UFC 231 Preview: What Are the Biggest and Best Fights Set for Toronto?
The penultimate pay-per-view of 2018, UFC 231, is fast approaching. While it's not a card designed to attract a large audience, lacking a mainstream star like Conor McGregor and taking place up north in Toronto, it's one designed to delight the hardcore MMA base.
Just take a look at the full card:
UFC 231 Main Card (Pay-Per-View)
- Max Holloway vs. Brian Ortega
- Valentina Shevchenko vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk
- Renato Moicano vs. Mirsad Bektic
- Claudia Gadelha vs. Nina Ansaroff
- Jimi Manuwa vs. Thiago Santos
UFC 231 Preliminary Card (Bout Order TBA)
- Katlyn Chookagian vs. Jessica Eye
- Devin Clark vs. Aleksandar Rakic
- Gunnar Nelson vs. Alex Oliveira
- Olivier Aubin-Mercier vs. Gilbert Burns
- Hakeem Dawodu vs. Kyle Bochniak
- Brad Katona vs. Matthew Lopez
- Eryk Anders vs. Elias Theodorou
- Chad Laprise vs. Dhiego Lima
- John Makdessi vs. Carlos Diego Ferreira
With a pair of title fights at the top of the bill and a number of interesting contenders underneath, there's quite a bit to talk about when it comes to UFC 231. So let's do that in our preview of the biggest and best fights set for Toronto!
The Main Event: Max Holloway vs. Brian Ortega
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At face value, the UFC 231 main event between Max Holloway and Brian Ortega is about as good as MMA gets.
Holloway is one of the most dominant champions in the UFC today. While his reign has technically been a short one, beginning in 2017 with his TKO win over Jose Aldo, his 12-fight winning streak since 2014 has seen him almost completely clean out the featherweight division. Contenders and champions alike have been felled with such ease that it's hard to give almost anybody a chance against the Hawaiian.
The sole exception to that is Ortega. Like Holloway, Ortega has slowly but surely carved his way through the featherweight division, dispatching some of its top stars along the way. He's one of the most intriguing up-and-coming talents the UFC has hosted in recent years and in most situations would be looked at as the clear favorite to win.
This collision of seemingly unstoppable competitors is the kind of thing most combat sports fans salivate over. Unfortunately, there's a fly in that soup in the form of Holloway's worrisome health.
After a roaring 2017, Holloway's 2018 has been a quiet one because of back-to-back-to-back withdrawals from fights.
In February, Holloway was forced out of a UFC 222 bout with Frankie Edgar because of a leg injury. A quick turnaround at UFC 223 in April was scuttled when he was yanked off the card by doctors because of a harsh weight cut. Scariest of all, he was pulled from a scheduled UFC 226 bout with Ortega in July because of concussion-like symptoms (which were on full display in the lead-up to the fight).
Those repeated, increasingly severe issues had many hoping for a lengthy layoff for the champion so he could sort out any health problems he might have. Instead, he is once again rushing back into the cage.
If all goes according to plan and Holloway comes into this fight in peak condition, it has the potential to be something extraordinary, but that is a very big "if."
The Co-Main Event: Valentina Shevchenko vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk
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The UFC is looking to do a hard reboot of the women's flyweight division.
The Ultimate Fighter: A New World Champion was a flop on every level, as it failed to draw ratings and exiled its participants from established contenders. Worse, weight-cutting issues followed tournament finalists Sijara Eubanks and Nicco Montano into the show's finale and then into their true UFC careers.
Long layoffs came. Then social media controversy. Then, finally, the title being stripped from Montano in September.
The promotion, fans and fighters were left frustrated by the ordeal, but the vacant championship offered the opportunity for a new beginning. Commendably, the UFC made the most of that by making the biggest fight possible for the division: Valentina Shevchenko vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk.
It's a pairing that hits almost spot-on for MMA hardcores.
Shevchenko and Jedrzejczyk—a longtime 135-pound contender and long-reigning 115-pound champion, respectively—are making fantasy a reality by meeting in the middle for a competitive, high-stakes contest. Not only that, but they enter the cage with chips on their shoulders, with Shevchenko looking to end her days as an uncrowned queen and Jedrzejczyk looking to once again live up to the "Joanna Champion" nickname. The cherry on top is the fact that they have a 12-year-old rivalry that dates back to their time on the Bangkok amateur muay thai circuit, a stretch which saw them face off in kickboxing three times.
It's an intriguing bout on every level, and it's one that's tough to predict. Shevchenko will have a definitive size advantage, and that can pay off in multiple ways. That said, Jedrzejczyk's pure MMA striking skills likely trump Shevchenko's at this point, and she's much better at securing 10-9 scores in close rounds.
Shevchenko earns the slightest of nods here, but this is a fight to simply kick back and enjoy.
Fight to Keep an Eye On: Eryk Anders vs. Elias Theodorou
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Eryk Anders was supposed to be a big deal for the UFC. The former Alabama Crimson Tide linebacker was a promotional godsend, with enough youth, knockout power and legitimate athleticism to turn into a surefire draw. He was, essentially, the MMA promotion equivalent of a turnkey operation.
All the promotion needed to do was nurture him. Give him manageable opponents. Put him in visible spots on big cards. With a little bit of time and care, he could be a very valuable asset.
But then, as it so often does, the UFC missed a layup.
After debuting in the Octagon with back-to-back wins, Anders was pitted against wily former champion Lyoto Machida. That led to a dubious split decision loss for Anders, and while he got the ball rolling again with a solid stoppage win in August, his momentum was stopped dead when he was knocked out in scary fashion just a month later.
Though Anders' career isn't over at this point, he's in dire straits at the moment, and the UFC isn't really doing him any favors as he looks to rebound. While he would be well-served with a straightforward squash match, he is instead heading into enemy territory to face a tough Elias Theodorou.
The Spartan isn't an elite-level talent, but the Canadian's 7-2 record in the Octagon wasn't amassed by chance. He owns solid all-over-the-cage skills and possesses both the chin and striking chops to avoid serious damage at range. He's a tough on-paper matchup for Anders on any day but is a particularly bad draw for him now, when he needs to regroup from an ugly loss.
An emphatic win would go a long way toward re-establishing Anders' legitimacy, but nobody has actually built themselves up at Theodorou's expense to this point. The most likely outcome here is a narrow judges' decision, and even if it happens to break in his favor, that does Anders little good in terms of getting his groove back.
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The Best of the Rest
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Renato Moicano vs. Mirsad Bektic
The UFC wants to make absolutely, positively sure that there are two title fights on the UFC 231 card. With that in mind, it booked a pair of fights just in case something goes wrong for any of the four fighters at the top of the bill.
Ready to step in for Max Holloway or Brian Ortega are Renato Moicano and Mirsad Bektic. Moicano and Bektic are similarly positioned when it comes to a potential title shot. 5-1 and 6-1 in their UFC careers, respectively, they both jumped into top contender status this summer courtesy of wins over top veterans.
The prediction nod, should this fight go down, goes to Moicano, given how exceptional he looked opposite Cub Swanson in August. That said, should either of the main eventers pull out, Bektic is more likely to get the call-up, given the fact that the sole blemish on Moicano's record came at the hands of Ortega.
Katlyn Chookagian vs. Jessica Eye
The plan B fight for the co-main event is Katlyn Chookagian vs. Jessica Eye...and it's a whole lot less interesting than Moicano vs. Bektic.
Chookagian owns a solid 4-1 UFC record but hasn't looked especially great en route to that mark, forgettably out-pointing mid-level opponents every outing. Meanwhile, Eye's 2-0 record in the UFC's flyweight division is hugely overshadowed by the ugly 1-5 (1) run she began her Octagon career with.
Unlike the previous fight, both the favorite status and the potential for upward mobility go in one direction: toward Chookagian. While not especially exciting, Chookagian is well-equipped to avoid the clinch work and dogged striking of Eye. And if Valentina Shevchenko or Joanna Jedrzejczyk can't make it to fight night? She's a bigger threat to pull off the title heist.
Gunnar Nelson vs. Alex Oliveira
For the most part, the UFC 231 undercard is made up of "Canada vs. the world" fights designed to hype up the Toronto crowd while holding limited appeal elsewhere. The biggest exception to that is Gunnar Nelson vs. Alex Oliveira.
Nelson has been one of the most interesting fighters in the UFC welterweight division since his debut in 2012. While injuries and ill-timed losses have prevented him from ever gaining title shot momentum, the Icelandic grappler's amazing submission skills have kept him near the top of the rankings, and his awkward, somewhat dark charisma makes him a memorable character.
Though Oliveira hasn't attracted any sort of serious attention, he has simply won too many fights to ignore. 9-3 (1) in his UFC career, with seven of those coming via stoppage, he has crept his way up the ladder and established himself as one of the division's toughest.
This is the on-paper favorite to win Fight of the Night, with Nelson being a narrow favorite to win.
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