On paper, UFC 206 was a card that was overlooked and brushed aside; sandwiched between two mega cards that hogged the limelight and to compound matters, deprived of the original title fight that was slated to headline it.
Still, there was a sliver lining in that Conor McGregor was hastily stripped of the Title that many expected him to never defend again, and an interim version of it was thrust within the grasp of two legitimately deserving fighters, Max Holloway and Anthony Pettis.
As fate would have it, however, the card’s woes deepened when Pettis missed weight, rendering it technically possible only for Holloway to capture gold should he emerge victorious. But despite all the negative buzz surrounding it, UFC 206 delivered and then some.
Here then, are five of the most salient talking points from the event that are worth running through again
#5 Groovy, groovy Lando Vannata
If you wrote off or disregarded Lando Vannata’s near-finish of Tony Ferguson as a one-off or a fluke, this fight against John Makdessi would have whipped a dose of reality into you. Lando Vannata is here to stay.
His looseness in the Octagon almost boders on nonchalance, but unlike the complacent kind that Luke Rockhold paid for in his UFC 194 Title fight against Michael Bisping, Vannata’s poker face doesn’t betray the alertness of mind that he possesses.
For the entirety of his fight against Makdessi, which wasn’t too long mind you, the Groovy one programmed him to expect an in-and-out-strafe-away right hand and had him ducking away repeatedly.
Only, when Makdessi expected that the right hand was forthcoming and ducked away in anticipation one time too many, the back of Vannata’s heel met his face to put his lights out.
Move over Barboza, move over Uriah Hall. This wasn’t just a brutal spinning wheel kick knockout; it was a cerebral one as well.
As I said, Lando Vannata is here to stay.
#4 Fight of the year. Period.
Cub Swanson versus Dooho Choi was earmarked to be the fight to watch coming into UFC 206, but the kind of battle that ensued between the two trigger-friendly warriors exceeded all expectations that was appended to it.
In hindsight, a scorecard reading 30-27,30-27,29-28 in favour of Cub Swanson doesn’t leave much room for doubt as to who won that fight, but for those that watched it, nothing could be further from the truth.
It was a magnificent display of technical brawling that ebbed and flowed ceaselessly for the duration of the fight; no sooner was Swanson was getting lit up with that piston-like right hand of Choi, did he contrive to flip the script, buffetting the Korean with a desperate flurry of strikes and cartwheel kicks.
Choi, who had more success in Round 1 when pressing the attack on the front foot, was then left hanging on by the skin of his teeth for the majority of the subsequent rounds in the face of a feral, all-guns-blazing assault from Swanson.
Every time it looked like Swanson would put him away, Dooho Choi would miraculously come back from the dead and stay in the fight.
To put it in a nutshell, it was a battle between Swanson’s will to win and Choi’s iron chin, and at the end of the day, both were left standing tall.
Much like the audience in attendance and also– if I could hazard a guess – everyone around the world who watching from home as well.
#3 Onwards and upwards for Cerrone
Donald Cerrone has been on a tear at Welterweight, and his performance against an incredibly tough and game Matt Brown was nothing short of elite level stuff. For not only did Brown take the fight to him in his trademark dogged style, but this was arguably the best that he has looked in a while.
After being completely nullified against Maia and finished early against Ellenberger, Brown’s approach to this fight didn’t seem to portray the level of desperation that an aging fighter who has lost 4 out of his last 5 fights may normally be associated with.
Instead, his striking seemed crisp and his gameplan was astute, as he took the attack to a younger and, arguably, more talented fighter for as long as the fight did last. Perhaps including Duane Ludwig into his training camp is paying dividends; after all, he is the coach that reinvented TJ Dillashaw into the next-gen fighter that he is today.
However, guts and grit only gets you that far, and Cowboy’s in-fight reads proved too perceptive for Brown to deal with as he succumbed in the third round to a perfectly timed head kick.
Cerrone, meanwhile, marches on towards a title shot in the Welterweight rankings. In all probability, he has to deal with the BJJ phenom that his Demian Maia next, as Wonderboy looks likely to replay his UFC 205 fight against Champion Tyron Woodley.
#2 Kevin Gastelum proves a point
There was a prevalent rumour in internet circles that the UFC was feeding Kelvin Gastelum to Tim Kenndy as punishment for his unprofessionality in not making weight at UFC 205.
And in the nascent stages of Round 1 when a visibly larger Kennedy was holding on to him with a body lock from behind and repeatedly kneeing him in the ass, Joe Rogan even subtly suggested as much.
If that was indeed the UFC’s grand design, then did it backfire spectacularly or what?
Once Gastelum exploded out of the body lock with the clock winding down in Round1, he never looked back. He proceeded to let his superiour boxing take over as he darted in and out of the pocket, picking apart Kennedy with accurate strikes.
Unable to retort in kind or take him down, Kennedy gassed out under the steady pace that Gastelum kept on him before sinking to his knees in Round 3, unable to take anymore of the punishment that was being dished out.
Having not fought in a while, Kennedy may have not been the sharpest tool in the yard, but you couldn’t take anything away from Gastelum’s performance even if you wanted to. He may be ghosted by his weight issues, but when he gets it together, Kelvin Gastelum is one of the brightest young prospects in the UFC today.
#1 Where is Jose ‘Waldo’?
As of today Max Holloway is the interim Featherweight Champion in the UFC. For a fighter that has been on a 9 fight win streak even before he finished Anthony Pettis, few would argue that it is richly deserved reward.
But while his exploits in the Octagon have always spoken for him, Max Holloway’s quirky personality is only now beginning to come to the fore.
Be it through boldly draping himself in various things golden or letting his disdain of division kingpin Jose ‘Waldo’ be known, Max Holloway has burst onto the scene in a telling manner with his TKO victory over a highly touted fighter that has never been finished before.
With Conor McGregor also ‘relinquishing’ his Featherweight strap, the division has almost attained normalcy barring an impending Title unification bout between newly crowned interim Champion Holloway and undisputed Champion Aldo.
Whether Holloway will be able to conquer the final frontier in Aldo remains to be seen, but on the back of his most impressive performance in the Octagon, the only question that rings in my head is the one that he asked in the post-fight press conference; ‘Where is Jose Waldo?’
I guess it’s time to jump on the Max Holloway bangwagon to find out.
