UFC 271: 5 Things We Learned
UFC 271 is in the books and it was another night full of excitement, surprise, and action from the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas. This was the third time in the last ten months that the UFC called Houston home for an event. There were 14 fights at UFC 271 with two ending by knockout, four by submission, and eight needing the judges’ decision. Here are five things that we learned from UFC 271.
1. There is no middleweight who can stop Adesanya
Robert Whittaker was supposed to be the fighter with the best chance of dethroning Israel Adesanya, but instead, it was Adesanya who ended their UFC 271 bout as the victor and still UFC middleweight champion. Adesanya showed that he is still the king of the middleweight division after beating Whittaker for the second time. Adesanya has now beaten four of the top five ranked middleweight fighters with Jared Cannonier being the only one that has not faced “The Last Stylebender” inside the octagon. Along with Whittaker, Adesanya has beaten No. 2 ranked Marvin Vettori twice, No. 4 Derek Brunson once, and No. 5 Paulo Costa once with the wins over Brunson and Costa both coming by knockout. The saddest thing about the tear that Adesanya has been on in the UFC middleweight division is that there does not seem like anyone that will put an end to his reign. It would be thought that Cannonier will be up against the champion next (more on this later), but even Cannonier does not look like he will put up much of a challenge against Adesanya.
Part of why Adesanya is such a dominant champion is his superior stand-up game that has been on display since he started MMA back in 2012. This impressive stand-up game was meant to be tested by Costa, a much more powerful opponent, but it took less than two rounds for Adesanya to knockout Costa. Then following the Costa fight, the recipe for beating Adesanya was shown by Jan Blachowicz. The light heavyweight champion did not allow Adesanya to use his stand up to his advantage by taking him down three times in five attempts and out controlling the middleweight fighter 7:06 to 0:01. Adesanya was given this challenge against Vettori and answered perfectly by stopping 10 of 14 takedown attempts from Vettori. Then again against Whittaker, Adesanya prevented 60 percent of the Australian’s takedown attempts showing that he has learned from his lone loss in MMA. Now sitting at 22-1 following UFC 271 Adesanya is more motivated than ever to continue dominating the middleweight division and has found motivation in lapping the division. With the win on Saturday, the Nigerian-born fighter out of New Zealand has inched closer to the great Anderson Silva in the argument for the UFC middleweight GOAT, whom Adesanya beat in 2019.
2. Jared Cannonier is next up to fight the champ
With the middleweight title being on the line between Adesanya and Whittaker two fights later the fight between No. 3 ranked middleweight Jared Cannonier and No. 4 ranked Derek Brunson was one that the winner could secure a chance to fight for the belt next time out. Cannonier used a mean barrage of elbows to finish off Brunson late in the second round. Immediately following the fight in his post-fight interview Cannonier made sure that UFC president Dana White noticed that he should be the next title challenger.
Cannonier absolutely deserves to fight Adesanya next because for starters he is the lone top-five contender yet to face the champion. This makes for a fresh new fight to take place. Another reason that Cannonier should be up next is that despite being ranked No. 3 the two fighters ahead of “The Killa Gorilla” are Vettori and Whittaker, the last two fighters to take on Adesanya and lose. After Adesanya, Cannonier has been the second hottest middleweight winning five of his last six fights since moving down to middleweight from light heavyweight. The only loss he had was a unanimous decision defeat to Whittaker. By going the distance with Whittaker Cannonier proved that he can compete with the division’s top dogs and he likely will next time he steps in the octagon. It will be nice to see a fresh matchup for a champion that has run right through everyone else he has faced at middleweight.
3. Tai Tuivasa is a top 5 heavyweight
There was a point in both the first and second rounds that it looked like Derrick Lewis was going to add another name to his UFC knockout record when he fought Tai Tuivasa in the co-main event at UFC 271. Tuivasa however survived Lewis’s punches and eventually landed an elbow that knocked out Houston’s favorite fighter in his own city. “Bam Bam” came into the fight ranked 11th in the UFC heavyweight rankings, but after finishing the No. 3 ranked Lewis it should be a move into the top five for Tuivasa. The Australian has now won five straight fights all by knockout or technical knockout. This five-fight win streak came after the roughest part of his career, a three-fight winning streak that almost saw the end of Tuivasa in the UFC. Fortunately for us, he came back in style and has quickly risen to one of the most popular fighters in the UFC. His shoey celebration has taken the UFC by storm and allowed for “Bam Bam” to become an entertainer that the UFC wants.
Tuivasa has been just as impressive and entertaining inside the octagon as he has been outside. His swing and bang style is what the heavyweight division is all about and with Lewis losing Tuivasa could potentially be the next UFC knockout king needing six more KOs to tie Lewis. At only 28 years of age Tuivasa’s career has only just gotten underway and his performance at UFC 271 put him on the map as the possible future of the division. A move up the rankings should be seen this week and really I feel that Tuivasa has the skills to beat any of the fighters ranked ahead of him outside of the champion Francis Ngannou and current No. 1 ranked Ciryl Gane. But that is the great thing about MMA is that even while it may be one-sided on paper the only way to find out who is better is to have two fighters go into the octagon with only one coming out victorious.
4. Andrei Arlovski is not done yet
At 43 years young Andrei Arlovski is one fight away from tying Jim Miller for the most UFC fights of all time with 38 following a split decision win over Jared Vanderaa at UFC 271. While 39-year-old Roxanne Modafferi retired following her fight Saturday night, Arlovski has shown no sign of being done quite yet. The American and Belarusian fighter has now won three straight fights and five of his last six turning back the clock in a major way. If Arlovski can win his next fight he will tie Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone atop the UFC wins list where he is currently tied with Miller and Demian Maia with 22 wins.
5. Oceania is the next region to take over the UFC
We have seen a Brazilian takeover, an Irish takeover, and currently are in the midst of an African takeover as three UFC champions come from the second-largest continent. While Adesanya (Nigeria), Ngannou (Cameroon), and Kamaru Usman (Nigeria) currently are dominating their divisions there is an upcoming group of fighters that could very well lead the next takeover. This time it is the Oceanic region which already has two champions, Alexander Volkanovski (Australia) and Adesanya (New Zealand). In UFC 271 there were seven fighters that are from Oceania or train for teams based there and those seven fighters went 5-2 with one fight being between an Australian and a Kiwi for the middleweight belt. The biggest movers from that region of Earth were Australians Tuivasa and Casey O’Neill. The significance of Tuivasa’s win over Lewis was discussed above, but O’Neill’s win moved her to 9-0. She currently is ranked 15th in the women’s flyweight division but should move up after winning a split decision over 12th ranked Modafferi. At only 24 years old O’Neill is looking to be the future of the flyweight division that has been dominated by Valentina Shevchenko. There are a few other divisions that have fighters from Oceania as possible title contenders over the next year. In the men’s flyweight division New Zealand’s Kai Kara-France is currently ranked 6th and made a statement in his last fight knocking out former bantamweight champion Cody Garbrandt in the first round. Another member of the City Kickboxing team based out of New Zealand is Kiwi Dan Hooker. Hooker had been a common name in the top 10 of the lightweight division, but he is moving down to featherweight for his next fight and could get back in the title picture with a big win over No. 7 Arnold Allen.
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