Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena, a non-title fight headlines a UFC Pay-Per-View event for just the seventh time in the last six years, as Khamzat Chimaev squares off with Nathan Diaz in a curious, yet compelling welterweight clash.
Numbered events usually come topped with at least one championship fight, and in recent years, two has been commonplace, and occasionally there have been three, but in the rare instances where a belt doesn’t hang in the balance in the final bout of the evening, there has almost always been one of three major names involved.
Conor McGregor headlined three of the six such events to take place since 2017, facing Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone at UFC 246, and Dustin Poirier in the main event of both UFC 257 and UFC 264. Jorge Masvidal featured in two of the remaining contests, taking on Diaz in a battle for the BMF title at UFC 244 before sharing the Octagon with former friend Colby Covington at UFC 272 earlier this year.
The only other instance took place at UFC 234, where Israel Adesanya and Anderson Silva were elevated to the main event the morning of the show after middleweight champion Robert Whittaker was rushed to the hospital due to a hernia and a twisted and collapsed bowel.
Outside of that unplanned example, each of the other instances featured compelling fights that, even if they didn’t carry the same kind of divisional significance as a championship bout would, all had a magnetic pull to them, and this weekend’s finale is no different.
But before discussing the headliners, here’s our customary look at a few additional fighters to watch this weekend at UFC 2279.
FIGHTER TO WATCH: JAILTON ALMEIDA
The 31-year-old Brazilian is 16-2 overall and entering on an 11-fight winning streak overall. A graduate of last season’s run on Dana White’s Contender Series (DWCS), Almeida debuted at light heavyweight in February, smashing his way through Danilo Marques before taking a short-notice assignment at heavyweight in May against Parker Porter.
While Porter is far from a contender, he’s still a serviceable heavyweight that had won three straight and had Almeida out-weighed by a good 40 pounds. “Malhadinho” responded by absolutely dominating, submitting Porter late in the opening stanza in a real statement-making effort.
This weekend, the DWCS breakout star remains at heavyweight, where he faces Shamil Abdurakhimov. Despite a three-fight slide, the Russian remains ranked in the Top 15, which means a victory could leave Almeida with a number next to his name if he emerges victorious.
A three-fight winning streak across two divisions to climb into the rankings is the kind of thing that earns competitors plenty of votes for the “Newcomer of the Year” award at the end of the year; it would also signal to everyone that Almeida is not someone to be taken lightly, even in the heavyweight division.
FIGHTER TO WATCH: KEVIN HOLLAND
Holland made waves as one of the stars of the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, earning five victories between May and December to climb into the Top 10 in the middleweight division.
Unfortunately for the talkative Texas-based fighter, things fell apart when he stepped against experienced, seasoned grapplers Derek Brunson and Marvin Vettori in the opening four months of 2021. After a little layoff to address his wrestling deficiencies, Holland returned, only to have his fight with Kyle Daukaus declared a No Contest due to an accidental clash of heads.
He announced plans to move down to welterweight and made his UFC debut in the 170-pound weight class earlier this year, collecting a second-round stoppage victory over Alex Oliveira, before finishing Tim Means in the middle stanza back in June. This weekend, “Loudmouth” lines up opposite Daniel Rodriguez in his toughest welterweight test to date.
The 35-year-old Rodriguez is 6-1 in the UFC, with three wins on either side of a competitive decision loss to Nicolas Dalby. Last time out, he beat highly regarded Kevin Lee on short notice, and he started his current run of success with a unanimous decision win over Mike Perry. He’s a durable, workmanlike veteran and the type of guy that will handily beat Holland if he tries to play around too much on Saturday.
Holland has a little bit of “The It Factor,” but he’s not quite good enough to where his charisma and magnetism make results inconsequential. People want to see him succeed and work his way up the divisional ladder, and this is a good opportunity to show that he’s capable of doing that in the welterweight ranks.
FIGHTER TO WATCH: IRENE ALDANA
Aldana enters her clash with Macy Chiasson on Saturday evening in an interesting position.
The 34-year-old is coming off a first-round stoppage win over Yana Kunitskaya last summer at UFC 264 and has won three of her last four, which includes a first-round knockout win over presumptive No. 1 contender Ketlen Vieira. It was the first loss of the Brazilian’s career, and could be an interesting card for Aldana to play should she emerge victorious this weekend.
Things at the top of the bantamweight division are currently up the air following Amanda Nunes returning to the throne at the end of July. No one knows whether a trilogy bout between “The Lioness” and former champ Juliana Pena will be booked, if flyweight queen Valentina Shevchenko will move back up to renew her rivalry with Nunes, or if someone like Vieira, who has earned back-to-back wins over former champs Miesha Tate and Holly Holm, will get a shot instead.
Aldana has always been positioned as a potential title challenger, but stumbled each time she reached a key matchup, dropping a split decision to Raquel Pennington after earning three-straight wins, and falling to Holm two years back on Fight Island following her knockout of Vieira.
While this isn’t the same type of high-profile matchup as her headlining turn opposite Holm, a dominant effort against an improving and physically imposing foe like Chiasson, coupled with the right call-out in her post-fight interview could position the Mexican contender near the top of the list of potential title challengers as the promotion figures out what to do next in the 135-pound weight class.
FIGHTER TO WATCH: TONY FERGUSON
The first three of these have been optimistic — spotlighting fighters with an upward trajectory looking to move forward in their respective divisions.
This one is the opposite.
Ferguson moves up to welterweight for the first time since his win over Ramsey Nijem at The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale in the summer of 2011 to take on Chinese veteran Li Jingliang. He enters on a four-fight slide and coming off a hellacious knockout loss to Michael Chandler at UFC 274 in May.
While the 38-year-old not cutting as much weight is a great thing, fighting again so soon after getting sent crashing to the canvas unconscious feels unnecessary, though very on-brand for the unrelenting, enigmatic Ferguson.
This is a tremendously dangerous matchup, as “The Leech” is coming off a second-round stoppage victory over Muslim Salikhov in July and knocked out divisional fixture Santiago Ponzinibbio two fights before that. In a year where a number of tenured veterans made one final march into the Octagon in fights, this feels like one of those fights, except Ferguson doesn’t feel resigned to being in the twilight of his days as an active competitor.
Maybe he proves everyone wrong. Maybe he looks fresh at welterweight, builds on the positive moments from the first round of his bout with Chandler, and shows everyone that he’s still got a little something left to offer inside the Octagon.
But it’s far more likely that suffers a similar fate as he did in May; that his losing streak extends to five and everyone has to have the same conversations about hoping Ferguson calls it a career as they had following UFC 274.
I don’t say this often, but I really hope I’m wrong.
WELTERWEIGHT MAIN EVENT: KHAMZAT CHIMAEV VS. NATHAN DIAZ
Everything everyone has said about this pairing since it was first announced is far and valid and true.
It’s a weird pairing.
It’s a middle finger to Diaz in the final fight of his UFC contract, especially after he’s been publicly lobbying for an assignment — any assignment — for the better part of a year, and speaking openly about wanting to part ways with the promotion in order to explore other opportunities.
It’s a fight designed to showcase Chimaev, who burst onto the scene with three wins in three months in 2020, ran through Jingliang last October, and emerged victorious in a wildly entertaining battle with former title challenger Gilbert Burns at UFC 273 in April.
It’s also a tremendous opportunity for Diaz to potential throw a wrench into the UFC’s plans as he’s tentatively scheduled to head out the door once this event ends.
I was in attendance at UFC 196 when he rallied to finish Conor McGregor in their initial short-notice meeting. He was getting dominated right up until he wasn’t, and then all of a sudden, he was submitting the guy that had been dominating everyone that stood across from him.
Now, Chimaev isn’t McGregor, isn’t a pumped-up lightweight masquerading as a 170-pound competitor, and he’s not someone that is necessarily going to look to stand-and-trade with Stockton’s favorite son.
The 28-year-old unbeaten rising star is a legitimate welterweight who won his first three UFC fights at middleweight, and someone who likes to wrestle. More correctly, he likes to drag helpless foes to the ground and never allow them back to their feet, which has been a successful method of dealing with the younger Diaz in the past.
But Diaz has a way of frustrating his opponents; of hanging around and finding a way to shift the momentum of the fight. Sometimes it results in a shocking upset, like the night he choked out McGregor, and other times it’s only a passing moment, like when he put new welterweight champ Leon Edwards on skates in the final minute of their battle at UFC 263 after losing just about every second of the preceding 24 minutes.
The fight game is chaotic and unpredictable, and as much as everyone feels pretty sure about how this one is going to play out (read: Chimaev by Smash), maybe let’s just wait and see what actually happens this weekend.
After all, the last pay-per-view main event looked like a done deal midway through the final round, and then Edwards put shin to head and brought the welterweight strap back home to Birmingham.
