The
Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s flyweight division could
soon have a bead on its next No. 1 contender.
Erin
Blanchfield will draw her most difficult assignment to date
when she toes the line against
Manon
Fiorot in the
UFC on ESPN 54 headliner this Saturday at Boardwalk Hall in
Atlantic City, New Jersey. The winner almost certainly moves to the
front of the line at 125 pounds, where current champion
Alexa
Grasso and former titleholder
Valentina
Shevchenko are set to coach opposite one another on “The
Ultimate Fighter 32” before settling their score in a rematch
sometime this summer. Blanchfield, 24, has rattled off nine
consecutive victories and owns a perfect 6-0 record in the UFC. She
last competed at UFC Fight Night 225, where she laid claim to a
three-round unanimous decision over
Taila
Santos on Aug. 26. A onetime Eddie Bravo Invitational winner,
Blanchfield holds the rank of black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu
under Karel Pravec. Fiorot, meanwhile, finds herself on an 11-fight
winning streak that includes a 6-0 mark inside the Octagon. The
34-year-old Frenchwoman last appeared on Sept. 2, when she
outpointed
Rose
Namajunas to a unanimous verdict at UFC Fight Night 226. Fiorot
has secured six of her 11 professional victories by knockout or
technical knockout.
The Blanchfield-Fiorot showdown and its resulting fallout for the
women’s flyweight division is but one storyline to watch at UFC on
ESPN 54. Here are three more:
Lights, Camera, Action
Two tried-and-true action heroes are booked to do battle in the
welterweight co-main event, where
Kill Cliff Fight Club export
Vicente
Luque awaits
Joaquin
Buckley at 170 pounds. They have 31 finishes between them.
Luque steps back into the spotlight with wins in five of his past
seven outings. A semifinalist on Season 21 of “The Ultimate
Fighter,” he has not suited up since he took a five-round unanimous
decision from
Rafael dos
Anjos in their UFC on ESPN 51 co-headliner in August. Victories
over Belal Muhammed,
Randy
Brown,
Tyron
Woodley,
Michael
Chiesa and
Niko Price
(twice) anchor the Luque resume. On the other side of the equation,
Buckley burst onto the global scene in 2020 with his viral knockout
of
Impa
Kasanganay at UFC Fight Night 179. The 29-year-old St. Louis
native operates out of the Murcielago MMA camp, where he trains
alongside UFC veterans
Dequan
Townsend,
Kalinn
Williams and
Charles
Johnson. Can Buckley spring the upset and vault into the Top
15?
A Setting Sun
Time appears to be running out on ex-middleweight champion
Chris
Weidman, whose fall from grace has been exceedingly painful to
watch. Now far removed from his historic upset of
Anderson
Silva, the “All-American” takes on onetime
M-1 Global
titleholder
Bruno Silva
in a featured attraction at 185 pounds. Weidman, who turns 40 in
June, enters the cage with losses in seven of his past nine bouts.
The
Serra-Longo Fight Team anchor returned from a
career-threatening leg injury on Aug. 19, only to wind up on the
wrong side of a disheartening unanimous decision against
Brad
Tavares at UFC 292. It was Weidman’s first appearance in well
over two years, and he looked like a mere shell of his former self.
Silva, meanwhile, has met with his own struggles. The 34-year-old
Brazilian has lost four of his last five fights, including two
straight. He last saw action at UFC 294, where he dropped a
unanimous verdict to
Sharabutdin
Magomedov on Oct. 21. Nevertheless, Silva retains the ferocious
punching power that brought him to the dance and resulted in 20
career victories by knockout or technical knockout. Does Weidman
have enough left in the tank to get over the hump one more
time?
Second Impression
Nursulton
Ruziboev made for an intriguing addition to the 185-pound
weight class when he made his promotional debut with a 77-second
knockout of
Brunno
Ferreira at UFC on ESPN 48 in July. However, the jury remains
out on his staying power. Ruziboev, 30, puts his nine-fight winning
streak on the line when he squares off with
Sedriques
Dumas in a three-round middleweight showcase that should
provide some clarity on where he stands in the division. Few expect
it to go the distance. Ruziboev boasts 31 finishes—20 by submission
and 11 by knockout or technical knockout—among his 33 professional
victories, a staggering 24 of them inside one round. He has not
involved the judges in one of his fights in more than four years.
Dumas figures to answer the Uzbekistani’s explosivity with some of
his own. The 2022
Dana White’s Contender Series graduate has posted back-to-back
wins over
Cody
Brundage and
Abu Azaitar
since he suffered his only career setback—a guillotine choke
submission loss to
Josh Fremd
at UFC Fight Night 221 a little more than a year ago. Will Ruziboev
fend off “The Reaper” and move another step closer to relevance?