunity to jump on Shevchenko’s back following a missed spinning kick presented itself, Grasso pounced. She took the back and locked in the rear-naked choke to become the first female fighter from Mexico to wear a UFC belt, and it was no fluke
Was it opportunistic? Indeed. Grasso said she trained the exact fight-ending sequence repeatedly through camp, and when it happened in the fight, she took advantage. Does that mean she’s clearly the superior fighter? No. If you watched the contest prior to the final moments, it was obvious Shevchenko was in control and well on her way to registering an eighth consecutive defense of the belt. But you can’t slip up at this level, and “The Bullet” created a situation where she was vulnerable, and paid the ultimate price. That’s the game.
The good thing for Grasso, however, is that she now has the opportunity to prove that this was no one-off, and a new era at women’s flyweight is upon us. Shevchenko is as deserving of an immediate rematch as any champion who has lost their title in UFC history, and if Grasso can do it again, she would truly be starting a legacy of her own.
1. Jon Jones unlocks ultimate GOAT status
Almost exactly 37 months to the day of when we last saw him compete, Jon Jones returned to competition to do something we’ve been wanting to see from him for the better part of a decade by moving to the heavyweight division and challenging for the title.
Make no mistake about it: Jones’ (27-1 MMA, 21-1 UFC) legacy was already in lofty territory whether he made this move or not. However, many believed he would never actually pull the trigger. He finally did it, though, and with the way he looked in submitting Ciryl Gane in the first round to claim the vacant title, it’s almost sad this didn’t happen sooner.
Jones completely obliterated Gane on the mat to finish the fight with a guillotine choke in less than three minutes, marking what’s going to be the crowning achievement of his career. Yes, his work at light heavyweight was nothing short of legendary and may never be matched in that weight class, but to join the exclusive club of just eight fighters who have won UFC titles in two divisions puts him in a different category. And considering his entire body of work, he’s now a tier above everyone else in that group.
If you can ignore all the outside indiscretions from Jones over the course of his time in MMA and just focus on the fighter, the conversation about who is the greatest of all time is over. 15-0 in UFC title fights, a 22-fight unbeaten streak inside the octagon and every other statistical achievement on top of it sets him apart from the likes of Georges St-Pierre, Anderson Silva, Demetrious Johnson and any other legendary name you want to throw out there.
Even if Jones goes in there and gets brutally knocked out by Stipe Miocic in the opening minute of his first title defense, it would take nothing away from what’s now a one-of-a-kind resume.
Nothing lasts an eternity, of course, but right now the fighter who may eventually usurp Jones’ status might not even exist yet. His position on the GOAT throne is going to be untested for the foreseeable future, and his work still isn’t done. If Jones can add Miocic’s name to his resume, and then another next-generation heavyweight like Curtis Blaydes or Sergei Pavlovich to his record, as well, it’s going to elevate him even further.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 285.
