Every fight matters, but some matter just a little more.
A win is a win and a loss is a loss, of course, but some of those Ws and Ls feel bigger than others for various reasons. In some cases, the elevated stakes are easy to define. Picture the fighter on a losing streak who knows he or she is likely fighting for their job, or conversely, any title fight in a top regional organization, where the combatants know the big leagues are almost certainly scouting them. At other times, a fight feels especially important for reasons that are harder to quantify but no less real. Whether it’s the unspoken weight of being a pioneer in MMA from one’s native country or the simple added spice of two fighters who genuinely hate each other’s guts, that fight means just a little more.
This Saturday in Newark, New Jersey, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is set to deliver a dozen bouts featuring fighters in every stage of MMA’s career life cycle. From top-billed Islam Makhachev, one of the most dominant fighters in the sport and Sherdog’s current pound-for-pound king, to former champs looking to make it back to the top of the mountain, undefeated phenoms planning to make a big splash, and several ranked contenders who need to bounce back from losses, everyone has something to prove. Still, some may feel a bit more under the gun when the lights go down at the Prudential Center. Here are three fighters who need to stand and deliver at UFC 302.
Jailton Almeida: Don’t Join the JAG Corps
In referring to Almeida, that three-letter acronym does not stand for Judge Advocate General, as in the long-running military legal drama series by that name, but “just another guy/gal.” There are about 600 fighters on the UFC roster at any given time, and about 500 of them are JAGs. They are not champs, contenders, cult heroes, or fan favorites; just very good fighters doing their best to keep their jobs and separate themselves from the pack in the world’s top promotion.
To be fair, despite his one-sided loss to Curtis Blaydes at UFC 299 in March, “Malhadinho” is not really in immediate danger of falling all the way into the ranks of the JAGs, no matter what happens against Alexander Romanov on Saturday. While it surely stung to have his perfect 6-0 UFC record snapped—to say nothing of his 15-fight win streak overall—it was simply a case of Almeida running into the worst stylistic matchup the division had to offer. Almeida is a huge, athletic man who has parlayed those gifts into an excellent wrestling attack, despite having no formal background in that discipline, which then feeds his crushingly heavy top game. In Blaydes, who is even bigger, just as athletic, and perhaps the best heavyweight wrestler in MMA history, Almeida faced a foe who basically trumped all his best cards.
Almeida would appear to be the one holding the high cards this time around, as Romanov is another massive wrestler who made a big splash upon his arrival in the UFC a few years ago but hit a ceiling once he ran into Top 10 competition who exposed his one-dimensional game and questionable cardio. Almeida’s originally scheduled opponent, Alexander Volkov, was a tall order for a rebound fight, pun fully intended. The 6-foot-7 Russian striker would have been an interesting test, thanks to his veteran composure, underrated power and ever-improving takedown defense. Romanov is Volkov’s stylistic opposite, offering essentially a poor man’s version of Almeida’s own skill set, in a smaller package to boot. At age 32, a spring chicken by heavyweight standards, Almeida still gives off a bit of an up-and-coming prospect vibe despite having over 20 professional fights. If he truly is a special fighter—a future champ, or at least a perennial Top 5 fixture like Blaydes—he should absolutely wreck Romanov. If he struggles or, heaven forbid, loses…well, the good news is that as a heavyweight JAG, he could easily stick around for another full decade, cashing checks.
Walk It Off, Grant Dawson
Speaking of fighters at UFC 302 who will be looking to bounce back from their first UFC loss but also have the chance to help—or hurt—their perceived status as future title contenders, Dawson is probably even more eager than Almeida to put his last performance in the rearview. The alum of Season 1 of Dana White's Contender Series went undefeated in his first nine UFC bouts, and aside from a scare against Ricky Glenn in 2021 that led to a majority draw, he has made it look pretty easy. Dawson’s struggles all seemed to be outside of the cage, with three weight misses—two while still laboring under the delusion that he was a featherweight—and a brush with USADA that forced one of his bouts to be rescheduled.
However, by late 2022, “KGD” seemed to have hit his stride. Even after his longtime gym, Glory MMA and Fitness, crashed and burned, he not only survived but thrived, settling in at American Top Team and racking up his two best wins to date, manhandling Mark O. Madsen and Damir Ismagulov to complete the turn from talented but inconsistent featherweight prospect to ranked lightweight contender. Dawson was rewarded with his first main event booking, entering the cage last October at UFC Fight Night 229 as a better than 4-to-1 favorite over Bobby Green. Considering the depth of the UFC lightweight division, it was still a long way off, but at 29, with a professional record of 20-1-1 and rolling over strikers and grapplers alike, it was tempting to wonder whether Dawson might eventually be the one to break the Dagestani dynasty at 155 pounds—or at the very least, the first to avoid becoming an instant takedown dummy.
Any speculation along those lines proved to be very premature, however, as Green needed just 33 seconds to leave Dawson, his 12-fight unbeaten streak, and a lot of his hype face down in the middle of the UFC Apex. Returning for the first time since that quick and brutal setback, Dawson, like Almeida, has drawn an opponent who appears to be a reasonable yet very winnable challenge. Joe Solecki is a tricky, stance-switching boxer and an even trickier grappler, capable of threatening with submissions from almost anywhere, but Dawson will be bigger, faster, harder-hitting, and a vastly superior wrestler. Here is a chance for Dawson to show his continued maturation by bouncing back from defeat authoritatively. Show up, make weight, fill a cup with clean pee, and take care of business against Solecki, preferably showing along the way that the Green knockout did not leave him gun-shy on the feet. Start up another dozen-fight streak and the rest will take care of itself.
Cesar Almeida: Become Poatan’s Poatan
Three years ago, when the UFC offered a contract to a 34-year-old former elite kickboxer with just four MMA bouts to his name, it seemed pointless at best, perhaps even silly. Unless, that is, you knew that Alex Pereira’s kickboxing record happened to include two wins over UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya. Context is everything, folks. If this column has an overall theme, that’s it, and the “Poatan” signing is a perfect example of that principle at work. At the time, the best realistic hope would have been somehow getting Pereira enough wins to justify a title fight slash grudge match with “The Last Stylebender.” At that point, mission accomplished. Even if Pereira lost badly, the signing would have served a purpose, as Adesanya was in real danger of having to clean out his division twice over while waiting for fresh contenders to emerge.
The move paid off better than the UFC could have dreamed. After hooking up with the perfect mentor in fellow late-bloomer legend Glover Teixeira, Pereira won his way to a middleweight title shot, whereupon he knocked Adesanya out. Pereira lost the rematch, but in many ways, that ended up being better for everyone involved, because having given the middleweight division the kind of hard reboot it so desperately needed, he then moved up to light heavyweight and won a belt there too. Suddenly, the crossover curiosity, the gimmick signing, might be among the 25 or 30 most accomplished mixed martial artists of all time, and he basically did it in three years and eight fights.
Almeida’s case, while not quite as compelling as that of Pereira, is similar in just about every way. “Cesinha” entered the UFC through the Contender Series last season as a 35-year-old former kickboxing champ and MMA neophyte, a move that only makes sense in the knowledge that Almeida and Pereira fought three times in various kickboxing promotions. While Pereira leads that series 2-1, all three fights went to decision and all were competitive. If the UFC can duplicate even the “dream small” version of Pereira’s run, getting Almeida into the title picture at either 185 or 205, that would be incredible. It has gone swimmingly so far: Almeida thrashed an overmatched Dylan Budka in his debut in April. Next up is Roman Kopylov, whom Almeida faces in a main-card feature on Saturday. While Kopylov, a borderline Top 15 talent, is an enormous step up in competition from Budka, significantly, Kopylov is a striker by preference who is less likely to test Almeida’s takedown defense and grappling game than just about anyone else of comparable standing the UFC could have found. Is the promotion “protecting” Almeida, trying to shield him from middleweight’s ground monsters until absolutely necessary? Possibly, but just like Pereira before him, Almeida still has to go out and beat the people put in front of him, and just like Pereira, he has no margin of error—less, in fact, since Almeida is a couple years older. If Pereira had lost a fight at any point on the way up, the buzz would have died, fans would have screamed that he had been “exposed,” and it’s unlikely he would ever have made it to a title shot. Same goes for “Cesinha.” No pressure, then; just go out there and be perfect.
Order Now! UFC 302 "Makhachev vs. Poirier" Saturday at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+