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On a night which also featured the UEFA Champions League final and the Anthony Joshua/Andy Ruiz fight, a throwaway UFC show from Stockholm was never going to garner much hype, and so Fight Night 153: Gustafsson vs. Smith was definitely flying under the radar.
What we got in the end was, well, fine I guess. A handful of genuinely fantastic finishes – and a surprising retirement – punctuated the card, but there were also plenty of completely forgettable, albeit not bad per se fights on offer too.
Will anyone remember most of this come next week’s big pay-per-view? Probably not, to be honest, but some fighters saw their stock rise anyway.
Here are the best and worst moments from UFC Fight Night 153: Gustafsson vs. Smith.
#1 Best: Rakic’s brutal head kick
I picked Austrian prospect Aleksandar Rakic to beat Jimi Manuwa in one of the card’s pivotal Light-Heavyweight bouts last night, feeling Rakic’s durability would give him the edge over a fighter who’s become somewhat of a glass cannon recently, with some vicious power in his strikes but a distinct issue with being able to endure punishment.
I also expected a tough fight for the Austrian, but instead what we got was a total blowout.
Rakic landed a head kick in a striking transition with just 42 seconds gone, and that was that. The kick sounded like a gunshot and Manuwa was unsurprisingly left unconscious on impact. The chin of ‘Poster Boy’ couldn’t really be questioned here, too – I doubt anyone else in the division would’ve survived such a clean, powerful shot either.
How far Rakic can go in this division is an interesting question. This win over Manuwa should put him in the top ten, and will also put him up with the likes of Dominick Reyes and Johnny Walker as potential challengers to Jon Jones’ crown in the future.
Whether he can make it that far is anyone’s guess but this was a contender for knockout of the year and was definitely the highlight of the show.
#1 Worst: Gustafsson’s surprising retirement
Retirements in MMA never tend to come at an expected time; either a fighter drags out their career for way too long – think Mauricio Rua or BJ Penn – or the end comes suddenly and stuns all of their fans.
After last night, Swedish star Alexander Gustafsson belongs in that latter category. Sure, his loss to Anthony Smith was a massive disappointment, but I don’t think anyone really felt it was time for ‘The Mauler’ to hang up his gloves.
Obviously it’s entirely Gustafsson’s decision and as Dana White once said; if a fighter’s contemplating retirement then they should probably go through with it. But it’s still disappointing to see given it feels like the Swede never quite reached his potential.
Don’t forget that this is a fighter who could’ve won the UFC Light-Heavyweight title had the judges seen things slightly differently – on two separate occasions, too.
I might be doing Anthony Smith a disservice here but last night Gustafsson seemed flat from the off, didn’t really look like the man who took the fight to Jon Jones back in 2013, and in all honesty it meant that Smith’s win didn’t feel like the massive upset it actually was.
Maybe that in itself is enough to suggest Gustafsson’s decision was correct, but he’ll definitely be missed – not least by the UFC who no longer have their top guy to lean back on for their excursions into Scandinavia.
#2 Best: Leo Santos’s walk-off KO
Had it not been for Aleksandar Rakic’s crazy head kick knockout of Jimi Manuwa, TUF Brazil 2 winner Leonardo Santos would’ve easily laid claim to the best KO of this show.
His picture-perfect counter right hand knockout of Stevie Ray left the Scotsman out cold, and not only did Santos choose to walk off rather than follow up, he channelled 2001 BJ Penn by outright walking out of the Octagon and out of the arena.
It was a super-cool moment but making it even more stunning was the fact that Santos is more known as a grappler than a striker; he’s an Abu Dhabi veteran and a very accomplished BJJ black belt. Shockingly though, this was actually his second KO in his last three fights – he hit the same counter right hand to knock out Kevin Lee back in 2015.
If Santos were younger and more active – he’s 39 years old and hadn’t fought since October 2016 – then we might be talking about him as a potential contender at 155lbs after last night’s performance.
As it is though, I’m just hoping he can fight a little more consistently going forward. Nobody expected such a wild KO from him here, but this was a truly awesome finish.
#2 Worst: Is the UFC spreading itself too thin?
Last weekend saw a rare break from the UFC, with no show from MMA’s largest promotion, but based on last night – and the last handful of Fight Night cards – perhaps more breaks and fewer shows are needed.
I know the UFC has a quota of ESPN+ shows to fill, but despite fixing a lot of the problems that they had during the Fox Sports 1 days – mainly the slow pacing – it still feels like the promotion is spreading itself too thin right now.
Most of these Fight Night cards have some good/great fights and finishes spattered within them, but what tends to link them all is a feeling that none of them are properly memorable.
The UFC now has so many interchangeable, mid-level fighters – think Christos Giagos, Daniel Teymur and Lina Lansberg from last night - who are perfectly decent to watch that everything tends to merge into one, meaning genuinely outstanding performances like Aleksandar Rakic’s tonight – or Michel Pereira’s a couple of weeks ago – can easily become lost in the shuffle.
There’s no real way to solve this issue as long as the demand from ESPN+ for UFC shows is there, but with the interest levels in the sport seemingly lower than they’ve been in a few years, a ton of acceptable but forgettable fights like last night’s won’t help the UFC’s cause.
