3 hours ago 4

UFC 316 big takeaways: The Merab Dvalishvili puzzle is only getting harder to solve

UFC 316 saw one title change hands while another only got more firmly lodged in place. So what really mattered the most from Saturday’s pay-per-view event in Newark, New Jersey? Here are the five biggest takeaways from UFC 316:

1. When they were giving out nicknames, Merab Dvalishvili got the perfect one. “The Machine” isn’t one of those aspirational monikers. It’s not there to intimidate you. It’s more like a warning label. It’s there to let you know that from the second the ref says “fight” to the moment he says “stop,” you will be under constant attack. What you decide to do with that information is entirely up to you.

Sean O’Malley had about nine months to come up with an answer for it. Somehow he looked more lost than ever in his second trip into the cage with the UFC’s 135-pound champ. All those changes we heard about in O’Malley’s life — no more weed or social media or hair dye — and somehow none of it improved his takedown defense. Though, to be fair, would we even know if they had? Dvalishvili doesn’t even give opponents a chance to show what they can do. He forces them into a game of catch-up and all they can do is huff and puff as they fall further behind.

Imagine being Cory Sandhagen and watching that fight from cageside. Imagine walking out of that arena, heading back to the hotel, and trying to convince yourself that you’ll find an answer where others have only found exhaustion and frustration. I’m not saying it’s hopeless. I’m just saying it can’t make for a peaceful night’s sleep.

2. Kayla Harrison didn’t just beat Julianna Peña — she bullied her. This women’s bantamweight title fight was never competitive. That’s what the betting odds told us to expect, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise, but it was still shocking to see just how effortlessly Harrison had her way with the woman who entered the night as the reigning champ.

From the moment she arrived in the UFC, this seemed like Harrison’s destination. Seeing her with the belt around her waist, it just felt right. Certainly the women’s 135-pound division needed the boost in energy and interest that she provides. And while there’s a part of me that would love to see Amanda Nunes stay retired rather than return to challenge Harrison after more than two years away, there’s another part of me that longs to feel that feeling again. You know the one. The feeling where it actually seems like there’s a women’s bantamweight title fight on the horizon between two people who have a roughly equal chance of being the best in the world. It’s been a while.

3. Patchy Mix’s UFC debut could have gone worse, though not by much. Was it a case of the Octagon jitters? Was the difference in quality of competition really so stark? Because the former Bellator bantamweight champ looked like a deer in headlights for the first two rounds of his fight with Mario Bautista.

Granted, he came to life late in the fight. But even then it was far too little, far too late. He’d already spent about 10 minutes making himself a comically stationary target. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a fighter do less to get his own head out of the way of incoming punches. It was like Mix didn’t know he was allowed to dodge those flying hunks of leather. Lots of fighters have had disappointing debuts only to pull together great UFC careers by the end. But as first impressions go, that one was a major dud.

4. Joe Pyfer really put it on Kelvin Gastelum for exactly one round. It must have been exhausting, too. Because he went ahead and took the next two rounds off.

OK, that’s not entirely fair. Pyfer followed up his headhunting first round with a couple good shots early in the second. But then it seemed like he became convinced that Gastelum couldn’t be knocked out and therefore stopped trying. It was a sputtering end to what had been a great start, and I’m not sure it does much to raise Pyfer’s stock, especially since this matchup always seemed like it was intended to make him look good against the fading ghost of a name. He still won, which is always better than its opposite. But it’s going to take more to make a serious move up the middleweight ranks.

5. Is Kevin Holland finally ready to get serious? The best year of his career so far was 2020, when he won five straight fights (all but one via stoppage) to tie the UFC record for wins in a calendar year. Since then, he’s never won more than two fights in a row without turning right around and losing the next two.

Here he looked great against Vicente Luque, who is admittedly a diminished version of his former self. At welterweight, Holland seems like he could really be something if only he’d discover some consistency. This was his second consecutive win since returning to the division after being squashed by Reinier de Ridder at middleweight. Would it be crazy to think that, at 32, he could finally figure this stuff out and make a run? So many of the pieces are already there. He just needs to stop scattering them into the wind.

Read Entire Article