B/R Staff Roundtable: Questions That Need to Be Answered After UFC 256
The UFC's incredible year ended with a bang on Saturday night at UFC 256.
Now that the dust has settled following the terrific battle between UFC flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo and top-ranked contender Brandon Moreno, your favorite combat sports team here at Bleacher Report got together to offer our best guesses at the most important questions that need to be answered after UFC 256.
Read through our takes below, and be sure to leave your own in the comments, too.
Was Deiveson Figueiredo vs. Brandon Moreno the Fight of the Year?
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Kelsey McCarson: It's the latest "Fight of the Year" candidate in a year amazingly full of them. Off the top of my head, I'd argue that Weili Zhang vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Dustin Poirier vs. Dan Hooker were equally excellent fights that make up the rest of the three-headed monster that is Kelsey's favorite 2020 UFC throwdowns.
While I thought Deiveson Figueiredo deserved the nod in the fight, the Brazilian was pushed to his limit by Brandon Moreno on Saturday night at UFC APEX in Las Vegas. I think competing in a fight like that makes Figueiredo even more compelling than he already is, and he's already one of the hottest fighters in the company. The main event of UFC 256 was an amazing fight, and I'm grateful to have seen it.
Tom Taylor: It was a really, really fun scrap, but my vote for Fight of the Year still goes to Zhang and Jedrzejczyk's March firefight.
Figueiredo and Moreno's fight was twice paused by accidental fouls. Zhang and Jedrzejczyk's only lulls occurred when they were shepherded to their respective stools between rounds.
The fifth round of Figueiredo vs. Moreno was markedly slower than the first four. Zhang vs. Jedrzejczyk did not slow down until the final horn, and even then, it seemed like they had a few more rounds in their tanks.
Both fights will go down in UFC history, but in my opinion, one was slightly better than the other.
Lyle Fitzsimmons: I side with Tom here. Make no mistake, I dug the Figueiredo-Moreno fight. It was entertaining and violent, or entertainingly violent, if you prefer. But while it was surely on the high end compared to other scraps, I didn't come away from every round thinking, "Wow, this is amazing!" or, "Oh my goodness, how can they sustain this?" as I'd done for the Zhang-Jedrzejczyk match in March.
While Saturday's bout does deserve to be in the conversation as an "also received votes" entry for 2020, the women's bout will be the one mentioned when they catalog the best of the decade.
Is Charles Oliveira Next in Line for the Lightweight Title?
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Kelsey McCarson: Charles Oliveira definitely deserves to be on the short-list for big fights in the stacked 155-pound division.
The problem with the whole title shot thing is that nobody really knows what UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov's plans are. The Russian says he's retired, but UFC president Dana White believes he's coming back.
Regardless, it would seem that the UFC desperately wants to make one more big "Khabib Time" main event. That probably means the rest of the division will sort of be in a holding pattern for now. Lucky for us, it's a division packed with UFC superstars like Conor McGregor, Dustin Poirier, Michael Chandler, Dan Hooker, Justin Gaethje and Oliveira, so there would seem to be plenty of great fights to go around while we wait.
Tom Taylor: As Kelsey said, it all depends on Nurmagomedov's next move. If the lightweight champ sticks to his retirement plans and abandons the throne, I can see Oliveira fighting the winner of McGregor and Poirier's January fight, with the vacant lightweight title on the line.
If Nurmagomedov puts his retirement on hold, though, it will probably only be for one final fight, as he looks to push his record to 30-0. In that event, you've got to assume he'll be looking for the biggest matchup possible, against a bona fide superstar like Georges St-Pierre or McGregor. It's just hard to imagine him closing out his career by fighting Oliveira who, while undeniably talented, isn't a name many casual fans are going to recognize.
Lyle Fitzsimmons: It's Khabib's world, and everyone else at 155 is just living in it. Does Oliveira deserve a shot? No question. And the fact that he's my favorite UFC fighter makes me lean even more toward him for that reason. But I cannot imagine a scenario where the champ returns and picks him over the McGregor-Poirier winner. Not a chance.
That said, and as my esteemed teammates have pointed out, he's certainly won his side of the bracket and should be on the marquee if Khabib stays away. In fact, if I get my biggest MMA wish for Christmas, it will be Oliveira and Conor as the main at, let's say, UFC 262.
Is Tony Ferguson No Longer a Top Contender?
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Kelsey McCarson: Tony Ferguson will probably never be the same fighter he was when he won 12 straight UFC fights. Still, the American shouldn't be tossed to the curb just yet.
Losing to Justin Gaethje and Charles Oliveira is no punk move. While it was surprising to many to see "El Cucuy" get worked over the way he was in both fights, there have been plenty of professional fighters that have come back from way deeper trenches than this.
Still, it would probably be smart for Ferguson to not jump into the deep end of the pool so fast next time out. In retrospect, leaping at the chance to take on a streaking 31-year-old in a short-notice fight wasn't the best move for a fighter trying to rebound from his pummelling at UFC 249.
Ferguson could still be a factor at 155, but he'll need to take the right steps to get there this time.
Tom Taylor: It definitely seems like Ferguson's time at the top has come to a close, but I really don't know how it happened. How does a guy go from looking almost unbeatable to—dare I say—average, in such a short time?
Maybe father time is catching up with him. Maybe he was never as good as we thought. Maybe all it ever took to deal with his frenetic, hyper-violent style was a diligent, carefully executed game plan like the ones used by his recent foils Gaethje and Oliveira?
I confess to being completely perplexed by how we got to this point but, yeah, it seems like his contendership days are over.
Lyle Fitzsimmons: I say yes. Not because I don't like the guy. In fact, I wish it weren't the case. But I think El Cucuy has simply reached a point where his body—regardless of how fit and trim it looks at weigh-ins—is simply no longer capable of reaching the RPM needed to sustain his frenetic style.
The beating he received from Gaethje was no joke. And the way he reeled as the fight was stopped was no fluke.
Could he still handle pretty much anything outside the super-elite class of the lightweight division? Probably. But Saturday's result suggests to me that any match made within that high-end grouping won't go well.
Kevin Holland...Star in the Making or Too Soon to Say?
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Kelsey McCarson: Heck, yeah! Kevin Holland is an amazing athlete, one who appears to have all the skills required to take over the MMA world.
As great as knocking someone out from his back is, what I think separates Holland as a can't-miss superstar is how great he is with a mic in his hand. Holland talks a lot of noise, but none of it seems forced or like he's playing some kind of made-up character. Instead, there's a genuineness about him. In the same way, it even sort of seems good-natured.
I believe Holland is the next star of the middleweight division, and he could be on his way to being something even bigger, too.
Tom Taylor: If we're comfortable calling Khamzat Chimaev and Joaquin Buckley future stars, then we've got to talk about Holland in the same light. He's beaten amply better opponents than Chimaev has—and more of them. He knocked Buckley unconscious less than six months ago. He's accomplished more in the Octagon than either man, and between his pre-fight dancing, mid-fight trash talk and post-fight call outs, he seems to have a bigger personality than either guy, too.
I don't know how far he'll go in the perilous UFC middleweight division, but all the ingredients for stardom seem to be in the mixing bowl.
Lyle Fitzsimmons: Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes. Will he be beating the likes of Israel Adesanya anytime soon? Probably not. But if you measure stardom by magnetic personality, athletic prowess and memorable performance, then he's definitely on a galactic arc.
Five wins in a year is no joke, regardless of the opposition, and Holland—though he's not run through the top 15 just yet—hasn't exactly scraped the bottom of the barrel, either. And the idea that he's calling out another of 2020's supernovas for a grudge match on a week's notice...that's authentic BMF stuff, no cheesy title belt necessary.
What Was the Best Knockout of UFC 256?
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Kelsey McCarson: It has to be Kevin Holland knocking out Ronaldo Souza. Not only did Holland pull it off from his back, but the ending of the knockout sequence looked like some kind of weird video-game glitch, and it ended up making the destructive jack-hammering appear even more brutal.
That was quite the capper for Holland in 2020, who became just the third person in UFC history to go 5-0 in a calendar year, per MMA Junkie. Knockout of the year? Fighter of the year? Human of the year? Holland might just have all those honors at UFC 256.
Tom Taylor: I'm a sucker for slick hands, so my vote goes to Rafael Fiziev's crackling three-punch execution of Renato Moicano. I admit that it wasn't as unique as Holland's knockout of "Jacare" Souza, but it was the result of superior ringcraft.
He got his foe's timing down, set traps, and when the moment was right, fired his kill shots with mercenary efficiency. That, for me, made it a little more impressive than Holland's flailing and frankly flukish KO of Souza as it was. Not even the great Kelsey McCarson can convince me otherwise!
Lyle Fitzsimmons: Tom's right, Fiziev's erasure of Moicano was precisely the way a trainer would draw it up, and the way every ham-and-egger envisions while assaulting the garage heavy bag. Dig to the body, up to the head, finish with a clean-up hook. Perfect technique. Perfectly executed.
But as good as it was, it's forgotten in a week by everyone but the hardest-core fans. That won't be the case with Holland's freakish finish. It was special. It left a mark. And it's among the reasons we discussed the kid in the previous question.
For my money, it's not as good as Buckley's spinning kick. But best of Saturday's KOs, absolutely.
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