What to watch when mixed martial arts returns with UFC 249

By Case Keefer (contact)

Thursday, May 7, 2020 | 2 a.m.

Dana White was determined to make the UFC the first major sports organization to return from the widespread coronavirus shutdowns, and it looks like he’ll get his wish on Saturday.

UFC 249 is scheduled to take place—without fans—at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida. White, the president of the locally based promotion, also lived up to a promise to stack the first event back with many of mixed martial arts’ biggest names.

He has called it “probably the best card we’ve ever had,” and in terms of top-to-bottom fighter notoriety, it’s tough to argue. There will be recognizable, decorated fighters in all 12 bouts, but here are five fights that particularly shouldn’t be missed.

The constant

The initial reason White was so determined to go ahead with UFC 249 on its originally scheduled date (April 18) was to keep a planned lightweight championship bout between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Tony Ferguson intact.

That became impossible when travel restrictions left Nurmagomedov stuck in his native Dagestan, but Ferguson still wanted to fight, so White arranged for an interim title bout against former World Series of Fighting champion Justin Gaethje. Ferguson vs. Gaethje has been UFC 249’s headliner ever since, even with the date change.

Staying on the card is a gamble for Ferguson, who’s risking a 12-fight winning streak against someone other than the current champion, Nurmagomedov. But it’s also easy to see what’s in it for him.

Ferguson’s aggressive, if not reckless, fighting style is tailor-made for superstardom, but he’s been more of a B-level draw for the UFC—popular enough to headline a pay-per-view but not enough to headline a top-selling pay-per-view. With the expected additional eyes on UFC 249 given the stoppage of the rest of the sports world, this could be the moment when Ferguson transcends to a place closer to divisional rivals Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor.

Champion vs. legend

The UFC hoped to have multiple lineal championship bouts for its comeback card but has been left with only one. That one, however, features its lone current multiple-weight champion, former Olympic gold medalist wrestler Henry Cejudo.

Cejudo, also the flyweight champion, will put his bantamweight belt up against the division’s longest-tenured champion of all-time. Dominick Cruz held the championship for 1,465 days in two separate spans from 2010-12 and 2015-16.

The 35-year-old Cruz hasn’t fought since December 2016 because of injury, but he’s one of the quickest, craftiest fighters in the organization when at his best. It should make for a stylistically intriguing matchup against Cejudo’s brute strength, even without accounting for the historic ramifications.

Local Giant

Cameroon-born Francis Ngannou moved to Las Vegas from Paris three years ago and appeared to be fast-tracked to winning the UFC heavyweight title. He stopped six straight opponents to start his UFC career, earning a championship bout against Stipe Miocic in January 2018 that he was favored to win.

But Ngannou then hit a wall, failing to engage enough to beat either Miocic or next opponent Derrick Lewis in a shocking pair of back-to-back upset losses. But he believes he has solved his timidity issue over the past year and a half with a three-fight win streak, and could earn another chance at the title with a win over Jairzinho Rozenstruik in Jacksonville.

Comeback/rematch

“Biggest fight, all the attention, my time to shine, [and] I didn’t want to be there. It was crazy, man. I don’t know why. I don’t know how.”

That’s how Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone recently told ESPN he felt ahead of his 40-second loss to McGregor in the main event of January’s UFC 246. Cerrone has long cited mental hurdles for holding back his career; another example came in January 2013, when former lightweight champion Anthony Pettis stopped him in the first round with a body kick.

Cerrone will have a chance to right the Pettis loss—and rebound from the McGregor no-show—at UFC 249, when the two stars face off for a second time in the final preliminary bout airing on ESPN before the pay-per-view begins.

Show-stealers

UFC fans repeat the rule so often it has almost become cliché: Women rise to the occasion on the biggest cards.

We’ve seen a long list of recent female fighters eschewing caution and getting into momentum-swinging battles that make for the most competitive matches of the night. And the only women’s fight at UFC 249—a strawweight bout between Carla Esparza and Michelle Waterson—could follow suit.

Esparza became the promotion’s first strawweight champion by beating Rose Namajunas in December 2014 but she’s gone just 5-4 since. Similarly, Waterson was once an Invicta champion but has gone only 5-3 after joining the UFC. 

Waterson’s kickboxing versus Esparza’s wrestling looms as an interesting matchup of strengths early on the ESPN broadcast.

This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.