Chris
Gutierrez soon gets the distinction of being the last name on
an all-time great’s
Ultimate Fighting Championship resume.
The 31-year-old bantamweight will face
Frankie
Edgar in a featured
UFC
281 attraction on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New
York. Edgar, 41, plans to retire afterward. Gutierrez enters the
Octagon undefeated (6-0-1) across his past seven outings. He last
competed at UFC on ESPN 33, where he cut down
Batgerel
Danaa with a spinning backfist and follow-up elbows in the
second round of their March 26 confrontation.
As Gutierrez makes final preparations for his upcoming battle with
Edgar at 135 pounds, here are five things you might not know about
him:
1. Durability ranks high on his endearing traits list.
Gutierrez has only been finished once in his 24-fight career. He
submitted to a rear-naked choke from
Raoni
Barcelos in the second round of their encounter at “The
Ultimate Fighter 28” Finale on Nov. 30, 2018. Gutierrez’s three
other losses resulted from decisions against
Jerrod
Sanders,
Timur
Valiev and
Jake
Constant.
2. He surrounds himself with proven commodities.
“
El
Guapo” operates out of the esteemed
Factory
X camp in Englewood, Colorado, roughly 10 miles south of
Denver. There, Gutierrez has honed his skills alongside a number of
top-shelf teammates, from
Anthony
Smith and
Dustin
Jacoby to
Brandon
Royval,
Devonte
Smith and
Alexander
Hernandez.
Order UFC 281 "Adesanya vs. Pereira" exclusively on
ESPN+
3. He sat at the head of the table in multiple companies.
Gutierrez has held titles in the Sugar Creek Showdown and World
Fighting Championships promotions. He laid claim to the SCS
bantamweight crown with a 42-second technical knockout of
Craig Ross at
SCS 23 on Nov. 15, 2014, then captured the WFC bantamweight belt
when he forced
Aaron
Phillips to retire on his stool after three rounds at WFC 35 on
Feb. 28, 2015.
4. He creates cracks in foundations.
The Marc Montoya protégé has stopped two opponents with leg kicks:
Jimmy
Flick at an Xtreme Fight Night show in 2018 and
Vince
Morales at UFC on ESPN 30 in 2020. Gutierrez has not landed
fewer than 17 kicks to the lower extremities in any of his eight
UFC appearances and has connected with at least 30 of them on three
different occasions. He was credited with 33 of them in a unanimous
decision over
Ryan
MacDonald at UFC Fight Night 148, 36 of them against Morales
and 32 of them in a unanimous decision over
Andre Ewell
at UFC 258.
5. Availability has been one of his selling points.
This will be the 10th consecutive year in which Gutierrez has made
at least two appearances. He fought four times in 2013, going
2-1-1, and again in 2014, going a perfect 4-0.