Fight Study 82 – UFC 255 (transcript) (Patreon)

At UFC 255, both flyweight titles were on the line as Deiveson Figueiredo defended his belt for the first time against Alex Perez while Valentina Shevchenko was on her 4th title defense against Jennifer Maia. 

There are only three weight class overlaps between the men and women’s divisions in the UFC and rarely do both titles get defended on the same night. If you’re shaky on why the promotion refuses to stack their cards more often, here’s the deal. The UFC signed a contract back in 2018 to have ESPN be the exclusive distributor for their fight cards. The original contract was for 5 years of exclusive content for ESPN, which would promise the UFC 1.5 billion dollars for such rights. What isn’t known to many is that the deal got extended two more years, meaning that ESPN will be home for UFC content until 2025. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but analysts at Forbes have estimated it will cost Disney from $200 million to $500 million a year. The promotion needs to churn out content, but not just any Mike Perry fight will do. It’s understood that not every event is going to do McGregor/Masvidal/Nurmagomedov numbers, but there’s a certain level of expectation that needs to be met for ESPN to keep the UFC around. As it stands, there have been 37 fight cards for the UFC in 2020, with 21 of those being fight nights for ESPN+. That might seem like a lot of fights, but the promotion has promised 30 fights a year for ESPN, including pay per view events. This doesn’t take into account any Fight Pass cards. This ultimately means that whatever star power they have must be split up throughout the calendar year to ensure that they have compelling match-ups for people to be invested in. When it comes to pay-per-views, anything short of a title fight is going to need a super star like McGregor to headline, or else the willingness for most people to shell out $65 becomes difficult. Speaking of pay per view events…

To be frank, UFC 255 was not a great card when the final line up was announced. Figueredo isn’t a household name and Shevchenko has made most of her competition look like they simply don’t belong in there with her. Not to mention that fans feel robbed of a great original card. Cody Garbrandt was set to challenge Figueredo by dropping down to flyweight to try and add his name to the two-division champ club. Unfortunately for Garbrandt, a torn bicep AND COVID-19 forced him off the card. As for the Mike Perry vs Tim Means match-up? Perry was originally supposed to fight Robbie Lawler in what would have added some more star power and could’ve been the perfect match-up to see if Lawler still has the blood and guts warrior in him after being constantly matched up against grapplers and technical strikers. Did I also mention that Jose Aldo vs Marlon Vera was originally targeted for this card before being shifted back to December? UFC 255 had all the potential of being a great card and one of the better ways to close out the year. But the fights themselves weren’t too shabby. 

In the main event, Figueiredo defeated Perez by guillotine choke at 1:57 seconds of the first round. With that finish, Figueiredo has the record for the fastest finish at flyweight for a championship fight, beating out Demetrious Johnson’s finish of Joseph Benavidez in their rematch by 11 seconds. Figueiredo is improving at such a rate that it’s a shame he never got to face off against Johnson himself. As mentioned in the Colin Oyama article, a lot of Oyama fighters adhere to his system of low kicks into the clinch where they can attempt takedowns from a safer distance. Perez follows this game plan to a T, but Figueiredo’s coaches seemed to have scouted this out in advance.

In the first 30 seconds of the fight, Figueiredo had SIX stance switches while only throwing two strikes, both were kicks. If you were curious about the percentage of strikes landed, he missed one kick and connected with the other. A 50% successful connection rate that early in the fight doesn’t mean much, but the real success was in the feints of Figueiredo. By constantly moving his head and lead hand, Figueiredo was able to keep Perez at bay and guessing as to which strikes would land. Figueiredo’s stance switches were done in between feints or attacks and not out in the open. This is a key component of stance switching that many don’t quite nail down perfectly. Stance switching while shuffling forward is how flash knockdowns happen. To give you some perspective, T.J. Dillashaw, Demetrious Johnson, and Dominick Cruz are the most prolific switch hitters in the UFC, and every single one of them has been dropped at least once while stance switching. It’s a dangerous game to play since even the best who do it are at risk every time. One of the ways that Figueiredo disguised his stance switches was with his kicks. The kicks to the body of Perez found their mark repeatedly, and every time he got hit by them, Perez shuffled straight back. This forced Perez to reset and unable to start phase one of his game plan: throw low kicks to disrupt the balance.

When Figueiredo left his hips open after throwing a right hand, Perez jumped on the opportunity with an attempted takedown. Instead of conceding the takedown, Figueiredo held on to his left overhook on Perez’s right arm and smoothly transitioned to an attempted ankle lock, Ryo Chonan style. The leg lock wasn’t successful, but it immediately put Perez on the defensive and he had to scramble to get out. Once he felt that the submission was no good, Figueiredo bailed on it, only to set up something else. Figueiredo quarter turned away so Perez would try to take his back. Knowing that this would keep Perez tight to him and his head low, Figueiredo slipped his left arm over Perez’s neck without even having to look. Once he felt Perez against his body, he knew Perez’s head was where it needed to be.

If the guillotine looked smooth, it’s because Figueiredo has had a lot of practice. Out of Figueiredo’s 20 wins, eight are by submission, with five of them being guillotine chokes. This is clearly a man that has laid out his system of guillotines with multiple traps and setups. Even when you think you have him cornered, he’s always just own quick strangle away from turning the tides.

Before we go into detail about what’s next for both fighters, let’s talk about the co-main event. Valentina Shevchenko defeated Jennifer Maia by unanimous decision, scoring 49-46 across all judges’ scorecards. The fight itself was closer than most expected, but Shevchenko has set the bar so high that even lasting the entire fight with her is considered a success. Put it this way, on some betting sites, Shevchenko was a -2500 favorite, meaning you’d have to put down $2,500 on her to win just $100 back. Don’t let the commentators fool you, Maia did better than people originally thought, but this was a comfortable win for Shevchenko. She landed a total of 249 strikes to Maia’s 94 and had 4 more takedowns and overall ground control. Outside of round two where Maia managed to ground Shevchenko, the fight was never in doubt. If something was going on, it was outside of the match itself.

Heading into the fight, Shevchenko had knee surgery that made her pensive in this fight. Given that she’s primarily a counter-striker, this made her already passive style even less active. Anyone that has ever had issues with their knees knows that putting too much pressure even while walking can exacerbate lingering problems. Imagine trying to figure out a way to fight AND avoid getting kicked in that area. This could be why Shevchenko chose to grapple instead of standing and trading with Maia. Issues with the knee could have made the fight easier for Shevchenko as well since she requires less mobility from the affected area. Fortunately for Shevchenko, by the fifth round, she felt that her knee was sturdy enough to keep the fight on the feet. Maia proved that she wasn’t going to go down easy, and was ready to absorb the strikes if it meant that she could return fire. Perhaps it’s the Chute Boxe style in her, but this made for an entertaining fight, even if the decision didn’t go her way.

Now with both belts defended, the UFC has some interesting choices to make for their champions. For Figueiredo, his next fight is already set. With Petr Yan having to withdraw from his title fight against Aljamain Sterling at UFC 256, Figueiredo is making another defense in less than a month against Brandon Moreno. If all goes as planned, Figueiredo would become the first champion in UFC history to defend his title in consecutive months. Given that Figueiredo always has a tough weight cut, nothing is guaranteed. Oh yea, there’s also the issue of COVID-19 still being a thing, at least in the states. Speaking of COVID-19, it’s the reason we haven’t seen Cody Garbrandt in a while.

Garbrandt isn’t someone you’d normally think would suffer the long-term effects post COVID, but here we are. Since testing positive for the virus on August 29th, he’s been battling vertigo, blood clots, pneumonia, and mental fog. All these are symptoms of things that people who have tested positive for COVID-19 say they suffer once the worst of things is over. That’s terrifying if you think about it. Garbrandt is a professional athlete under the age of 30. If you were wondering why the UFC is still taking all these precautions, at least this can give you an idea of how bad things can get. Nonetheless, this does put a hamper on the UFC’s plans for the division. The promotion traded away Demetrious Johnson for Ben Askren and refused to pay Henry Cejudo his worth. Now with Garbrandt out and no compelling challengers, the UFC is going to have to get creative in figuring out challengers for Figueiredo If he beats Moreno.

For Shevchenko, the next challenger seems to be Jessica Andrade. She doesn’t have the same number of title defenses as Ronda Rousey or Amanda Nunes, but Shevchenko’s well on her way. If she’s able to beat Andrade, the list of challengers dwindles. With Nunes indicating that she doesn’t have that many more fights left in her, maybe a trilogy fight between Shevchenko and Nunes could be in the works if Shevchenko beats Andrade and Nunes beats Megan Anderson.

With the year winding down, there isn’t a lot of star power left for the UFC to draw from. Stars aren’t going to be willing to give up their holiday plans to fight in front of empty arenas, and we’ve seen the UFC get stingy with money they aren’t forced to part with. Figueiredo and Shevchenko might not be big draws, but they’re champions that have made successful title defenses and should be compensated as such. Last year, the UFC ended December by giving us UFC 245, where three title fights were on the line and we got to see Alexander Volkanovski upset Max Holloway and Kamaru Usman break the jaw of Colby Covington. This year, we’ll be lucky to get ONE title fight to end 2020.