The best and worst from UFC Fight Night 140: Magny vs. Ponzinibbio

The UFC broke into another new market with UFC Fight Night 140 – this time Argentina – and it’s pretty safe to say that the show was a resounding success. Sure, it was low on name value, but the show delivered in spades in terms of entertaining fights, and at the end of the day that’s the most important thing, right?

Of the 10 televised fights, just 3 went the distance, and of those, the prelim between Laureano Staropoli and Hector Aldana was pretty exciting if a bit sloppy. Elsewhere we got a bunch of fun finishes and a lot of aggressively-fought matches, and most of it ranged from good to great.

Here are the best and worst moments of UFC Fight Night 140.

#1 Best: The Ponz sends his fans home happy

The main event saw a great performance from native Argentine Santiago Ponzinibbio, as he systematically destroyed fellow Welterweight contender Neil Magny over a period of 4 rounds. Despite the length of the fight it never truly felt like Magny was in it, and from the moment he was badly hurt late in the first round, it only felt like a matter of time before he’d be finished.

It was one of the most complete performances of Ponzinibbio’s career – he applied pressure, corralled Magny into the fence while cutting off the angles and refusing to follow his opponent, and hit him with a mix of nasty jabs, right hands and in particular, savage leg kicks that had Magny hopping around.

There could’ve been an argument for Magny’s corner stopping the fight as every time Ponzinibbio landed a low kick by the 4th round, the American was unable to stand, but in the end it didn’t matter as ‘Gente Boa’ turned his lights out anyway with a nasty right hand that left him face down, unconscious.

The win marked Ponzinibbio’s 7th victory in a row – the second-best streak in the division behind the much-feared Kamaru Usman – and in fact, with champion Tyron Woodley likely to defend against Colby Covington next, a fight between Ponzinibbio and the winner of Usman’s upcoming fight with Rafael Dos Anjos might be good to decide the next top contender at 170lbs.

Even if he never secures a title shot though, Ponzinibbio will always have this victory to look back on as a high point – the main event win in front of his countrymen. It was pretty awesome.

#1 Worst: Calvillo should never have been allowed to fight

Cynthia Calvillo did not look healthy at the weigh-ins and should never have fought

Strawweight prospect Cynthia Calvillo actually picked up one of the night’s better victories, as she outworked opponent Polania Botelho across the first round of their fight before finishing her off with a unique no-hooks rear naked choke late in the round, but the question has to be asked; should she have been allowed to fight in the first place?

The weight limit for a Strawweight fight is 115lbs, and with the pound allowance non-title fights are given, 116lbs. Calvillo came in at 118lbs – not a massive miss, admittedly – but she looked terrible on the scale, having to strip naked and stand behind a towel to even hit 118lbs, and she looked barely able to stand at points and appeared to be on the verge of collapse.

Sure, in the end it didn’t matter too much as she won, and didn’t really use her illegal weight advantage to pull the victory off, but can you imagine if she’d taken a bad beatdown from her Brazilian foe? Who knows how bad things could’ve gotten for her?

The UFC dodged a bullet with Calvillo’s win but they cannot keep playing the odds like this with fighter safety when it comes to weight cuts. Something needs to be done – whether it’s the UFC pulling more fights when a fighter looks ill during weigh-ins, or putting a limit on the amount of weight a fighter can lose – before someone gets badly hurt or worse.

#2 Best: Johnny Walker and the clinch of doom

Johnny Walker knocked out Khalil Rountree with a brutal elbow from the clinch

Outside of suspecting we could get an exciting brawl, I wasn’t expecting a lot from the UFC debut of Brazilian banger Johnny Walker. He’s got one of the coolest names in MMA, but he was also faced with a powerful striker in Khalil Rountree – a man whose sole weakness appeared to be on the ground, somewhere that Walker doesn’t usually care to take a fight.

I’m happy to say I was very wrong. In execution, the fight turned out to be a huge mismatch, but not in favour of Rountree. Walker shrugged off a couple of low kicks with a bit of comical taunting, hit Rountree with a head kick, and then secured a nasty plum clinch to deliver a pair of elbows that left the TUF finalist out cold.

The finish was probably the best on offer last night and given the fights we got, that’s saying something. Landing an elbow like that from the clinch takes some serious skill from the position – something we don’t see a lot of in the UFC – and to me it means Walker’s a man to watch.

The Brazilian seems to have all the tools needed to succeed at Light-Heavyweight – he’s big for the division at 6’4” and he’s in great shape, he clearly hits like a truck and judging by his facial expressions and post-fight interview, he’s got a ton of charisma too. In a division where prospects are few and far between – see Middleweight journeyman Anthony Smith’s sudden rise to title contention – Walker could well make some serious noise in 2019.

#2 Worst: Cezar Ferreira flatters to deceive

Despite his physical gifts, Cezar Ferreira failed to impress against Ian Heinisch

When he broke onto the UFC scene back in 2012 with his win on the first series of TUF: Brazil, it looked like big things were ahead for Cezar Ferreira. A physical specimen at 185lbs, the Vitor Belfort protégé was equally deadly standing and on the ground, and it looked like just a matter of time before he ascended the Middleweight ladder.

Some 6 years on though, and we might be witnessing the end for ‘Mutante’ when it comes to his UFC run. Ferreira went into last night’s show with a 9-4 UFC record and appeared to be a huge favourite over his late replacement opponent Ian Heinisch. But in the lone dull fight on the main card, he didn’t look good at all.

‘Mutante’ looked exhausted early on in the fight, couldn’t really get his offense going, and was threatened by Heinisch in all areas, with the newcomer taking a deserved unanimous decision. Coming into this show Ferreira had garnered some praise for protecting his questionable chin by using a more economic, safety-first fight style, but judging on last night, that doesn’t seem to be working for him either.

Where he goes from here is anyone’s guess – he likely won’t be cut by the UFC, but he has to be clinging on now – but any notion of him becoming a contender is probably gone. It just goes to show that you need a lot more than physical tools to get to the top in the UFC.

#3 Best: What happened to Michel Prazeres?

Michel Prazeres looked great in his win over Bartosz Fabinski

Brazilian Michel Prazeres came into Fight Night 140 on a 7-fight win streak, not that many people would’ve realised. That’s because for the most part, he’d been fighting on prelim cards due to a deserved reputation as a dull fighter. ‘Tractor’ had 2 finishes amongst those 7 wins, but for the most part he’d relied solely on a strong wrestling game to grind out his victories.

Last night’s fight against fellow grinder Bartosz Fabinski sounded pretty terrible on paper, but something clearly snapped inside Prazeres, as he came out looking more aggressive than he’d ever done before and dropped his Polish opponent with some huge punches before quickly securing a mounted guillotine to force the tapout.

Prazeres’ list of victims doesn’t exactly read like a who’s who in the UFC – JC Cottrell and Mads Burnell aren’t exactly huge names – but anyone on an 8-fight win streak in the Octagon has to be respected, and if he fights like he did last night going forward, then Prazeres might yet get a bigger push from the UFC brass, too.

At the worst he’s probably earned another crack on the main card of a show. The UFC would do well to ignore his post-fight plea to fight back at 155lbs, where he missed weight on 3 occasions from 2016 to 2018, but a match with a top fifteen or top ten 170lber would probably be fair. This was the best showing of his UFC career to date.

#4 Best: The matchmakers are hitting their stride

The UFC matchmakers should be credited for putting together fun fights like Guido Cannetti vs. Marlon Vera

When longtime UFC matchmaker Joe Silva stepped down at the end of 2016 to be replaced by the team of Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard, major questions were asked in terms of how the UFC would move forward with their bookings. After a series of events that featured tons of close decisions in 2017, I personally questioned whether Shelby and Maynard were doing things in the right way.

Thankfully, I appear to have been proven wrong. 2018’s seen a couple of bad shows – the Fight Nights from Hamburg and Moncton come to mind – but for the most part, this year has been filled with great UFC shows, even if the cards haven’t looked the strongest on paper in terms of name value.

Not every show can be “stacked”, though – the UFC simply doesn’t have enough big names for that any more – and so the best we can hope for, particularly on the Fight Night card which are always going to be lower on the big names, are a lot of exciting fights featuring a healthy mix of prospects and veterans.

It had been suggested that last night’s show would potentially set records for low TV ratings, but on paper, fights like Magny vs. Ponzinibbio, Walker vs. Rountree and Cannetti vs. Vera were always likely to deliver fireworks. Lamas vs. Elkins and Prazeres vs. Fabinski were much less so, but then those fights delivered in execution too – showing that the UFC matchmakers do know what they’re doing.

The UFC’s matchmaking still isn’t perfect, but to be fair to Shelby and Maynard, the oft-criticised title fights are usually the choice of higher UFC brass looking to make a quick buck. It should be the lesser shows and undercards that are used to judge the matchmakers – and judging by last night’s show, they’re doing well.