Mailbag: Alexandre Pantoja, Steve Erceg, Jose Aldo, and where we go after UFC 301

UFC 301 is in the books, and the more things change, the more they stay the same. Alexandre Pantoja is still the UFC flyweight champion, Jose Aldo is still the GOAT, and Michel Pereira still rocks. So let’s talk about the fallout from the UFC’s latest trip to Brazil and where we go from here.

Alexandre Pantoja

Is Pantoja regressing/past his prime?

Leading off with this question because I want to answer the last part first.

On Saturday, Pantoja became only the second man in history to successfully defend the UFC flyweight title more than once (Deiveson Figueiredo had two title defenses, but one ended in a draw) when he took home a unanimous decision win over Steve Erceg. Canonically, that makes Pantoja the second greatest flyweight ever, and when No. 1 is Demetrious Johnson, well, you’re only ever striving for the silver medal anyway. That’s one (Mike) Heck of an accomplishment.

I’ll also note that the way he did it was impressive. Pantoja’s current winning streak has been largely defined by his elite grappling and almost reckless aggression. There was certainly some of the latter on Saturday, but actually he fought a more measured and responsible fight. There were still pockets where he ran headlong into Erceg’s best weapons, but when you have a chin like Pants does, that’s not the worst thing in the world. In the end, he worked through it and was able to score nine takedowns on a man who had only given up two prior to this fight, and is a damn fine grappler in his own right. It was championship stuff.

All that being said, I do think we’re probably at the end of Pantoja’s prime, if not already into the decline. He’s 34 years old, which on the crispy side of cooked for the lighter-weight divisions, and while this is undeniably the most impressive stretch of his career, he does seem to have plateaued. He’s doing a lot of the same stuff in every fight and it’s working because of his rare doggedness and durability, but in the not-too-distant future someone is going to stymie his grappling and then Pantoja’s disregard for defense in the striking phase is going to burn him. (Mike) Heck, it almost did on Saturday, but more on that in a moment.

And there are other things to talk about first, but I’ll circle back to the rest of this question down below.

Vincenzo Erceg

Where do you rank Erceg at Flyweight after tonight? He put up a much better fight than [Brandon] Royval

Pretty highly! We have a rankings update coming out this week and I’ll be interested to see how the rest of my colleagues feel about the man we’ve affectionately dubbed “Vinnie Cigs,” but I’ve got him as a top-five flyweight.

To be honest, I kind of felt that way before this fight, but it was hard to commit to ranking him so highly based on such a small sample size. But now that he’s been in there with the champion (and one of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world, by my estimation) and nearly beaten him, I feel good about plopping him near the top of the division.

And remember, Erceg is only 28 years old and he’s been in the UFC for less than a year. Pantoja won on Saturday because of his experience as much as anything, and Erceg just gained some valuable experience of his own. I expect him to be a force for years to come.

Judging

How bad was the Erceg robbery?

Didn’t expect to see this question, but sure, I’ll indulge.

There was no robbery. I actually did score the fight for Erceg — giving him Rounds 2, 3, and 4 — but to suggest this was a robbery is a little bit crazy. Rounds 1, 4, and 5 were all clear rounds (Pantoja, Erceg, Pantoja), but the other two were very debatable. Any scorecard from 4-1 Pantoja to 3-2 Erceg is acceptable, and all three judges fit into that category. Absolutely not a robbery, just a competitive fight between top fighters.

This fight did resurface a very interesting question that I’ve been trying to parse out in judging though, and it’s just how much to value cuts.

In Round 3, Erceg opened Pantoja up pretty badly with an elbow that had the champion bleeding like a stuck pig. Ultimately, I gave him the round for that. Absent the elbow, it was clearly a Pantoja round, but the cut was so prominent and Pants bled so much that I felt the damage favored Erceg for the round. But I’m still not sure if that’s correct. Cuts are, largely, superficial damage. I certainly wouldn’t score a big cut as more significant than dropping a fighter or something like that, but in a round without other major damaging blows, taking a pint of blood out of someone does feel like it should get rewarded.

But again, I’m still not sure that’s the correct call, and so I’m fine if you scored that fight 4-1 Pantoja.

JOSE FREAKING ALDO

What’s your ideal matchmaking for Aldo? Cejudo? Cruz? O’Malley?

JOSE ALDO IS THE GOAT! HE’S THE GOAT, YOU HEAR ME!

Ahem, excuse me. Just had to get that out. (But like, seriously. This man has been a top fighter for 20 years and doing it weight classes where that’s impossible. Youngest champion ever, and if the game back then was like it is today where you can get title shots in other weight classes for no reason, he’d have been bantamweight, featherweight, and lightweight champion. He’s the GOAT.)

Anyway, Jose Aldo returned from retirement to school Jonathan Martinez on what it means to be a great fighter, giving the Rio crowd (and me personally) something to cheer about. It ruled. And while there are a lot of people out there saying Martinez didn’t show up to fight, the truth is that he did, but that Aldo made him not. It was an exceptional performance by a man who is nearly a decade removed from his prime, but still teaching top fighters in the world some lessons.

As for what comes next, I suspect Aldo will not return to the UFC. This was the final fight on his contract and it seems the UFC did want to re-sign him before 301 but he passed. That’s just good business on his part, but it does suggest he’s more than open to the idea of going to the highest bidder, or just moving onto boxing. Now, this isn’t a Nate Diaz situation where it’s clear he’s leaving, but I’d guess it’s 60/40 he’s out. The only way that changes is if the UFC backs up the Brinks truck, and they don’t really do that anymore.

But if it does happen and The GOAT re-signs, there are two acceptable fights for him: Sean O’Malley or Dominick Cruz. O’Malley is the moon shot fight and many people would hate that. Well, I hate those people. Aldo deserves it because he’s the bestest, and also, he was robbed by Merab Dvalishvili in 2022. So just let Aldo get one final chance at the belt and we can be on our way.

I doubt that happens though, so yeah, let’s finally just do the Cruz fight. It kind of doesn’t make sense for Aldo if he wants to challenge for the title, but also, it kind of doesn’t matter. Aldo is Aldo and can fight for the belt if the UFC deems it so, regardless of who he beats. And the Cruz fight simply needs to happen before he retires for good.

Michel Pereira

What is the ceiling for Michel Pereira at Middleweight - can he get himself into title contention?

On the UFC 301 main card, my medium adult son Michel Pereira obliterated Ihor Potieria in just 54 seconds, avenging Mauricio Rua and righting a grievous wrong. Now, did he do it with a completely illegal knee to the head of Ihor? Sure did. Does anyone care? Not in the slightest. In all sports, the Rule of Cool prevails. That’s where Petr Yan went wrong. Illegally kneeing Aljamain Sterling in the head while standing over him was not cool. Doing it via backflip guard pass? Dope as hell.

Periera is now 3-0 in the UFC middleweight division with three Performance bonuses and a combined fight time of three minutes and one second. Granted, it’s not against top-15 opposition, but “Demolidor” is bulldozing legitimately quality middleweights. When you perform that well against solid competition, that’s the sign of a legitimate contender, and I think that’s what Pereira is. He is clearly much better suited to 185 pounds and looks so much better at middleweight than he ever did at 170. Plus, 185 is a worse division than welterweight, so he gets even more of a bump.

I don’t know that Pereira wins the belt, but this is a guy who I can absolutely believe fights for the title one day.

We’re back

How high is Orolbai’s ceiling after watching that fight?

You buying tickets for the Ruffy hype train?

If you were running the place, would you keep bringing big shows back to these lackluster Brazilian crowds?

OK, now we can get to the rest of this question, but I’ll be quick, since this is already sprawling a bit.

1. Myktybek Orolbai won a unanimous decision victory over Elves Brener on the undercard this Saturday and he’s now 2-0 in the UFC’s lightweight division, with wins over quality competition. Orolbai is only 26 years old and has all the hallmarks of a legitimate contender. He can go all the way to a title shot OR he could just hang around the top-15 for a long time. That’s the thing about lightweight, it’s impossible. There are so many good fighters who can beat anyone on any given day that making headway up the rankings is a crapshoot. But he’s young and talented, and most importantly, he has a name that’s hard to spell and a fun hat. Never bet against someone that fits that description.
2. Mauricio Ruffy ran over Jamie Mullarkey on the undercard and had the commentary team drawing comparisons to Conor McGregor. Personally, I’m not there. Great performance, no doubt, but that also a product of fighting Jamie Mullarkey. The man is an exceptional piece of enhancement talent. In my Contender Series breakdown, I viewed Ruffy as a quality contributor and a solid fighter, but more of a top-30 ceiling talent than anything more and I’m sticking to that. For now, at least.
3. Bring them good cards.

I saw a lot of this sentiment over the weekend, saying that the Rio crowd was underwhelming. That’s absolutely true, but the logical progression from that shouldn’t be “These fans suck!” No, the leap to make should be, “Hmm, I know Brazilian crowds are electric. The last few pay-per-view events haven’t been. I wonder why? Is it because Brazil became a pacifist country overnight? Maybe there’s another explanation.”

There are two plausible explanations for the drop off in Brazilian fan reaction. First is that the UFC is simply pricing out the good fans with ticket prices, leading to a tamer, lamer crowd full of yuppies. Certainly possible and probably a part of it. But the more obvious answer is that the last few times the UFC went to Brazil for a pay-per-view, it didn’t exactly put its best foot forward. We’re a long way removed from the days of Anderson Silva and Shogun Rua and Vitor Belfort being on fight posters, and with the UFC failing to build new stars and then using the few ones they have on other cards (*cough* Alex Pereira at UFC 300 *cough*), the fans are reacting in the only rational way: They aren’t responding.

If the fans aren’t losing their minds, that’s a promotional problem. Do better.

PPV

Is this the worst PPV in UFC history?

No. Not even close. It was a perfectly fine pay-per-view. In fact, that actual pay-per-view portion of this card was quite good. You can even argue it was the third best one this year after UFC 300 and UFC 299. But the undercard underwhelmed for sure and overall this felt like a Fight Night instead of a pay-per-view. But that’s the price we paid for UFC 300.

ESPN+

Now this was ACTUALLY the worst. Myself and a number of people had an issue on Saturday where we bought the pay-per-view via the ESPN+ app, but it simply would not allow us to watch it. It was deeply frustrating and also an experience you only ever get with ESPN. I’ve never bought a movie on Amazon and it been like, “Great, you bought this movie! Would you like to buy this movie? Click here.”

So, the next time Dana White comes for the throats of all the pirates out there, taking money from the hands of the fighters, remember that actually the UFC and its broadcast partner made it almost impossible to legally watch UFC 301 because of shoddy technology and a total indifference to making it better.

One for me

Not 301 related but if [Dricus du Plessis] can defend the belt and Jiri is able to go to 185 is DDP vs Jiri the most wonderfully stupid fight in UFC (possibly MMA) history? I think it could reach Kimbo vs Dada levels of great

It would be magical and it’s a fight I’ve wanted for some time. One day it will happen and I will love it. But not yet. First we have to find a way to make DDP vs. Michel Pereira happen. My two medium adult sons fighting each other in the silliest way possible, perhaps for the right to face my larger adult son and truly establish the family pecking order. I need it.

Thanks for reading, and thank you for everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! Doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.